became possessed of them scraped over their Altars being Tables of wood in detestation of them as Apostates persecutors while the Catholicks called them brethren and acknowledg'd them rightly baptized and received them that were converted from that Schism in their respective Orders The unity of the Church is of such consequence to the salvation of all Cristians that no excess on one side can cause the other to increase the distance but they shall be answerable for the souls that perish by the means of it And therefore not departing from the opinion which I have declared concerning the termes upon which all parties ought to reconcile themselves untill I shall have reason showed me why I should do it I shall now go no further then the matters that are actually questioned among us not extending my discourse to points that may perhaps more justly become questionable then some of those which have come into dispute Professing in the beginning that I believe they may and ought to be setled by a Law of the Kingdom obliging all parties beside Recusants But that the matter of that Law ought to be limited by the consent and Authority of the Church respective to this Kingdom And withall that I think it ought to be held and shall for mine own part hold it an act meerly ambulatory provisionall for the time For though there is no hope of reconcilement with the Church of Rome as thinges are yet is there infinite reason for all sides to abate of their particular pretensions for the recovering of so incomparable a benefit as the unity of the whole If ever it shall please God to make the parties appear disposed to it Now the errors which we are to shut out if â—e will recover the unity of a visible Church that is of Gods whole Church are two in my judgment First though some things have been disputed in other parts from whence the same consequence may be inferred yet England is the place and ours the times which first openly and downright have maintained that there is no such thing as a Church in the nature of one visible Communion founded by God But it is maintained by severall parties among us upon severall grounds For some do not or will not understand that there can be any Ecclesiasticall Power founded by that act of God which foundeth Christianity where there is Secular Power founded also by those acts of God whereby he authorizeth and inforceth all just Soveraignties Though all times all parts all Nations of Christendom since Constantine profess to maintain the Church in that Power in which they found it acknowledged by Christians when he first undertook to maintain that Christianity which he professed all this must be taken either for meer hypocrisy or meer nonsense Others there are that do not think themselves obliged to the unity of Gods Church upon farre different Principles There are of our Enthusiasts such as are themselves every one a Church to themselves and by themselves as being above Ordinances and the Communion of the Church provided only for proficients But all Independent Congregations make the same profession and are manifestly grounded upon the same For how can they imagine themselves members of one visible Church who profess that they cannot be obliged to hold communion with any Congregation but their own And yet with favour the same consequence insuing upon so different pretenses there must be some supposition common to both upon which both do ground themselves And it is easily visible what that is Both opinions must suppose that a man may be heir to Christs Kingdom and indowed with Gods Spirit without being or before he be a member of Gods Church And the Independents indeed do manifestly profess that knowing themselves and others to be Gods Children and indowed with his Spirit they are in a capacity to joyn in Ecclesiasticall Communion with those whom they know to be such So they become members of a Church being Gods Children before without considering how they shall be members of the Whole Church The others are satisfied that by being members of a State which professeth Christianity they are also members of that one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church which by our Creed we profess to believe A ground which holdeth accidentally so long as that State constituteth a visible member of the Whole or the Catholick Church But not imaginable to serve the turn when States differ in point of Christianity and may every day appeal to force whither is the true Church and whither the false For is it not manifest that the professions of the Lutheranes the Calvinists the Greekes the Abyssines are protected by Soveraign Powers as well as the profession of the Church of Rome or the Church of England Is it not manifest that the Powers that profess them maintain them respectively to be Gods truth Why then do we dispute any longer which is the true Religion and which is the false if it be enough for Christians to resolve all the doubt they can have concerning Religion into the command of their Soveraigns only professing Christianity Is it not manifest that Soveraigns do use to punish their Subjects that conform not to their Lawes concerning Religion but follow that Religion which is in force under other Soveraignties Is it possible to imagine that Subjects can be obliged by one and the same will of God to follow contrary Lawes under severall Soveraigns Or that Soveraigns can be inabled by one and the same Law of God to punish their Subjects for serving God according to contrary professions True it is Subjects that suffer in a good cause shall be gainers thereby gaining Heaven by their losses of this world But what shall become of the Soveraigns that persecute them being in a good cause Or how shall not some of them bepersecuted in a good cause who are persecuted in contrary causes I know not whither this peremtory difficulty was the cause But I am sure recourse hath been had to a more desperate answer that every Subject is bound to profess the Religion of his Soveraign yea though it injoin him to renounce Christ with his mouth remaining bound all the while to believe in him with his heart and that by this belief he shall be saved as a Christian Neither is this position tenable but upon this answer nor doth this answer import any less than the utter renouncing of Christianity I know that in the records of the ancient Church those who only professed to believe Christianity who were called Catechumeni or Scholars to the Church are sometimes called by the name of Christians But I know withall that they were never counted in the state of Salvation till they had taken upon them the profession of Christianity by being admitted to the Sacrament of Baptisme I know also that this Baptisme though it was not counted void when it was Ministred in due form yet it was never counted effectuall to Salvation but when a man is baptised
or in the World to come is sutable to the promise that followes of sitting upon xii Throues to judg the xii Tribes of Israel The Christians of Jerusalem who parted with their Estates that the disciples might be maintained in their daily attendance upon Gods service cannot be said to have obtained thereby any common ranke in the Church But it must be said that quitting their former course and state of living by quitting the means of maintaining it they became from thenceforth either of the Clergy or of the poor which were allwayes maintained out of the stock of the Church For by S. Paules instructions to Timothy 1. Tim. V. it appeareth that those Widdows which were imployed and maintained by the Church for the common necessities of it were to be taken out of such as were destitute of means to live other wise Herewith agreeth an infinite number of examples in the primitive Church of Godly Bishops Priests and others of the Clergy who taking upon them such professions devested themselves of their worldly goods whither applying them to the property or only to the use of the Church as reserving themselves power to dispose of them in favor of friends or kindred at their death And from the same reason and ground proceed all the Canons whereby it was provided that they should not dispose of the Church goods to such uses at death but of their own well and good For whatsoever their estates were though they renounced them not yet it became necessary for them to live as others of the Clergy lived Who were generally poor when they were promoted and therefore professed to content themselves with meer necessaries because the Church goods of which they lived were due to the maintenance of the poor as well as of the Clergy From whence we may see what truth there is in those sayings of the Fathers which make the precepts of our Lord in his Sermon upon the mount matters of Counsaile For if all Christians be to leave all thinges that they may follow Christ it is certain that they are commanded and not only advised to turn the other cheek to quit a mans Cote to him that takes away his Cloke to undergo the rest of those precepts whereby our Lord describeth the duty of a Christian provided they be so understood as the maintenance of a mans estate in the World and the obligations which it inferreth even by virtue of that Christianity which alloweth the same will require But if there be another estate in the Church of Disciples which profess to follow Christ leaving the imployment of the world for that purpose and therefore to forbear the pleasures and proffits thereof accordingly That strict Rate and that high degree in which they profess to leave the world to follow Christ must needes be meer matter of Counsaile because no man is commanded to undertake that estate but invited to it for the securing of his Salvation who knowes he may be saved without it Whereby it appeares that this estate imports a profession of abstinence from the pride the revenge the lusts and pleasures of the world as well as from the riches of it as well of the humility the patience the continence the meekness and obedience of our Lord as of the mean estate in which he lived But that for the means to compass this end it imports first a profession of renouncing the ranke and estate which every man holds in the world and dedicating himself to the service of the Church and that imployment which tends to the common good of Christians If it should be inferred from hence that the state of the Clergy importing the forsaking of the World at this extraordinary Rate must therefore import the profession of single life as some of the Church of Rome would have it The answer is that it will not follow And the instance is peremptory That the Apostles themselves who thus left the world did not profess it And if by undertaking the Clergy a man was not obliged to renounce his goods As appeares by those Canons which inable the Clergy to dispose of them at death much less doth that estate import a profession of single life being more difficult to perform then to live as a Clergy man upon the Church goods For it is possible for them who have wives to live as if they had them not according to S. Paul No otherwise then it is possible for them who have the dispensing of Church goods to use them as if they used them not The reason of single life for the Clergy is firmly grounded by the Fathers and Canons of the Church upon the precept of S. Paul forbidding man wife to part unless for a time to attend upon Prayer For Priests Deacons being continually to attend upon occasions of celebrating the Eucharist which ought continually to be frequented if others be to abstain from the use of Marriage for a time for that purpose then they allwayes And this is the reason that prevailed so farre even in the primitive times that the instances which are produced to the contrary during those times seem to argue no more then dispensation in a Rule which had the force of a Law when an exception took not place That is when those that were thought necessary for the service of the Church though not fit to ty themselves to live single But this profession was evidently the ground for that discipline which was used all over the Church in breeding youth from tender yeares to such a strict course of life as only use and custome is able to render agreable to mans nature And to this education and discipline all the authority and credit of the Clergy over the people is to be imputed the dissolution whereof is the true occasion of the miseries which we have seen For did the people think themselves tied to depend upon the Clergy for their instructions to admit their admonitions reproofes in matter of Religion that is did the discipline and education of the Clergy maintain them in that authority with the people it is not possible that the pride which hath been seen in setting up new Religions and giving new Lawes to the Church should take place But this authority is not to be preserved without retirement from the world that is from conversation with the People of what ranke or degree soever whither upon pretense of profit or pleasure And therefore being once lost by the debauches of the Clergy before the Reformation it is not to be restored without restoring the ground of it the said education and discipline nor by consequence the Reformation to be counted compleat otherwise Supposing allwayes the Reformation to be the restoring of that Church which hath been not the building of that which hath not been The same education and discipline is by the express Canons of the Church the ground of that title upon which promotion is due to the Clergy in their respective Churches For what is
more against the Rules of the Church then to take such men for Priests Bishops of such Churches as men know not how they behaved themselves in lower degrees Those that talk of the Interest of the People in Ecclesiasticall promotions without supposing this ground do allege nothing but their own dreams to bring their own dreams to pass Having this premised I must needs say I see no manner of inconvenience in that which the Presbyterians pretend for the cheif cause of their distance that is the concurrence of Presbyters with their Bishops in Ordinations and the Jurisdiction of the Church provided it be setled in that form which being grounded upon the Rule of the Catholick Church may tend to restore and advance the common Christianity Now I take the Rule of the Church to be as evidently this as the common Christianity is evident that every City with the Territory thereof be the seat and content of a Church For though it hath been used with so much difference in several parts and times of the Church that those Countries which some whiles and some where might have been cast into fourscore Churches have other whiles and else where been cast into four yet these are but exceptions to a Rule which the Law saith do not destroy but confirm it For in matters concerning the whole the Unity of the whole may as well be preserved by the concurrence of four as of fourscore The Churches that is according to this Rule the Dioceses of England have been constituted and distinguished upon occasion of the Soveraignties in which and by consent whereof the Christianity of the Nation was first planted He that considers with half an eye shall easily see how the conversion of Kent of the East and South and West Saxons of the East Angles and Mercians and lastly of Northumberland produced the foundation of English Churches For of the British foundations in the West parts of the Island from the two Forths to the Lands end the same account is to be kept the Dominion of the Britains being for some time divided into several Soveraignties He that is convicted of this truth which no man can be convicted of but he that considereth the case But who so considereth the case must needs stand convict of it will easily grant me that when the Monarchy prevailed and England came to be divided into Counties the General Rule of the Church would have required another course to have been observ'd For had the Head Town of every County been made the Seat of a Church containing that County no man that survayes the division of the Romane Empire into Churches made without the secular Power as before Constantine will deny That the division so made would have been more correspondent to the primitive forme tending to the Unity of the whole But let no man think that for the love of such a correspondence I have any itch to call in question the Unity of the Whole The alteration is great and must needs produce a great motion to ingraffe it into the Laws of the Kingdom And therefore I am not of opinion to change the Law for hope of amendment with so much appearance of danger to the being of the Whole But I am of opinion that it would be easie to erect Presbyteries that is Colleges of Presbyters in all Shire Towns which have no Cathedral Churches for the Ecclesiastical Government of the respective Counties with and under the Bishops And that so the Rule of the Church would be set on work to the best effect and purpose For those Towns have commonly Churches altogether unprovided of means through the horrible sacriledges that have passed and yet in common reason agreeing with the wisdom of Gods Spirit from whence the Rule of Episcopacy issued ought to be Nurseries of Christianity to the respective Counties And that intent cannot so well be brought to effect as by planting the wisest and those that have most of the Clergie in their lives in the most eminent places with authority next to the Chief over their respective bounds By the ministery of such persons the Offices of Gods service might so be performed in the chief places as might be a pattern for their Country Churches to follow These Presbyters might grow up by education in that discipline of the Clergie which I have recommended upon the experience of the whole Church They might live a Collegiate life in common with the care and inspection of Inferiours together with the charge of instructing or seeing them instructed in the Scriptures The Canon of the whole Church confining all degrees of the Clergie to their respective Churches might be revived by their means The superseding whereof being certainly one of the irregularities of the Papacy hath conduced much to the dissolution of Discipline in the Church For in conscience how can he that is obliged to any Church give account of himself to another to which the first is not subordinate And therefore though the Presbyteries which I propose be not Churches yet may they take account of their respective Clergie and render it to their Bishops The promotion of inferiour Orders belonging unto their account may proceed upon the account which they give The censures that are requisite to pass in foro exteriori may pass them in the first instance and from them being transmitted to the Bishop be either inacted or voided Alwaies with right of appeal to the Synod of the Province in cases of weight and in the intervals thereof to their Deputies To which purpose and in which nature the High Commission ought to be revived For as it is by no means to be allowed that the Bishops negative be any way questioned So is it no way fit that the consent of Bishop and Presbyters both be concluded in one and the same instance As for those Dioceses which are concluded within onely one County there I suppose I need not say that the Chapter of the Cathedral are by inheritance this Presbytery Now these Colleges of Presbyters consisting of those only that shall have run the whole course of their lives in the education and discipline of the Clergie is there any possible pretence of burthen upon them if the condition of single life should be required to qualifie them for their places For this were not to tye any man to single life seeing who will may go forth and be provided of a Countrey Church But it were to maintain the discipline of the Clergie in the most eminent places wherein there is a course proposed to them who imbrace it of ending their dayes in it And the course of a Collegiate life which I propose seemeth a sufficient means and advantage to overcome those temptations which in these dayes may seem too difficult for all the Clergie to undergo As for the means of supporting these Presbyteries wherein the Cure of all Parishes within the Shire Towns is provided for and included It is no difficulty to him that considers with conscience
what hath passed for the matter of Religion in the World was it ever protested by those who demanded Reformation in the Church that the Eucharist cught to be celebrated but four times or twelve times in the year That by Gods Law there ought to be two Sermons every Sunday in every Church That other Festivals beside the Sunday and set times of fasting oughr not to be solemnized with the service of God That the Church doors ought not to be open but when there is preaching Take the primitive practice of the Church along with the Scripture and they shall tell you another tale that Prayer and the praises of God is the more principal end of Christian Assemblies than Preaching The reason is unanswerable For the one is the end the other the means That the celebration of the Eucharist is the most principal Office of Gods service under Christianity is no less evident For other Offices are common to Judaisme this consisting most in Prayers consists of those Prayers which are proper to Christianity that is to those causes wherein our Salvation consisteth And can there be question how frequent it ought to be Shall not the practice of the whole Church from the beginning decide the question if any remain The single life of the Clergie prevailed for this end that they might be alwaies ready to celebrate the Eucharist say the Fathers and the Canons which I alledged afore It is a question in Gennadius de dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis whither every man ought to communicate every day or not But therefore no question that it ought to be celebrated every day that who so would might communicate In conscience would they be bound to Preach every day that are so much for Preaching After the reading of the Scripture follows the Sermon and after that the Eucharist This is the primitive order of the whole Church at that solemne service when the Eucharist on Fasting-dayes in the Evening on other dayes before Noon was Celebrated After the Scriptures were read the people were taught their duty out of them A thing necessary and possible Not that every Curate should be bound to declame by the Glass But that he should be bound to instruct his Parish out of the Scriptures which are read If he be tied to Preach as often as the Church door opens the Church door must be shut because no sides can hold out so oft as Christians ought to meet for Gods service I call the World to witness Is it not as much a work of lungs and sides as an Office of Gods service which takes up the time of their Church Assemblies Is not the way opened by this means to declame of publick Government in Church and State to intertain the Hearers For alas should men confine themselves to that which the generality of their audience might edifie by in their Christianity the Trade would be obstructed For let me freely say the undoubted truth of the common Christianity which no Sermons ought to exceed because they pretend the edification of the generality of Christians is contained in so narrow a compass that no eloquence much less the eloquence of all that must come into the Pulpit can change the seasoning and serving of it so as to make it agreeable to mens palats without fetching in matter impertinent if not destructive to the common Christianity And the same is for more peremptory reason to be said of arbitrary Prayers For the very posture of him that pretendeth to prefer the devotions of Gods people to the Altar which is above strongly impresseth upon the hearts of simple Christians an opinion that thereby they discharge to God the duty which their creation and redemption requires at their hands Which if the matter of those Prayers be such as the common Christianity requires they may do indeed But if it be possible that Rebellion Slander Nonsense and Blasphemy may be the matter of them as well as Christianity then is it not Religion but Superstition which such devotions exercise Nor can that Kingdom stand excused to God which shall gratifie that licentiousness whereof they see the effect before their eyes All reason of Christianity concurres with the practice of the whole Church to witness that the interest of Christianity requires the service of God to be maintained and exercised daily yea hourly were it possible not only by particular Christians but by Assemblies of Christians so far as the business of the World will give leave and as there is means to maintain mens attendance upon it There may come abuse in the order the forme the matter of that which is tendred to God for his Service But instead of reforming those abuses to take away the means the Rule the obligation of such meetings is meer Sacriledge in destroying under pretense of Reforming his Church And though I charge no such designe upon those who maintain the obligation of the Sabbath to consist in two Sermons yet I do maintain it is manifest to common reason that the forme which that opinion introduceth necessarily tends to that effect Strange it is that a Nation capable of sens in an age improved by learning should be intangled with the superstition of so vain an imagination that God by the same fourth Commandment should oblige both Jews to keep the Saturday Christians the Sunday Especially no man daring to maintain that both were or are tied to the same measure of resting And therefore though rather than cross the stream of such a superstition For let no man think that all superstition can be shut out of Gods Church I am ready to conform to the Order that shall take place so far as the strength of my body shall inable me Yet provided that the Ecclesiastical Laws of England being the Laws of the whole Church be not abated so as to stick an evident mark of Schisme upon the Church of England For the Law that is recommending the celebration of the Eucharist upon all Sundayes and Festivals but commanding the service to be used as well on Festivals and Fasting dayes as upon Sundayes besides the week dayes at the publick Assemblies of respective Congregations To change this Order for two Sermons on the Sunday alone what is it but to renounce the whole Church for the love of those that have divided from the Church of England upon causes common to it with the whole Church They that would have the Reformation of the Church to be indeed that which the Law of the Land calleth it should first provide a course to be established for Law by which all Christian soules who have equal interest in the common Salvation might serve God in publick all Sundaies and Festivals For seeing there was a course in Law before the Reformation for all servants as well as others to be at Masse all Sundayes and Festivals And the Church was inabled to require account of it at their hands It will not be Reformation to abrogate the abuses of the Mass till a
Austria under Bishops deriving their succession from the time of Constantine and therefore from the Apostles they sent them thither to be Ordained protesting against their weakness in going to Masse for fear The protestation was admitted and the persons ordained Bishops Now I take not upon me to maintain the truth of that information concerning the succession of these Bishops whereupon they proceeded But they being reasonably perswaded of it and not knowing how to proceed otherwise through a mistake which they could not overcome and setling themselves upon an innocent presumption why should the effect of these Ordinations seem questionable For under these Bishops they have subsisted from that day to this And with what conscience is it demanded for conformity to the Reformation that we acknowledge them Priests who are ordained against Bishops If we do not we shall condemn those Reformed Churches which have no Bishops Is it the fashion that a man quit his Cloke because his fellow hath none Or is it any thing else to renounce a good Title because they cannot plead it There was a good expedient in the ancient Church to refer things to God which could not be decided without a breach in the Church Let their zele against the abuses of the Church of Rome be counted pardonable with God which caused them to think the Order of Bishops a support of Antichrist when as the Papacy is visibly raised upon the rights of Bishops which it ingrosseth Let the difficulty of procuring Ordinations and having Bishops render them excusable to God Those that are ordained by Presbyters against Bishops on purpose to set up Altar against Altar how can we count them ordained refusing the concurrence of the Church to their Ordinations They that would ty us to comply with the Reformation are first to show us that the Unity of Bohemia is no part of it And that their Reformation is not to be preferred either before that of Luther or that of Calvine For can we acknowledg the Ordinations of Presbyters against their Bishops and not condemn them that sought all over the World for Bishops to ordain them Bishops that the Bishops so ordained might ordain them Presbyters But not only in this prime point of our differences but also in the difference of the Clergy from the people in the three Orders of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the matter of Justification and the Eucharist of Confirmation and Penance of the Festivalls and Fasts of the Church one of divers Orders and institutions of less consequence their profession agreeth with the ancient Church and the Church of England where it departeth from both Luther and Calvine In the matter of Penance though with much humility they tell the Lutheranes roundly they have but one of the keyes viz. that of loosing but bind not as pronouncing absolution without injoyning of Penance The discipline of Geneva they magnify indeed as they find it described by Bodine in his method of Histories But they distinguish not whither they mean the civill discipline which the Lawes of that State inforce or that which the Power of the Keyes exercised there according to Calvine doth constitute For the Civill Law of a Christian State especially no bigger then that of Geneva may settle such a discipline over the outward man as may restrain from the outward act of sin without mortifying the inward man to the inward love of it The late Usurpers Army we have seen well disciplined against the ordinary vices of the Camp Who appearing now to have been then enimies to their Country are thereby discovered not to have followed the reward of Christians but of Souldiers And the Lawes of Christian States by the means of Christianity which they maintain may reach to the mortifying of sin and the quickning of righteousness at the heart But of themselves being Civill Lawes and proposing no further reward or punishment then that good which a mans Country signifies they reach no futther then the outward man for the better or for the worse Nor is it of any greater consequence to Christianity that the outward act of sin or virtue is repressed or incouraged by the rewards and penalties of Civill Lawes But when the discipline of the Church takes place he who forfeiteth his Christianity by gross sin that is notorious forfeiteth also Communion with the Church and recovereth it not till the presumption be no less notorious that he hath recovered his Christianity Now Communion with the Church is the consequence of our Baptism which intitleth us to life everlasting Therefore it is not duely forfeited without forfeiting the effect of Baptisme our right to life everlasting So our right to heaven depending upon the Communion of the Church the discipline of the Church must needes reach the inward man as effectually as any outward application can reach the heart which is invisible For the presumption is grounded upon visible workes of Penance the effects of that invisible disposition without which they could not be constantly brought forth Whither or no this discipline be visible at Geneva I will not pronounce This I undertake that comparing the Doctrine of Calvine with their Orders they need not set a value upon the Power of the Keyes exercised according to his Doctrine in comparison of the same exercised according to their own Orders So that supposing not granting that the Lawes of the Church of England being the Lawes of the primitive Catholick Church are to be changed for conformity with the Reformed Churches it followeth not therefore that they are to be changed for those of the Churches reformed according to Calvine Certainly the receiving of the Communion kneeling having been one of the Adors of their Reformation from the beginning and so stiffly insisted upon by them in Poland they that pretend to change the Law of England in that point for conformity with the Reformation think they have not men but beasts to to deal with The Church of England in the Commination against sinners hath declared a great zeal for the renouncing of that ancient discipline of Penance which was in force in the primitive Church And certainly the Church of England is not the Church of England but in Name till the power of excommunication be restored unto it which there was not nor ever can be sufficient cause to take from any Church But the discipline of Penance though depending upon the Power of excommunication is as much to be preferred before it as it is more desirable to bring men to the Church then to shut them out of it If prejudice faction have not more to do in the pretenses of this sin then the truth of Christianity and zeal to advance it it is a point that cannot be neglected in any deliberation of Reforming the Church I cannot render a more visible reason why so godly a zeal in these that first prescribed our Reformation to the restoring of penance hath now been improved by their successors then the partialities which sprung