and by Learned Bishops and Presbyters both of this and other Churches the Scheme of our Church-service and decency was ordered and to such a degree refined that Spalatenses a Forreign cals our old Praier-Book Breviarium optimè reformatum And no otherwise thought our Parliaments of those times as 5. 6. Ed 6. c. 1. 1. Eliz. c. 2. 8. Eliz. c. 1. call it a godly and virtuous Book and a means together with the preaching of the Word and Administration of the Sacraments of the pouring forth of the blessings of God upon the Land Yea when the Popish Parliament of prâ— Q. Mary repealed the Act of the 6. Ed. 6. by which this uniformity of worship according to the Common-Praier-Book was setled The Stat. of 1 El. c. 2. saies That Repeal of Q. Mary was to the great decay of the due honour â—f God and discomfort to the professors of the truth of Christs Religion But we are wiser in our generation then those Fathers of Light our worthy Progenitors We are more holy then they because lesse orderly lesse solemn in our service of God then they yea to excuse our selves We pretene their Reformation was but partiall whenas God knows there are who wisely beleeve that their settlemenrs were such as will not be bettered by any their Successors For although they appointed set Forms of devotion for the Publike as a help to their weaknesse who could not pray without them and as a prudent entertainment of the Congregation while it was gathering which in great Parishes was long and unto Servants who came late beneficiall for by that means could they get time enough to Sermon yet intended they it never to justle out the gifts of men whom God had specially enabled to extemporary praier who therefore were left free to use their gifts both in their Families and before and after their Sermons Nor to soothe up people in ignorance or so to accustome them to Forms that they should never endeavour by seeking more interest in God to receive more ability from him Nor did they appoint Holy dayes to be kept in obedience to any Popish Canon or in memory of Saints but upon civil reasons thereby to give people ease from their hard labours and to call them to the service of God in prayers and praising of him as sayes the Statute of 5 and 6 Ed. 6. c. 3. Neither hath this Church kept decent habits for her Ministry out of a desire to symbolize with Popelings but according to the wisedom of the first Reformation confirmed by the 30 th Injunction of Queen Elizabeth wherein habits for order and distinction sake were enjoyned Ministers in their Universities and Churches These I say though carped at by many were harmlesly setled and some think might usefully have been continued but they are disused now and how much purer our Religion hath been since they have been voted down let the world judg Nunc seges ubi Troja fuit Only if good pretentions were enough the Donatists had them as much as the Orthodox yet 't was observed justly of them that their designs were brought forth by passion nourished by ambition and confirmed by covetousness I will not say any thing of those who wheâ—â— they had place misplaced things well ordered let God plead his own cause Aliter hominum livor aliter Christus judicat non eadem est sententia tribunalis ejus anguli susurronum multae hominibus viae videntur justae quae postea reperiuntur pravae saith S t Jerom Let men of fury and passion rave as they list being as S t Gregory stileth them appositely Bellonae sacerdotes non Eccleâ—iae Martis faces tibicines non Evangelii lumina Cometae infausti pestis dira omnia non stellae salutares Christum pronunciantes yet my judgement shall be with Gods leave calm and moderate I will pray for a peaceable temper and till I know better conclude that councel concerning forms and order in the Church good which reverend Calvin wrote to the Protector forementioned Vt certa illa extet a qua pastoribus discâ—dere non liceat I crave leave of the Reader for this excursion which I thought necessary and I hope he will not condemn as offensive A plain ingenious freedom best befits me who am to act no part but that of a good Christian and therefore it shall be my constant resolve to rank flatterers as Erasmus did Eriers inter falsos fratres who the more holy they pretend to be are the more execrable for nihil turpius sanctis parasitis But I leave them to their proper Judge and make to the third head of Antiquities Piety which consists In care to countenance truth and censure errors And here is good reason for this if we consider the nature of truth which makes the soul free not only in professing but also in not fearing what may be the consequence of boldly owning it which armed the Martyrs with invincible courage and made them more then conquerours over their fears and persecutors There is also much to be said for care to prevent growth of error even from the nature of error which in the words of Constantine the Great makes those in whom it raigns enemies to truth promoters of dissention and often of assassination counsellours to every thing contrary to truth favourers of dangerous and fabulous evils In a word being under a shew of piety great offenders and contagious to all that border on them The good Emperour by sad experience knew what shifts and deluding courses the Arians took to bring to pass their designs therefore laid he load of reproach on them And that not without cause for first they conveyed their poison under gilded pills and in not to be understood expressions and to such a clymax of vanity ascended they that they would allow none of the ancient Fathers to be compared to them but applaâ—ded themselves to be the only knowing men the only men of self-deniall the only men to whem Jesus Christ was revealed and to whom such mysteries were made known as never came into the thought or under the experience of any men before them that as Mahomet made use of an Epilepticall distemper in which to arrogate to himself divine authority so did these of an over self-conceit and pride of soul to be the only illuminates of their time Nay when Arius was called to account for his errors he averred he had rejected them and denied those to be his belief or doctrine swearing that he beleeved as did the Orthodox in the Nicene Counsell yet for all this holy Macarius made it his prayer to God to take Arius out of the Church least errors and heresies spawned too much for truth to overcome or outlustre them And good man it fell out as he feared for though the good Emperour took away from them their meeting places and commanded their return to the Church though they were condemned and banished
A Modest DISCOURSE OF THE Piety Charity Policy OF ELDER TIMES AND CHRISTIANS Together With those their Vertues Paralleled by Christians Members OF THE Church of ENGLAND By EDWARD WATERHOUSE Esq Conscientiae satis faciamus nihil in famam laboremus sequatur vel mala dum bene moerearis LONDON Printed by A. M. for Simon Miller and are to be sold at his Shop at the Star in S t Pauls Church-yard 1655. TO MY Most Dear and Indulgent Father FRANCIS WATERHOUSE of Grenford in the County of Middlesex Esq SIR I Would fain testifie my reall duty and observance of you by some action that most speaks me grateful to God and you for your extraordinary affection to me And since it is not my happinesse to command an opportunity wherein I might expresse the honest ambition I have to shew to that degree I know becomes me my sense of your favours yet my confidence is that you will accept the humble tender of him who now and ever craves your blessing and subscribes himself Sir Your dutifull and obedient Son E. WATERHOUSE A Short View OF ANTIQUITY AND ELDER TIMES AND CHRISTIANS IT was an old and true complaint that Truth hath ever been crucified between two Thieves those I count Superstition and Innovation the Churches Scylla and Carybdis at which in all her voyages thorow-the severall Centuries of the world she hath been bulged and sometimes neer to a fatall miscarriage while she is threatned by the two rigid adhaesion of her professors who as the Jews of old prefer Abraham before Christ antiquity before verity and had rather have no Religion then not that they have been bred in and accustomed to though it be like the Gibeonites bread dry and mouldy and clouted with unnecessary and vain Ceremonies Another while she is in a storm from those wanderers who will seek abroad when there is bread enough in their Fathers house being discontented at any thing which is not new and desirous of every thing but what is old The vanity of these excesses the utmost angles beyond which mans pride and petulancy cannot go God hath in mercy to his Church and in right to his own glory passive under their Tyrannies discovered in all ages setting notable brands of his displeasure on the ringleaders and impudent chieftains in this wickedness some of them he hath suffered so to be swollen with pride that the earth hath not been able to bear their burden Others he hath so flatted by detecting that brazen face that to cover its effrontery had the veyl of virgin verity Jacobs voice but Esau's rough hands that like decryed actors and bankrupt Mountebanks they departed the stage with a stink and lost their course in that fog by which they designed to annoy the Church As the best state of Man Innocency and the best place Paradise was chosen by Satan to act his first and greatest craft in so ever since hath he taken the purest times of the Church as his harvest and gainfullest season of temptation vitiating and annoying them most dangerously with suppurated Opinions and ulcerous Doctrines He thought that the way to overcome Adam was by Eve the weaker vessell and the Tyrociny and nonage of the Church he took for the fittest time to sowe his tares in because he expected less resistance from Infancy then from further Growth Even in our Lords time the devils Chappel goes up by Gods Church Simon Magus peepâ— forth and no sooner our Lord ascended but his Disciples have beasts to contend with after the manner of men then came in damnable Haeresies such as that of Elymas in Claudius his time of Menander under Titus and other following Emperours of Ebion Cerinthus and others in which Ecclesiasticall Writers are copious Notwithstanding which torrent of Evil it pleased God to raise up many valiant and pregnant assertors of truth who with great courage confronted these affronters of faith and rendred them so despicable that no man who would be thought any body consorted with them but avoided them as the first-born of Satan sent abroad to pervert souls and subvert Christianity It hath been observed that the authours of errours and scismes in the Church have been Church-men either grosly weak or proudly wilfull whose Ignorance or pertinacy hath wooed them to forsake the wholsome form of words and to take up new Methods both of language and Doctrine under which canting drolleryes they utter the devices of their own brains gain credulous proselytes and dishonour all who differ from them where they themselves disagree with truth and order That as Agrippinus of old perswaded those which he condemned that it was best for them to be condemned For said he I do not give sentence against them as an enemy or one that would ruin them but as a good guardian who dispatcheth them out of that life which they cannot live but in misery so do these seduce and lead away silly souls and yet possess them that the only way to finde heaven above is to lose the Church below and that Christ is not in his Word but in their fictitious dreams where he hath not appointed men to seek for nor promised men to finde him Thus as C. Curio the Plebeian Tribune is charged by Paterculus to be the firebrand of Romes Civil Wars bold prodigal of his own and others modesties and Fortunes ingeniously wicked and able to publique mischiess so may these most justly be stigmatiz'd for the infamous lewd Boutefeues of the Churches peace and purity and therefore praied against in the Prophets words Let them be as chaffe before the winde and let the Angel of the Lord chase them let their waies be dark and slippery and let the Angel of the Lord persecute them Psa 35. 5 6. And as all things produced are of the nature of their Producers as is the Artists skill such ordinarily is the Artifice so happens it with errours and disorders mostly they resemble their Patrons Crafty heads look before they leap and design their march by steps and grand paws setting up as it were with pinns and points the little baubles of their aymes and as those vent so marshall they out greater and more They know forbidden wares must not be sold in market overt therefore skulk they into bye-streets and lodg they in the suburbs out of the freedom where the lewd varlets of wander lye there and to those they put their tinsil follies and with those cheap and new do they outbrave the truth which covets no greater honour then the touch Some mens eyes fail them they beleeve every thing gold that glisters because they are moon-blind and rather dark then clear with such these crafty Merchants bartar freely taking Souls in exchange for their cheats These principled to purposes of seduction like blind stallions accost all comers hit or miss and most an end succeed best with the multitude for the blind must lead the blind how else will they
becomes precept or president to its practice then is the Church to be followed in such her warrantable customs and observations In the 28 Chapter of S t Matthew our Lord Jesus is mentioned to have ascended in the 16 th verse the Eleven are said to go away into Galilee unto a mountain where Jesus had appointed them there he appears to them in a glorious condition which caused them to worship him as Emanuel God Man Mediator In the 18 th verse our Lord owns the donation of all power to him both in Heaven and Earth before this Christ is not mentioned so solemnly to transfer power Ministerial to his Apostles he asserts his own Authority before he gives them theirs that done Go ye therefore and teach all Nations follows which compared with that other passage As my Father hath sent me so send I you fully cleers to me That transferrency of power Ministerial from God the Father to God the Son and from God the Son to his Apostles and to their Successors in the Ministry who in Tertullian's phrase are the Hereditary Apostles and Disciples of Christ I do not affirm there is an equality of spiritual power in Ministers now to that in the Apostles no more then in the Apostles to that in Christ all Vessels are not of a capacity if the Spirit were on him without measure and upon Apostles and Ministers restrained and as they could bear then we must allow a disparity in the degree God gave him a Name above all names both in heaven and earth saith the Apostles and no creature must contend with its maker But this I dare affirm That the power Spiritual and Ministerial which the A-Apostles expressed by imposition of hands and since in conformity to them and upon the same ground they do carry on who are lawfully called to the Ministry in the Church Christian is as truly spiritual power in them as in their Head from whom they received it and that the Church has now as clear a Charter for her Orders as the Apostles had for their Apostleships the great D r of us Gentiles is my Author God hath set in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers c. Prophets and Teachers that is Ministers as well as Apostles both fixed by Christ as necessary to carry on his spiritual building the Church Both ministring Spirits for the good of the Elect both his good Angels to summon from all quarters his chosen ones both usefull one to lay the foundation and the other to perfect the Structure I write not this to ingage my self in controversies I shall ever indeavour to decline them as well knowing they account nothing to Church peace or Religions purity but this I must profess that my judgement is flatly against entrenchment upon Church Offices let Christians imploy their Gifts soberly and instruct themselves and their Families thorowly and they will finde enough of that task If our Lord had laid the right of teaching in mens readinesses or their talkative abilities he would have appeared to those multitudes of people whom he in the course of his life and Ministry taught fed and cured of infirmities and from whom he had approbation to do and speak as never man did or spake it 's probable he might have found as nimble orators as pregnant gifted men in prayers as great measure of self-denial in some of the people as was in Peter James John or the rest of the Apostles But he appears to the Eleven met according to his appointment and them he culls out of the mass of the multitude to be the Churches Faetificators and he bids them as ver 19. Go ye therefore c. Ye an exclusive phrase as well as a personal not onely ye as well as others but ye only and above others ye as the grand Masters and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Church edification lay ye the foundation let all the after-building be according to your pattern from my prescript And teach all Nations These Metropolitans had large Diocesses Eleven to preach the world over this Commission must be largely taken not restrained to their personal but Doctrinal Visits not to their lives but to the perpetuity of their succession Ministerial not Apostolique for can we think those few could peragrate the Universe into many parts of which there was then no means of convoy or transport or that the hour-glass of their lives did not speed too fast for them to sow the seeds of grace in to so many several and various people and Nations or can the Apostles in any sense natural be said to continue to the end of the world till when Christ promises to be with them I tro no most of the Apostles died within the first Century If Christs promise was to continue them so long as he continued concurrence with them then must they not have seen death till the end of the world for so long he saith he will be with them And if they died so soon after and the world has yet lasted above 1500 yeers and how long further it may last God onely knows the promise must be understood to the orderly succession of the Ministry in all the ages of the Church who are to carry on the Apostles Office of teaching and exercising Discipline in it to the end of the world And this the Apostles understood and followed in their practice for though Judas fell from his Apostleship yet the Eleven by prayer and calling on God were directed specially to compleat their number by the admission of Matthias Act. 1. 15. remembring that Christ Jesus had a work to carry on in the world which required the full help he had in his life time assigned to it and though the Apostles admitted none into the priviledge of their order but upon special direction of the holy Ghost as in the forementioned case of Matthias and S t Paul whom the holy Ghost commanded to be separated as Ministers yet were Disciples Evangelists Bishops and Presbyters by them chosen and from them sent who in their succession carried on the work to this day and those learnedly bred and humbly submitting themselves to Church-approbation were accounted worthy to labour in the Word and Doctrine as Pastors able to feed the people with knowledge and understanding as the Prophet hath it Jer. 3. 15. yea and such men as S t Paul exhorts Timothy to be 2 Tim. 2. 15. Study saith he to shew thy self a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth The consideration of this made Ministers anciently very modest to offer themselves to this weighty charge and the Fathers and Bishops very precise and scrupulous in admitting any unto the care of souls but such as were well reputed and had great knowledge both in Humane and Divine Learning Saint Jerome plainly tells us that in his time the Church was so well served that it was hard to tell whether the Clergie excelled
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Zeno the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Heraclius the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Constance the Interim of Charls the fift as of no better import to the Church then those Imperiall Constitutious And with leave of God and wise men I think I may add Reformation as sometimes it hath been managed for no less a damager to the State Ecclesiasiasticall then any open violence whatsoever Let the times of H. 8. be considered What vast Possessions lost the Church by his opposition to the Pope and the effects of it And in Ed. 6 th his Raign more went from the Church yea there is who tells us That one of the Visitirs of Oxford in Ed. 6. time did so cleerly purge the Vniversity Library of all Monuments of superstition that he left not one book init of all those goodly Manuscripts with which by the manificence of several Benefactors that place was amply furnished So true is that of Trully No injustice so gross as that which they do who will be accounted good that they may by that means be more evil While I forget not Paulus Cremensis a Legat sent hither from Pope Honorius the second to redress the vices of the Clergy and chiefly their lechery whenas he himself next day after he had bitterly inveighed against them was found abed with a common strumpet I shall fear there may b◠errors in the greatest pretenders and look upon remedies as possible to exceed diseases in their ill consequence For in publike outrages not only Constantinus Pontius Confessor to Charls the fift in his retyred life a brave and holy man is commanded to prison immediatly upon his Lords death and that upon suspition of heresie but when dead his statue is demolished and disfigured by K. Philip of Spains Mandate Rutilius the Roman Consul destroys the Temple of Lucina because his daughter while she was there worshipping brings forth a dead child Numa must be without a monument of his piety and Lucina without a Temple for her worship but is was noted an ill time in Rome when status cujusque Dei in Senatus aestimatione pendebat All men naturally love themselves and few scruple any thing that answers their ends Satan is an industrious droll cogging us into designs of evil upon pretences fair but not altogether warrantable Consuetudinis est saecularium hominum ut cum honorem adipisci desiderant caeteros fibi prius per amorem acquirunt cum vero adepti fuerint elati potestate eos ipsos per timorem sibi postmodum subjiciunt quibus prius privati non terrorem sed amorem exhibuerant If Timotheus Aelurus have desire to be Bishop of Alexandria and Proterius stood in his way he will so order the matter that before the See be void the Monks shall each of them be visited in the night by one in grave habit and of angelique speech calling them by their respective Names and in the Name and by the Spirit of God as is pretended admonishing them to decline adhaesion to Proterius and to joyn themselves to Timotheus Henry the eight cleared the Point That power would command any thing Even Papists such were the Parliament for their ease to avoid Citations and charges from Rome divest the Pope of his headship to place it on their Prince Revenge is a great spur to bad actions as well as is ambition There is a notable vilany fathered on the Franciscans at Orleance discovered in Anno 1534. after this manner The chief Judg of Orleance his wife dying requested of her husband that she might be buried in the Church belonging to the Franciscans this was done and the Franciscans presented by the Praetor the deceaseds husband with six Pistols a bribe farre beneath their avarice but they resolved to have a better gratification from a fall of wood of the Praetors out of which they desired some trees which he denied them that defeat so inflamed the Franciscans that they plotted to bruit it abroad that his wife was damned for ever To carry on this villany undiscern'd they suborn a young man to act his part so notoriously that by hideous noyses at time of publike devotions he should cause disturbance and be prologue to the Tragedy a Doctor of that order and an exorcist whose plot this was for he daily used these cheats so designed the scene that no answer was to be made by the young man if any question were asked of him but only by signs which the exorcist only understood having preappointed them and so could report to the auditory when the young man had amused the people with dismall and ununderstood notes the exorcist boldly asked him Whether he were a spirit or not if a spirit whose spirit relating the Names of all such as had been buried there And when he named the Praetors wife the young man gave sign that he was the spirit of that Lady Then the exorcist asked if she were damned or no and for what offence Whether for covetousness or lust or pride or for want of practicall charity or for the upstart heresie of Lutheranism and what he meant by those clamours and unquietnesses whether the body there buried should be digged up and carried elsewhere or not To all which he by signs answered affirmatively which they prayed the Congregation there present to take knowledg of yet upon the Praetors complaint to the French King and Parliament of Paris and Commission issued forth to report the truth hereof the wickedness of this contrivance came to light and the parties actors in it were severely sentenced according to their deserts I finde another story of the Dominicans as vild as this acted at Bern in Switzerland There being a great heat between them and the Franciscans about the Virgin Marys being conceived in Original sinne one affirmiug and the other denying it the Dominicans to determine the controversie purposed to evidence the truth of their opinion by Miracle four of the prime of their Order were privy to the contrivance one of which was Subprior a Magician who called up an evil spirit to assist them in the more effectuall conduct of this undertaking The spirit appeared to them in the shape of a Moor and promised his assistance provided they gave him an Instrument signed with their own hands and Names written in their own bloods in testimony of their compact with him which done the evil spirit appeared an assertor of the Dominicans Doctrine threatning Purgatory to their opponents and overthrow to the City unless they cast out the Franciscans thence much more of like trumpery there was discovered to the shame of the Dominicans that were privy to it And therefore 't is good to search the spirits whether they be of God or no. There is no action so vild but hath a fair mask on it There was a famous cheat plotted by Romish Priests in Staffordshire much of kin to this and discovered by the grave Bishop
forth 122 blowings and amongst Roses gilly-flowers and Pionies incredible varieties So out of the glorious and pure Doctrines of Faith which the Apostles and their Followers comprised in repent and believe there is put forth such an ocean of points of Religion and all of them pressed on the people to be believed that it is hard to finde truth in the crowd of contests about her and easie to mistake as Mary did the gardiner for Christ error for truth both pretending their Jus divinum's their authoritative confidences as their just Titles to mens beliefs and blaming men as restive and sottish if they resigne not themselves to a sensless and universal credulity In the mean time things of greater concernment are neglected and the things God slubbered over and made to run counter one to another disuse of Church-Government hath made every man a Micah an appointer to himself of whatsoever likes him best and a neglecter of those services that the Christian Church thorow out the world imbraced there are many that make preaching like the lean Kine in Pharaoh's dream to eat up all other Church-Ordinances though never so beauteous and well-favoured publick Prayers and publick Confessions of Faith even that which our Lord Jesus taught us in the Gospel as the Form of Prayer of his own dictation hardly passes current no nor is that Creed which bears the name of the Apostles Creed which this Church hath ever received and her Martyrs in Queen Mary's days by name Bishop Farrar Hooper the Bishops of Worcester and Glocester Taylor Philpot Bradford Cromt Rogers Saunders Lawrence Coverdale owned as that they believed generally and particularly censuring those to erre from the truth who do otherwise and judicious Calvin says was the form of Confession which all Christians had in common amongst them as writ from the mouths of the Apostles or faithfully collected out of their Writings This Creed I say many think unfit to be rehearsed in Congregations and some are suspected to villifie it yea the Sacraments of Christ are almost obsoleted amongst us in some Parishes neither Sacrament in others but one and if that so restrained to particular persons that there seems to be a tacite reproach laid on those who are not of the number of Communicants who therefore become enemies to Ministers and their Messages because they are in a kinde cut off from the Congregation I confess it is fit that holy things should be given to holy men and it were to be wished all the Congregation were holy but if perfection be reserved for hereafter Ministers must bear with the imperfections of their people as well as people with the over-rigidness of their Ministers If people be not scandalous the Church never denied them the benefit of Sacraments and if Ministers be not over-scrupulous they will not begrudg men their Saviours allowance In my opinion it seems but reasonable that people should give a sober free account of their faith to their lawfull Pastor in a loving and unimperious way desiring it of them but then Churchmen should be advised what is competent knowledge in a Christian and propose such questions to them as argue not a design rather to blunder them then satisfie themselves of their understanding Ministers are fathers and must bear with the infirmities of their flocks They must not be brambles rending and tearing the people committed to their charge but fig-trees vines and olive-trees yeelding them fatness sweetness and fruitfulness To such as these I am perswaded no sober Christian dare deny an account of his faith For if the Apostles charge be to be always ready to give answer to every man that askoth you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear then much more to the Embassadors of Christ his Ministers His Ministers I say by Church Mission and Canonique Authority not presumers who come unsent for as the Civilians well observe Non sunt successores in officio qui ad officium accedunt alio modo quam institutum est to such Ministers as are truly called no man ought to deny a declaration of his faith as competently he is able And with such discoveries I think Ministers ought to rest satisfied and the ignorance of their Parishioners to pity pray for and by their best instruction to amend And those Ministers whom a Parishioners sober account and inoffensive conversation will not convince to admit as worthy to communicate may be feared to have somewhat more in their design then the glory of God and the good of souls and if they will not give testimony of their candor while they live their death-beds will tell tales to the world little to their credit or comfort Learned D r Reynolds reports that Luther when he lay upon his death-bed acknowledged to Melancthon In negotio coenae nimium esse factum yet saith the learned Sir Simon D'ewes taking counsel rather of men theu Gods Word for fear lest if he retracted them the people would suspect the rest and so return to Popery he accounted it best to declare his judgement in private Thus he Well fare the ancient Fathers who valued truth above credit yea conscience above life Ruffinus tells us that S t Clement in his Apostolique Epistle counsels all his fellow Christians rather to forsake him then to part with the peace of the Church and to incur the danger of division And S t Aug. tells us That in his time by the turbulencies of some in the Church many Orthodox and excellent Bishops and Presbyters were cast out of the Church and separated from their charges yet they bore the disgrace and persecution patiently never making Schism or starting up heresie to annoy Christianity therby Docebunt homines quam vero affectu quanta sinceritate charitatis Deo serviendum sit hos coronat in occulto pater in secreto videns Rarum hoc videtur genus sed tamen exempla non desunt immo plura sunt quam credi potest These mens demeanours quoth he teach the world What the power of grace and sincerity is in the soul and how God is to be waited upon even while he hides his face from the seed of Jacob. But though these quoth the Father be rare examples of self-deniall yet such presidents there are and those more then can be almost believed For as the same Father proceeds true Religion is neither to be found in the confusions of Pagans nor in the purgings of hereticks nor in the feebleness of schismaticks nor in the blindness of Jews but amongst those who are Orthodox and Catholick Christians And therefore the differences in this Church upon these small grounds that appear to us were in no sort worth owning by sober men especially to the degrees they are ascended to but rather are to be deplored with tears of blood for those that have true Christian charity would sooner part with much of their own
Interest as did the true Mother 1 King 3. 27. then have the Church divided Let Astrologers not knowing the true cause of the Coelestiall motions to salve the appearances tell us of Eccentriques and Epicicles and Philosophers when they are at a stand pray aid from their occulta qualitas and Lawyers when they know not well how to give things a bottom tell us they are in abaiance and some late Divines fill our heads with dreams of the Churches outward pomp here That the Saints must be the great men of the world and must trample down every thing of Order and Antiquity Let them tell us of new Heavens and new Earths whereinto are received such as the old never willingly bore for Lucifer was cast from Heaven for pride and Corah and his company were swallowed up by the earth for mutiny against Magistracy and let them bespeak mansions in that Novus Orbis let them be Masters of rule in the world in the Sunne and precious men in the Moon of their fancies and there promise themselves coelestial clarity I shall neither envy nor admire them the more but fear them as such as Salvian speaks of Apud nonnullos Christi nomen non videatur jam sacramentum esse sed sermo and I shall pray that they may see their wandrings in time and as the Father sayes well secundas tabulas habere modestiae qui primas non habere sapientiae For let them cry out never so bitterly against regulations and orderly forms and establishments yet they will hold tack when their Tabernacles of ill-mixed altogethers dissolve and become vain For as a Learned Bishop of the Church hath lately observed If foundations which were in their own nature good should be destroyed for accessary abuses and for the faults of perticuler persons we should neither leave a Sunne in Heaven for that hath been adored by Prgans nor a spark of fire or any eminent creature upon earth for they have all been abused And since it is the will of God that heresies and offences must be let all good Christians patiently abide Gods triall by them For as wise master-builders out of the chaos of rubbish raise beautifull frames of structure so God out of the janglings of Christians by infinite and matchless wisedom compiles his glory Vtitur gentibus ad materiam operationis suae hereticis ad probationem fidei suae schismaticis ad stabilimentum doctrinae suae Judaeis ad comparationem pulchritudinis suae as S t Augustin pithily Let then the devout Christian not so much study policy as piety not more endeavour after power then peace let the Ministers of God rather seek to deny then gratifie themselvs in any thing that is worldly let the world alone to those whose portion it is they are greedy enough after it Aurelian would never take it for his glory to have the children sing it and salute him with an applause of his valour for slaâ—ing thousands of the Sarmatians Vnus homo mille mille mille decollavimus and adding mille mille mille vincit qui mille mille occidit tantùm vim habet nemo quantum fudit sanguinis If he were not wedded to the world and resolved that Power was his heaven God forbid holy souls should when they see preferment shun them and the world frown on them cry out as Eli's daughter in Law did 1 Sam. 4. 21. when the Ark was sursurpris'd My glory is departed the Ark of my safety and content is taken Let those delight in it and boast of it whose wisedom is carnall and opposite to God who venture the double Ducket of Aeternity against this single Penny of Earth which that French King would not when his brother counselled him with small forces to sally out of Towers upon the great Army of the Duke of Mayne Let politick Richlieu profess that his desire to be Cardinall Duke and Peer of France was but to shew the world what and how great his King and Master was since he the Cardinal how conspicuous soever was but a ray from the Kings Sunne and a rivulet from his Ocean yet God sees another motive in the heart then the tongue mentions no secret excludes the Sunne of Righteousness from view nor any shift the God of Truth from weighing the temper of spirits and discovering them to be what they are though with Balaam they shift from place to place and thing to thing to gain a subterfuge and opportunity of serving themselves most advantagiously yet at length God meets with them and when their glasses are runne which cannot be long that glory which maketh worthy men live for ever dieth with such and their memory of honour is enterred with them And though the most of men are convinced of the truth of this yet how greedily do such great spirits gullop down the world and with what eagerness do they profecute it by a dangerous hospitality which entertains Devils oftner then Angels What noble Paradoes doth self-love make forcing Religion to be Chaplain to bless their banquets of Ambition unto which they invite all their admirers and to warrant which they have such musters of Scriptures though misapplied and misunderstood that they look like the Archangel Michael and his forces advancing to discomfort as it were the Devil and his Angels of contrarients diffidence we know who said Behold my zeal for the Lord of Heasts 2 King 10. 16. yet ver 18. 31. his zeal was murther and idolatry Am I come up without the Lord against this place to destroy it the Lord said to me go up against this Land and destroy it were the words of Rabshecah 2 King 18. 25. yet God in Chap. 19. ver 28. interprets this a rage and tumult against him and sayes he will put his hook in his nose and his bridle in his lips and turn him back by the way by which he came yea by an Angel destroy his hoast and defend Jerusalem as it is ver 34 35. I love not their Principles who make Religion usher to Lyon-like practises as doth the Spaniard in the Indies which they by force possesse and in which they have put to the sword and other butcherly torments millions it is thought both at Cuba Hayta Peru Panama Mexico and all under pretence of planting the Catholick faith and placing Christians in the room of Infidels such courses may thrive for a while but in the end God will pluck up those poysonous roots for medicine to others that they may hear and fear and do no more presumptuously I cannot blame Heathens who know and hope for no other Heaven but that of temporall felicity and worldly greatness to aym at it I wonder not at Mahomet the second the first Turkish Emperour whom story tells us to be of no Religion but a meer Atheist worshipping no other God but good-fortune thinking all things lawfull that agreed with his lust and keeping no league promise or oath longer then stood with his