old Lastly I might truly alledge against the novelty of the Covenant in the Church of England that there is no precept or patern for any such in all the New Testament nor in all succeeding ages of the Christian Church we never read nor heard of any covenanting Christians until the Ligue sainte in France except those who in one baptism were sprinkled with the blood of Christ and so entred into that covenant which God makes with us and we with him in that holy laver of regeneration this is the new and Evangelical covenant of all true Christians this we break by wilful and presumptuous sins this we renew by true repentance and by worthy participation of the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper § How vastly different from this sacred covenant this late piece of policy more than piety is and how little the true covenant of a Christian binds him by his Baptism or Repentance or the Eucharist against all Episcopal Government I leave to all sober-minded Christians to judge since both the power of ordaining Ministers and by them to consecrate and celebrate both Sacraments was ever derived from and by Bishops of the Church as the cheif conservators cisterns and conduits of all Ecclesiastical Authority and Ministerial power from the very Apostles the first Bishops of the Church Acts 1. who had the same immediately from Christ who was and ever is the great Bishop and Pastor of our souls to feed and rule his Church not only by his Word and Spirit but by such Shepherds and Rulers as he hath in all ages set over his flock of which Bishops were ever esteemed the Angels Presidents or cheif Fathers whom utterly to destroy and violently to extirpate out of this or any Christian Church is not only to offer signal and intolerable injuries to the persons of such excellent Bishops as England lately had and still may have but further mightily to abate the honor of this whole Church and its Ministry by taking away all the rewards and encouragements of Learning and Religion yea and to scandalize all Churches by abolishing such a venerable order and universal custom in the Church as hath no origine but that of the Apostles and looks very like an immediate institution of Christ either preceptive and explicite or tacite and exemplary The just abatements of Covenanters heats and rigors § So that if this were the sense and intent of the Covenant-makers and takers to extirpate and abolish not the abuses but the very uses of all Episcopal Order and Government the great Boanergesses who thunder out so much terror against Covenant-breaking may do much more justice and execution if they turn the mouths of their canons against such Covenant-taking which is better broken than kept in any unlawful sense and best of all when not at all taken with any such intention which is as presumptuous as it was preposterous § These things being thus premised are sufficient as I conceive to abate the edge and rigor of the Covenant as to its antipathy against all Episcopacy and to ravel that cable or bond of religious obligation which some men do seem to twist and urge upon poor peoples consciences in that point when in good earnest there is neither Law of God or man requiring imposing or comprobating any such Covenant by any National or Ecclesiastical authority so that it appears at best to be but a matter of will worship of humane and private invention void of publique and plenary injunction esteemed by many but as a stratagem of State a flag of faction an engine framed on purpose to batter down Episcopacy and the whole Church of England in order to obtain the spoils of them not to punish and amend the evil that might be in Episcopal Government or in some Bishops and other Ministers but to seize all their estates and all the patrimony of the Church to the great enriching of some sacrilegious Protestants to the gratifying of some Presbyters envy and revenge but most of all to the great joy and triumph of the Romish party and Jesuitick designs which were thought by many wise men to have been if not the Sires yet the Sibs to that Covenant that they might help to spread it as a snare in Mizpeh thereby to catch and destroy the famousest Bishops the most renowned Clergie the best reformed and most flourishing Church in all the world § The best aspect of the Covenant considered in conscience But I will look upon this Covenant in the softest sense that can be made of it as a voluntary Vow or religious Bond which private men and some part only of the Nation spontaneously took upon themselves in order to declare their sense of duty to God the King the Church their Country and the Reformed Religion to make themselves more strictly sensible of the sacred and civil obligations respectively due to them that so they might be more ready to discharge them in their places and callings by taking such a Covenant freely not for fear of prison plunder sequestration and the like wracks of mens souls the terrors of which made many if not most of the takers of the Covenant to take it and yet I believe not one fourth part of the people of England now living ever did take it in any sort and very few but rigid Bigots and virulent spirits in any sense against primitive reformed and regular Episcopacy so reduced to an efficacious conjuction with Presbytery as the most Reverend Primate of Armagh proposed in his Reduction of late and so did the Lord Virulam long before in his considerations touching the Church of England offered to King James in the beginning of his reign § In this aspect of the Covenant Answers direct as a religious obligation either newly made or renewed upon the foul of any that willingly and freely took it and who thereby think themselves eternally obliged to fulfill the letter of it or that sense they had of it as to the matter of Church-government by Episcopacy or Prelacy which they fancied to have abjured and renounced no less than Popery my Answers and Solutions are these 1. What only can bind in it First They are not the bare words of the Covenant which as charms can bind any mans conscience to or against any thing but it is that force of Truth Reason Justice Religion and Duty to God or man our selves or others which morally and really obligeth men either by Gods general or particular precepts which are as iron or admantine bands on every mans soul to chuse good and do it to hate evil and eschew it long before any of these withes or cords of mans combining and tying are put upon them by themselves or others 2. Not the takers fancy or imposers Secondly Nor can any such Covenant bind any man in any consciencious bond meerly by the power of a mans own imagination or by such a prejudice and presumption as he lists
Episcopacy 4. The sad and tragique consequences of it Fourthly It might seem odious to reflect upon this Covenant as to the sad effects and unblest consequents which like black shadows have attended its appearing and prevailing in England and in Scotland too What havocks followed in Church and State what improsperities disorders contempts confusions wars spoils and bloodshed upon all estates and degrees besides the contempt of Religion the neglect of Sacraments the expulsion of the Liturgie and the aviling no less than dividing of Ministers who instead of Okes and cedars of God formerly frequent in this Church I mean Divines of great gravity and excellent learning worthy of double honor everywhere shrunk and dwindled to Plebeian shrubs and popular parasities the pitty of the more pious and scorn of the more petulant sort of men 5. The baflings and annullings of it by counter engagements Fifthly Nor will I insist upon the bafflings of the Covenant before it was adult or many years old how it was soon made Nehustan and reduced to nothing by counter and cross engagements after it had served as one of the great rocks for the Kings shipwrack no less than the Churches and States nor did the Covenant ever thrive after it was watered with the Kings blood wherein many men had an hand who had been zealous Covenanters If it was so easily vacated in point of its express loyalty for the Kings Preservation I do not see how it should be so binding in the case of abjuring or extirpating of all Episcopacy though reformed and regulated as it ought to be 6. â—ts variating from if not crossing former lawful Oathes of King and people Sixthly Wherein it is very considerable how the Covenant if so interpreted must needs grate sore upon and pierce to the very quick those former lawful oathes which had prepossessed the souls and consciences of most of us in England not only of Subjects as those of Allegiance and Supremacy besides that of Ministerial canonical obedience to our lawful superiors in Church and State but even the conscience of the late King as he was bound by his Oath at his Coronation to preserve the rights and franchises of the Church which the King rather than break as some men urged him chose to die and lose all in this world as he declared to many at the Isle of Wight and to Mr. Marshal with others at Newcastle from which Oaths as we know no absolution so nor can there be any superfetation of such a contradictory Vow and covenant without apparent perjury which we presume the Covenant never intended nor included or if it did it is therein of no bond or validity as to any good mans conscience against previous lawful oaths which must be kept 7 It threatens dangerous Schism Seventhly Besides if the Covenant were designed as wilfully exclusive and totally abjuring of all Episcopal order and Government in this Church of England it must needs run us upon a great rock not only of Novelty but of Schism and dash us both in opinion and practice against the judgement and custom of the Catholick Church in all places and ages till of later years from the Apostles days with whom we ought to keep communion in all things of so antient tradition and universal observation nor may we so comply with a few reformed Churches of later daies whose want but not contempt of Bishops also the necessity of times and distress of affairs put upon them either by the policies of Princes or the impatience and prejudice of people or the covetousness and sacriledge of both may excuse while they approve and venerate Episcopacy in others yet with these we must not so comply as to put a reproach scandal scruple or affront upon all other Christian Churches at this day in all the world among whom not one ever was of old or is to this day in any Kingdom to be found without their Bishops as derived by the succession of all times from the Apostles nor is the abolishing of Episcopacy a small wall of partition newly set up to keep all Papists from due Reformation 8. The â—est sense and use of the Covenant Eighthly I might further add how much more equal and ingenuous loyal and religious were it for all sober-meaning Covenanters to reduce and confine their consciences as well as their Covenant from such an extravagant disloyal unlawfull enormious and Schismatical sense to which some do wrest and torture it in which it could neither be lawfully taken nor can be kept with honesty as against all Episcopacy and rather to retire to that sober sense wherein alone it might lawfully be taken if it had been imposed by due authority or were spontaneously assumed which sense can reach no further than those abusive excesses or defects of Church Government under Bishops so far as they were really such either by the inconvenience of the constitutions and customs in England or at least as they appeared such to these Covenanters as to the execution of that authority through the faults or infirmities of some Bishops and their instruments who possibly were not so worthy and good or not so wise and discreet as became Christian Bishops or Ecclesiastical Governors of Christs Church But it is a most irreligious as well as unreasonable Ametry transport for men to covenant against all the right use of things that are good because of the abuse incident to them by men or times that may be evil 9. It s pretended authority-from examples in the O. Test Ninethly It were easie to level to the ground all those fair but fallacious pretences drawn to fortifie the Covenant from Scripture examples wherein the Jews sometimes solemnly renewed their Covenant with God But it was that express Covenant which God himself had first made with them in Horeb and Mount Sina punctually prescribed by God to Moses and by Moses as their supream Governor or King imposed upon them this they sometime renewed after they had broken it by their apostacy to false and strange gods But blessed be God this was not the case of the Church or people of England nor was there any need of such covenanting any more then there was any Moses or Hezekiah or Josiah or any chief Governor commanding it Nor alas was this Covenant any divine dictate or Soveraign prescription but the petty composition of a few politick men Subjects not Princes and very mean Subjects too some of them either as Lawyers or Ministers a great part of whom I and others well knew to be no very great Clerks or Statesmen and fitter for a country Cure than to contrive and compose Solemn Leagues and Covenants to be imposed upon Churches and Kingdoms yea and upon their Kings too in whose Dominions were many thousands equals and Superiors to those Masters whose heads rather than their hearts and their State correspondencies more than their consciences brought forth this Covenant 10. No evangelical example of any such Covenant in any Christian Church of
ΑÎΑΛΥΣΙΣ THE Loosing of St. Peters Bands Setting forth The true Sense and Solution OF THE COVENANT In point of CONSCIENCE SO FAR As it relates to the Government of the Church by EPISCOPACY By JOHN GAVDEN D. D. Acts 16.26 The foundations of the Prison were shaken the doors opened and every ones bands were loosed 1 Tim. 1.5 Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned Non est conscientia sine scientia nec pura esse potest si sit caeca Bern. LONDON Printed by J. Best for Andrew Crook at the Green-Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard 1660. TO His honoured Friend Sir Lawrence Brumfeild Kt. And Colonel in London SIR WEll knowing as St. Bernard speaks The tenderness of conscience how tender and delicate a thing Conscience is how it is not to be baffled or deluded with any Sophistry nor ravished or captivated by any violence and tyranny not cajoled or trepanned by any Policy and hypocrisie but apart from all fraud or force it is then most at its ease freedom and tranquillity when it hath most light and serenity to see its duty also most liberty to act according to those rules of right Reason and Religion which are not partial flexible and mutable but universal fixed and eternal § The rules of Conscience I have here endeavored to give you and others upon your motion that sober sence of the Covenant whereof I believe it is only capable before God before all good Christians and in a mans own wel-informed conscience § Which must and at last will judge of things in point of scruple or obligation not by the occasion beginning them or the power imposing them or the passion clamoring or the multitude applauding or the success abetting or the pertinacy maintaining them Nor yet by the superstition of some men devoutly doting for a while upon that as a goddess or an Image faln from heaven when it may be indeed but the late invention of some cunning work-men whose golden rings and ear-rings being melted in the furnace of Civil wars may sometimes bring forth such a thing as the Authors and Abettors will needs vote to be their God § But the true light and medium of Conscience as to its judgement practice peace and perseverance must be by those clear pregnant and constant beams of right Reason add true Religion which shine in the brightness and stability of Divine and Humane laws which are the solid pillars of Truth the firm supports of duty the sure bounds of obedience and the safe repose of conscience § All other superstructures of fancy policy and Interest as hay straw and stubble will perish but those others will out last the last conflagrations which shall make a fiery trial of all mens thoughts designs and actions both publick and private whether they be made up of popular and peevish dross or of such piety more precious than gold which is both pure and permanent § In this great concern therefore of conscience I must study to be void of all fear and flattery of men Freedom from passion and prejudice in cases of conscience separate from all crowds of passions and prejudices free from popular petitions and the two Houses resolutions from Scottish importunities and English compliances not obnoxious to the Court or the Country to the Assembly or the High-Commission to Episcopal infirmities or Presbyterian insolencies but as in the presence of God and before his Tribunal so serious intent upright and unbyassed shall I declare my judgement to you to your City to my Country and to our most welcome King to my reverend Fathers and brethren of the Clergie and to my dear Mother the Church of England for whose sake nothing must seem hard or too much to be done or suffered by me or any of her Sons since we have the great paterns both of our late Soveraign who suffered as a Martyr in her defence and of our blessed Saviour who was crucified for her redemption § As for my Brethren of the Church of Scotland I confess I understand not their motions or mutations because I think they once enjoyed the best constitutions of Episcopacy in the world I have a Christian pity and charity for them I leave them to that liberty which is the fruit not of the swords and passions of man but of the Word and Spirit of God which clearly unites Loyalty and Religion Duty and Devotion Reformation and Moderation Order and counsel eminency and harmony in one paternal fraternal and filial unity of Bishops Presbyters and People § As to the scruple or case of conscience then with which you tell me The shiness of some mens consciences as to Episcopacy many sober and honest men are by their once taking the Covenant so scared from all complyings with any Church Government under any name of Bishops or notion of Episcopacy never so reformed and regulated that they fear by looking back to the primitive Catholick and universal Government of this and all other antient Churches to be turned into pillars of Apostacy as Lots wife Answers oblique was into a pillar of salt And to prevent which sad Metamorphosis in City and Country my Answer or Resolution in point of Conscience as to the Covenant so far as it relates to Episcopacy is this 1. The Covenants defectiveness as to authority and law First I might shrewdly batter the Covenant by urging the defectiveness of and so the invalidity of any lawful constant or compleat authority in it capable to bind the Subjects or People of England either in the Court of conscience or any other Ecclesiastical or civil Judicature in which nothing can have any permanent bond or tye of Law except Gods Word without the Kings consent no more than the vow of a servant or son a daughter or wife in Moses Law could bind them without Numb 30.2 yea against the declared consent of their Master father or Husband under whose protection they were 2 The violence of the times Secondly I might eccho and retort upon the Covenant the violence and noise of those times in which it was first hatched in England and brought forth by the Midwifery of tumults and Armies of engaged yea enraged parties and factions whose wrath and policies were not probbale to work the righteousness of God nor did they seem good Angels which troubled our waters to an healing but evil ones sent in Gods just anger amongst us to turn our waters into blood 3. The novelty of it as to our laws Thirdly I might further urge the novelty and partiality of the Covenant as the English Laws and genius that it was from a foraign influence and design first invented then obtruded on this Church and State contrary to our antient Laws and constitutions both ecclesiastical and civil to which King and People were bound till by mutual consent they were altered which was never yet done in the point of
easily digest or pass he may better learn what there is of God or good in it by the still voyce wherein now the Lords mercy appears and speaks to this Church and Kingdom than in those fires and earthquakes which at first represented this Covenant to him with shining swords § He must now distinguish what may be in it of God what of good and well-meaning-men and what of evil or sinister designs at least as to the event in what is good he may lawfully persevere what may by some be urged to evil he is to avoid what he did weakly or inconsiderately in the taking or pursuing of it he is to repent of and retract by keeping in the bounds of duty allegiance and subjection to God and his Superiors in Church and State 10. The easie satisfaction of any conscientious Covenanter Tenthly and lastly the most strict and severe Covenanter cannot but be satisfied and absolved in point of conscience if first he hath and still doth in his place and calling seasonably advise humbly petition and lawfully endeavour to reform what is truly amiss in the Church Government by Bishops Secondly If he use the like means to restore and preserve what he finds good and useful in Episcopacy Thirdly If he humbly submit to what the King in this point as Supream shall see fit to establish in his Church which is very probable to be such as will much differ from the former way of Government Reformed Episcopacy consistent with the Covenant as to any thing evil or inconvenient in it Certainly a little change realy to the better much more an honest and ingenuous Reformation of Episcopacy beyond the former excessive or defective either constitution or execution of it will abundantly absolve the honest yea and the very litteral and complexive meaning of that Covenant which may not be a bond of iniquity or a snare and gin for schism and sedition to act by to the dishonor of God to the reproach of the Reformed Religion to the scandal of foraign Churches and to the ruine of these sometimes so famous and flourishing which the King and every good Subject are bound in conscience to repair and restore not only to but if it may be beyond its pristine condition wherein some things possibly were so amiss that it will be happy to have them either supplied as to the defects or repressed as to the excesses without any extirpation of what is holy and catholick primitive and paternal orderly politick and prudent in Episcopacy which Government duly fitted and fixed comprehends beyond any all the just interests of People and Presbyters no less than of the Bishops and of the King § This Right The duty and just dealing of an honest Conanter Justice and Duty then every consciencious Covenanter ows 1. To God in approving desiring loving and using what is good 2. To the King as the chief Governour of the Church and State enjoyning things lawful and honest though not the very best 3. To the Bishops and Fathers of the Church who have been many of them most injuriously used many years and ought in Justice to be recompenced 4. To all learned and sober Ministers who have a long time been exposed to all manner of discouraging and dividing factions among themselves and insolencies from the people for want of King and Bishop to govern guide and protect them 5. He ows this love moderation and charity to this Church hereby to advance and settle the unity peace and prosperity of it which cannot be but in the way of Episcopacy duly constituted and carefully executed Lastly he ows this care to his own soul whose inward and eternal peace is not to be made up by passion superstition or presumption but by meekness of wisdom justice charity and discretion as in all other things so very much in this point of Episcopacy so studiously then put into the Covenant toserve a prevalent interest but no way in conscience to be now stretched against a right and regular Episcopacy no more than Physick given to cure a disease should like unmortified Quick-silver be applied to kill the man § The sense which the prime authors of the Covenant gave of it This I know was the sense of the most learned men in the Assembly and of those who with my self had as much right to sit among them as any others but were not permitted either by popular faction and tumult or by other shufflings and reasons of State which took care to exclude or deter all the excellent Bishops of the Church and the most able of Episcopal Divines for fear there should have been any just plea for moderate Episcopacy against the then Magistery of Presbytery This I have oft heard Mr. Marshal and others affirm who had a great hand in penning and promoting the Covenant and they owned it to some foraign Divines That the Covenant was levelled only at the Despoticum Tyrannicum regimen misgovernment not the Government of Episcopacy This is at present the sense and hopes of the most learned and godly Presbyterians whom I have lately spoken with in London and elsewhere That if the ancient lapsed and decayed frame of Episcopal government were a little altered it would satisfie the end and letter of the Covenant which was not to destroy but to build and repair not to consume all but to use those materials which were good in that antient noble and venerable fabrick of Episcopacy § The speedy settling this Church in a Episcopacy Which I beseech God may by his Majesties piety and wisdom be speedily and resolutely setled in its best constitution wherein to take good counsel is Kingly and Christian but to tarry till all Sects and sorts of people be agreed and satisfied will be to expose his Royal Authority to undervaluings and this Church to everlasting confusions § Nor doth there need much counsel to know or courage for to do what is here meet to be done in order to satisfie the most and I may say the best of all sorts in this Kingdom both as to minds manners and estates For his Majesty hath not a new Church to build but an antient and well-modelled one to restore They are not foundations of faith or good manners which are to be laid but either some necessary reparations to be made in reference to such decays as long time brings upon the best things under heaven or such pinacles be taken down as being much wasted with age rather threaten than adorn the Church of Christ whose dilapidations after all the covenanting complements and reformings have been ten times more in these last twenty years under the hands of bungling Reformers who would needs do Church-work without the Master-builders The ruines of this Church the last 20 years for want of Episcopacy Kings and Bishops than they were for fourscore years since the Reformation in England yea or the first Four hundred years of the Church in the midst of Persecution when