body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
much in that age as in the first when she took her faith from him that did manifestly so comport himself as if he would be taken for a God and promised his Church by the general spirit he would send her to teach her all truth and strengthen her therein against all opposition even to the consummation of the world which none but God or one exceeding near unto him could make good and if this were not performed the imposture was in the first beginning That building must needs stand firm that rests upon a Deity which hath influence upon the whole fabrick to keep it up and if it be not so kept up and conserved the Church doth but vainly flatter her self when she boasts of the divinity of her support if she fail in her doctrin and faith Christ is not God Whensoever therfor we read either in the Acts of the apostles or other ancient story of the conversion of a Kingdom or people unto the right religion of Christianity we still find it was done not by any private illumination of any one who living before in darknes with the rest was now secretly called to teach others but by a resignation unto a former doctrin brought from Christ by his missioners and preachers by submission to a truth delivered to them from without not rising up within them Faith comes by hearing and every man upon earth that hath ever been approved Christian received it that way and was made thereby not a maister but disciple to the Church Wheras on the other side this spirit and light and such like discoveries we so frequently talk of makes us not schollers but maisters ipso facto and urges not to submit to foregoers but to condemn them not to resign our own but to captivate others understandings not to go to the Church but to go out of it and that upon the single motive of a new illumination which none had before us and we from no body I know well enough that a man cannot be converted and becom a good Christian without the assistance of Gods grace exciting and cooperating with us to our good when the truth is taught and revealed to us But this I suppose is not the Light men talk of for this is rather in the affection and will than in the understanding and bids us hearken to another not to our selves to join with a Church already planted not to begin a new one of our own heads It sayes not to us make a vineyard of your own but go into mine And the intellectuall Light men speak of if we have any we receiv it afterwards as a reward of our humility in that Church where we did not kindle it but found it already burning to guide our feet by it in the wayes of peace Crede intelliges said a great Prophet Beleev and you shall understand but we must beleev first and by that obscure step of beleef which is as a duksy twi-light between the darknes of infidelity we lived in before and the light of truth we go to arrive we to all future happines But we in England that pretend this new Light and secret Spirit are separated by it from a former Church but brought to none nor are we made disciples by it but maisters on the sudden and enabled to teach all men that which we never received from any which is absolutely against the whole cours of Christianity and will if it be admitted set open a gap unto all fanatick fansies St. Paul professes he was apostle not of men nor by men but by God and the reason is becaus his first call was extraordinary from heaven as was likewise the suggestion he had to his mission and yet that God that called him although he showed him so singular a favour yet would he not dispense with his own orders and constitutions even in him but sent him to the good Priest Ananias to be by him instructed and catechised and admitted into his Church and with those people St. Paul found in the profession of that faith did he often conferre even he that was so strangly called from heaven conferred the Gospel which afterwards he preached as himself speaks in his epistle to the Galatians with those people and with that Church he found in actuall possession and profession of that faith least saith he I should have run in vain that is least he should do or think or preach any thing amiss contrary to the truth received unto which he was called which he could no otherwaies by the constitutions Jesus himself had made be assured of but by comparing his doctrin with that which was believed and practised in the Church before him into which he was now incorporated as a member in that body by the assistance of the grace he had received to be first a disciple and then afterwards a maister and teacher and when he did become a doctour he did not make himself one no nor his calling by Christ sufficed to do it but he was made such a one under the hands of the apostles and by their approbation autority and sacred ordination as may be seen in the book of the Acts ch 13. Nor was he to teach without that Churches leav or contrary to her faith but by her direction and in subjection to her This is a faithful speech and worthy of all consideration which seriously pondered would dissipate in a moment all whatsoever pretences of light spirit reason or other thing that shall mov any to a new way by himself contrary to what he hath received seen practised in the Church before him And if any would seriously peruse the Acts of the apostles wherein the footsteps of primitive Christianity fufficiently appear he shall find that all that were called unto Christs religion were brought to the feet of the apostles and priests who received them at the door and brought them into the hous of God by the laver of Baptisme and imposition of hands and confession of sins and it was not onely the ordinary but sole ingress into that Church and none were ever esteemed to be of that body but only by those means which also the pastours of the Church were only to mannage He that comes not in at the door saith Christ is neither sheep nor shepheard but a theef and a robber And true Christian religion consists not in going out of a Church but coming in there to submit to the ancient dictates of piety which Christ revealed §. 13. Independent and Presbyterians Plea TO a judicious man whom a word sufficeth it will already appear that no opinion or way here in England can have any advantage over the other by vertue of discoveries made by any light spirit or reason since there can no such be legally pretended to set up any new religion apart from the former but to join rather with the old which if it be not absolutely true Christ is not God and all Christianity but a human invention But yet
for his coming whom you judge so near Nothing is so suspicious as tumultuous piety And I do earnestly request you would seriously peruse two short stories related by wise Gamaliel in the fifth chapter of the Acts and make them a part of your primmer Men Israelites saith he look to these men what you are to do Before these dayes there was one Theodas professing himself to be some body unto whom consented a number of men about four hundred who was slain and all that beleeved him was dissipated and brought to nothing After him there was Judas Galileus in the dayes of profession and he drew people after him and he perished himself and so many as consented to him were disperst And both these rose up under a pretens of piety and if I be not mistaken for Christ too whose reign they would have set up in Palestine before his first coming or thereabouts even as you would now before his second to the disturbance of the kingdom you live in So then good friends setting aside your violent exclamations against all that adhere not to you which you cannot your selves justify for humility and peace is the great and inseparable property of piety if it be true and real our agreement with you is already made for the true light you magnify we praise it too and hope we enjoy it the vice you deplore we do equally detest the coming and reign of Christ we hope and wish for with all Christian resignation and the two horns of ministery and magistracy as soon as the world is grown so good and peaceable as there shall be no further use of them will be taken away but till all iniquity and the wild beasts you speak of be rid out of the earth I hope you will be so rational as not to think we will throw away the onely horns of our safety and if you do well you need not fear the sword either of spiritual or temporal power The apostles were never rebellious to any autority they found established in the world Nor is there any power upon earth can justly disturb a Prince or Kingdom by pretens of any light truth or religion which be it never so true is to be humbly offered not violently intruded upon any The Anabaptist walks with the Quaker and makes up with him a pair of Independents his books carry the like pious strain but have somewhat a clearer colour of art and less of zeal The particular controversy of Infant-baptisme which becaus he allows not of it gives him his special name I will not meddle with But his great argument why children should not be baptised namely becaus they cannot either know what is done to them or concurr themselvs to the effect if it were of force might in my mind equally hinder their corporal nurs to wash or make them clean unto which they are so far from concurring that as much as they are able they resist it and struggle and kick and cry amain when 't is done not knowing what good is done to them and as there is as much need of the spiritual washing as of that so can God as easily with his laver make their souls clean without their help as we their bodies However gentlemen Anabaptists if you will not wash your children you will give us leav I hope to baptise ours which if it should not do them good yet will it for certain do you no harm custom is a tirant and we cannot but keep it it you like it not unusquisque in suo sensu abundet Even as the Papist is defensiv against Protestant Presbyterian and Independent who all hate and persecute him so is the Independent offensiv against them all but the intermediat Presbyterian and Protestant are in an offensiv postur against their foregoers and defensiv against their revolting successors But the Presbyterian very much renowned in these dayes for his zealous prayer and preaching does not so much heed the bitings of his junior Independent weaker than himself both in learning and repute as he does endeavour to disable the Prelate-Protestant his foregoer whose gravity and long continuance in the land with much estimation and applaus cannot without great hostility and force of wit be as he could wish utterly disparaged And so the Presbyterians caus in this great contest bears in a manner this scheme of plea against the Protestant episcopacy Your Monarchick-superintendency wherin one should tirannise and lord it over many in spirituall affairs we can no wayes approâ— against the lively current of Gospel-dispensations in which if any will be greater than the rest let him that may he be so indeed by the form that is in Christ who being in his divinity-fulnes emptied himself into the figure of a servant be made the least We have all one Lord and Maister and we equally his servants unto whom alone we either stand or fall from whose fulnes we receiv all of us grace for grace Did not the maister check his apostles for the like spirit-ambition when they laboured against the vein of the ingoings of humble Christ within their souls to be one greater then another whereas they were all indifferently under him whom they called Lord and maister and by his own testimony very truly And if we be successors to the apostles in soul-ministery and dispensations of Gospel-verities we succeed them also in their absolute independency upon any other Lord but himself who is all in all The first reforming Protestants in the sulnes of time and age of reconciliation-light whom both you and we acknowledg to be indued with most ample gifts and essences of Christ within the closets of their souls struggled and lift and bore up more resolutely against this Papall-government the very Egiptian residence whence succeeding darknes spred it self about the world than any one or other pernicious doctrin might have flowed from that sours unto the obstructing of the light-dispensations from above And not without reason for all doctrin-vassailage was exercised and kept in hand by that Episcopacy-power over mens immortall souls whose command belongs only to him who sees and rules hearts to the utter ruin of all Christian liberty in the Gospel-messengers who now were to administer to the hungry mouths of soul-starved persons not bread of life from heavenly places but husks and chaft from the earthly pallaces of dry and deceitful dictates of men Nor was this Prelate-presidentship ever permitted in any reformed Churches beyond the seas where reformation-light first sprang forth but pulled down and abhorred either as downright Popery or at least the shadow and imitation of it and we who be the lights of the world and salt of the whole earth as we are to refrain from all show of evil so can we not find upon earth any superior spirit-power by which we may be made good for if the primary lights of the world and stars of the firmament be once put out who shall lighten them again whose abode is in earth and clay
time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the