power by certain humane means introduced by custome which notwithstanding hinders not but their power may be founded in the Word of God when they are once established for as we said before the Question is not of the means by which a Prince comes to the Kingdome but what Obedience is due to him after he is once instaled And therefore Saint Peter after he had called this Ordinance an humane Ordinance commands us to subject our selves for the Lords sake and to obey his command Whosoever makes the Authority of Kings depend upon the institution of men and not upon the Ordinance of God lessens their Majesty more then three quarters and takes from them that which secures their lives and Crowns more then their Guards or mighty Armies which plants in the Subjects hearts Fear instead of Love and Reverence Then the fidelity and obedience of Subjects will be firm and lasting when it shall be incorporated with piety and accounted a part of Religion and of the service we owe to God This foundation being over-turned that the Authority of Kings is but an humane Ordinance that which they build upon it must necessarily fall for to reason thus that the people may take away their Authority from the King because they gave it him is to prove one absurdity by another as if one should prove the Moon might be burnt because it s made of wood For to say the people gave the power to the King is to imagine that which never was no not in Kingdomes which are Elective The People give not the King his Authority for they cannot give that they have not but he defers his obedience to Henry or Charles But this Prince being elected receives his Authority from God as the beginning and source from whence all power flowes By me Kings Raign Pro. 8.15 And there is no Power but of God Rom. 13.1 None ought therefore to take this Power which God hath given him Thus the Wife choseth her Husband and gives him a promise of obedience in marriage but it is not she that gives him his Authority that comes from above And there is as great an absurdity to say that the People may depose the King because they chuse him as to affirm that the Woman may put away her Husband or subject him to her when she shall judge expedient because that she made choice of him For the woman loseth the liberty of her choice by the bond of marriage and the People likewise lose the liberty to revoke their choice when the Prince Elected is declared King 'T is a strange consequence to say that the people may take away the Kings Authority because they have sworn obedience to him the Election is no other thing And it 's a reason that overthrows it self to say that the people may take from the King his Authority because they gave it him For put the case that it were true that the people gave Authority to the King whom they Elect since then the people have given away their Authority 't is no more in them This maxime being once admitted that it is lawful for every one to take back again what he hath given it would break the Laws of Society and fill the world with injustice and confusion But let our enemies know that although the Authority of the King had not begun before the Oath of Allegiance which this Parliament took in a Body at the beginning of their sitting yet the Body of the State made thereby an irrevocable gift of their obedience to the King and from this Oath we draw a better consequence then theirs namely that they cannot dispose of their obedience since they have given it to the King So that were their reasons good they would be of no force but in Kingdomes which were Elective and make nothing against King Charles for neither he nor any of the Kings his Ancestors in all ages past ever came to the Crown by Election It 's not to purpose to alledge the Oath the King took at his Coronation as an agreement and paction made with his people equivalent to an Election for the King receives not his Kingdome at his Coronation he is King before his Crown is put on and therefore Watson and Clark who conspired against King James of glorious memory were justly condemned as guilty of High Treason although they alledged that the King was not then Crowned and it was judged by the Court that the Crowning was but a ceremony for to make the King known to his people It 's the like also in France I judge saith Bodin that no man doubts but the King enjoyes before his Anointing the possession and propriety of his Kingdome Before this ceremony the King enjoyes as fully all his Rights as after and according to the Laws of France and England the King never dies whilst there remains any of the Royal Blood for in the same hour that the King expires the lawful Heir is totally invested of the Kingdome Wherefore the Eldest Sonne of Edward the Fourth who was murthered by his Uncle Richard is by general consent numbered amongst the Kings and named Edward the Fifth although he never wore the Crown nor took any Oath nor exercised any Authority Henry the Sixth was not Crowned but in the ninth year of his Reign and yet before his Coronation many were attainted of High Treason which could not have been done if he had not been acknowledged King In the Oaths of the Kings of France and England at their Coronation there is no image of stipulation covenant or agreement betwixt them and their subjects They receive not their Crowns upon any condition and their people owe their obedience whether they perform or violate their promises This Oath is a laudible custome profitable to bear up the Authority of the Prince by the love of his Subjects and to give to the people this satisfaction that the King whom God hath given them hath an intention to govern them with Justice and Clemency and to preserve their Rights and Liberties If the King by his Oath should bind himself to fall from the Right to his Kingdome when he should violate his Promises he would then be lesser after his Oath then before and surely if the Kings did believe they should diminish their propriety by their Oath they would never take it and to shew that their Authority depends not of their Oath but their Oath of their Authority the Kings of England form it at their pleasure Very hardly shall you find three that have taken the same Oath without changing some things That which was presented to Henry the Eighth which is to be seen in the Rolls was corrected by his own hand and interlined And moreover the Oath is made to God and not to the People and binds the Conscience of the Prince but doth not limit his Soveraignty if the intention of this solemnity were to make a stipulation or agreement with the people the people at the same time should also
the mighty hand of God which leads his Church through waies he knows safest for them and stopping the ear to all factious Councils cloathed with the zeal of Religion ye will at last obtain that testimony of God which he gives to the Church of Ephesus I know thy works and thy labour and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil and thou hast tried them which say they are Apostles and are not and hast found them liars and hast borne and hast patience and hast not fainted Rev. 2.2 and thus ye shall surely obtain the promised reward following To him that overcometh will I give to eate of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God v. 7. This hope is our support in the depth of our afflictions for under that terrible weight of publick and particular miseries capable to bear down the strongest and firmest spirits we are raised and kept up by this consolation that we serve a good Master who will never forsake them who forsake all which is most dear to them to follow him What though our sufferings be the effects of our sinnes yet are they also honourable markes of our loyalty both to God and our King and though we have left our estates a little before death would have taken them away yet God hath by his grace preserved in us a good conscience riches which is not subject to sequestration but dying we shall carry away with us In these great tryalls of our faith and patience whilst we seek ease in pouring forth our griefs into the bosome of our brethren behold yet another encrease of affliction upon affliction for we find to our great regret that the subtilty of our enemies have begotten an evil understanding between you and some of ours to which some have much contributed if the complaints we hear be true that they have manifested and declared themselves contrary to the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and that they have despised your assemblies as not being Churches and maintained that there could be no Church where there was no Bishop As for their Doctrine if it be divers from our publick Confession they are no more of our Church then of yours and to satisfie you upon this point we have joyned the Confession of the Church of England which all thâ—se who have been received into holy Orders sware to defend at their reception and all who were to be admitted into Churches were injoyned at their entrance publickly to read and to professe thereupon their consent to them under pain of losing their Benefices If any have departed from that profession which they did so solemnly make the body of the Church which maintains that holy Doctrine is no way responsible for their erring If the Rebels had not prevented the King from assembling a nationall Synod to which his Majesty purposed to invite other Reformed Churches your Judgments would have been heard for the purging our Churches of all new Doctrines which without all comparison are worse and in a farre greater number amongst our enemies then amongst the Royall party As for this position that there cannot be a Church without a Bishop we account it full of rashnesse and void of Charity It 's indeed a cruel sentence to deprive of the benefit of the Gospel and of their union with Christ all those Churches which live under the Crosse and cannot enjoy the Episcopal Order That Famous Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester was not of this opinion for in one of his Epistles touching Episcopacy He saith he should be harder than Iron who would not acknowledge that there are holy Churâ—â—es that subsist and flourish without Bishops and with what respect our Bishops speak of your Church you shall read in this ensuing Treatise It 's easie to see that the Episcopal Order is wholly incompatible with the present condition of the Reformed Churches of France for if there were twenty or thirty Bishops amongst you that should Govern all the other Churches it would be easie for those of the contrary Religion under whom you live to fil up those places with some persons who should be at their devotion whence would follow either a seduction or an oppression of the other Pastors But whilst the Gentlemen of the Clergy in the Court behold all Pastors equal they will lose their cunning in this multitude and although they be excellent in playing on the Organs yet they have not fingers enough to touch every Key If your Order of equality might or ought to be conserved if it should please God the French Monarchy should embraâ—e the Reformation it s a thing we will not touch but if that only were the obstruction we account you too wise and good Christians and such as would not hinder the setling of the holy Doctrine for maintaining a point of Discipline You then Gentlemen joyning to your Christian charity the French courtesie pardon our English Schollers who peradventure have brought with them from the Vniversity an humour a little affirmative and from the fresh remembrance of their Glorious Church retain yet an admiration of home things which is an humour Neighbour Nations observe in the English and which those that heretofore have known England will easily pardon Consider on the other side whether some of yours have not given them just occasion to be so sharp and bitter and to passe their limits in their affirmations it cannot be denied but we have met with spirits possessed with the reports of our adversaries who have been more ready to court you than we as alwaies those that have 〈◊〉 â—vil cause are ever more diligent to gain by faction that which they want and cannot obtain by right It may be also that your people have manifested themselves too rigid in their Opinions as well as some of ours upon points which touch not the principles of Religion and as it is ordinary for humane infirmity to turn custom into necessity you may not wonder that if some of yours maintain as necessary and perpetual which your wise Reformers established as arbitrary and for the present necessity as it is formally declared by the last Article of your Discipline We have placed in the Front of this work the Manifesto of the Late King Charles the First of Blessed and Glorious Memory in which he takes a religious care to satisfie you touching his Constancy in the Reformed Religion and of his Resolution to enlarge and strengthen it in all forraign Countries to the utmost of his power he could no more to manifest how much he valued your affection and good opinion and we following the example of our holy and Glorious Martyr labour here to knit with you a holy union which our enemies have so vigorously laboured to break and in these our great afflictions do take care to prevent your and to give you saving Councell Know then Gentlemen that your most holy Religion is much defamed by the Actions of these paraciâ—â— Zealots
must touch it But I am constrained to it by the frequent Declarations of the Covenanters who have nothing so strong nor so frequent for to move the people to take up Arms against their King as to propose to them the example of the French Churches as a pattern which they ought and are bound to follow Would to God that in leaving us there they would have given us liberty to hold our peace but since they will not give over publishing abroad and making all places ring with our calamities the remembrance whereof we rather desire should be for ever buried since they impute the actions of some few to the generality of our Churches and even to Religion it self and since that they alledge our errors for to exhort us to return to them again and since they change the subject of our repentance and sorrow into rules for their imitation and into precepts of the Gospel Is it not now high time to speak and prefer the Interest of Gods Glory and of the Truth of his Word above the credit of men whatsoever they be yea and of our own too Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3.4 Confess thy fault and give glory to the Lord God of Israel Jo. 7.19 Mr. Rivet was not ashamed to call these our stirrings culpam nostrorum the fault of his Country-men and this was spoken as a Champion of the truth to confess it so freely that it was both to our sin and dammage wherein as he himself declares he agrees with Monsieur du Moulin who in his second Epistle to Monsieur Balzak makes the same confession in equivalent terms Such was the Piety and ingenuity of these godly and learned persons that all their care and pains was to defend the Truth only and not their persons It would be a great honor for the Churches of France with one consent publikely to declare that they judge all wars of Subjects against their Soveraign unlawful and to exhort their Brethren of England to Obedience and fidelity to their Prince then for to preserve the credit of some of their party and suffer their actions to serve as snares to the weak consciences of their Neighbours and of pretext to those who labour to corrupt the Doctrine of the Gospel My self being a member of the Reformed Church of France doubt not but I shall be owned and approved to give an Answer for them to the Summons of a strange Covenant It s a very great affliction to us to behold the famous Churches of Great Britain to destroy themselves for controversies without necessity and which might have been easily composed And that which toucheth us most is the danger of the Truth which is much weakned by these divisions for it s to be feared that in your contending and striving one with another you over-turn not the Candlestick of the Gospel and that God being provoked takes not away his saving Light which was not given to lighten you one to fight against another We will not enter into the causes of your quarrels and could wish that you had left out the remembrance of ours and had not imployed the unforâ—unate actions of your poor Neighbours which anguish and terrour produced to serve as example to your people to take up Arms against their King They were but the lesser part of our Churches that were involved in that party The signal testimonies of our fidelity to the Crown ever since the reducing of Rochel and other places which were moved in our hands do efface the memory of the troubles moved in their behalf and the cause of these motions being equitably considered by sober and moderate spirits would beget pity rather then hatred For if just fear could justifie Arms against their lawful Soveraign those of our Religion who bare Arms in this occasion could represent to you that when the King demanded back again the places that he had granted them for their security they had great occasion to fear that with these places they should lose the security of their consciences and lives in which they were happily deceived For the late King who was as gentle in making use of a victory as valiant in gaining one ever laboured more to comfort than to punish and compassion stifling his anger made them know that the strongest place for the security of Subjects is the Clemency and Justice of their Soveraign Oh these Royal Vertues were eminently manifest in him whom God had given you for your King Who being the Defender of the Reformed Christian Faith and publishing his most holy Profession with such protestations which gave us full satisfaction we cannot see how you can alledge the example of our taking up of Arms should they be the most just of the world having not the same subjects of fear The security of your consciences and lives were without question But you are not the first whom ease and long prosperity hath carried to the same impatience to which others have been driven by affliction And since then ye address your selves to us to give you advice We beseech you consider that to take counsel of your Friends it must not be when their swords are in their hands and their enemies before them but when they are quiet and at peace 'T is not from our Souldiers but our Divines that you should enquire whether you should draw your swords against your Prince if you refer your selves to them they will all conclude for the Negative For whilst our Wars continued whereof you have too good a memory not one of all our Divines maintained those dangerous Maximes which is now defended by your Sermons and Writings They that say most for their Party excuse it and lay it upon necessity 'T is not from any of our Books that ye have drawn these vile Maximes That the Authority of the Sovereign Magistrate is of Humane Right That the people is above their King That the people gave the power to the Prince and may take it away when they please That Kings are not the anointed of the Lord That if the King fail in performing the Oath at his Coronation the Subjects are absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance That if the Prince falls from the Grace of God the people are loosed from their subjection That for to establish a Discipline which they account to be the only Kingdom of Jesus Christ Subjects may take up Arms against their Prince That Kings are to be judged before their Subjects That the Civil Government ought to be formed according to the pattern of the Ecclesiastical which is not Monarchical This Maxime tends to the abolition of Royalty in all States In all the Writings of our Divines ye find no such matters but such as teach Subjects Loyalty Humility Obedience and Patience All agree together with the ancient Christians and say that prayers and tears are the weapons of the Church We never spake of deposing our Kings and do not believe that any man living
expectation of those Churches that they reject the ordinary Liturgy Oh our good God! these persons do they meddle to preach the Truth Because that France and England are separated by Sea and Language do they think their people shall never be informed the truth of the opinion of their neighbours touching the English Liturgy nor the manner of their practise in matter of their publick Service I hope they will leave to others the practise of this Maxime Lie boldly although you be refuted after there will remain some impression upon the spirits of the hearers And therefore we will believe charitably that the most part of these Divines knew not what they said but referred themselves to the Faith of others and hoping that after they are better informed they will change their opinion we will say to them as St. Paul to the Galatians I have confidence in you through the Lord that ye will be none otherwise minded but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment whosoever he be Gal. 5.10 Since then they speak of their long experience let us take it from the beginning soon after the Liturgy was compiled it was sent to good Calâ—in who thus writ to the Protector of England as for the form of prayers and Ecclesiastical ceremonies I much approve that they should be established as a certain form from which it may not be lawful for the Pastors to go in the execution of their charge Behold two points very contrary to the Covenanters the one that he very well approves of the Book of Common prayer and the Ecclesiastical Ceremonies the other that there ought to be a certain form of Divine Service from which it should not be lawful for the Pastors to digress Will they not say in reading these words of Calvin Durus sermo this is a hard saying who can hear it What cruelty is this to undertake to bind the Spirit of Zeal and to dare to speak of a Rule to them who will stand fast in the liberty Christ hath made them free and will not again be entangled in the yoke of bondage for they make use of this Text for that subject we will leave them this Text of Calvin to ruminate and pray them not to begin the date of their long experience till after his Decease Martin Bucer will yet shorten it some years he speaks thus to the Churches of England of the form of their Divine Service I give thanks to God who hath given you grace to reform these Ceremonies in such a purity for I have found nothing in it which is not taken out of the Word of God or at least is not contrary to it being rightly interpreted That which the Directors and their party find most to be reprehended in this Book is of so small consideration with Beza that he wrote thus to those who were so enraged against it The Surplice saith he is not a thing of such importance that Ministers should be so scrupulous as to leave their Function rather than wear it or that the people should forbear to â—eed of the bread of life rather than hear their Pastors preach who wear them And as for receiving the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper kneeling Musick in Churches and things of the like nature he saith to them That these are such small and indifferent things which should not much trouble them Behold here their long experience much shortned for its little above fourty years since Beza died Gualter and Bullinger likewise commending the English Liturgy condemned the affected tenderness of some who made use of it for a cloak of their Sedition and Rebellion speaking thus in an Epistle which they both joyntly wrote to their discontented Brethren in England upon this Subject That if any of the people perswade themselves that these things smell of Popery let them learn to know the contrary and let them be perfectly instructed and that if the clamours of any of them raise up troubles amongst the multitude let them beware lest in doing so they draw upon your necks a more heavy yoke and provoke noâ— his Majesty and bring not many Ministers into such dangers out of which they shall find no means to escape This advertisement might well be turned into a Prophesie and these persons who falsly alledge the Reformed Churches are offended with the Liturgy of England repent too soon that they had not followed their exhortations and submitted themselves Now the King hath offered to exempt tender Consciences from the observation of certain things which offend them yea to submit the whole Reformation to a lawful Synod But in stead of receiving this Gracious offer of his Majesty they persecute him and his Clergy with all violence manifesting thereby that it is not our Reformation but our destruction which is capable to content them and these tender Consciences which tremble at the sight of a Surplice or the sound of an Organ are strong and lusty enough to commit murder and Sacriledge like the Pharisees who strained at a Gnat and swallowed a Camel His Majesty made a Declaration to all the reformed Churches of the sincerity of his Profession and intention to live and die in the holy Religion which he had maintained and because the Factious of his Kingdom had used all their endeavours to alienate Forreign Churches from the Church of England upon the outward of Religion his Majesty remembers them there how at the Synod of Dort both the Discipline and Liturgy of England was approved by word and writing by the most eminent Divines of Germany France Denmark Sweden and Switzerland as appears in the Acts of that Synod and yet nevertheless the Covenanters at this day are so impudently bold as to publish that by long and sad experience they have found that the English Lyturgy was offensive to the Forreign Reformed Churches Where is their honesty Where is their sincerity Do they hope by these wicked waies to draw down a blessing of God upon their cause The Truth which they pretend to advance must it be established and set up by lying By all this then it appears that their long experience comes to nothing but if they are wanting in the old experience let them produce the new Where are the Forreign Churches that require of them the abolition of the publike Service Would they could cause them to speak for themselves By Forreign Churches they cannot understand the Scotch Church for since the beginning of this war the Covenanters would not acknowledge them for strangers for fear of being reproached for inviting and bringing in Forreign Forces and keeping them under pay in the Kingdom And as for other Churches we account the experience of the Authors of the Directory do not much exceed ours Now we have not known any Protestant stranger ever made it any difficulty to joyn in the publick prayers of the Church of England except some walking Anabaptists as in London they have lately made to appear and neither in
France nor the Low Countries we never knew or understood the least trace of dissention hereupon and if the fashion of some Particulars amongst us displease other Churches they do not less displease ours The Reformed Churches are better instructed than lightly to quarrel at the exteriour circumstance of Divine Service where the substance is whole and sound they have learned to speak after Calvin in the Confession presented in the Name of the Churches of France to the Emperour and Princes of Germany We acknowledg that all and every Church have this right to make Laws and Statutes and for to establish a common Policy amongst them provided that all things be done in the House of God decently and in order and they owe obedience to these Statutes so that they do not inthrall the Conscience nor impose Superstition and those that refuse this are accounted by us seditious and wilful Beza goes yet a little further and maintains that in the outward of Religion Many things may yea ought to be born notwithstanding they are not justly commanded St. Augustin hath an Epistle upon this Subject which is a Golden Epistle wherein he instructs Januarius of the indifferency of Ecclesiastical Observations as of the times of Fasting and the divers customs of receiving the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper All things of this kind saith he have their Observations free and for this there is no better of Discipline for a grave and prudent Christian then to do as he seeth them do in all the Churches whither he goes for that which is neither against faith and good manners ought to be held indifferent and ought to be observed according to the company with whom we live and converse and hereupon he reports how his Mother being come to Millan found her self in great perplexity because they did not fast on the Saturday as they did in the Church from whence she came and he to resolve he went to ask counsel of St. Ambrose Archbishop of Millan who answered him When I saith he go to Rome I fast on the Saturday when I am here I fast not on that day do ye the same Into whatsoever Church ye go observe their customes if you your self will not give offence to persons and will that no person should give you offence All Protestants of Europe except the Faction of the Covenant govern themselves thus in whatsoever place they are they joyn with the Reformed Church whatsoever their form of Discipline be which as some say is divers in all Nations To this grave counsel of S. Ambr. S. Austin adds a Character to the life of the imperious and scrupulous humour of our melancholy zealots whom one would think had an intention to paint them out I have oft perceived saith he with much grief and sorrow that many weak and infirm persons have been much troubled through their Contentions wilfulness and superstitious fearfulness at some of their Brethren for doing some things which could not be certainly defined by the Authority of the Holy Scriptures nor by the tradition of the universal Church nor by the utility that might thereby come for the bettering and amendment of our lives only because there is some matter for their conceptions to reason and discourse upon or because they think the farther they go or are able to separate themselves from the Customs received is the most exquisite and nearest to perfection moving such litigious and idle Questions that they make appear to all that they will never allow of any thing well done unless they do it themselves The Reformed Churches take and give this Liberty that every one form an outward Order of Divine Service according to their prudence and its more to be wished than expected that there should be one and the same order throughout all Churches But I know not any Church that reject and cast off all certain Forms as the Covenanters The Declaration following made some few years since by persons of account in the Churches of France is notable As for the Ceremonies and Customs of Ecclesiastical Service and Discipline no judge convenient to leave to every Church his own without altering or changing any thing One day when it shall please God to perfect and confirm amity amongst these Churches we may be able by an universal councel and consent to form a certain Liturgy which may be as a Symbole and Bond of Concord The Churches of the Covenanters ought to be exempted out of this Number for the Liturgy is become to them an Apple of Discord which hath made them quarrel with all Churches of the world being in this point like unto Esau whose hands were against every one and every ones hands against him Therefore the Directors refute themselves by a manifest contradiction then when by their publike Declaration they tell the people that it is to conform themselves to the Reformed Churches that they prescribe not an ordinary form of publike Prayers and Administration of the Sacraments Seeing that it is a thing most notoriously known that all the Reformed Churches have certain Forms of Prayers But they do as if they should apparrel themselves with Green and Yellow because the Ministers of France apparel themselveâ— with black 'T is the Doctrine of the Brownists which now predominate in England that for to have a Liturgie or Form of Prayers is to have another Gospel Now after all this Do they not well think you to court the Churches of France and to make a great noise of their conformity with them having so openly condemned them and their phanatical Phrensie in this point is proceeded so far that neither the Lords Prayer nor the Ten Commandements nor the Apostles Creed are repeated in their Churches nor are taught their Children in their Houses much less any Form of Catechism Behold here a Faction who reject the Books of Christian Religion An horrible and unheard of thing in all ages and in all Churches since Christianity entred the world And dare these people speak of Reformation and Conformity with the Reformed Churches CHAP. XVI Of the great prudence and wisdome of the first English Reformers and of the fool-hardiness of these at present IF these directors who boast themselves of a new Light had had at least the light of Prudence they would have considered that they had to deal with popular Spirits who were accustomed to a good and holy Liturgie but since on a sudden interdicted the use they could not but think they were suddenly transported into another Gospel for the people are dull and fastned upon the exterior and that if they be once fastened to a form of devotion which is good although below perfection there is occasion to praise God that the people have any tast of devotion even in any Form and it should be cherished and encouraged And if there be any thing in this Form to be amended it should be done so mildly and dexterously that the people be not exasperated and the
which a wild melancholy renders fearful superstitious suspitious and cruel and when all these ingredients meet together ignorance superstition presumption and wilfulness and a flitting and imperious humour all steeped in a black and hot melancholy they make the most malignant composition of the world pernicious to Church and State to families and all societies causing every where ruine and combustion like a Granado fired that makes all fly a pieces that is near it CHAP. XVII How the Covenanters labour in vain to sow dissention between the Churches of England and France upon the point of discipline Of the Christian prudence of the French Reformers and of the nature of discipline in general HItherto we have found no such conformity as might induce the Covenanters of England to invite the Reformed Churches to espouse their quarrel for they every where carefully administer the Lords Supper they take order that Infants be baptized they suffer none to be re-baptized they suppress heresies scandals the liberty of fanatique spirits they repeat to the people the ten Commandments of God the Articles of the Christian Faith they make use of certain forms of prayer in administring the Sacraments and other parts of the Divine Service They teach the people to submit to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake and not to resist Supreme Powers but to suffer for righteousness sake they are free from a capricious weakness in matters of indifferency which are peculiar to our enemies also these Churches approve of the English Liturgy and without scruple joyn with it in prayer when occasion serves what is there then which should oblige them to associate together The Reformed Churches say they have no Bishops but we demand of them whether all those Churches which have Bishops are not Reformed They incline doubtless to this opinion for in the title of their Epistle to the Reformed Churches they name but those of France the Low Countries and Switzerland they let the other pass under an c. If that be their opinion they have much forgot themselves in their Copies which they sent to particular States for they writ to the Churches of Hesse and those of Anhalt which are governed by Superintendents that is to say in our Language Bishops In all those Countries subject to the Crowns of Denmark and Sweden The Episcopal degree is kept so almost through all Germany this degree is preserved under the name of Superintendent and in some places as in Brene the name of Bishops remain although part of these Churches be Lutherans we will not refuse them the name of Reformed there wanting but a little charity in them to make both them and us to accord So likewise in the large Territories of Bohemia Polonia and Transylvania the Evangelical Churches are governed by Seniors as they call them who have Episcopal power They should not then boast of the consent of the Reformed Churches nor complain to them that the King would not admit a Reformation which pretends to abolish the Episcopal degree as an appurtenance of Antichrist which is in effect to condemn all Churches where there is any preheminence amongst the Clergy I forbear to speak of the Churches of Russia Grecia and India and of the rest of the world whose Doctrine is less known to us then the point of their Discipline which are all governed by Bishops But the Covenanters Magisterially prescribe their Discipline to all the World although they themselves have none vaunting themselves of a piety without pair and yet will not leave to other Churches any liberty Therefore their Declarations give all to understand that after they have planted it in England they will go and do as much beyond the Seas The Donatists shut up the Church within the confines of Africa which then was a small thing unfitly applying that Text of the Canticles Tell us where thou feedest where thou makest thy flocks to rest at noon Cant. 1.7 but the French translation reâ—deth to rest towards the south At present the Kingdom of Jesus Christ is in danger to be confined within England whither other Nations must come and search it saying Tell us where thou feedest where thou makest thy flocks to rest towards the North. It 's easie to make the consent of the Churches named in the title of the Epistle to sound high because they have no Bishops but to prove their agreement with the Covenanters in this point they should do well to make these two things to appear the one that these Churches condemn the Episcopal Order as unlawful and Antichristian the other that these Churches do conform to the discipline of the Covenanters things which they will find false As for the first we see not that the other Churches quarrel at the Church of England hereupon but pray God to bless them in the order against this it matters not to alledge the thirtieth Article of the Churches of France confession of Faith We believe that all true Pastors in what place soever they be have the same authority and equal power under one head Jesus Christ and that for this cause no Church ought to pretend any dominion or Lordship over the other He that speaks for the General expounds this Article Ye must know saith he that the equality of Pastors in that which is of Authority to declare the Gospel and administer the Sacraments and for the use of the keyes is held necessary amongst all for Baptism the Lords Supper and the declaring of the remission of sins is of equal dignity in the mouth of Pastors whether they be of great or little Authority But as for Ecclesiastical policy we do not hold the equality of Pastors absolutely necessary we do not account this Order a point of faith nor a Doctrine of salvation we live God be thanked in brotherly concord with our neighbour-Churches which follow another form and where the Bishops have superiority In his disputations of Divinity in the University of Sedam this is one of his Theses We maintain that the Bishops of England after their conversion to the faith and their abjuration of Papistry were faithful servants of God and ought not to forsake neither the name nor title of Bishops Calvin himself spake as much before in his Epistle to Cardinal Sadâ—let speaking of the Church of Rome Let them saith he establish such an Hierarchy where the Bishops having the dignity refuse not to submit themselves to Christ and depend of him as their onely Head and refer themselves to him and let them maintain amongst them such a brotherly society which is not entertained but by the bond of truth Then if there be found any persons who refuse to respect such an Hierarchy with reverence and Soveraign obedience I acknowledge and confess him worthy of al sorts of Anathema's This passage serves for the Episcopal degree in general This other of Jacobus Lectius Professor at Geneva hath a singular regard to the Bishops of England He saith That those Bishops only were