Liberty of this so renowned Church and Kingdom both in their grand Epitomes of Parliament and Convocation also in their greater latitudes or diffusions to all Estates and degrees of Men as to their just Concerns and Interests to which in Law or Religion in Prudence or Conscience they can pretend Which are all bound up in the Kings gracious free and royal Consent ratifying the joynt counsels and humble desires of the Nobility of the Clergy and of the Commonalty unanimously represented to him as by the Lords Temporal and Commons so by the Lords Spiritual or Bishops now restored to their ancient Place and Honor in the Parliament of England May this signal Mercy of God never be forgotten by us may this happy Union never be dissolved among us may this great Blessing never be forfeited by us An high honor indeed yet withal a very heavy burden put upon us Bishops not onely as to the great Service and publique Duty which is on all hands expected from us And for that great account which will be required of us according to the Talents Advantages and Opportunities given us to serve God the King and the Church to which nothing can sufficiently enable us but the same Grace and Favor both divine and humane which hath thus prevented us But also as to that envy which must necessarily by this eminency be contracted from all those evil men who have evil eyes and evil wills and evil hearts not onely against Bishops and Episcopacy but also against the Peace and Prosperity of this Kingdom no less than against the pristine Renown and Flourishing of this Reformed Church of England which was famous heretofore in all the Christian World abroad and no less reverenced at home by People Peers and sovereign Princes while its Diocesan Bishops were dignified with this publique and Parliamentary honor Which is not like that sad OTHER HOUSE a mushroom or gourd of Yesterday springing out of O. P. and withering with R. C. but it began with the first Originals of Parliaments and for many hundred of years continued without any violent interruption until these late Antimonarchical and Antiepiscopal Chasms and Concussions which shook Heaven and Earth yea and Hell it self to destroy both Kings and Bishops the Kingdom and Church of ENGLAND In which horrid conflicts of Innovation Schism Rebellion and Confusion with our well reformed Church our ancient Laws our setled Religion and our excellent Government the tail of the Dragon strove to cast down to the earth many Stars of the highest Spheres the greatest magnitude and divinest influence in this Church and Kingdom And among them the most reverend and learned Bishops of this Church even one and all at one sweeping Stroke who with their famous Predecessors for many Centuries of years had both sat in Parliaments as Peers and presided in the Church as Prelates that is chief Fathers Stewards and Overseers in Christs Family or the Houshold of Faith Principal Governors or Presidents in Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Prime Members in all Synods and Convocations The main Cisterns and Conduits of holy Orders The grand Conservators of Ministerial Power and Ecclesiastical Authority very ample and able Defenders under God and the King of Religion as Christian and Reformed in Truth and Faith in Peace and Holiness in good Government decent Order and legal Uniformity By which publique influences of their judicious Preaching solid writing sober living grave counselling and prudent governing set off with such eminent Honors fair Revenues and due Authority as they were by the munificence of Princes legally vested in the Bishops of ENGLAND have by Gods blessing been in all Ages according to the analogy and capacity of Times as the fairest so the strongest Pillars in this Churches Fabrick Like the goodly Cedar beams and costly stones which were laid in Solomons Temple like the fruitfullest Figtrees Vines and Olives planted in the Garden of God flourishing and bearing fruits that were pleasing to God and good men until that wilde-fire came forth out of the thistles and brambles of the Wilderness which sought to devour them root and branch and with them all things civil and sacred Your valiant and noble Ancestors not more honorable for their being Peers or Members in Parliament than for their being generous Sons of the Church of ENGLAND Patrons of Learning and true Religion These were ever so impatient to carry on or conclude any publique Counsels or Determinations that were not sanguinary Deo inconsulto without first taking Counsel of God by his Priests Prophets and Seers as David and the best Kings of Judah were wont to do in all great concerns Civil and Ecclesiastical for War and Peace that They thought nothing could be prudent which was not pious nor likely to be prosperous in the State which did not correspond with the Church They esteemed the Temple of Jerusalem and the Priests of the Lord to be as the Ark was and the Bearers of it in the midst of the Camp not onely the center but the sanctuary and glory of both Court City and Country That as the Body is without the Soul so are publique Counsels and Transactions in Christian States and Kingdoms without due regard to God his Ministers his Church and true Religion With whose holy will minde and counsels no men can in any reason be supposed to be better acquainted or more sincerely conform to them or more readily communicative of them than grave and learned Divines and among them those venerable Bishops and Fathers to whom the Oracles of God and Power Evangelical are specially committed as to Gods chief Embassadors Christs eminent Deputies the Clergies principal Trustees and in some sort the whole Churches general Representatives whose learned Gifts and Endowments are presumed to be most matured by Age subdued by Experience sanctified by Grace and intirely devoted to the Service of God the Church the King and their Country upon whose respective Favors they wholly depend To the Glory of the one and the Welfare of the other they cannot in prudence and conscience be less faithfully and constantly engaged than any other men And in whose Interests doubtless they are much more to be believed than any of those Democratick spirits or Pragmatick Sticklers among the Clergy or Laity who being of less years abilities and experience yea and possibly less contented are apter to be either covetously or ambitiously or enviously discomposed and so more subject to toss to and fro to move from one side to the other as those weary men do who lie on hard beds Easily as we have seen revolting from Kings and Bishops to Presbyterian and Independent Projects to popular and Plebeian Adherencies yea to Papal Arts and Ends That by such Complacencies they may advance their own Estate or Reputation though with the ruine of Monarchy and Episcopacy which are the great Defensatives and Bulwarks against Sedition and Faction against Anarchy and Confusion How much the Tumultuary Mutinies of some impetuous malecontents against Kings and
Bishops have been to the detriment and dishonor both of this Church and Kingdom the recent memory of your and our late Troubles and Miseries will sufficiently tell your Lordships and those other Gentlemen As a just History of their Tragical Counsels and Tyrannical effects will for ever warn your amazed and almost incredulous Posterity when they shall see the different yea destructive Fortunes of our Laws and Religion of our Kings Lords and Commons of the sober Clergy all degrees of honest men in these three Kingdoms under an affected Novelty and Parity of Usurping Presbyters with some presumptuous People whose dominion in Church or State neither your Lordships nor your Forefathers ever knew in ENGLAND nor can ever bear compared with that Paternal Government of learned godly and venerable Bishops counselled and assisted by their reverend Brethren of the Clergy in a way and form of Ecclesiastical Government now happily restored by his Majesty as most conform to the Catholick Church ever approved by our Parliaments established by all our ancient Laws and duly subordinate to our Kings as Sovereign Lords who are owned by us Bishops and all the Orthodox Clergy of ENGLAND to be under God the onely supreme Dispensers of all Juridical or Executive Power in Church and State No way subject either to the Papal Triple Crown or to the hundred Eyes of any Presbyterian Class nor yet to the hundred Hands of any Independent Junto By the Christian Care and Courage Piety and Charity of which Bishops next after and ever since the Apostles and Apostolique men Christianity it self was first planted in Britany as in all other Countries when the Crown of King Lucius above 1500. years ago first of any King in all the World did wear the Cross as the noblest Gem and highest Ornament of his Royal Diadem Accordingly we read of our British Bishops present at ancient Councils as that of Arles in France where Restitutus Bishop of London and Eboracus Bishop of Yorksate So in the Council of Arminium about the year 350. as Sulpicius Severus and others tell us By a like Succession of holy Bishops and their subordinate Clergy was Christian Religion and its orderly Ministry preserved in Wales after many barbarous Invasions and Persecutions had almost desolated those first planted Churches of our Britany as venerable Bede and Guildas the wise tell us By godly Bishops were the Saxons and Angles themselves at length converted both Kings and Subjects to that Christian Faith which as Saul they formerly persecuted and made such havock of By grave Bishops as good Physitians was Christian Religion in its Fundamentals of Faith and good Manners kept alive to some degree of saving health and holy Order amidst the many distempers corruptions and deformities of those dark times which went before and followed after the Norman Conquest by reason of the Roman Superstructures Usurpations and Apostacies By excellent Bishops were the Decays of this Church and Deformity of Religion now above one hundred years past duly repaired and orderly reformed from those Romish Dregs of Superstition which had spread upon the face of these Western Churches and sowred the Sanctity as well as sullied the Serenity of Christian purity and simplicity both in Faith and Manners By worthy Bishops was our English Liturgy fitly composed our Bibles well translated our Reformation soberly compleated our Religion by Law and due Authority peaceably established yea and at last all was sealed and confirmed by many of those godly Bishops bonds and banishments by their Bloods and Martyrdoms By our English Bishops how many rare Books have been written in all kinds of good Learning and especially in Divinity Dogmatical Polemical and Practical How hath the Orthodox Faith of the Reformed Church of ENGLAND yea of the true Catholick Church been by our admirable Bishops and other Episcopal Divines valiantly maintained against all kinds of Heretical Novelties and Schismatical Machinations both forreign and domestick They have neither feared Rome nor flattered Geneva nor courted Amsterdam securing this Church at once against all Papal Policies Disciplinarian Devices and Popular Impostures How many great and good Works of pious Munificence of durable Hospitality and useful Charity to Colledges Cathedrals and other Churches to Free-Schools to Hospitals and Alms-Houses have by our English Bishops been founded at their own Charges and many more by their grave Counsels and good Examples as our English Histories fully inform us By some of our learned Bishops as Anselm Bradwardine and others the Glory of Gods Grace was notably maintained against the Pelagian pride and presumption So was the Liberty of this Church and Kingdom by the great head and greater heart of Robert Bishop of Lincoln and others against the Papal Arrogancy By the loyal and resolute Bishop of Carlile was the Sovereignty and Life of Richard the second King of ENGLAND in open Parliament vindicated by Scripture Law and Reason against the potent Usurpation of Henry the fourth By a wise Bishop of Ely was that Counsel first given which united the two Roses and composed our long Civil Wars Lastly by a worthy Bishop was that foundation of Union laid in a Marriage with a Daughter of Henry the seventh which in time brought both Kingdoms of ENGLAND and SCOTLAND under one Scepter and Monarch as they are at this day I do not mention these few of many instances of worthy and most deserving Bishops of the Church of ENGLAND for I omit Cranmer Hooper Ridley Latimer Matthews Whitguift Bancroft Jewel Bilson Andrews King both the Abbots Davenant White Morton Babington Carlton Hall and others nor yet do I reckon up the many late great Sufferers with much Christian patience courage and constancy some of whom remain to this day I say I do not so mention those former as I might with a particular emphasis to each nor yet these later Bishops as if I here meant to plead the merits of Bishops or Episcopacy either before God or Man I know the best Bishops were sensible that they did but their Duty to God their Kings this Church and their Country of whom as of Parents none can merit few requite them Nor is it for me to blazon their wel-known worth by any pomp of words when their greatest worth consisted in their modesty and humility as their greatest merit in their thinking they had none though their Works do at once praise them in the gates and follow them to Glory Onely thus far I have with equal truth and modesty yea and without any offence I hope touched upon the wel-known Deserts of some of our English Bishops In the first place to justifie this Honor and Favor which his gracious Majesty by the Advice of the House of Peers and the generous Piety of the House of Commons hath now done to us Bishops and in US to all the Clergy and in them to this whole Church and in this to all Christendom and in that to all the World After the famous Examples of the first Christian
the Clergy of ENGLAND should not come out of this fiery furnace more purged and prepared for our Masters Service yea God forbid that after such a deluge and deliverance as this we should so forget God or our selves as to be drunk with that wine of Consolation and cup of Salvation which our Merciful God our Gracious King your Noble Lordships and our Loving Country-men the Commons of ENGLAND have now put into our hands We are very sensible how great stimulations are put upon us as Christians Ministers and Bishops to all Piety Industry Prudence Virtue and true honour which we know do not consist in being either so eager for small circumstances and outward Ceremonies of Religion as to be remiss in its necessary Morals and Substantials as if one should put on fine clothes while he starves his body Nor yet in being so zealous for the Essentials only of faith and duties as rudely to neglect those reverential solemnities and decent circumstantials which preserve as the bark or rinde doth the Tree the Churches good order peace and unity We profess to all the world that we owne God alone in his holy Word which we call the Scriptures to be the sole Institutor of his own necessary Worship and indispensable Service who alone knows what will best please him and profit us We think as we are taught by the Church of England that nothing is necessary and essential moral or mysterious as any means to obtain conferre or increase grace or to please God which himself hath not in his Word prescribed either by special mandate or general direction and necessary consequence Yet we believe also as all Learned men at home and abroad do agree That the indulgence of God hath left free to the prudence and authority of every National Church Christian Politie and Community the particular appointing ordering and regulating of all those general and common circumstances which are in nature or civility necessary as time place method manner measure vesture and gesture all which are as unseparable from all publick actions under the Sun as our skins are from our bodies according as shall seem to the supreme wisdom and authority of that Church most for its publick decency and solemnity for good order and edification Of all which in their particular instances and usages every private Christian is Judge and Arbitrator in his closet-worship Also every chief Governour in his family where when how for matter method and manner also for measure of reading praying praising c. when sitting standing or kneeling whether in sordid or decent habits becoming his presence and the sanctity of the duty And no less without all peradventure are they left to every chief Magistrate or Ruler in Church and State within his respective Dominions for the publick peace order decency uniformity and solemnity of Religion of which those are the proper Chusers Determiners and Judges to whom the power is given by God either private or publick That Religion may not enterfeere with the Civil Government but conform to it in these things as it is protected by it in the main Provided always that no such particular rite limited circumstance or Ecclesiastical ceremony thus chosen be otherwise imposed upon mens judgments and consciences either in opinion or use then as indeed it is in its nature and Gods indulgence that is mutable when good occasion or the chief end of things requires a change of them by lawful authority so as to be still free as to the judgment of such as use them and as to the practice of all other Churches who have not assumed the use of them Not that any such external rite or ceremony of humane appointment can in it self be any necessary solid substantial and integral part of divine Worship or as any means instituted for grace to which a precept and promise divine is necessary This efficacy no humane or Ecclesiastical Authority can create or give Nor doth the Church of England pretend to any such power or use in them although it may lawfully regulate all circumstances and discreetly use decent ceremonies as such yea and enjoyn them both as exercises of Sovereign Authority and as experiments of Subjects due obedience not upon any false and superstitious grounds but such as are true and religious consonant to the nature of things and the indulgence of God in them Nor hath the Church of England ever otherwise esteemed or imposed those things of particular circumstances rites and ceremonies which have been so long as chips and shavings the casie fewel of so much flame and contention but hath oft declared its judgment of them to be according to Gods truth its choice and injunction of them to be according to that liberty and authority which God hath given to it as to every National Church within its politie and precinct so to use and impose them on its own members without prejudging other Churches their like liberty Not at all as things pleasing of themselves or displeasing to God He must needs be an infant in understanding who fancies God is scared with white or pleased with black garments in his publick worship that the historick sign of the Cross addes to or diminisheth ought from Baptism or that the Divine Majesty is offended at our kneeling or better pleased with our sitting or standing before him in an act of so holy a celebration and humble veneration as that is of the Lords Supper But all these and the like are allowed as lawful experiments either of Christian prudence and discretion in the choice or of obedience and subjection in the use of them agreeably to the lawful commands of our superiors in Church and State wisely directing and limiting us in them to avoid those factions which easily arise from the least open variety or difference in Religion when once it comes to be affected and is made a badge of parties or sides among the people The duty of Magistrates or Christian Princes as well as Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours on all hands is in publick solemnities of Religion to take care that all things be so done in uniformity order and decency as is necessary for publick peace and as they think best becomes the sanctity of true Religion the Majesty also of that God whom we ought to worship and serve with all reverence and with the beauty of holiness both outward and inward without any imposing upon the judgment beyond the nature and indifferency of such things or upon the practice farther than the God of order decency and peace hath permitted As we and all this Church have seen and felt upon the account of these things the outragious zeal and precipitancy of some men who first pretending much to boggle at and to be grievously scandalized with a few such things of outward rite individuared circumstance and prescribed ceremony to which conformity was by Law that is by the publick wisdom and authority required in the Church of England have in the pursuit