Church before the Reformed transmarine Churches Arminius before St. Austin who judge Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius who have more charity for those that deny the Deity of our Saviour than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy and who can with more patience bear a dispute against the very being of a Deity than about the taking away of a Ceremony c. This is the language not of the bold blades but of a modest Presbyterian of one that uses hard reasons and soft words if you will believe himself in the very leaf before-going q Preface p 9. Whatsoever charity they have for us their good words shall never be wanting to themselves They will call themselves humble and modest whatsoever they say or do Though they blush not to defend themselves by injuring any body nor fear to cast reproaches on whomsoever that for defence of the truth stand in their way For every part of this Charge is a vile slander and some of it is confuted you shall see by himself Which that I may demonstrate let me tell you In the first place that it is no Hectorism to assert the Divine Right of Episcopacy in the strictest sense This is no upstart opinion broached by some swaggering hot-brain'd men who love to rant and vapour beyond other Folk which is the proper quality of a Hector but hath been antiently believed in this Church from the very beginning of the Reformation and maintained by the soberest men in it I know they would have you to think otherwise and have endeavoured to perswade the World that it is a novel Doctrine advanced of later times by some proud and haughty Divines Mr. Robert Baily made bold to say that before Bishop Bancrofts time the Bishops did unanimously deny Episcopacy to be of Divine Right r Reply to fair warning p. 49. Printed at Delf 1649 And the Letter to Dr. Samuel Turner Printed 1647. will not allow it to be so Antient but affirms p. 3. that it is an opinion but lately countenanced in England and that by some of the more Lordly Clergy He means I think Archbishop Laud as some since have explained it But both the one and the other of these talk'd at random out of their own imaginations not from Historical observation Archbishop Whitgift and Bishop Bilson as the Answer to that Letter suggests were both of a contrary perswasion And I can name a Divine of their Opinion elder than either and much reverenced even by the Presbyterians who was offered a Bishoprick also but refused it And that is Old Bernard Gilpin who left the World that very year in which Bishop Whitgift was advanced to the See of Canterbury 1583. For when Mr. Cartwrights book was newly come forth a certain Cambridge man who seemed a very great Scholar came to this famous Preacher and dealt very earnestly with him about the Discipline and Reformation of the Church But Mr. Gilpins answer was That he could not allow that any Humane invention should take place in the Church in stead of a Divine Institution How said the man do you think that this Form of Discipline is an Humane Invention I am said Mr. Gilpin altogether of that mind And as many as diligently turn over the Writings of the Fathers will be of my opinion O but the later men replied the Disciplinarian see many things which those antient Fathers saw not and the present Church seems better provided of many ingenious and industrious men At which Mr. Gilpin saith my Author Å¿ Life of Bernard Gilpin Edit 4. 1636. p. 106 107 c. seemed somewhat moved and answered I for my part do not hold the virtues of the later men to be compared to the Infirmities of the Fathers Which words he used on purpose because he perceived this young man had a strong conceit of I know not what rare virtues in himself which opinion the good old man was desirous to root out of him But there is an Authority ancienter than all these viz. The Form and Order of making and consecrating Bishops c. confirmed by Act of Parliament In which three things are considerable The very first words of the Preface are That it is evident to all men reading the holy Scriptures and antient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders in Christs Church Bishops Priests and Deacons Then secondly the Prayer after the Letany at the Consecration of a Bishop begins in this manner Almighty God giver of all good things which by thy holy Spirit hast appointed divers Orders of Ministers in thy Church c. which must needs be understood of those before named And lastly the first question to the person to be Consecrated is Are you perswaded that you be called to this Ministration according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ To which the Answer is I am so perswaded Put now all these together and you will not be able to conceive as the Answer to the Letter t page 12 13. observes how these words should fall from any men not possessed with this Tenet that Episcopacy is of Divine Right in the strictest sense For if God by his holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church and we may find evidently by Scripture and antient Writers that there are three Orders whereof Bishops the highest and this is made the ground of praying for the Bishop to be Consecrated and he must profess he is perswaded that he is called to that Ministration according to Christs will then Episcopacy in the opinion of those who composed and confirmed this Book is in such a manner according to Christs Will that it is grounded in Scripture and appointed by the Spirit of God and all this hath not been said only of late nor countenanced only by some few and those of the more Lordly Clergy 2. For which cause no man ought to be disgraced with any odious name much less be called an Hector who is now of the same Perswasion The most illustrious persons that have been in our Church men far from that boisterous humour have declared themselves for this Doctrine and doubted not but they could maintain it I need instance in no more than two Bishop Andrews whose mind is well known from his three Letters to Peter du Moulin 1618. u Translated and Printed 1647. to which I refer you and the late Bishop Sanderson whom the best of you have spoken of with honour and reverence He declares his opinion to be that Episcopal Government is not to be derived merely from Apostolical Practice or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias our blessed Lord Christ x Postscript to Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power who being sent by his Father afterward sent his Apostles to execute the same Apostolical Episcopal Pastoral Office for the Ordering and Governing of his Church till his coming again and so the
lowdly against them And all this serves to convince our Apologist of unskilfulness in these matters who pronounces roundly that Mr. Gataker k p. 13. of his Book never had any Episcopal Ordination because he was Ordained by a Suffragan of one of those places mentioned in the Statute viz. the Suffragan of Colchester Suppose he were * As Mr. Clark tells us he was Collect. of Lives of ten Divines p. 131. he had notwithstanding Episcopal Ordination as I have demonstrated and as good as if he had been Ordained by the greatest Bishop in the World But he did not understand I see by this what those Suffragans were and contrary to what became an humble and modest man and the Title likewise of his Book wrote about things which he had not studied or considered Which made him also confound these with the Rural Deans alledging the Primate of Armaghs judgment concerning the power of Suffragans to prove it to be his Judgment that the Chorepiscopi or Rural Deans might lawfully ordain In which he hath done him a notorious injury for there is not such a word in his Book as that the Rural Deans may lawfully ordain But only that the number of Suffragans which was 26 might well be conformed to the number of the several Rural Deanries and supplying the place of those who in the Antient Church were called Chorepiscopi might every month assemble a Synod of the Rectors within the Precinct and conclude all matters brought before them by the major part of voices These are his words which do not signifie that Suffragans were the same with Rural Deans or Chorepiscopi but that there might be as many of the one as there are of the other and Suffragans do all that which those antient Officers did though they had power to do a great deal more For I have proved a plain distinction between them The Chorepiscopi were made by one single Bishop viz. the Bishop of the City to whom they belonged as the Council of Antioch tells us Can. 10. But the Suffragans being real Bishops were made as other Bishops are by three at the least according to the fourth Canon of the first Council at Nice And so they had power to Ordain Presbyters and joyn in the Consecration of other Bishops which the Chorepiscopi had not Nor did our Church ever acknowledge any such power residing in the Rural Deans or any meer Presbyters subject to the Jurisdiction of our Bishops to ordain Priests But as Hadrianus Saravia tells the Ministers of Guernsey l See Clavi Trabales p. 142. in his Letter to them As many Ministers as were naturally of the Country being not made Ministers of the Church by their Bishop or his Demissories nor any others according to the Order of the English Church were not true and lawful Ministers Where by Demissories I think he means the Suffragans of the Bishop of Winchester to whose jurisdiction they belonged Yes may some say our Bishops have sometimes declared otherwise For this Apologist m Pag. 13. out of Archbish Spotswood alledges the story of the three Scots Bishops who never had been ordained but by Presbyters and yet Bishop Bancrofts opinion was that they need not be ordained again which hath often been alledged heretofore by others particularly by the Lancashire Ministers of the first Classis at Manchester in whom he might have found a great deal more than this amounts unto For they fly to a Letter of the late Primate of Ireland with the Animadversions of Dr. Bernard upon it n The judgment of the late Archb. of Armagh c. 1658. in which this Story is cited and the judgment of many other learned Divines but nothing at all to the business For as the Gentlemen to whom the Lancashire Ministers wrote their Letter well observe o Excommunicatio excommunicata p. the Primate did not make void the Ordination by Presbyters but it was with a special restriction to such places where Bishops could not be had Which are the very words also of Archbishop Bancroft in the case of the Scottish Bishops As for the Ordinations made by our Presbyters the Primate declared himself against them in the very same Letter which they craftily concealed as you may read p. 112. of Dr. Bernards Book The words are these You may easily judge that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical Obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from being Schismatical Which I find cited again in another Book of of his called Clavi Trabales p. 56. And both in that and the former Book p Judgment of the Archb. p. 122 c. Clavi Tiab p. 55. he tells us the Primate thought their Ordination void upon another score Because at the imposition of hands they neither used those antient words Receive thou the Holy Ghost c. nor the next Be thou a faithful dispenser c. nor any other words to that sense at least there is no order or direction for it And they also wholly omitted those words at the solemn delivery of the Bible inro the hands of the person ordained Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God c. So that there being no express transmission of Ministerial Power he was wont to say that such Imposition of hands by some called the Seal of Ordination without a Commission annexed seemed to him to be as the putting of a Seal to a Blank And if a Bishop had been present and done no more than they did he thought the same quere might have been of the validity of such Ordinations As for other Reformed Churches their case is widely different from that of these men as he might have learnt from another Bishop whom he cites now and then to no purpose viz. Bishop Bramhall * Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 71 72. who rells you that he knew many learned persons among them who did passionately affect Episcopacy and some of them acknowledged to him that their Church would never be rightly settled till it was new moulded And others he tells you though they did not long for Episcopacy yet they approve it and want it only out of invincible necessity And that their principal learned men were of this mind appears from hence that Dr. Carlton afterward Bishop of Chichester protesting in open Synod which then sate at Dort that Christ instituted no parity but made twelve Apostles the chief and under them seventy Disciples that Bishops succeeded to the Twelve and Presbyters of inferiour rank to the Seventy and challenging the judgment of any learned men that could speak to the contrary Their answer was silence which was approbation enough And after saith he discoursing with divers of the best learned in the Synod and telling them how necessary Bishops were to suppress their Schisms then rising their answer was That they did much honour and reverence the good
a power as he ascribes to them and as the Suffragans I shall now shew you were invested withal who were of the Order of Bishops as much as any other Some have called them Titular Bishops ordained to assist and aid the Bishop of the Diocess in his Spiritual Function and think they had their name from this that by their Suffrages Ecclesiastical Causes were judged But the better to understand what they were you must know that all the Bishops of any Province were antiently called by the Metropolitan his Suffragans being to advise and assist him in the common Affairs of the Church So the word is often used in the Canon Law and in latter times in the Provincial Council of Salisburg b An. 1420 Cap de Officio Ordinarii The Archbishop Everard speaks to all the Bishops as his Suffragans being called together with him in partem solicitudinis into part of the care of the people under his charge Which are the words of our Linwood also who saith the Bishops are called Suffragans because they are bound to help and assist the Archbishop c Archiepiscopo suffragari assistere tenentur Annor in cap. de Constitutionibus But since those times they only have been called Suffragans who were indeed ordained Bishops but not possessed as yet of any See and thence called Titular Bishops which kind of Bishops are no stranger than those Ministers at Geneva whom they call Apostoli who preach in the Country Churches and administer the Sacraments but have no certain charge Yet in England I must tell you it was otherwise as appears by the Statute of 26 Hen. VIII chap. 14. where provision is made for Suffragans which had been accustomed to be had within this Realm as it tells us both in the beginning and the middle of it And it is enacted that the Towns of Thetford Ipswich Colchester Dover Guilford Southampton and twenty places more besides them should be taken and accepted for Sees of Bishops Suffragans to be made in this Realm c. For this end every Archbishop or Bishop being disposed to have them for the more speedy administration of Holy things had the liberty given them to name and elect two fit persons and present them to the King who thereupon had full power by the Act to give to which of those two he pleased the Stile Title and Name of Bishop of such of the Sees aforesaid as he thought most expedient and he was to be called Bishop Suffragan of the same See After which the King was to present him by his Letters Patents under the great Seal to the Archbishop of Canterbury or of York signifying his Name his Stile Title and Dignity of Bishoprick requiring him to Consecrate the said person so nominated and presented to the same Name Title Stile and Dignity of Bishop For which purpose either the Bishop that nominated him or the Suffragan himself was to provide two Bishops or Suffragans to consecrate him with the Archbishop and to bear their reasonable costs This Statute though repealed in the first and second of Philip and Mary d Chap. 8. yet was revived among sundry other in the first of Queen Elizabeth e See ch 1. And it is sufficiently manifest from thence that these persons had Episcopal Ordination being Consecrated by the Archbishop and two Bishops more as much as any other And therefore secondly had Episcocal Power and Authority as much as the Bishop of the Diocess though being dependent on him the Suffragan could not use or execute any Jurisdiction Power or Authority but by his Commission under his Seal as the Statute likewise provides Upon which score Mr. Mason calls them Secondary f De Minist Angl. l. 1. c. 3. Bishops and further observes truly that though in compare with others they may seem to have nothing but a Title because they had not their proper Diocesses to themselves yet if we speak absolutely they had both the Title and the thing signified by it For they had for their Episcopal Seat some great Town g Oppidum illustre lege Parliamentaria illis designatum appointed to them by the Act of Parliament in which and some certain adjacent places to which the Bishop of the Diocess limited them they exercised their Episcopal Function From whence also they borrowed the name of Suffragan of Bedford Suffragan of Colchester c. So that none of those who were Consecrated Bishops among us in England whether Primary or Secondary as his words are were meerly Titular but destinated all of them to the administration of a certain place according to the sixth Canon of the Council of Chalcedon Accordingly we find that such Suffragans being made acted like other Bishops in all things For the Register of the Consecration of Archbishop Parker tells us that at the time of it four Chairs were set for four Bishops one of which was John Hodgskin Suffragan Bishop of Bedford who assisted also in the Consecration of the Bishops of London Ely Lincoln and divers others which he could not have done had he not had Episcopal Power and consequently the Power of Ordaining Presbyters as well as of Consecrating Bishops And so much this Apologist might have learnt from him whom he calls a Learned Prelate if he had read his Books with care I mean Bishop Bramhall who writes thus of the Power of Suffragans h Romphaea Printed 1659. p. 93 The Office and the Benefice of a Bishop are two distinct things Ordination is an Act of the Key of Order and a Bishop uninthroned may Ordain as well as a Bishop inthroned The Ordination of Suffragan Bishops who had no peculiar Bishopricks was always admitted and reputed as good in the Catholick Church if the Suffragans had Episcopal Ordination as the Ordination of the greatest Bishops in the world Nay if he had but read their own Authors he would not have doubted that Suffragans were altogether to speak in their stile as bad as Bishops For the Admonition to the Parliament puts them among the Titles and Offices devised by Antichrist and declares that though they take upon them which is most horrible to rule Gods Church yet they are plainly by Christ forbidden and utterly with speed to be removed You may read more to the same purpose in the Preface as I find it cited in the Censure of the Pamphlet called Humble Motives for Association An. 1601. p. 23 25. In which year I find this a part of the Secular Priests complaint against the Jesuites that they would not be subordinate in any manner to the Ordinary Prelates of England as Bishops and Suffragans and that they withstood their endeavours to have Bishops or Suffragans i Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman p. 73. 87 90. By which you may see they were numbred among the Prelates to whom all Priests were to be subject which made those fiery Dissenters from our Church to declaim so
order and discipline of the Church of England and with all their heart would be glad to have it established among them but that could not be hoped for in their State Their hope was that seeing they could not do what they desired God would be merciful to them if they did but what they could Upon which speech one well notes q Answer to a Letter written at Oxford 1647. p. 13 14. that if they hoped for mercy that might pardon what they did then they supposed they were not in the best estate and that their necessity could not totally excuse them from fault for then in that particular there had been no need to hope for mercy Nor could they well think otherwise since being pressed they denied not but that Episcopacy was of Christs own institution To this necessity Mr. Calvin himself hath recourse declaring that their calling being an extraordinary thing ought not to be estimated by the common Rule It were to be wished indeed saies he in the same place r Epist ad Regem Poloâ—iae p. 142. that there were a continual succession of Pastors that the Function it self might be delivered as it were from hand to hand but the Pope having broken the succession of such as preached the uncorrupted Doctrine of Christ God provided a remedy exciting pious and learned men to reform the Church and committing to them an extraordinary Office This saith Melancthon Å¿ Enarratis in Evang Joh. Cap. 1. God did in antient times setting a greater value upon his Church than upon the ordinary Power in it If indeed the ordinary power would have done their duty He is worthy saith Mr. Calvin of any execration who will not submit himself to that Hierarchy that submits it self to the Lord. And I protest before God and in mine own Conscience saith Zanchy that I hold them no better than Schismaticks that account or make it a part of Reformation of the Church to have no Bishops t Both these cited by Dr. Peter Moulin the Son in whom you may read a great deal more Of this mind were the first Reformers who as the Augustane Confession saith had no intention to deprive the Bishops of their Authority but the Bishops refusing to admit them into holy Orders unless they would swear not to preach the pure Doctrine of the Gospel u Cap. ult de potest Eccles this compelled them the publick ordinary door being shut to enter into holy Orders in a private and extraordinary way Yea we have often testified say the Authors of it our great desire to preserve the Ecclesiastical Polity and even those degrees in the Church which are but of Humane Authority This we declare again and again to be our mind And this will and desire of ours shall excuse us before God and all the World to all Posterity that the overthrow of the Authority of Bishops may not be imputed to us It was meer necessity you see which drove them to Ordination without Bishops which somtimes makes that lawful which otherwise would be unlawful They are the words of the Gloss cited by Dr. Crakenthorp in this very business who compares the Case of the Reformers with that of Scipio * Defens Eccles Anglicanae Cap. 41. contra Spalat 1635. as others I find have done since in his very words without naming him There being as Valerius Max. tells us a need of money to defray some necessary Charges of the Common-wealth Scipio demanded a supply out of the Publick Treasury Which the Quaestors refusing to open because the Law seemed against it He opened it himself by a private Key and made the Law give way to utility and necessity The same was done in some Reformed Churches The Apostles had commended their Keys to Bishops nor were they ever lawfully used saith he by any others than Bishops before that time When the Roman Quaestors he means Bishops denying to open the door and admit any to the Office of Pastors unless they would ingage not to preach the pure Doctrine of the Gospel Some great men like Scipio chose rather to lay hold on the Keys and receive Ordination from the hands of private persons than that the Church should be unfurnished and the People perish They would not have gone out of the Rode if they could have avoided it as our Presbyterians did of their own accord Who ought therefore to acknowledge their error to return into the regular course from whence they voluntarily strayed and not stand upon the justification of their proceedings by the example of those who are nothing like them But with all their heart would have intertained such Bishops as our pretended Reformers thrust out of possession and joyfully received such Ordination as here they rejected But if they resolve still to continue to maintain what they have done I would wish them to get an abler Apologist than this man and you my good Friend I would advise to keep this old Saying in your mind Remember not to trust no not those that pretend to learning seriousness humility and modesty For you see by what hath been said that this person who makes a shew of these qualities is grosly mistaken to speak no harsher word and too boldly indeavours to lead others into errors I acknowledge indeed that there are both learned and modest men among them but they are the confident talkers who generally carry the Bell away and are cried up for all worth and excellency Do what I can I must think there is too much truth in the censure passed upon you by the Second fair warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline y Printed at the Hague 1651 by Ri. Watson p. 152. That you are not wont to prick any in the List of the Learned but the best read men in Synopsis's and Systems in Common place Books and Centurists or in your own Reformed Fathers whom you believe to be more proper than the antients because standing as they tell you upon their shoulders When if set on even ground the longest arm they can make in true Learning and Eloquence will not reach half way up to their girdles But you may imagine perhaps that though the Apologist be not so well versed in the Laws of the antient Church yet he hath good skill in the Laws and Customs of our own Land So indeed any body would think that reads his Book and relies upon his bare word but he that hath so much distrust as to take the pains to examine what he saith will presently discover that he writes as if he were as unacquainted with them as with the Laws and Customs of Japan The same heady forwardness possesses men now that did in Gregory Nazianzen's days when as he tells us z Orat. 9. p 150. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. all were wild to teach and talk about the Spirit of God without the Spirit and therefore no wonder they venture to talk of our Laws without any Law
Thus this modest Apologist puts in their exception a Pag. 20. against our Church for committing the power of Excommunication to men that are not in holy Orders Which is notoriously false and the contrary I could shew him hath been acknowledged in their own Books But he needed have look'd no further than to a Book published not many years ago concerning the Practice in the Ecclesiastical Courts Where he might have been informed in express terms b Francisci Clark Praxis in Curiis Eccles Titul 20 an 1666. That the Judge of the Court having pronounced a man contumacious and decreed that he is to be excommunicated in punishment of his contumacy next proceeds to read the Excommunication if he be in holy Orders Otherwise he delivers it to be read by the Priest appointed by the Archbishop for this purpose Which Priest to this effect sits judicially with the Judge himself ☞ Of if he never heard of this Book yet he hath heard I am sure of the Third Part of the Friendly Debate Where if he had been pleased to read a Book before he had censured it he might have found this bold Error corrected in Philagathus and so avoided it himself But I see plainly and am heartily sorry for it there are more of that mans evil humour who love to talk of things upon Record out of their own drowsie imaginations The general cry against the continuation of the Friendly Debate was that it was a breach of the Act of Indemnity or Oblivion which was raised meerly out of their own brains that are stuft with words more than things without consulting the Act it self But this cry Philagathus followed with open mouth and now he hath got another to bear him company who deserves in like manner to be chastized for his bold folly Especially since he mentions this so often first in his Preface then at least five c Pag. 34 73 106. 112 150. times in his Book and in one place affirms my Book seems to be a continued breach of the Act of Indemnity in the very design of it And all this after I had evidently demonstrated in the further Continuation which he also mentions p. 150. that whatever it seems to him this is a gross and impudent Calumny But I shall spare him notwithstanding this boldness and have I assure him thrown away those apt illustrations of his Vanity which offered themselves because he hath more civility in him than the sober Answerer I shall only desire him to follow his own advice which he gives me on this occasion d Pref. p. 8. viz. To do justice upon himself and execute his own Book in the flames for committing such crimes For I must tell you there are a great many more of them He tells you confidently that the Notes commonly called the Assemblies came out before the Assembly convened p. 15. By which I see he is no better skill'd in Ordinances than in Laws For the Ordinance for their convention bears date June 12. 1643. requiring them to meet the next first of July And the Annotations came not out till two years after in 1645 e So it should be Printed in the Friendly Debate not 1646. But you may think perhaps they did not convene at the time appointed Know therefore that on June 24. 1643. all Ministers were required by an Order to pray on the next Fast for a blessing on the Assembly who were to meet on Saturday July 1. and that accordingly they did meet on that day as Mr. Fuller quoted sometimes by this man observes in his History And not long after f July 19. 1643. I find presented an humble Petition for an extraordinary Fast beseeching among other things that Justice might be executed on all delinquents and after this an Order * Aug. 10. 1643. that those of them who were Residents in the Associated Counties should be desired to go down and stir up the People to rise in their defence By which it appears they not only convened but began at least to be busie about that which did not concern them long before those Notes saw the light But let us pass by this And observe rather how he satisfies in the lame excuse he makes for their not calling the Apostles alwaies by the name of Saints In the judgment of our Church saith he it is not necessary as may hence be concluded That in all the Collects for the days set apart to commemorate the holy Apostles in there are but two wherein they are stiled Saints These are his words g Pag. 43. but if you love truth call to mind the Rule I gave you and remember not to trust Even they who call one another frequently by the name of Saints have not such a care as one would expect of common honesty nor of their own fame neither but will assert such manifest untruths as lie open to every eye Turn to the Prayers for particular days in the Service Book and you shall find that they who told him this for I charitably suppose he took it upon trust made no conscience of what they said For those glorious persons whose memories are celebrated in our Church and I hope always will be are called no less than nine times in the very body of the Collects by the names of Saints h St. Steven St. John St. Andrew St. Paul St. Mark St. Philip and St. James St. Peter and St. James Seven of which were Apostles and the other an Evangelist and the first Martyr And lest any one should imagine he made his observation by the old Common-Prayer Book and thence may justifie himself you may understand that there is no difference in this point but only in two of the Collects in one of which in stead of St. John the Evangelist as it is now the words were the blessed Apostle and Evangelist John and in the other instead of St. Philip and St. James it was St. Philip and other Apostles This may teach you to suspect the reasonings of these men which may very well be thought to be exceeding careless who are no more exact in reporting matters of Fact which lie before their eyes But as for their stories which they spread up and down and indeavour to propagate to posterity by stuffing their Books with them as this man doth there is the greatest cause to think that either they have no truth at all in them or are very much altered from their original You ought to let them pass for idle tales unless you have better authority for them than these mens Books who you see are so bold as to report notorious falshoods which every body can confute Their Traditions you should look upon as of no more credit than the Popish Legends It being so easie for men to forget the very words they heard and to place others in their room so common to add or leave out what is most material so hard and often impossible to know all
declared when time was f Letter to his Legate in the Council of Trent See p. 646. Engl. Edit 1629. that the opinion which makes them hold by that Title is false and erroneous But not to leave the least speck of his dirt sticking on us which he blushes not to throw in our faces once more p. 34. you may know that the very same Bishop newly mentioned wipes it all off himself by clearing and excusing the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas from sinning against the Divine Right though they had no Bishops whom he thought to be of Divine Right in the strictest sense I said no such thing as his words are g Bishop Andrews Letter to du Moulin Ib. but only this that your Churches wanted something that is of Divine Right Wanted not by your fault but by the iniquity of the times for that your France had not your Kings so propitious at the Reformation of your Church as our England had In like manner the late Primate of Ireland Bishop Bramhall excuses those in the Reformed Churches who as I told you either had a desire or but an esteem of Episcopacy though they could not enjoy it And as for a third sort who were so far from either of those that they condemned it as an Antichristian Innovation and a rag of Popery whereby they became guilty he thought of most gross Schism materially he saith thus much may be alledged to mitigate their fault That they do it ignorantly h Replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 71 72. as they have been mis-taught and mis-informed and I hope that many of them are free from obstinacy and hold the truth implicitely in the preparation of their minds because ready to receive it when God shall reveal it to them Nay Dr. Heylin himself whom this man thinks so fierce makes an Apology for their Ministers not being Ordained by Bishops at the first Reformation there being he thinks a necessity for it as you may read in his History of Episcopacy p. 164. And lastly a famous person now alive this Apologist cites afterward against his own self Master Thorndike I mean who he acknowledges i page 10. hath a charity for the Churches beyond the Seas though wanting Bishops whom he doubts not to be of Divine Right But he might have had recourse to a better place of his works for this purpose than that which he hath produced For he handles this question at large in his Book of the Rights of the Church k p. 194 198. where he excuses their necessity and concludes at last out of the abundance of his Charity that some excuse is to be made for those who have created this necessity to themselves by their own false perswasion Let this man therefore do open penance for his sin in laying such foul things to the charge of the men of the high Prelacy as he in scorn calls them p. 35. And let him forbear if he can to say hereafter That there is just cause to fear that some among us have a greater Charity for the Church of Rome than the Presbyterians l page 34. And to intimate that the high Conformists are warping from the Doctrine of the Church of England and lean more to that of Trent m p 80 81. For these are only old Calumnies now revived I wish it be not to serve the Good Old Cause We were told before the War that the Bishops were leaned toward Popery nay were driving fast toward Popery And no sooner was it begun but our neighbours were born in hand that we had a company of half Papish Bishops n Dialogue between an Englishman a Neatherlander written in Low-Dutch and translated into English 1643. p. 7. nay that they were altogether Papists one and the same brood with the Jesuits o p. 8. 16. and intended to bring Popery into England all which they affirmed was as clear as the bright noon-day p page 10. For to this end saith this impudent Libel they had stript all the Assemblies of their faithfullest Preachers and used many other means to banish wholly all saving knowledge out of the Kingdom that so they might the better draw the people to Popery From which considerations the Author desires the Lords and Inhabitants of the Vnited Netherlands q In the Dedicatory Epistle not to assist the King for if he prevailed the Government would be altered Religion suppressed the Bishops restored and put in force their Popish Canons And all this I must tell you was writ by a Presbyterian a modest Gentleman no doubt otherwise called a shameless lyar as appears by this passage p. 37. where he saith Our whole Nation is by the coming in of the Scots before the War yet more confirmed that they were led by Gods Spirit What was the woful issue of those suggestions we all know though there was nothing of truth in them as appeared by the stout opposition against the common enemy which some of those very men made who besides their other sufferings had layen as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly affected as any other of their Brethren whosoever r See Bishop Sandersons preface to 1. Volume of Serm. Sect 17. And what they now intend that begin again to buzze the same tale in the peoples ears we are not so doltish as not to understand and when opportunity shall serve they will more openly declare Then you may hear the complaints renewed which he remembers out of Mr. Fuller his Church-History of Popery Arminianism Socinianism and what not You may hear an Accusation against a Minister as the same Historian tells us there was on his own knowledge Å¿ Book the 11. page 224. merely for using the Gloria Patri though in all things else he conformed to the Directory 6. In which case truly there might have been some colour to charge the Accusers as more zealous for their Directory than for our Saviours Deity But to impeach any of us as more concerned for the Divine Right of Bishops than for the Divine Nature of our Lord the great Bishop of our souls is a bold-fac'd calumny for which there is no pretence at all And yet he thinks he hath not said enough for he tells you further that these High Conformists or Hectors can with more patience hear a Dispute against the very being of a Deity than about the taking away of a Ceremony Which is the very highest strain of railing that the wit of a modest Presbyterian can invent But to what pitch the more impudent may reach who can tell They may say that these Conformists are perfect Atheists since they are already it seems such Fools as to bear more meekly with those who go about to Dethrone the object of all worship than with those who only pluck away a Ceremony of it Dull Asses how should their Ceremonies stand if the very sense of a Deity fall down If he can find me any such
Beasts as these I shall easily believe the worst that he or his Complices can say of them But the truth is he is only disgorging his stomach all this while and now as I said is come to the last strain which brings up the foulest stuff of all For the highest words that the highest Sons or Fathers of this Church to use his phrase have spoken concerning Ceremonies are these t Bishop Bramhall 〈◊〉 his Romphaea chap. 11. p. 234. That they are advancements of Order Decency Modesty and Gravity in the Service of God expressions of those heavenly desires and dispositions which we ought to bring along with us to Gods House adjuments of Attention and Devotion furtherances of Edification visible Instructors helps of Memory exercises of Faith the shell that preserves the kernel of Religion from contempt the leaves that defend the blossoms and the fruit But the very same person who wrote all this immediately adds that if they grow over thick and ranck they hinder the fruit from coming to maturity and then the Gardener plucks them off When Ceremonies become burdensome by excessive superfluity or unlawful Ceremonies are obtruded or the substance of Divine Worship is placed in Circumstances or the Service of God is more respected for Humane Ornaments than for the Divine Ordinance it is high time to pare away excesses and reduce things to the antient mean So our Church hath done between whom and the Roman Church there is as wide a difference in this regard as between the hearty expressions of a faithful friend and the mimical gestures of a fawning flatterer or between the unaffected comeliness of a grave Matron and the fantastical paintings and patchings and powdering of a garish Curtesan And whereas this man would have you believe that there are those who are so enamoured of these few Ceremonies that they even dote upon them nay have set their hearts upon them more than upon Almighty God himself Another great Prelate u Bishop Sandersons Preface to the first Volume of Serm. sect 12. An. 1657. hath declared That he knew no true Son of the Church of England that doteth upon any Ceremony whatsoever opinion they have of the decency or expediency of some of them Nor doth this Gentleman I have reason to believe know such an one at this day For they have been told a thousand times over as that Bishop proceeds x Ib. sect 13. in the Sermons and Writings of private men as well as in the Publick Declaration of our Church that we place no necessity at all in these things but hold them to be merely indifferent 2. That when for Decency Order or Uniformity sake any constitutions are made there is the same necessity of obeying such constitutions as of obeying other Laws made for the good of the Commonwealth concerning any other indifferent thing And 3. That this necessity whether of the one or of the other arises not properly from the Authority of the immediate Law-giver but from the Ordinance of God who hath commanded us to obey the Ordinances of men for his sake And to add no more 4. That such necessity of Obedience notwithstanding the things remain in the same indifferency as before every way as to their Nature and even in respect of us thus far That there is a liberty left for men upon extraordinary and other just occasions sometimes to do otherwise than the constitution requires when there is no scandal nor contempt in the case A liberty which we dare not either take our selves or allow to others in things properly and absolutely necessary Upon which very account I mean the consideration of the indifferency of the things in themselves and upon this alone it was that those who did most sadly resent the voting down of Liturgy Festivals and the Ceremonies of the Church did yet so far yield to the sway of the times as to forbear the use thereof in publick Worship Which is a direct answer to that which this Apologist talks of about our omission of things required by Law in the late times p. 128. And he may find more full satisfaction if he be disposed in the same Bishops seventh Sermon to the people y First Volume of Sermons in Folio page 390. where he shews that since the obligation to those doth not spring from the things themselves nor immediately and by its proper virtue from the constitution of the Magistrate but by consequence only and by virtue of that Law of God which commands to obey them thereby a liberty is left in cases extraordinary and of some pressing necessity not otherwise well to be avoided to do sometimes otherwise these two things provided First that a man be driven thereto by a true real and not by a pretended necessity only and secondly that in the manner of doing he use such Godly discretion as neither to shew the least contempt of the Law in himself nor to give ill example to others to despise Government or Governours 7. This is the sum of what our Church-men high and low as he is pleased to distinguish them have declared about Ceremonies O but saith the Apologist why then will you not consent to a change nay a laying aside all those Ceremonies since you do not make them necessary in themselves Let them be removed whether nocent or innocent as they have been out of other Reformed Churches page 18. This he is at again page 131. and propounds this as a good means to keep the people from grieving and vexing the Magistrate by the breach of his Laws Remove the Law saith he and where there is no Law there is no Transgression p. 133. very right nor is there any obedience He hath found out a rare way for the Magistrate to ease himself wholly of his Office by letting the people do as they will and govern him For when they please to scruple any other Laws he must repeal them too according to this wise advice unless he will be vexed and grieved with the clamours and disobedience of his people who will not be contented unless in effect they make Laws for themselves King James indeed in his Proclamation in the first year of his Reign March 5. admonishes all men hereafter not to expect nor attempt so much as any further change in the common and publick Form of Gods Service from that which was then established For which he there gives such substantial reasons that my Lord Bacon z Cahala page 42. makes it his request to the Duke of Buckingham to read that excellent Proclamation as he calls it And if at any time there should be the least motion made for innovation to put the King in mind to read it himself for it is most dangerous in a state to give ear to the least alteration in Government But it is all one for that no matter what the King said or any one else they have been ever since and are not merely for alterations but for abolishings
and removals or else there will be no peace I am heartily sorry for it since even those whom they call the most moderate Prelates have declared the removal of that which is well settled to be so dangerous as that it is not safe to remove an inconvenience the remedy of which may open a gap to let in others that may prove greater and more grievous Not only Bishop Sanderson a Episcopacy not prejudicial c. p 99. 100. but Bishop Hall likewise is of the mind that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a sure Rule Let the antient customs stand Every novelty carries his Petition in the face of it b Bishop Hall's Sermonâ— 2 Sundâ—â— Lent 1641 p. 80. It was a good question of the Church in the Canticles Why should I be as one that turns aside to the flocks of the Companions It is the great and glorious stile of God that in him is no shadow of changing Surely those well setled Churches and States come nearest to his perfection that alter least But if with Lipsius you say what if for the better I must answer that in every change there is a kind of hazard It is a wise word therefore of our Hooker that a tolerable Sore is better than a dangerous Remedy And if any one say these words are not to be extended to Ceremonies let him consult a Letter of his to Mr. Struthers c One of the Ministers of Edinburgh whom he desires to consider how far it is safe for a particular Church to depart from the antient Universal Surely no Kingdom can think it a slight matter what the Church diffused through all times and places hath either done or taught For Doctrines or Manners there is no question and why should it be more safe to leave it in the Holy Institutions that concern the outward form of Gods Service Novelty is a thing full of envy and suspicion and why less in matters of Rite than Doctrine True it is every Nation hath her own Rites Gestures Customs and yet there are some wherein there hath been an Universal Agreement As every face hath its own favour it s own lines distinct from all others yet is there a certain common habitude of countenance and disposition of the forehead eyes cheeks lips common to all So as they that under pretence of difference shall go about to raise an immunity from such Ceremonies do no other than argue that because there is a diversity of proportion of faces we may well want a brow or a chin He instances in the antient custom of Solemn Festivities and of kneeling at the Holy Sacrament By all which it appears that one may be against a removal of the Ceremonies and yet be no Hector no more than He or Bishop Sanderson or Mr. Hooker d See â—â—e Preface to his fifth part of Eccles Pol. were And these men I must tell you have the least reason to complain or give such Characters as this Apologist hath done of those whom they call rigid or stiff Fathers or Sons of the Church of England they are his own words p. 34. who were so unyielding themselves in every thing which they had a mind to have established Nay some of whom heretofore were so fierce for their own inventions that every nicety seemed as if it were a Fundamental and if King James may be believed e Basilicon Doron cited in second Fair Warning cap. 1. p. 8. the smallest questions about their Ecclesiastical Discipline raised as great Disputes as if the Holy Trinity were called in question It would be only to tire you and my self to proceed any further to anatomise the rest of this vile Character the stench of which is already so offensive Nor is there any need to spend any more time about it for the bare reciting of it will proclaim it to be a Libel and an infamous one too unless you can believe that the chiefest Sons of the Church as they profess themselves dissent from its Doctrine transgress its Laws about Rites and Ceremonies look upon the Archbishops Grindal Whitgift and Abbot as Puritans and would unbishop some of the present Bishops for Presbyterians Who would think that a Book fraught with such language as this should be commended for a sober modest Reply by some of chief note among them Such men would have made excellent Parasites altogether as good as that Cynaethus who when he had spent all other waies of Flattery praised his Master for his Tissick and said he cought very musically Their Favourites may say and write what they please and still maintain the Reputation of godly men nay that which in us would be thought a Crime is commended in one of themselves as I have formerly shewn you That very Person who accuses another of writing Pasquils is not afraid to call several of the Bishops as this man in effect doth some of our Priests Amaziah-like Priests Tyrants rufling ceremonious and violent Ring-leaders f Anatome of Dr. G. 1660. He declaims also against the Cathedral Service reproaches the Dignified Clergy and that after he had confessed in other parts of his Book the Act of Indemnity had enjoyned him silence g Antidote against Antisobrius Oct 30. 1660. p. 15. 22 25. That which is bred in the bore as we say will not out of the flesh This sort of men have ever been wont to revile and so they cannot forbear it even when they know they should not and that it is their interest to give good words And if you will give me leave to speak my judgment freely I think there is also in this very Writer a great deal of that Hectorly swaggering quality which he unjustly charges others withal Witness that notable Vapour and High Rant page 28. where he tells you the chief Quarrel of the high Hierarchists against the Presbyterian Ministers should in reason have been nothing but this that they who would have thought it were the first in bringing the King back Which he joyns with a new cluster of calumnies against many of the Bishops and conforming Clergy affirming page 29. that their own interest it may be suspected had a considerable influence into their Loyalty and that they seem to express more and greater zeal against the Presbyterians than against the Regicides c. Who would not think that reads this that they were the men who but they who kept life and heat in the Kings Cause and that the Episcopal men many of them were cold and indifferent or that they were the sincere the well-affected to his Majesty and the others led by their own interest to follow the Presbyterian zeal for him Nay that they were the first movers towards the Kings Return even before those that were always in motion and never ceased their restless indeavours for it O most glorious Apologist He may tell us next as the men of Judah said The King is near of kin to us for that is as true as that they
the Altar of Damascus affirms that there were either silenced or deprived upon the account of not conforming three hundred preaching Ministers Dr. Heylyn indeed informs me that it doth not appear upon the Rolls that theâ—e were above nine and forty deprived upon all occasions till the death of Archbishop Bancroft and so the whole Number of the silenced and deprived might not be so great as they pretended You must conclude one of these two things either that they loved then when occasion served to make a Mountain of a Mole-hill or now they are desirous to do the just contrary and depress their Number to little or nothing And in like manner now he tells us the people dissatisfied with the Liturgy or Ceremonies are ten if not an hundred to one to what they were formerly and yet then they talkt of many thousands z Humble Supplication p. 36. of the most loyal and best affected Subjects that joyned with them in their Affection to the desired Reformation That is they talk boldly and at random out of their own imaginations as if they wrote to simple Ideots that believe every word without chewing Otherwise this Apologist would not have told us that Mr. Hildersham was silenced but in some Dioceses c. p. 7. whereas Mr. Clark tells us expresly that he was not onely silenced but deprived for refusing of Subscription 1605. and was not allowed to preach till 1608. and within less then a year silenced again and continued so a long time Nay was judicially admonished in the High Commission 22 April 1613 and enjoyned that saving the Catechising of his own family he should not at any time hereafter preach catechise or use any part of the Office or Function of a Minister either privately or publikely until he was restored c. And that it was not till 1625 that he was licensed to preach in some Dioceses How it was with others I have not had occasion to observe and now have not leisure to examine but have cause from this to suspect that he doth not report these matters clearly and with sincerity And indeed overweening of mens selves is apt to blinde them and make them imagine any thing will pass for truth and for sound reason which comes out of their mouthes One would wonder what he thinks our brains are made of who puts us off with such slender stuff as this for an excuse of their holding Meetings separate from us It is no schism nor a breach of the unity of the Church because they take occasion to meet for a time onely till a door be opened for them in the Church by the removal of some supposed or real corruption in the publike Worship As if there were no breach in a garment when it is rent because it may be sowed together again But yet this the Apologist thinks makes the Separation of the Non conformists from the Church of England not total and perpetual p. 11. which he repeats again p. 128. and calls it a temporary and partial withdrawing A very sorry employment this is for a Divine as I take him to be to spend his time in sowing a few fig-leaves together to cover the shame of a sinful disobedience to their Governours and the great breach they have made in the unity of the Church For it may be demonstrated from his own words that this is a meer shift and frivolous excuse He confesses a Separation onely he addes that it is but temporary The cause of this temporary Separation is a supposed or real corruption in the publike Worship I ask now Is this corruption such whether real or supposed that it is a just cause for a Separation If it be not they ought not to withdraw themselves for a time If it be they may withdraw themselves from us alway And so they will according to these Principles for if this corruption be not removed they must alway continue separated or else it is no sufficient reason for separating now Do what they can they are not like the old Nonconformists for they did not withdraw themselves into separate bodies no not for a time If they had upon his Principles they must have died Separatists there being no removal of what they wished taken out of the way as these men are like to do unless they repent and alter their practices in stead of desiring an alteration in the Publick Worship Besides he is very ignorant of the state of our affairs who doth not know it hath been the manner of this Sect to proceed from evil to worse since the very beginning of it which makes me think it past doubt that they will settle in a down-right Separation At the first they onely disliked some Ceremonies See the Visitation speech at Lisnegarvy p. 5. and could pretty well digest conformity in the rest In a little time they manifested a dislike of Episcopal Government being better affected to the device of Mr. Calvin and together with that they distasted also our Common prayer From a dislike Some proceeded to think them unlawful and then fell into a contempt of Bishops and the Prayers bitterly rayling against them From hence they advanced to open disobedience to all the Orders of the Church and at last renounced it and rent themselves from it esteeming themselves the onely Brethren and Congregation of the Faithful Some there were indeed that did not go thus far and being silenced or deprived for not conforming to the Ceremonies would not separate from the Church nor refused to joyn with our Assemblies This Apologist would have us think that he and his Brethren are the followers of those and yet confesses they are gone a large step beyond them having separated for a time And the same reason which hath carried them thus far will advance them further and make that time so long that it will prove alway They will teach next that Gods people must be Separatists a Protestation protested 1641. In order to which we must be that part of the kingdom which is the world and not the Church of Christ b Groans for Liberty 1646 And still they will have a further journey to go and never rest till they be uppermost and have set Jesus Christ that is themselves upon his throne What ground any man can have to hope any better I cannot imagine they being so bent to defend their present unwarrantable practices that they will flie to any refuge though never so dangerous nay take sanctuary in shadows and think they are safe rather then yield the cause An instance of which you have in this Writer who immediately after that which was now noted alledges the words of a Romish Doctor mentioned by Bishop Bramhal to excuse them from Schism p. 12. But let any man consult the place and he will finde presently they are nothing to the business For the Bishop is there speaking c Vindic. of the Church of Engl. p. 7. onely concerning clashings between Bishops and
Churches long and resolutely maintained which he shows may be so managed as not to be Schism But he expresly determines a little after p. 23. that it is schism to separate from other Christians without sufficient ground in the participation of the same Sacraments or in the use of the same Divine Offices and Liturgies of the Church and publike Worship and Service of Almighty God or of the same common Rites Ceremonies c. The very same he declares elsewhere that they who break the unity of the Church for difference in in different rites are guilty of Schism d Replic to Bishop of Chalcedon p. 79 80. and that most of the Schisms in the Church of Christ have been about the Canons of the Church and not the substantials of Religion Among other instances he mentions the Schisms raised in our Church about a Surpless signe of the Cross c. If therefore this Apologist would have done like a man he should have shewn that we obtrude sinful Rites as a condition of Communion with us and so by this Bishops confession are guilty of making the Schism our selves And he should in order to this have clearly answered all that hath been said in defence of our Church and especially the Arguments of their Fore-fathers the old Nonconformists who proved against the Brownists that there was no such corruption in our Church as was a sufficient ground of separation from it Here was the very point if he durst have toucht it or come near it Which since he hath not done but spent his time in impertinent things I must leave him to the favourable censure of S. Austin mentioned somewhere by the same Bishop in another case They cannot do better in a bad cause but who constrained them to have a bad cause This was it which made him turn his back so often upon the Question and to make a Book which one cannot resemble more fitly then to a Winter-torrent which abounds with water when there is no need of it but in Summer when it should be useful it is dryed up They are the words of the fore-mentioned Bishop which I thought good to use since he doth so even when he doth not name him Such is this Apologie full of proofs where there is no controversie between us and where the water sticks indeed he is as mute as a fish There is no question for instance but we may use the words of Scripture by way of accommodation no body denies it and that which he cites to this purpose out of one of our Bishops I observed long before he told me of it p. 54 87. But then we ought to say that we use them so and not talk as if that were the genuine sense of the Divine Writ never acquainting the people with any other And you ought not to pretend to more then other men who can do this as well as your selves unless you had the very same spirit and power which the Apostles had Nor is it the Question whether mens affections are raised with Novelty and Variety p. 59. but whether those be the best affections which are raised by that means or those which are raised by serious consideration and laying to heart of the same things in the same words All that he alledges out of Mr. Hollingworth p. 56. is to no purpose for I have proved that the Non conformists pretend to more even the very same that Mr. Baily did in his Answer e Review chap. 12. p. 75. to Bishop Bramhal's Fair warning who would have the people endeavour to attain a readiness to pray in their family out of their own heart in the words which Gods Spirit dytes to them But as that Bishop said elsewhere this man doth not seek the Question in earnest but as he who sought for the Hare under the Leads because he must seek her as well where she was not as where she was Else he would not have askt the Question Whether Non conformist Ministers seek after Visions and Revelations p. 68. That is not the point but whether Mr. W. B. have not taught the people to do so He might have added if he had pleased Whether they have not pretended to them And an History in one of our Chronicles would have taught him to answer affirmatively For there was a Physician in Oxford one Rich Haidock of New-Colledg who pretended to preach in his sleep in such sort that though he was call'd upon a loud or stirr'd or pull'd by hands or feet he would make no shew of hearing or feeling His fame was spread abroad by the name of the sleeping Preacher so that he was brought to Court and one night his Majestie f See Sir Ri Baker in the 3d year of K. James being present to attend the event the Gentleman began to pray and then took a Text made his Division applyed it to his purpose which was to inveigh against the Pope the Cross in Baptism and the Canons then newly made And yet all this was a meer cheat as he confessed afterward to the King who pardoned him on condition that he should openly in all places acknowledge his offence because many saith the Historian were brought to believe that his nightly preaching was either by inspiration or by vision This may serve to requite his impertinent tale for which there was no occasion about a Ministers praying that they might have godly dreams Again they are not accused for being time-servers now as he supposes p. 89. but heretofore And in this that excellent person Bishop Sanderson with whom he may engage if he please now he is dead will bear me out that it is no false accusation I will recite his words and briefly prove the truth of them where it is needful Before the beginning of the Long Parliament and the unhappy divisions which followed thereupon there were few saith he either of the Ministers that scrupled to use the Cross or of the people that took offence at it g Preface to Clavi Trabales Aug. 10. 1661. Which words as to the Ministers on whom the people depended may be justified from the Registers of Subscription in which we finde the most eminent men of your way subscribed libenter ex animo freely heartily to the three Articles mentioned in the 36 Canon Among the rest Mr. Calamy whom our Apologist mentions with the titles of Discreet honest pious Mr. Calamy p. 92. Nov. 9. 1637. and Mr. Jenkyn Jan. 2. 1640. And if you look as far back as 1627 you will finde Mr. Hugh Peters himself subscribing to the very height As for the Archbishops Bishops he saith I acknowledg their Offices and Jurisdictions and cannot see but there would a fearful Ataxy follow without the present Government whereof I so approve that I have and willingly do submit to it and them and have and will press the same upon others h Subscription before the Bishop of London Aug. 17. the original wherof found
he expresly determines point-blank against this mans decision of his Case For this is his Maxime Rule 7. That a Law should oblige the Conscience does not depend upon the acceptation of the Law by the people Which supposing that which hath been already said is a certain Rule he tells you and there is no doubt in it Of this minde were the first Christians as I shall not now stand to show you and our first Reformers of Christianity in this Kingdom Who I must let you know used no such distinctions as these men do now but said expresly the same that I do That we must submit to all manner of Ordinaunces of men for the Lords sake so long as they ordeyne nothing contrary to the express Woord of God And be that resysteth shall receyve to hymself dampnation for as moche as he resysteth the Ordinaunce of God They are the words of a Book called the Destruction of small Vices written in Edward the Sixth's days as far as I can guess Tyndal also taught the people thus x Obedience of a Christian man fol. 26 Whosoever keeps the Law of the Prince whether it be for fear or vain-glory or profit though no man reward him God will bless him abundantly and send him worldly prosperity as thou readest Deut. 28. what good blessings accompanied the keeping of the Law and as we see the Turks far exceed us Christian men in worldly prosperity for their just keeping of their temporal Laws And in another nameless Book called the sum of the Holy Scripture y Printed by John Day with priviledge 1547. chap. 26. I find this Declaration That the very Christen yeldeth hymself willingly under the Governaunce of the Swerd and Temporal Justice he payeth tailles he honoureth the Puissaunce and worldly highness he serveth he healpeth he doth all that ever he may do to thintent that the same Puissaunce may prosper and be kepte in honour and feared albeit that the same Puissaunce to him is neither nedeful nor profitable And if he should not do so be were no Christen but should sin against the Rule of Charity For he should give evil ensample to other that they should not honour the Temporal Puissaunce but despise it And this despising of the Temporal Puissaunce bringeth dissention and mark this maketh sensual persons profitable unto nothing It would be too tedious to add the words of other good men and therefore I shall onely desire you to ponder the counsel and direction of the famous Amyraldus late Professor at Saumur For you are much concerned in it being given with a particular respect to our affairs in an address to our present Soveraign z Paraphr in Psalm Epist Dedic 1662. pag. 1. There are three things saith he by which the course of our life is governed and as we may say steered in this Sea of worldly affairs By the Law of Nature by the Laws of our Country and by the Study of propagating Religion To this last we should yeild all if the other two do not openly gain-say it Where either the Law of Nature or the Political Laws do command any thing which is inconsistent with our Study of promoting Religion we must diligently consider what God commands us in that matter that so we may exactly distinguish between his Will and our own between what he requires and what we are moved unto onely by our own zeal What God commands is to be done though our Parents or Magistrates command the contrary But whatsoever is commanded by them which is not contrary to the express Precepts of Religion a Disertis Religionis praceptis non adversum that we are to look upon as commanded and given us in charge by God himself because God is the Author of their Power as he is the Author of Nature whose Commands and not our own voluntary Zeal we are to make the Rule of our life And therefore we are not here to have more regard either to the danger which we may fancy the Church is in or to the hope which we have conceived to our selves of advancing the Glory of God then to that Will of the most high God which is manifested to us either in Nature or in Civil Laws For God hath affection enough to his own Glory and kindness enough to his Church and Power and Wisdom sufficient notwithstanding all the dangers that I see to advance his Kingdom and support his Church although I contain my self within the bounds and limits which Nature and Civil Government prescribes This is the resolution of that excellent person by whose Principles I wish heartily you would all govern your selves otherwise the most glorious profession that you can make will not perswade us you have the same spirit of Christian Piety You have read perhaps or heard how the Devil one day appeared to St. Martin as he was at prayer all glittering and shining in a most Majestick state telling him that he was Christ who being shortly to come down upon Earth gave him a visit first This he repeated again saith the story Sulpitius Severus in vita ejus cap. 25. and bid him not be faithless but believe So I will replyed the good man but not till I see him in that habit and form wherein he suffered bearing the Marks of his Cross The Application is easie and in short but this If you would be acknowledged for the faithful Disciple of the Lord Jesus let us see you in that garb wherein they alway appeared taking up the Cross patiently humbly and lowly meek and gentle quiet and peaceable submissive to Government and obedient to Laws Till then we suspend our belief Farewel FINIS Books printed for Henry Eversden under the Crown-Tavern in West-Smithfield THe Divine History of the Genesis of the World explicated and illustrated or a Philosophical Comment on the first Chapter of Genesis and tryal of Philosophy both Ancient and Modern by that most infallible Rule Anonymus in quarto 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or a Being filled with the Spirit As also the Divinity or God-head of the Holy Ghost asserted and the Arguments brought against it throughly examined and answered c. By John Goodwin late of Coleman-street London quarto 3. Theodulia Or a Just defence of Hearing the Sermons and other teaching of the present Ministers of England By John Tombes B.D. 4. A serious examination of the Independants Catechism and therein of the chief Principles of Nonconformity to and separation from the Church of England in two Parts To which is added an Appendix of the Authority of Kings and obedience of Subjects By Benj. Camfield Rector of Whitwell in Derbyshire 5. The Pen's Dexterity Compleated Or Mr. Rich's Short-hand perfectly taught which in his life-life-time was never done by any thing in Print Allowed by both Universities Oxford and Cambridge FINIS
same Office to continue in them and their Successors to the end of the World But suppose all our Church-men had been silent or that they are of no esteem with our Adversaries yet since this Opinion of the Divine Right of Episcopacy hath been asserted by other Divines whom they respect it ought not to have been reproached Bucer declares in his Book of the Kingdom of Christ as I find him cited above 60 years ago y Regiment of the Church by Mr. Tho. Bell chap. 9. just as our Book of Consecration doth that it seemed good to the Holy Ghost that one to whom the name of Bishop was peculiarly attributed should take the care of the Churches and preside over all the Presbyters And nearer still to the very words of our Book in his Treatise of the power and use of the Ministry as he is alledged by Saravia These Orders of Ministers have been perpetual in the Church and were presently in the beginning appointed by the Holy Ghost of Bishops Priests and Deacons He that will see more to this purpose may read Bishop Mortons Episcopacy Asserted Chap. 5. Sect. 4. Nay this is the Language of Antiquity and they may as well call St. Gregory of Nazianzum a Hector as any of us For he sticks not to tell his Auditors in plain words that he held his Office by the Law of Christ You may find the passage in his seventeenth Oration z page 271. where after he had exhorted all the People to obedience he turns his speech more particularly to the Rulers and Magistrates asking them if they will give him leave to speak freely As truly saith he I think I may since the Law of Christ hath made you subject to my Power and to my Tribunal 3. This you may think is very high but I must let you know they who seem to lay their claim lower and speak in a more humble stile as some love to call it differ but in a verbal nicety in the different manner of expressing the same thing rather than in their different judgment upon the substance of the matter So that excellent Bishop lately mentioned Dr. Sanderson hath clearly resolved a Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal Power p. 12 13. For sometimes this term Divine Right imports a Divine Precept which is the first and most proper signification when it appeareth by some clear express and peremptory Command of God in his Word to be the Will of God that the thing so commanded should be perpetually and universally observed And that the Government of the Church by Bishops is of Divine Right in this stricter sense is an Opinion saith he at least of great probability and such as may more easily and on better grounds be defended than confuted But they that chuse to speak otherwise understand by Divine Right an Authority for a thing from the Institution Example or Approbation either of Christ or of his Apostles c. which is a secondary meaning of the term but not much distant from the former For the Observation of the Lords Day depends on this Divine Right and there is as much to shew as he saith p. 19. if not more for such a Divine Right of Episcopacy as for the Divine Right of that day So that whosoever they be that either wave the term Divine Right or else so expound it as not of necessity to import any more than an Apostolical Institution Yet the Apostles Authority b Ib. page 39 40. in the Institution of Episcopacy being warranted by the Example and as they doubt not by the direction of their Master Jesus Christ they worthily esteem to be so reverend and obligatory as that they would not for a world have any hand in or willingly and deliberately contribute the least assistance towards the extirpation of that Government but rather hold themselves obliged in their Consciences to the utmost of their power to endeavour the preservation and continuance of it in these Churches and do heartily wish the restitution and establishment of the same wheresoever it is not c Now that Episcopacy is of such institution and so of Divine Right he further adds c v. Ib. p. 18. is in truth a part of the established Doctrine of the Church of England and hath been constantly and uniformly maintain'd by our best Writers mark these words and by all the Sober Orderly and Orthodox Sons of the Church This is sufficient to shew that there ought to be no such distinction made as we find in this man between high and low Conformists since all have spoken to the same effect and yet were no Swashbucklers but in this great persons opinion the Sober Orderly and Orthodox Sons of the Church 4. But let us suppose there is some difference yet they that have spoken the highest words of Episcopacy never thought Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius nor had more Charity for those that deny our Saviour's Deity than for those that scruple the strict Jus Divinum of Episcopacy No this is a suggestion from the Father of lyes the Calumniator of the Brethren and seem to me to be the words of one whose tongue is set on fire of Hell For though our best Divines have called it the Heresie of Arius d Doctor Crackenthorp Defens Eccl. Anglicanae p. 241 242 to affirm that there ought to be no imparity in the Church or distinction between Bishops and Presbyters and determined that this imparity was instituted and approved by the Apostles yet they have declared withal that they who think as Aerius did are so far from being in a worse case than Arius was that they are not in so bad Let but obstinacy and perverseness be wanting it will be no Heresie and if it be Heresie being about a point of Discipline it will not be among those which St. Peter calls damnable Heresies e Bishop Andrews 3. Letter p. 56 57. These are the words of one who was as vehement an Assertor of the Divine Right of Episcopacy as any hath been and there are none among us but will subscribe to them who is so far you see from making Aerius a greater Heretick than Arius that his words plainly make him less 5. But these perhaps are such Hectorly Divines you may think that they mind not what they say so belike if it be true which he says just before that they prefer Arminius before St. Austin A very strange humour that these high Episcopal men should set a Presbyterian Divine above a great Bishop But suppose upon other scores they should be so phantastical yet this part of his accusation will contradict the calumny next before it namely that they prefer the Romish Church before the Reformed Transmarine Churches How can that be when the Arminians are among those Reformed Churches for whom it seems they have such a great affection and when the Pope himself as every one knows that understands these matters is against the Divine Right of Bishops nay