Keys delivered unto them and thereby were invested in their Persons with the Ministerial Authority yet upon the same terms it must be farther proved That it was Christ's Intention that the same power should continue in their Successors or it makes no more to the purpose for a settled Ministery than it does for a fixed Episcopacy and this same Argument which overthrows a Superiority of Church-men over one another for want of an Express of Christs intention to continue it always overthrows also the Ministry it self both having the same bottom and alike promises This the Independant and Socinian saw and consider'd full well and upon your own grounds reject them both together with the two Sacraments because there are no express Texts declaring their Perpetuity But this is agreeable enough with the Rector of Sutton who as he makes all Gospel-Laws for Church-Government an Escheat to Westminster-Hall so is he to be supposed to receive none as perpetually obliging except those that are made and conveyed in the Hall-Phrase and by its Precedents with an express Declaration Entailing them upon the Heirs and Successors for ever But because Apostolical practice still presses you hard whose force apart from the Act and Donation of our Saviour seems to infer a divine Right the matter of Fact being apparent and beyond contradiction That the Apostles were invested with a Superiority beyond Bishops and Presbyters and did accordingly execute it Hereupon with a deep design but very Superficial Policy that is easily seen through and baffled you place their juridical consistorial Acts and Practices amongst those other Acts and Practices of theirs that were purely occasional and with regard to the present times and circumstances such as abstaining from Blood and things strangled eating or not eating the order of Widows the Love-Kiss Celibacy St. Paul's working with his own Hands Preaching the Gospel freely Circumcising Timothy c. all which are confessedly mutable and did alter in a very little time both in their Practice and Obligation But your Error is not only in ranging these quite different Practices under the same head and order whose distant natures are so plain and obvious but in that you do not consider that the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism will for the same reason come under that head of Indifferencies and Practices mutable and therein besides the ill consequences in Religion you plainly contradict your self who tell us at the same time and in the same Section and in doing of it dart your self through with your own Weapon That tho' there be no particular express Revelation for the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism yet Practice Apostolical or of Persons guided by an Infallible Spirit is sufficient to enact and declare them perpetually obliging For surely Apostolical practice guided by an infallible Spirit is equally manifest son a Superiority in the Ministry as for those two It is far more notorious and frequent but your Plot that was laid against the Immutability of Episcopacy engaged you to take no notice of it vid. Part I. Sect. 3. Part. II. § 20. Farther yet That you may be every ways secure in your design and wholly baffle and defeat all Plea for a divine and immutable Right from Apostolical Practice in the point of Episcopacy you go on in a sure way treading Antiquity under your Foot and impleading the most holy Primitive Bishops and Confessors of Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy that hereby you may root out their Order and destroy it from the Face of the Earth and you say in so many words That we cannot have that certainty of Apostolical Practice as to constitute a Divine Right It is not my business to argue points but to collect your particular Opinions or rather to write the History of your Theology otherwise I might here reply by demanding How and by what hands it is that we have any certainty of the Apostolical Writings or know their minds and intentions there The Church hath all along received the Canon and Sense of the Scriptures from the Faith and certainty of Antiquity and the repute and integrity of these holy Bishops Martyrs and Confessors Our Church of England certainly does so and they are her Rule in Reforming as to both and when the Authority of some Books of the New Testament were called in question the Tradition of Faith alone declared them Canonical and they remain such upon that Testimony in the account of the whole Christian World to this day And why then is the same evidence defective and less authoritative concerning their practice and sense in the point of Government But thus you expose the Scriptures their Authority their Sense to every Atheist and Enthusiust to uncertainties and conjectures or at the best to the intemperance of each violent heady and sceptical undertaker And thus it comes to pass that so much work is made for a Nicephorus Calisthus a Simeon Metaphrastes the very Jacobus de Voragine of the Greek Church those Tinkers that think to mend a hole and make three instead of it you taking away hereby the great evidence and muniments of our Christianity both as to the matter of Fact and the intent of it that which is next to the Foundation is cast down and what can the Righteous do Hence so many Whimsies and Forgeries of Mens Brains and monstrous Opinions fill up our Bodies of Divinity and your many forms of Government as by Divine Right are no less portentous than any of them as Geographers do Maps with some fabulous Creatures of their own Inventions Our Church of England I say in her Reformation supposes certainty and sufficiency in the Records of the Primitive Church and that matter of Fact is faithfully transmitted down unto us with the true sense of the Scriptures and Apostolical Practice both in matter of Doctrine and Government and her Reformation is receiv'd by the Civil Power and made Law in the Kingdom upon these terms alone viz. As bottom'd on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and what the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have thence collected particularly in the Four first General Councils or any other Council X. Elizabethae Cap. I. Sect. xxxvi And yet upon a Scandalous Interpretation of Eusebius Hist Eccles Lib. 3. Cap. 4. perverting his Sense quite contrary to his plain words and design which is to set forth the Succession of Bishops immediately from the Apostles over the known Parts of Christendom you blast the credit of all Antiquity and that with as much show of rancor and contempt as the scornfullest manner of expressing your self can declare What becomes then with our Rector of Sutton of our unquestionable Line of Succession of Bishops of several Churches and the large Diagram made of Apostolical Churches with every ones name set down in his order as if the Writer had been Clarenceaux to the Apostles themselves Is it come to this at last that we have nothing certain but what we have in the Scriptures And must then
particulars As That the Church hath no declarative Power in matters of Faith or supposing any Article obscure to us or inverted and involved by Hereticks so that the matter of it hath not been explicitly acknowledged in all Ages of the Church anteceeding when the present Church gives the true meaning of it according to the tradition of Faith evidencing thereby the Sense of the Article or which is the same the sense of Scripture on which the Article is founded and engages the assent of all Christians thereunto That hereby she creates a new Article of Faith pag. 75 945. as if there were no mean betwixt the Power of the single Church of Rome who resolves all her actings into her own immediate Authority and the true Power of the Catholick Church of God which determines antecedent truths that were tho' less known or misinterpreted from the beginning and when the reason of her decree is not from her own Authority but the Tradition of Faith delivering the sense of the Holy Ghost down unto us That the Church representing and the Church diffusive are all one nothing can make the Church teaching and representative but the belief of what is necessary to Salvation Pag. 86 87. I thought a distant Power by Ordination had constituted the Pastors of the Church You go on at the same confused rate Pag. 251 252. I 'll only write out your words at large and let the Reader judge of them That which being supposed a Church is and being distroyed it ceaseth to be is the formal constitution of it but thus it is as to the Church The belief of Fundamentals makes it a Church and the not believing them makes it cease to be a Christian Church I speak of an essential not an organical Church And I know not who those persons are who out of those places Luk. 10.16 Matth. 28.19 20. Joh. 14.16 do infer the perpetuity of an organical Church nor if they did doth it thence follow they must suppose an infallible assistance beyond an essential 't is strange that nothing should be found betwixt these two in your own sense of them to constitute Pastors of Christ's own sending to make it an organical Church for I cannot imagine what necessity can be supposed of infallibility in order to that which may be sufficiently constituted without it The perpetuity of the Church doth rather argue the infallibility of the promise than of the Church Supposing then that the promises by you insisted on should be so far extended as to imply a perpetuity of a Christian Church what doth that argue but only this that to make it appear that promise is infallibly true there shall always be a Succession of Christians in the World Suppose I grant that the being of a Christian Church doth suppose the assistance of God's Spirit is there no assistance but what is infallible If not no one can be a Christian without infallibility for we speak of no other assistance but what is necessary to make Men Christians for what makes them such severally take them conjunctly makes them a Church But if you besides what assistance is requisite to make Men Christians do suppose somewhat more to make them a Church I pray name what it is And whatever it be it will not be own'd by such who infer a Perpetuity But if in order to that no more be meant as no more can be meant than what is necessary to make Men Christians then infallibility will grow so cheap and common I add and Church-Power and Offices together with it it will not be worth challenging by you for your Church neither will a Ministry be worth challenging by us either But this is agreeable enough with the Title you still give the Archbishop in this Treatise and as if he had no other Prelation but what is derived from his Majesty and is purely Secular you call him his Lordship only I much question Whether it might not have discomposed the Calm that most exemplary Prelate died in upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill if he could then have been aware that he should have had such a Vindicator I cannot here but repeat it again tho' it be so very Offensive How gladly I should see the Church of Rome opposed and our common Christianity not struck at with the same blow and hand Surely the due Power of God's Church might have been vindicated and Rome's Usurpations rejected without this intermingling all as one both Priest and People as you have done here most Scandalously And at the same rate you dispute also against the Monarchical Government of the Church and an infallible judge Pag. 464. because Christ no where that we read of took care that we should be freed from all kind of Controversies and we no where find such a State of Christian Church described or promised where Men shall be of one mind only that peace and brotherly love continue is all that Christians are bound to and that every Man have the same Vnderstanding Which Arguments conclude as forcibly against any other Government even that of our Saviour himself and his Apostles were they upon Earth again and in the same circumstances as when here before Nay you have used these very Arguments against all manner of Government in your Irenicum And farther Pag. 172. you infer Because it is not in the Power of the Church of Rome judicially and authoritatively to determine what Books belong to the Canon of Scripture and what not Therefore the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And thereby take away all judicial Power from the Church to oblige her Members or Subjects by for their assent and submission to her Acts and Decrees upon a due search of matter of Fact and full evidence of the Truth and Certainty of those Articles Rules and Canons enjoin'd and commanded And thus you particularly affront the Practice of our own Church she having made it Law that only such a certain number of Books of the Old and New Testament be accounted and received as Canonical and withal requiring Subscription thereunto as a judge upon a Bench to be sure by all that are admitted by her into holy Orders And as you have before concluded That whatever Power can be supposed by Christ to be promised and derived to his Church from Matt. 28.19 20. c. is that which each private Christian partakes of So again Pag. 516. you say That whatever Power can be supposed in a General Council must be first in the Church diffusive and from thence be derived to the Council Which in effect is thus That the Bishops of Christendom who by right are only to sit in Council and such Presbyters as have sat and acted there did it only as their Substitutes and by virtue of their deputation receive their Power either from the Presbyters and Deacons or which is worse from the Laity
utique morientis jam sectae gemitum quo commiserationem movent imprudentibus tam patienter audiri Itane vero nec detegendi nec damnandi sunt Novatorum errores ne scilicet Pharisaicum arripiant scandalum Haeretici dicantque imperiti Ecclesiam ob haereseôn censuram esse dividendam Ad quid ergo supra muros Jerusalem posuit Dominus custodes qui tota die nocte non tacebunt ad quid sunt Episcopi Pastores nisi ut Haeresi obstent ac invigilent gregi rationem pro animabus sibi commissis reddituri si oportet haereses esse oportet ut haeresum oppugnatores in Ecclesia non taceant Fas ne erit Thomae Albio Joanni Sargentio fidei Christianae fundamenta convellere non licebit Georgio Leyburno Archiepiscopo Dubliniensi hos scriptores illorum fautores redarguere ac monere fideles ut sibi caveant à lupis ovina pelle contectis Diuturna Schismata in Haeresin tandem converti testatur maximus Ecclesiae Doctor Hieronymus at nemo qui Orthodoxus est dixerit per haeresum detectionem ac damnationem nem gigni Schismata Fidei Catholicae unitas corporisque Ecclesiae compago integritas non in eo consistit ut nullus à fide cadat nullus Haeresin doceat sed in eo maximè ut casus non dissimuletur aut pravum dogma cum sana Doctrina non confundatur rescindi oportet membrum putridum priusquam corpus corrumpatur exeat igitur expellaturque à nobis innovator etsi olim noster fuerit Scio charitati Christianae maximè consentaneum esse ut infirmos in fide foveamus sed charitati Christianae minimè contrarium est imo valde conforme ut alienos à fide calamo censuris feriamus Eoque vel baculo pastorali insigniti sunt Episcopi Apostolorum Successores Dum baculo calamo utitur Ecclesia contra haereticos sana una est fides nec tam delicatae sunt oportet fidelium aures ut disputantium sono ac strepitu contra ingruentes haereses offendantur in castris sumus in castris inquam Ecclesiae militantis merito irridetur is miles qui armorum strepitum non ferens praeliorum id genus adhortamenta reformidat I much lament this only refuge of the Blackloists as the last groan of a dying sect thereby to move pity from imprudent People is heard so patiently Is it so then are the errors of the Novellists to be neither detected nor condemned lest that Hereticks may take a Pharisaical Scandal and those that are unskilful say The Church will be divided by reason of the censure of Heresies To what purpose then hath the Lord placed Watch-men upon the Walls of Jerusalem that shall not hold their peace day nor night For what use are the Bishops and Pastors unless to withstand Heresie and watch over the Flock as those that are to give an account of the Souls committed to them If there must be Heresies it is fit that the oppugners of Heresies in the Church do not hold their Tongues Shall it be lawful for Thomas White and John Sargent to pull in pieces the Foundations of the Christian Faith and shall it not be lawful for George Leyburn and the Arch-Bishop of Dublin to reprove these Writers and their Abetters and to warn believers that they take heed to themselves by reason of Wolves in Sheeps clothing That eminent Doctor of the Church Jerome doth witness that daily Schisms at length turn into Heresie But none that is Orthodox hath said that Schisms are produced by the detection and condemnation of Heresies The unity of the Catholick Faith and close joyning together of the Body of the Church and its integrity doth not consist in this That none fall from the Faith or none teach Heresie but herein especially That the Fall be not dissembled or that their corrupted Doctrine be not confounded with the sound a rotten Member ought to be cut off rather than the Body be destroyed let then the Innovator go out and be expelled from us though heretofore he was ours I know it is mostly agreeing with the Christian Faith that we nourish the weak in the Faith but it is no ways contrary to Christian Charity but every ways conforming that we strike with the Pen and Censures such as are Strangers to the Faith. And therefore the Bishops and Successors of the Apostles have also a Pastoral Staff committed unto them When the Church uses the Staff and the Pen against Hereticks the Faith is one and sound neither ought the Ears of the Faithful to be so delicate as to be offended with the sound and noise of those that dispute against Heresies coming in upon us we are in the Tents of the Church militant and that Souldier is deservedly laught at who not enduring the noise of Armes fears the provocations of Battels of that nature But why should I wonder at your dealings with me since you are so bold with the best of Kings and Men I mean Charles the First and the Martyr whom you hale in as a Party to that most false Assertion which he always opposed viz. That the Form of Church-Government is mutable Or that there is no certain Form of Government prescribed in the Word It is the least that he meant by those Words that you take the confidence to produce or that any Man can interpret him to have meant by them and this will appear all along in his several Writings and Declarations of his Judgment in the point I will at present for evidence of it confine my self to his Majesty's final answer concerning Episcopacy deliverd in to the Commissioners of Parliament the first of Novemb. 1648. where he contends for the Immutability of the two Orders of Bishops and Presbyters to whom he assigns distinct appropriated incommunicable Offices and Acts and bottoms it first upon the Scriptures and then upon this very Apostolical primitive Practice which you say he recommended only as a decent rule to your Arbitrary Modellers of Church-Government to be followed by them as they shall be pleased resolving in his own practice never to vary from it Or in the true application of your Words Whose sufferings could never make him warp from what his judgment directed And the injury you have done to his Sacred Memory and Reputation as also to the Church of England will be farther notorious to him that consults the Twelfth and last Chapter of his Royal answer where he tells the Commissioners That until one of these three things can be clearly evidenced unto him viz. Either that there is no certain Form of Church-Government prescribed in the Word or If there be that the Civil Power may change the same as they see cause or If it be unchangeable that it was not Episcopal but some other he thinks himself excusable in the judgment of all reasonable Men if he cannot as yet be induced to the utter abolishment of that Government in the
and finished my first part Secondly I shall make it appear that the account you give of your Irenicum is not fair nor true and that you conceal your crime as much as in you lies in the representation the Design and Plot of it being mostly laid if not altogether against the Church of England And this I undertake to make good in these following Particulars 1. The main subject of your present debate you say is this Whether any one particular Form of Church-Government be setled upon an unalterable divine Right by Virtue whereof all Churches are bound to observe that individual Form or Whether it be left to the prudence of every particular Church to agree upon that Form of Government which it judgeth most conduceable within it self to attain the end of Government the Peace Order Tranquillity Setlement of the Church as is to be seen in the latter end of your Preface and Part 1. c. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 4. The first you determine in the Negative the second in the Affirmative the issue of both is this That God by his own Laws hath given Men a Power and Liberty to determine the particular Form of Church-Government among them you had done well if you had produced this Law of God and what the express words of it are none other being sufficient for a lasting divine institution by your own Rules but this is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That tho' one Form of Government be agreeable to the word it doth not follow that another is not or because one is lawful another is unlawful but one Form may be more agreeable to some parts places people and time than others are That the case is the same as to Church Government whether by many joyn'd together in an equality or by subordination of some persons unto others as it is to dipping or sprinkling in Baptism whether thrice or once As to attending the Lords Table whether at Supper time or in the Morning fasting or after meat You add whether kneeling or sitting or leaning and as to preaching the word you mean doubtless Whether by an Hour-glass or not Vid. Part I. Cap. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 3. § 2. p. 9 10. Part. II. Cap. 4. § 2. c. And hence it is as plain and obvious as words and consequences can make it That by the Law of God enstating Mankind with this perpetual indefectible Power the Independant Congregational Form of Government is equally to be received as the Presbyterian and Classical and either of them as the Episcopal and the Papal hath as firm a bottom as any of them all any one of them ought to be called and really is the Church of England and of God within this Dominion if the Pastors or the Magistrate or when these are knockt o' th' head the People or any one prevailing interest or faction shall appoint and setle it among us So that now you are for a Toleration of several Forms of Government by the Authority of the Church of England And it is plain whence our Sects had it when with so much confidence they said upon each occasion having obtained an indulgence from his late Majesty That they were the Church of England they meant according to Dr. Stilling fleet 's Irenicum And indeed according to this Principle of yours Richard Baxter's Conventicle in St. Martin's Parish in the Fields was once as much of the Church of England as Dr. Stilling fleet 's Church in St. Andrew's Holborn Neither is this the only Case that they use your Authority in thereby to rend in pieces this Church and I did not speak improperly nor without reason when I called that Treatise an unlucky Book This issue is plainly and clearly set down by Mr. Hobbs in his Leviathan Part III. Cap. 42. pag. 299 300. and upon your very Principles to whom you had an Ear no doubt From this consolidation of the Rights Politick and Ecclesiastick in Christian Sovereigns it is evident they have all manner of Power over their Subjects that can be given to Man for the Government of Mens external Actions both in Policy and Religion and may make such Laws as themselves shall judge fittest for the Government of their own Subjects both as they are the Common-Wealth and as they are the Church For both Church and State are the same Men which is your very notion as will appear anon If they please therefore they may as many Christian Kings now do commit the Government of their Subjects in matters of Religion to the Pope but then the Pope is in that point subordinate to them and exercises that charge in anothers Dominion jure civili in the right of the civil Sovereign not jure divino in God's right and may therefore be discharged of that office when the Sovereign for the good of his Subjects shall think it necessary They may also if they please commit the care of Religion to one supreme Pastor or to an Assembly of Pastors and give them what power over the Church or over one another they think most convenient and what Titles of Honour as of Bishops Archbishops Priests or Presbyters they will and these Rights are incident to all Severeigns whether Monarchs or Assemblies For they that are representants of a Christian People are representants of the Church for a Church and a Commonwealth of Christian People are the same thing The inconsistences and most pernicious insufferable consequents of this Principle are abundantly represented to the World by a most judicious Hand in the Case of the Church of England Part III. more particularly pag. 246 247 c. 2. You deny Episcopacy in particular or a Disparity of Power in the Ministry to be by the Laws of Christ always binding and immutable wherein you oppose to be sure the Church of England And further the overthrowing the immutable Right of Episcopacy seems to be the main thing you aim at throughout the whole Discourse tho' you pretend more for the management of which you all along mingle Fire and Water together urging any thing that will give a varnish or make a shew of Argument in order to it tho' really destructive to the common Christianity we all profess but either lightly touch or designedly pass by the most credible motives even demonstrations to the contrary even those which have been own'd for such by your self in the like cases This will appear to him that weighs these following Considerations To avoid this prelatical Power or Superiority of our Bishops you tell us That tho' it be proved that the Apostles had a Superiority of Order and Jurisdiction over the Pastors of the Church by an Act of Christ yet it must be farther proved That it was Christ's intention that Superiority should continue in their Successors or it makes nothing to the purpose Part I. Cap. 1. § 8. pag. 25. Where you do not consider That tho' it be proved that St. Peter and the other Apostles had by an Act of Christ the power of the
who stood upon the supposition That Christ had appointed a Presbyterian Government to be always continued in his Church And it is easily observable that you have omitted nothing that was pleaded by them whereby Prelacy might be rendered detestable as an unlawful Vsurpation but whether you have done the same thereby to render Presbytery as such I appeal to that very Chapter You are so far from it that the same design is managed throughout the whole Book where your Plea is against the Divine Right of any one individual Form of Government but the instance is mostly against Episcopacy Presbytery is seldom mentioned with any mark of disrespect or if it be it is accidentally I do not remember any one set discourse particularly levelled against it as there is sometimes against the Independents but all along against the Church of England both in this and several other of her most considerable Tenents and Articles Nay you expresly and in so many words give the precedency to Presbytery founding it upon one of your necessary and unalterable Divine Rights Part I. c. 1. § 7 8. pag. 23 26. and say That the Presbyterians seem more generally to own the use of General Rules and the light of Nature in order to the Form of Church-Government as in the Subordination of Courts Classical Assemblies and the more moderate sort as to Lay-Elders And to the Independents in the next place who plead the general Rules of Scripture and evidence of natural Reason Now all this you must be supposed to remove from the Episcoparians because therein you place the opposition if you do any thing And besides you say further The Episcopal Men will hardly find any evidence in Scripture or the Practice of the Apostles for Churches consisting of many Congregations for Worship under the charge of one Person in the Primitive Church for the Ordination of a Bishop without the preceeding Election of the Clergy and at least consent and approbation of the People and neither in Scripture nor Antiquity the least Footstep of a delegation of Church-Power and leave them no other Foundation but the Principles of humane Prudence and those not very well observed Pag. 416 417. So then upon the winding up of your Book the Church of England is represented without evidence of natural Reason and the Rules of the Light of Nature with little evidence from Scripture or the Practice of the Apostles in some instances of her Worship and Discipline but with none in others neither is Prudence her constant Guide And was not this a hopeful way and delicate means to bring over Dissenters to a compliance with the Church of England then likely to be established But none of it is to be wonder'd at if we consider the account you have given of the Government of our Church in the name of the Foreign Divines a little before pag. 409. and the inconveniencies it is liable unto as a step to Pride and Ambition and an occasion whereby Men might do the Church injury by the excess of their Power if they were not Men of excellent Temper and Moderation insomuch that our Bishops are begg'd rather to lay down their Power than to transmit that Power to those after them who it may be were not like to succeed them in their Meekness and Moderation and at last they are left to the Judgment of those who have the Power not only to redress but prevent abuses incroaching by an irregular Power And yet you have not left her barely to her Judges or the Civil Magistrate for such you can be interpreted only to mean to stand and fall at their discretion your self appear as Council against her prepossessing them with new fears and jealousies to which purpose you produce a ridiculous Prediction of Padre Paulo viz. That the Church of England would then find the inconveniencies of Episcopacy when an high Spirited Bishop should come once to rule the Church A Prophecy that in all likelihood was forged in the Brain of some Puritan and my reason for it is Because I find it placed in the front of a Latin Treatise writ by one of great intemperance and violence against the Church of England the Title whereof is Irenaei Philadelphi Epistola ad Renatum Virideum in qua aperitur mysterium iniquitatis novissimè in Anglia redivivum excutitur liber Josephi Hall quo asseritur Episcopatum esse Juris Divini Eleutheropoli 1641. The design of it is to inveigh against the praetorian Authority of Bishops with their Pride and Usurpation over the Clergy and he states the case just as you have done in your Irenicum viz. against their Solitary appropriated Power by Divine Right allowing a Ministry by the Law of Christ and that general Rules are given in Scripture for the great ends of Peace and Order But the particular Form depends upon the choice of the Presbyters and as they do judge it best agreeing with that Kingdom or Common-Wealth in which it is setled So then it seems the Presbyterians first instructed and brought over you not you them as you told my Lord of London And this also confirms what I said before viz. That you come up to the principles of them all excepting some of the rigider Scots who believe that no Church is duly administred where there are Bishops from whom my Worshipful Author declares his dissent tho' he is never the nearer to the Church of England for it that is purely your mistake and he notwithstanding follows on his design against our Church with all manner of indecency and dirty Language He begins with Arch-Bishop Land and takes occasion to vilifie him by reason of his Book against Fisher as worth no Man's reading and that it is unsaleable (a) Quis enim operam perdere voluerit in evolvendo hoc libro quem audio fidum esse custodem officinae bibliopolaâ—um thence he goes on to Richard Montacute Bishop of Norwich upon whom he empties his Spleen calling him a Chief Coal-blower (b) 〈◊〉 ciniflones Archiepiscopalis culinae primas tenet in the Archbishop's Kitchin reviling him as wise in his (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 own Eyes swelled with Pride and Malice with a little learning but more of self-conceit Bishop Andrews is his next Man whom he accuses of Plagiarism and for stealing his determination against Vsury out of Rivette upbraiding him for his ill stile (d) De ferreo stilo per scabra decurrente adding that Du Moulin and Rivette are as much before him in Learning as he thinks a Bishop to be above a Presbyter and placeth him at length amongst the Men mediocris Doctrinae of mean Learning The last I shall produce tho' there be many more against whom he raves at the same rate is Bishop Hall and he impleads him for want of Prudence in that he wrote his Book of Episcopacy carried on to it with an unseasonable itch of Scribbling casting Oyl thereby on that pyle in which the
so may Princes and Governors also and that by the Authority of God committed unto them and the People also by their Election For as we read that Bishops have done it so Christian Emperors and Princes usually have done it And the People before Christian Princes were commonly did elect their Bishops and Priests In the New Testament he that is appointed to be a Bishop or Priest needeth no Consecration by the Scripture for Election or appointing thereunto is sufficient If it fortuned a Prince Christian learned to Conquer certain Dominions of Infidels having none but the Temporal learned Men with him it is not against God's Law that he and they should Preach and Teach the Word of God there And also to make and constitute Bishops and Priests that the Word of God should be there Preached and the Sacrament of Baptism and others be administred But contrary they ought indeed so to do and there be Histories that witness That some Christian Princes and Lay-men unconsecrate have done the same A Bishop or Priest by the Scripture is neither commanded nor forbidden to Excommunicate But where the Law of any Region giveth him Authority to Excommunicate there they ought to use the same in such Crimes as the Laws have Authority in And where the Laws of the Region forbid them there they have no Authority at all And they that be no Priests may also Excommunicate if the Law allow thereunto Leviathan pag. 295 c. Christian Kings are still the Supream Pastors of their People and have power to Ordain what Pastors they please to Teach the Church that is to Teach the People committed to their Charge Again let the Right of choosing them be in the Church for so it was in the time of the Apostles themselves even so also the Right will be in the Civil Sovereign Christian For in that he is a Christian he allows the Teaching and in that he is a Sovereign which is as much as to say the Church by representation the Teachers he Elects are Elected by the Church And when an Assembly of Christians choose their Pastor in a Christian Common-wealth it is the Soveraign that Elects him because it is done by his Authority in the same manner as when a Town choose their Mayor it is the act of him that hath the Sovereign Power For every act done is the act of him without whose consent it is invalid Seeing then in every Christian Commonwealth the Civil Sovereign is the Supreme Pastor to whose charge the Flock of his Subjects is committed and consequently that it is by his Authority that all other Pastors are made and have Power to teach and perform all other Pastoral Offices It follows also that it is from the Civil Sovereign That all other Pastors derive their Right of Teaching Preaching and other Functions pertaining to that Office and that they are but his Ministers in the same manner as Magistrates of Towns Judges in Courts of Justice and Commanders of Armies are all but Ministers of him that is the Magistrate of the whole Commonwealth Judge of all Causes and Commander of the whole Militia which is always the Civil Sovereign If a Man therefore should ask a Pastor in the execution of his Office as the Chief Priests and Elders of the People Matth. 21.23 asked our Saviour By what Authority dost thou these things and who gave thee this Authority he can make no other just answer but That he doth it by the Authority of the Commonwealth given him by the King or Assembly that representeth it All Pastors except the Supreme execute their charges in the Right that is to say by the Authority of the Civil Sovereign that is Jure Civili But the King and every other Sovereign executeth his Office of Supreme Pastor by immediate Authority from God that is to say in God's Right or Jure Divino But if every Christian Sovereign be the Supreme Pastor of his own Subjects it seemeth that he hath also Authority not only to Preach which perhaps no Man will deny but also to Baptize and to Administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and to Consecrate both Temples and Pastors to God's Service There is no doubt but any King in case he were skilful in the Sciences might by the same Right of his Office read Lectures of them himself by which he authorizeth others to read them in the University And lastly concludes That Imposition of Hands is not needful for the authorizing a King to Baptize and Consecrate or Exercise any part of the Pastoral Function every Sovereign before Christianity having the Power of Teaching and Ordaining Teachers but it only directed them in the way of Teaching Truth And consequently they needed no Imposition of Hands besides that which is done in Baptism to authorize them to exercise any part of the Pastoral Function as namely to Baptize and Consecrate So that upon the whole matter whereas before you only contended that the sole Power of making Laws relating to Religion was subjected in the Magistrate taking it quite out of the hands of Church-Men now you place in him the whole Priesthood and allow its Offices to have no force excepting by the Power which is derived from him and the dispute is brought to this issue not that the King may govern the Church by a parity or imparity of Officers but that he may govern it without any or consecrate whom he please And this you deliver not only as your own Sense but as the Synodical Resolution of the Church of England in the days of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth Fifthly After that you have thus invested the Magistrate with all Church-Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the full latitude and extent of it You at length abdicate the Magistrate himself and take from him in effect all Power in Religious things placing it in Believers in common who are supposed to have a Power antecedent to all positive Injunctions which you call a Liberty of Judgment and Liberty of Practice That is in my plain way of expressing my self they are under no Obligation either to take notice of what he says or to obey what he commands or to abstain from what he prohibits and so are their own Law-givers It is you say the Princes duty to defend and protect the publickly owned and professed Religion of a Nation to restrain Men from acting publickly tending to the subversion of it pag. 39. But it is no bodies duty to obey him unless he please or cannot help it And consequently the enactments of Empires are not Laws but Canons like the decrees of Councils as you have termed them and as the use of the Assemblies of the Pastors of the Church are the Common Council of the Church to the King so the Assembly of the King and his Ministers of State are the Council to the People as Elective Synods so Elective Parliaments are a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which will never be Sovereign enough to cure the distemper that
it is brought for and bind no farther than the Party concerned doth judge the Sentence equal and just So that these too will help us no ways to end Controversies in the Church any farther than the persons engaged are willing to account that just which shall be judged in their Case And the Power of the State is no more Juridical and Obligatory than the Power of the Church And in pursuance to this it is laid down as a rule Part I. c. 6. § 6. pag. 117. Where any Church retaining purity of Doctrine doth require the owning of and conforming to any unlawful or suspected Practice Men may lawfully deny conformity c. Whereby you evidently take away the Obligation of all Laws because a suspicion of unlawfulness gives Men a lawful ground for their denial of Obedience and Conformity to them which the ignorant always may have not to say will have and the wisest may always pretend to And it is not in the power of the Law-giver to teach and convince them nor consequently to punish and coerce them You argue on to this purpose in the same Section That as it justified our separation from Rome because the Pope commanded things unlawful as conditions of Communion so it will justifie other Mens Non-conformity in things supposed by them unlawful and it may be as lawful to withdraw Communion from one as the other It is the highest Vsurpation to rob Men of their Liberties of Judgments That every one hath a judicium privatae discretionis which is the rule of Practice as to himself And though we freely allow a Ministerial Power under Christ in the Governors of the Church yet that extends not to an obligation upon Men to go against the dictates of their own reason and conscience Their Power is only directive and declarative and in matters of duty bind no more than reason and evidence brought from Scripture by them doth A Man hath not the Power over his own Vnderstanding much less can others have if Governors must be Judges what things are lawful in this case what not the Power will be absolute for to be sure what ever they command they will say is lawful If every private Person must judge as when all is said every private Man will be his own Judge in this case in things concerning his own welfare then he is no farther bound to obey than he judgeth the thing to be lawful which is commanded And at last after other Arguings of this nature you conclude So that Let Men wind and turn themselves which way they will by the very same Arguments that any will prove separation from the Church of Rome lawful because she required unlawful things as conditions of her Communion it will be proved lawful not to conform to any suspected or unlawful Practice required by any Church-Governors upon the same terms if the thing so required be after serious and sober enquiry judged unwarrantable by a Man 's own Conscience You particularly accuse the present Government and Governors of our Church because not complying to offers of union and accommodation as wanting of that tenderness and prudence that was visible in the first Primitive Church in our Church at the composure of her Liturgy and in the French Churches at the making of theirs I will repeat your own Words because I would not lie under a suspicion of doing you injury Were we so happy but to take off things granted unnecessary by all and suspected by many and judged unlawful by some and to make nothing the Bonds of our Communion but what Christ hath done viz. one Faith one Baptism c allowing a Liberty for matters of indifferency and bearing with the weakness of those who cannot bear things which others count lawful we might indeed be restored to a true primitive lustre far sooner than by furbishing up some few antiquated Ceremonies which can derive their Pedigree no higher than some ancient Custom and Tradition God will convince Men one day that the union of the Church lies more in the unity of Faith and Affection than uniformity of doubtful Rites and Ceremonies Were there that Spirit of mutual condescension which was most certainly in the first and primitive Church in the Apostles time our breaches as to this thing too might soon be closed up and the voice of Schism be heard among us no more Certainly those Holy Men in the composing our Liturgy who did seek by any means to draw in others at such a distance from their Principles as the Papists were did never intend by what they did for that end to exclude any truly tender consciences from their Communion That which they laid a bate for them was never intended by them as a hook for those of their own profession The same reason which at that time made them yield so far to them then would now have perswaded them to alter and lay aside those things which yield matter of offence to any of the same profession with themselves now It cannot but be looked upon as a token of God's severe displeasure against us if any fair offers of union and accommodation be coldly embraced and entertained Neither is this all but you have equally obliged the Faction in other parts of your Book and censured our Church after the same manner Your words are these pag. 64. I am sure it is contrary to the Primitive Practice and Moderation then used to Suspend or Deprive Men of their Ministerial Function for not Conforming in Habits Gestures c. which you incomparably prove out of Walafridus Strabo Because there was no distinction of Habits in the Church in the Primitive times and then to be sure there was no Suspensions and Deprivations for not wearing them And you again pretty handsomely gird our Church and Church-men as Publick-Prayer-Readers and for not answering the end of their Ordination which is To be Dispensers of God's holy Word That the Apostles were not sent forth to Pray but to Preach and therein Ministers of the Gospel are to succeed them That Prayer among our Church-men is esteemed as Sarah and Preaching almost undergoes the hardship of Hagar to be lookt upon as the Bond-woman of the Synagogue and to be turned out of doors That they are setting up the honour of one Person and make the Offices of the Church a matter of State and Dignity more than Employment consulting their Ease and Honour judging of the Service of God rather by the practice of the Church when it came to enjoy Ease and Plenty than by the ways and practices of the first and purest Apostolical times when the Apostles who were best able to judge of their own Duty looked upon themselves as most concern'd in the Preaching of the Gospel pag. 333. by which every one knows what you mean and that you hereby design'd to disgrace the daily Sacrifice and Common-Prayers of our Church even to turn them out of it and at that time when the Authority of the Kingdom the miraculous
Providence of God making way concurr'd to their restauration like another Sanballat using this common high-way insinuation thereunto taken from the scandalous Rabble and worst of our Enemies And I have been credibly told That your self did neither Subscribe nor Read the Service-Book till that fatal as some call it St. Bartholomew and you had otherwise been deprived of your Rectory of Sutton And this subject you reassume in your Preface spending a great part of it with a vehement zeal and ardency in defence of Libertinism so far as That no Church Laws ought to be enjoyned as Terms of Communion but those which Christ hath himself given us or those that were immediately directed by the guidance of the Spirit of God. Those things you say are sufficient for that which are laid down as the necessary Duties of Christianity by our Lord and Saviour in his Word which are sufficient for Salvation Would there be ever the less Peace and Vnity in a Church if diversity were allow'd as to practices supposed indifferent Yea there would be so much the more as there was a mutual forbearance and condescension as to such things The Vnity of the Church is an Vnity of Love and Affection c. Doctrines that are justly called Damnable by the Vniversity of Oxford and condemned with certain pernicious Books in their Judgment and Decree past in Convocation July 21. 1683. as destructive to the sacred Persons of Princes their State and Government and of Humane Society and presented to his late Majesty of blessed Memory July 24. in the Twenty first and Twenty second Propositions and in these words viz. It is not lawful for Superiors to impose any thing in the Worship of God that is not Antecedently necessary The Duty of not offending a weak Brother is inconsistent with all humane authority of making Laws concerning indifferent things But yet you endeavour to make them good from these several Topicks 1. From the Design and Example of our Saviour whose business was to ease Men of their former Burthens and not to lay on more The Duties he required were no other but such as were necessary He that came to take away the unsupportable Yoke of the Jewish Ceremonies certainly did never intend to gall the Necks of his Disciples with another instead of it What Charter hath Christ given the Church to bind Men up to more than himself hath done Or to exclude those from his Society who may be admitted into Heaven 2. From the Example of his Apostles who do not warrant any such rigorous Impositions either We never read of the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary When the Council of the Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a case that disturbed the Churches Peace we see they would lay on no other burthen besides the necessary things Acts xv 29. It was not enough for them that the things would be necessary when they had required them but they looked on an antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians All that the Apostles required as to these was a mutual forbearance and condescension towards each other in them 3. You parallel the Laws of our Church as to indifferencies and in limiting of them in particular practices with those Impositions of Rome as to the Rule of Faith and her other Idolatrous Superstitious Practices 4. From the Example of the Primitive Church which you say deserves greater imitation by us in nothing more than in that admirable temper moderation and condescension which was used in it towards all the members of it It was never thought by her worth the while to make any standing Laws for Rites and Customs that had no other original but Tradition much less to suspend Men her Communion for not observing them And you instance in that objected case related by Sozomen Eccl. Hist l. 7. c. 19. and the same is in Socrates Hist l. 5. c. 22. which every one rallies our Church withal that can but read the Historian in English or the Libellers of our Church who in their Pamphlets represent her to them as you do here to her disadvantage It is granted that these Churches there mentioned as Antioch Rome Aegypt Thessaly and Caesarea did differ from one another in divers Customs and Rites as in times of Fasting manner of Meats c. and therein they were not to judge or condemn one another But you must prove that Antioch Rome c. did allow different Rites in their particular Churches which you cannot do from that place the contrary is evident there For the examples you bring That there were divers Rites and Customs not only in different Churches but in different places belonging to the same Church and many Cities and Villages in Aegypt differ'd from the Mother Church of Alexandria prove nothing against us For the Diocess of Aegypt as the Notitia informs us had abundance of Provinces in it which had also their distinct Metropolitans and Laws And Alexandria however it might be the Patriarchical See or Mother Church in relation to them all was otherwise but the first Church in one of these Provinces called Provincia Aegypti primae and so a Sister Church And Socrates farther tells us That the People of Thebais which is a distinct Province also of Aegypt with its Metropolitan had this different custom from Alexandria And those whom he calls Neighbours to the Alexandrians were in all likelihood another of the Aegyptian Provinces Socrates plainly severs them one from another as distinct Provinces All this will be fully exemplified in the Diocess of Carthage in the days of St. Cyprian where there were several Provinces with their particular Bishops whose Primate he was But yet every one of those Bishops had his distinct and appropriated Power in his Province Neque quisquam nostrum se Episcopum Episcoporum constituit Quando habet omnis Episcopus libertatis suae arbitrium proprium c. Vid. Concil Carthag de haeret baptizand inter opera Cypriani But then tho' the Bishop had this Power in his own Province to establish what Rites and ways of Worship he judged most convenient yet no Man but your self or with your design ever hence asserted that each Village or Parish Church in the Province had the same Power or might erect their own mode of Worship also I remember immediately after the Conference at the Savoy which was the first Summer upon his late Majesty's happy return there came forth a large stitch'd Quarto containing the Dissenters Reasons and Argumentations against the re-establishment of our Church it was without a name but drawn up as was supposed by Richard Baxter And one of his principal heads which he much insisted on was this passage in Sozomen and Socrates I fear me you had been dabling here and so transcribed it for authentique History in their sense of it a thing in those days too usual with you And yet
perswade Men to submit to that Society It is yielded that Believers in some sense are antecedent to the Church viz. as the Church is a Society vested by God with Power to oblige the whole because this Power cannot be received and vouched as true and not an imposture but upon a presumption of the Scriptures being God's revealed Word approved as such by Signs and Wonders to the Sense and Reason of all Men there being no other way whereby the truth of any Power pretending from Heaven can be tried and vouched That by which a thing is tried and made manifest must be before that which is tried by it We must first believe that God hath erected such a Society or incorporation ere we can be satisfied that it is our duty and interest to enter into it But surely no Man was ever reputed a Christian or Society of Men a Church till actually enter'd into that Church Communion and Combination nothing less can be interpreted believing in Christ and walking in Christ in the ordinary way and of extraordinary or exempt cases you cannot be understood for that would be no answer to this Adversary who was disputing of what was or ought to be ordinarily nor is there any coming to Heaven in a personal capacity i. e. not a Church Member And that Doctrine which maintains otherwise is the center of all Enthusiastical Fanatick madness to talk of a true Church with all things necessary to the being of a Church antecedent to this Church-Membership and not in relation to visible Communion and visible Duties under visible Officers and Persons is an Eutopian Scheme or building of Castles in the air Those that expect any benefit by the Redemption of Jesus out of the visible Church would do well to plead with those Gnosticks in Irenaeus That they are rendred invisible to their Judge also at the last day Adv. Haeres lib. 4. c. 9. You are so ingenuous in your Irenicum Pag. 32. as to caution the Reader That all the Rules and Practicks you there draw from the Laws of Nature were but the fictions of your own Brain and a Scheme of Nothings Your words are these A State of Nature I look upon as an Imaginary State for it is confessed by the great asserters of it That the Relations of Parents and Children cannot be conceived in a State of natural Liberty because Children so soon as Born are actually under the Power and Authority of their Parents And it is some ingagement in order to the obtaining his pardon for the impertinence and extravagances in that nature he was to meet with I think the same caution would have been equally seasonable here also for your State of Nature is not more Imaginary than your State of Grace And it will be as difficult to meet with a Christian out of the Church and independent to his Spiritual Father and Governor as to find a Child without a Father or in no tye of Duty to him Christianity is a Body by God's institution and command and not purely by after voluntary Acts of Men it can neither suppose nor leave Men at Liberty no Man lays limits to the Power and Mercy of God those that have no Law he may save without the Law and those Christians whose unhappy circumstances and harder necessity have cast them into that dry Land where no Water is or out of Church Privileges and it was not in their choice to obviate and prevent it will be saved by the Mercy of God. But then no Man ought to enlarge that which God by his Revealed Will hath bound up and limited or where his Church in her Offices and Administrations is in actual being and setled give to any the promise and assurance of Salvation out of it and take upon them the confidence to prescribe what things are necessary to the Salvation of Men as such or considered in their single and private capacities or out of the Church Society and Ecclesiastical Communion It is your own observation from Father Layne the Jesuite at the Council of Trent Iren. p. 133. That it is not with the Church as with other Societies which are first themselves and then constitute the Governors But the Governor of this Society was first himself and he appointed what Orders Rules and Laws should govern this Society And wherein he hath determined any thing we are bound to look upon that as necessary to the maintaining that Society And as our Saviour had all Power in Heaven and Earth committed to him of the Father and to him alone it was confined to his person as Mediator so he transmitted it to a certain Succession of Men only viz. the Apostles who were Governors of his Church in his absence and derived the same Power to their Successors to be continued till his coming again for the governing and guiding Mankind into all truth that brings Salvation And so far were the first Propagaters and Planters of Christianity from consenting to your methods of Salvation antecedent to this Ministry or Government that they pitcht upon the quite contrary Rules and Church combination under its Officers and in its Ordinances seems to be the first Christian Principle they taught those Candidates to whom they were sent and their first work was to setle a Ministry So St. Clemens in his Epistle to the Corinthians tells us That they constituted approved Men to be Bishops and Deacons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over those Regions and Persons that had submitted to the truth of the Gospel upon its general motives and designed to go on to perfection unto which they could alone attain i. e. to a believing in Christ and walking in him by the help and co-operation of their Ministry And when St. John returned out of Patmos it is said That he betook himself to the Neighbouring Provinces and constituted Bishops setting whole Churches in order Euseb Eccl. Hist l. 3. c. 23. And the only notion that the Ancients have of a Church is as made up of Pastor and People Ecclesia in Episcopo Clero omnibus stantibus Cypr. Ep. 27. Ecclesiam esse plebem Sacerdoti suo adunatam gregem suo pastori adhaerentem Ep. 69. Ecclesiam non esse quae non habet Sacerdotem Hieron Adv. Lucifer Ecclesia sumitur pro coetu fidelium cum Episcopo sine quibus privatim congregare Anathema esse Conc. Gangr Can. 6. An Essential Church that is not organical appear'd not in these Coasts I confess your unusual improvement of this Argument against the Church of Rome with so much disadvantage to the Church of England was so surprizing unto me that I was inclinable to perswade my self the Fairies had changed these particular Sheets as some talk they do Children at Nurse or else that some unlucky Jesuite had Transubstantiated them But reading on I met with Reasons that made me believe it might be the Genuine Product of your own Brain you having farther declared your self with the like Liberty in these following
in him to which every Man may attain by his personal Capacity antecedent to the being of a Church and Church-Governors Or in the words of Mr. Hales made your own by citing of them in your Irenicum pag. 108. Schism is but a Theological Scar-crow set up by such as hold a Party in Religion And by consequence the Church of England is upon the same terms in respect of the Church of Rome as the Dissenters are in respect of the Church of England The Impositions of both are alike Anti-Christian which is again the very Doctrine of the Irenicum Your Answer to several Treatises c. is the next of your Writings that I have pitcht upon whence to inform my self and others of your particular Judgment in these points of Church-Power and its Obligation And that which I hence report will be so much more satisfactory because in your Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical c. you refer him hither from pag 260. to pag. 291. as those Pages in which you maintain as much Authority in the Church of England as ever the Church of England challenged to her self But here you have left the Church in the same condition you had placed her in before and altogether without Power to make her Declarations Law whether in Council or out of it and the Office assigned by you to her Pastors is to Teach Instruct Propose and Recommend engaging them in Toil and Labour enough in order to the search of Truth but they are no where vested with an Authority to oblige the whole Body of Christians or the Church diffusive Each Private Man is left at Liberty to receive or reject according to his Eye-sight and as he apprehends the Reasons Motives Tradition Context Criticism or inward Revelation of that which is delivered And you say withal That the ancient Church did not pretend to more Authority as is to be seen in the Pages foregoing As for that branch of Authority you assign her in making Rules and Canons about matters of Order and Decency in the Church it is no more than in effect you had said before in your Irenicum and accordingly you refer to it in the point in the Preface to the Vnreasonableness of Separation where notwithstanding you contend with all might and main sometimes against the Laws themselves as Anti-Christian sometimes against the execution of them that they be not imposed upon doubtful Consciences as I have already shew'd And you have since been engaged for a Toleration or Non-execution of Church-Laws in the said Preface pag. 83 84 85. then when you had Preached but a little before against Separation and this is the last and all the account that I can give of you in this affair He that is most favourable to you must yield that you are wavering and unfixed in your Judgment And did you really believe that there is an advantage on the side of Authority which ought to over-rule the Practice of such who are the Members of that Church where the Authority is exercised as you speak you would also be so kind to Dissenters as to urge with more constancy upon them their duty in obeying as a Private Man you ought to propose nothing less unto them Tho' I cannot see why we should less doubt of your good will to them and their Cause when you drew up those Terms and Articles of Toleration than of Coleman's kindness to the Papists when he drew up his Declaration for Dissolving the Long Parliament in order to a Toleration also And it will be difficult to determine which of the two was more presumptuous I know what course the Ancient Church would have taken with a Private Presbyter who after a full debate in Council seconded with a Church Sanction and confirmed by the Imperial Constitution should have dared to have made Proposals or draw up Rules and Limitations and make them publick in opposition thereunto and yet this was not your first attempt of this nature your good will to Comprehension Latitudinarian Principles hath all along been manifest and notorious Those many Meetings which you and your Church of England and Mr. Baxter and his Church of England had were not so private but that some took notice of them where you made Proposals for altering the Church Government setled and confirmed by all that is sacred in Church and State. And the reason is plain why those Men afterwards dealt so severely with you of which you complain in the above-mentioned Preface upon that Sermon which was Preached before my Lord Mayor because after your healing Condescensions in private you appear'd a Revolter and Apostate and they were to deal with you as one that had broken his Faith. If some other had Preached that Sermon they might possibly have born with him he acting according to his principles when you were not to be endured tu Brute their Friend with whom they took sweet Council together concerning the House of God. I add farther 1. That in your Treatise of the Vnreasonableness of Separation you no where that I could take notice of have pressed Christians to Obedience as they are a Corporation imbodied under Governors and Laws of their own which is the original and fundamental Obligation to submission and conformity arising from the nature of that Kingdom which Christ erected by the promulgation of the Gospel of which Kingdom every true Christian is a Subject I do not deny but that your performance is competently well done upon your principles and so far as it reacheth You have abundantly set forth the reasonableness of our Book of Common-Prayer in the Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies and urged Obedience thereunto from the destructive consequences that must inevitably follow in that Church or Society of Christians which retains not an Vniformity of Worship and more especially this reasonable one that we have in our Church of England But all is left still as matter of Dispute like the Corporation it self as Arbitrary and at the pleasure of its Subjects to retain or reject them and he that sees not with your Eyes by your own principles hath no Obligation for Obedience and Conformity to any one Rubrick Law or Injunction therein contained And it is observable in your Epistle Dedicatory that you beg pardon indeed of your Superiors for going beyond your bounds in your projects of accommodation But it is not for any one reason relating to them as your Governors or because you have been injurious thereby to their Power and Government in the Church of God which you in so doing had inroaded and invaded But because forsooth the Dissenters would not come up to you and their untractableness rendred your Project useless admit you had jump'd together and united in the project What then Why you had never begged their pardon And it was success not design was wanting by your own confession The very case of Coleman Besides is not this a delicate Apology for your self After
Tradition be our rule to interpret Scripture by An excellent way to find out the truth doubtless to bend the Rule to the crooked Stick to make the Judge stand to the Opinion of his Lacquey what Sense he shall pass upon the Cause in question to make Scripture to stand Cap in Hand to Tradition to know whether it may have leave to speak or no. Are all the great out-crys of Apostolical Tradition of personal Succession of unquestionable Records resolved at last into Scripture it self by him from whom these long Pedegrees are fetcht Then let Succession know its place and learn to veil Bonnet to the Scriptures and withal Let Men take heed of over-reaching themselves when they would bring down so large a Catalogue of single Bishops from the first and purest times of the Church For if Eusebius professeth it so hard to find them well might Scaliger then complain that the Interval from the last Chapter of the Acts to the middle of Trajan in which time Quadratus and Ignatius began to flourish was tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Varro speaks a meer Chaos of time filled up with rude conceptions of Papias Hermes and others who like Hannibal when they could not find a way through would make one either by force or fraud Rare embellishments of stile and choice Oratory all along When others plead for a Succession of Persons in Apostolical Power out of Irenaeus and Tertullian you shuffle them of and say That those Fathers are to be interpreted of Succession in that Apostolical Doctrine which was so eminent and notorious at Rome Smyrna Corinth Philippi and Ephesus Now you deny the truth of Succession as to Doctrines also but you are in an high strain of Oratory which is a kind of natural Enthusiasm or worse and your indisposition plainly appears in that you give such grave advice to these traditional Doctors that they place not Succession before the Scriptures You can only mean that they deduce it not from Felix or Pontius Pilate Annas and Caiaphas the High-Priests or the Jewish Sanhedrim And have not Scaliger and you finely combined together in giving a Character of the times immediately after the Apostles as filled only with fraud and force And for this reason alone Lest an unquestionable Succession of Bishops from the Apostles should appear and their Divine Right become thereby undeniable vid. Iren. p. 2. c. 6. § 15 16 17. Besides it hence plainly appears what your purpose was in writing this Treatise in that you have sided all along with the foreign Divines and used their Arguments against the Divine Right of Episcopacy It is the common policy when Men design to devest any Person or Order of that superior power which they cannot well bear or rather desire to have enstated on themselves first to set up for a level and the Project works mightily Thus we know the thing aimed at in the beginning of the great Rebellion here in England was That the King Lords and Commons were three equal States And when by this stratagem they had wrested the King's Prerogative out of his hands they then soon made themselves uppermost assumed and appropriated that very power they had so violently contended against as what ought not to be fixed except in the three Estates in conjunction So here your sham is That all forms of Government are equally practicable no one being of Divine Right in that nature as to exclude another but any one may be established as Persons Times and Places accord thereunto But then your Eisotericks or that which you effectually recommend to your particular Friends and Confidents is The perpetual fixation of the Presbyter as by Divine Right unalterable and having hereby lowered the Bishops top-sail in your own expression and removed from him all that which hath been heretofore appropriated to his Order asserting him to be an accidental humane creation only in this Stirrup the Presbyter sets his foot and ascends as the Assembly-men did at Westminster You invest him with the full power of Order and Jurisdiction and accordingly thus determine Part II. c. 4. § 12. That every Presbyter from Christ and perpetually fixed Cap. 2. hath the whole Ministry derived unto him in actu primo habitualiter viz. The Power of Preaching the Word Visiting the Sick Administring the Sacraments of Visiting Churches Taking care that particular Pastors do their duty of Ordination and Church Censures and making Rules for Decency in the Church The severest Asserter of Episcopal Power cannot invest his Bishop in more And the same in effect you say over again That every Presbyter whom you call a fixed Officer in the Church hath a radical intrinsecal Power of Order in himself And further That every one being himself advanced into the Authority of a Church Governor hath an internal Power of conferring the same upon Persons fit for it and accordingly every one did exercise this Power in the Churches first State and Period or In the first Primitive Church before the Jurisdiction of Presbyters was restrain'd by mutual consent by way of accumulation upon one Person of a power more than he had not by a deprivation of themselves of that inherent Power which they enjoy'd It would be very strange that any Officers of a Religious Society should be upon that account Out-lawed of those natural Liberties which are the results and products of the free actings pag. 252. To which you add That whole Churches and Nations were without Bishops for several Years together some of which had only Presbyters at their first Planting and in those Churches where Episcopal Government was setled Ordination by Presbyters was look'd upon as valid notwithstanding which could not be unless their Ordainers had an intrinsecal Power of Ordination or had they not been a fixed Order under no prohibition by Scripture Part II. c. 6. § 13. pag. 273 275. cap. 7. § 6 7. In all which I say whatever you have pretended against the divine perpetual Right of any one individual Government that the Bishop might fall with more gentleness and plausibility You set up a fixed lasting Government in the Church by Presbyters as unalterable as the Ministry it self in whom you place the whole Power of the Ministry never to be alienated or lost by any authority or under any accident they receiving this Power with their Ordination in actu primo habitualiter radicaliter intrinsically and their execution of it is effectual at any time and in any place even to Ordination it self and the Church hath approved and accepted of it as when Paphnutius tho' but a Presbyter Ordain'd Abbot Daniel and Colluthus Ischyras c. pag. 379. And hereby you give to many of the principal Patrons of the Presbyterian Parity as Calvin Beza Chamier Gersom Bucer Du Moulin even Salmasius Blondel and Daillée what they desire and contend for they having all along allowed of our Hierarchy upon your terms And all the advantage the Church of England receives by the Irenicum