refuse the obedience due to Civil Magistracy or who oppose the liberty and authority of this particular Church to regulate and govern its own politie agreeable to Gods Word and the practice of all other Churches Our care shall be as not to spend much precious time in things that do not edifie nor to adde the weight of substance to feathers which are but ornaments so nor to expose Religion rude and bare naked and ridiculous to the world much less to sacrifice the publick peace honour and wisdom to private petulancy and pertinacy Yet still we shall make a great difference between the weak and the willful the superstitious and supercilious the scrupulous and scornful doubters and dissenters between the humble Professors and constant Practisers of true Religion in the main of Morals and Fiducials and the turbulent Praters or pragmatick agitators who love to swim against the stream of Authority against right Reason and true Religion established Laws and good Order setled Government and due Subjection We shall first endeavour with meekness of wisdom to satisfie all sober and good men next we shall do as the Law commands against the malipert and obstinate wranglers who make no conscience to deny common Principles to swallow absurdities and reconcile contradictions between their own liberties challenged to themselves and their rigid severities imposed by them upon others There is no reason for them to complain if the same measure be measured to them which they have meted to others every way their equals and in many their betters Nor shall they ever have so much cause to cry out of what they suffer as of what they have done We are not averse from any discrect indulgence which his Majesty and the Law shall see sit to grant to some persons for some time till better instructed and brought off from their prejudices we shall not envy or grudge or deny any honest man those dispensations and forbearances so far as our Charity to private Christians may not be prejudicial to the Churches peace and publick good to which we and all men owe the greatest charity and which may not under any flourishes of zealous praying and preaching or under any pretensions of private conscience be either undermined or overthrown what ever colours of Non-conformity or thorough Reformation men carry before them We know there are many envious eyes upon us and bitter tongues sharpned against us some quarrel that we are no better though themselves be not very good others are grieved that we are not worse This impotent malice of unreasonable or uncharitable men is best silenced and confuted by our just and gentle demeanour toward all And although we are not to be encouraged or over-awed with the weak words of men yet our care shall be that nothing be spoken of us bad but it shall be false The rough tongues of our enemies shall be but as siles and whetstones to our Virtues as their rude hands have been the touchstone of our patience This is the worst and only revenge we intend to take of all our causeless Adversaries either to perswade and win them to sobriety or to overcome and disarm them by our being or doing better then they deserve or desire The injuries and indignities cast upon some of us heretofore and all of us now by the pride improbity or petulancy of any shall but give greater fervour to our industry prayers and charity The former rigors used by some Tyrants Tryers and Inquisitors against Bishops and the Episcopal Clergy shall not carry us beyond the sober bounds of Gods and mans Law nor beyond that Law of Christian charity which is the bond of perfection and which commands us to let our Christian moderation be known to all men and our love even to our enemies We will not less encourage true piety sanctity and sincerity because of the scandal and cruelty of some mens hypocrisie We have not so learned Christ in whose holy footsteps we shall endeavour to tread as the surest evidence that we succeed in his Ministry and exercise his Authority Those Ministers or people whose hearts most misgive them as fearing the return of hard measure from Bishops because of the great evil they have as Pseudo-Presbyters and Apostates done or designed against all Bishops and the whole Church of England We cannot better Answer for their security than as Joseph did to his Brethren when he was now advanced and it was in the power of his hand to hurt them as their own jealous souls justly told them when he replied to their astonishment I am Joseph whom ye sold into Aegypt Be not afraid I fear God c. Thereby implying That he could not meditate or act any revenge but that of Love against his brethren who professed to own and serve the same God and whose mercy had now turned their intended mischief into good Let our greatest enemies heretofore now repent of the evil they have done and designed against this Church and Kingdom no less than against Bishops let them shew their repentance by living so as becomes good Christians and good Subjects As the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of their head fall to the ground by our means We meditate the good of all men and most of those that have been our deluded yea their own enemies and who will now be our friends and their own on any reasonable terms As good Physitians we shall have special care of those who most need our help and cure As Fathers we shall readily embrace those penitent prodigal Sons which return to us We know that nothing will sooner end all unkind unjust and uncomfortable quarrels than the holy and unblamable lives of Us Bishops which as the presence of Christ and the shadows of the Apostles will either cast out the evil spirits that yet remain in some men after all the miracles of Gods providences or else more torment them Our Virtues and Graces shall be the only Revengers as they will be the sharpest Satyrs and severest reproaches yea and the most assured Victors of mens evil speeches and insolent carriages In this holy integrity while we justifie his Majesties Wisdom with Your Honors Counsels and comprobation we shall have none to fear or flatter whose evil designs under any popular and threed-bare quarrels against all Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies are to overthrow both Law and Gospel Church and State bringing all into Anarchy and confusion We shall indeed highly urge conformity especially in our selves and all true Ministers Conformity I say first to the Word of God to the Examples of Jesus Christ and his holy Apostles with all true Saints Next to those Canons and Laws of the Church and State which bind Us and them most to loyalty and duty Lastly We shall so far urge an external conformity in circumstantials and Ceremonies as shall be required of them and Us by Law in order to preserve decency reverence uniformity and solemnity in holy Duties also peace and unity
Emperors and Christian Senators of Rome who assumed the chief Bishops of Churches in the Roman World into the Order and Honor of the Senators or Nobles of the Empire called Patricii whence Saint Patrick Primate of IRELAND had his name even from that Honor as the most learned Lord Primate Ussher observes in his Antiquitates Hibernicae That all men might see what esteem and love they then had for the Christian Religion as of all Religions the best and most deserving of Mankinde Also what regard they had for the prime Preachers and Professors of it Among whom none were thought more worthy of double honor than those that ruled well and labored also in the Word and Doctrine as all true Bishops ought to do yea all of them have so done and ever will as God enables them There being nothing so desirable in the Office of a Bishop as the goodness of the Work which seeks not our own things but the things of Jesus Christ and the publique Welfare of the Church over which God doth set them that they may at once save their own Souls and the Souls of them that hear them Furthermore my design in this brief Commemoration of excellent and deserving Bishops in the Church of ENGLAND is to make it appear to his Majesty to your Honors and to all the English World if there needed further demonstrations than our late Miseries How partial how oppressive how destructive to all good Learning and generous Piety in Church-men especially many of whom in former times were Sons of noble and illustrious Families How injurious also to God and Man to Church and State to Kings and Subjects to true Religion and sober Reformation those Popular Projects are have been and ever will be which with tumultuating Partiality Plebeian Sordidness and Mechanick Importunity shall seek to deprive the publique Wisdom and Counsels of this Nation of the light and influence of those greater Stars or the guidance and defence of those good Angels such as our English Bishops have been and ever ought to be and I hope ever will be Whose fatal Thrusting by head and shoulders out of the House of Peers and more out of the House of God this Church was followed with such Stygian Darkness Hellish Horror and barbarous Confusion as cast out both Commons Lords and Kings from their Places Seats and Thrones supplying their and the Bishops places with such Associates in the House of Lords as were worse than any solitude For in stead of Kingly Majesty sitting on the Throne attended with ancient and honorable Peers Lords Spiritual and Temporal they brought into the Capitol or sacred Senate of this British Empire many that were not the Sons of noble blood nor yet men of noble Education or liberal Endowments but Iâ—ms and Ohims Vultures and Harpies Satyres and unclean Beasts who how ever so impudently wicked as to be ashamed of no sin no not of Sacriledge Perjury Rebellion and Regicide yet were infinitely discountenanced and blushed to see themselves in that august high and honorable place just as Owls and Bats got into an Eagles nest some of them being such pieces of mean Birth of mechanick Breeding and of monstrous Insolency as your selves and your forefathers might without any unjust brow have disdained as Job speaks to have set them with the Dogs of your Flocks So that the bringing in of Bishops again into your House of Parliament is as it were a new Consecrating of it after it had been so lewdly polluted and horridly profaned by those Abaddons and Apollyons This Mercy of God this Favor of his Majesty this Nobleness of the Peers and this Generosity of the House of Commons to the Bishops of ENGLAND yea to this Church and State is the more welcom remarkable and miraculous because they come as a glorious Light after a most dismal Darkness as the great Calm followed the Storm that Christ rebuked as a fair Port or firm Land after much tossing tempest and shipwrack as a gracious Rain after long Drought as the shadow of a great Rock in a weary Land This Honor after Debasement is as King Pharaohs Preferments bestowed on Joseph or Evil-Merodack's lifting up the Head of Jehojakin after the squallor of their Prisons As the fair Robes which the Angel commanded should be put upon Joshua the High-Priest after his filthy garments were taken off Or as King Nebuchadnezzar advancing Daniel from the Lions Den and the other three Confessors from the fiery Furnace to be Governors of Provinces For although all Estates and Degrees of worthy Men have suffered much in our late Tumults and Tragedies yet none more than the loyal and conformable Clergy and among them the reverend Bishops most of all being stripped at once of their Estates and Honors of all supports and encouragements except those of a good Cause and a good Conscience These as the highest branches of stately Trees when felled or as the tops of lofty Towers when overthrown lapsu graviore cadunt not only fall first themselves to the ground but with the greater stroke and bruise to others whose sufferings were their greatest afflictions Your Lordships and the other Gentlemen know too well that the Exclusion of the Bishops or the State Ecclesiastical if I may in respect of their peculiar Function their relation to and representation of the whole Clergy as chief Fathers in the Church so stile them stilo veteri as Sir Edward Coke and other great Lawyers do without the offence of any Presbyterian Criticks The Exclusion I say of them from all Parliamentary yea and all Synodical Councels was not onely their utter undoing but the first sad Presage or direful Omen of those after-subversions and confusions which made havock of all those ancient Laws and Constitutions by which no less the Coronets of our Nobility and the Crowns of our Kings than the Mitres of our Bishops were setled This gap once made by Tumultuating Importunities Popular Threatnings and Petitionary Terrors much God knows against the Choice and Genius of his late Majesty of blessed memory no less than against the sense of the wisest and soberest the most and best Persons of both Houses and in the whole Kingdom Good God! what Iliades of Miseries what Storms of Violence what Deluges of Mischief what Oceans of Confusion followed in Church and State The Tongues and Pens of some popular Ministers who were wantonly wicked and zealously cruel being once let loose against their Church Governors the Bishops how were all things soon set on fire even with the fire of Hell which burned to the very foundations of Church and Kingdom being like Tophet or those everlasting burnings which nothing but a miraculous showre of divine Mercy could thus allay or quench As no man did said wrote and suffered more in the behalf of Bishops and this Church than the best of Kings or with more Christian Heroick and Martyrly Courage So next that Royal Martyr were these godly Confessors the Bishops and other worthy
and cruel revenge to which a military fierceness and just disdain of Nabal's Ingratitude and Indignity had transported him and them Or as Theodosius the Emperour did kindly and thankfully entertain the religious and resolute but respective reproofs of St Ambrose Bishop of Millain whom he reverenced as a Father and highly commended for that his freedom and fidelity to him which he said best became the Bishops or Prelates of the Church of Christ who are so to fear God as not to flatter any man The great work of your Lordships Honour and Wisdom with the Honourable House of Commons properly is to see Nè Leges Angliae temerè mutentur Nè Coronae Majestas minuatur Nè virtuti desit honoris praemium That the good old Laws Customes and Constitutions of England be not lightly changed That the Majesty of the King and Kingdom be not diminished for in uno Caesare res est publica we can have no Common weal but common woe if we have not a King clothed with that sacred and inviolable Majesty which is necessary for the publick welfare and safety Lastly It is among your Lordships and the Parliaments noblest cares and designs That no deserving vertue or ingenuous faculty which serves the publick welfare should despair of publick rewards and least of all learned Piety or the most noble and sacred Study of Divinity which is as the Sun or the greater light the author of that day which shines on our Souls to shew us the way to heaven and eternity whereas all other arts and sciences are but as the Moon and Stars to guide us in the momentary affairs of this world which is but the twilight state of a Christian Lest while the judicious Lawyers honest skill and commendable practice in our Common or Civil Laws or while the discreet valour of good Souldiers or the wholesome study of Physick or meer riches by any honest trade accumulated while I say any or all these are admitted not only to knock at the door but also to enter into the porch yea and to repose themselves in the Temple of Honour only the Learning and Religion of the Clergy the desert and industry of Divines who are the great Studiers and Interpreters of Gods Law the faithful dispensers of heavenly things these I say should to the shame and reproach of this Church and Kingdom be excluded from all temporal rewards and Honorary Encouragements After the method of the Apostate Julians envy and mockery who said the rewards of the world to come might serve their turns when he took from the Christian Orthodox Bishops and Clergy those large donations immunities and dignities which Constantine the great and other godly Emperours had endowed them and the Church of Christ withal The Justice and Nobleness of this Parliament hath sufficiently shewed to all the world how far your Honours are from the Schism and Sacriledge of either depriving this Church and Kingdom of Bishops which it enjoyed in all ages since it was Christian or of denying Bishops those Honours which the piety of your Progenitors was more ambitious to confer on them than they were to receive them The modest humility of ancient Bishops when most worthy thought themselves as we have cause to do less worthy of such high honour walking as Ammianus Marcellian tells us with grave steps modest looks and mortified behaviour But the generous piety of this as other Christian Nations thought that they then honoured God and their Saviour Jesus Christ when as Cornelius to St Peter they expressed their high respect and honour to the Bishops of the Church as to spiritual Fathers whose paternal benediction and peace in Christs Name as they oft desired with great devotion and respect so they ever judged Episcopal Presidency and Authority to be most suitable to the plethorick and sturdy temper of the people of England whose high spirits abhorre all levelling and are as impatient to be governed by their equalls or inferiours as water is to be kept within its own bounds And even now the wisdom of your Lordships and the Honourable House of Commons concurrent with his Majesties goodness in the restitution of Episcopacy and Bishops to their pristine honour and Jurisdiction must not in any reason be looked upon by us or any wise men as any partiality of favour to so few and to so inconsiderable persons as we are No doubtless your great and publick designs are in order to promote Gods glory to advance his Majesties service and to secure most effectually the peace of Church and State by adorning them with such Bishops and these with such authority as is most consonant to our ancient Laws and Constitutions to Catholick and Primitive Patterns to the Apostolick that is Christs Institution and to the Word of God who is the God of Order Besides most agreeable to the true Principles and those necessary proportions which must be observed in all political order and publick government for superiority and subordination all which are only to be perfectly seen used and enjoyed in this Episcopal Eminency or Autoritative Presidency That so the Church of ENGLAND may still enjoy as it hath by Gods blessing equal with any Church in any age since the Apostles dayes Its Ignatiusses Its Polycarps Its Polycratesses Its Irenaeusses Its Cyprians Its Ambroses It s Austins Its Chrysostomes Its Epiphaniusses Its Basils It s Gregories That is an holy succession of Evangelical Bishops of the same spirits and proportions with those elder and our later ones for learning piety prudence eloquence industry courage and constancy in the true faith of Jesus Christ That neither the Romanists on one side may quarrel with nor the Schismaticks on the other side invade and prostrate the honour of the Church of ENGLAND upon the oft but in vain objected account of Schismatical interrupting or intercluding the Apostolick succession of Bishops and therein varying in point of Episcopacy from it self as much as from all ancient and Catholick Churches to the infinite scandal of all good Christians and learned men both at home and abroad Many of whom do doubt and upon greater grounds than most of those vulgar scruples with which many please themselves to sight against and scratch at least the Church of England of the real validity of all Ministerial power and Ecclesiastical Authority and so of all mysterious dispensations and sacramental Consecrations where Bishops are wanting not by unavoidable necessity which is its own Apology but by a Presbyterian petulancy Schismatical Envy and Democratical Insolency which is so ambitious to ordain and rule in common that it giddily runs upon the rocks of Anarchy and Confusion Although we and all the soberly learned world must highly commend his Majesties Piety and Wisdom together with this Parliaments for their restoring Catholick Episcopacy and in that the great support of this Churches and Kingdoms peace And although we do justly esteem the honour and favour by God and man herein conferred on us yet we so much