equality are emulation faction division among Ministers the younger sort naturally mutinying against the elder and the graver sort thinking themselves more wise worthy than the younger Hence grudgs and coldnesses cavils and contradictions sidings and divisions Hence adherings to severall heads and patrons of factions in different opinions or practises Then follow popular adherencies and such declamatory endeavours as may most draw people to severall Masters all which are sufficiently evidently the experiences of Franckfort of old of Roterdam in later years also of new and old England besides the intolerable petulancies and troubles by Masterly Presbyters in Scotland for many yeares in King James his minority and King Charles his too All these have loudly proclaimed that malapertnesse rudenesse insolency effrontery factions confusions are the genuine fruites of an un-sub Presbytery as indeed of all Government which is made up with parity or equality which is rather a lump or masse of flesh like monstrous and abortive births than any comely polity or symmetry befitting an organized body which must have some prime part for the honor order and regulation of the whole which must needs be loose diffused and confused if it be not cemented centred and fixed yea ruled and awed with some eminent part and principall power which having virtue from the whole gives also life vigor firmation and Majesty as to the whole body so to the Government and polity what ever it be civill or Ecclesiastick being as the Hoopes or Curbes of vessels which keep all the pipe-staves together The want of which authoritative order decorum and majesty in Government is prone to give such temptations to young and hot-headed Ministers besides giddy and surly people moving them to ambitious novelties to popular and preposterous practises that men of parts cannot easily resist them Besides the generality of people either of meaner or better quality especially in England will never have such reverence to petty Presbyters in a levelled parity as they will have when they see Ministers united guided honored and animated by a person of that Gravity Age Worth and Eminency that not onely the best Ministers own him as a Father but the best Gentlemen yea Noblemen will reverence him as a man of excellent Learning Piety and Wisdome whose censure or sentence no man of modesty or conscience can despise when they are managed with so much reason and Religion with such order and honor with such gravity and integrity as become such Bishops and such Presbyters happily united in a comely subordination The good that Independency pretends to hold forth to the people of God or Christs little flock in its severall parts and lesser parcels is a more neer union and endeared love of each other a closer care and watching over each others souls more frequent and familiar intercourses between Pastor and people exercising of their own exciting and discovering of their brethrens gifts and sisters graces neerer Communion with each other after the fashion of bodies though small yet so complete and confined to themselves that they are neither subject nor responsible to any but their own chosen members officers and pastor whose Tribunitian not imperatorian power is immediately founded as they say in the very plebs or herd of people as derived immediately from Christ and so completely endued with all Church-Power or spirituall authority that they are to Try Elect Ordain Censure Rebuke Depose Excommunicate and give over to Satan any part of their body They further professe an Art or Receipt they have above all others to keep all ordinances of Christ most entire and pure from all humane mixtures and inventions most set off and adorned with that Simplicity Sincerity Fervency Charity and Sanctity which becomes the Gospel all which are most eminently manifested in the precincts of their little bodies their Independent or Congregationall Churches farre beyond what ever either Episcopacy or Presbytery severally or socially could attain unto These are the gloryings of Independency The evils laid to the charge of Independency are first novelty and inconformity to all pious antiquity A way untaught untryed unthought of by any Christians that owned themselves as parts of the Church Catholick and related to its grand community or sacred society It meanly and miserably confines the Majesty of Ecclesiasticall power and shrinks its authority it drawes the Churches polity and communion to so very narrow and small a compasse that Independency seemes to act rather by distorted and convulsive motions than by that equable harmony of parts which attends all orderly bodies in their concurrent motions Farther it exposeth particular Churches or congregations together with the honor and safety of Religion and all Christian States to petty parties and fractions to popular nay plebeian humors It abaseth the honor of the Evangelicall Ministry weakning the power and diminishing the dignity of all Christian societies mincing and destroying those ancient Grand and Goodly combinations which were Apostolicall and Primitive in the respective Churches of Jerusalem Antioch the 7. Churches of Asia and many others cutting them into small chips and shreds It placeth the sole and absolute power of the keyes for Doctrine and Discipline there where no wise man much lesse the wise Redeemer of his Church would place them even among the vulgar where are seldome found any fit subjects capable to understand much lesse to manage and use them That such are the common sort and major part of all people no wise man is ignorant though they may be plainly and simply good yet seldome are they so prudent so knowing so composed or of such credit and reputation as is fit for any Government either in Church or State to be committed to them as the grand Masters and absolute Dictators which they seem to be in the Independent modell which either hath so many heads that it hath no feet or so many feet that it hath no head Furthermore Independency seems like the flats and shallowes of ponds and rivers the proper beds for all Faction and Schisme to spawne upon the seminary that breeds and noursery that feeds all the vermine of Religion while every silly soul that can but get two or three to conspire with his folly and flatter his new fancy may without feare or wit make a Minister begin a party and beget a Church built and distinguished by some new character of opinion or practise as its badg or sign-post Besides this Independency is indicted by many sober men as a felon or plagiary a sacrilegious robber of other Churches one that steales away Children from their Spirituall fathers sheep from their flocks and shepherds seducing servants from their Masters and children from their parents true Religion worship and devotion yea from all Christian Communion with them entising them first to straggle then to separate then to starve rather than returne to the good pasture and fold whence they have once wandered Lastly as it affects an equall and yet enormous power in every
and concluding a match with our King Henry the Sevenths daughter and James the Fourth King of Scotland a foundation certainly of very great honour and happiness to both Nations if wise and religious superstructures had been built upon it Now by a strange revolution of Divine Justice that holy Thistle which lately vied for an Equality with if not a Superiority above the Roses is become not so much united in a Parity as subdued to an Inferiority Nor were the English Bishops less loyal to true Religion as Christian yea and to the true Reformation of it then to their King and Country How notably did that renowned Lincolniensis Grostest Bishop of Lincoln assert the freedom of his Conscience against the Popes unworthy commands How many other Bishops in the contests between the Popes and our Princes about Investitures asserted the rights of their Soveraigns After the Roman darkness and Tyranny vanished and the light of an orderly and loyal Reformation appeared how many godly Bishops then did abide the fiery Tryal of Martyrdom How many of them and their Clergy were banished and imprisoned as Confessors How many of them as Jewel Abbot Andrews Davenant White Morton and others have wrote with incomparable study and unanswerable strength against the Papal Usurpations Errors and Superstitions and none beyond the last Archbishop of Canterbury for clearness and exactness of the Controversies stated With how great a resolution and loyal freedom did George Abbot his immediate Predecessor write a notable letter to King James against all toleration of Popery when the Spanish match was hot in treaty At which time with what thunder and lightning did Dr. Senhowes afterward B. of Carlile preach the two famous Sermons against the great Diana of Rome as well as of Ephesus to such a degree of eloquent zeal and becoming courage that he pleased even those whom he offended In the very last Convocation in England anno 1640. which gave occasion to so great flames in this Church meeting with times and minds which had both wood and fire ready and onely wanted a Sacrifice even this so decryed Synod which had in it as learned honest and venerable Church-men Bishops and others as ever were in England had among other things concluded a full and firme defiance against Popery for ever as well as an establishment for Episcopacy which they then found tottering and shaken but had not the happiness to use the right means of establishing it which was not by building it a story higher but by taking it rather a story lower at least abating its Pinnacles Turrets and Battlements what it wanted in ornament and height it might have enjoyed in strength and setledness Yet their design and endeavour was very prudent foreseeing as was easie that the overthrow of Episcopacy in the Reformed Church of England would be the greatest gratification to Rome that could be at present expected by the Papists And certainly the Romish party were never more pleased then with those Convulsion-fits which so tortured first and afterward destroyed not onely that Convocation but all the former Stability Honour Peace Plenty Order and Government of this Church and its Clergy which alwayes feared and foretold no less danger from Scylla then Charybdis I might adde further the humble yet resolute Remonstrance made by the Bishops of Ireland to the Governours and Councel of that Kingdom in the Lord of Straffords time fully and freely declaring the inconsistency of any open and avowed toleration of Popery with the honour of God with the power and purity of the Reformed Religion and with the peace of the Kingdoms Thus when the Bishops of England were Capital or Dominical letters both in the Church and State their Piety Loyalty Courage Zeal and Constancy made I think as fair and as goodly ashew as any of their enemies have done they were legible afar off at home and abroad and will be so to present and after-Ages many an one of them signified more as to exemplary Piety and useful Vertues then one hundred of petty Presbyters or puny Preachers either then did or now do or ever will be able to do who were indeed never so considerable or commendable so useful to the Church or serviceable to the State as when they kept to an humble subordination and wise communion with their Bishops whose honour and peace was the Presbyters honour as the honour of the head is the honour of every member of that Body Doubtless their temporal happiness was bound up together neither could Bishops be happy without the assistance of venerable Presbyters nor Presbyters without the governance of reverend Bishops neither should be without other in the Lords Church I might here further adde to the consideration of the obedientiall and peaceable principles and practises of true Episcopacy its Charitable Hospitable and Generous disposition which are best expressed in times of peace and a state of plenty As Bishops had a firm loyalty to their Princes and obedience for conscience sake to their superiours not examining their morall vertues but their civil Rights which are the onely measures of duty in like manner Bishops had generally great charity to their equals and benignity to ther inferiours which is a great fruit of a subjects loyalty to his Prince and love to his Country relieving many poor people in their pressures and thereby keeping them from those discontents which usually attend the distresses of mens conditions the afflictions of Princes oft rising from the dust the meaner sort of people when necessities animate them to animosities and such insolencies as turne dust into lice as Moses did to the plaguing of Pharaoh and all Egypt None but evil eyes and worse hearts could with unthankfullnesse and uncharitablenesse grudge the excellent Bishops of England those Honors and Revenues which they highly deserved while they worthily employed them rather for others good than their own private enjoyments in any way of luxury or gallantry or debauchery the frequent gulfs of many other mens great Estates and Honors when they are enjoyed and abused by very small and sensuall minds Generally Bishops neglected their own private interests and gaine to advance the publick How few of them in many yeares of peace and plenty raised any considerable fortunes to their particular families or posterities I am sure not comparable to what Judges and Lawyers in all Ages yea and Military men have done in a few yeares whose thrifty swords have gathered better Estates in one seven yeare than any Bishops or other Church-mens liberall words and works ever did or aimed at in twenty yeares though their yearly Revenues were as good or better I think than most Commanders pay and I conceive as much deserved by them in order to the publick good and service which they might do and really did in all Ages both as to Church and State to Superiours Equals and Inferiours For Bishops beyond all men in their times were guilty of building repairing and endowing many Churches which other men
me very sore yet heal me O my father and I shall be healed save me and I shall be saved for thou art my praise O be not thou a terrour to me who art my hope in the day of evil CHAP. V. THus may the Church of England be heard in every Closet and in every Congregation where devout souls either retire or meet sighing out its Sorrows and deploring its great Miseries sufficient to move the compassions of all those who have any filiall and gratefull respect to Her upon whose welfare as to the unity peace and prosperity of the true Christian and Reformed Religion all sober English-men may easily foresee that their own and their posterity's happinesse spirituall temporall and eternall under God doth chiefly depend It is the infinite grief of all good Patriots and true Protestants to see this sometime so famous and flourishing Church of England in danger to be eaten up not by a Sea-monster like Andromeda or by that over-grown Leviathan of Rome which takes his pastime in great waters and rules over many Nations People and Languages but by small vermine by a company for the most part of creeping and corroding Sectaries home-bred and home-fed like that tame Lizard or Dragon as Suetonius calls it which Tiberius Nero kept at Capreae which was eaten up with ants or pismires to the Emperour 's great grief and astonishment as an unhappy presage of his own fate by the fury of the multitude or like the Lions in Mesopotamia who are destroyed by gnats their importunity being such in those paludious places that the Lions by rubbing their eyes grow blind and so are drowned as Ammianus Marcellinus reports in his History of Julians wars If nothing else yet as Sir Henry Wotton glories in his sentence the very itching scratching of Christians eyes the scrupulous doubtings the vexatious disputings and endlesse janglings about Religion in England both as Christian and as Reformed already hath and daily will bring down such a Rheume and blood-shottennesse into mens eyes that unlesse some soveraign eye-salve be timely applied the most people will in a few years be onely fit to play at blind-man-buff in Religion taking what heresie or fancy comes next to hand and changing it the next day rather groping at all adventure in the dark than clearly discerning and conscientiously chusing the weighty matters of Religion which are hardly discovered when the blind lead the blind and â—s hardly either embraced when once practising is turned into prating and the power of godlinesse into pragmatick pomp or popular contempt Such is the sad and shamefull fate of the Church of England now like to be which heretofore never wanted nor yet doth such champions as durst undertake her defence against any who bring arguments not arms strong reasons and not long swords Scripture-demonstrations and not Scepticall declamations pious Antiquity and not partial Novelty But now It hath not the honour to be opposed or overcome by any such Antagonists whose learning wit and eloquence speciously managed would lessen the disgrace but She is in danger to be over-born by such petty parties such obscure animals such mechanick pieces and for the most part such illiterate wretches that it is not onely a grief but a shame to see so comely a Matron crowded and as it were stifled to death by a company of Scolds and Shrews a generation of men and women extremely unbred of passionate rude spitefull and plebeian spirits many of them the very abjects of man-kind viler then the earth as Job speaks whose manners are much baser then their fortunes which embase no good man who owe most of their stickling activities to their worldly necessities and conscious to their want of reall worth and abilities they seek to revenge their grosse defects either by their sacrilegious flatteries of others or by a rusticall fiercenesse of their own against the Church of England as if flailes and fannes and shovels and spades were the fittest instruments to thrash and purge such a Church or to discusse and ventilate the weighty matters of Religion as to a sober Christian Reformation O happy England who art of late bless'd with so cheap so easie so inspired so rare Reformers who get more skill in one dayes confidence in one nights dreaming or one hours quaking than modest Scholars either Divines or other Gentlemen can obtain in twice seven years study O how fruitfull is Faction how spreading is Schisme when they are fitted with soile and season These new-bred Creepers which are now so numerous and noxious in England are generally but the spawn or fly-blowings of those elder Sects and Factions which a long time have been buzzing and breeding in the bosome of the Church of England under the name of Disciplinarians whos 's first Authors long ago made some Essayes for their desired Innovations by modester indeed yet very popular wayes of remonstrances and supplications well knowing that it is ever welcome to the vulgar to see any fault found with their betters or any project of subjecting their superiours under any more Plebeian rigours and severities The next and worse abettors pejor aetas tried how far they might by scurrilous pamphlets railing reviling like Rabshakeh unravel the cords of all government both the majesty of the Civil and the authority of the Ecclesiastick After such biting Petitions and Satyrick Pasquils worthy of such Martonists came open menacings of Princes and Parlaments Priests and People too as Mr. R. Hooker observes in his Preface to his Ecclesiastical polity At last words came to be turned into swords many both at home and abroad having evil will at the Sion of England making their advantages of our unhappy differences in civil affairs and taking fire from those flames have sought by the licentiousnesse riot and rudenesse of infinite Sects and Factions as by so many trains and barrels of gunpowder utterly to blow up the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England Which unchristian practises and cruell designs that they might the better justifie or palliate to their credulous followers they every where as boldly as falsly affirm that both in the matter constituted and the form constituting a true Church in ordinances duties priviledges members ministrations Ministry communion and all comforts necessary for Christians there were few things in the Church of England tolerable most were blameable and many most abominable to their more sanctified senses yea some men clamour that there was nothing sound or constitutive of a Church of Christ but the whole head was sick and the whole heart faint that not onely Schisme is commendable but absolute Separation is as necessary from the Church of England as the going of Gods people out of Babylon These are the poysons with which some Serpents have sought to infect the minds of common people and to envenom even the better sort with their biting and bitter invectives against the purity and peace of the Church
sound saving and practicall Understanding Whence then the present lapses depressions diminutions and feared desolations are come upon and befaln this Church of England which threaten you O worthy Gentlemen and your posterity no lesse than they afflict the despised divided and dejected Clergy is a disquisition most worthy of your serious inquiry that discerning the causes which cannot be good with the consequences which must needs be bad you may endeavour with all Christian prudence and good conscience to advance those counsels and remedies which become wise men good Christians and true-hearted English which Christian counsels and pious endeavours in order to the setling of Religion in this Nation his Highnesse professed in his Speech at the dissolving of the last Parlamentary convention to have expected from them Nothing becomes any men or Nation worse than to own no setled Religion as the publick rule measure and standard of peoples piety except onely this which is one of the basest pieces of policy that ever came out of the Devils skull to professe Religion yea the Christian and Reformed with such a loosenesse and latitude as may expose it with its prime Teachers and Professors to vulgar indifferencies and insolencies yea to be profaned blasphemed baffled beggered scorned contemned according to the dictates lusts disorders and levities of popular humours and the vilest of men The first is the temper of sots and beasts who own no God the second of Machiavillians and Hypocrites who fear no God It was a good rule of the Roman policy and Heathenish piety Either pretend not to the Gods or treat them as becometh Gods CHAP. VIII THe outside or visible effects of the Church of Englands troubles and distempers are as manifest as Miriams Uzziahs and Gehazies leprosies on their fore-heads both in respect of secular contestations and Ecclesiasticall contradictions in both which this Church and Nation have been at once so involved that our miseries are not onely the more complicated cumulated and encreased but they are the lesse curable because less compliable with any impartiall way of publique Christian counsels mens hearts being so many wayes extremely divided and differently biassed not onely upon civil but even Religious differences in which the meanest and shortest-spirited men do ever affect to appeare most cruelly zealous and most uncharitably pertinacious The Rivalry and competition for Soveraign power between Princes or Peers which in former ages for many years and in various vicissitudes of civil wars afflicted this English nation were yet so far tolerable as men still preserved the unity of their perswasions and affections touching Religion amidst those deadly feuds and different adherencies in respect of civil affairs with which they were distracted which politick contests were capable of an end either by the extinction of one party or the uniting of both as it came to passe in seventh's dayes who laid the foundation for uniting the Families of York and Lancaster also the Kingdomes of England and Scotland But alas our late distractions like fire from Hell have seized not onely our Barns and Stables our Dwellings and Mansions but our Temples and Churches our Hearts and Souls Religion The Christian Religion the Reformed Religion this staffe of nationall beauty and sociall bands is broken in sunder Religion both as Christian and Reformed this is torn and mangled this is deformed and unchristened Religion whose obligations are most strict and sacred whose breaches are most wide and incurable this is wounded this is ulcerated this is gangren'd Religion whose balsam is most soveraign to close and reconcile a sinner with an offended God which professeth to worship God and Man united in one blessed Redeemer and Mediator Jesus Christ this is faln out with it self and wofully divided Religion whose aim is to unite first God and man in one band of eternal love next all Christian professors in charitable compliance one with another as members of the same body and belonging to one head this this is the poniard this the sword this the spear by which we are in England armed and animated one against another Not onely our heads in policies and our hands in power but our hearts in piety are divided Most men in England fancy they cannot be truly godly or justly hope to be saved unlesse they damn and destroy each other not onely upon civil but religious accounts The silver cord of religious love is ravelled and broken the golden girdle and perfect rule of Evangelicall charity is not onely much worn and warped but quite pulled and snapp'd in sunderâ— we war and fight kill and slay we bite and devour we persecute and oppresse each other not onely upon humane secular and momentary but upon divine spiritual and eternall pretensions So that to find out either our distempers or our cures in England we must search deeper than the skin and superficies of things the poyson is profoundly imbibed the malignity deeply diffused rising in its source from and reaching in its effects to the very hearts of men the venome and spite is hidden in the most retired cels and inaccessible recesses of mens souls the malice and mischief are fled for their refuge or asylum to Gods Sanctuary to the very spirits and consciences of Christians which should be the receptacles of most sacred influences the very Holy of Holyes the Heaven of Heavens in the reasonable soul in which the Oracles of God the special presence and manifestations of his Spirit are most lively to be heard seen felt and enjoyed These are either grosly darkened and defiled or garnished with false lights or swept with the Devils brooâ— lies wrapped up in hypocrisie and strong delusions guilded over with godly pretensions Here I find the greatest enemies and destroyers of the Church of England are very far from confessing or repenting of any folly pride levity ignorance lukewarmnesse lazinesse deadnesse hypocrisie malice presumption rebellion covetousnesse ambition sacriledge profanenesse coldnesse Atheism Apostasie uncharitablenesse disorderly walking disobedience or unthankfulnesse to God or man all which possibly may be in their own hearts and hands and so must needs have as great an ingrediency in our publick calamities as any mens sins in the nation They rather imploy all their wits and skill their artifices and oratory to anatomize the Church of England to dissect every part of its constitution to observe not onely the practick pulse and outward breathings of its Ministers and Professors but the very inward fibres and temper of its heart as to all its holy mysteries religious ministrations and ecclesiastick constitutions Upon the pretended inspection of which as the vitals noble parts of Religion they daily proclaim to the credulous vulgar other amazed spectators as the astonished Augurs Soothsayers were wont of old that in these they discern all the portentous omens of our afflictions all the prodigious causes and effects of our publick troubles and miseries in these they
honour merited by the Emperours Diocletian Galerius for their extirpating Christian superstition restoring the worship of the Gods No pen saith Eusebius could equall the atrocity of those times against the Church of Christ Yet even then the gracious spirit of sincere Christians as the Ark in the deluge rose highest toward heaven then godly Bishops and Presbyters were as another Historian writes more ambitious of Martyrdome than now Presbyters are of being all made Bishops then were Christians more then conquerours and true Christianity most triumphant when it seemed most depressed despised and almost destroyed as Sulpitius Severus writes of the same times in his short but elegant History Thus Eusebius and others describe that horrid storm and black night which was relieved by the blessed day-star of Constantine the Great appearing In which dismall times learned men do not quarrell at the profession and state of Religion but at the irreligion and scandall of Christians lives the fault and provocation was not from the Faith Doctrine Liturgy Order and Government then established in the Churches of Christ but from the degenerous depraved and ungoverned passions of men as they all blamed these last whenever they appeared so they constantly asserted the other as was evident in the Synod of Antioch in which a little before Diocletians time the heresie of Paulus Samâ—satenus denying the Divinity of Christ was condemned by all being confuted by Malchion a learned man an accurate Disputant The Author or Heresiarch was excommunicated not onely from the Church of Antioch but also from the Catholick Church and separated from all Christian communion throughout the world by a just and unanimous severity Holy men then rightly judged that the meritorious cause of all those sore calamities arose not from the frame of Christian Churches which was holy uniform and Apostolick as yet but from the wantonness and wickedness of Christian professors neglecting so great means of salvation and abusing such Halcyon dayes as had been sometime afforded them Which censure I may without rashnesse or uncharitablenesse pass as to the present distresses incumbent upon the Church of England whose holy wise honourable and happy Reformation must ever be vindicated as much as in me lies against all such gain-sayers as make no scruple to condemne as all the generations of Gods children in former ages so those especially who worthily setled and valiantly maintained the Christian reformed Religion in the Church of England as against all Heathenish and Hereticall profaneness so against the more puissant and superstitious Papists also against the more peevish but then more feeble Schismaticks CHAP. X. IT were as impertinent a work for me in these times to insist upon every particular in the frame of the Church of England or to cry up every small lineament in Her for most rare and incomparable as it is unreasonable and spitefull in those that deny Her to have had any one handsome feature in Her or any thing grave comely Christian-like or Church-like in her main constitution and complexion Mr. Richard Hooker one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed hath besides many other worthy men abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England asserting it by calm clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely deformed or intolerable which her then enemies declaimed and now have proclaimed whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw and in his Epistle foretold would be very fierce and cruell if once they got power answerable to their prejudices superstitions and passions against the Church of England which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence than was either lawfull convenient or necessary in the variation of times and occasions The excellent endeavours of that rarely-learned and godly Divine so full of the spirit and wisdome of Christ one would have thought might have been sufficient for ever to have kept up the peace order and honour of the Church of England also to have silenced the pratings and petulancies of her adversaries But alas few of those plebeian spirits and weaker capacities to whose errour anger and activity the Church of England now chiefly owes her miseries tears and fears were ever able to understand or bear away the weight strength and profoundnesse of that most ample mans reasonings and his eloquent writings Others of them that were more able were so cunning and partiall for the interest of their cause and faction as commonly to decry for obscure or to suspect as dangerous because prejudiciall to their interest or to bury in silence as their enemy that rare piece of Mr. Hookers Ecclesiasticall Polity which many of them had seldome either the courage or the honesty to read none of them the power ever to reply or the hardiness so much as to endeavour a just confutation of his mighty demonstrations Yea I have been credibly informed that some of the then-dissenters from the Church of England had the good or rather evil fortune utterly to suppress those now defective but by him promised and performed books touching the vindication of the Church of England in its Ordination Jurisdiction and Government by the way of Ancient Catholick Primitive and Apostolick Episcopacy Which one word Episcopacy hath of late years cost more blood and treasure in Scotland and England than all the enemies of Bishops and of this Church had in their veins or were worth 20. years ago whose importune clamours of old and endeavours of late to extirpate Primitive Catholick and Apostolicall Episcopacy out of this Church and to introduce by head and shoulders the exotick novelties and vanities of humane invention have brought themselves and this whole Church to so various and divided a posture as makes no setled or uniform Church-government at all by a popular precipitancy ruining an ancient and goodly Fabrick whose temporary decayes or defects might easily and wisely have been amended before they had agreed of a new model or seriously considered either their skill or their authority to erect a new one if they could find out a better which hitherto they have not done nor will they I believe ever be able to do as destitute in this point of any just commission direction power or precedent either from God or man I am sure the Supreme power of regulating all Ecclesiasticall affairs was under God by the laws of England invested in the Chief Magistrate and Governours of this Church without and against whose judgements consents and consciences no innovations were to be carried on nor indeed begun in this Church whose events or successes hitherto have been only worthy of such tumultuary beginnings the effects of them being full of dissolution confusion to all of injurious afflictions to many worthy men besides penall and perpetuall divisions among the Innovators themselves who
Revenues of Bishops and Cathedrals whose honour was the publick Honour of this Nation of this reformed Church and of every sober Minister grew so masterlesse that they threatned not onely the Livings of Parochiall Ministers but the very Nurseries of Learning the Schools of the Prophets the Colledges and Lands of both Universities which seemed to be spared and reprieved a while by the loud outcries of those men who had there got into the warm nests of other Birds whom they had driven from thence but the wide jawes of some sacrilegious spirits did and do still gape and grin upon these Ecclesiastick and Academick remaining Morsels grudging that they are not satisfied with them nor will they faile to be devoured in a few yeares if persons of Soveraign power and Nobler spirits doe not protect them as hitherto they have done from that ever-craving leech of Sacriledge which lives unsatiably crying Give give in some Lay-mens breasts nor may they be too confident of every Parlament to be their Friends or Defenders A notable alarm and instance of which danger the Lord Herbert gives in the reign of our Henry the 8. who as an Helduo or unsatiable gulph having swallowed up digested and egested as much Treasure and Lands as would have purchased a good Kingdome and maintained it in all equipage both Military and Civil becoming Majesty yet still indigent and necessitous he was offered by the House of Commons in a Parlament toward his later end all the Lands and Houses of the two famous Universities to be confiscated to his Exchecquer by a most mechanick prostitution of the Learning the Honour and the Piety of the Nation But that dreadfull Prince told them not without a just scorn that he had too much of a Scholar in him to destroy two such Universities as the world had not the like And he had so much of a Christian Prince too as not to destroy Bishops and Cathedrals or to take away their Houses and Estates but he rather added to them and erected four new Bishopricks out of the Lands of some Collegiate and Monastick Churches Had he with the same moderation and justice then restored Impropriations to the Church for the competent maintenance of Ministers in all places he had done a work so glorious and usefull to Religion as might have expiated all other his Royall Extravagancies For my part I am confident the just God will visit this sin of Sacriledge upon any Person Family or Nation that are guilty of it nor will the Controversie ever be taken up till either full vengeance or due restitution and redemption be made of what was Gods portion for the Order Honour and Maintenance of his Service and this Church no more than Israel could stand in battel while Achan and the accursed or devoted thing was among them The Safety Honour Peace Plenty Happinesse and chiefly the Piety and Religion of any Nation professing the Name and Worship of the true God all these will fatally decay and be upon not onely great hazards but diminutions and distresses while Professors of Religion and Reformation make God the Father and Christ the Godfather of any Sacriledge as if it were as acceptable a service to them to take away from such a Christian and Reformed Church such meanes as was fit to maintain and anciently devoted to the honour and encouragement of Christs Ministers and Governours of his Church as it was to burn the Chariots and hough the horses of the Sun in pieces 'T is true all that is dedicated to false that is no Gods is an injury and a sacrilegious robbing of the true God therefore those Donations may lawfully in some mens judgements be taken away but none ever allowed true men to be false to the true God to rob and defraud him who is the maker and giver of all Shall Christians grudge to give that to Christ yea and rapine that from him which others have given to him who is the repairer and restorer of all No good Angels can guard those men or that Nation which they see guilty of robbing that good God they professe to worship Certainly Sacriledge is the more notorious sin and of deeper die by how much it is committed among Christians and most where they professe to be most reformed who should best know how much they owe to God how they should value the gift of his Son Jesus Christ to die for them and the feet of his Messengers who preach those glad tidings to poor sinners Nor can I but observe how God hath already visited with no small or light strokes of his vengeance as the whole Nation so in particular the sinfull and shamefull silence even of those Ministers who were so cold cunning and indifferent as to the reproving of Sacriledge and Schism provided they might in other designes gain their processe They and their dictators too have for the most part both in England and Scotland reaped nothing but Shame and Infamy Reproch and Contempt which is the shadow ever following Sacriledge even among honest Heathens and true Christians while they could liberally declaim and lift up their voices like Trumpets in an Oratory not more loud and popular than flat and insipid against a few decent and innocent Ceremonies against a handsome and wholsome Liturgy against learned godly and reverend Bishops farre their betters against Ancient and Catholick Episcopacy which preserved the Order and Unity of the Church but in the great concerns of Gods Glory this Churches Honour the Clergies Maintenance the good of mens souls and the credit of the Christian and Reformed Religion which were all so invaded by a bold and resolute Sacriledge threatning all setled Livings and Maintenance of Ministers and Scholars there they peep and mutter like Obs and Pythons whispering as out of the earth and their bellies not from their hearts more dubiously than the Oracles of Apollo and more obscurely than the Sibyls leaves Thus artificiall are some men at the swallowing of Camels and sticking at Gnats I doe not forespeak or imprecate a further evil day upon any but rather I pray for Personall yea Nationall Repentance Amendment and Pardon without which I am confident God will vindicate his great Name and the name of Jesus Christ together with the Honour and Principles of both Christian and true Reformed Religion from so great a scandal as Sacriledge is against all those men whatever they are their Parties and Posterities who not onely dare to commit it but to connive at it yea commend it yea to boast of it yea impute it to the impulses of Gods spirit to their zeal for Religion and to their aimes at a perfect or through Reformation After all which noise and rattle God knowes much is more deformed than ever in Religion both as to the Polity and power of it the outward Order and inward Efficacy nothing truly reformed by robbing the Church but onely the tenuity of some mens former fortunes If the persons of
much letting of blood as these last Calentures which have infinitely wasted the people and spirits of these three Nations taking their first popular heats or pretending so at least from the zeal each party had for its Religion not as Christian which all professe but as discriminated by particular marks of lesser Opinions and Perswasions which occasion more discords than all their agreement in other main matters can preserve of Love and Concord as men as Countrey-men or Christians How oft since the Reformation in England began and was perfected to so great a beauty for Justice Piety Order Charity Moderation and Honour as became the Glory of God the Majesty of Christian Religion and the Wisdome of this Nation have the struglings of Religion threatned and began civil broyles not onely in eighth's dayes both in the North and West when yet Reformation was much unhewn and unpolished people being unsatisfied because untaught as to the just grounds of necessary Alteration but afterward in succeeding Princes dayes especially in Queen Elizabeth's long and happy reign how infinitely did religious discontents boyle in some mens breasts insomuch that for want of vent in open flames of Hostility which the publick Power Policy and Vigilancy of those times repressed they bred all sorts of foul Impostumations even to the study of Assassinations Empoisonings and Treasons some so black and barbarous as are unparallel'd in former and will be scarce credible in after-Ages Nor did the discontented Papists onely meditate first revenge then Soveraignty by blowing all up at one blow that was sacred or civil in this Nation but even that little cloud which at first seemed but as an hands breadth of difference in some outward Forms Ceremonies and Circumstances of Religion as Christian and Reformed this in time grew so full of sulphurous or hot vapours that it looked very black when it was not yet very big in England either by schismes or separations being much cooled and allayed yea in great part dissipated and vanished through the excellent temper of that Government both in Church and State which that renowned Queen and her wise Councel preserved which suffered neither Conformity to grow wanton and lazy nor Non-conformity to be presumptuous or desperate nor yet too popular by out-vying the other party either in Piety or Industry Episcopacy as the ancient and onely Catholick Government of this and all other Churches for 1500. years was then had in due veneration allowed its double honour both in Church and State in Parlaments and Synods it was treated with great gravity and respect by that incomparable Princesse afterward it was asserted with greater indulgence and passion by King James who began that Proverb which his Son saw verified No Bishop no King yet in the beginning of the late Kings dayes Episcopacy and the state of the Church was even pampered and cosetted by so excessive a favour and propensity as made it seem his chief Favourite not onely for reasons of State but of Conscience The Episcopall throne and dignity seemed as immutable as the Kings Scepter and Majesty so zealously devoted he was to assert it so fearfull by any sacrilegious act to diminish it such a Patron such a Champion for the State Ecclesiastick that upon the matter he was resolved to venture Kingdomes Life and all upon this cause and either to swimme or sink with the Church of England against the Tide of all Faction What could be desired of greater advantage and security than such an immensity of favour from so potent a Monarch for the indemnity and stability of the Episcopall interests and its friends in England which in the Beginning of King Charles his reign had what they could hope or desire his benignity exceeding the very hopes of Church-men his Royall favour confirming all those Immunities Honours Jurisdictions and Revenues as sacred and inviolable which they enjoyed by the Lawes Priviledges and Customes of England to which the Learning Gravity and Merit of many worthy Bishops and other Church-men in England bare so great and good a proportion that few were so impudently envious as not to think that many yea most of them well deserved what they soberly enjoyed The heat of the opposite Factions as Non-conformists or Separatists was so much allayed that it seemed quite extinguished nor possibly could it have revived to so sudden and dreadfull flames if the immoderations of some mens passionate counsels and precipitate activities had not transported them beyond those bounds which politick and it may be pious prudence did require which easily re-inkindled those old differences which had been so much suppressed that they seemed quite buried in England till they took fresh and unexpected fires from the cold climate but hot spirits of Scotland which finding prepared and combustible matter there and here too soon brake out to such flames as were not to be quenched but with the best blood in England and the overthrow of the ancient Government both of Church and State even then when both seemed to be in their greatest height and fixation So dangerous even beyond all imagination and expression are the sparks of religious dissentions if they be either by preposterous Oppositions provoked or by imprudent Negligences permitted to ferment and spread in any Church and State or if they be not by at powerfull way of reall Wisdome and true Piety which is the best and surest policy so quenched and smothered as may take away from all men of any Worth Modesty and Conscience any just cause to endeavour or desire any such Innovations as those did who upon Presbyterian principles first aimed at not a totall change of Doctrine but onely an amendment of Discipline and Government in this Church which as they seemed in a short time to have obtained beyond their first designs so in no long time after they were as much frustrated and soon defeated by other subsequent parties which sprang up upon the like grounds of religious differences After Episcopacy was thrust under hatches what I pray could be more absolute and Magisteriall bigger in words lookes enterprises in terrours of others in boasts and confidences of it self than the Presbyterian party was after once that Leven by a Scotch maceration and infusion had diffused it self and sowred many peoples simplicity here in England against the Episcopall constitution and administration of this Church How did this high-flying Icarus in a short time disdain any rivall puffing at all its Prelatick adversaries setting its feet on all the Bishops and the Episcopall Clergies neck as the Israelites did on the five Kings of the Amorites before they were to be slain which thing was done at Josuahs command who was the supreme Magistrate but these forward Spirits tarried not for any such command or consent to their dominion from the Prince of the people but their new soveraginty fought to spread it self like lightning in a moment to the latitude of these three Kingdomes impregnated and palliated with many popular petitions
ownes as the badg or bond of his admission into Communion with Christ and his Church both Catholick and congregationall generall and particular This it seemes must now not at all be owned or slighted nulled and forgotten by the superfetation of a new form of Christian confederation more solemn sacred and obliging as they fancy to Christian duties than that was which was solemnly made in the presence of the congregation ratified in the blood of Jesus Christ and testified in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost yea and after this the poor Episcopall Divines if they will gently comply and for feare Associate must quietly permit either the community of the people or the parity of the Presbyters in their severall lesser bodies and congregations or in their greater classes and conventions to challenge to themselves the plenary sole absolute perfect and unappealable power of not onely ordination which of old they never had as St. Jerom confesseth but of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and Discipline and this under the conduct and auspicious management of onely some Diurnall Dictator some temporary prolocutor or extemporary moderator who is forsooth to have the Image of a superficiall Bishop and the shadow of a short-liv'd superintendent a thing meerly occasional and unauthoritative as to any office or power inherent in him or of right to be challenged or exercised by him enjoying onely an horary arbitrary and humane presidency for fashion and civility sake without any Ecclesiasticall eminent or constant Authority residing in him as derived from Christ the Apostles or their successors or any Churches custome designation and consent in former times Such as was ever committed to owned in and used by the Bishops of the Church as regularly succeeding to the Apostles in that ordinary eminency of power which was necessary to keep both Presbyters and all Christian people and Churches good Order Peace and Unity which blessings they never more enjoyed or more happily than under a right Episcopacy Whose cause however of later yeares it hath been run down and trampled in a hurry under foot by some men in England Scotland and Ireland yet hath it suffered no reall diminution as to the true Honor of its Apostolick Authority its Primitive Antiquity its Catholick succession its high descent and its holy Originall which was never denyed or much disputed by any men of any considerable Learning and Piety till these later Dog-dayes in which not onely some single Stars of nebulous and dubious light but whole Constellations of them like Sirius or the Canicular Juncto erected under the new name and figuration of Smectymnuus to calculate the Nativity of a new Reformation became Lords of the Ascendent being filled contrary to their former Conformity and declared submission with a very unbenigne that I say not malignant influence not only against Episcopacy but in effect against the whole visible Constitution of this Church in which as Goods in a sunk ship all things are much wasted and abased by the ruine of Episcopacy Their destructive fires kindled from the colder parts of this Island first flamed into strange Logomachies thredbare cavillings and triviall strifes about Words and Names as if after sixteen hundred years all the Christians and Ministers of England its Princes and Parliaments its Synods and Councels yea all the Christian world elsewhere were to be Catechized by a few petty Presbyters in comparison and their Scot-English Assembly what the names of Bishop and Presbyter of Pastor and Teacher of Elder and Ruler of Helps and Governments of Apostle and Evangelist of Ecclesiastical Stars and Angels did mean which not onely all Writers but all times and practises of all Churches had sufficiently interpreted and cleared from the first promiscuous use of some general names which called the chief Apostles Prophets Evangelists Bishops Presbyters Elders Ministers and Deacons too in whose offices authorities and duties there were real and great differences to more proper and peculiar distinctions according to the several ranks degrees orders offices and powers then established in the Church After the Squibbs and Crackers of paper had been lighted and cast in the face of venerable Episcopacy at last as the manner is things came to dreadful Chiromachies such scufflings and fightings with hands and arms of flesh against that Government which is as the Ancient of dayes that they looked more like that Gigantomachy the Giants assaulting Heaven and the Gods than that Good fight of faith which ought to contend earnestly onely for that which was once uniformly delivered to all true Saints and received by all true Churches of Christ in doctrine order and government among whom all lesser disputations and differences circumstantial rising among good Christians were wont to be fairly debated and determined in lawful Assemblies in Ecclesiastical Synods and National or general Councils from which Christian and Orthodox Bishops were never either terrified or excluded but principally called and admitted as the chief Fathers of those holy Oeconomies or Christian Polities Nor was Episcopacy ever condemned by any of those Councils Synods or Assemblies in any Age of the Church much less was it ejected and extirpated as uselesse unlawful and abominable no not by any Synods and confessions of any Protestant and reformed Churches of note notwithstanding they could not conveniently enioy the blessing of it for so they accounted it either by reason of the petulancy of people or the impatience of civil Magistrates or the Sacrilegious humours and designes of all against the Clergy After all these prepossessions and just presumptions thus challenged to the cause and state of Episcopacy in point of its venerable and undeniable Antiquity I cannot but offer to its still scrupulous or implacable Adversaries these following Quaeres 1. How sad I beseech you and wretched how confounded and astonished must the awakened Consciences of those men be who have been the chief Authors and Fautors of our late troubles variations and miseries chiefly upon the account of their Antiepiscopal Antipathies if after all these combustions perturbations and plunderings of Religion which have rather pleased mens private passions and opinions than any way profited the publick welfare of this Church or State if I say these great sticklers against Episcopacy should be either grosly mistaken or malitiously perverted from the right path that good old way of which former Ages can better inform us then those that are but of yesterday and can know nothing but by their light 2. What if it should be as true as it is most probable because generally so believed in all Ages parts and places of the Church that the cause of Primitive Episcopacy is indeed the cause of God of Christ and of the whole Church the cause of all the Apostles of all Primitive Bishops their immediate successors yea the cause of all true Presbyters and all true Christians a cause in which the glory of God the wisdome of Christ the honor of the Apostles the fidelity of their successors the
they ever turne any lawfull Prince out of doores to make way for themselves and their Episcopall Authority or party Which method as I touched appeares to have been used even by the first Presbyterians in the world even at Geneva as some report where popular fury violently expelled not onely the Bishop but the lawfull Prince of that City who had of right not onely the spirituall jurisdiction but also the civil dominion of that Place and Territory as Bodin and Mr. Calvin confesse After this copy in many places turbulent spirits did endeavour arte vel Marte by power or policy by hook or by crook to bring in that new way into Cities and Countries and no where I find more remarkably than in Scotland during the minority of King James and the raigne of his mother How little regard was had to the Lawes or Religion then established to the Will or Authority of the supreme Magistrate how insolent petulant imperious audacious were some Presbyterian spirits there against Princes as well as Bishops is no newes to those that have read the histories of that Church among which none exceeds that of Dr. Spotswood Arch-Bishop of St. Andrewes set forth by the care of Dr. Duppa the Learned and Reverend Bishop of Salisbury a person of such Piety Patience and Prudence under his undeserved sufferings that not onely his friends but his and all Bishops enemies admire the Christian gravity and heroick greatnesse of his mind as well as others of his Order How far the like spirit plotted threatned acted and attempted in England in Queen Eliz. time so afterward in K. James his raigne and now at last in K. Charles his compleat Tragedies ful sore against his will and conscience no lesse than against the Lawes not then by any power repealed both Mr. Hooker Bishop Bilson Bishop Bancroft Archbishop Whitgift Mr. Cambden and many more of old together with our own late sad experience sufficiently informe us They of old began with scandalous petitions scurrilous libels bold admonitions rude menacings cunning contrivances which were followed at last with fire and sword with blood and ruine with sad division and great devastation to Church and State to Prince and People Which events are no wonder when any new thing pretending to Religion and Reformation may be carryed on by principles and practices of violence and force and these not because lawfull but because they are said to be necessary for Gods interest yea as instances of the highest zeal and most conscientious courage as if there never were nor could ever be any truth or faith any piety or sanctity any Christ or Christianity any Grace or Gospel in the Church or any Christians hearts unlesse Anabaptisme or Presbyterisme or Independentisme had not gently contested but rudely justled Episcopacy out of the Church of England as well as Scotland though full sore against the will of the Chief Magistrate Certainly military or mutinous methods of Religion and Reformation were never preached or practised meditated or endeavoured by any worthy Prelates Presbyters or people of that perswasion For they doe not think that Secular Arms are fit Engines to set up Jesus Christ or his Kingdome in this world which is not of this world nor after the methods of worldly power and force yea they hold that Soveraigne Princes as Christians ought not by brutish force to compel but by reason and due instruction to perswade their Subjects at first to the true Religion much lesse are weapons in the hands of Subjects meet instruments to convince or convert Princes forcibly to yield to any popular presumptions and meer innovations in Religion especially when contrary not onely to the Catholick Customes of all Churches but to the present constitution of that Church of which the Prince is a chief part yea against that personall oath by which a Prince hath sworn to preserve the setled and just rights and priviledges both of that Church and those Church-men which are in his Dominion What is more horrid than to have Reformation or Religion never so good and true thus crammed down the consciences of Kings or States whether they will or no which is the way to make all secular powers jealous of all Christianity and Reformation to set their faces and their forces against them as seditious injurious mutinous and rebellious against the publick peace the civil Rights Honors and Authorities of all Governours in Kingdoms and States The Episcopall and Evangelicall methods have been quite other as I have said by preaching and praying by patient sufferings and frequent Martyrdomes by attending Gods leisure and their Princes pleasures Thus they obtained the protection and favour of the Lawes other projects or policies other arts or armes were never known to the true Gospel of Jesus Christ or its unseparable attendant Episcopacy Thus did Evangelicall Bishops and their Clergy conquer by a meek gentle and unbloody Conquest the vast Roman world and that part of it which was here in Britany no people were so barbarous no Princes so tyrannous whom they did not soften and sweeten by that Evangelicall way and spirit which is called an anointing because it is a sacred balme or oyle which breaks not heads but hearts wounds not the bodies but the spirits of Princes and others with an healing stroke with a soft and mercifull wound Thus did the Crosse of Christ and the Crosiers of Bishops ever go together into all places not pulling down but exalting not shaking but setling the Crownes of Kings and Princes Though they were Heathens Unbelievers and Persecutors as all at first were yet did holy Bishops and their Clergy so far submit to their civil power as to pray and preach not onely faith in Christ but fidelity to Kings teaching not onely Religion but Allegeance yea they made the Allegeance of Christian subjects and souldiers even to heathen Emperours as Tertullian saith a great part and note of true Religion which perfectly abhors all rebellion against God or man as the sin of witchcraft it being as an apostasie from and an abnegation of the true God and true Religion when upon any godly and specious pretentions of Piety or Reformation as by so many charmes and enchantments of the Devil turning himself into an Angel of light Christian Preachers or Professors do begin and carry on factious tumultuous and rebellious motions against the civil Powers Lawes and Polities of any Prince or State It is upon the point a denying of the faith and setting up a new Gospel a Judaick or Mahometan not a Christian Messiah whose true servants and souldiers were alwaies armed with weapons that were spirituall not carnal ministerial not military or martial which in Church-men rather stab and wound all true Religion and Reformation to the heart by infinite scandals injuries and deformities than any way advance it either to a greater power or approbation and acceptance among men of any sober reason or morall sense of things No violence and injustice
the Emperour did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as men suffer their native passions to carry them somewhat beyond tha discretion and temper which became grave and godly Bishops while they did too much proscind and prostitute as it were the Imperial purple vilifying that Majesty which ought to be sacred to Christian Subjects although the persons wearing them may be Tyrants Persecutors and Apostates as the Censers were to be holy in which Incense had been once offered though with strange fire Bishops Miters and Crosiers ought in no case to clash with the Crowns and Scepters of Soveraign Princes however their discreet zeal may seasonably represent to them and in Gods name reprove their misdemeanors as Christians much less may any Presbyters pert upon them who are of a far lesser size and never had any ensignes of honor and autority as chief governours of any Church Be Bishops or Presbyters never so zealous and gracious yet they are not beyond the ancient and best Bishops of Rome and of other chief Cities who with Gregory the Great owned the Emperours as their Soveraign Lords So did St. Ambrose respect both Theodosius and Valentinian so did the venerable Council of the Nicene Bishops reverence the Emperour Constantine the Great Neither their number being three hundred and eighteen nor their publick representation of the Catholick Church did encourage them to do or meditate any thing beyond prayers and petitions recommending all their Counsels to God the Emperour and all the Church No Preachers or Christians warmth needs go beyond the pitch of Christ and his Apostles who are so absolutely for obedience respect and civil feare to Princes whether heathen or Christian that no supreme power whatever need to fear the overthrow or shaking of their Empire Soveraignty and Dominion by admitting true Christian Religion and true Christian Bishops nor need they feare it as any sin persecution or injustice in them to curb represse and punish by all meanes the inordinate pragmatick and seditious zeal as of Bishops so of any Presbyters or people who shall pretend to bring in any Religion or Reformation against their will and permission it being the work and mark of true Religion and undefiled to establish the Thrones of Princes to preserve the publick peace to teach subjection not onely of purses and persons but of soules and consciences so far as Princes do not require them to disobey God and in these cases they need not rack their wits to find out rebellious remedies or disloyall evasions the onely lawfull and laudable refuge is neer at hand namely Christian patience which sets men furthest off from railing or resisting both which are but the scorchings and soote of black and over-burning zeal which makes a kind of Charcoale of Religion What wise sober and humble Christian then can sufficiently love honour and admire the modesty humility and loyalty of true Episcopacy ever expressed by the carriage of the best Christian and reformed Bishops towards all Princes And who can sufficiently abhor the petulancy and insolency of those Novellers and Reformers who shall dare to lift up either the Presbyterian virgula or the Independent ferula or the Anabaptistick flail not onely to threaten but to chastise Soveraign Princes that list not to admit their wayes into their dominions before they can approve them in their Consciences and Judgements following the disciplining methods and penance used by some Monks of Canterbury against our King Henry the second Surely Christianity and the Clergy are never so healthy and comely as when their complexion is rather pallid with the fastings and prayers the studies and pains of humble Bishops and Presbyters than purpled or sanguine with blood and fury The over-hot breathings of Ministers like the chaud of Charcoale stifle and suffocate the vital spirits of true Religion Godly Bishops and Presbyters ever abhorred as Hell and damnation to teach Princes their Religion their Canons Catechises and Directories as Gideon did the men of Succoth with Briars and Thornes or to discipline Soveraigne Majesty with Swords and Pistols in order to perswade them to submit to the Gospel-Scepter and Discipline No they never did attempt so to do either in the Primitive and persecuting times when Magistrates were most froward and injurious or in those times which were afterward more propitious and prosperous when the Clergy fed highest and was most indulged by the munificence of Christian Emperours and Empresses devout Kings and Queens who as good nurses never repined at the fulness of their own breasts or the hearty sucking of their dear nurslings joyning the Prince to the Prelate and adding Lordly Honors with Estates to Christian Bishops never fearing hereby to make them too wanton or insolent while they saw them keep to the sober principles of Christianity conformable to that Apostolick and Primitive Episcopacy which was alwaies pure and peaceable faithfull to God humble and loyall to man so Ruling the Church of Christ as not to be Masters of mis-rule in any Nation State or Kingdom Yea in the amplest enjoyments of that pious munificence and those generous liberalities which Christian Princes Noblemen Gentlemen and inferiour persons devoutly afforded to Bishops and the rest of the Clergy as tokens of their gratitude to God their honor to their Saviour their love to their spirituall Fathers and their value of their own and other mens soules however some few Clergy-men among many might possibly surfeit sometime and as Jesurun grow petulant sensuall and sottish through fulness of bread idlenesse and luxury yet still the generall face of the best Bishops and Clergy was comely and venerable there wanted not in all Ages such Bishops and Presbyters both in England and all Churches for Gravity Learning Sanctity Charity Fidelity and Loyalty as kept up the Office Name and Honor of the Clergy and of Episcopacy to an high degree of honor and veneration both with Princes and people that were good Christians No men were more usefull or more imployed for the good ordering both of Church and Common-weale than Bishops were none were better Counsellors to Princes and greater Benefactors to their fellow-subjects none further from faction sedition popularity sacriledge and rebellion none did greater service or better offices for their King their Church and their Country How loyal resolute and religious a Remonstrance did the Bishop of Carlile make in Parliament against the deposing of King Richard the Second when the whole stream ran against him Was not Morton first Bishop of Ely and after of Canterbury the first designer and a principal effecter of the union of the White and Red Roses the two great houses of York and Lancaster to the blessed extinguishing of those long flames of civil war which drank up the blood and consumed the flesh of this Nation whose greatest miseries rise from its own bowels Was not Richard Fox Bishop of Durham the chief Counsellour Promoter and Actor of that other union between the two Crowns of England and Scotland by treating
and possibly over-aw'd by the civil sword to submit to any such Triers Ordainers Committee-men and Censors yea Tithing-men and Constables as it is pleased to impose on them while it exerciseth both a Civil and Ecclesiasticall Episcopacy over Church and State as supposing it self safest when it hath both swords in its hands that by so eminent power it may both preserve Majesty and exercise Authority which are inseparable It is extreme vanity and folly to imagine that even the lesser flies the rabble and vulgarity of the people in England naturally course and now grown both baser and ruder then ever being insolent as to the presumptions of their liberties both religious and civil that these I say should easily be held by those fine new cobwebs of Church-Government which some men have lately spun out of their own bowels and braines for they are not of the ancient Web or Loome How much lesse can any wise man expect that the greater sort of people in the Nation such as are either purse-proud yet arrant Churles and Clowns will be either catched or held by those imaginary toyles What then shall we think either Presbytery or Independency will do with the higher-spirited Gentry and heretofore Magnanimous Nobility of England Will not these Lords and Ladies think it ridiculously strange to find themselves cited and summoned tried and examined reproved and censured excommunicated yea and reprobated by a few petty-Presbyters whom they look upon commonly as poor Scholars pragmatick and pedantick enough for the most part if they have any power and be under none as to Church-Discipline Or will these Gentlemen submissly venerate the Authority of Good-men Lay-Elders or a cold Vestry of a few honest Gaffers with their Elect Pastor who is as a poor soul set to informe and move that poor Body of Parochial or congregated Christians who are ready to say with the Pharisee to all that are not of their corporation and opinion Stand by we are holier than thou Good God! what stamps of eminency in Reason or Religion in Piety or Policy in Civility or Charity will any persons of Noble Birth Good Breeding and Pregnant Parts see in these Consistorian or Congregationall Conventions to keep up their own Authority and to keep down other mens spirits from despising them Among whom there neither is nor can be generally any such conspicuity or sufficiency for any parts and abilities of mind and body of estate and quality as may redeem them from the very contempt and laughter even of boyes to which many times their pittifull clothes which give either a great glosse or damp with vulgar eyes as they are either rich or mean on the backs of men in Authority besides their simple carriage their senselesse speeches and very silly lookes are prone to expose them Nor have they many times as to the Lay-part of them any thing without or within them to redeem them from this low and loose esteem in all mens both judgements and consciences who are not very silly superstitious or servile Yet of this course bran and barrel for the most part are those men and Ministers who have been most eager to exclude Venerable Episcopacy and to challenge to themselves either as Ministers or Laicks the whole Height Depth Length and Breadth of Ecclesiasticall Government in England not onely for ordaining Ministers but for censuring silencing deposing excommunicating and wholly Anathematizing or abdicating from Christ and his Church all sorts and sizes of men whatever Majesty Soveraignty and Authority they have upon them For these new Masters professe like God to be no respecters of persons all must fall under their lash and stroke who are either in the Parochiall or Congregationall Communion and Jurisdiction Possibly such small Monitors or Triobolary Discipliners who are justly of least esteem in a Nation and Church might for a time and in a humour suite the spirits of some little Colonies or Conventicles in Arnheim or Amsterdam in new England or in old and cold Scotland where common people have much of the easiness or tamenesse of peasants But certainly they are no way suitable to the Haughtiness and Grandeur of England These manacles are so far from shackling the chief of our Tribes and heads of our Families that they are not capable to hamper the feet so far from making good Pillories that they will not serve for good Stocks and whipping-posts for the due repressing and punishing even of vulgar petulancy and insolency which we see prevailes every where inspite both of Presbytery and Independency for want of an Honorable and Venerable Episcopacy justly constituted and honorably countenanced in the Church The temper of the English Nation is not like that of Scotland which with so brotherly and unwelcome a zeal would needs obtrude upon us Presbytery whether we would or no. There every petty Lairde of a Village in his High house hath either a bit and bridle in the mouths or a Cane over the crags of all the poor Cotagers and of the poor Clerick his Minister too who are in a kind of Villanage as underlings to his Seigniorie servilely depending on him the one for his great Salary of an hundred Scotch punds or marks a yeare where every mark is thirteen pence half-penny and every pund is two shillings English the other for their Cotages Copy-Holds Farmes and Tenures So that the common people there being generally over dropped and under-fed low-pursed and low-spirited might easily be ruled as to any religious Government and Church-Concernments by such a Discipline as their gudd Lairdes and Sr. John pleased to put upon them the ambition of Preacher and people being no higher than to eate and drinke and to beget children in their own likenesse to poverty and servility as the Peasants in France and Boores in Germany do But the ruggednesse and fiercenesse of the people of England even of the very Commons and clowns who are higher fed and bred to less slavery then in other countries is such that like our English horses cocks mastives and bores they are no where to be matched for the curstness and animosity of their spirit and mettle How have we seen even mean men bristle against not onely their grave Ministers but their great Benefactors and Masters Tenants have risen against their Landlords and Peasants against the noblest Peers so Presbyters have contested with their Bishops and subjects with their Soveraignes Such tragical rufflings and disdains of their betters are no news in Engl. And shall we think that trades-men peasants and yeomen not to mention gentlemen and noblemen or such as shall govern as supreme will all or any of them now be so tame as to be curbed checked ruled and managed by those minime Ministers and members of Congregations or those petty Presbyters in their Parishes or Associations whom they have no visible cause or motive in the world to look upon or esteem as their equals or betters no way likely to be their benefactors and so
for their Gods any Calf or Idol which their Superiours please to set up in the Church to serve or secure the civil Interests But in England where people have much light and dare to use it such policies and projects would now be not onely preposterous but vaine and ridiculous There is no putting among us Eagles wings or Feathers upon the bodies of Jack-dawes Rookes or Crowes which rather incumber them than inable them for any orderly motion much lesse do they make them Imperiall birds fit to rule or over-aw the other winged inhabitants of the world which will be ready to scorne and despise them And what indeed for instance hath more abased the condition and abated the common honor of Ministers in England of later yeares than some of their unseasonable and unreasonable affectations to govern in common as beyond their due proportion for Age Gifts Parts Ornaments so before they had complete Commission to empower them either from God or any man in Soveraign power Even such Presbyters as most affected like Icarus to fly above their Fathers my self and the English world have seen to have so melted their own artificiall wings that they have miserably faln into a Sea a black and a red Sea of confusion contempt and contention both among their own people and all the Nation Out of which Abysse they will never be able to wade or swim in my judgement unlesse they can with such Unity Humility and Charity as St. Austin adviseth some Donatists revoke their exotick errors retract their Schismes and transports returning from their pertinacious novelties to the true proportions of Ancient Church-Government which I think are in no degree to be found either in Presbytery Independency or any way apart from Episcopacy both which new waies have so grievously blasted and singed themselves by the exorbitancy of those terrible flames which they kindled utterly to consume Episcopacy that there is little likelihood either of these novelties should ever appeare to be entertained with any publick beauty honor esteem or approbation in England where nothing is lesse tolerable than Governours that are contemptible for want of Ability Authority and Dignity as to Estate and Honor. Amidst all which immoderate and mercilesse fires destinated to consume all the pristine beauty and honor of Catholick Episcopacy both root and branch in one day yet to shew not more the wonder of Gods mercy than the true temper of the English people behold not onely Primitive Episcopacy but Primitive Bishops that is persons of Learning Piety and Vertue becoming that sacred Office Dignity have retained all this while and will do while they live yea and when they are dead so much of reall honor and true respect due to their worth that no Assemblies no Armies no Votes no Ordinances no Terrors no Calumnies of inordinate Presbyters no insolencies of licentious people nothing can ever deprive them of or degrade them from an high respect and esteem in the hearts and desires in the loves and compassions of all unbiassed learned sober and wise men throughout the Nation Who are not yet grown so dull and degenerous as not to preferre the Primitive Catholick and Venerable Authority of Episcopacy as to order and Ordination so to Government and jurisdiction as much before the novel inventions and ostentations of any Presbyterian and Independent models as one would value the English Roses before the Scotch Thistles freely to handle or feed upon which is no such precious Christian Liberty as any wise men Ministers or others have either cause to envy in others or to congratulate in themselves since their former subjection to Episcopacy was far more to their Safety Order Plenty and Honor than what they now enjoy in their petty Signiories The lowest parts of that Mountaine of God Episcopacy on which the Church of Christ for many Ages stood and flourished were higher than the top of these new mole-hils the skirts of Bishops clothing were more venerable than the very Crownes of these Ministers heads the unanointed corners of whose haire and beards are now so deformedly shorne or shaven by a sharp and popular rasor The renowne and value of Episcopacy is much risen since English-men have seen added to the other excellencies of our English Bishops the miracle and magnanimity of their Christian patience who after their hard and long studies attended with many meritorious and usefull vertues after they had lawfully obtained and many yeares peaceably enjoyed such Honors and Estates as adorned Episcopacy in England after they had no way and by no law forfeited these or misused them yet in the decline of their lifes in the colder and darker winter of their Age these grave and gallant men can beare with Christian patience and heroick composednesse of mind the losse of all and that from their own Country-men Professors of the same Christian yea and Reformed Religion and this without any respect had either to their present and future support or their pristine dignity A fate so sad and Tragicall as is scarce to be parallell'd in any Age or History yet have none of them been heard to charge God foolishly They say and write either nothing or onely the words of Sobernesse Truth and Charity they still possesse their soules in silence and patience when dispossessed of all things whereever they live their lustre shines through their greatest obscurity and tenuity as the bright Sun through small crevises far beyond the most sparkling Presbyters or glittering Independents whose new popular projects for Church-Government compared to Primitive and old Episcopacy are like Comets or blazing Starres compared to the Sun and Moon The Gravity the Constancy the Contentednesse the Meekness the Humility of these Venerable yet afflicted Bishops now reduced God knowes to a great paucity as well as tenuity yet still keeps up their price and commands from all wise and worthy men a veneration both of their persons and of that comely Authority which they heretofore enjoyed and worthily exercised in this Church Who almost of any considerable people in England that are not either ignorant fanatick or sacrilegious but either openly or secretly wish the happy restauration of Venerable Episcopacy to this Church and Nation who that hath sense of honor justice or ingenuity doth not deplore and is not discountenanced to consider the Crowds and Loades of indignities cast upon such excellent persons as for the most part the Bishops of England were even then when they were to be sacrificed by I know not what strange fire as a peace-offering to the discontented Presbyters of Scotland and their ambitious Symbolizers in England I know some of those Lords and Commons who in the huddle helped to destroy Bishops and their Order now not onely pitty the undeserved sufferings of such brave men but repent of their own compliance and so do many Ministers The usefulness worth and necessity of excellent Bishops and of true Episcopacy were never so well understood in England as since the
in storms and in calms ever since they have been beaten from and denyed Anchorage in the fair Haven of Episcopacy which ever was and ever will be the safest and best harbour both for Religion this Church and its Clergy For no men will regard those Ministers who help to make themselves undervalued Who will care to provide for or protect them that cast off so fair a portion of Estate and noble a proportion of honour as the Laws of this Land had given them under the Episcopal covering Whither now shall poor Ministers fly unless they fly from their despised and distressed calling to some more easie quiet and beneficial Mechanick profession unless they renounce their former Orders and take up a new standing either upon their own tip-toes or some Mole-hill which the Ants of the people have cast up neither of which stations is either firm or comely The vulgar favour is too flat dull and shallow for any man of Learning Worth and Wisdom to lanch into he will presently be a-ground for popular respect riseth to no higher a pitch than they see men have some publick influence of favour estate or power Go to the Palaces of such as are Princes and think themselves great persons their Courts and Families are commonly full of deep and rough rapid and dangerous motions the courtesie of country-Justices and true Committee-men is very various much as the Wind and Tide are either with or against the poor Clergy Where are there then any proper Advocates and Judges or any competent Censors and Supports of the Clergy becoming men of Learning and Worth beyond the ordinary rate of most men Whom have they of their cloth and calling that is in any eminency of Place Power or Honour who might by their favour defend a poor Minister as with a shield so as worthy Bishops did without whom the Ministry in England may I think despair of ever recovering themselves to any great value or regard while they are looked upon even one and all under a meer plebeian notion and proletary proportion permitted indeed to marry and beget children but to servility poverty and beggery Few persons of any Worth or Estate will now either make their sons Ministers or match their daughters to them or contract any alliance or friendship with them since no Clergy-men can be great they will not be much valued for being good Thus hath the fall of Episcopacy like a great and goodly Oake crushed all the Under-wood of the Clergy which was safe while those defensatives stood in our Druina nor have those escaped the brush and crush who were most industrious to fell it On all hands the honour of the Clergy is never like to revive in this Nation till something like primitive and authoritative Episcopacy be either replanted or restored the spirit of the Nation being such that it cannot be governed but by those that have some publick eminency and real lustre upon them either as to military power or civil honour or religious presidency set off with the ampleness of some estate and the authority of some fitting jurisdiction As Augustus said to the Egyptians when they desired him to visit their God Apis I worship Gods not Oxen so do the most people of Engl. in their hearts reply to all Presbyterian Independent Ministers who seek to winne them to worship their ways We were wonted to venerate grave and honourable Bishops not every petty Presbyter or Preacher as our chief Church-governours according to the custom and manner of all good Christians in all ancient Churches and in this of England ever since Joseph of Arimathaea or Simon Zelotes converted us ever since K. Lucius was baptized and the British Church had the honour of Primogeniture to any National Church in the World ever since either Palladius in Scotland or Patricius in Ireland or the latter Austin in England by the mission and commission of the devout Gregory the Great either restored or planted Christian Religion and Bishops in England the shortest of which Terms or Epoches is now above a thousand years In all which time England hath been famous for nothing so much as for the great regard this Nation had til of late years both to Christian Religion and to the Clergy which never til now were made to live without the crowns and coronets of their worthy Bishops in every Diocess which were the coverings of power and honour upon the heads of all the Clergy to whom the access of a poor Minister was short and easie his hearing speedy his tryal legal and rational his dispatch without delayes his dismission fatherly and his submission filial and comely insomuch that peaceable and good Ministers were never more blest than when they had the sight of their worthy Bishop or Diocesan who did not onely as a good Shepherd oversee and rule them but tooke care to feed and defend them with Order Plenty Peace and publick Honour blessings of so great price in our mortal pilgrimage that they had need be very pretious Liberties indeed that are to be purchased by parting with them or exchanging them for the dry Martyrdoms of Poverty Contempt and daily Confusion CHAP. XXII IN the last place I do with the more courage and confidence recommend the cause of Venerable Episcopacy to my honored Countrymen because no Nation or Church under heaven ever had more ample and constant experiences of that excellent worth which hath been in their Bishops or of that excellent use which hath ever been made of a regular Episcopacy both in respect of true Piety and Orderly Policy I know it will at first dash with full mouth be here replyed how many Bishops have been superstitious sottish luxurious tyrannous persecutors and what not especially before the Reformation till their wings were so clipped that they could not be so bad as they would yet some of them were bad enough My answer is I do not undertake to justifie every thing that every Bishop hath done in any Age late or long since though I am charitably modest to palliate the shame or uncomliness of my Fathers yet I am no Mercenary Orator or veneall Advocate to plead for their enormities which are in no men lesse tolerable or expiable There were no doubt among Bishops as well as other men of all sorts some weak some wicked as Ezekiels figs some very good some very bad yet take them in the generall view and aspect even in the darkest times I am sure they were in England ever esteemed and employed both in Church and State as Primores Regni men of the greatest abilities and best repute for Learning Wisdome Counsel Piety Charity and Hospitality in all the Nation nor were many of them in those times inferiour by birth and breeding to the greatest Noblemen in the Land I do not censoriously rifle mens personall or private actions but I consider their publick influence and aspect It sufficeth to my designe if I demonstrate by induction
not many good Bishops then when worse and harder measure befell them and their Order than since England was Christian Indeed many yea most of our Bishops were as Noahs Sems and Japhets yet have all these been drowned in the Presbyterian Deluge Even these made up the so odious so unpopular so decryed Bishops in England The pest and contagion of whose fate as it came first from Scotland where no doubt there were many Bishops of equal vertues though inferiour revenues to the worthy and well-known Dr. Spotswood Archbishop of St. Andrews and Lord Chancellour of Scotland so it reached to Ireland where there wanted not Bishops worthy of the fraternity of Bishop Usher Bishop Bedel and Bishop Bramhal all cruelly persecuted first by Papists and after by Antipapists though persons of the highest form for all excellencies yet must all these be destroyed their whole Order with the destruction of Sodom Although more than ten righteous Bishops I am sure were to be found in each of these British Churches yet all must be routed all rooted up as guilty of the unpardonable sin of Prelacy a new sin and unheard of in the Church of Christ but now to be put into the black Catalogue of scandalous sins when Heresie Schism Sacriledge and Sedition must be left out These these and such like Bishops are the men whose fate I passionately pitty men famous in their generation either for solid Preaching or weighty writing or grave counselling or holy living or prudent governing or charitable giving all of them for some and some of them for all these excellencies These are made the most unsound the most infamous and superfluous parts of this body politick and Ecclesiastick these must be one and all represented to vulgar simplicity and scurrility as the Popes the Antichrists the Bite-sheeps the Oppressors the Tyrants the Greedy and dumb dogs the Cretians the Slow-bellies the Devourers the Destroyers of all godliness and true Religion These foule glosses first made by Martin Mar-prelate of old against Episcopacy and the Bishops of England are now set forth in a new and second edition with larger notes and exquisite Commentaries upon them intimating that these are the men who have by their Learned Grave and Godly Misdemeanours as Bishops forfeited not by any Law but by absolute will and pleasure meerly as Bishops all their Houses and Revenues all their Honors and Preferments yea their good Name and Reputation which by Law and desert they had obtained and enjoyed yea all the Ancient Dignity Apostolick Authority and Constant Succession of their Place and Function in the Church which had not more of eminency than of necessity nor more of necessity than of Primitive and Catholick Antiquity For the reall faults of some and the imaginary of other Bishops whose name was their onely crime must all Ages after them be for ever punished with the want of such Grave Learned Godly and Venerable Bishops as have been destroyed for better cannot be had or desired and posterity must be ever exposed in these British Churches to all those Factions Fedities Divisions Disorders and Confusions which follow the want of due Episcopal order and Government in the Church But Bishops qua tales were enemies to the power of Godlinesse the worst of them and the best of them were men too much devoted to empty formes of Religion they urged Ceremonies so far as to neglect substances straining at gnats and swallowing Camels they justled out preaching by Catechizing and over-layed Ministers private prayers by their long Liturgies they did not kindle but quench damp and resist that spirit of Zeal and Reformation which for many years hath burned in the breasts of many godly Christians by whose flamings and refinings at last all Bishops as drosse with all their ornaments and adherents have been justly consumed I confesse I cannot tell how to answer for all the actions and expressions of every Bishop they were of age and able to have answered for themselves if any of them as offendors of our Lawes had been brought to plead for themselves which not one of them was as to Ecclesiasticall matters that I ever heard of for the weight of the Archbishops charge was chiefly upon civil or secular affaires Who knowes not that Bishops were but men that if left to their private spirits and single Counsels they might as easily over or under-do as their Adversaries have done beyond or short of what becomes wise and good men The greatest blame that I perceive among any of them was that they would injoyne or exact or remit any thing as to publick Order Discipline and Government of the Church without a joynt agreement and uniformity among themselves according to what the Law allowed or commanded This fraternall concurrence and mutuall correspondence had been worthy of Grave Wise and Learned men for all private fancies obtruded by any one or two Bishops in so tender a case as Religion is and upon so touchy a people as the English now are do but breed variety this differences these disputes these dissentions these despites these oppositions these breed confusions All the actions and injunctions all the Articles and disquisitions of Bishops as such should have been as exactly consonant and uniforme as possibly could be But as to the crimination That Bishops like Hernshaws abounded in the wing and feather of Ceremony but had little substance or body as to the power of Godlinesse First Scripture and Christs example teach us that decent and apt Ceremonies publick or private are not in their nature enemies but helps to the power of Godlinesse as putting off all Ornaments eating the bread of Sorrow putting on Sackcloth and Ashes Fasting Weeping Smiting the breast Bowing Kneeling Prostrating to the ground being all night in Solitude and Darkness lying in the Dust c. all these were and are helps to an humble broken contrite penitent and devout temper of Soul Contrary Company Wine and Oyle Singing and Musick Dancing Discourse and Laughter were and are helps to holy joy and thankful jubilations so are lifting up the eyes and hands to Heaven Sighing and Groning to fervency of Prayer and Praises It is but a rude affected and fanatick imagination of clownish Christians that decent Ceremonies of Religion wisely appointed in any Church or fitly applied by any private Christian in his private devotions these cannot stand but the substance and sincerity of Godliness must fall that there can be no forms of Godlinesse but the power of it must vanish or be banished They may as well imagine that they cannot put on their clothes or dresse themselves handsomly but they must presently cease to be wise men or honest men and good women but must turn either spectres or dishonest Do we not find that many such Christians who have of later years cast off all the former decent and wholesome formes of Godliness either by Profaneness or Preciseness or Peevishness or Faction or Atheism or Superstition are most apparently now
shining Truly I find the calmeness and gravity of sober mens judgements is prone to improve much by Age Experience Reading of the Ancients hereby working out that juvenile leaven and lee which is prone to puffe up and work over younger spirits and lesse decocted tempers in their first fervors and agitations Possibly the Archbishop and some other Bishops of his mind did rightly judge that the giving an enemy faire play by just safe and honorable concessions was not to yield the cause or conquest to him but the more to convince him of his weakness when no honest yieldings could help him any more than they did indamage the true cause or courage of his Antagonist For my part I think the Archbishop of Canterbury was neither Calvinist nor Lutheran nor Papist as to any side and partie but all so far as he saw they agreed with the Reformed Church of England either in fundamentalls or innocent and decent superstructures yet I believe he was so far a Protestant and of the Reformed Religion as he saw the Church of England did protest against the Errors Corruptions Usurpations and Superstitions of the Church of Rome or against the novel opinions and practises of any party whatsoever And certainly he did with as much Honor as Justice so far own the Authentick Authority Liberty and Majesty of the Church of England in its Reforming and Setling of its Religion that he did not think fit any private new Masters whatever should obtrude any Forraine or Domestick Dictates to her or force her to take her Copy of Religion from so petty a place as Geneva was or Francfort or Amsterdam or Wittenberg or Edenborough no nor from Augsburg or Arnheim nor any Forraine City or Town any more than from Trent or Rome none of which had any Dictatorian Authority over this great and famous Nation or Church of England further than they offered sober Counsels or suggested good Reasons or cleared true Religion by Scripture and confirmed it by good Antiquity as the best interpreter and decider of obscure places and dubious cases Nor did his Lordship esteem any thing as the voice of the Church of England which was not publickly agreed to and declared by King and Parlament according to the advice and determinate judgement of a Nationall Synod and lawfull Convocation convened and approved by the chief Magistrate which together made up the complete Representative the full sense and suffrage of the Church of England His Lordship no doubt thought it as indeed it is a most pedling partiall and mechanick way of Religion for any Church or Nation once well setled to be swayed and tossed to and fro by the private opinions of any men whatsoever never so godly contrary to Publick Nationall and Ecclesiasticall Constitutions which carried with them as infinitely more Authority so far more maturity prudence and impartiality of Counsel than was to be found or expected by any wise men in any single person or in any little juncto's of Assemblies or select Committees of Lay-men whatsoever And truly in this I am so wholly of his Lordships opinion that I think we haâ—e in nothing weakned and disparaged more our Religion as Reformed in England than by listning too much to and crying up beyond measure private Preachers or Professors be they what they will for their grace gifts or zeal who by popular insinuations here and there aime to set up with great confidence their own or other mens pious it may be I am sure presumptuous novelties against the solemn and publick Constitutions or determinations of such a Church as England was These these agitations and adherencies have undermined our Firmeness and Unity by insensible degrees What was Luther or Calvin or Zuinglius or Knox or Beza or Cartwright or Baines or Sparkes or Brightman not to disparage the worth which I believe was really in any of them or their Disciples to be put into the balance against the whole Church of England when it had once Reformed and setled it self to its content by joynt Counsel publick consent and supreme Authority Which hath had in all Ages and eminently since the Reformation both Bishops and other Ministers of its Communion no way singly inferiour to the best of those men and joyntly far beyond them all whose concurrent judgment and determination I would an hundred times sooner follow than all much more any one of those men yea possibly I could name some one man whom I might without injury prefer to any one of those fore-named persons such was Melanchthon abroad and such was our Bishop Jewel at home And indeed the Church of England had blessed be God so many such Jewels of her own that she needed not to borrow any little gems from any forreigners nor might any of them without very great Arrogancy Vanity and Imodesty as I conceive seek to strip her of her own Ornaments and impose theirs upon her or her Clergy Which high value it is probable as to his Mother the Church of England and her Constitutions was so potent in the Archbishop of Canterbury that as he thought it not fit to subject her to the insolency of the Church of Rome so nor to the impertinencies of any other Church or Doctor of far less name and repute in the Christian world No doubt his Lordship thought it not handsome in Mr. Calvin to be so far 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rather than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 censorious of the Church of England as to brand its devotion or Liturgy with his tolerabiles ineptiae who knew not the temper of the Nation requiring then not what was absolutely best but most conveniently good and such not onely the Liturgy was but those things which he calls tolerable toyes This charitable sense I suppose I may justly have of this very active and very unfortunate Prelate as he stood at a great distance from me and eminence above me against whom I confess I was prone in my greener years to receive many popular prejudices upon the common report and interpretation of his publick actions In one of which I was never satisfied as to the Piety or Policy of it that when his Lordship endeavoured to commend the Liturgy of England to the Church of Scotland which was a worthy design as to the uniformity of Devotion yet he should affect some such alterations as he might be sure like Coloquintida would make all distastful Such was that in the Prayer of Consecration and Distribution at the Lords Supper which was after the old form of Sarum and expunged by our Reformers as too much favouring Transubstantiation besides some other changes in that and other things of which possibly his Lordship could give a better reason than I can imagine or have yet heard Toward his decline I had occasion to come a little neerer to his Lordship where I wel remember that a few daies after his first confinement when he seemed not at all to despaire of his innocency or safety having
22.22 Grand motives to a publick restitution and fixation of the Reformed Religion 1. Reason from the glory of our God and Saviour Lib. 2. c. 4 5. 2. Reason from prudence and civil policy Euseb l. 8. hist cap. 1. Sense of true Honour calls for the establishment of Religion Sense of gratitude invites to restore and establish Religion The hopefull possibility of restoring true Religion to unity and settlednesse in England Of meanes to recompose the differences of Religion in England 1. From Ministers or the Clergy Anno 1527. Revel 3.2 Jude 3. 2 From Magistrates and Lay-men Mr. Fullers History of the Brit. Church History of the Church of Scotland by Sâ—otswood Arch-Bishop of S. Andrews Of the late Associations projected by some Ministers Acts 27.17 Concil Chalcedon Can. 29. Of civill assistance from Lay-men to restore this Church and Religion Act. 16.9 Euseb in Vita Const Tit. 3.10 A scrutiny of what is good or bad in all parties 1. The best and worst of Episcopacy 2. Triall of Presbytery 3. The Triall of Independency The reconciling of the reall interests of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency Of Sacramentall scrutinies to be used Cypr ep 10. 26. Prosanâ sacilitate Sanctum Christi corpus prosanare 1 Cor. 2.10 1 Joh. 4.2 13. Rom. 10. 9 10. Acts 8.13 1 Sam. 6.7 Facies singuloruÌ„ videmus corda scâ—utari non possumus dâ— his judicat occuliotum scrutator câ— to venturus de arcanis cordis jud catuâ—us Cyp. ep 53. True Episcopacy stated and represented to its Antagonists Phil. 4.5 * PostquaÌ„ comperisset Presbyterialem statum citra Episcopalem in iis ecclesiis coâ—sistere non posse c. Vide Salmâ—siii vitam p. 50. Consulebat Episcopos non omnino tollendos c. Objections against Episcopacy discussed 1. Object From the samenesse of their Names Bishop and Presbyter signifying but one office and power 1 Cor. 10. Obj. Secondly that Presbyters did chuse and impower their Bishops of old Ans Obj. 3d. That Presbyters are as able and willing to ordain as any Bishops Ans 2 Tim. 2.2 Obj. 4. That Episcopacy was the root of the Papacy Ans Obj. 5. That Bishops are prone to be severe and tyrannick Ans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ign. Concil Carth. 4 can â—3 Consessus honorem cum Episcopo habent Presbyteri Cyp. ep 46. 55. saepealibi Communi Presbyterorum consilio regebantur Ecclesiae â—en Epist ad Euag. Obj. 6. The jealousie lest Bishops should recover their lands Ans Earnestly exhorting Ministers of all sides to an happy composure and union 1 Cor. 3.3 4. Sacerdos plebe praesente sub omnium oâ—ulis deligatur dignus atque idoneus omnium publico judicio ac testimonie comprobetur Cyp. Ep. 68. Tertul. de praes c. 43. Ubi metus in Deum ibi gravitas modesta diligentia attonita cura solicita communicatio deliberata promotio emerita subjectio religiosa ecclesia unita Dei omnia Hier. ep 36. Amb. de poen .1 c. 16. Sulcarunt lacrim's genas vultum fletibus exarabant mortis speciem in spiranti corpore praeferebant Num. 16.3 Humbly exhorting Magistrates to assist in so good a work Isa 40.2 Zech 3.3 4. Jer. 38. Sueton. in vita Aug. Councâ—ls or Synods the proper means to restore lapsed Religion Euseb vit Const Of Ecclesiastick Councils called by Christian Princes Deut. 17.8 to v. 14 Numb 16.48 1 Sam. 6.7 c. Mark 15.16 17. Luke 23.11 Mat. 2.9 Act. 15.22 ver 28. The great use of Nationall and frequent Synods The method of restoring a setled Church and united Ministry The essentials of a true Ministry 1. The Subject matter of the Ministry must be able and apt men 2 Cor. 2.16 2 Cor. 4.7 Secondly The essential Form of a true Minister right Ordination Ordinatos suisse Presbyteros à solis Presbyteris nullo exemplo nulla authoritate probari potest Sarav Cont. Bez. de grad Min. c. 22. Heb. 6.2 Eph. 4. Mr. Mason Preface to his Defence c. Tertul. l. de Praes adv Haer. l. 32 34. Cont. Marci l. 4. c. 5. Euseb hist l. 5 6 7. Irenaeus l. 4. c. 6. lib. 5. c. 20. Cyp. ep 52. passim Which authorities are afterward at large cited in this Book Veritatis praedicatorem unius diei spatio velut è luto statuam fingunt Nazian Of the well-being of the Clergy or Ministry 1. In point of maintenance and support 1 Tim. 5.17 1 Cor. 9.6 Act. 4.34 35. Gen. 14.18 Num. 18.20 21. Deut. 10 9. 1 Cor. 9.14 Gal. 6.6 Heb. 7.9 Mat. 10.42 Eccl. 9.15 Theod. hist l. 4. c. 4. Of meet order Government and subordination among the Clergy 1 Cor. 11.16 Episcopatus aemulatio sâ—hâ—smatum mater Tert. de Bap. c. 17. Reperiemus veteres episcopos non aliam regendae ecclesiae formam voluisse fingere ab eâ— quam verbo suo Deus praescripsit Calv. Inst l. 4. c. 4. Sect. 4. Act. 6. 1 Tim. 3.8 Deacons Presbyters Bishops Act 1.20 1 Ep. to Tim. cap. 3. 5. and Ep. to Tâ—tus cap. 1. Episcopi quos Apostoli successores relinquebant ipsis suum magisterii locâ—m tradentes Irenae l. 3. c. 9. Habemus enumerare eos qui ab Apostolis constituti sunt Episcopi in Ecclesiis successores corum usque ad nos Irenae l. 4. c. 6. lib. 5. c. â—0 Ordo Episcoporum ad originem recensus in Johannem stabit Authorem Tertul. adv Marc. l. 4. c. 5. Sicut Smyâ—naeorum ecclesia Polycarpum à Johanne colloâ—atum refert sicut Romanorum Clementem à Petro ordinatum edit perinde utique caeterae exhibent ecclesiae quos ab Apostolis in Episcopatum constitutâ—s Apostolici seminis traduces hubent Tertul. lib. de praesc adv Haer. c. 32. 34. De Johanne Apost Clâ—mâ—ns Alexandrinus narrat post mortem Domiâ—â—anâ— reditum suum à Patmo in Ephesum in vicinas gentes abiit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Episcopos constituens Ecclesias in ordinem digerens Lib. de Div. Sal. Origeni falsò ascripto ex judicio cl Usserii Armachani Jampridem per omnes provincias urbes ordinati sunt Episcopi c. Cyp. ep 52. Successiones Episcoporum qui Apostolos sequuâ—i sunt 7. libris descripsimus Euseb l. 4. hist cap. 1. So. Theod. hist l. 5. c. 27. * Calv. Inst l. 4. c. 4. Sect. 4. (a) Apud nos Apostolorum locit tenent Episcopi Hier. ep 54. Ut sciamus traditiones Apostolicas sumptas de veteri Testamento quod Aaron filii ejus Levitae in Templo erant hoc sibi in ecclesiis vindicent Episcopi Presbyteri Diaconi Hieron ad Euag. (b) Episcopus ecclesiis regendis unicus praepositus est qui pluâ—ibus unius ecclesiae presbyteris praeesser Bono fine hoc institutum esse nemo negat quum optima ratio fuerit ita instituendi Salmas Walo Messal pag. 413. (c) Neque enim Hieronymus quum diceret ecclesias initio fuisse communi presbyterorum consilio
England which pretend to seek a greater light by putting out of Princes Courts and Counsels the chiefest Lamps and Stars of Learning Religion Counsell and Wisdom To returne then to this excellent Bishop and able Counsellour the Primate of Armagh as to his personall policy domestick subtilty or private cautiousness truly he had little enough of the Serpent but as to his harmelesse innocency he had very much of the Dove ever esteeming Piety the best Policy and Sanctity the safest Sanctuary If any thing might seem to have been as a veniall allay in him it was a kind of charitable easieness and credulity which made him prone to hope good of all and loth to believe evil of any especially if they made any Profession or shews of Piety he did not think there could have been so much gall and vinegar mixed with the shewes or realities of some mens graces untill he found by sad experience some Godly people and Presbyters professing much Godliness who formerly were prone to adore him as a God or an Oracle were now ready to stone and destroy him with all his brethren the British Bishops He was most prone to erre on the right hand of charity and to incline to those opinions in things disputable which seemed to set men furthest off from Pride Licenciousness and Profaneness of which he was better able to judge than of Hypocrisie being more jealous of Irreligion than Superstition which is the right hand and more venial extreme of Religion He had not til of late yeares felt the scalding effects of some mens over-boyling zeal or the dreadfull terrors of their righteousness who affected to be over-righteous who despised his Learned Wise and Moderate Counsels touching the setling of Peace Order and Government in the Church The rare endowments of this pattern of a perfect Bishop were both wrapped up and set forth as occasion required with such Tender Piety such Child-like Humility such a Saintly Simplicity such an Harmeless Activity such an Indefatigable Industry such Unfeigned Sanctity such Unaffected Gravity such an Angelick Serenity and such an Heavenly Sweetness as made all his Writings perspicuous though profound his Preaching plaine yet most prevalent He had an Eloquent kind of Thunder of Reason mixed with Scripture-Lightning which together had a pleasing potent terror his praying was fervent and pathetick without affecting either too diffused a variety or too circumscribed an Identity his fervency discretion and sincerity alwaies set his prayers far from any thing either of a verball and vaine repetition or a flat and barren invention he ever highly esteemed and devoutly used the Liturgy of the Church Indeed he Prayed or Preached or Practised continually the Scholar the Christian and the Divine his whole life as to the conversable part of it was so Civil so Sacred so Affable so Amiable so Usefull so Exemplary to all persons of any Worth Ingenuity and Honesty that came to him that in earnest nothing Ancient or Moderne that ever I knew or read of in these British Churches or any forreigne Nation was more August Venerable Imitable and Admirable than this blessed Bishop such Candor yet Power such Largenesse yet singleness of heart such Majesty with meekness appeared in all that he seriously said or did I never saw him either morose or reserved much less sowre or supercilious If he were sad it made him not silent but onely more solemn as night-pieces which have admirable work of perspective in them though not so much light with them if he were chereful he abhorred not such facetious and ingenious elegancies of discourse as shewed that Risiblity was as proper to Religion as Reason that Holiness was no enemy to Cheerfulness but great graces might safely smile and innocent vertues sometimes laugh without offence He was indeed as the Church of Smyrna testifies of holy Polycarp their first Bishop there placed by St. John the Apostle a most Apostolick person a true Divine a most exemplary Christian and a most Venerable Bishop equalizing without doubt if not exceeding any one of the ancient famous Bishops and chief Fathers of the Church not onely in his Primitive Piety but in his great literature for he was joyntly excelling in all those things wherein they were severally most commendable he was as our Saviour saith of John Baptist a Prophet yea greater than an ordinary Prophet for among the children of men or children of God and of the true Church there hath not since the Apostles dayes been born a greater than He. If I or any man were able to reach the Height Length Depth and Breadth of his Gifts and Graces his acquired and infused endowments some taste or essay of which his faithfull friend and servant Dr. Bernard as Timothy to this St. Paul hath given and is daily further imparting to the world yet no Epitomes or little Volumes are able to containe so ample a subject nor give that satisfaction to Learned men at home and abroad as is justly exspectable from so copious and complete a theme Whose humble and holy industry was such that besides his vast designes for Writing and Printing he never failed since he was Presbyter Prelate or Primate to preach once every week if health permitted him besides many times on the week-day upon occasion which was so far from being his reproch as if he made himself too cheap as some men of more pompous than pious spirits have calumniated that like Davids dancing before the Lord it turned not to his diminution but to his great honor among all People Presbyters Prelates Peeres and Princes that had any knowledge what was the true dignity of a Divine and the commendation of a Christian Bishop nor was it any great paines to a person of his fulnesse who did not pump for but poure out his Sermons like a pregnant spring with a strange Plenty Clarity and Vivacity Certainly if all our Bishops had so honored God according to their Places Parts and Strength by imitating the best of their Predecessors yea the Apostles and our Lord Jesus Christ the greatest Bishop and greatest Preacher it is very probable not onely Bishops but Episcopacy had at this day suffered lesse diminution and dishonor if all Bishops hearts and mouths had been as open as his sure they had stopped the mouths and silenced the tongues of all their adversaries But by this and other either real failings or supposed defects of some few Bishops as in Sea-banks where low and weak the horrid inundation hath broke in upon Episcopacy and all Bishops with such a torrent of violence that we see the best of them could not keep out nor stand before the impetuosity of the times which if any Bishops in any Age or Church might have merited and hoped to have done this excellent Primate and other Bishops then in England and Ireland might have done it who were persons of so great Learning Piety Moderation Humility For besides the many other most accomplished Bishops then in England
Scotland and Ireland who is so blind as not to see this one illustrious Bishop the Primate of Armagh capble as to the true cause of Episcopacy to have over-shined both as to his Learning Judgement and Life as the Sun in the firmament all those Comets and Meteors those blazing and falling Stars which either then did or since have appeared eccentrick or opposite to Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy Take them in their stragling novelties or in their associating confederacies or in their congregational conventicles however they may seem by false glasses or grosser mediums to be magnified in some mens imaginations and so set off to vulgar admiration among weak and womanly apprehensions yet neither for Scripture-proportions nor for Catholick practise nor for right reason nor for true prudence and Christian polity are they any way to be compared either to the Antiquity or Majesty of true Episcopacy For which the Judgement Humility Moderation and Integrity of this excellent Bishop is so clearly set forth both by his constant practise and all his writings wherein for peace sake he willingly joyned an orderly Presbytery with a Venerable Episcopacy that neither grave Counsell nor comely Order nor just Authority nor Christian Unity should be wanting in the Churches Government that it is an error worse than the first for men not yet to returne from their Paroxysmes and Transports against all Presidentiall Episcopacy or not to close with so great a judgement so grave an Oracle as this holy Bishop was Who however he held a Fraternall Correspondency and Actuall Communion as occasion offered with those Reformed Churches and those Ministers who approved yea desired Episcopacy though they could not enjoy any Bishops properly so called after the custome of all ancient Churches yet with St. Cyprian he flatly condemned and branded with the sin and Scandal of Schisme all those who wilfully cast off and injustly separated from their lawfull Bishops who professed the same Orthodox Faith and Reformed Religion affirming as I have been further most credibly informed that he would not because with comfort and good conscience he could not receive the Sacrament of the Lords Supper from such Ministers hands whose Odination he esteemed irregular and incomplete or for their consecration inauthoritative because partiall and schismaticall against that Episcopall power which ever was and still might be had in this Church Nor was this his censure heightned or sharpned by any anger or vindicative passion though he was unhandsomely used by some men who heretofore much applauded him from such distempers his Mosaick meeknesse was most remote especially in cases of Religion and the Churches publick concernments for the advance of which he could have cheerfully sacrificed all his private interest of honor or profit and have been reduced to teach School in a belfry as his phrase was But he ever held to his pristine and constant judgement in the most prosperous times which enjoyed him the same as did his adversities no losses and distresses to which the Fatality Fury Folly or Ingratitude of this Age reduced him being able to cloud his judgement or discompose his tranquillity in any other or in this sharp controversie touching Episcopacy And indeed to adde to the further weight and crown of this excellent Bishop who deserved to be esteemed one of the Primates of all Learning Piety and Vertue in the Christian world he was by Gods wonderfull dispensations to be made a Primate in sufferings and to be more illustrious by those darknings which on all hands were cast upon his person and profession as a Preacher and as a Prelate He lived to see yea to feel his Venerable person by some men shamefully slighted who saw more brightness in a sharp sword than in all Learned vertues his function as a Bishop exautorated decryed depressed despised his Revenues first stopped then alienated and confiscated his moderate stock of moveables all except his excellent Librarie and at last a reserve of some monies about 2000. pound seized and swept away by the Irish The newes of which last as I was witnesse at the first coming of it he received with so no trouble or emotion that it made me see in this holy man that the patience of Job might well be a true history and not a Tragick parable After this the profits of the Bishoprick of Carlile then vacant being conferred upon him by the late King for the support of his age and exile even these were taken from him by those that took all Church-revenues from all Bishops yet for shame a Pension of four hundred pounds a year as his Lordship hath told me was promised him when he was forced to yield up his Interest in the Revenues of Carlile which Pension after a year or two was never paid him At last this great Personage the Primate of Armagh whom Cardinal Richelieu with many other great Princes and States had invited with very honorary propositions to make onely his residence with them as an honor to their Country was reduced to a small stipend or salary of about two hundred pounds a year which he was to earn by preaching as long as his sight and strength served him These failing him and in him all the learned and better world he lived upon Gods Providence and the Contributions for the most part of some noble Personages wherein I was happy to do him some service among whom none hath merited and erected a more lasting Monument of Honour than the Countesse of Peterborough under whose grateful and hospitable roof this Mortal Angel this incomparable Bishop left as the English so all the World which was not worthy of him having of later years treated him with so little publick value that while Merchants Military men and mean Mechanicks either get fair Estates or have good pay pensions and gainful imployments while young Presbyterian and Independent Preachers possess themselves some by dispossessing others of the best Livings they can seize this aged Bishop this inestimable Jewel of men this brightest Star of the British Churches and Christian World this Paragon of Prelates this Glory of Episcopacy was suffered to be so eclipsed that with St. Paul he knew what it was to want as well as to abound He had not with our Blessed Saviour any house to rest his head in nor a foot of land which he might call his own He seemed to live as St. Chrysostom sayes of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only with a naked soul or a sublimated Spirit as much above the glory of the world as he had been stripped of it and by it being carefull in nothing save only to discharge a good conscience to God and men as he did both living and dying esteeming this the greatest Treasure and Honour to those that are daily dying to the world even while they live in it He was equally remote from Lucifer and Mammon from Haughtinesse as from Covetousnesse as he complained not of Tenuity so he owned not that deserved Eminency