New Testament neither by Precedents nor Precepts therein can they prove themselves to be either in a godly or soul-saving way of themselves or of them that did adhere to their Doctrines For so soon as his Majesty's Grant was ratified for the two Houses of Parliament to sit during their pleasure there was soon a foundation for a Rebellion laid by them and the Synod of Divines sitting with them Which was no sooner done but those Dissenters from the Common-Prayer Book some having gone beyond Sea and others retiring into secret places at home for a while soon joyned all their Forces to carry on the late most damnable Rebellion and Disobedience So that instead of being owned godly and soul-saving Preachers they may justly be termed what the Pharisees were of John the Baptist namely an off-spring of Vipers For as 't is the property of the off-spring of Vipers to destroy their Dams that gave them their being so did these forsaker of the Service-Book soon help to destroy our most gracious Sovereign that under God gave them their safe being and preservation as English-men and for a long while destroyed their Mother the true Protestant Church of England which gave them their spiritual saving and Christian light and grace if ever they had any So that for the just condemnation of the former part of the Author's 7th Consideration what God said against Judah and Hicrusalem by Isaiah chap. 1. vers 2. may justly be applied to these opposers of the King State and Church of England Hear O Heaven and give car O Earth for the Lord hath spoken I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me Now something would be said to the latter part of this 7th Consideration where the Service-Book lies under a great condemnation in respect to bringing in and maintaining many ignonorant scandalous lazy and formal Priests and Curats to the deceiving and utter undoing of many precious souls In which latter Paragraph I presume the Author had respect to the Times before the long Parliament and the late unhappy Wars and do mean thereby that the Ministers in the foregoing times which would subscribe and conform to the Book of Common-Prayer though but of mean parts were admitted to Livings and suffer'd to serve their Cures in which respect I presume the Author means the Service-Book brought in and maintained many ignorant c. as above said To which Accusation I make this ensuing Apologetical Answer I remember that in those times many of the Clergy brought into the Ministry in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory as also for some while after by reason of a scarcity of Learned Men occasioned by the sharp Persecution of such Divines in Queen Mary's days and in another respect alledged by a Bishop at the Conference at Hampton-Court I say I remember many of those Ministers of very mean ability were then alive and remained in their Livings And indeed I confess that in that respect it may be said that the Service-Book brought in and maintained some Ministers of but mean Abilities but yet were nothing so impudently and wickedly ignorant as Butchers and other Mechanick Teachers put into publick places after the said Service-Book was crucified for though these former Ministers knew not much yet what they knew they knew rightly but these latter thinking they knew any thing as St. Paul 1 Corinth chap. 8. vers 2. they knew nothing as they ought to know In the next place the Author saith this Service-Book did bring in and maintain scandalous and lazy Priests and Curats that is first men of an open wicked Coversation To which I Answer 'T is a charge as nonsensical as false and as false as any thing can be Let him shew where the Rubrick or any part of the Book yea or any Canons or Constitutions of our Church give Toleration or countenance of any such Minister in that Office If there be any such scandalous Minister in the Church the fault lies in the Officers in not presenting of them not in the Service-Book nor in them in Ecclesiastical Authority For as our Bishop when Arch-Deacon hearing by flying reports of some scandalous Ministers to be in his Jurisdiction and meeting with no Informations thereof at his general Visitation he told the Officers of the reports but withall told them there could not be a debauched Clergy in England unless there were a perjured Laity And whereas the Author saith they were lazy that probably might be spoken how diligent soever because they prated not nonsensically twice or thrice a week in the Pulpits as some of their gang did use to do But if the Works and Sermons of most of the Clergy Printed and weekly Preached were duly consider'd of both in these times and in the days he complains of in this Consideration they would be found generally a Clergy so labouring in the Word and Doctrine as they might be thought justly worthy of double honour and in that respect free with St. Paul from the blood of all men neither deceiving nor undoing any soul as the Author uncharitably and blasphemously charges here upon many Ministers To the 8th Consideration Whether the imposing of the Scottish Liturgy which in some things was better though in some others worse than the English was not the beginning and the first cause of the late grievous Wars and if so whether men should not be more cautious to do the like for the future I presume that upon this Consideration the Author would have this believed and granted that the Imposing of the Scottish Liturgy to be used in their Publick Worship and Service of God was the beginning and the first just cause of the late grievous Wars Or thus That the Scots and late long Parliament in England were justifiable in Levying Wars against his Majesty King Charles the First and his Loyal Subjects upon sending or commanding or commending to them the aforesaid Liturgy to be used in their Publick Worship and Service of God One of these Propositions or Assertions containing the meaning of the Author in this Consideration in the close thereof he makes use and application in these following words And if so whether men should not be more cantions c. The Proposition being granted to be truth whereof he would have no man doubt He makes the Application by way of an inferential Caveat or Advice And that is that no Men Kings or Church should afterwards commend or tender the like that is any Liturgy or set Form of Prayer to the people especially of Scotland to be used in the Publick Worship of God for the future considering that Wars have been raised before in Scotland and England thereupon To which I Answer Considering the Scots received Knox his Form of Prayer and England ever had one I shall not conclude with the Author that the Imposition of that Liturgy was the first cause or beginning of the late grievious Wars Which I heard Mr. Peters boast of in
and prescribed Forms there is no doubt that wholsome words being known and fitted to mens understandings are soonest received into their hearts and aptest to excite and carry along with them judicious and fervent affections In the eighth Paragraph thus he writes I could never fee any reason why any Christian should abhor or be forbidden to use the same Forms of Prayer since he prays to the same God believes in the same Saviour professeth the same Truth reads the same Scriptures hath the same Duties upon him and feels the same dayly wants for the most part both inward and outward which are common to the whole Church In the ninth Paragraph he goes on thus Sure we may as well before hand know what we pray as to whom we pray and in what words as to what sense when we desire the same things what hinders we may not use the same words our appetite and digestion too may be good when we use as we pray for our dayly bread I will write down here the thirteenth Paragraph which though it justifies Common Forms of Prayer yet condemns not but rather approves what our Adversary so magnifies as to down with set-Forms of Prayer provided it be done with a religious and prudential care His words follow Though I am not against modest discreet and humble use of Ministers Gifts in publick the better to fit and excite their own and the peoples affections to the present occasions yet I know no necessity why private and single abilities should quite justle out and deprive the Church of the joynt Abilities and concurrent Gifts of many learned and godly men such as the Composers of the Service-Book were who may in all reason be thought to have more Gifts and Graces inabling them to Compose with serious deliberations and concurrent advice such Forms of Prayers as may best fit the Churches common wants inform the hearers understandings and stir up that fiduciary and fervent application of their Spirits wherein consists the very life and soul of Prayer then any private man by his solitary abilities can be presumed to have with what they are many times even there where they make a great noise and shew the affectations emptiness impertinencies rudeness confusions flatness obscurity vain and ridiculous repetitions the sensless and oft-times blasphemous Expressions all these burthen'd with a most tedious and intolerable length do sufficiently convince all men but those who glory in that pharisaick way And the said King Charles having in the 15th Paragraph shewed the necessity of the use of Forms of publick Composure in the performance of Sacramental Administrations and the like in the 16th Paragraph his words are as follow A serious sense of which Inconvenience in the Church inavoidably following every mans several manner of Officiating no doubt first occasioned the Wisdom and Piety of the Antient Churches to remedy those Mischiefs by the use of constant Liturgies of Common Composure And now for a close at present as to my Meditations upon the present subject of Common-Prayer what can solidly or commendably be said against the Use of Set and Composed Forms of Prayer to put up to God the servent desires of our hearts by If the said Forms be lawful laudable and convenient as to the Matter and Expressions suiting together with our wants seeing we have such a cloud of Authentick Authors for it as David Jesus Christ our Saviour St. Paul John the Baptist besides the Fathers the Antient Churches the devout and pious Modern Divines yea and I might have recounted even all late Reformed Churches till these late upstart anti-Christian heady high-minded late Factions arose disturbing the Unity and blessed Peace of our and other true Churches of Christ denying the Lord that bought them and without Repentance bringing upon themselves and their Proselytes swift destruction And now I shall end my Meditations as to what preceded the Author's proposed fourteen Considerations following now to be considered of in the very Words of the before quoted King Charles of Blessed Memory with which he ends his Observations upon the said Ordinance against the Book of Common-Prayer I wish saith he their Repentance may be their only Punishment that seeing the mischeif the disuse of publick Liturgies hath already produced they may restore that Credit Use and Reverence to them which by the Antient Churches were given to Set Forms of sound and wholesome Words And now having shewed the groundless Oppositions of the Author to Common and Set Forms of Prayer given me to peruse and to give my opinion concerning the aforesaid subject and having also from the Sacred Scriptures and otherwise justified the Use and manifested the Aptness of Common-Prayers for our Devotions Worship and Service to be put up and performed to God I now come to speak to the Fourteen Considerations which the Author proposeth to the World as unanswerable Evidences in his judgement to make the aforesaid kind of Worship and Service though never so Conscientiously Sincerely and Heartity performed to be damnable because abominable to God and not required of us by him as is to be collected out of his four first Considerations I shall therefore now spend a little time about the said Considerations and look into the Bowels of them they being in the whole like the great Horse framed at the Seige of Troy in the Body whereof were inclosed men enough to deliver up the City to Destruction For in this Fabrick and Womb of these Considerations are inclosed conclusions and opinions enough to deliver up treacherously the City of God the Souls Redeemed by Christ's Blood to Hell and its Assistants the Beseigers thereof to Eternal Destruction if impenitently followed and persevered therein I will therefore open the Door of this Monster composed by deceitful Workers having transformed themselves in the Apostle's sence into the Ministers of Christ And letting out the deadly Enemies therein the false conclusions shall slay them with the two edged Sword of God's Word and known Truth That they make no further devastation hereabout upon them for whom Christ dyed In he Considerations the Author falls from the way he begâ—n in as to the quantity of a proposition namely the universality of his condemnation of Common-Prayer in his Indefinite term for now he endeavours especially to keep the Common-Prayer Book of our Church of England from a glorious Resurrection which had been Crucified Dead and Buried so long time by the long Parliament and their Armies For all his Magazine is spent in killing again what they thought they had killed before for ever namely the Common-Prayer Book In the four first Considerations are contained four positive Conclusions which the Author endeavours to make good by Scripture and thereby to overthrow the Common-Prayer Book of our Church for which purpose even the whole part of the following Pamphlet is spent Look upon the first Consideration beginning thus How Jealous the Lord of Heaven and Earth is of his own Worship and of all the parts
St. Laurence Pulpit the peculiar Thanksgiving day for the Defeat at Worcester in the intention of the Contrivers and Managers thereof though it might be made use of by way of occasion to hasten to the Execution of their long before contrived rebellious Design and wished desire Nor shall I here enumerate or debate their pretended just grounds for their War Nor shall I argue to evidence the unlawfulness of those Insurrections otherwise then by remembrancing men of the displeasure of God with them for those their Enterprises manifested sufficiently in the succeeding events and issues thereof For we see the Presbytery in Scotland and their Confederates in England the Presbyterian Covenanters here the beginners of that horrid Rebellion soundly basted wholly subdued baffled and made the laughing stock of the World by the Sword of their own Party What became of the Hothams that so hindred and disabled his Majesty of most blessed memory to defend himself against these and other enemies in seising his Garrison and Magazine at Hull And as to this Topick I shall desire at present nothing more to be had in memory but the end of that heavy scourge and rod of God's Protestant Church and his beloved Kingdom of England I mean the Independant and Cromwellian Army and the imparallelable High-Court of Injustice the chief whereof though the generality had mercy died not the common death of English offenders but that death by the providence and justice of God appointed by the Law of the Land for the worst of Malefactors and so let all the implacable Enemies of our Church and gracious Sovereign perish And now I 'le have done speaking to this 8th Consideration in the same manner the Author ended it even by way of Application Seeing that God brought upon that party that raised Wars upon the imposing justifiable and pious Liturgies as I presume the Scottish was and am sure the English formerly was and this now is such a miserable and wretched end as the just wages of that rebellion as he did upon the chief heads thereof Let all men henceforth be so cautious as not to dare to think in the least of Disobedience or Levying Wars upon the same or such like grounds as the former Rebels did against this Church and in the close our dread Sovereign or Crown of England To the 9th Consideration Whether if the truth were throughly and truly weighed and examined the first end of Composing the Common-Prayer Book which doth symbolize with the Mass c. In this Consideration are couched divers Propositions of the Author concerning the Common-Prayer Book One may be this The first that is as I presume the chiefest end of the Author 's Composing the Common-Prayer Book was to bring Papists to Church Answer This is the first charitable Expression that I have hitherto observed Mr. Powel to have given them that were the Authors of this kind of Worship but had he made known in plain and full terms the other gracious designs of those men thereby as namely to help good meaning hearts to God by the only Mediator in Heaven Christ Jesus and not by Saints and Angels as also secondly as St. Paul directs 1 Corinth chap. 14. vers 15. to help those had in them a spirit or heart to pray that they might perform it with understanding and be able to say Amen effectually and servently I say had Mr. Powel mentioned these and other the gracious ends of the Composers of the Service-Book God's mercies and way of salvation being then vailed to the generality of men being set forth only in an unknown Tongue I say he and others thereupon might have owned them to have had to the people of England the like Imployment the Angels had to the Shepherds and the World at the Birth of Christ when vailed to many by the meanness of his coming in the flesh namely this to set forth by that Service-Book the glory of God in his peace on earth and good will towards men that so England might be in a right way to believe in Christ and so to call upon him that they might not perish but have everlasting life And to be short as to speaking to this ninth Consideration what though it be granted that it symbolize with the Mass book or that many things be in it that are in that seeing there 's nothing in our Liturgy but what is good lawful or useful to Edification as will be evident to men doubtful thereof if they will but peruse diligently Mr. Thomas Comber's Companion to the Temple or otherwise termed A help to Devotion in the daily use of the Common-Prayer In two Parts To the 10th Consideration Whether some may not intend by the re-establishing of this Book to oppose and pull down that excellent and gracious Spirit of Prayer As to their excellent Gifts or helps by the Spirit as to Prayer And as to their godly painful soul-saving Preachers both which they have assumed to themselves in the First and Seventh Considerations and have re-assumed in this Tenth Consideration under the notion of an excellent and gracious Spirit of Prayer and Preaching As to their mistake in presuming to such Gifts and Abilities I refer the Reader hereof to what I have before written concerning their Praying and Preaching upon those Fifth and Seventh Considerations And to make a short business as to speak to this Tenth Consideration I 'le give them my thoughts of the ends of re-establishing the former Book with some few Alterations and divers Additions of several Prayers and Services fitted to several accidental occasions The first whereof might be to answer such moderate Dissenters I call them so in comparison of them of these latter days as was Doctor Reynolds Mr. Chadderton and the others with them at the Conference at Hempton-Court on the behalf of other Ministers and themselves whose desires as to the Book of Common-Prayer then were that it might be fitted to more increase of Piety as our Common-Prayer Book now is Another end might be to oppose and pull down as it was high time to do the long tautological heathenish pharisaical extemporary nonsensical erroneous damning kinds of Praying and Preaching were then and had been too long in use in England A third end of confirming this Book might be to revive and re-establish this most blessed and excellent help for Devotion and Worship of God that ever was heretofore in the Church of Christ and to countenance Orthodoxal Preachers and so to maintain sound Doctrine which had for a long time been shut out of publick places for Worship and Instruction by an usurped Authority over this Church and State And whereas he concludes it made as a snare and net against such as out of Conscience could not Conform thereto I am sure no man can have any ground now for such accusation or uncharitableness if they do but consider the religious care taken by his Majesty soon after his Restauration to answer the Doubts and Objections of such
that perhaps because he would not have the Church of England nor the Worshippers of God by the said Book to have the honour to be thought to share with them in the happy events of their ways Verily I think none shall need to be offended at their secluding them from their Fellowship or Fraternity therein for both Presbyterian and Independant in most of their undertakings were but like Simeon and Levi brethren in Iniquity and at the last day without repentance must have the same doom they had from their father Jacob Gen. 49 vers â— Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruel Well but to take it in his own terms that it was offensive to many Christians This term of Christian was the ancient and best name was given to true believers in Christ after his Assension this name is in the opinion of Divines that St. James spake of in 2d chap. vers 7. which he saith was the worthy name whereby believers were called And Divines describe a Christian as followeth namely to be one that is endowed through Grace with Faith and the holy Ghost serving God in righteousness and true holiness all his days as a person dedicated to Christ Now if the Author should produce any Christian according to this description which I am confident he cannot do or according to any description hereof congruous to the Scripture sence that ever was offended at the worshipping of God in this Form of Prayer yet there 's but little said to the Author's fore-mentioned purpose namely of that Book being an offence to many Christians it being but an offence taken where none is justly given I can easily grant that the Book of Common-Prayer was offensive to such Christians as this Author means and as himself was and so was many parts of the whole Bible In the 1st Book of the Kings chap. 22. vers 8. Ahab loved not to enquire of the Lord by Micaiah because he prophesied no good concerning him but evil And if the Author and others offended at the Book would publish the reason thereof from their hearts 't is probable 't is because there 's nothing of good for them there but evil being in those perverse ways For as I said before should they have used that Liturgy in the time of the Wars using the Forms of Prayer they must as much as in them lay have been blessing them they were fighting against and cursing themselves and their cursed undertakings And truly from those Lessons Epistles and Gospels culled out of the Scriptures and injoined by the Liturgy to be read in our daily Service The whole Book is but a Micaiah to them prophecying no good to them but evil for therein they must have found themselves an Army fighting against the Almighty God to their sudden both present and eternal overthrow and confusion without repentance Now to have done speaking to the groundless exceptions against the Common-Prayer Book in this 12th Consideration I have this following Opinion That if the Author and his Party could upon the two former reasons have procured our Church and the Civil State of the Kingdom to have serpentized the Book of Common-Prayer as Hezekiah did the Nehushtan they would be soon Scribling and Printing either to have the Scriptures the full set and stinted Rule for Faith and Obedience to be taken away and destroyed they having the Spirit in a more abundant measure than formerly as to help to call upon God as in Consideration the Fifth So also to set up upon their Assertions another fuller and righter Rule for Faith and Obedience leading to salvation or else at least to have the Romish Priviledge of an Expurging Index to have the Texts in the Scriptures expunged and left out in the Printed Bibles that make for Obedience and Subjection to the higher Powers either in Church or State And also all places that command or commend Unity Order Peace or Conformity in or to the Churches of Christ and whatsoever in the Bible make against their Opinions and Practices Which Opinion of mine may be looked upon as charitable or true considering among other things of that kind I could instance and prove was acted at Much-Hâ—â—â—…um Church in Hartford-shire by Mr. Hardwick Chaplain to the Earl of Warwick usurping the Cure after Doctor Pask Master of Clare-Hall was outed and sequestred for the said Hardwick reading in the Church for part of his own or the Morning-Service before Sermon the 1â—2 Psalm having read to the last Verse which contained God's Promise of clothing the Enemies of his anointed with shame c. he passed by the Verse and then went on Which Mr. Hern there present observing went out of the Church immediately and according to his resolution upon Hardwick's not owning one place of Scripture as well as another heard him no more the time he lived in Town And thus the Dissenters from the Church of England that have lived and do live among us through pretence of their New Light which is the blackness of darkness here their contrary Revelations to those in the time of the Gospel and before and through their false and groundless Expositions of holy Scripture they have darkned the Heavens of God and the light of his Grace so in this life that they have done in this our Age as our Saviour said the Scribes Pharisees and Hypocrites had done then Matt. 23. vers 13. namely shut up the Kingdom of Heaven before men neither going in themselves nor suffering many that would enter to go in Blessed Lord in whose hands are the heads and hearts of all men lighten the darkness of all their understandings change and soften all their hearts that they may recover their strength and strengthen all them they have seduced before they go hence and be not seen To the 13th Consideration which is this Whether one end of Christ's coming into the World was not to redeem men from the Rudiments and Traditions of men of which this is one And whether it be not against the Blood and Spirit and Gospel of Christ 1 Pet. 1.18 19. Hebr. 9.10 11. The Opinion of the Author in this Consideration may be set forth in two Propositions The first is this One end of Christ's coming into the World was to put an end to the Use and Observation of the Ruliments and Traditions of men and to the Use of the Common-Prayer Book Established in the Church of England by Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles the First in the years 1500 and 1600 after his coming into the World or going out of it The latter part of the Proposition is evidently a conclusion flowing from the Consideration for he saith that this Book of Common-Prayer was one of the Rudiments or Traditions that Christ came to put an end to In answer to which Proposition I say The end of Christ's coming into the World was to compleat the love and kindness of God to Mankind which was the redemption and