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A29528 The saints solemne covenant vvith their God as it was opened in a sermon preached at Beccles in the countie of Suffolk, at the taking of the Nationall Covenant there, by the ministers and other officers of that division / by Ioh. Brinsley ... Brinsley, John, 1600-1665. 1644 (1644) Wing B4728; ESTC R19027 25,595 42

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that it should have any reason to desire the continuance of them This is the Prelacy which wee here ingage our endeavours against Not everie not all kindes of Prelacie or Episcopacis I speake now in the language of others such as being of Counsell in flaming and contriving this Covenant should know the meaning of it and no friends to this Prelacy I am sure Not Prelacy in the latitude of the notion thereof No Some Materials of Prelacy what ever Government wee have must yet be left There cannot be a Parliament without a Speaker nor yet a Committee without a Chayr-man nor yet an Enquest or Iury without a Foreman Thus in the State and thus in the Church There cannot be a Synod an Assembly a Classis a Presbytery without a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} a Praeses a Primus Presbyter one first in Order And this in the latitude of the word is Prelacy Not all Prelacy then nor yet all Episcopacy Paul speaking to the Elders at Ephesus and writing to the Elders at Philippi he calleth them {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Bishops And should it be supposed that Episcopacie being Circumcised to use the word of my Authour from these exuberant Members and Officers stripped of this unnecessary Equipage and reduced to the primitive simplicitie of Bishops and Presbyters should by Authority be conceived to be a meet and convenient Government for the Church in this Kingdome it is not conceived that any man should stand engaged by vertue of this Oath and Covenant to oppose Authoritie in endeavouring the extirpation of it That being not this Government but a new Government Now wee doe not sweare against what is not Neither can a man properly be said to endeavour to eradicate that which as yet is not planted Nay more Shall there be an Episcopacie or Prelacie found in the Word as the way of Gospel-Government which Christ hath bequeathed to his Churches and this be made appeare we are so far from swearing to extirpate such a Prelacie as that rather wee are bound by vertue of this Oath to entertaine it as the minde and will of Iesus Christ This I have spoken not in my own but in other words not to declare my own private Opinion in this great controversie of the Times the point of Church-Government accounting it in my self in this Juncture of times too high presumption to anticipate or forestall the Judgment of that Venerable Convention before whom this controversie now depends expecting a speedy and faire Decision according to the evidence of the Word but onely to endeavour a satisfaction to those of my Brethren or others who possibly may conscientiously stumble at this stone the supposed Ius Divinum or Apostolicum of Episcopacie Obi. But though a Ius Divinum be not stamped upon this Government yet a Ius humanum is Though it be not of a Divine foundation yet it standeth established by the Law of the Land And being so planted how can we engage our selves to endeavour the rooting of it out A. Here not to dispute what I cannot determine nor as it is supposed any other whether it be in every part of it established by the Law or no Let it be yielded that it is What then Shall we conceive our selves thereby so concluded and shut up under this Government as that what ever inconvenience we shall finde therein yet we may not by lawfull ways and means seek and endeavour the alteration of it It is a case which Subiects scruple not in the Laws of the Land nor yet Freemen and Burgesses of a Corporation or Members of the like Society in the formes of their Government Though sworne to defend and maintaine them yet finding by experience some evident and notable inconvenience in them they will make no scruple neither need they to endeavour by lawfull ways and meanes a Change and alteration in them Laws and Ordinances and Forms of Government though very usefull in the first institution of them yet afterwards through change of times they may degenerate and become unusefull it may be preiudiciall and detrimentall crossing that very end for which they were ordained Thus is it with humane Laws and Constitutions the best the wisest of them they are like the men that made them mutable not unlike those liquours which will grow flat and sowre with standing It is the Priviledge of Gods Laws they never degenerate never prove unusefull much lesse detrimentall to the persons to whom they are given and by whom they are observed But Humane Laws and Constitutions may which when they doe no reason why men should be so irrecoverably concluded under them as that they should not by lawfull ways and means let that still be carried along seek an alteration for the better Obi. For the better I may you say were wee assured of that we would not be unwilling with such an exchange But in the mean time Alterations of this nature are dangerous as in the State so in the Church A. True they are so viz. where they are managed by precipitate or sinister counsels not carried on with due deliberation advice specially where this exchange is made by Guess and not by Rule But that I trust will not be found to be our condition If multitudes of unbyassed Counsellours promise safety blessed be God as yet the Kingdom wants them not whether for Church or State And with what deliberation they have hitherto proceeded in agitating the businesse of both specially of the Church let their Enemies judge wherein their Protestation is and I think wee are bound to believe it that all shall be done as need as may be by Rule And that not by a Lesbian leaden Rule such as the Rule of Prudence is which every one may bow and bend to his own interests but by the inflexible Rule of the Word Which if this worke be framed by we shall have no cause to fear the alteration Specially if we consider the condition of the present Church-Government no Government amongst us which indeed is little better then a Nullitie an Anarchie a meere name and shadow of Government the Coercive power which animates any Government being indeed the very soul of it without which it is but a cadaverous and livelesse Corps being alreadie by an over-ruling hand of a most immediate providence taken away and that by unquestionable authoritie Now it is a received Maxime Better any Government then no Government Tyranny then Anarchy What the inconveniences of the one the present No-Government are the Church of God amongst us already feels to her eminent hazard What ever the succeeding Government shall be yet may wee promise to our selves in it a comparative happinesse Some other scruples possibly may be started but I want time now to let slip after them Neither are they such I suppose but that a little charity yielding to the present necessity will soon take them up affording them a faire construction and Resolution