if judicious choise and well grounded Christians did not as they doe seriously consider these things which may establish them in that holy profession of this Church wherein they have been baptized and educated First the naturall levity and instability of mens mindes which can have no fixation like the magnetick needle but onely in one point or line where it is in conjuncture with its Loadstone the Truth of God from which while the minde is wandering and shaking it is prone to love noveltie with lies and detriment rather than wonted things of religion with truth and benefit The itching humors of mens lascivient fancies and lusts chuse to scratch themselves to bloud and sorenesse rather than enjoy a constant soundnesse which distempers among those of the reformed Churches never want vigilant and subtill fomenters whose design is to spread any infection among Protestants to the most pestilent contagions that so they being sick and ashamed of themselves under the scandals and madnesses of that profession they may at last seek to Rome for cure and entertain forain Physitians who will easily perswade such diseased Protestants that those old sores and lingring maladies with which the Romish party hath a long time laboured and with which it is justly charged however it refuse to be healed are much safer for soules than these new quick feavers pestilent Agues and desperate Apoplexies among us which threaten utterly to kill all piety to destroy all Christianity to extirpate all charity and dissolve all society both as men and as Christians while neither morals nor rituals of Christianity are observed neither the superstructure of Catholick customes nor the foundation of Scripture commands neither truth nor peace things of p ety or Christian polity are inviolable but all old things must be dissolved and passe away that some men may shew their skill to create new heavens and new earths in which not order and righteousnesse but all injuriousnesse and confusion must dwell Secondly besides this innate fondnesse of men which is alwayes finding out new evill or vain inventions as unwholesome bodies are ever breaking out there are also crafty colourings and politick affectations of piety which grow as scurfe or scabs over those prurient novelties of opinion by which unwonted formes as with severall viZards and plaisters hypocrisie seekes as to amuse the vulgar so to cover and hide its cunning and cruelty its avarice ambition revenge and sacriledge still avoiding the discoveries of its deep plots and wicked designes by specious pretensions of serving God in some more acceptable way and better manner than others have done when indeed every true factionist who is Master of his Art at last winds up the thread of that Religion he spins upon his own bottom so as may best serve his own turn nor is he ever so modest so mortified or so self-denying with his pious novelties but that he will possesse himself and his party of any places for worldly profit power or honour to which he can attain though it be by the violent and unjust ruining and outing of others which is no very great symptom of an amended or heightned Christian Lastly sober Christians doe and ought to consider those just judgements of God either as diseases or medicines usually falling upon Christians as here in England when they are surfeited with peace and plenty cloyed with preaching and praying wantonly weary of wonted duties and wholesome formes of sound religion though never so holy and comely Burthened with the weekly and daily importunities of Ministers doctrine and examples where the sin and misery was not that people had no true light or no true Church and no true Ministers but that having all these they rejoiced not in them they neglected them and sinned the more provokingly against them Hence it is that squeamish nauseating and glutted Christians easily turn as foul stomachs and wanton appetites all they take though never so wholesome into peccant and morbifique humors to pride and passion to self conceit and scorn of others to ambitious lusts of disputing contending and conquering in matters of Religion endeavouring to destroy all that they and their way may alone prevail and govern which is the last result of all unwarrantable and unjustifiable commotions in Church or State Nor doe men ever intend that such victories which begin with the tongue or pen and end in the hand and sword commencing with piety and religion but concluding with soveraignty and dominion shall be either inglorious or fruitlesse Seditious and schismaticall Champions for Religion will be sure as soone as they have power to carve out their own crowns and rewards the determination of scruples in conscience and differences in opinion must end not onely in imperious denying others the liberties of conscience at first craved or contended for but in the outing others of different mindes from their places callings profits and enjoyments which is very far from that taking up the crosse of Christ and following him from being crucified to the world in its lusts pride and vanity as becomes those that will be Christs Disciples in verity justice and charity To such mountains of changes and mighty oppressions doe little mole-hils in Religiâ—â—â—ually swell when the justice of God suffers piety to 〈◊〉 both poysoned with policies and Religion perverted with humane passions Little differences in Religion like Crocodiles egs bring forth prodigies which are ever growing greater till they dye adding fury to faction passion to opinion cruelty to novelty Self-interests to Conscience Divine vengeance oft punishing sin with sin extravagancies of judgements with exorbitancies of deeds suffering the greater lust or stronger faction like pikes in a pond to devoure the lesser and one error to be both executioner and heir to another Because men obeyed not the Truth in love nor practised what they knew with a pure heart in an humble meek and charitable conversation which alwayes chuseth rather to suffer with peacefull and holy antiquity than to triumph with turbulent and injurious novelty From which have risen those many Church-Tragedies as of ancient so of later times which make the bloud of Christians yea of Jesus Christ too so cheap and vile in one anothers eyes Hence those unstanched effusions those unclosed wounds those irreconcilable fewds those intractable sores those wide gaping gulphs of faction and division malice and emulation war and contention which are enlarged and deep like hell threatning to swallow up and exhaust whole kingdomes flourishing Nations and famous Churches sometimes professing Christian and reformed Religion with order peace and truth Where now countreymen and neighbors kindred and brethren Ministers and people teachers and disciples are so far from that charity sympathy and compassion becoming beleivers in Jesus Christ so as to weep with those that weep and to rejoice with those that rejoice that contrarily there is nothing almost to be heard or seen but such a face of cruelty and confusion as a shipwrack a troubled Sea or Scarefire
or at least his will and zeal thinks it a shame to seem ignorant or if he be conscious to his ignorance seeks to cover it over and set it off with forwardness Therefore the wisdom of the Lord Christ upon whose shoulders the Government of his Church is laid Isai 9.7 hath set bounds to mans activity and unquietness by another way of Church power which is setled in and derived by fewer indeed but yet wiser and abler persons than the community of Christians can be presumed to be who in all affairs of Church or State have ever given such experiments of their follies madnesses and confusions where-ever they arrogate power or have much to do beyond ciphers in a sum that all wise men conclude That people are then happiest when they have least to do in any thing that is called Government Nor is it to be believed that Jesus Christ hath ordered any thing in his Churches polity that is contrary to the principles of true wisdom which in man is but a beam of that Sun which is in God But the Bodying men say 28. People not fit to judge of doctrine or scandals in Religion They must and ought to have a Church not onely visible in the profession of Faith but palpable and maniable so as they may at once grasp it and upon every occasion convene it or the major part of it into one place that so they may complain of what they think amiss and remedy by the power of that small fraternity what ever faults any of them list to finde in one another as Fellow Members and Brethren yea and in those too whom they have made to be their Pastors Rulers and Fathers Answ That the best Men and best Ministers may erre and offend in religious respects by error and scandal we make no doubt Nor is it denied but they may and ought both by private charity be admonished and by publick authority be reproved and censured Where this Authority is as it ought to be in the hands of those whom the Lord Christ hath appointed as wise able and authorised by the Church to judge of Doctrine Maners and Differences incident among Christians as such But I appeal to all sober and judicious Christians whether they can finde or fancy almost that venerable Consistory that judicious Senate that grave and dreadful Tribunal which the antients speak of among Christians of those first and best times which is necessary for the honor and good order of Religion and peace of Christians Whether I say there be any face or form of it among those dwarf Bodies those petty Church lets those narrow Conventicles whose Head and Members Pastors and Flock are for the most part not above the Plebeian size of a meer mechanick mould either ignorant or heady or wilful or fierce under words and semblances of zeal gravity and an affected severity I make no quaere Whether these sorts of men be fit persons to whom all appeals in matters of Religion must be made and by whom they must be finally determined to whose judgements prudence and conscience all matters of doctrine and scandal must be referred By whom Religious concernments must be ordered and reformed by whom Ministers must be examined tryed and ordained In eo quisque judex recti constituitur in quo peritus judicatur Reg. Juris first afterward judged and deposed Whether it be fit that those who are guilty of so little learning or experience in divine matters should solely agitate these great things of God which so much concern his truth his glory and Christians good every way which matters both as to Doctrine and Discipline are able to exercise and fully imploy the most learned able and holy men Who dreads not to think that all saving truths stand at such mens mercy the honor of Christ and the good of mens souls too while all degrees of excommunication and censures are irrepealably transacted by them Among whom its hard to finde two wise men and scarce any ten of them if they be twenty of one minde while they boast they are of one Body Again who will not sadly laugh to see that when they differ as they oft do and break in pieces yet like quantitative substances they are always divisible like water and other homogeneous bodies they still drop and divide into as many new Churches and Bodies as they are dissenting or separating parties The miracle is that when like Hypolitus his Limbs they are rent and scattered by Schisms into Factions yet still every leg or arm or hand forms presently into a new distinct compleat Body and subdivided Church Each of which conceives such an integrality of parts and plenitude of power that it puts forth head and eyes and hands all Church Officers Pastors Elders Deacons by an innate principle of Church power which they fancy to be in any two or three godly people At this rate and on this ridiculous presumption they run on as water on a dry ground till it hath wasted it self till they are in small chips and slivers making up Bodies at six and sevens and Churches of two or three Believers These ere long losing one another in the midst of some new opinion some sharp subtilty or some angry curiosity which they cannot reach then and not before this meteor or blasing Star of a popular Independent absolute self-sufficient Church power in the people which threatned Heaven and Earth and strived to out-shine the Sun and Moon and Stars of all antient combined Churches Order and Government for want of matter quite vanisheth and disappears by its Members separating from and excommunicating or unchurching of each other Then the solitary relicts turn Seekers whose unhappy fortune is never to finde the folly of their new errors nor the antient true Church way which they proudly or passionately or ignorantly lost when they so easily forsook communion with the Catholike Church and with that part of it to which they were peaceably orderly and comlily united as was here in England Whose way of serving the true God was privately with knowledge faith love and sincerity publickly with peace order humility and charity Which might still with honor and happiness to this Nation be continued if the proud hearts and wanton heads and rude hands of some novel pretenders had not sought to make the very name of Christian Religion the Reformed Church and Ministry of England a meer sport and may-game to the Popish profane and looser world by first stripping us of all those Primitive Ornaments of gravity order decency charity good government unanimity and then dressing us up and impluming us with the feathers of popular and passionate fancies which delight more in things gay and new than good and old But how shall we do say these Bodying-men 29. Of Church Discipline in whom the Power Matth. 18.17 Tell it to the Church to fulfil that command Dic Ecclesiae for such a Church as may receive complaints hear causes of
〈◊〉 both in health and sicknesse both of their bodies and soules goe along with the Word preached whom many Sermons and good words will not move some charitable good workes seasonably applyed as a hotter fire or warmer Sun may soften melt and convert To all which your plentifull or at least competent estates piously and prudently managed will give you greater advantages than most of the ordinary Ministers can have Matth. 25.21 Non minor est de bene tolerata paupertate gloria quam de bene collocatis divitiis Sen. whom for the most part necessity drives into this port of the Ministry and there keeps them so under hatches or on the Lee that they are seldome able to adventure upon any way further then their country Congregation and obscurity afford them who have onely this glory of being faithfull in a little and bearing poverty with great patience A few persons of your rank and quality by some such heroick and exemplary zeal as so many brave Christians of old against the Saracens would much confound the insolency of our Antiministeriall Jannes and Jambres 2 Tim. 3. It would put the divell to new shifts and inventions when he and they shall see the Lord stirring up in a way not usuall the spirits of gentlemen eminent for estates and relations who then chuse to put their hands to the Churches Oars and helm when they see the danger greatest and the tempest blackest You as Hercules may come in to relieve those Atlasses of the faithfull Bishops and Ministers who finde some mens new heavens too heavy for their shoulders and their new earth an unstable foundation to set their feet upon Your learned humility cannot easily be seduced by popular novelties and pretentions to climb over the wall Joh. 10.2 or to break in upon the Ministry by new wayes and posternes of factious and fanatick presumptions but will rather chuse if God moves your hearts to his work to keep your feet in his way that you may come in by that ancient and holy ordination wherever it may rightly be had in this Church This will make not only the true sheep of Christ Joh. 10.3 but the true shepheards also glad to hear your voice and to partake of those excellent gifts which God hath given you which study prayer and exercise will dayly increase upon you It is great pity so many of your learned and pious abilities should lie idle or not have imployment worthy of them especially when they are fitted for the Lords service and the Lord hath need of them Doe not despise the calling though it be black yet it is comely as the curtaines of Solomon though it be now forced to dwell in Meseck and to have its habitation in the tents of Kedar The first founder of our holy function was a man of sorrowes an outcast of men in whom the world thought there was no form or comelinesse Affliction hath reformed us by restoring Ministers to Christs image Which of you that hath the true sense what it is to be a good Christian and what honour it is to serve Christ in saving of souls but will at the first word Matth. 21.2 which Christ sends loose the Asse which is tyed it may be to some small secular businesse pleasure or study and let it be brought to Christ being fit for his service That so being strowed and adorned with the richer ornaments wherewith your condition is cloathed Christ may with the more conveniency and decency sit thereon vers 7. and ride as it were in an extraordinary triumph to Jerusalem and many may follow him with Hofunnat Blessing you vers 9. that come in the name of the Lord to save them The lesse incouragements you can now expect as Ministers of Christ from men the greater will be your honour the sincerer your comforts and the ampler your reward from God when the world shall see that you honour the work of the Ministry for the work sake and love Christ for himself no lesse than others doe where that service is attended with great revenues and dignities There will shortly be need more than enough of some Ministers who can undertake the work and not want the wages even the meanest minded men now begin to divert their studies and education to another way rather than that of the Ministry finding that there they are like soonest to come a ground and to dash against the necke of poverty and contempt A few of you like Davids worthies furnished with due and divine authority for the Ministery as well as with gifts would mightily stand in the gap repell and confound the vanity and insolence of those 1 Chron. 27. who are risen up to lay wast and desolate this sometime so famous a Ministry and flourishing Church But this is onely an occasionall digression humbly offered to those worthy Gentlemen who have parts learning piety and courage enough to make them dare to be good and to doe good in so high and eminent a way in the midst of a degenerate and declining age which knows not how to prise the Gospell of Salvation not worthily to entertain the Ministry and Ministers of it But to return to my former subject The taking away Tithes will be a great burden to the people it is most evident that these projectors against Tithes are no wayes friends to the Farmers any more than to the Gentlemen and Landlords for when Tithes are once taken away from Ministers and being in Lay hands are as easily cast into the ballance of secular businesse as other Church lands have lately been if then Christian people any where would be desirous to have a true and able Minister and cannot satisfie themselves with those false Prophets and unordained Preachers which are so cheap truly they will finde a new burthen must then lye wholly on their estates and purses to maintain their Ministers while yet they must pay their Tithes other where These just considerations and most undeniable reasons have already made the honest Yeomen so wise as in stead of petitioning against Tithes to cry aloud to all those busie projectors Before you take away Tithes from our Ministers first provide a better way for their maintenance Exchange will be no robbery if it be no detriment that is such as shall be neither more chargeable in a new way nor lesse comely and honourable where a legall right may give claim against all impediments else vile dependents on any mens favour or good will will abase both the calling and spirit and carriage of our Ministers below what is comely for them or willingly seen by us who know that in our true Ministers welfare the good of our own and our childrens soules under God is bound up Deprive not them of that due and double honor which the piety and gratitude of this Nation hath given to them lest you deprive us and our posterity of the true Christian and reformed Religion which we fear
to all good men and good Angels whom it cannot but afflict to see those that are the Brethren of Angels in heaven Revel 19.10 and the fathers of Christians on earth 1 Cor. 4.15 thus treated and threatned by some men who have this onely of proportion and equity in them to pursue the greatest vertues with the greatest hatred The Apologist therefore hath purposely declined to bring the odium or envy of Dedication upon any one particular person lest this defence should seeme like a blazing Star threatning with malignant influence any mans greatnesse and honour either of ancient or modern edition which may be jealous lest the patronising or pleading for the distressed and despised Ministry should be the next way to their diminution lest the dust and rubbidge of the so much battered and defaced Clergy should deform or bury them Besides he thought it in vain to single out any one Patron to this book and its Subject For first how few persons of more ample conditions splendider fortunes and higher quality in civill estimation doe much lay to heart the afflictions of these Josephs godly Ministers and good scholars Most are intent to their policy profit or pleasure or to their sufferings revenges and reparations Nothing costs a grosse spirited Gentleman who lives like a great earth worm in a fat dunghill lesse either as to his purse or his care than the interests of Learning or Religion The ignorance and dissolutenesse of many makes them indifferent if not enemies to piety and good education as lights that reproach their deformities or bonds that restrain their exorbitancies Some are best pleased when least molested by any morall or gracious importunities esteeming those their best friends who suffer them to degenerate to beasts or to devils or to both at once in being Hypocrites or Atheists who have the stupidnesse of the beast and the malice of the devill Not that I would diminish the honour of the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation the good and gallant sort of whom none in the world exceeds for civility fidelity justice constancy and piety Though some be the shame of honour and the stain of Gentry as bags of chaffe puffes of airy vanity illiterate vice insolent ignorance and folly well fed who have nothing to boast of but empty names of reproached ancestors and undeserved titles which are comely when inscribed on the Escucheon of vertues but deformed and ridiculous when usurped by pultroones and such whom no worth redeems from being vile and despicable to wise and serious mindes Yet there are not a few eminent persons of true honour and reall worth which consists in just valour judicious piety usefull virtues both to private and publique relations whose purses have been as cruses and their houses sanctuaries to many godly and learned men in the distresses of these times Yet in stead of paying a respect and honour to any of these truly noble and generous persons it might be but an injury to single out any one of them in the cloud and jealousies of these times to be as a publique refuge and Asylum to this work and its cause which carries with it something more immense and ponderous than ordinary occurrences in the world And besides its high concernment to Church and State to the temporall and eternall good of men it hath vast difficulties attending it rough oppositions implacable odiums and incorrigible malices to contend with In the midst of all which there must needs be a very great deadnesse and almost despair for any one man never so worthy and well-affected to advance beyond honest desires and sincere but ineffectuall endeavours Furthermore to take a right scantling of things what one mans shoulders I beseech you how potent soever can bear the burthens which are now cast upon the Ministry and Ministers of this Church of England What hands can raise their declined state what arms can support or stay their tottering and threatning ruines Alas what private influence can be so benign as to oversway or counterpoise that malignity which some men pretend to discover not onely in the mindes of men on earth but even in the very Stars and constellations of heaven which some say fight against the Ministry now as they sometime did against Sisera If these Western wise men who seem to be of a different strain and way from those Eastern Magi that came to worship Christ in the Manger with their persons and presents if I say they had not daily intelligence from heaven and sat neer to the Cabinet Councell of that High Court truly good Christians would hardly beleeve or regard their reports It being very improbable that the Stars either fixed or planetary should be enemies to those who bear their name in the Church as Ministers doe being called both Stars and Angels Revel 3.1 And who have ever been as much brighter in their light so more necessary to the Church and more dear to God than those are in the Firmament or visible heavens by how much the intellectuall and eternall light of mens soules exceeds that which is onely sensible and momentary to their eyes by how much reason and truth are above the beames and lustre of the Sun which is infinitely short of the divine glory of Christ and those spirituall benefits which by his healing wings the Ministers and Ministrations of his Church are derived to the world Although the study and knowledge of the Stars be very worthy of a wise and Christian man because in their beauty lustre and numberlesse number in their vast magnitude and height in their admirable motion and various influences the wonderfull glory of the Creators power and wisdome is eminently set forth beyond what vulgar eyes discern yet experience tels the truly learned and religious Astronomer for such there are that nothing is so blinde and bold as an hungry Astrologaster who must flatter that he may feed starveling wisards like witches threaten all that doe not give to them or approve them But if wise men by their moral liberty of virtue and grace may over-rule the Stars naturall inclinations upon them sure they may as the wisest of men both Christian and heathen ever did despise those sorry Star-gazers and silly divinators of whom Tacitus in the first book of his history writes That they were oft banished from Rome and yet could never be kept out a verminly generation ever destroyed yet ever breeding who owe their best education to their bellies their wit and science to the sense and knowledge of their wants Who pretend to get their harvest out of heaven and glean their food from among the stars when indeed they have their greatest influence upon the spirits and harvest from the purses of credulous and simple people They are alwayes fawning and unfaithfull to great men Deceivers of all that expect any great or good matters from them thus he a learned Heathen So that the insolency among Christians must needs be great and intolerable to see Almanacks
forbidden to have any thing to do in matters of blood though but in a way of Civil Judicature Among the Romans Pontifici non licuit quenquam â—ccidere Suet. in Vespas which was pure and peaceable and gentle and easie to be intreated by walking in the good old ways of meekness patience gentleness and Christian Charity Ministers were heretofore so highly esteemed in this Church That nothing was thought too much or too dear for them But when by worldly passions and secular engagements they are found too light for the balance of the Sanctuary where onely learned humility gives weight and an holy gravity to them when these sons of God court the daughters of men and disguise themselves into the forms of Politicians when they carry on vain and violent projects and opinions by pride choler fierceness tumultuariness faction and sedition or by rusticity grossness levity and credulity or in ways of scurrility popularity and cruelty when to advance themselves to some shew of power they cry up the Scepter and * John 18.36 My Kingdom is not of this world i. e. After the way and forms of the Kingdoms of the World Luke 17.21 The Kingdom of God is within you Rom. 14.17 For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink muchless thâ— flesh and blood of Christians but righteousness and peace c. Dan. 11.38 Kingdom of Jesus Christ to be carried on after the fashions of this world with Arms and Engines of War to be erected upon the Bones and Skulls of their Brethren and Fathers when Reformation of Religion must be squallid and besmeared with the blood of Christians when they make the Throne of Christ to be supported as Solomons on both sides with Lyons or Tigers Bears and Wolves instead of Lambs and Doves As if Ministers had changed or lost their meek humble patient silent crucified Messias and had got some Manzzim a Mahumetan God of forces who is to be served in * Laudant Deum in tympano non in Choro Classicum tenunt non pacem praedicant Jonum aperiunt quo clauso Christus natus Bellâ—nae sacerdotes non eccl siae Martis faces â—itiones non Evangelii lumina Cometae infausti pestes dira omina non stella salutares Christâ—m pranuncianter Greg. Buff-Coats and Armor with the Opima spolia the goodly spoils and victims of slain Christians their Neighbors Brethren and Fathers Alas who is so blinde as not to see who so dull as not to consider how destructive such distempers are even in the justest secular conflicts to the dignity how contrary to the duty of true Ministers of the Gospel Whose honor consists in meekness patience humility constancy diligence charity tenderness and gravity in their Preaching Praying and Living joyned to good learning and sound knowledge The want of these holy deportments conjured up those evil spirits of sacrilege sedition perjury cruelty contempt and confusion against them and among them which are not easily laid again No man ordinarily being ashamed to offer that measure of scorn evil speaking ruine and oppression which they see even some Ministers themselves have offered liberally to their Brethren and Betters Who can make conscience to destroy those that make so little to consume and devour one another And this at length with the greater odium because with the greater defeat Honest meaning Christians expecting nothing less than such conclusions from the specious premises of zeal for Religion and a through Reformation when it is too evident how much not onely the mindes and maners of men but the general form and face of the Christian and Reformed Religion was never tending to more deformity either in Doctrine Government or true Discipline than now it is as other where so in England through the miscarriages of many Ministers as well as people No wonder if ordinary men who naturally love not a Minister of Gods truth do easily disesteem those who so little reverence themselves and their holy Function No marvel if men make so little conscience to hear or believe them whose actions so contradict and palpably confute their former doctrine and maners Yea many now make conscience to neglect despise forsake and separate from them yea some seek utterly to depose and destroy them not onely as useless but as dangerous and pernicious creatures who seem to have more of the Wolf and Fox than of the Sheep and Lamb. Thus from Ministers of Gods truth peace and salvation they are too much faln to be esteemed as State-firebrands and by some as vessels of wrath onely fitted for destruction What was sometime cryed up as a commendable zeal and who but Phinehas with his Javelin was then thought fit to be a Priest to the Lord is now looked upon as either miserable folly or detestable fury And certainly 10. Ministers duty in civil dissentions in the calmest representation of things if some warmth of natural zeal and sparks of humane affections were allowable to Ministers who are still but men in civil and secular affairs relating as they thought to the good and safety of their Country their Laws Religion Liberties Estates and Governors yet should these warmer gleams in Ministers hearts rather have vented themselves in soft dews and sweet showres than in lightnings and hot thunderbolts or coals of fire Their politick Preaching their earnest Prayers their unfeigned Tears should have attempered both their own and other mens passionate heats and propensities to civil flames Vide Joel 2. v. 3 10 11 13 c. They should as * V. 17. Let the Priests the Ministers of the Lord weep Let them say Spare thy people O Lord c. the Priests of the Lord have stood and wept between the Porch and the Altar crying mightily to Heaven that God would spare his Church and people And with men on Earth they should have interceded that they would pity themselves and one another Ministers of all men should have studied preached prayed wept and fasted all sorts and degrees of men in this Nation who were so many ways neerly related to one another into calmness moderation Christian temper forbearings mutual condiscendings and proneness to reconciliation If this would not do they should have * Ezek. 22.30 I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedg and stand in the gap before me for the Land that I should not destroy it but I found none Caecina cùm milites nec antoritate nec precibus nec manis retinere possit projectus in limine miseratione demum quia per legati corpus eundum erat clausit viam Tacit. An. l. 1. stood in the gap or lain prostrate as Caecina did in the unhappy breach and rather chose to be trodden under the feet of Armies Men and Horses than to see the woful day in which their King and Country-men and Fellow Christians and Brethren should rush into an unnatural war to cut one anothers throats This I say godly and tender-hearted Ministers
calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Non est vera aut firma certitudâ— gloriae sine diligenti industria gratiae Chrys Phil. 2.12 1 Cor. 15.32 I die daily Verè Christum sequi est omnia perpeti indies crucifigi jugiter â—iâ—ri Prosp 2 Pet. 1.6 1 Pet. 4.18 Non vult Deus ut delicato itinere ad caelum perveniamus Jeron Aut hoc non est Evangelium aut bi non sunt Evangelici Luth. Vana est religio quae sceliri locum facit Aen. Syl. Vanâ— est religio quae vera non est nec vera esse potest nisi certa sit firtâ—a aequabilis sibi semper constans in omnibus una Tertul. Hoc primum invenimus quod perditissimi sumus nec nisi quaerendo Deum salvari possumus August to work out their salvation with fear and trembling by hearing reading searching and meditating on the Scriptures by repenting fasting praying watching and weeping by examining trying judging and condemning their sinful self even in the most specious and successful actions Thus by mortification and self-denial coming to the Cross of Christ taking it up bearing it and fastning themselves to it as to all just strictnesses holy severities and patient sufferings still endeavoring to abound in all exactness of justice charity meekness temperance and innocency before God and man Thus going with some holy agony through many difficulties the narrow way true Christians having done all enter in at the strait-gate which leads to life and are scarcely saved These were harder disciplines and rougher severities of piety than our delicate novelists our gentle Enthusiasts our smiling Seraphicks our triumphant Libertines our softer Saints can endure which makes them so impatient as Ahab to Eliah and Micaiah to hear and bear the words of faithful and true Ministers which seem as hard sayings when they recommend and urge these Scripturals and Morals of truth and holiness â—ustice mercy and humility Micah 6.8 to be the onely reals of Religion In which the duty rule end comfort and crown of true Religion do consist whose greatest and surest enjoyment is self-denial bringing the lost soul to finde it self lost and to seek after God and having found him to follow him with all obediential love with a pious impatient panting and thirsting after happiness in him by the ways of holiness as having none in Heaven or Earth comparable to him still earnestly pressing toward him as always and onely wanting him in the fullest enjoyments of all things here unsatiably satisfied with his unsurfetting-sweetness ever filled with him yet ever longing more to partake of him The soul in this its excessive thirst and spiritual feaver being confident it can drink up that Jordan that ocean of divine fulness which alone it sees can give it an happy satisfaction to eternity 4. The Souls search after and discoveries of God The devout and pious Soul thus intent to God and content with him is not always sceptically wandring in endless mazes and labyrinths of Religion either groping in obscurities or guessing at uncertainties or grapling with intricate disputes or perplexed with various opinions or shifting its parties or doubting its profession or confounding its morals or dazeling its intellectual eye by looking to prospects of immensity and objects of eternity which are so remote from it and far above it that it onely sees this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dionys Quod est omni creaturà melius id Deum dicimus Aug. Retract That it can see nothing of that transcendent Good which we call God Who is indeed that superexcellent excellency which we can least know as he is and can no way comprehend in his ineffable essence and most incomprehensible perfections But the Soul in its religious search after and devout applications to this supreme Good which it esteems as its God stayes and solaces it self as Miners do who still follow and chiefly intend the richest Vain with those lesser grains and sparks of divine goodness and beauty which it findes every where scattered in its passage among the Creatures which are as little essays pledges and tokens of that divine glory and excellency which must needs be infinitely more admirable and delectable in God himself The pious which is the onely wise and well advised Soul Habet Deus testimonia totum hoc quod sumus in quo sumus Tert. l. 1. adv Mar. Psal 111.2 Psal 8. Dei opera sunt quotidiana miracula consueta vilescunt Aug. Rom. 1.20 so soon as ever it seriously searcheth after God findes him in some kinde or other every where present and in every thing lovely yea admirable both within and without it self yet still it conceives him to be infinitely above it self and all things Something of God it discovers and accordingly admireth adoreth praiseth loveth and exalteth him in the order goodness greatness beauty variety and constancy of his works which are every day visible something it perceives of his sweetness and delectableness in the sober moderate and holy delectations which our senses afford us when they enjoy those objects which are convenient and fitted for them something it observes of divine wisdom power benignity and justice in the experiences of Gods providence bounty and patience which the histories of all times afford something it discerns of God in those common beams and principles of reason which shine in all mens mindes and are evidenced in the consent of all Nations Amplissin a merâ— est bona conscientia Hic murus aheneus c. Prima est bac ultio quod se Judice nemo nocens absolvitur c. Juv. Matth. 1.6 8. If I be a father c. Offer it now to thy Prince c. Tam pater tam pius tam beneficus nemo Tert. de Deo Sometime also in the reflexions terrors or tranquilities of its own and other mens consciences which are as the first Heaven or Hell rewarding the good or punishing the bad intentions and actions of every man More fully it sees God in the manifestations of the divine Word in the exactness of the Moral Law in the rules of Justice given to all men of which their own reason and will is the measure and standard Being commanded to do to other men as we would have them do to us Matth. 7.12 yea and to do to God also in the relations whereby we stand obliged to him for duty love and gratitude as we would have others do to us when we are as fathers or masters or friends or benefactors or well-willers against which to offend is by all men thought most barbarous unjust and wicked how much more against God who hath the highest merit upon us Yet further the Soul searching after God findes his wisdom and prescience in all those prophetical predictions and many prefigurations of things to come Idoneum est divinitatis testimonium veritas divinationis Tert. Apol. c. 20. which from several hands and at several times derived have
man is less to be imagined when we consider in the sacred story That man had most of divine counsel and deliberation in his Creation Gen. 1.26 not as needful to God who can work by omniscient and omnipotent power in an instant but implying to us those most exact and accurate proportions observed by the great and all-wise Creator in his formation of man All other Creatures rising up as bubbles on water so soon as the formative Word of God in its several commands fell like distinct drops from Heaven on the face of the great deep the Chaos or Abyss But man as a signet or seal was graven by a special hand and deliberate method of God with the marks and characters of his own holy image in spirituality wisdom righteousness purity liberty eternity and a proportionate capacity to enjoy whatever felicity he can understand and desire 5. Mans improvement That if we raise man to the highest glory and perfection which he covets and is capable of in this world of vanity and mortality we shall see something in him of a little god like the figure of a great monarch expressed in a small model or signet For bring him from the sords of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. from his infant infirmities from his childish simplicities from his youthful vanities redeem him by the politure of good education from his rustick ignorance his clownish confidences his brutish dulness Stolida ferocia Tac. his country solitude his earthy ploddings his beggarly indâ—gences or covetous necessities rack him off further and refine him from the lees of sensual and inordinate lusts from swelling and surly pride from base and mean designs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. de Cupiditat from immoderate affections violent passions unreasonable impulses and depraved temptations from within or without Then furnish him with health procerity and beauty fortifie him with competent strength both single and social endue him with all wisdom both divine and humane which the minde of man is capable of compass him with all fulness and plenty invest him with that publick honor which as beams of the Sun concentred in a Burning-glass arising from the consent of many men to unite the honor of their protection and subjection in one man makes up the lustre of a majesty something more than earthly and humane coming neerest to the resemblance of what is divine and heavenly Adde to these endowments of power opportunity and place to do good those real and useful graces those charitable and communicative virtues which enlarge the nobler soul to a love of the publick good and a zeal for the common welfare of mankinde in works of humanity gentleness pity patience fortitude justice mercy benignity and munificence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. è Menandro How goodly a creature is a man while he continues a man Exod. 22.28 Psal 82.6 John 10.34 Magistrates are called gods Paternum est docendi munus Psal 34.11 Jer. 9.34 Beatitudo est interminabilis vitae perfecta possessio Boet. What can more lively express to us a terrene visible Deity whom we may without Idolatry own and reverence so far as without blasphemy we may call such a man a God while he wisely teacheth and instructeth others a work worthy of a Parent a Prince a God or he powerfully protects or he bountifully rewards or justly punisheth or mercifully pardoneth or graciously loveth others and rejoyceth in their well-doâ—ng and happiness without any design or interest of his own Yea what do we ordinarily wish and expect or fancy more from God than all these excellencies of which we see there are some sparks and beams even now in mans nature sublimated to infinite perfections and extended to us with eternal durations is not this that estate of full enjoyment which we call Heaven Wherein we hope never to want those divine and immediate communicatings with the all-sufficient bounty and unenvious benignity of God is as well able so no less well pleased to impart to the soul than its necessities do require and its desires ambitiously and unsatiably covet to be supplied by them Not oneâ—y in order to this natural and politick Being which as men we have with men for a moment which is daily pressed upon with the fatal and inevitable necessity of dying which is a ceasing to enjoy God by the mediation of the Creatures in this visible world but also in reference to that rational religious spiritual gracious perfect and unchangeable Being whereto we naturally aspire for who would not be ever happy by enjoying himself in the wisdom strength beauty fulness love and sweetness flowing for ever from the excellencies of the Creator The fruition of whom is onely able to exclude aâ—l defects and fears to satisfie all desires to reward all duties to requite all sufferings to compleat all happiness to crown and perfect all true Religion which in Heaven shall be no other than what we desire it to be here on Earth that is a right knowledge and a willing performance of that duty which the reasonable creature Man ows for ever to God First as his Creator Conservator and Redeemer by Jesus Christ. 6. True Religion internal instates the Soul in Christ and in the true Church 1 Cor. 2.10 11. John 15.5 He that abideth in me and I in him c. 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord knoweth them that are his Extra ecclesiam non est salus This then we look upon as the Religious frame and temper of a reasonable Soul in its internal dispositions and private devotions toward God it self and others By which it is daily preparing for a glorious and blessed immortality of which holy frame it self onely can be conscious with God and the greatest evidence is That sincerity of heart which hath no other rule but Gods Word no other end but Gods glory and no other comfort but in the constancy of this disposition which is the fruit of Gods holy Spirit in it Certainly such a Soul cannot but be in and of the true and to man invisible Church of God so far as it hath a mystical spiritual and invisible life which consists in the union to Christ as the head by faith love and all other obediential graces of his Spirit which are common to every true believer Out of this Church its most true There is no revealed salvation possibly to be had for any that live to be masters of their own reason will and actions Yea further such a religious soul hath a capacity of and right unto that external visible politick and social communion with the Church of Christ where ever Christians enjoy outward fellowship with one another in publick profession Which communion however such a soul solitary it may be and sequestred from all Christian company may not actually enjoy being forcibly denied that happiness of which many do wilfully and peevishly deprive themselves by proud or peevish and uncharitable separations through
any thing we have failed as men yet we are assured the merciful eye of Heaven will look more favorably on our failings to pardon them than some Basilicks do on our labors to accept them * Jere. 1 8. Be not afraid of their faces for I am with thee to deliver thee saith the Lord. V. 18. I have made thee a defenced City a brazen Wall and an iron Pillar c. Ezek. 2.6 Be not afraid of their words though thou dost dwell among scorpions be not dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellious house who seek to destroy this Church and discourage all its true Christians and Ministers if they could with their dreadful aspects and spightful looks if they had not the defensative of Gods protection joyned to their own innocency and the favor of many excellent Christians whom I have endeavored to settle and satisfie as briefly and clearly as in so short a time I could in these many and to me very tedious and almost superfluous objections against this true Reformed Church of England these first and lesser calumnies which lay in the way of my main design I thought it my duty to remove 32. Want of Charity our greatest defect In the Council of Carthâ—ge An. 401. The Orthodox Christians send Messengers to the Donatists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So after they send An. 404. Orators for unity and peace without which say they Christian Religion cannot consist Where I see in all our disputes and differences so cruelly carried on the greatest ingredient is Uncharitableness which knows not how to excuse small faults to supply lesser defects to interpret well what is good to allow others their true Christian Liberty and to enjoy its own modestly to keep communion amidst some easie differences and union with harmless varieties We have had on all sides truth enough to have saved any men and uncharitableness enough to have damned any angels Nor is it meerly a privation or want of charity but an abounding of envy malice strife wrath bitterness faction fury cruelty and whatever is most contrary to the excellency of Christians which was the excellency of Christ love and charity The want of which Basil Mag. de Sp. S. deplores 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Naz. Or. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. Or. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 5. sayes Religion as a Tripos hath three feet Faith Hope and Charity and cannot stand if any one be wanting I cannot but here deplore in a pathetick digression craving the Readers pardon since I cannot go further in answer of uncharitable objections till I have first sought for our lost charity The recovery of which one grace would end all the differences and heal all the distempers not of England onely but of all the Christian World You O excellent Christians will I know joyn with me in searching after charity as they did after Christ sorrowing Luke 2.48 In mourning for as some of the devout antients did the sad distances and wasts of Christian charity among all sorts of Christian Churches and Professors Alas we glory and swell and are puffed up one against another in the forms of being called Churches and Reformed when we lose the very power of godliness the soul of religion and the peculiar glory of Christianity which is charity Joh. 13.35 By this shall all men know that you are my disciples c. O sweet divine and heavenly beauty of Christ and all true Christians Charity Whither art thou fled from Christians brests 33. Pathetick for Charity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Greg. Niss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 3. c. 1. Salvian complains Quis plenam vicuâ—â— exhibet charitatem Omnes à si etsi loco non absunt affectu absunt etsi habitatione juâ—guntur mente disjuncti sunt Lib. 5. de Gâ—berna Non Albiniani non Nigriani sumus sed Christiani Hoc unum fluâ—â—â—â— nullarum partium fludiis â—bripi Tertul. Acts 1.26 lives hearts and Churches In which was wont to be thy Nest thy Palace and thy Temple Where thou wert received welcomed and entertained by wise and humble Christians either as the Spouse of Christ in thy purity or as the Queen of graces in thy beauty or as the Goddess of Heaven in thy majesty O whither art thou gone where art thou retired Art thou to be found in the cells of Hermites in the Cloysters of Monks in the solitudes of Anchorites Probably there may be most of thee where is least of the world which like full diet begets most of cholerick and foul humors Dost thou reside among the pompous Papists The graver Lutherans the preciser Calvinists the severer Separatists or the moderater English Christians May we finde thee at Rome or Wittemberg or Geneva or Amsterdam or London Dost thou dwell in the old Palaces and Councils of venerable Bishops or in the newer Classes of bolder Presbyters or in the narrower corners of subtile Independents Alas I fear these very colours and names which are as ensigns and alarms to factions sound ill in the ears of Charity and are unpleasing to its sight which onely loves the first common title and honor of Disciples to be called Christians These faces and forms seem as if they were divided and set one against another and when they want a common adversary each party is ready to subdivide and seeks to destroy it self the hand of every faction in Religion is as Ismaels against his Brother or it self Smiting oft with the fist of violence as Factious where they should give the right hand of fellowship as Christians and strangling each other instead of embracing Or are all these divisions but the disguises of Charity and under visords of factions a meer pageantry is acted of zealous ignorance or proud and preposterous knowledge both carried on with holy partialities fraternal Schisms zealous cruelties sacred conspiracies so far onely as to destroy all other Christians That each sect alone may remain as the onely Church which then fancy themselves sufficiently built polished and reformed when they are but as heaps of rubbish in their several ruptures as unpolished lumps in their uncharitable sidings so far weak and deformed limbs as they are passionatly and violently broken from the intireness and goodly fabrick of the well compacted Catholike Church of which they were sometime a comly and commendable part Onely then in beauty safety and symmetry while in order to and in unity with the whole which is as the Body and Temple of the Lord in its various parts making but one goodly structure which was antiently the â—oy and glory of the whole Earth Now nothing seems best but deformed ruines and desolate parcels of battered broken and almost demolished Churches like Hospitals in which are most-what wounded and maimed and halting Christians when of old the Foundation of one Rom. 13.10 Love is the fulfilling of
all Prophets are all Teachers c. 18. All are not nor are any such as they are Christians or gracious c. 1 Cor. 12. ought to minister holy things to others to challenge the Keys of Heaven to themselves to be as in Christs stead to rule and oversee his house which cannot avoide as the Apostle proves abominable absurdities and detestable confusions no way beseeming the wisdom of Christ the majesty of Christian Religion or that order and decency which ought to be in Church-Assemblies being as contrary to reason as if every servant in an house should chalâ—enge the power of the Keys and the Stewards place or every member the office of the eyes tongue and hands by vertue of that common relation it hath as well as these parts to the same body the same soul and head As then right reason tells us beyond all reply That neither natural nor civil nor religious common gifts endowments or abilities instate any person in the office of Magistrate Judge Ambassador Herald Notary or publick Sealer Fraus est injuria quic quid agitur sub alterius persona sine debita ab illo autoritate Reg. Jur. Matth. 28.18 All power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or authority is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth that is in order to perfect Christs design his Churches good Acts 1.8 Autoritas delegata ab altâ—rius voluntate pendet tam quoad ipsam potestatâ—m quam ad derivandi modum Reg. Jur. 1 Cor. 4.19 I will know not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power V. 20. For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power i. e. That holy polity and orderly Kingdom which Jesus Christ hath set up and governs in his Church is not managed by confident praters but by authoritative Preachers Matth. 7.28 As Christ Jesus so his true Ministers teach and administer holy things as men having authority and not as the Scribes which places require not onely personal sufficiencies for the office but an orderly designation and induction to it from the fountain of civil power either mediately or immediately The same right reason which is most agreeable and servient to true Christian Religion requires a right derivation or conveyance of all supernatural Ministerial Church power which is in and from Jesus Christ as the sole supreme head and divine origin of it either immediately as they and none others had to whom Christ first consigned it and both by miraculous gifts and works confirmed it to be in them or mediately as those Bishops and Presbyters had it who without force fraud or any sinister way of usurpation or bold intrusion received this power from the Apostles by prayer and benediction with imposition of their hands in the name of Christ and from them their successors have lawfully derived it without interruption to the true Ministers of the Gospel even to this day as I have proved which not onely the Scriptures of undisputable verity but even those other very credible Histories of the Church and other Records of learned and holy Men in all ages to these times which the providence of God hath afforded us do abundantly declare all which to deny with a morose perverseness or rustical indiffereâ—cy is as if a Hog should answer all arguments with grunting And to act contrary to so strong a stream of concurrent Authorities both as to the judgment and practise of the Church in all ages is a work onely fit for Ranters and Seekers and Fanaticks or for Jews Turks and Heathen Infidels but not for any sober Christian that owns in the least kinde the Name of Jesus Christ or desires to be a member of any true Christian Church In which as all true and humble Christians have always enjoyed and with thankfulness owned the rightful succession and authority of their oâ—dained Ministers Pastors and Teachers so the Lord from Heaven in all ages hath witnessed to them by his blessings of truth and peace on the hearts of his people and by their means chiefly continuing the light of the Gospel to these days amidst those Heathenish persecutions Heretical confusions and Schismatical fractions which have sought to overthrow the Being or the Purity or the Order and Unity of the true Church To this judgment and testimony of Scriptures and antient Writers both in right and fact I might adde a cloud of witnesses from later reformed Divines which were very learned and very holy men far above the vulgar spirits both in other Churches and in this of England all agreeing with our excellent Bishop Jewel Bishop Jewels Apology Ministrum Ecclesiae legitime vocari oportere rectè atque ordine praefici ecclesiae Dei Neminem autem ad sacrum Ministerium pro suo arbitrio ac ibidine posse se intrudere That no may may intrude himself into the Ministry by his own will and pleasure or by any others who are not of that Order and Calling but he ought to be lawfully called and duly ordained by those in whom the lawful succession of ordinative power ever hath been and still is rightly placed and continued Agreeable to which there is a whole Jury of eminent Modern Divines alleged by a late industrious and ingenuous * See Master Halls Pulpit guarded Author who hath spared me that pains 9. The Priestly order among the Jews Joel 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niss de vita Mos Aronis Virga 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pel. l. 3. ep 20. Philo. Judaeus de sacerdotâ—o Aaronis calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Numb 16. Exod. 19.6 2 Chro. 26 20. Vzziah ceased to be fit to rule as a King being smitten with Leprosie who usurped the office of the Priest 1 King 13.33 4. I may adde by way of confirmation of that common equity and rules of order which must be among men in all things and most necessarily in things truly religious The inviolable Function and peculiar Office or Order of the Priests and Levites which were the Ministers of the Lord in his antient Church of the Jews which is a most convincing instance to prove not the sameness and succession of that Order but the equity comliness and exemplariness of a peculiar Ministry for holy things among Christians under the Gospel since that Levitical Ministry was not more holy or honorable nor more distinguished in power and authority and office from the people than this in the Christian Church which is more immediately derived from Christ as clearly instituted and ordained by him and more fully exhibitive of him both in the Historical Truths and in the Mystical gifts and graces of his Spirit Yet we see who so despised or violated that Order and Ministry among the Jews under pretence of a common holiness in Gods people who were in a spiritual sense indeed called an holy Nation and a royal Priesthood so as to confound the Functions and Offices divinely distinguished either the earth from beneath devoured them
is among us not so much a famine as a surfet of the Word and knowledge which hath here been as the waters of the Sea Hab. 2.14 disdains those shores of order office and duty which the Lord hath set for its bars and bounds in his Church Christians in many places having had great fulness are come to great wantonness and the enemies of the Ministry The greatest enemies of Ministers make them most necessary and Reformed Religion in this Church are not such as have been kept meager and tame with emptiness and ignorance but such as have been pricked with provender high fed by an able and constant Ministry These are grown to such ferocious spirits like pampered horses whom no ground will hold daily neighing after novelties rushing upon any adventures and impatient to bear those Ministers any longer by whose bounty they have been so liberally nourished with all means of knowledge preaching conferring and writing These now affect high racks and empty mangers subtilties rather than solidities and novelties more than nourishment yea they are become the rivals of their Ministers and und rtake like Balaams Beast to teach their Masters not onely speaking with them but against them yea seeking to cast them quite off lifting up their heel against them and trampling their feeders under their feet Thus having either got the bridâ—e between their teeth or having cast quite off their neck the reigns of Order Government and Discipline in Religion Psal 32.9 they are become like Horse and Mule without understanding without gratitude civility and common humanity so far they are from sober piety Running furiously without their guides wantonly snuffing up the wind and proudly lifting up themselves in their high crested opinions and presumptuous fancies of notions gifts prophecyings and inspirations Glorying in this riotous liberty and mad frolicks of Religion which all wise humble and holy Christians know are not more unworthy of and uncomfortable to all good Ministers who taught them better than they will be most dangerous destructive and damnable to those men themselves who proudly affect those ruder and dangerous follies in the Church of Christ who cannot either they or their posterity be ever so safe as in Christs way at his finding and under his custody where with holy and just restraints becoming Reason Order and Religion there are also the most ingenuous liberties and the most liberal fruitions Wandering prodigals in Religion who forsake the order and regularity of their Fathers house which is full of bread will soon be reduced to a morsel of bread And we see already such as have in their pride and disdain most forsaken the true Ministry are come by their riotous courses to feed on husks and from the harlotry of their wanton and fine opinions to consort with swine having hired out Luke 15. and enslaved themselves to all rude unjust and profane designs or else wallowing in filthy and sensual lusts which makes them sin against Heaven and Earth and be no more worthy to be called the sons of God or the children of this Christian Reformed Church So that we evidently see That those men fight against God against Christ Jesus against the Reformed and Christian Religion against the Word of God which is the standard of Religion against the Unity Order and Cathol ke conformity of the Church of the Christ in all ages against the future Succession of Religion against their own souls against their posterity against the common good of all mankinde and all such as may want and enjoy the inestimable blessing of the Gospel who ever fight against the holy office divine authority necessary duty sacred dignity and constant succession of the Evangelical Ministers and Ministry without which the Church of Christ like a Field or Garden without diâ—igent and daily Husbandmen and Gardiners would long ago have run to waste and been over-run with all maner of evil wâ—â—d which grow apace even in the best Plantations if God in his wisdom and mercy to mankinde and to his Church had not appointed some men as his Ministers to take care from time to time that the field of the Church be tilled in every place that the Garden be weeded and the vineyard fenced and this especially for their sakes who are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 most of men whose cares and burdens of life or whose dulness and incapacity or whose wants and weakness or whose lusts and passions would never either move them to or continue them in any way worthy the name of true Religion if God had not sent and ordained 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cryers 1 Tim. 2.7 Praecones vel Caduceatores Heralds and Ambassadors to summon invite and by pious importunity even compel men to come into the ways of true piety and happiness which being not onely far above sinful flesh and blood but quite contrary to them had need have a Ministry whose authority for its rise assistance and succession should be beyond what is of humane original and derivation which who so seek to oppose destroy or alter will certainly bring upon themselves not onely the guilt of so high an insolence against Christ and injury against this Church but also will stand accountable to Gods justice for those many souls damnation whom their vanity and novelty have perverted and destroyed both in the present age and after generations for want of true Ministers These first weapons then which the Adversaries of the peculiar Calling of the Ministry hoped to finde in the Armony of Scripture or Right Reason whereby to defend their own intrusion and to offend that holy Function and divinely instituted Succession are found I think to have as little force in them to hurt the Ministry or to help the enemy 1 Sam. 17. as Goliahs Shield Helmet Sword and Spear had either to injure David or secure himself yea we see those smooth stones those pregnant and piercing Authorities of many clear and concurrent Texts of Scripture both for precept and example which I have produced according to right reasoning from Jesus Christ and the blessed Apostles To which the Catholâ—ke practice and custom of all Churches in after times is as a sling directing them more forcibly and firmly against the brazen foreheads of those Anakims that oppose the Ministry All these together are sufficient to prostrate to the ground their proud height and to put to flight that uncircumcised party who have defied and seek to destroy the hoâ—y Ordination of Evangelical Ministers whose poor and oppressed estate although it may now seem but as little David with his Scrip and Staff in the eyes of self-exalting adversaries who despise and curse them in their hearts yet these may finde them to come in the Name and Power of the Lord sent by Gods mission furnished with Christs commission and appointed by the Churches due Ordination to be Leaders Rulers and chief Officers in the Church Militant under His Excellency the Lord Jesus Christ
Lay-mens hands what a sorry choice for the most part would they make of the Man or Minister how weakly would they examine his sufficiencies how wildly would they Institute and Ordein him what sad and slovenly hands would they impose on him how soon would they reject and disdain those Blocks they had so hewen to be their Mercuries and the Idols they had set up for their Seers and Shepheards which many times can neither sec nor hear nor rightly understand the Mysteries of Religion nor the Duties of the Ministeriall Function who sees not that common people are rather taken with a familiar Rusticity in a Minister Vulgus vulgaria omnia inpensius amat amplectitur Eminentiora exortia potius admiratur quaÌ„ amat non raro odio invidia calumniis tanquam ostracismo suo prosequitur than with the best learned abities prefering oft-times a confident Mechanick to be their Teacher before the compleatest Divine in a Country They judge not what is worthiest but what is fittest to their humours rejoycing more in the knack which they fancy of Church Power and Liberty though it be to their prejudice than in what may really advance their souls good with just Authority receiving more willingly one that comes in his own name as gifted or in their name as chosen and ordeined by them than if he comes in Christ name and by that right Ordination which hath alwaies been in the Church of Christ Certainly common people may as well be their own Preachers and Baptisers in course one after another as ordein of themselves any one to be their Preacher what hinders they may not all exercise that power as Ministers which they presume to give to another which they cannot do if they have not that power in themselves and if they have all this power of the Keys as Stewards and Ministers of holy things then 't is not true that Christ hath given 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only some Ephes 14.11 1 Cor. 12.28 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all to be Apostles Pastors and Teachers So that every part in the body may challenge to be an eye and to have visuall power which peice of prophane confusion was never acted or allowed in the Church by any that were worthy to be listed among sober Christians or well-ordered Churches who owned in all ages their calling to be Christians and their gathering to the body of the Catholick Church as parts and members not to their own good nature or preventive forwardness making to themselves a Minister for Christ but to those true Ministers pre-ordeined by the Church and sent by Christ to them while they sought not after him These were in time and order of nature before the people as spirituall Parents by whose Ministry they were taught Baptised and made Christians formed guided and governed in the things of God so that the power of a Minister must needs flow from an higher fountain Jesus Christ and be conveyed by an other Conduict to the people than by the people Who can originally no more confer the power of Ordination to Ministers than Children can give a parentall power and authority to their Parents or the vessels formed can give a formative power and skill to the Poeter 12. Peoples relation to their Ministers The peoples calling to themselves and electing a Minister that is rightly ordeined or accepting such an one who is according to Laws both Civill and Ecclesiasticall sent among them to be their Minister is but a matter of humane prudence and civill compact as to that particular place and people An owning and acknowledging of that power which he hath from Christ by the hands of Church Rulers to officiate as a Minister of Christ for their good It is not an induing with power but meerly an appropriating of the exercise of his power Ministeriall to such a place and such a people for order and distinction sake to avoyd rambling and confusion in the Church It is not any conferring of the Office function or habitude of a Minister to any person who is a Minister ordeined for the service of the Catholick Church over all the world wherever the Gospell may be Preached the Sacraments administred and other holy offices performed in a right and orderly way Which vast power and authority extending to all Nations and every creature under Heaven Mat. 16.15 capable of the Gospell far exceeds any proportion of power that can be imaginable in any handfull of private Christians in one place and can only be from the Catholick power of Christ and that grand Commission first given from Christ to whom the ends of the Earth belong to the Order Ministeriall and by those of that Order preserved to this day and never claimed in common but by the irregularity ignorance or impudence of some few men of these last and perilous times For how ever the faithfull people in some places during the times of primitive persecution which kept all sides more humble and holy did oft-times express by their presence their love and respect to their Bishops and Presbyters by a chearfull concurrence with them in matters tending to the publique order and peace Crysost was accused for privately Ordeining 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. Bib. de Jo. Crysost Vniversus sexus clerus à Sylvestro episo ut Priscum Theodorum ordinaret Diaconos proposuerunt Con. Rom. 2. c. 10. An. 324. Cornelius factus Epis de Dei Christi judicio de cleri testimonio de plebis qui adsunt testimonio Cypr. ep 52. Sub populi assistentis conscientia fiebant ordinationes Cypr. l. 1. ep 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Can. Apost de epis and good government of the Church so far as their discretion and modesty thought decent and acceptable to their Governours and Pastors In the Election of whom they had something of approbative suffrages consent or nomination yet did they never presume to chalenge any Power of Ordination to be in or of themselves but requested and obteined it for those whom they thus chose or approved from the hands of such rulers in the Church in whom the power Ministeriall was deposited and alwayes conserved It was enough for the faithfull flock to be quietly present at Ordination to joyn in prayer and fasting with the Ordeiners to attest the merit of those whom the Bishop with the Presbyters declared to be Candidateâ— or Probationers and Expectants of the holy power of Ministry which to confer the common people have as much to do as Saul or Uzziah had to offer Sacrifice or Incense What may be don in cases extraordinary In ordinandis Clericis fratres charissimi solemus vos ante consulere mores ac merit singuloruÌ„ communi consilia ponderare Cyp lib. 2. ep 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theop. Alex. Austin ep 180 ad Honoratum Denies that M nisters may leave the flock destituâ—e of debitum maximè necessarium Ministerium
pretious and the vile Mean time Gods husbandmen the true and Ordained Ministers 13. The patience and constancy of Ministers will best confute these pretenders must have patience but not slacken their diligence after the holy example of those godly Bishops and Presbyters of the Church in the times of the Arrian Novatian Donatistick and others prevalencies and persecutions The fierce and fiery spirit in the old hereticks and schismaticks could least of all endure with temper and moderation those Bishops and Ministers which were soundest in their judgements faithfullest in their places and holyest in their lives * Socrat. l. 1. c. 7. l. cap. 17. Can. African Theod. l. 4 c. 12. So that not only they destroyed and drove away most of the orthodox Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters out of many Provinces in Africa and so in Asia as in Europe but they sought with all fraud and force to destroy that great Colosse of Christian Religion the most renowned Bishop of Alexandria * Omnes quos factionis macula sâ—ciavit in Athanasium conspirabant Ruff. hist l. 1. Toto orbe prosugus M. Athanasius sex annos in cisterna sine sole vixit Id. Athanasius who was the wonder and astonishment of all the world for his learning piety and constancy standing like an unshaken rock of Truth amidst the troubled Sea of Arrian Errors If the hand of Secular power will not maintain the antient order of the true Ministers of England in their Ministry liberties and lives which we humbly crave and expect * Vbicunque a perditis mala ista commissa sunt ibi ferventius atquae perfectius Christiana unitas profecit Aust Ep. 50. de persâ— yet we hope the Spirit of Christ and the power of heaven will preserve us with good Consciences amidst the trialls losses contempts and deaths which we may encounter And however the * Rev. 12.4 Rev. 2. Tail of the Dragon with many windings and insinuations hath drawn after him many stars from the heaven of their formerly seemingly sober orderly and godly profession to the Earth of temporary successes worldly applauses secular complyances and irregular motions for vain glory or for filthy lucres sake yet Christ will still preserve * Brightman in Apoc. Rev. â—3 10 in his right hand those stars which shine by his light and are placed by his Name Power and Authority in the Firmament of his Church * Heb. 11.37 Persecutio Christiani nominis in crementum Lact. Quanto magis premitur magis augetur Id. Although this may be the houre of temptation which must come upon this Reformed Church and the power of darknesse which may for a time have leave to deny betray set at naught and crucifie afresh the Lord of Glory in his true Ministers and faithfull servants yet good men may be confident * that their bonds and scourges their revilings and cruell mockings their being sawn asunder between ignorance and error schism and heresie profanenesse and hypocrisie superstition and licentiousnesse The very indignities restraints injuries and ruines of the godly Ministers shall tend to the honour Velut auâ—um non vâ—rbis sed exiliis caâ—ceâ—â—bus probatur fides ad potioâ—is metalli fulgâ—â—em teâ—â—â—det Ruff. Hist l. 2. c. 6. Crudelâ—as fectae est â—llecebâ—a s men est sanguis Christianorum Tertul. Apol. propagation and more glorious restauration of the Reformed Religion which of later times hath wanted nothing so much whereby to set forth its primitive lustre and power as the constancy and patience of the Ministers and Professours of it in the point of comely suffering for the Truth In which way the brightest beams of the Spirit of Glory are wont to appear The base cowardly avoiding of sufferings hath brought great reproaches upon many Ministers and other Christians who Proteus-like by mean compliances and palliations suiting themselves to a disorderly and variating world have much eclipsed and deformed the beauty and dignity of their holy Function and Profession both as Ministers and as Christians As it is far harder to suffer persecution and to bear the burning coales of mens displeasure in our bosomes than to make long prayers or to preach soft and smooth Sermons and to bandy safe disputes in the Sun shine of Peace plenty favour and prosperity so more glory will then redound to God and more honour to the Reformed Religion from those sparkling rayes and effusions of grace P oâ—um virtutes ut Aromaâ—â— quâ— magis câ—nteruntur eo frangratius redâ—lent Ieror which shall flow from excellent Ministers when they are red hot in the forge of affliction and hammered on the Anvile of the worlds malice than ever did from those faint and weaker beams by which they shined in the easie and ordinary formalities of Religion Nor will any thing more assure them and the uncharitable world that they have the Spirit of Christ in them of a Truth than when they shall find they have holy and humble resolutions to suffer with Christ and his Church rather than to reign with a wicked and irregular world whose Jesuitick joys will then be fulfilled and crowned with garlands when they shall see the learning piety order government and honour of that Ministry which sometime flourished to the great regret of all its enemies in this reformed Church utterly prostrated vilified impoverished and expulsed On the other side the spirituall joyes of true and faithfull Ministers will be encreased by their being beaten and evill intreated and cast out of their Synagogues by their being reproached scorned and wounded unjustly not onely from their professed enemies of the Romish party but even from those who were of their own household who seemed to be their familiar friends It is happier to have the least measure of Christs Spirit in patience truth and power than to make the greatest boasts and to enjoy the loudest vulgar applauses which those Chenaniahs seem to affect and aim at 1 King 22. who dare now to smite every where the true Prophets the plain dealing Micaiahs on the mouth designing to feed al the true able and faithfull Ministers with the bread and water of affliction because they will not comply with or yeeld to that novel lying proud and disorderly spirit with which their hearts and mouths are so filled with malice not onely against the Ministry but against the prosperity of this and all other reformed Churches which folly or fury they would have styled and esteemed to be in them the speciall gifts and inspirations of the Spirit of God Proud and presumptuous men doe not consider what is most true 14. False pretentions to the Spirit * Nulla erroris secta jam contra Châ—â—sti veritatem nisi nomine câ—opeâ—ta Christâ—ano ad pugnandâ—m pâ—osilire auâ—et Aust Ep 56. That the greatest blasphemies against Gods Spirit and his Truth are oft coloured over with greatest ostentation of the Spirit as is evidently shewed both in former and later times Many
the givers and aimes next the glorifying of God at the spirituall and eternall good of their own souls Nor can God to unthankefull to those unto whom he gives the grace of being so really thankefull to himself for what is done to the Ministers of Christ is as done Christ himself and what is done to Christ redounds to a mans own good The divine munificence as the heavens alwayes returning with liberall showres and fruitfull dews upon us what ever gratefull exhalations our devout humility as the earth sends up to him * An. 587. Synodas Mutiscenensis de decimis leges renovavit quas Christianorum congeries lâ—ngis ante temporibus custodierat intemeratas Can. 5. either in charity to the poore or in a liberall requitall to his Ministers Neither of which are welcome objects to those ravenous appetites who so much grudge that Tithes should by any title though never so free gift which is very just and good be given to Ministers and enjoyed by them When once these hungry stomachs have satified themselves with the flesh of Ministers the Clergies maintenance or Churches Patrimony who may doubt but they will also pick the bones of all Colledges Hospitals and Almshouses Nothing being sacred to a sacrilegious minde Synod Moguntina sub Carol. M. an 813. Can. 38. testatur Imperatorem tributa remisisse eorum loco decimas Deo assignasse nor unviolable to a violent and rapacious hand Nor is it a hope so much to relieve their own necessities but a kinde of wanton cruelty which makes many of these Evening Wolves so fierce and ravenous against the Ministers maintenance Nay many of them covet nothing more than to see all the excellent Ministers of England reduced to the same beggery which the meanest of themselves now contend with all or lately did so little have most of them profited by their over thrifty piety Nor are such illiberall souls ever to be satisfied with good things * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacrilegis nil sacrum Hierod 3. Against Tithes as Judaicall c. But Tithes are Ceremoniall Legall Typicall Judaicall and which visard makes every face ugly and terrible to the vulgar they are Anchristian Answ 'T is possible some simple countrey people may be scared to subscribe against Tithes with these bugges words But sure for these men who pretend to fright others I beleeve they have no more reall horrour upon them to take Tithes or more of others either as they pretend to be Preachers or as they are Lay Impropriators than the conjurers in Lapland have who make many strange faces and fearfull noises as if they had raised and espyed a divell in their circle when all is to get but a little money of the silly spectators The meaning of all this great cry against Tithes of Ministers is to save a little wool though the sheep be the more scabby to spare some small matter which some of these objecters it may be yearly pay to the Ministers with much regret and murmuring Yea it is generally observed that these clamorers who make the greatest cry doe not yeeld the fairest fleece nay most of them not one grain to the feeding nor one lock to the cloathing of any Minister nor indeed have they much wooll for the most part on their own backs which makes them envy all that have Sheep are silent under the shearers hand but dogs are prone to bark and snarl at those that feed them Phil. 3.2 of whom the Apostle Paul bids the Saints Bishops and Deacons of Philippi to beware as of evill workers who are not content with the circumcision of Ministers maintenance which hath been already too much made by severer hands but they aim at a totall concision a taking all away As for these Repiners they are not so guilty of paying Tithes as they would be of receiving them 'T is as much a covetous as an envious spirit which possesseth them Yea rather than fail of their designe against Ministers they are not content with their own not paying any thing to Ministers but they repine that any men else should whose gratitude and religion teacheth them to give to every man what is their due especially to the Ministers of Christ which they justly doe as with a good will and chearfull minde so with a good will and with a far more judicious and upright conscience both to God and man than these covetous cavillers can possibly carp or grudge against them who poor men every day think they grow leaner while they see or hear any Minister hath what they call a fat Benefice or a competent Living Although the faithfull Lamp spends its self and all the Oil too in the place where hee receives it But these murmurers cannot digest the Jewishnesse of Tithes Of Tithes as Jewish and they are still fancying and afraid some costly sacrifice must needes goe along where ever Tithes are continued Answ It may be these men cannot endure Tithes unlesse the Jews might enjoy them who although still crucifying Christ in their malice hardnesse and blasphemies yet these men seem far lesse averse from entertaining them with their fawning and flattering insinuations into their bosomes than from maintaining or countenancing those Ministers who preach and beleeve in Jesus Christ crucified as the onely Messiah and Saviour of the world Nay these Anti decimists glory in two things as high tokens of their Sanctity one is their endevours first to further the conversion of the Jews the second is to hasten the subversion of the office of the Christian Ministery Nor doe the Jews unwillingly flatter them sometimes as very great factors for them when they see what rare Jewish projects they have common with them against both the name and faith the Church and Ministers of Jesus Christ who had never so prevailed by his word against the Jewish pertinacy and obstinacy if he had not had an able constant faithfull and ordained Ministry nor had this Ministry without miracle continued if there had been no constant maintenance which the more settled it is against covetous and ungratefull spirits the more is the preaching of the Gospell and its power likely to settle in all humane reason Notwithstanding that the corrupt lusts of men are prone sometime to abuse peace and plenty as David did his leisure strength and retirement One would think that these men did forget that the Ministers of the Gospell are men as well as the Jewish Pri sts were Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the Oxe c. 1 Coâ— 9 9 12.13 14 c. The Oxe hath a mouth to feed himself as well as feet to â—â—ead out the corn for others and that they have mouths given them not onely to feed others with the Word of life but also themselves with bodily food as the necessary staffe of life Yea they not onely may but ought to live of the Gospell as the Priests did of the altars service Indeed the words and spirits
cast away that just and fair protection which they enjoy under any civill power which Christ tels us no man can have but from above Joh. 19.11 Joh. 19.11 But rather with all humble gratitude both to give God the glory and man that respect which is due for any favour and indulgence they have in worldly regards which will ever seem least heavy to a good Christian while there is no torture rack or tyranny exercised upon the conscience by forcing to declare or act there wherein their judgments are not so fully satisfied as to the point of approbation or actual concurrence It is happy if at any time truly consciencious Christians can enjoy any fair quarter among men of this world whose high and haughty spirits if puffed up with successe are hardly patient of Christs self-crucifying methods It is wisdome in Ministers to merit by humble and peaceable carriage according to a good conscience all moderation from secular powers who are more easily provoked against them than other men Statesmen are often flatterers seldom such reall friends to Jesus Christ and his Church as to deny themselves much for their sakes Nor doe they usually much regard those holy interests further than they are brought to a compliance with their designes The yoke of Christ is commonly too heavy for the iron sinews of Conquerours necks and his gate too strait for triumphing Armies to march through with out much stooping and self-denyall Victoria natura insolens est superba Cic. pro. Mar. which is a hard lesson for those to learn whose advantages are in their hands unlesse grace be also in their hearts It 's alwayes seen that men of power set up themselves speedily and effectually in places of honour and profit but to set up Christ and his Kingdome in any reall way of godlinesse and holy order further than some verball cheap and popular gratification is a work of many ages and worthy of that pious and magnanimous spirit which was in Constantine the Great whose Eagles wings served no lesse to protect the Church in peace and prosperity than the Empire and his own person Great men are generally shy of those consciencious strictnesses and self-diminutions which true Religion requires so that Ministers had need study to walk inoffensively that they may catch men by honest guile Laying aside all uncomely rigour rude severities 2 Cor. 12.16 and what ever may savour of either scorn or stubbornnesse using in civill affairs all fair submissions which may consist with the peace of their consciences before God and the honour of their profession before men which is the purpose and will be the practise of all truly wise and godly Ministers who think it more honest and honorable to be open enemies than false and feigned friends to withdraw from rather than abuse protection But yet in matters properly religious so far as Ministers are in Christs stead and have the care and charge of true Religion 5. The courage of Ministers in things properly religious and in their calling of the Church and of the welfare of mens soules Herein O you excellent Christians I know you not only allow but expect that all true Ministers should be faithful to Gods glory the souls of them * Non est dicentis praesumptio ubi est jubentis domini autoritas Chrysost l. 70. although they should offend them That they ought to speak the truth seasonably and wisely though they contract enemies that they must not by their * Honestius est offendere quam odisse Tac. vit Agr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Syn. de Regno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pusillanimity and flattery prostrate the honour of true Religion nor of their Ministry which ceases not to be Christs Jewell when it is for its splendor which men cannot bear trodden under feet * Act. 7.55 They must still looke stedfastly to heaven though men cast dust and ashes stones and firebrands in their faces upon the earth In this holy station and resolution which is proper to them as Ministers of the truth of God I hope there are still many so * Jer. 9.3 Non quid illi cupiant audire sed quid nos deceat dicere considerandum qui fâ—lsarum lâ—udum irrisionibus decipi quam saluberrimis monitionibus salvari malint â—l l. 8. Gr. valiant for the Truth so zealous for the glory of God the name of Christ and the honour of the reformed Religion so faithfull also to mens souls and their own integrity that as they will not disdain to serve even wicked Magistrates in Gods way no more than * Mark 6.20 John Baptist did to preach to Herod yet they would infinitely disdain to flatter them in any way Nudè cum nuda loquimur non verenda retegimus sed in verecunda refutamus Ber. Ep. 43. as Gods or agreeable to true Religion which is not so or to fear them so as to betray the cause of God which is alwayes pleading against the ignorance or errour or violence or hypocrisie or pride of the evill world and to sow pillowes under any mens Elbowes who may perhaps lean uneasily on the skuls and bones of those they have unjustly slain 1 King 20.2 Isai 30.10 or like Ahabs 400 false Prophets to speak onely soft and smooth things to those men whose hearts and hands are prone to harden by the use of armes both against piety equity and charity so that at length they may grow rough as Esaus and red as Edoms military passions and actions especially in great and violent changes Frustra de superatis hominibus gloriatur infaelix victoria quae irae superbiae fuccumbit Ber. ad mil. Temp. seldome keeping within the bounds of that justice and mercy which Christian Religion constantly prescribes without respect of persons to the strong as well as the weak to the Conquerours as well as the conquered Successe being for the most part an irresistible temptation to men by power to gratifie their lusts and to think any thing necessary and so lawfull which is but safe and beneficiall not regarding the exact rules of justice in the Laws of God and man which are divine and immutable by no advantages of gain or honour to be warped or varied The common places Sermons and prayers of true Ministers must not be like some mens Almanacks calculated just to the elevation of mens counsels designes and successes wherein flattery would seem to be Prophetick and foretelling but without respect of persons the same at all times to all men as to the main rules and duties of holinesse Although it be very impertinent to dispute with power irresistible to tax Caesar when he is able to tax all the world or to quarrell at his coin when he is master of ours yet a wise Minister and Christian may distinguish between the publique power in men and the private personall sins of men A grave and
not beaten away the graces of Gods Spirit and fighting against Christians have not taught them to fight against God and the checks of conscience If the shedding of mans bloud have not taken away the sense and virtue of Christs bloud If the noise of warre and the cry of the slain have not deafned mens ears against the voice of God and the cals of his Spirit If the dreadfull and lamentable aspect of poore Christians supplicating in vain for life and dying with horrour and anguish at the feet and before the eyes of their brethren have not taken away the fight of charity and deprived men of the light of Gods countenance in love and mercy If there be any tendernesse of conscience any sense of sin any fear of God any terrours from above from beneath or from within if any belief of the judgment to come and accounts to be given if any thoughts of and ambitions for a better Kingdome than the earth can afford Nemo potest veracitere esse amicus hominis nisi qui fuerit primitus veritatis Aust Ep. 52. Charitas pie saevire humiliter indignari patienter irasci novit Ber. Ep. 2. No men will be more acceptable even to the greatest than those Ministers who know at once how to speak the truth and yet to keep within the bounds both of Charity and civility Nor doth it follow as the sophistry of some Sycophants would urge against true Ministers that those will be most active to destroy or disturb the powers of this world who are most faithfull to keep potentates soules from damning in the world to come In these Christian bounds then of peaceable subjection humility and holinesse if the Ministers of England which are able discreet and faithfull might but obtain so much declared favour and publique countenance which all other fraternities and professions have as to be sure to enjoy their callings liberties and properties which seem to be many times in great uncertainties under the obedience and protection of the laws as it would much incourage them in their holy labours which alwayes finde carnall opposition enough in mens hearts and discouragement from their manners so it would redeem them from those menaces insolencies and oppressions of unreasonable men who look upon them as publique enemies and perdue because they thinke they have little of publique favour and incouragement Ministers are so much men that kind and Christian usage will no doubt much win upon them The Sun-shine of favour is likelyer to make the morosest of them lay off that coat of rigour and austerity which some perhaps affects to wear than that rough storm and winde wherewith they are dayly threatned and by which many of them have been and are still distressed which makes them wrap themselves up as Elias in his hairy mantle when they think their lives and liberties and livelihoods are sought after and no such protection like to continue over them as they thought in a Christian State and Church they might have both obtained and deserved by their quiet and usefull conversation As just protection invites inferiors to due subjection so no men pay it more willingly than they who besides the iron chains of fear have the softer cords of lovâ— and favour upon them By how much after many violent stormes and hard impressions they are more tenderly used the more is respect gained and peaceable inclinations raised in men toward such as will needs govern them The very best of whom are seldome so mortified or heightned by Religion as to forget they are men or to be without their passions discontents and murmurings joined with desires and endeavours to ease and relieve themselves At least to change their condition if they finde it Tyrannique and Egyptian that is unreasonable arbitrary injurious and oppressive quite contrary to what is pretended of honest and just liberties both Christian and humane civill and conscientious which are for every one to enjoy as his private judgement of things so what ever is his priviledge and property by Law while he keeps within the practique obedience and compasse of the Law whereto Governours as well as governed are bound not onely in piety but also in policy Both tyranny and rebellion are their owne greatest Traitors Magistrates seldome losing or hazarding their power nor subjects their peace but when they wander out of the plain highway of Laws Non diu stare potest potentia quae multorum malo exercetuâ— Sen. de Ira. which are the conservatories both of Governours and governed It is the least degree of justice and short enough of any high favour to permit and protect worthy Ministers with all other honest and peaceable men as in doing their duties so in receiving their dues Yet this is as great a measure as in these times they dare either ask or hope for Immunities from any burthens that lye heavy on them Additions of honour or augmentations of estate I think all wise Ministers despair of Peace with a little as to this world would be a great meanes both to compose their studies and to strengthen their hands in the work of God Also to quench that fire with which many mens tongues are inflamed against Ministers their calling persons and their maintenance thinking they may both safely and acceptably despise those whom power delights not to honour For whose ruine the malice of some Antiministerian spirits wisheth as many gallowses and gibbets set up as there are Pulpits Dan. 3.18 But the Lord is able to deliver us if not yet be it known to these violent and unreasonable men Hoc posteris dicite Hominem Christo deditum posse mori non posse superaâ—i Ieron Psal 68.13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dictum juvenis inter tormenta cum totum vulnus erat fornam hominis at non fidei amiserat Euseb hist l. 5. c. 1. that no learned judicious and consciencious Ministers will bow down to worship that papall or popular Image of Anarchy and confusion which they seek to set up as to the shame and ruine of this and all Reformed Churches so infinitely to the detriment and dishonour of this Nation as to its common welfare in peace plenty or power in good learning or true Religion And however we are forced for some time to lye among the pots yet shall we be as the wings of a dove nor shall we want an Ark whither to fly at last where a gracious hand will receive us to eternall rest when we shall retire to heaven wearied with the troubles on earth and finding no rest for our souls amidst those overflowing scourges which the just and offended God will certainly bring upon all such evill and unthankfull men who love their power or profit more than their soules and glory in despising those who professe to be Noahs the Preachers onely of righteousnesse and of repentance but no way the pragmatick plotters of troubles or seditious movers of civill perturbations I Have now O you
but cruell actors in their distresses whose necessities must needs be some reproach of the Nation even a publique sin and shame never to be expiated Will it not be the height of barbarity to compell such persons to Bellisarius his Obolum After so many learned victories and triumphs to force them to turn their bookes into bread or to be their own Cannibals to feed on their owne bowels or to starve upon others uncharitablenesse O how sad and sordid is it for such learned worth to be tryed with want and such piety be exercised by penury O prodigy of covetous cruelty capable to astonish heaven and earth which seekes to hide its wickednesse by its enormity and to make its selfe incredible by its monstrosity and excesse men will think it a fable which humanity much more Christianity should so much abhor to act or suffer to be done when it is in their power to help O Divine Providence which art indisputable unsearchable uneffable how dost thou thus chuse darknesse for the garment of thy glorious lights and thick clouds of obscurity wherein to wrap up thy brightest beames among mankinde Art thou preparing Ravens for such Eliasses and working wonders for the nourishment of such Prophets or shall their retirednesse poverty and patience be thy greatest wonder and their Martyrdome thy highest miracle by which to convince and convert this crooked and adulterous generation Truly O excellent Christians it is infinite pity grief and shame that so deserving vertues and most reverend years should be so much obscured and neglected whose great learning and excellent gifts in all kindes no men or Christians would despise or not use and incourage save onely such as are afraid that either the true reformed Religion or true Ministers should have any lustre put upon them or so much as any competent livelyhood afforded to them here while forain Churches and Universities admire them and would gladly entertain them There are also some fair Plantations of young and thrifty trees yet left in this Church whose luxuriant floridnesse wants nothing but a right Church government to culture prune and order them These rightly planted out by due ordination and preserved by wise discipline would in time bear store of good fruits if the coldnesse and spowinesse of the soil and inclemency of the English climate ever since our Northern blasts did not make them dwindle grow mossy and shrubbed by popular and plebeian adherencies or if a violent hand doe not pluck them up by the root or so bark them round and circumcise their maintenance that no fair fruit can be expected from them when there is no sap derived to them who if they were duly ordered and incouraged would still make the vain and erratick genius of this age see That true Religion is to be preserved and the Kingdom of Christ in mens hearts advanced and the power of godlinesse maintained in Christians lifes not by new modes and fancifull fashion but by old truths and the old Ministry of whose line and measure these new pretenders coming far short they strive by their calumniating activity to supply their defects after the same arts that the ungrateful sons of Sophocles did who that they might get their fathers estate of whose longaevity they were impatient complained that hee doted and was past the use of those admired parts which formerly had got him the love and applause of all Athens beseeching the Magistracy that they might make their father their pupill and manage that estate for him to which he was superannuated The old man hearing of this practise of his unnaturall sons made and publiquely recited the famous Oâ—â—ipus Coloneus and last of his Tragedies which gave the people so great assurance of his still remaining reason and sufficiency that they caused the former unjust grant to be revoked and his unworthy sons worthily punished 18. The impertinency and insufficiency of the Antiministerial pretenders I must in like manner leave it to the judgement and conscience of all excellent Christians whether there be any compare betweene the gifts labours and successes of those goodly Trees the true Ministers who have had the right power and succession derived to them from the Apostolicall root and these new shooters or suckers who seek to starve the ancient trees which so far exceed them and over drop them Are they not like vines and brambles thorns and figtrees set together Is not the comparison uncomely and disparaging not onely to Christians judgements but to their very religion Can the exchange passe without infinite losse injury and indignity to all true Christians of this and all other reformed Churches And therefore I shall presume such a commutation can never be desirable or acceptable to any that are soberly religious and truly consciencious who have no secular interest wrapped up under specious pretensions of piety Wise and worthy Christians cannot but remember and be extreamly sensible of those many great benefits which their forefathers themselves and their countrey have evidently received and enjoyed many years by the labors of the true Ministers of this Church equall or like to which they cannot with any probability nor by any experience yet had expect from the sorry simplicity and extravagant ignorance of those Antiministeriall adversaries who have as little ability as authority to carry on the great and holy work of saving soules either by dispelling ignorance errours or prejudices out of mens mindes or by setling mens judgements in truth or satisfying mens consciences in doubts or by reforming mens manners in a way of due reproof and discreet counsell or by vindicating the reformed Religion against learned cunning and powerfull opposers or by preserving any decency order and honor in the outward form and profession of Christian Religion which will soon deform to all contrary effects if other Ministry or Ministers be applyed than such as Christ hath instituted and the Church alwayes ordained and sent in Christs Name No man then can desire or design the change of this Ministry as to the authority order rule and succession who doth not also aime at the change of the whole Ministration and work Indeed those rude and unchristian novelties which some men seeme to agitate carry the aspect not onely of Papists and other collaterall adversaries against us as reformed but of Jews and Turks and Heathens such as would most diametrally oppose the name of any Christian Church or which is as bad or worse they seeme to prepare the way for some great Antichrists 2 Thes 2.10 11. whose coming must be by strong pretensions and presumptions of some new wayes of Ministry Sanctity and Piety in which are hidden the strongest delusions most probable to overthrow the true Ministry and Churches of Christ while they shall speciously cry up such new wayes of Ministry and spirit and gifts and Churches which neither we nor our forefathers nor primitive Christians nor the Church Catholick ever knew or were acquainted with either by