wherein our blessed Saviour slept with whose Disciples we may well cry out Master save us we perish What tongue what pen can sufficiently set forth the rudenesses outrages barbarities despites diminutions and indignities which some have offered in their speeches and writings in their pamphlets and petitions in their restlesse agitations and implacable malice against all that was established in the Church of England contrary to that duty of Charity they owed and that profession of Communion they sometimes professed being possessed now with so fierce a spirit that they have broken all cords and bands of Humanity Civility Charity and Piety both private and publick I shall not need to mind you or any of them of their many oaths and subscriptions of those Protestations Vowes and Covenants which many of these now deserters and destroyers of the Church of England so easily and eagerly swallowed by which last three-fold cord most of them I believe tied themselves to maintain the Protestant Religion as it was established in the Church of England If any of them were so wise and cautious as to avoid such politick gins which how far they intended well to Church or State God only knows this to be sure all sober Christians see that they have little advanced the state of the Reformed Religion in England yet still they must know that themselves and all that are good Christians and honest English are bound by far higher and nobler bonds of their baptismall Vow and Covenant to their God and Saviour from whence do necessarily flow those of Christian gratitude duty love and charity obliging every good Christian to pray for and preserve the welfare of this Church and that Reformed Religion which was once happily established in it in which the glory of our God the honour of our Saviour the good of our Countrey and the salvation of many thousand souls are highly concerned Against all which for any man upon small or no account rashly proudly spitefully out of envy covetousnesse ambition or any other depraved lust and passion to offend especially where so great light of Divine Truth and Grace such a presence and pregnancy of Gods Spirit clearly shines as doth in the Church of England to the very dazling of the eyes of these Adversaries must needs be such a complicated and resolved wickedness a sin of so enormous and transcendent a nature that Irenaeus counts it a mangling or killing of Christ again and in earnest it seems scarce pardonable because 't is scarce a repentable sin or repairable malice therefore hardly to be repented of because few can plead with S. Paul they do it ignorantly and so hope to obtain mercy being wilfull persecutors and vastators of such an excellent and illustrious Church as this of England was before these spoilers thus came upon it to make havock of it In which Church if those holy Means and Divine Graces which accompany salvation were not professed and enjoyed for my part I despair any where to find the way of Truth and Peace of holinesse and happinesse I know nothing truly excellent and necessary in any Church ancient or later which this Church of England did not enjoy yea I find many things which seem lesse convenient or more superfluous in others we were happily freed from Nor can I yet discover any materiall defect in the Church of England as to Christians outward polity inward tranquillity and eternal felicity Nothing either pious or peacefull morall or mysterious rituall or spirituall orderly or comely that may contribute to the good of mens souls but was plentifully to be enjoyed in the Church of England whose rare accomplishments and prosperity both inward and outward were I believe the greatest eye-sore and grievance in the world both to evil men and devils when they saw that Truth and Holinesse those Graces and Vertues those spirituall gifts and comforts which were here entertained with excellent learning noble encouragements ingenuous honours peaceable serenity and munificent plenty in all which the Reformed Church of England so flourished many years by Gods and mans indulgence that nothing in truth was wanting to the perpetuity of its prosperity but moderation humility and charity these would on all sides have kept out luxury and lazinesse pride and envy the usuall moths and worms which breed in all things that are full and fair opulent and prosperous Which humane defects justly blameable on mans part and punishable on Gods may no way be imputed to the Church of England which afforded so great advantages of wel-doing wel-being to all good Christians but to us poor mortalls who were prone to abuse so great Indulgences of God and man so uncharitable unthankfull and unreasonable are those malecontents who blame the fulnesse of the breast or the sweetness of that milk honey of which they have eat and drank too much who either from other mens failings and infirmities or from their own corrupt fancies and conceits do take occasion to blast and blaspheme all that was Reformed sacred and setled as to Religion in the Church of England so filling all places with their dust and clamours against this Church that the levity and easinesse of many people have quite forsaken it running like those that are scared with Earthquakes out of their houses cities and temples to heaths woods and wildernesses Some out of a sequacious easinesse and vulgar basenesse studying to comply with their leaders interests and their own advantages affect to appear to the world not onely neglective and indifferent but scorners and high opposers of all that ever the Church of England pretended to as to the Truth Reformation Wisdome Spirit Power or Grace of Religion neither caring what they condemn nor much minding upon what grounds they do it Others taking advantage of the levity loosenesse covetousnesse sacriledge arrogancy injuriousnesse and madnesse of some that heretofore professed speciall purity and strictnesse in Religion do resolve as those Heathens of old who excused their own thefts and wantonnesses by the lubricities and pranks of their Gods fully to gratifie their own licentious native inclinations how inordinate soever utterly casting off and abhorring all outward form and profession as well as all inward power and perswasion of godlinesse counting all Religious duties to be no better than consecrated rattles which Polititians put into the hands of the common people to please and compose their childish frowardnesse The ground and rise of all which is from those many scandals which loose and unsetled tempers take from those endlesse strifes and janglings the continued disorders and deformities the poverty and contempt the maimes and wounds the cruelty and uncharitablenesse with which some high-flown Reformers have of late treated the Church of England and those that have most constantly adhered to it What man or woman capable of such profound serious and grave thoughts as become Christian Religion whose lusts or interests have not quite decocted all Humanity as well as Piety can
Trinity for the justification sanctification and salvation of Sinners in all these I never found by my reading and experience nor do I know where to seek for any thing beyond or every way equall to what was graciously dispensed in the Church of England Upon which grounds appearing to me and all the unpassionate Christian World most certain no man can wonder if I so much magnifie and prefer the Church of England that in the communion of its Doctrine Worship Ministry and Order I chuse to live in the communion of its Faith Hope and Charity I desire to die Let my soul be numbred among those Martyrs and Confessors those renowned Bishops and orderly Presbyters those holy Preachers and humble Professors whose labours lives and deaths whose words works and sufferings helped to plant and propagate to reform settle and preserve to so great a conspicuity of piety grace and glory the Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places and particularly this part of it which we call the Church of England I am so far from envying or admiring any novel pretenders who boast of their folly and glory in their shame in their endeavours to destroy and devour this Church that I rather pity their childish fondnesses their plebeian petulancies their insolent activities their unlearned levities their ingratefull vanities who have demolished much and edified nothing either better or any way so good as what they have sought to pull down as to the order honour tranquillity beauty and integrality of a Christian Church So little am I shaken or removed from my esteem love and honour to the Church of England that I am mightily confirmed in them by all the poor objections made against it by the unreasonable indignities cast upon it which are as dirt to a Diamond but the further test and triall of its reall worth and splendor nor do I conceive that by those afflictions which are come upon us God pleads against the Church of Engl. but rather for Her against the lewd manners of her ungracious and ungratefull children for whose wickednesse He makes so fruitfull a Mother to grow barren so fair an House to become desolate so flourishing a Church to decay and wither It is no news where the lives and manners of Christians are much depraved from the holy rule of Christ evidently set forth among them to see famous Churches like the Moon in the wane or eclipse clothed with sackcloth and turned into blood to see Order subverted Unity dissolved Peace perverted Beauty deformed Holy things profaned It is no news to read of holy Prophets blessed Apostles orthodox Bishops and godly Presbyters ill treated and despitefully used by Heathens Hereticks Schismaticks No men but ignorant and unlettered can wonder at Bibles and other holy Books burned at Church-lands alienated the houses demolished and the Preachers silenced banished destroyed All Church-histories tell us it was many times so even among the Primitive Churches even then when their pious and Apostolick constitution was no doubt at best it was most violently and desperately so just before the Churches enjoyed the greatest prosperity longest tranquillity the blackest darkness usually going immediately before the welcomest break of day as was remarkable in the serenity of Constantine the Great 's time succeeding the dreadfull storm of Diocletians persecution which was looked upon and intended as an utter extirpation of Christian Religion Which distressed estate of the Primitive Churches of Christ in all the Roman world Eusebius Bishop of Caesaria who lived in those worst dayes describes with so much pious oratory and so parallel in many things to the temper of our times that I cannot but present you my honoured countrey-men with the prospect of them because the fury and darknesse of that tempest reached even to the then British Churches in England under which many Bishops and Presbyters Noblemen and Gentlemen perished and among others that famous Martyr S. Alban who as Bede tells us in his History l. 1. rather then he would deliver or discover a pious Presbyter whom he had hid in his house by whom he was either converted or much confirmed in the Christian Faith chose to offer himself in the Priests habit to the Inquisitors and owning himself for a Christian though yet unbaptized he died for that profession Hereby the world may see how much poor mortalls are prone to mistake in their calculations of Gods judgements upon any Church both as to their own sins and other mens sufferings where the greatest sufferers are commonly the least sinners and the greatest inflicters are the least Saints Having in the former seven Books sayes Eusebius set forth that holy succession of Bishops which followed the Apostles in all the famous Primitive Churches in their several limits and proportions under the various seasons and storms of times the Churches had now in the Roman Empire so great liberty serenity and quiet that Bishops in many places were much honoured even by the civil Magistrates the Temples and Oratories of Christians were every where full and frequented new Churches were every day erected more goodly costly and capacious nor could the malice of men or Devils hinder the growing prosperity of the Churches every where while God was pleased to shine upon them with his favour Afterward too great liberty and ease degenerated to luxury and idlenesse these betrayed Christian Bishops Presbyters and people to mutuall emulations and contentions these sowred to hatred and malice these brake out to fury and faction Christians persecuting each other with words and reproches as with armes and weapons murmurings and seditions of governed and governours justling against each other grew frequent arising from desperate hypocrisies and dissemblings At last being generally less sensible of their sins than their sides and factions and less intent to the honour of the Church and its holy Canons than to their private passions and ambitions the wrath of God overtook them all Then saith that Historian as Jeremy complains did the Lord bring darknesse upon the beauty of the daughter of Sion then did He cast down to the ground the glory of Israel He remembred no more the place of his footstool in the day of his wrath then did he profane the habitation of his honour in the dust and made Her a reproch to all her enemies c. then were Churches commanded to be pull'd down to the ground holy Books and Bibles to be burnt the Bishops and Pastors some banished others imprisoned tortured and killed all silenced impoverished disgraced abhorred by the Emperour with his followers and flatterers Christians were forbidden all holy meetings and duties commanded and forced to sacrifice to popular Idols and plebeian Gods upon pain of death and torture seventeen thousand Christians slain in one month an utter extirpation of Bishops Presbyters Professors Churches and Christianity it self designed enjoyned and publickly solemnized by a triumphant pillar erected in Spain with this Inscription An Imperial monument of
who are all consenting to the Law and concerned that justice be duely executed on some evil Members for the good of the whole So that the several degrees and subordinations in the ancient Church of Christ even long before the first Nicene Council as there is expressed among Churchmen and Bishops against which some have made so loud and ridiculous clamors were chiefly for this end as Mr. Calvin and others have as ingenuously as truely observed that the holy correspondency of all Christians and all Churches in one Faith and Truth in one Spirit and Power might not onely be most evident to the world but most aptly carried on and preserved against all Factions Variations and Divisions that they might by these means be known to be of one heart and mind in the Lord that they might all speak the same things and walk in the same steps that what one condemned all might in the same spirit condemn what one forgave all might forgive that none might upon any private passions either excommunicate others by injurious abscission or themselves by voluntary separation or make new confederacies and associations with those who are either deserters of the Catholick Communion or justly excommunicated from it which distempers of Ignorance and Impatience and Imprudence among Christians have brought as we see this great power of the Keyes and this exercise of Christian Discipline so far into contempt that no man almost regards it from any hand every one daring to make what retortions they please and to excommunicate any one or more yea and whole Churches that do excommunicate them for any the most notorious errors and insolencies Thus as the Popes of Rome heretofore so the people now in many places challenge to themselves this power against their Neighbours and Brethren yea against their Preachers and Bishops against the Fathers that begat them and the Mother Church which did bear them So that I confesse there is not so much cause of terror as of pitty in most Excommunications as they are now managed by private and unauthoritative spirits O what sorrow what shame is it to see so Sacred so Solemn so Divine so Dreadfull an Institution vilified and nullified which was designed for the health and welfare of the Church of Christ by just and necessary severiâ—ies when it was as it ought to be soberly applyed by wise holy and impartiall Governours of the Church in the name of Christ in the Catholick Spirit or consent of all Orthodox Bishops Presbyters and people which was able to shake Heaven and Hel to open and shut the Everlasting doores of Salvation or Damnation according as the penitency or impenitency of offenders did appeare To see this flaming sword which was put by Christ into the Cherubims hand those that were the Angels of his Church to keep the way of the tree of life to see this made the scare-crow and scorne of vile men the sport of petulant and peevish Spirits who neither fear to inflict Excommunication upon whom they list as much as lies in their impotent malice nor yet to suffer it from the most Just Impartiall and Authoritative hands in the world from whom being once proudly separated they fancy they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of the reach and danger of this just terror and the others true Authority as lawfull Bishops or Governours of the Church whose heavy sentence if I should incurre so far that any one true Bishop with his Clergy should passe it against me upon just grounds of my scandalous and obstinate sinning against God and his Church according to the ancient rightfull and lawfull way of such proceedings in the Name and Spirit of Jesus Christ to which all true Christians in this Church and in all the world do submit and assent I confess I should much more fear living and dying to lye under such a censure and sentence than to be condemned in my Estate Liberty or Life by any Court of humane Justice which reacheth not to the Souls eternal estate as Excommunication rightly managed doth it being a most undoubted Oracle of our Lord Jesus Christ that whose sins the Apostles and their lawful successors as Rulers of the Church do bind on Earth they are bound in Heaven Who their lawful and authoritative successors have been are and ought to be in all Ages and places of the Church is evident to all that have any fear of God or reverence of his Catholick Churches Testimony This is certain as Excommunication carries with it the joynt spirit and suffrage of the whole Church and every true Member of it either explicitly or implicitly so the regular and authoritative managing of it was ever from the respective Bishops Authority and Order as chief Pastors in every Church to whose fatherly care and Inspection with the counsel of their Presbyters the Flock of Christ is committed especially as to the discreet use of such Discipline as highly concerns the salvation or damnation the hopes or despair the binding or loosing the abscission or restauration of any part which ought not to be judged determined and executed by every private spirit of Minister or people but by such venerable Bishops and their Presbyters as have the authentick transmission of the Apostles ordinary governing power delivered to them as from Christ being in this like the Judges in commission for Life and Death though the Sentence be the Laws and the power the chief Magistrates and the transaction or publication in the Face of the County to which all the Bench of Justices the Jury and other honest Men do tacitly give their votes and assent yet is the Cognizance and Examination of the merits of the Cause and the judicial solemn Declaration of the Sentence committed specially to the Judge both in respect of his learned Abilities and known Integrity also for the Honor and Order which are necessary to be observed in proceedings of so great concernment to Mankind as are matters of Life and Death Such is the power such ought to be the procedure of all due Excommunication such they were in the purest and primitive times when all Christians all Congregations all Presbyters all Bishops all particular Churches were so united that as many Spokes make but one Wheel and many Stones one Building and many Members one Body so these made but one Church in the same Faith the same Baptism the same Ministry the same Spirit the same Order the same Power the same Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ From which Blessed Harmony and Spirituall Communion if any Christian or any particular Congregation or any part of the Church as those of the Donatistick party and the Novatians in Africa with others either proudly passionately and peevishly did separate themselves or were deservedly separated by the just censure of any part of the true Church and thenceforth falling to mangling of all by mutuall Excommunications so as to fly in the faces of their lawfull Bishops and Pastors or else turne their backs on them
by learned and godly men Bishops and other Ministers were notably discovered and by some Christian Princes or States happily amended with great order and by due authority as in other places so no where with more Wisdom Justice and Moderation than in England Where as in most of the Churches protesting against the Roman deformities especially those of the Lutheran denomination the ancient Orders and Authority both of Bishops and Presbyters were preserved as is evident in the Augustane confession which finds no fault with but highly approves the Government of the Church by Bishops under Episcopacy provided Bishops would joyn in a just Reformation of those gross abuses which were the Churches intolerable grievances as well as the dishonour of Christian Religion and Christian Bishops whose deserved Honours Estates and Eminencies in Authority they saw no cause to envie grudge or diminish So far were these first Reformers from hewing down Episcopacy as if it cumbred the ground that they onely digged about it and mended it that it might bring forth good fruit as it did in England and elsewhere While the Western Churches Reformation was yet but crude and in motion by Luthers means there arose Mr. John Calvin about the Year 1541. a man of good Learning acute Wit copious Eloquence great Industry quick Passions sharp Pen of reputed Piety and of no less Policy Him the people of Geneva thought the fittest man in the world to settle their distracted Church and State after they had with the wonted arts of tumultuating and discontented people forced Eustace their Bishop and Prince to flye from his Palace and City his Bishoprick and his Seigniorie because he would not presently gratifie them with such a Reformation as they imperiously demanded rather than modestly desired Mr. Calvin as Mr. R. Hooker hath excellently set it forth undertook with much difficulty and after many indignities worthy of popular levity fury and petulancy put upon him to settle their Church-affairs together with the civil State in such order as he thought not most Scriptural primitive and Catholick but most prudential plausible and probable in humane reason and honest policy to take and hold the tumultuating inconstancy of that people so to bring them to something of civil and religious order acting herein not upon any Wiclefian or the after Presbyterian and Antiepiscopal Principles as imagining either Episcopacy to be unlawful or sole Presbytery to be necessary as of Divine Institution neither of which were his judgement as is sufficiently and vehemently declared by his passionate approbation of reformed Bishops and his esteeming so honourably of regular Episcopacy that he passeth all Anathemas or curses on those that are against them so far was Calvin from laying the Axe to the root of this Tree which with Christianity had ever as he confessed born Episcopacy But he rather went upon Erastian principles and politick grounds looking it seems upon the Government of the Church as he did upon the Lords-day which is not elder nor more authentick or Catholick as to the Churches use and observation than Episcopacy to be in their nature mutable as of Ecclesiastick yet Divine prescription according as Times Occasions and Minds of men might fall out He well knew being a learned man and oft confesseth in his Writings the primitive blessing and universal authority of presidential Episcopacy in all Churches yet he neither thought it nor any forme of Government any more than clothes to be essential to the substance and body or any Church or of the Christian Religion but variable to several forms and polities as prudence might invite or necessity require so that he never set up any soveraign and unepiscopal Presbytery as an Idol or Moloch to which not onely the children but the Fathers of the Churches even very godly and reformed Bishops were all sacrificed He thought it did not misbecome his policy and prudence to serve the times and humors of the Citizens so far as to seem to vary the outward mode of their and all other Churches ancient government provided he served the Lord and that people in setling such a government as might preserve the Christian Reformed Religion among them in true Doctrine and good Manners which was the main work which Calvin seemed to mind most To have reconciled the City and their former Bishop was a matter impossible unless he or they had changed their minds in Religion to have perswaded them to elect a new Prince and Bishop of their own profession and opinion had been very imprudent considering either the fair offers they made to himself of being not titularly indeed but virtually and really both the Prince and Prelate or remembring that strong fancy of Liberty which had now so filled and intoxicated all sorts of Citizens In the last place to have set up himself in the pomp and formalities of a Bishop and a Prince had been an act of too much Impudence and Envy for a person of his Ingenuity Policy and Dexterity in publick managements it sufficed his design so far to gratifie both the Populacy with seeming Liberty and the Optimacy with some civil and Magistratick Authority all of them with such reformed purity in Religion as most pleased them and yet to keep up himself and his collegues of the Ministry to such an height of Ecclesiastical Influence and Church-power as made them far from being either slaves to the Vulgar or cyphers to the Government for all cases civil and criminal as well as religious were one way or other reducible and so responsible either by way of comprimising or upon scandal or repentance or satisfaction to the cognizance and consistory of him and his collegues himself being as the Caesar they as his Bibuli In effect his Wisdom Reputation Eloquence and Courage set him up in Geneva and other places to so high an eminency of respect and authority as he equalled yea exceeded most Bishops however his pomp train and pension were but small after the usual bounty expectable from any State or City that list to make their Reformations of Religion compleat by robbing the Church and Clergy of their ancient Lands and Revenues which doubtless in that City had been so great and princely as upon the confiscation of them to their Town-box or Exchequer they might well have allowed Mr. Calvin their great Reformer and chief Pastor and his Associates a Salary much beyond an hundred pounds per ann with a little provision of Corn. But he wisely dissembled this Indignity finding that as Riches Pomp and Luxury had undone former Bishops so a voluntary kind of Poverty and Austerity would now best conciliate to him and his collegues a greater Reverence and Authority nor was it considerable to have a gay or rich scabbard provided they had sharp and well metall'd swords their Ambition was rather to intend Gods work in reforming Religion of its Leprosie with Elisha than in taking mans rewards with Gehazi In this Presbyterian Prelacy or Prelatick Presbytery
to the Counsel Communion and conjoyned Authority of those integrall and maine or nobler parts which made up the Catholick visible Church and sometimes convened in generall Councils Of all which rights blessings priviledges and advantages both for direction and protection which are best preserved in and vigorously derived from these ample combinations of Churches which are commended by the Apostolicall wisdome and spirit which was Christs for any Christian or Congregation needlesly to deprive themselves or to withdraw divide others from them must needs be First their Infelicity exposing and betraying solitary Christians and small separate parties of them to many dangerous temptations and disadvantages of weaknesse contempt subdivision animosities among themselves also injuries and indignities from others and at last dissipations and utter desolations still dividing to Atomes and mouldring themselves to nothing All which like continued ploughes and harrowes make long and fruitlesse furrowes of deformity upon the backs and faces of such Congregations and such Christians who foolishly forsake or refuse those remedies and assistances which arise from the larger combinations of Churches which are easily had when as whole Cities Provinces and Nations professe the faith of Christ and resolve to assert it Next it is their great sin called in Scripture by the odious name of Schisme Concision Sedition Separation withdrawing from forsaking and dividing of the Churches unity judged by the Apostle to be the works of the Flesh and of the Devil when they arise from and are carried on by wilfull weaknesse ignorance pride arrogancy popularity levity animosity despight study of revenge covetousnesse ambition uncharitablenesse or any other base lust unholy distemper inordinate passion sinister interest and secular designe under never so specious pretensions of Church Reformation of setting up Christ in greater power and purity which I am sure is not yet done in Old England nor like ever to be effected by such strange methods of new churching men and women which begins the first step with spurning at the mother that bred them and the fathers that begat and nourished them laying the first stone of their new building in the ruine of that Churches both Superstructures and Foundations out of which Quarry they were hewen and to whose Fabrick they were once orderly and handsomly conjoyned for many years as many thousands of good Christians still are whom they endeavour to scare and seduce with all the scandalls they can cast before them upon this Church of England Which they having once learned boldly to reproch and abase they must make good their words with deeds that their schisme may not savour of malice or ambition but conscience and Religion Hence mâ—â—y have fallen to tear themselves quite off from any communion with or relation to the Church of England and from all resemblance in the point of polity with any other ancient or modern and reformed Churches of any renown making not onely rents in them and objections against them but total ruptures and abscissions from them and the Catholick form of all Churches no less than from this of England not modestly forbearing the use of some things in which at present they are less satisfied but haughtily forsaking yea wholly disdaining communion and subordination in any things or Ecclesiasticall order and holy ministration And all this credulous Christians must needs do with the more confidence when they are furnished by potent Orators with such Apologies as may either silence their own consciences when they accuse them or plead as they think their excuse before Gods tribunall when they shall be there charged for the scandals defamations discouragements deformities divisions and vastations made or occasioned by them in such a Christian Reformed and united Church as England sometime was It is not amiss to hear the ground of their plea which is with as much reason as if the hand or foot should think themselves not to be of the body because in a fit and humour they so say and fancy I find the tenour of their Apology runs thus I am by many men of seeming gravity learning and piety accused of the sin of Schisme but very unjustly because very falsely I did not I do not make any division or rent in the Church of England which is properly and critically the sin of Schisme but I have totally chopped quite lopped my self off from it by Abscission or rupture I never troubled my self to reform or abstain from what I thought offensive and amisse in the old but I have wholly erected a new Church I was not as a wedge to cleave a little but as a saw to cut all quite in sunder past all closing with any such society as the reputed Nationall Church of England was which I do not so much as account to be any Church but rather a Chaos or colluvies of titular Christians out of whose masse I have by a new percolation of Independency extracted some such pure materials as are formable into a new and true Church-way Yet have I not made any formall Schisme for my work was not to rend the coat or scratch the skin of Christs Spouse but to break her very bones and quite dismember that so diseased and deformed body which pretended to be a nationall Church in its severall overgrown Limbs or Dioceses on each of which I saw a Bishop or Prelate sitting and presiding which I took to be a mark of the Beast and denoting a limb of Antichrist which I know should have no place or influence in any true Church or body of Christ So that to become a perfect Christian I became a perfect Separatist I hung by no string sinew ligature skin or fibre to the so-cryed-up Church of England no I aimed not to divide it but destroy it my design was not to weaken its integrity and unity but to nullifie and abolish its very name and being its polity ministry pâ—â—r and Ecclesiasticall authority if at least these amounted to any thing more than the Chimaera fancy and meer fiction of a Church However I chose rather to deprive my self of all the good in it than to bear with what seemed evil I did not carry my self to that Church in which after a superstitious fashion I was indeed Baptised and educated a Christian as became a son to his sick mother much lesse as a servant to Christs Spouse which might have her faintings But I counted her when I came to misunderstand her and my self as a deadly enemy I treated her as an Adulteresse I proclaimed her a putid Strumpet I withdrew from her as from a dead and noysome carkase which had long layen dead and buried in the old grave of Episcopacy these thirteen or fourteen hundred yeares even from her very nativity therefore I condemned and abhorred Her with all her Scriptures and Sacraments her Bishops and Preachers her Tithes and Universities her Books and Learning her Fathers and Histories her Languages and Sciences her seeming Gifts and specious Graces her Religion
reformed profession which is truly Christian ancient and Catholick thereby justifying that mercy and truth that grace and peace of God which was plentifully manifested and faithfully dispensed to the people of this land by the piety and wisdome of the Church of England notwithstanding that the Lord seems now to hide his face from Her the want of whose favour which her great and sore afflictions have seemed to cloud is far beyond the triumphs of her enemies or the coldnesse of her friends the oppositions of many the withdrawings of some and the indifferencies of others who have all contributed to her miseries but none of them have yet convinced her that ever I could see of any sin or errour as to ignorance or iniquity superstition or irreligion dangerous defect or excesse If the Church of England had as many Mouths as she hath Wounds as many Tongues as Maims as many hearty Mourners as she hath cruel Destroyers if there were as many that durst pity and relieve her as there are that dare spoile and ruine her these would fill not England onely but all the Christian world with the bitternesse of her Complaints as a learned and pious Minister for his part hath lately done If the Church of England had many such pious Orators whose potent and pathetick eloquence were more proportionable to her calamities than the narrownesse of my heart and tenuity of my pen are like to be certainly heaven and earth would be moved with compassion flints would melt and rocks be mollified with commiseration the upper and the nether milstones partiall Presbytery and popular Independency between whom she hath been so ground to powder that Papists and Anabaptists and Familists and Quakers and Seekers and Ranters with all the rabble of her proud and spitefull enemies hope to fill their sacks with her grist those I say might possibly repent if they have not much mended their fortunes by this Churches ruines of their occasioning her so long and sharp a warfare so many and sad Tragedies while by infinite jealousies grievous reproches and unjust scandals cast upon their and your Mother this Reformed Church of England they have made her implacable enemies the Papists and others to blaspheme her for a meer Adulteresse all this while to condemn all her Children as a Bastard brood of illegitimate Christians from the first Reformation to this day Her most desperate deserters of late in order to take away their own reproch to expiate as they imagine the sin and shame of their former profession have laboured first to destroy the eldest brethren and chiefest sons in this Church next to cast out and exautorate the principall Stewards and dispensers of holy things after this they have endeavoured to rob her both of her dower and patrimony hoping at last to famish the whole Family when there shall be neither nursing fathers nor nursing mothers in this Church neither milk left for Babes nor stronger meat for the elder ones neither plain catechising nor profitable preaching neither ordaining Bishops nor ordained Presbyters CHAP. IV. SUch as have eares to heare and charity to lay to heart may with me hear the Church of England thus lamenting and bemoning Her self while she sits upon the ground covered with ashes clothed with sackcloth besmeared with blood drowned in teares and almost buried with her owne ruines O all you that pass by me stand and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow if it hath been done to any Christian Reformed Church under Heaven as it hath to me in the day wherein the Lord hath afflicted me with his fierce anger My Wounds my Wasts my Ruines my Deformities my Desolations are not by the barbarous inundations of Goths and Vandals not by the rude invasions of Saracens and Turks not by the severe Inquisitions and cruel persecutions of Papists I do not ow my miseries to the incursions of Forrainers to a nation of a strange Language of professed Enmity of different Interests and Religion They are not professed Neroes Domitians Diocletians and Julians Heathen Princes and Persecutors that have done me this despight for then perhaps I and my children could have born it with a like heroick patience and Christian courage as those did their Primitive Persecutions the splendour and constancy of whose Martyrdomes contributed more than all their preaching to the honour advantage and propagation of the Christian Religion when Churches and Christians being happily united in love and onely persecuted by professed enemies they knew in what posture of defence to cast themselves so as to suffer and die becoming Christians But I alas am ambiguously wounded by those that are of my own house family and profession Such as have been washed at my baptismall fountain of living water such as have freely and fully tasted of my Sacramentall Bread and Wine feasting at my Table which is the Lords these these have lifted up the heel against me Such as have been bred and born by me taught and brought up in the same true Christian Faith and reformed Profession by these am I hated and despised by these am I stripped and wounded by these am I torn and mangled by these am I impoverished and debased below any Church Christian or Reformed by these am I scorned and abhorred by these am I made an hissing and astonishment to all that see me by these am I made a derision and mocking-stock to my enemies round about me by these am I in danger to be quite devoured and destroyed who envy me so much breath and life as serves me to complain of my calamities Hear O heavens and give ear O earth be not ye also cruel or uncompassionate since one of you cannot but behold the deformity of my Sufferings the other cannot but feel the burthen of my complaints one of you is blasted with my Sighs the other is bedewed with my Tears Be not ye also accessory to my injuries by concealing them or guilty of my Blood by covering it which cries aloud against my ungratefull my unnaturall my rebellious children Those that came forth of my own bowels these have risen up against me to whom I liberally afforded milk when they were babes and stronger meat as they were able to bear it for whom I provided the sacred Oracles of God in a language they best understood I furnished them with such formes of wholsome devotion agreeable to the mind and Word of God as might best suit the common necessities of all and the capacities of the meanest I concealed no part of Gods sacred Counsel from them nor detained any necessary saving Truth out of any principle of unrighteous policy I neither denied nor diminished nor deformed any Ordinance of Christ to them I coloured no errours with shews of truth nor disguised any Truth with fallacious sophistries I set forth to them with all plainnesse and freedome the blessed fulnesse and excellencies of my Lord Jesus Christ in such a manner
extemporary prayer which to the hearers hath the same aspect of a crutch or staff no less than that set form which by many is composed and proposed to the congregation As for the humours of common people they are an ill compass to steer by in concernments of Church or State It is no wonder to see wontedness breed weariness and weariness wantonness wantonness loathing of the most holy duties and heavenly dainties as of Manna to the Jews unless the hearts of men be alwaies humbly devout and sincerely fervent and such can I am sure daily follow wonted wholsome forms with new fervours and give a fresh Amen to known oft-repeated petitions as well as a fiduciary assent to such precepts and promises as they have heard or read from Gods Word a thousand times Without which sacred flames of constant zeal and successive devotion upon mens hearts as the holy fire which was never to go out upon Gods altar not onely the extemporary varieties of mens own inventions will prove perfunctory and superficiall but even Scripture it self and the Oracles of God will grow to be meer Crambe yea the repeated Celebration of the most divine and adorable mysteries of the blessed Sacraments which Christ instituted as constant solemn Services in his Church will prove nauseous burdens and hypocriticall loades to the dull and indevout spirits of men whom if they be such in their hearts and tempers no variety or novelty will quicken ther niauseous and lazy hypocrisy if they be not such no constancy or wontedness will dull their sincere fervency and holy fragrancy of their affections The late ramblings barrenness and confusion of some mens sad and extemporary rhapsodies their rude and rusticall devotions are especially in solemn and Sacramentall Celebrations observed by many wise Christians to be such since the Cadet or younger Brother of the Directory if it deserves the honour of that name which to many seems but as a by-blow the illegitimate issue of partiall spirits Apostatizing from their former conformity to the Church of England in that point of its Liturgy since I say it crowded or as Jacob supplanted its elder brother out of the house of God though it self be now little used and less regarded even by its first patrons and sticklers that it makes them and me highly admire and more magnifie the wisdome of the Church of England in first composing after perfecting and prescribing that excellent Liturgie to common people which contained the very quintessence of all that we find used by the ancient piety and charity of Churches agreeable to Gods Word which is the onely pattern pillar and support for Christians prayers both publick and private Nor did the Church of England ever intend as I conceive by Her Liturgie so to stint and confine any discreet and able Minister or private Christian but they might further pour out their souls to God in prayers and praises publickly and privately so as occasion required and good order permitted onely it judged as I doe with pious Antiquity and all the most learned Reformers particularly Mr. Calvin that it is a great and reall concernment in every true and Orthodox Church that care be taken to settle and preserve wholsome forms and solemn Devotionalls for the publick celebrating of Prayers Praises holy Duties Christian Mysteries Sacraments and Ordinations next to the care of propounding and establishing sound Doctrine or true Confessions and Articles of Faith Which care of all Christians good in that behalf first induced the Ancient and Primitive Churches as S. Austin and others tell us next to their laying of scripture-Scripture-grounds in their Creeds and Confessions to enlarge and fix their Liturgies and Devotions finding that fanatick Errour and Levity would seem an Euchite as well as an Eristick Prâ—yant as well as Predicant a Devotionist as well as a Disputant insinuating it self with no less cunning under a Votary's Cowle than in a Doctors Chair in Prayers Sacraments and Euchologies as well as in Preachings Disputations and Writings This I am sure The Liturgie of the Church of England was so usefull so well advised so savoury so complete so suitable so solemn and so significant a form of publick Worshipping God so highly approved by wise and worthy men at home and abroad as composed by the speciall assistance of the holy Spirit of God in the judgement of the first Heroes and Martyrs of this Reformed Church so reverently used by many even lesse conformable in some things ceremoniall to the Church of England that beyond all question it deserved a longer question a more calm debate a more serene serious and impartiall triall before it should have been so utterly abdicated or expulsed out of the Church as Hagar was out of Abrahams family I humbly conceive that neither Recusants should have had so great a gratification to their refractoriness nor this so famous flourishing and wel Reformed Church should have had so great a slurr aspersion cast upon its Princes its Parlaments its Bishops its Presbyters all its faithfull people as if they had hitherto served God so far superstitiously irreligiously and unworthily that the very Book it self containing the method form matter and words of their publick service of God must be first vilified and scorned by the vulgar insolency next utterly abrogated and quite ejected out of this Church by such as passionately undertook to abett and patronize the present humours and distempered fits of popular surfeitings and inconstancy lately risen up not onely against their own former approbation and practise but against the piety wisdome and gravity of this Nation and all other setled Churches in the world Yea further the partiality and immoderation of some men seems in this most excessive that to shew their implacable despite against the Liturgie of the Church of England they cannot endure nor would if they had power permit any Christians to use it though they find it as our Marian Martyrs did very beneficiall to their souls comfort and therefore earnestly desire highly value and duly use it So imperious Dictators would some men be over other mens liberties and consciences even in Religion who are rigid asserters of their own impatient to be imposed upon by others and yet most insolently ambitious to impose upon other men how far they may or may not serve God in a religious way and manner fancying that nothing can please God which doth not please them What some men have preached and printed against the English Liturgie and all set forms of Prayers never so good and fit as if they were stintings and dampings of Gods Spirit c. I must confess I understand rather the jeer and contemptuousness of their words than the wit reason or Religion of them for certainly the same may be said against all Scriptures Psalms Sermons preached or printed against Ministers own Prayers and any other proposed helps for the advancing of knowledge or devotion in mens hearts And however some
to destroy that holy order and Evangelicall function from whose declared rules and injunctions in the Church they had degenerated for neither the infirmities nor the presumptions of men ought to annull that office or abolish that authority which is Divine Christs commission which is given to the Church must not be voyded or cancelled by reason of any Ministers omissions Sacred institutions such as the Ministry and government of Christs Church are ought to continue notwithstanding the intervening of mans ignorance errour profaneness or Idolatry The plagues and leprosies arising from mens persons and adhering to them are not imputable to that place power station and authority which they have in the Church Men may be unworthy of their holy function but the function it self is not made unworthy no more than Aarons joyning with the people in making the golden calf did disparage the sacred dignity of that Priestly office to which he was by the Lord designed The enormous folly of Eli's sons did not make the sacrifices they offered of none effect nor yet nullifie the honour and office of that Priesthood wherewith they were duly invested Judas his being an Hypocrite a Thief a Traitour and a Devil yet did not abrogate that Apostolical office and Episcopall authority which he had received from Christ equally with the other Apostles untill by open Apostasy he fell into open rebellion desperation and perdition Which gross and open Apostasy either from Christ or his Gospel from the Christian faith or their Ministeriall office and ordination cannot with any truth or fore-head be charged upon the Clergie or Ch. of England who for the main both in the consecration of Bishops and ordination of Presbyters in the administration of holy duties execution of their offices generally and for the main kept to the Ancient Primitive and Apostolick customes of all the Churches of Christ since the Apostles dayes so that whatever blame charge or reproch is cast upon the Clergie or Church of England must equally lie upon all Christian Churches since the first complete and setled constitution of any Church I know the mouths of some men like moths and their tongues like worms are prone to corrode by infinite scruples scandalls and reproches all the beauty of the Church of England with all the merit and honour of its Clergie but blessed be God we stand or fall with the Catholick Church of Christ with the whole order race and Apostolick succession of Christian Bishops and Presbyters we more fear the rudeness and heaviness of mens hands than the sharpness of their wits or weight of their arguments which are as spiteful and yet as vain as the vipers biting of the file when from some Ministers personall failings they fasten their venomous teeth upon the whole state and constitution of the Church of England In whose behalf I am neither afraid nor ashamed to appeal to you my most honoured countrey-men as the nearest and best Judges in the world of this matter First as to the Church of England in its godly care and Christian constitution whether you do believe or really find that in any thing it hath been wanting which is necessary for the good of your souls Next as to the Bishops and Ministers of England whether abating personall infirmities they have not generally been ever since the Reformation both able and faithfull in the work of the Lord whether as Mr. Peter du Moulin confesseth you and your fore-fathers do not chiefly owe to them both the beginning and continuance of the Reformed as well as Christian Religion next under the mercy of God and the care of your pious Princes whether the tenuity or weakness of some Ministers who had less abilities and perhaps too little incouragements were not abundantly supplied by the eminent sufficiencies of many others and if every Diocese had not an excellent Bishop at all times or every Parish enjoyed not a very able Preacher yet I am sure neither of the two Provinces in England nor any one County ever wanted since the Reformation either excellent Bishops or excellent Preachers in them to a far greater store than was to be enjoyed in Primitive times when Dioceses were larger and petty Parishes not at all in the Church of Christ So then I may justly quere whether one odious century of Ministers branded some of them for scandalous because they were more exactly conform to the Laws and Customes established in the Church of England were a just ground to reproch the whole Clergie or to abolish the order function and succession both of Bishops and Presbyters which some men aim at officious compilers of that uncomely Centâ— Whether they might not with as much truth and more reason have enumerated the scandalous livings of England as so many not convicted but supposed scandalous Ministers many of whose maintenance was worse than their manners and more unworthy of their profession Whether any thing truly objectable against any Bishop or Minister of England as scandalously weak wicked and unworthy may not with as much more truth be objected against their severest enemies No man in England not grosly ignorant or passionately impotent can deny what I here affirm and proclaim to all the world That the Clergie of England both Governours and governed taking them in their integrality or unity as they were esteemed a third estate in the Body politick or as an Ecclesiasticall fraternity and corporation have been not onely tolerable but commendable yea admirable instruments of Gods glory and the good of mens souls in this Church and Nation That as they did at first in the morning of the Reformation so ever since during the heat and burthen of the day they have with great learning and godly zeal with Christian courage constancy integrity and wisdome every way asserted vindicated and maintained the truth purity and power also the peace order and honour of Christian and Reformed Religion against Atheists and Infidels against the superstitions of the Romanists on one side and the factions of the Schismaticks on the other Nor have they onely built with the trowel but fought also with the sword of the Word What Giantly error what Papal Goliah hath ever appeared defying this Reformed Church whom some excellent Bishops and other learned Divines who were Episcopal have not encountred prostrated confounded and beheaded the spoiles and trophies of them are still extant in their works as eternall monuments of the incomparable prowess worth and merit of the English Clergy What wholsom saving and necessary truth did they ever wilfully deprive You of In what holy institution and ordinance of Jesus Christ have they ever conspired to defraud or diminish you In what holy work or duty have they come short of any In what excellent doctrine gift grace or vertue have they been so defective as not to give your forefathers your selves and all the world most illustrious proofs and generous examples To which testimony no ingenuous knowing and conscientious
discreet limits and rules which it thought fittest to keep the visible profession of Christian Religion in due order and decency according as occasion required and the state of this particular Church would bear Nor was the Church of England in any of these things ever blamed or blamable by any well-reformed Church nor by any men that impartially professed Christianity among whom I cannot reckon either the politick Papist or the peevish Separatist much lesse those later rude rabbles of libertines and fanaticks who abhor all things in any Church or way of Religion which they suspect to be contrary to their loose principles and these must be conform to their several secular ends and interests which truly in England are now neither small nor poor nor modest but grand high and aspiring extremely inconsistent with those publick principles and ends of good order polity peace and unity which formerly were established and maintained in the Church of England as they ought to be in all well-ordered Churches whose work and design was not loosely to tolerate different publick professions of Religion in the same nation or community according as every man lists but seriously and impartially to constitute and authorize some one way grounded upon Gods Word and guided by the best examples as the publick standard of Religion for Doctrine Duties Worship Devotion Discipline Which methods of Piety and Charity were ever highly commended and cheerfully followed by the wisest and best Christian Magistrates in all ages and possibly they had been ere this recovered and renewed here in England if the beast of the people getting the bridle of liberty between its teeth had not so far run away with some riders who had too much pampered it that it is no easie matter not to be done by sudden checks or short turnes to reduce that heady and head-strong animal to the right postures of religious managing besides that wise men are taught by experience that nothing so soon tames the madnesse of people as their own fiercenesse and extravagancy which at length as S. Cyprian observes tires them by taking away their breath and vainly exhausting their ferocient spirits Time and patience oft facilitate those cures in Church and State which violent and unseasonable applications would but more enflame and exasperate I do not â—oubt but the greatest patrons for the peoples liberty in matters of Religion will in time if they do not already see how great a charity it is to put mercifull restraints of religious order and government upon them which are no lesse necessary than those sharper curbs and yokes of civil coercions No wise States-man will think it fit in honesty or safety to permit common people to do whatever seems good in their own eyes as if there were no King or supreme Magistrate in Israel nor can any good Christian think it fit that in Religion every man should be left to profess and patronize what he listeth as if there were no Christ as King and chief Bishop of our souls or as if he had not left us clear and setled foundations for faith also evident principles besides patterns of Christian prudence and Church-polity for order and office discipline and duty direction and correction subordination and union What these measures and proportions have been both as to the judgement and practise of the universall Church from the very Apostolicall times and their Primitive successors till this last century is so plain both in Scripture and other Ecclesiastick records that I wonder how men of any learning can be so ignorant or men of any honesty can be so partiall as by their doubting and disputing to divide the minds of Christian people and by rude innovations to raise so unhappy factions as have at this day overspread this Church and Nation like a leprosie which is a foul disease though it may seem white as snow blanched over with the shews of liberty but betraying men to the basest servitude of their own lusts and other mens corruptions as well as errours CHAP. III. I Know and allow that just plea which is made by learned and godly men for Christians mutuall bearing with and forbearing one another in cases of private and modest differings either in opinions or practises yea as S. Ambrose S. Austin S. Jerome and others observe there is a great latitude of Charity to be exercised among particular Churches in their different methods and outward forms of holy ministrations according as their severall polities are locally distinguished by Cities Countreys or Nations I willingly yield to all men much more to all Christians that liberty naturall civil and religious which may consist with Scripture-precept and right reason with grounds of morality and society which is as much as I desire to use or enjoy my self in point of private opinion or publick profession I have other where observed out of Tertullian that Religion is not to be forced but perswaded I admire the Princely and Christian temper of Constantine the Great who professed he would not have men cudgelled but convinced to be Christians that Religion was a matter of choice not of constraint that no tyranny no rape no force is more detestable than that which is committed upon mens consciences when once they come to be masters of so much reason as to chuse for themselves and to hold forth those principles upon which they state their Religion This indeed was the sense of that great and good Emperour But then withall he professed not to meddle by any Imperatorian or Senatorian power with matters of Religion either to alter and innovate or to dispute and decide them but left them to the piety and prudence of those holy and famous Bishops which were chief Pastors of the Church whose unanimous doctrine and uniform practise had carried on Christian Religion amidst all persecutions with so great splendour uniformity authority and majesty that few Christians were so impudent as to doubt much less contradict and openly dissent from their religious harmony publick order and profession which was grounded on Scripture-precepts and guided by Apostolicall patterns Yet amidst those primitive exactnesses to preserve the publick peace and unity of Churches nothing was more nourished and practised than that meeknesse of wisdome which every where sought to instruct men not to destroy them for their private differences in Religion when they were accompanied with humility modesty and charity not carried on with insolence and injury to immorality and publick perturbation in all which men shew malice and pride mixed with and sowring their opinions which easily and insensibly carry mens hearts from dissentings to emulations from emulations to anger from anger to enmity from enmity to despiciency from despising to damning one another Private perswasions like sticks when they come to vehement rubbings or agitations conceive heat and kindle to passionate flames whereas in a calm and Christian temper who so differs from me is in charity to be interpreted as desirous
conveniency When Religion is thus setled by publick counsel consent and sanction it ought in all reason and conscience to be preserved in wayes of honour peace and safety more carefully than those banks are which by keeping out the seas inundations preserve our pastures and cattel from drowning else every Polity and Nation pretending to be Christian proclaim to all the world that they think Religion to be no better than matters of Scepticall dispute and variable opinion having nothing in it clear or certain as to any divine truth or infallible Revelation Of which since their ignorance and weakness or passion and partiality to which every private man is subject makes them less capable either to search or judge to dispute or determine the wisdome of God hath alwayes either established or exemplarily directed his Church to use and enjoy some such constant Conservators of Religion besides the occasionall Reformers and restorers of it which were of old the Prophets extraordinarily sent besides those that were ordinarily brought up in the schooles of the Prophets which were the nurseries of those learned and wise men who made up the Sanhedrim or grand Council among the Jews consisting of seventy men who were for piety parts and place chief Fathers Doctors and Rabbies in the Church of the Jews and the great Conservators of their Law and Religion Answerably we read in the Primitive Churches and times this care and power was by the wisdome of Christ fixed and by all good Christians owned in the Apostles and Elders to whom in case of any dispute or difference in Religion address was made not onely to hear their counsel and judgement but to submit to their decisions and decrees which bound every man to preach no other doctrine different from much less contrary to what that venerable consistory both taught and summarily delivered to the Churches of Christ viz. wholsome formes and short summaries of sound doctrine as well as in their more diffused writings occasionally sent to particular Churches and divinely delivered to the use care and custody of the Catholick Church Agreeable to these holy precedents every Christian Church in after-ages had within their several distributions or dioceses distinguished by their Cities or Provinces their Synods or Ecclesiasticall Councils for all those emergencies or concernments of Religion which arose within their limits and combinations proportionably they had more extensive Conventions and generall Councils in cases of grand concernment for the comprimising of all differences in Religion and conservation of the Churches both purity and peace These methods of prudent piety and pious prudence as they were of divine Institution so they ought to be perpetuall in the Church of Christ as being the onely means left for the conservation and reformation of Religion 'T is true in the dimness of after-ages when the decay of Primitive zeal love sanctity and sincerity had too much prevailed over these Western Churches the Bishops of Rome taking the advantage of the higher ground whereon the fame of that City was raised not onely for being the Metropolis of the Roman Empire but for being a prime Church of Apostolicall plantation and high renown for the Faith and martyrly constancy of its first Bishops these with no great difficulty as with great art and policy contrary to the judgement and practise of Antiquity for the first 600. years sought to fix the Standard of Religion in the Popes chair and to make his breast the great Conservator of Religion certainly a very easie compendious and happy way to keep up the peace and honour of Christian Religion and Churches if the Bishop of Rome could in the noon-day-light of these times either convince the world of his speciall gift of Infallibility or make good his claim of being sole and supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion above any other Pastors and Bishops yea and above a generall Council This late prodigious pillar or huge Colosse of the Popes infallible sole and supreme power hath as of old so of late years not onely been much weakned by many Churches Greek and Latine dissenting but by some it hath been quite overthrown demolished and broken in pieces as an arrogant abuse and intolerable tyranny contrary to all rules of Scripture and reason never challenged by the first famous and holy Bishops of that Church nor owned in after-ages when Popes began to usurp upon other Bishops and Churches by the most learned and godly men of those times This justice being done to the honour and liberty of the Churches of Christ and their respective Bishops or Pastors against the Papall obtrusion of his sole judicature yet no Reformed Church of any repute hath been so transported by just indignation against the Papall usurpations as to expose themselves and their Religion to the various breach and giddy brains of the vulgar but every one hath both confined and setled their profession by some publick profession as the standard of Religion also they have some such Conservators of Religion either ordinary or extraordinary as do take care that the established Religion suffer no injury or detriment This authority or power seems now much wanting in England though it be very necessary in my judgement which should so preserve the publick stability of true Religion as not to invade any good mans private liberty which ought not to be too severely curbed yet not so indulged as to injure the common welfare contrary to all rules of reason justice and charity These Conservators of Religion should not exact of private Christians any explicite conformity or subscription under penalty of any mulct or prison much less with the terrour of fire and faggot which was the zealotry of Papal tyranny onely they should take care that people be duly taught that Religion which is setled that none be a publick Preacher that is a declared dissenter or opposer of it that no man do broach any novelty without their approbation that no man do petulantly blaspheme oppose scorn or perturb that constitution of Religion which is publickly setled as supposed to be the best that no man abuse the name of Christian liberty to the publick injury All sober and wise Christians do see and feel by late sad experience that liberty in the vulgar sense and notion is but a golden Calf which licentious minds set up to themselves under that specious name as the Israelites did their abominable Idoll under the popular title and acclamation of These are thy Gods O Israel If common people be indulged in what freedome they will challenge to themselves wise men will soon find that their Christian liberty is no better than an Image of jealousie a Teraphim a Tamuz or Adonis offensive to the God of reason order law and government destructive to humane society dishonourable to the name of Christ and that holy profession which was so renowned of old as Christian that is the most regular meek harmlesse strict peaceable and charitable Religion in
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
till of later years CHAP. XIII THe late licentious Invasions made upon this Church of England the Reformed Religion the Ministerial Order Office and Succession established in it through all ages since the Nation was Christian were yet something tolerable justifiable if those Ministers who profess to be of the ordination and communion of the Ch. of Engl. either wanted ability or industry skill or will to serve God and to deserve well of you O worthy Gentlemen and all their Countrey-men or if you and the rest of the nation were already better provided in order to your souls good by any new generation of Preachers better learned more rarely gifted more spiritually extracted or more regularly consecrated and duly ordained if these new-minted Ministers these self-intruding Teachers did afford you weightier Sermons warmer Prayers more solemn Sacraments more sacred Examples more usefull writings if they brought you with all this bustling and parado a better God a better Saviour a better Gospel better Scriptures or a better Spirit than those were which the excellent Bishops and other Ministers of the Church of England set before you and this nation many wayes for many years with mighty successes while they were countenanced encouraged and ingenuously treated if the advantages of Religion as Christian and Reformed or of your and your posterities souls were either reall or probable by these new intruders we might well bear with your and the common peoples pious inconstancy when it should tend to the improvement and happinesse of your souls But these great and good interests of your souls for my part as I have not yet found any where in any new wayes so I do not think that any wise and honest-hearted Christian can by any one instance prove that those Libertines who are Levellers of the Ministeriall duty and dignity either have been hitherto able or will ever be probable to advance them in the least kind or degree beyond or equall or any way comparable to what the former Clergy of England have done and are still both able and willing to do As for these new Rabbies you shall have commonly their best at first by soft and as they think saintly insinuations they first creep into houses next into bosoms at last into pulpits The small and light bundle of the gifts they have picked up are soon set on fire by the least sparks of popular desire and applause then as squibs or granadoes they flie off amain with more extravagant motion panick terrour thick smoke foul stench and vapour than with any great or good execution done against Sin or Satan or the World After a few godly prefacings about the Spirit Grace Christ and the new Covenant together with some gallantries or light skirmishings with some starveling errors and useless sins you shall know the utmost of their sufficiencies which is with egregious impudence to scorn what they cannot attain that is all good learning and the manners of their betters When they have loudly ratled at more than confuted any thing which they list to call an Error when they have huddled together wrested distorted a great many places of Scripture without any regard to the Grammaticall and genuine sense of the words or to the propriety of phrases or to the main scope of the place or to the clear Analogie of faith after all these flourishings you shall see the bottom and dregs of their hearts poured forth in vile and uncomely railings scurrilous and odious rantings against all Bishops and Ministers against the whole Hierarchie Ministry and Church of England At last with equall vociferation and emptinesse without any principles of reason or grounds of Religion without proof or plausibility with more lungs than brains they cry up their own new lights their rare discoveries their excellent Reformations and pure Ordinances of Jesus Christ all which are as much beyond all former dispensations and ministrations in this or any Church as the deceits of Mountebanks excell all that Fernelius Galen or Hippocrates could ever use or invent especially when these are in a new Paracelsian way applied and dispensed not by the old Empiricks the Papall and Episcopall Clergy but by new-called and ordained Preachers by specially-inspired Prophets by precious men extraordinarily qualified and sent either by the inward and unknown impulses of Gods Spirit or by the call and election of some godly select people who casting off all ancient Christian Communion with this Nationall or the Catholick Church do first body themselves to a new way of Church-fellowship then they assume to themselves some Brother and Member as they can agree to be their spirituall Pastor him they invest by their bare suffrages with all ministerial power and authority as from Jesus Christ himself Such a kind of confused noise doe these land-floods these popular torrents these turbulent Teachers make where once they have found a vent and course for their liberty to break through all bounds of law and order being indeed very muddy shallow fatuous and feeble in all things divine and humane for the most part onely they have a strong high conceit of themselves and a perfect Antipathy against those Ministers in the Church of England to whom they owe all they have of Knowledge and Religion which is worth owning Do but look near to their new doctrines and opinions and you will easily see how loose how false how futile how fanatick they are look to their speech and writing how rude how improper how incoherent how insignificant how full of barbarismes soloecismes and absurdities mark their whole form of preaching how raw how rambling how immethodicall how incongruous how obscure impertinent consider their Prayers how are they farced with odde expressions with forced affected confused dull dead and insipid repetitions weigh their lives and actions how pragmatick licentious injurious sacrilegious spitefull uncharitable pernicious scandalous are they to many sober and quiet men and specially to such as they have most cause to suspect to be much their betters and their most accurate censurers Last of all look to all their novell principles and you shall see how various versatile ambiguous temporizing and dangerous they are while much of their Divinity depends upon Diurnalls their Religion is most-what calculated by the Almanack or Ephemeris of their hopes and feares their interests and lusts their prevalences and advantages measured not by Scriptures but by Providences These distempers evidently appearing as they daily do in your new Teachers must not you and all sober Christians confess that these Comets these blazing and wandring stars mostly made up of gross vulgar and earthy exhalations full of portentous malignity to this Reformed Church are infinitely short of that benign light and that divine sweet and heavenly influence which heretofore shined from the fixed starrs of this Church which were in the right hand of Christ the godly Bishops and other Ministers to the great honour and unspeakable happiness of this
the firm ground less indeed to vulgar admiration but more to their own safety and others benefit S. Paul seriously represseth the vanity of knowledge falsly so called when men intrude themselves into things they understand not being puffed up as those primitive Gnosticks in their fleshly minds not holding the Truths as they are in Jesus nor content with the simplicity of the Gospel as it hath been delivered received understood believed and practised by the Catholick Church of Christ this check the Apostle gave to humane curiosities and Satanick subtilties even then when speciall gifts and revelations were at the highest tide CHAP. XVII THe better learned and more humble Ministers of the Church of England both Bishops and Presbyters ever professed with S. Austin and the renowned Ancients an holy nescience or modest ignorance in many things no less becoming the best Christians the acutest Scholars and profoundest Divines than their otherwayes vast knowledge and accurate diligence to search the Scriptures and find out things revealed by God which belong to the Church The modesty and gravity of their learning commends the vastness and variety of it as dark shadowes and deep grounds set off the lustre of fair pictures to the greater height They were not ashamed to subscribe to Saint Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfathomable depth the divine Abyss of unsearchable wisdome and knowledge they were not curious to pry into things above them or to stretch their wits and fancies beyond that line and measure of truth which God had set forth to his Church in his written Word and in those Catholick summaries thence extracted as the rule of Christian Faith Manners and Devotion whereto the spirits of all good Christians great and small learned and idiots were willingly confined of old as Irenaeus tells us they never boasted of raptures revelations new lights visions inspirations special missions and secret impulses from Gods Spirit beyond or contrary to Gods Word and the good order of his Church thereby to exercise their supposed liberties and presumptuous abilities that is indeed to satisfie their lusts disorders and extravagances in things civil and sacred to discover their immodesties and impudicities like the Cainites Ophites Judaites and Adamites to gratifie their luxuries and injuries their sacriledges and oppressions their cruelties against man and blasphemies against God their separations divisions and desolations intended against this Church The godly Pastors and people of Christs flock never professed any such impudent piety or pious impudence because they were evidently contrary to sound Doctrine and holy Discipline beyond and against the sacred precepts and excellent patterns of true Ministers sincere Saints and upright Christians whose everlasting limits are the holy Scriptures sufficient to make the man of God and Minister of Christ perfect to salvation They were not like children taken with any of these odde maskings and mummeries of the Devil who is an old master of these arts in false Prophets and false Apostles with their followers whose craft ever sought to advance their credits against the Orthodox Bishops Presbyters and professors of true Religion by such ostentations of novelties and unheard of curiosities in Religion which never of old or late made any man more honest holy humble or heavenly they never advanced Christians comforts solitary or sociall living or dying but kept both their Masters and Disciples in perpetual inquietudes perplexities and presumptions which usually ended in villanies outrages and despairs Nor will these new Masters late discoveries prove much better whereof they boast with so insolent and loud an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all their rarities are but dead carkases which are become mummy by being long dried in the sands or wrapped up in searcloths they are not less dead though they seem less putrified to those whose simplicity or curiosity tempts them thus to rake into the skulls and sepulchres of old Hereticks idle Ecstaticks such as the very primitive times were infinitely pestred withal but blessed be God they were all long ago either extinct of themselves and gone down to the pit or crucified dead buried and descended into hell by the just censures Anathemaes and condemnations passed against them by the godly Bishops and Ministers of the Church in those ages Nor have these Spectres ever much appeared in this Church of England till these later years in which by the ruines and rendings of this Church they have gained a rotten kind of resurrection not to their glory but to their renewed shame and eternall infamy I trust in Gods due time when once the honour of the true Christian and Reformed Religion once happily setled and professed in the Church of England shall be again worthily asserted and re-established by your piety and prudence my noble and religious Countrey-men who have been and I hope ever will be the chief professors and constant Patrons of it under your God and your pious Governours Your prudence and piety your justice and generosity is best able to see through all those transports which are so transparent those specious pretences those artificiall mists and vapours which are used by some novel Teachers to abuse the common people that engaging them into eternall parties animosities and factions they may more easily by many mouths and hands not onely cry but utterly pull down this Reformed Church of England in its sound Doctrine wholsome Discipline Catholick Ministry sacred Order solemn Worship and Apostolick Government All which must now be represented to the world by these new Remonstrants as poor and pittifull carnall and common meer empty forms and beggarly elements fit to be cast out with scorn as reaching no further than Christ in the letter Jesus in the flesh Truth in the outward court Religion in the story or legend but they say the Ministers and other Christians of Old England are not come within the vaile to the Spirit and Mystery they have not that light within which far out-shines the paper-lanthern of Gods word without them CHAP. XVIII THese and such like are the uncouth expressions used to usher in under the names of liberty curiosity sublimity nothing but ignorance idlenesse Atheisme barbarity irreligion and utter confusion in this Church or at best as I shall afterward more fully demonstrate they are but van-courriers or agitators for Romish superstitions and Papall usurpations the end of all this gibberish is Venient Romani Put all these fine fancies and affected phrases together with all those strange phantasms in Religion which of late have haunted this Church like so many unquiet vermin or unclean spirits truly they spell nothing but first popular extravagances which are the embasings and embroylings of all true and Reformed Religion next they portend Popish interests and policies prevailing against this Church and State whose future advantages are cunningly but notably wrapt up in these plebeian furies and fondnesses as grocery wares are in brown paper Be confident the spirit of Rome which is
dedicated to his worship and service as well publick and social as private and solitary to sleep and laze in their chimney corners on the Lords day rather than go to Church as many hundreds do It is no part of Christian liberty to come seldome or never to the Lords Supper to despise Baptisme to forsake those publick assemblies where the true God is truly and sincerely worshipped according to his Word with soundness holiness order decency and sincerity to rail at and separate from all those Bishops and Ministers of so well a reformed and wisely setled Nationall Church who are evidently furnished with good ability and invested with most undeniable due authority to dispense sacred mysteries It is no part of Christian liberty for men to speak and act and behave themselves in Religion as seems good in their own eyes which are easily blinded with passion pride prejudice covetousness ambition revenge It is no part of Christian liberty for men to have no regard to that order peace charity duty and subordination which God requires and which every Christian owes as to the civil so to that Ecclesiastick polity and Society in which God hath placed him as by his birth and habitation so by his baptisme and profession which are the holy ties of Religion by which as members of Christs body in the judgement of charity his visible Church we are bound to him as the head and to each other as members in the severall places and proportions where God hath set us either in a coordination and community as to brethren or in subordination and superiority as to Fathers guides Pastors Governours Teachers to whom as sons or scholars we owe the duties of love gratitude reverence submission and obedience for the Lords sake and for their work sake If it be a great sin and deserving the ponderous milstone of Gods heavy judgement as our Saviour tells us to offend causelesly uncharitably and maliciously one of Christs little ones how much greater and more intolerable must the condemnation of those be who wantonly and presumptuously offend yea seek to wound and destroy those that are duly and deservedly the Bishops and Presbyters the chief heads and Fathers Officers and Stewards Guides and Governours even in Christs stead and by his authority over his house and family his Temple and Body which is his Church in the several parts and proportions of it according to the Catholick order and custome used in his Church Of which riotously to make havock to rend to strip and waste all things of good order Catholick custome comely honour authority decency and solemnity to the overthrowing of Christian unity and charity to the dissolving deforming and discountenancing even of that truth those gifts and graces which were in such a Church as this of England was must without all peradventure be no less sin and crime than it is a sacriledge and scandall in S. Austins judgement agreeable to the sense of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria who in his Epistle so famed tels Novatus as much who was a primitive Schismatick or a Saintly Separatist from the Catholick custome judgement and communion of Christs Church For which practice in any case a man must have very great and pregnant grounds as S. Cyprian S. Austin oft observe either in point of gross errors or immoralities obtruded upon a believer in case he will keep communion whereby to justifie his desertion division or separation which upon small and trifling accounts or upon spiteful and malicious principles or for covetous and vain-glorious interests or upon meer jealousies and surmises to violate was ever esteemed by the soundest and soberest Christians in all ages a sin much of the nature and size of Korah's Dathan's and Abiram's transgression or rebellion as S. Cyprian observes applying that History to some such mutinous distempers and unquiet spirits as haunted the Church in his dayes and Diocese That their popular and parasitick crying up of all the Lords people to be holy their rude reproching of Moses and Aaron as taking too much upon them these specious pleas did not serve their turn when Gods searching severity and not vulgar levity credulity or ingratitude was their judge all their plausible pretensions of sanctity and liberty before the people were not able to defend them from those horrid chasms and unheard-of gapings of the earth which by a new way of death swallowed up even quick and yet alive these mutinous novellers and levelling rebels into the black and dreadfull Abyssus of eternall death and darkness whose names and memory yet the Cainites did venerate as the commendable asserters of popular liberty and the Princes or Protoplasts of Schisme as S. Austin observes Nor is the usuall fate of such like insolent and popular perturbers of Christs Church much different or disproportionate at last for either they fall when their pride and folly is manifest into the pit of vulgar hatred contempt and abhorrence or they are swallowed up with carnall lusts with earthly sensuall and devilish passions affections and actions or being at last justly abandoned and abhorred of all sober and good Christians they are by Gods utter forsaking of them plunged into the gulf of their own polluted seared and despairing consciences If those were in the primitive times esteemed as given over to the will and power of Satan who were justly excommunicated from the communion of the true Church of Christ which sentence as Tertullian tells us every good Christian did dread next to that doom of Ite maledicti Goe ye cursed as a dreadful pre-judging before the last and fatal judgement how must they needs lie down in darkness and sorrow who upon no just cause do not onely excommunicate themselves from any one Churches communion in which they were out of a fancy of I know not what liberty but out of an excessive pride arrogancy and boldness of spirit they dare excommunicate even whole National Churches yea such a famous Reformed Church as England nay they exclude the very Catholick Church of Christ in all ages and places from any communion with themselves which certainly is no small height of uncharitableness yea and from all communion with Christ himself which is a strange pitch of Luciferian pride It is no news for the patient but just and righteous God to keep those men and women at a great distance even from himself and from the sweet communion of his holy Spirit who proudly or peevishly despise the communion of any part of his Church in the holy ministrations of the Word Prayer and Sacraments They that hope to kindle to themselves strange fires and light new sparks by their violent strikings and novell agitations in any sound and well-ordered Church God commonly beats the smoky brands ends about their own heads and kindles a fire of displeasure in their own breasts because they cared not to set whole-Churches on fire in order to rost their new-laid
the Scripture as to the name Infant were then as obvious as now nor were there wanting heretical spirits of the Jews and Gnosticks who would have cavilled in this as other points against the true and Orthodox profession if they had not been so palpably over-born and convinced by the pregnancy of the Churches practise and judgement agreeable to the Apostolical Tradition in this point who without doubt had baptized many Infants some years before there was any part of the New Testament written which the Anabaptists so much urge that it had been an intolerable impudence to doubt or deny Infant-baptism or to oppose the after-letter of the N. Testament against the constant and precedent practise of the Apostles and their Successors whose actions were a clear and sufficient yea the best interpretation in the world of the letter of the Scripture in case of any thing that seemed lesse explicite or any way dubious Nor do I doubt but the Church was ever in this so far commendable as it was conformable to the Apostles practise and went upon the same grounds as they did not once erring so Catholick and great an errour as to apply a Sacrament to such as Christ never intended yea denied and forbad it as is pretended and onely therefore pertinacious in all ages after yea so stupid as not to be sensible of so grand an errour or misapplication that it might not be thought to have erred but rather the Church continued constant and without scruple in the doctrine of the Apostles and practise of Infant-baptism as S. Austin urges against Pelagius because they were assured from the beginning it was the mind of Christ which the Apostles best understood and according to which they did constantly practise the baptizing of Infants from the beginning where once the faith was planted in the parents the branches or seed being presently holy in Gods claim or covenant and by the childrens relation to them and to God so soon as the parents were believers and had by receiving the faith and being baptized been brought into the visible fold or flock of Christ The Scriptural Religious and rationall grounds which this and all true Churches went upon in baptizing Infants of believing parents not apostated or excommunicated were these which I oppose to the petty and capricious cavils of the Anabaptists as a mighty wall or bulwark planted with great canon against so many pot-guns or bulrushes CHAP. IX 1. FIrst The Church of God considered the nature of that Evangelical and perpetual Covenant which was explicitely made with Abraham and his seed also confirmed to him and his children by another parallel Ceremony or Sacrament namely of Circumcision which Sign or Seale being as the Anabaptists confesse long ago abrogated rather by the consent practise of the Church than any personal command of Christ that can be alledged who himself was both circumcised and baptized yet 't is certain that the Covenant still continues to Abraham and his seed as eminently contained in Christ by relation to him derived not onely to the Jews after the flesh but to those that are Jews inwardly the Israel of God or spiritual seed of Abrah as he had his name augmented and was to be the Father of many nations not by natural succession but by fiduciary imitation of his faith who is called and commended to Christians as the father of the faithfull whose priviledges Evangelical descend to all those who after Abrahams example do believe the Evangelical promises of blessednesse by Christ these being of the household of faith Abrahams children have right to Abrahams covenant the priviledges of his spirituall seed which reached as to the naturall sons of Abraham and their Infants Jews so to these imitative sons and their infants whom since no word of restraint or forbidding hath excluded from the relation covenant rights priviledges comforts Evangelicall once given to Abraham and to all the family of Faith there was no cause for the Church-Christian to exclude infants of believing parents from partaking that Evangelicall new sign and visible seal which is Baptism set to the ancient Covenant with which either Anabapt must affirm no Infants now have any thing to do no right to it or the benefits by it or they must think infants have this in so tacite blind implicite a way as they nor their parents have any visible sign seal and token of it now in the Christian Church unless they will fall to circumcise their children again who so obstinately deny baptism for that end to infants whatever they think of it as to those of riper years 2. However the Anabaptistick flourishes ratlings as to the crambe of their negations that neither precept nor practise is found in Scripture mentioning Infant-baptism make a great shew noise with common people of small capacities and short-sighted yet the Anabapt have no cause to flatter themselves that they are wiser than all those Divines of Engl. other Churches who can render valid cogent unanswerable both Historick instances and reasons for the Catholick practise of this all Churches in this point and these drawn from the twisted and concurrent sense of Scripture set forth in the words of Christ confirmed by his actions best interpreted by the constant practise of the universal Church as in the second Cent. Orig. tells us the Church alwayes used Infant-bapt which may not be thought to have erred from the Apostles practise in this any more than the Apostles did from Christs mind 3. So that the Anabaptists erre partly by not understanding the Scriptures partly by wresting them They wrest the letter of one or two places to an exclusive sense contrary to the meaning of many other which are inclusive of Infants upon very great reasons and to avoid many absurd consequences as to the state Evangelicall They urge against Infants Baptisme the Scriptures not expresly naming them in precept or practise We might as well urge for them the like silence of Scripture no where by name excluding forbidding or excepting Infants where in common sense they are included as in all nations whole families or housholds where they are either actually baptized or commanded to be baptized by the Apostles without any reserve limitation or exclusion as to Infants 4. The usual parallel also of Circumcision and Baptism which S. Paul urgeth and S. Austin oft observes is of great force to those who consider that this latter Sacrament or sign of Gods covenant to his Church-Christian succeeding to the former as to its end use and vertues may not in reason be thought lesse extensive to Infants in the Church of God than the former was nor may the Antitype be straitned short of the Type In this all the Jewes Church even Infants as well as others were baptized to Moses in the red Sea and the cloud so must all to Christ in the Baptisme of his Blood now in the Church
Austin as a most setled and Catholick practise owned by S. Chrysost Athanas Ambr. Paulinus Gregory Nazian S. Basil Epiphanius so before them by Origen and Irenaeus Of whose testimonies I shall not need here to make more particular mention or repetition for they are in many books of late duly cited which have wrote in English and in Latin of this subject nor can any Anabaptists teeth so gnaw that chain and series of successive Infant-baptisme in the Church of Christ as to break any one link of it or instance in any one author or century where it appears to have been otherwise in the judgement or practise of any one Church or famous person 13. Which Catholick custome of the Church so fully consonant to Scripture and the evident mind of Christ set forth in all his Evangelicall dispensations both general to all men and specially to infants in the Church no judicious sober humble and charitable Christian can either doubt with any shew of reason or dispute against with any shew of modesty Considering that as the custome of the Churches of Christ is stamped with the authority of a law silencing all contradiction and suppressing all novelty by the Apostle S. Paul so Christ himself bids us to heare the Church which if it hold good in lesser censures and determinations of private Congregations how much more is it our duty to be attentive to and observant of the Churches directions which are Catholick whose authority is very great and sacred as the pillar and ground of Truth holding it forth by doctrine and example by Scripture and practise Nor do I doubt that Christ and his Apostles left many things as to the outward polity practise and ministration of Religion lesse clear and expresse in the letter of the Word that thereby the credit and authority of the Catholick Church might be more conspicuous and venerable with all peaceable and orderly Christians who may safely defer this honour to the Catholick Church and to every particular Church agreeing to it as to acquiesce in a conformity to its judgement and practise no way contrary to the Word of God from which it cannot be presumed that the Catholick Church of Christ from the beginning or in any Age did vary either through ignorance or wilfulnesse however particular Churches and Teachers might 14. The Catholick testimony of the Church of Christ is more than a bare humane or historick witnesse it is so sacred so divine so irrefragable that it is more to be valued than an Angels from heaven and therfore ought in all reason and conscience to end such controversies lately raised in the Church and so it would have done long ago if humane passions and interests had not swayed more with some men than matter of conscience and Religion or if the Baptisme of infants were the onely thing that some Anabaptists have an aking tooth at or a mind to pull down No that cannot much hurt them nor doth any mischief or inconvenience follow that pious custome either to parents or children yea much good and comfort accrues to both Religion never thrived but with it no point of faith is prejudiced by it no Evangelicall truth or mercy is diminished or over-stretched but rather asserted and magnified to its due and divine extent Yet Infant-baptisme must be still crucified between the policy of the Anabaptists and their partiality their partiality urgeth one or two limited places against many pregnant and large ones their policy I fear would attain something beyond and more to the advantage of their popular spirits and designes which have in many places been discovered as far from equity and charity in civil regards as they are in this of Baptisme far from verity modesty and antiquity scornfully slighting the testimony of the Churches of Christ in all ages for which undoubtedly they had sufficient warrant from Christ and his Apostles even before the letter of the New Testament was written or the Canon setled Nor did they either need or expect a more explicite commission of baptizing of infants of believing parents than that which was sufficiently expressed as in the generall command to make Disciples in all nations baptizing them so also by the particular words and actions of Christ toward infants not without check to his Disciples also by his requiring all to be born again of Water and the Spirit who pretend to be of the Kingdome of Heaven that is the visible Church and lastly by the former parallell-dispensations of Gods mercy in the Covenant of grace by Circumcision to the members of his Church as children of faithfull Abraham both young and old men and infants 15. Contrary to all which for a few new men spitefully peevishly and everlastingly thus to contest and indeed onely cavill I conceive is not onely a great irreverence and scorn put upon the Church of Christ which we should respect love and honour as the mother of us all but it is an high affront to Christ to his Word Truth and Promise to be ever with it even to the end of the world by his Spirit leading it into all Evangelicall Truths for precept and duty as well as promise and comfort also keeping it from all Catholick Apostasies into any errour destructive to the foundation If they that reject or despise any one of Christs Messengers despise himselfe and his father how much more they that disbelieve despise and discredit so many of his Messengers and Ministers who in all ages have by uniforme word and practise declared to us the mind of Christ as to this point of Infant-baptism By which unhappy Controversie as by many other the strange but just judgements of God have of late in full vials of wrath been poured upon this Church of England by the Anabaptistick spirit chiefly after so much light and truth peace and unity grace and piety poured forth upon us by Gods former munificent mercy sanctifying and sealing with his Spirit and grace in due time that Sacrament of Baptisme which thousands had received in their infancy to their parents comfort to the infants happinesse dying and living also to the great glory of God in this as other Churches in all ages Nor is there to this day after so many bickerings and contests so many publick heats and flames kindled upon this and other accounts any way of wisdome and meeknesse publickly used by which to quench these flames of wild-fire which threaten not onely to scorch but utterly to consume this Reformed and truly Catholick Church with all its true Ministers and holy ministrations in which the Anabaptists are highly subservient to the Papists grand projects and designs which is to deface disgrace and quite overthrow all the frame of Reformed Religion and the face of any either uniform or reformed Church in England CHAP. XII FOr my part I freely professe that if the administration of Baptisme in point of age and time
as to question the usual and approved practise of it from all times which S. Austin so vehemently affirmes that in his Epistle to Volusia he sayes The custom of our Mother the Church in baptizing Infants as it is not to be neglected as superfluous so nor would it have been either practised or believed unlesse it had been so delivered by the Apostles as their undoubted sense and practise which Pelagius did not yea could not with any colour deny as S. Austin observes though it had much served his design about original sin if he could in that point have baffled the credit custome and authority of the Catholick Church which S. Cyprian who lived in the second Century so beyond all cavill or scruple so industriously and fully sets down that if there were no other testimonies of the Ancients that alone would satisfie any sober man being written not upon any heat of dispute but calmly and clearly as of a matter ever done and never under dispute in the Church to his dayes But I have in this part done more than I designed in order to advance not strifes and further contention but Christian peace and charity on all sides in this Church and Nation as to those religious differences which are a great occasion of our miseries CHAP. XIV FRom the Deformities Divisions and Degeneration of Religion also the Falsifications Usurpations and Devastations which of later years have been made by the violent sort of Anabaptists and other furious Sectaries against the Unity and Authority the Sanctity and Majesty of the Church of England destroying its Primitive Order and Apostolick Government its Catholick Succession its holy Ordination its happy and most successfull Ministry to the great neglect and contempt of all holy ministrations and duties of Religion I cannot but further intimate to your piety and prudence O my honoured Countrey-men that which is most notorious and no lesse dangerous both in religious and civil respects namely the great Advantages Applauses and Increases which the Roman or Papal party daily gain against the Reformed Religion as it was once wisely honourably and happily established professed and maintained here in England which is now looked upon by the more subtill superstitious and malicious sort of Papists as deformed divided dissolved desolated so conclamate for dead that they fail not with scorn to boast that in England we have now no Church no Pastors no Bishops no Presbyters no true Ministry no holy Ministrations no Order no Unity no Authority no Reverence as to things Divine or Ecclesiastick Insomuch that we must in this sad posture not onely despair of ever getting ground against the Romanists by converting any of them from the errours of their way to the true Reformed Religion but we must daily expect to lose ground to the Popish party and their Proselytes there being no banks or piles now sufficient to keep the Sea of Rome from over-flowing or undermining us in order to advance their restlesse interests which have been and still are mightily promoted not by the reverend Bishops and the other Episcopal Clergie who are men of Learning Piety Prudence and Martyr-like constancy as some men with more Heat than Wit more Spite than Truth have in their mechanick and vulgar Oratory of late miserably and falsely declaimed but by those who have most done the Popes work while they have seemed most furiously to flie in the Popes face as popularly zealous against Popery and yet at the same time by a strange giddinesse headinesse and madnesse they have risen up against that Mother-Church which bare them and those Fathers in it who heretofore mightily defended them and theirs from the talons and gripes of that Roman Eagle and this not with childish scufflings or light skirmishings to which manner of fight the illiterate weaknesse and rudenesse of our new Masters and Champions hath reduced those Controversies but with such a Panoply or compleat Armour of proof such sharp Weapons such ponderous Engines such rare dexterity of well-managed Powers raised from all Learning both Divine and Humane that the high places and defences of Rome were not able to stand before them heretofore when they were battered by our Jewels our Lakes our Davenants our Whites our Halls our Mortons our Andrews and the late invincible Usher who deserved to be Primate not onely of Ireland but of all the Protestant Forces in the world All these were Bishops Worthies of the first three seconded in their ranks by able and orderly Presbyters as Whitakers Perkins Reynolds Whites Crakanthorps Sutliffs and innumerable others while our Regiments were orderly our Marchings comely and our Forces both united and encouraged Whereas now there is no doubt but the mercilesse mowing down and scattering of the Clergie of England like Hay with the withering and decay of Government Regularity and Order in this Church these have infinitely contributed to the Papall harvest and Romish agitations the gleanings of whose Emissaries will soon amount to more than the sheaves of any the most zealous and reformed Ministers in England By the Papall interests and advantages I doe not mean the Roman Clergies preaching or propagating those Truths of Christian Doctrine Duties which for the main they profess in common with us and all Christian Churches if any of them be thus piously industrious I neither quarrell at them nor envy their successes but rather I should rejoyce in them with S. Paul because however Christ crucified is preached by some whom common people will either more reverence or sooner believe than they generally doe the decayed despised divided Ministers of Engl. who seem to have many of them so small abilities and carrying so little shew or pretence of any good authority for their work ministeriall nor can they be potent or esteemed abroad who are so impotent and disesteemed at home But I mean that Papall Monarchy or Ecclesiasticall Tyranny by which the Church or rather the Court of Rome by such sinister Arts and unjust Policies as were shamefully used and discovered in the Tridentine conventicle seeks to usurp and continue an imperiall power over all Churches and Bishops as if there had been but one Apostle or one Apostolick Church planted in the world also to corrupt abuse that ancient Purity Simplicity and Liberty of Religion which was preserved among Primitive Churches and their coordinate Bishops Further without fear of God or reverence of man opposing some Divine Truths and undoubted institutions of Christ also imposing such erroneous Doctrines and superstitious Opinions upon all Christians to be believed and accordingly practised as become not the severity and sanctity of true Religion adding to that holy foundation which was indeed first laid by the great Apostles and continued happily for many hundred years by the successive Bishops of Rome those after superstructures not of ceremonies onely which are tolerable many of them like feathers making but little weight in Religion but of corrupt Doctrines and
rejoyce in that vengeance which they conclude God hath made upon our Schismes Errours Obstinacies and Persecutions against them by our mutuall confusions Hence must daily and necessarily follow secret inclinations and accessions to the Roman party by all those who are not well grounded in the Reformed Religion or not much prejudiced against the Popish Errours or are indifferent for any Religion which is most easie or pleasing These at length will warp to the Roman party as the most specious of any so that unlesse there be a speedy restauration of the honour of the Church of England I see not how it is possible to prevent that fatall relapse either to Romish superstition and slavery or else to a dreadfull persecution which will in time necessarily follow those dissipations and destructions of this Reformed Church its Ministry Government and Religion which some men have already too much still do beyond measure so industriously promote to the excessive joy and gratifying of the Popish party and designes which are not onely invasive upon the honour and freedome of this Nation but highly scandalous to our Reformed Profession and dangerous to our consciences especially as we yet stand convinced of the Errours Superstitions and Sacriledges of the Romish Religion since it lapsed from the Primitive Institutions of Christ the patterns of the Apostles the ancient Communion of Christian Churches and the fraternall Coordination of Bishops who were alwayes united in orderly happy and harmonious Aristocracies rather than subordinate to any one Monarchicall Supremacy as to Ecclesiasticall Power and Jurisdiction however they had such regulation and primacy of order by Patriarchs and Metropolitans among Bishops and the representers of severall Churches as became wise men that were numerous when they met in great Councils or Church-Assemblies CHAP. XV. I Cannot but here recommend it to the most serious consideration of all wise and worthy Christians who make conscience and not policy of Religion as Christian and Reformed That however the soberest sort of Christians in Engl. do in many and possibly in most things necessary to salvation which are not very numerous agree both charitably and cheerfully with those of the Roman Church as to our common Faith in Jesus Christ and hope of Salvation by his merits in the way of an holy life and good works yet as it will never be hoped that the Papists shall return to a communion with us while we are so divided among our selves and daily excommunicating each other from Church and Christ and Heaven so it will be very difficult and dangerous both in point of conscience and prudence of sin and safety for you or your posterity to return to a plenary and visible Communion with the Papal profession or Roman Conventions considering how we now stand convinced in our judgements and so will many of your posterity ever be untill all Books of controversie which no purgatory Index can correct are burnt or buried by which you and they must needs be so well informed as to be justly opposite and uncompliant to those Errours Superstitions and Sacriledges which the Roman party seeks to impose upon all those that will have visible communion with them which no consciencious Christian can swallow down when they appear to him not onely different from but contradictive in plain termes to that Word of God which themselves with us do own to be the rule of faith and manners the measure of all true Religion contrary to which some of their Tenets Injunctions and Practises seem to us either to rob God of his peculiar honour and omniscience which is to search hearts to heare and answer the prayers of our souls as well as our lips or to rob Christ of the glory of his onely Merit Mediation Satisfaction and Intercession for us or lastly to rob the Church of Christ of that pure and plenary perception of Christs holy Institutions and blessed Sacraments to which they adde and detract as they please performing religious offices most-what in such a language as most people cannot understand and so not be edified either in their judgements or affections which ought in all reason by holy duties to be either more enlightened or judiciously warmed and devoutly excited to the knowledge of God to the love of Christ to an holy Life and mutuall Charity To remove all which Deformities Disorders and Indignities put upon religious Mysteries by the Church of Rome the Church of England with great Prudence Piety and Charity did assert and restore to a Scripturall rectitude primitive simplicity and sober decency the state of this Church and Nation by a just necessary and prudent Reformation of those Romish Errours Superfluities and Corruptions which had with great fraud and fallacy prevailed upon this as other parts of Christendome here in the Western world Which great and happy work of due Reformation was begun carried on and compleated not by any forraign or intestine Swords not by popular and tumultuary rudenesse as in many places which are the odious methods of the Devil to blast over-drive and pervert due and true Reformation in Churches or States but in Gods peaceable just and holy way by such publick lawful and complete Authority both Ecclesiasticall and Civil as this Church and Nation had originally in it self without any authoritative or subordinate dependance upon any forraign State or Church Prince or Prelate however it did in Charity so comply for many years and correspond with the pristine renown and eminency of the Roman Church as might most preserve Order and unity in the Christian world till it felt as well as saw the Roman Yoke to be intolerable in honour and conscience Which Independent and absolute state of this Church and Monarchy as to the originall right and power of it in it self hath been unanswerably asserted as by others so of late by those very reverend learned and judicious persons who have made it their businesse in particular Tracts to defend this Church and Christian State from the just charge of any unjust Schisme in respect of the Roman Communion and Jurisdiction or usurpation rather resuming upon good grounds both as to Divine and Humane Lawes that supreme power which is inherent and unalienable in this Nation both in Prince Nobility Prelates and People for the preserving of true Religion and reforming it as need shall require in order to the Honour Peace and Happinesse both of Prince and People Church and State who never did nor indeed ever could alienate or give away from themselves and their posterity those primitive ancient Rights or Immunities of the Nation which if any had in the darkness drowziness of times by great artifices and pretensions encroached upon all Reason and Justice required that when Prince and People awaked out of their dreams and superstitious slumbers they should reassume those honorary powers and hereditary priviledges of Church and State which were cunningly lurched or filched from them while they were dozed or asleep
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
rewards of Valour Learning Industry Parts and as they think of Piety it self onely or chiefly bestowed on those that adhere to and symbolize with the prevailing party which is the onely rising side all others despairing to rise till the great Resurrection unlesse by power or policy they can undermine or overthrow the predominant faction In these nests of Religious differences and zealous emulations are the eggs of all civill discontents popular seditions and pernicious rebellions commonly layed and hatched to the infinite hazard and many times utter ruine of civill States which are never so safe as when all parts of them like the parts of a globe or sphere fairly correspond with each other by the unity and intirenesse of the same Religion whose content or orbe is the holy Scripture whose centre is Gods glory and whose circumference is Christian love unanimity or Charity without any of which Religion is but a Rhapsody of mens opinions passions and ambition From these holy confinements when once Christians come to divide as to their Religion they soon fall to defie to destroy yea to damne one another Every party hath such high paroxysmes of zealous hopes and presumptions for their way that they presently ascend Gods Throne and Christs Tribunall severely judging all men but themselves which judiciall and uncharitable arrogancies have as we see at this day not onely in England but in all the Christian world so filled and inflamed mens minds with cruell counter-curses and angry Anathema's against each other that if Gods last doome should echo after the clamours and censures of Christians passions we must all be damned every mothers child of us notwithstanding that we all professe to believe and serve the same God and Saviour If not every particular person of each party who may have more moderation and charity yet to be sure the froth and scumme the populacy and vulgarity of them which are alwaies boyled highest these mutually condemne each other not to a Purgatory or a Limbo onely but to a very Hell of infernall and eternall torments Thus many Protestants utterly damne all Papists as if God had no people in that Babylon of Popery the Honesty Humility and Simplicity of whose Faith Works and Hearts may bring them out of the contagion of Romes Plagues Policies and Superstitions Papists on the other side universally damne all Protestants though they hold all the ancient Creeds and Articles of Faith though they practise all Christian necessary duties and keep to the Primitive Order of the Catholick Church onely because they will not tye the keyes of Faith Conscience Scripture Religion and Church-Government to the Popes girdle or absolutely submit to him in a blind obedience against Reason Scripture and History as to the surly Jaylour rather than the safe keeper of Christian and true Religon In like manner the violent Lutherans call the Calvinists Devils and the passionate Calvinists defie the Lutherans as luke-warme Protestants and smelling too rank of Rome Look to the eager and acute Arminians the Socinians the moderne Pelagians the Anabaptists Catabaptists Familists the Seekers Ranters and Quakers As the Independent Presbyterian and Episcopall hands so these are generally full either of firebrands from hell or thunderbolts from heaven which are eagerly cast by the more violent Spirits in each others faces as Hereticks or Schismaticks as Antichrists and Hypocrites as deceived and deceiving Nor will the Zealots and bigots on any side make any great scruple if they have power to destroy those whom they account no better than desperate and damnable even in their Religion Amidst and against all which factious discriminations of Religion every Nation and Polity which either is or would seem to be wise must seek to preserve its safety by establishing some Uniformity and Unity in its publick profession For no nation is farre from misery that is pestred with variety of Religions and is fixed at no certainty The sad example of this Church and State of England besides our neighbours is an instance as unanswerable as palpable for the Church of England stood Neuter as to all the sides and factions of Christendom yet held so far Communion with Greek and Latine Reformed and Romane Lutheran and Calvinian Churches as it saw they held communion with the Scriptures and with the ancient Catholick Symbols or Councils which were the best boundaries of Christian Religion It had if not more yet as much Solidity and Sincerity Piety and Proficiency Gifts and Graces Charity and Moderation Order and Good polity as any yea all of them farre lesse of Partiality Popularity Novelty Oppression Superstition and Confusion than almost any one of them while the favour of God and man shined upon her strangely blest with Peace Plenty Honor and Prosperity while it kept its Ecclesiastick Order and Uniformity in Religion which was the chief soder or cement of civill Tranquillity This Palladium once stolne away by the Jesuitick subtilties and other factious policies how have the Temples and Towers of our Troy the Churches and Palaces of our Jerusalem the Oratories and Houses both of God and man falne to the ground not with their own age infirmity or weight but battered and subverted chiefly by those Engines which factious fury and devout ambition puts into all mens hands upon the score of their Religion a fate which still threatens all the remaines of Religion and Peace that have yet escaped if God be not so mercifull to this Land as to shew us some Balsam that may heale the Divisions and Wounds of our Church and Religion which will easily fester and inflame the body politick of any Nation for civil Peace cannot be firm where publick Piety is not sound and setled nor can any Kingdom or Common-weale be established in which true Religion is either baffled or abased by being divided and distracted But suppose that you O my Noble Countrymen and your posterity should enjoy a moments miserable prosperity and a pitifull kind of peace meerly upon the account of a meer Mahometan power and Gladiatorian Prevalency of one side possibly over-awing all other parties and pretensions of Religion or so counterpoising them by secular policies to some consistency as doth rather distort and depresse than advance or encourage the progresse of that true Piety and Christian Charity which are the surest marks of Christianity and of Gods favour to any people yet I presume you are so piously prudent as to consider First that such worldly tranquillity and prosperity are scarce worth owning or enjoying apart from that sweet harmony and fruition which goes with true Religion and flowes from it when it keeps the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace when its sacred oyntment is diffused from the head Christ Jesus not onely to the chief members of his body but even to the skirts of his clothing the use and capacity of the meanest believer in an holy Unity and happy Uniformity not onely of true Doctrine but of comely Order and charitable
part of the whole body so it exerciseth this authority with such confusion and passion with so much Childishnesse and petulancy that there is little or nothing of due subordination feare reverence and submission as to any Divine Authority as of Conscience of or for Christs sake but every one takes offence when he listeth growes froward and insolent divides and so destroyes as much as in him lyes and at as easie a rate as one doth crush a worme those petty bodies and puny Churches which are indeed but Infants Embryo's and Pygmies compared to that stature and strength that procerity and puissance which of old was preserved and ever ought to be in the Church of Christ when it hath its peace and growth not shred into poor patches and pittifull parcels but united maintained and managed in conspicuous combinations in ample and august proportions in which may well be contained many thousands of Christian people some hundreds of worthy Presbyters and Deacons under some one or more venerable Bishops in so holy so happy and so handsome a subordination or dependency as was of old that whatever was done by the Authority of those that ruled or the Humility of those that obeyed all was done with Charity and Unanimity while excellent Bishops knew how to keep the true temper of Christian Government and both Presbyters and people concurred with them in filial obedience and fraternall love CHAP. X. THus we see every party or side however it justifie or magnifie it selfe yet it falls under either the blame or jealousie of its rivals as defective or excessive yet not so much in the fundamentals of Religion or main points either for Doctrine Worship Duty or Manners as chiefly in matters of Ordination Discipline and Government Nor is the difference here so broad that any side denies them as necessary both in the parts and whole in greater and lesser proportions for the Church of Christ but the reall dispute is who shall mannage and execute them in whom the chief power and Authority shall reside whether eminently in Bishops or solely in Presbyters or supremely in the people as the Alpha and Omega the first recipient and the last result of Church-power All sides except Fanaticks Seekers and Enthusiasts seem to agree as in the Canon of the Scripture so in the soundnesse of the faith in the sanctity of divine mysteries in the celebration of them by such as are some way ordained and authorised for that holy service also in the participation of them by such onely as are in the judgement of Charity worthy or meet to be partakers of them All agree in the main Christian graces virtues and morals required in a good Christians practise yet still each party is suspected and reproched by others the brisk Independent boasts of the Liberty simplicity and purity of his way yet is blamed for Novelty Subtilty Vulgarity Anarchy the rigid Presbyterian glories in his Aristocratick Parity and levelling community which makes every petty Presbyter a Pope and a Prince though he disdain to be a Priest yet is taxed for petulancy popularity arrogancy and novelty casting off that Catholick and ancient order which God and Nature Reason and Religion all civill and military policy both require and observe among all societies Episcopacy justly challengeth the advantages right and honor of Apostolick and Primitive Antiquity of universality and unity beyond any pretenders yet is this condemned by some for undue incrochments and oppressions upon both Ministers and peoples ingenuous Liberty and Christian priviledge by a kind of secular height and arbitrary soveraignty to which many Bishops in after-ages have been betrayed as by their own pride and ambition so by the indulgence of times the munificence of Christian Princes and sometimes by the flatteries of people Take away the popular principle of the first which prostrates Government to the vulgar Take away the levelling ambition of the second which degrades Government to a very preposterous and unproportionate parity Take away the monopoly of the third which seems to ingrosse to one man more than is meet for the whole each of them will be sufficiently purged as I conceive of what is most dangerous or noxious in them for which they are most jealous of and divided from each other Restore to people their Liberty in some such way of choosing or at least approving their Ministers and assenting to Church-censures as may become them in reason and conscience restore to Presbyters their priviledges in such publick counsel and concurrence with their Bishops as may become them lastly restore to Bishops that Primitive precedency and Catholick presidency which they ever had among and above Presbyters both for that chief Authority or Eminency which they ever had in ordaining of Presbyters and Deacons also in exercising such Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Censures that nothing be done without them I see no cause why any sober Ministers and wise men should be unsatisfied nor why they should longer stand at such distances and defiances as if the Liberties of Christian people the Privileges of Christian Presbyters and the Dignity of Christian Bishops were wholly inconsistent whereas they are easily reconciled and as a threefold cord may be so handsomely twisted together that none should have cause to complaine or be jealous all should have cause to joy in and enjoy each other Bishops should deserve their eminency with the assistance counsel and respect of their Presbyters Bishops and Presbyters might enjoy the love reverence and submission of Christian people both people and Presbyters might be blessed with the orderly direction and fatherly protection of the Bishops all should have the blessings of that sweet subordination harmony and unity which best becomes the Church of Jesus Christ both in the Governors and Governed in Ministers and People wherein we see the most Antiepiscopall Presbyters and refractory people cannot but be so sensible by their own sufferings of the want of some principle of order some band of unity and some ground of due Authority among them that they are forced to make use of some Moderator Chaire-man or Prolocutor as a kind of temporary Pilot and arbitrary Bishop there being no regular moving of popular bodies in Church or State without such an head or President as the rudder of a ship whose order as it is usefull so then most when it is fixed and confirmed with a valid power and venerable authority which are the maine wheeles of all Government As for the Sacramentall scrutinies and other holy severities to be used in any part of Christian Discipline with charity and discretion however the Presbyterian and Independent preachers have very much sought in this point to captate popular applause and exalt themselves above measure as if they exacted farre greater rigors of preparatory sufficiency and sanctity than the Episcopall Clergy ever did or do either require or practise Yet is this but either a vapour or a fallacy or a calumny in respect of the
corners and dissolved the face of any visible Church on earth if after the severall sad dispersions and vastations of them the chief Pastors and Bishops of the Church succeeding to the ordinary power of Apostles had not either in Oecumenick Councills or in their particular Diocess Provinces taken care with their brethren to call together and settle in Holy Communion of faith and manners the remaines of their dispersed Presbyters and disordered people To which good work of calling Councils and Synods for the rectifying and restoring of Religion all good Christian Emperours besides the Bishops did cheerfully contribute both their favour and Treasure as the most noble way in the world to employ them Shall the Counsels and powers the tributes and revenues of Christian Magistrates and people be onely laid out in making war at home and abroad onely to recover or keep up their civill peace or to build their own houses and is nothing to be laid out to maintain the Faith of Christ to keep the fort of Sion and to build the Towers and Temple of Jerusalem to restore and preserve the Purity and Peace the Sanctity and Solemnity the Order and Authority of Christian yea Reformed Religion Must that be left like Pauls to impaire or repaire it self as well as it can or onely be committed to the care of such men as are commonly better at pulling down than building up Churches who neither know how to begin nor how to end any Church-work having neither heads nor hands materialls nor skill line nor rule fit for such businesse And when they have done all they can in bungling and new waies neither the Clergy or Ministers under their power nor the Laity or people under their command will much more regard as to conscience what is so done by only Lay-mens magisterial decrees and imperial appointments than they now do consider the Covenant and Holy League or the Directory and Engagement new models for Religion cut out not so much by nationall Synods and Councils as by swords and pistols and accordingly both esteemed and used by all men that are of sound and judicious minds not corrupted with partiality credulity popularity and novelty For how can those bind the conscience of the Nation in the most indifferent things of Religion who never had the choice counsell or consent of all Estates in the nation either to advise or determine or enjoyne any such things which require to make them valid and conscientiously obligatory the Soveraignes call the Clergies counsell and the Parlaments sanction CHAP. XVI I Well know how hard a work it is for the best and wisest of men to stop the leakes of Religion to repaire a broken Church or to buoy up a sunk and lapsed Clergy when once they are either overwhelmed with the corrupt Doctrines and licentious manners of Preachers and Professors or split with intestine Schismes and Divisions or debased with vulgar usurpations and presumptions or oppressed with the secular policies and sacrilegious injuries of violent and unreasonable men who are alwaies afraid lest the renewed light and restored vigor of true Religion with the due Authority of its Ministry in the Church should give any stop or check to their extravagant lusts and enormous actions To which purpose such pragmaticks will be sure either utterly to hinder all good meanes that may effectually recover the true interests of Religion and its Ministry or else they labour impertinently to apply such onely as they know will render them more uncurable and set them next doore to an impossibility Which will be the State of the Church of England if the Recovery of Religion as to its visible Beauty Order Unity and Polity be either managed by Lay-mens Counsels and activities onely excluding all Ministers from all publick equall and impartiall consultations or if on the other side Church-affaires be wholly left to the various heads divided hands and partiall designes of such as are now called Preachers and pretend to be Ministers among whom commonly the weakest heads have the most pragmatick hands and men of least abilities are greatest sticklers though it be but more to puzzle confound and destroy themselves and others On the other side such Clergy-men as have most of solid Learning sober Piety sacred Authority and real Sufficiencies for such a work will be either afraid or ashamed to act or assist in it if they have not some publick Commission with equall and impartiall incouragement from those in power For certaine meer mechanick and illiterate preachers such as some people now most affect will never be able if willing to do any good in so great and good a work no more than wasps are like to make honey Ignorance and disorder faction and confusion being for their interest as muddy places are best for Eeles Other Ministers though never so willing and able yet as tooles that are blunt and have no edge set on them can never carry on such a work handsomely unlesse their late rust and dis-spiriting their poverty and depression be taken off unlesse their mutuall contempts distances and jealousies be fairly removed unlesse they be restored to such Charity Comfort and Courage as becomes Learned and Godly Ministers Such a constitution as was heretofore most eminently to be seen in the Ecclesiasticall Synods and Convocations of the English Clergy while they enjoyed by the favours of munificent Princes and the assistance of unanimous Parlaments those many noble priviledges both of Honor and Estate together with their undoubted Ecclesiasticall Authority which were by ancient and moderne Lawes setled upon them which kept up the Learning and Religion the Credit and Comfort of the Clergy of this Nation to so great an height both of Love and Reputation that neither the petulancy of people nor the arrogancy of any parasitick preachers either dared or were able thus to divide and wound them and the Church through the pretences of such Liberties and Reformations as knew no bounds of modesty or common honesty so far were they from any true grounds of piety or Christianity Nor will the divided and depressed State of Religion in this Church ever recover its pristine vigor its due authority its holy influence or its honorable esteem unlesse you O my noble and honored Countrymen who are persons of most publick eminence and influence be pleased to make it one of the chiefest objects of your Counsells Prayers and endeavours to revive the drooping Spirits to raise the dejected estate and to re-compose the shattered posture of the Clergy or Ministry of England in whose ruine the Reformed Religion will be ruined and in whose recovery true Christian Religion will be recovered to its just harmony stability and honor for it is impossible that Religion as Christian and Reformed should enjoy either unity reverence or authority while the chief Pastors Preachers and Professors of it are in so dubious debased and divided a condition Since then the Religious happinesse of this Church and Nation chiefly depends
the very beasts of the people are so far flattered as to be suffered with their foule feet daily to trouble and confound that cleare fountain and constant streame of Ministeriall Authority and Ecclesiasticall succession by way of Episcopall Ordination which was ever of so solemn and conspicuous use in all Churches of so venerable a succession of so ancient and uninterrupted a derivation from the very Apostles dayes and hands that it never failed to keep its course as some rivers do through salt waters amidst all the confusions which either heathenish hereticall or schismaticall persecutions raised in the Church Yea no Hereticks no Schismaticks except Aerius and his few complices who discontent for not obtaining a Bishoprick which â—e sought and turning Arrian was the first the onely and the fitâ—â—st engine to oppose Episcopacy as Epiphanius observes were ever so wild so fanatick so desperate as to cast off all Episcopall succession Authority over them both in Ordination and jurisdiction yea they knew no meanes to keep their confederacies and factions better together than that which they saw had alwaies been serviceable to preserve the true Churches communion Though the Manicheans Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Pelagians and others together with the Novatians Donatists withdrew from or were justly excluded by the Bishops of the sound and orthodox profession yet still these Heterodox Opiniasters had not onely Deacons and Presbyters but Bishops of their own Some of which Bishops afterward returning to the Catholick Communion were not degraded from their Episcopall power but onely suspended from the exercise of it in another Bishops jurisdiction or Diocese without his leave which being granted to some of them gave occasion to those Chorepiscopi which were Bishops without particular title and locall jurisdiction but yet enjoying and using this power of Ordination in some Country-Townes and Villages by the permission of the Bishop or Metropolitane of the Diocese or Province residing in the chief City which indulgence was after as the Church-Histories tell us taken away from the Chorepiscopi when it was found to occasion great inconveniences by admitting two Bishops in one Precinct or Diocese Certainly what is so pregnantly Catholick and usefull that not onely all good men but even such as were evill could not but approve and use it it were not onely folly but frenzy to cast quite away if it were the full vote and free act of the Nation What Apology could be sufficient to excuse this Nation either among Churches abroad or to posterity at home when they should see that by a rash partiall and popular precipitancy we have been hurried against all Reason Honor and Religion to forsake or to stop up the ancient fountaines of living waters which have alwaies flowed from Episcopall Ordination supplying this as all Churches in all places and offices with orderly Presbyters and usefull Deacons onely to try what those pits will afford which novellers have digged to themselves and which they eagerly obtrude upon this Church notwithstanding they are already found by sad experience to hold no such cleare and pure waters either for Doctrine or Discipline for Authority or Unity for Order or Peace as those were which the Apostles digged and the Catholick Church ever used and esteemed for sacred In this great point then of Right Ordination and true Ministeriall Authority of which the Learned Mr. Mason professeth next his salvation he desires to be assured it is as I humbly conceive not onely piously but prudently necessary for our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry to be effectually vindicated and by all possible meanes fairly united If there were ever any other way of Ordination used or allowed in the Church of Christ let the Authors Histories and instances be produced either as to their grounds or their practise If there were never any other either used or approved or thought of besides that which was in the Church of England managed by Bishops as necessary and chief agents in it truly it is but Justice Reason Conscience and Honor to own this Truth to follow this Catholick precedent to returne to an holy conformity with pious Antiquity which neither invented nor induced Bishops or Episcopall Ordination and jurisdiction as an affected novelty or a studied variety but they followed doubtlesse herein what was received from the very first Bishops who succeeded to the Apostles as authorized and placed by them So that as the succession of Bishops was lineally reducible to the Apostles which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Nicephorus and others evidently prove not onely by their publick Registers but by their private memories when the names of Bishops were fresh in Christians minds and not very numerous as in the second and third Centuries No lesse may be affirmed of Ordination by Bishops it had its precept and pattern from the Apostles expresly committed and enjoyned to some persons as chief Bishops never trusted to meer Presbyters alone much less to people in common so far as any Record of the Church Sacred or Ecclesiastick doth informe us whose constant silence in this case is a better Testimony against all innovation of Ecclesiasticall Ordination than all the Sorites the Rhapsodies heapes and scamblings of I know not what broken scraps and wrested allegations out of any Scriptures or Fathers can be by which I see some men have sought with much dust sweat and blood to bring in their new uncertaine unaccustomed and unauthentick formes of Ordination exclusive of any President or Bishop who ever was as the principall Verb in a sentence which cannot be wanting without making the sense of all other words very lame defective incoherent and insignificant These grand perswasions joyned to the sad experiences made in Englands late variations do thus far command me to be more intent and earnest that in this point of valid complete undoubted and most authoritative Ordination we might be made uniform that all Ministers like currant money might have the same image and superscription upon them It is most certaine that the Christian and Reformed Religion will never be able to shine either clearly or constantly or comfortably upon the consciences of Christians either as Ministers or people while it is in this great point of Ordination so darkned clouded and eclipsed that it lookes like the Sun wrapped in sackcloth or the Moon turned into blood What Ministry what Ministers what Ordination what Ordained what Ordainers what Ordinances of Christ will in time be much esteemed in England by the Nobility Gentry or Yeomanry when they shall see various waies of Ordination daily invented and obtruded pittifull Novelties induced uniform Antiquity discarded Primitive Episcopacy exautorated a subordinate Presbytery scorned a popular parity and petulancy indulged every where to make what extemporary Priests and Preachers they list of the dregs and meanest of the people as little God knowes to their own soules benefit as to the Churches peace or to the honor of this Nation though they do it with as much
intrusted in the late Kings daies to some Feoffees for this use had so attractive a spirit and diffusive an influence in England that I believe by this time the work had been much advanced if not well-nigh finished in all probability if it had been begun carried on and nourished by as much publick favour as it deserved in the design if it was without any leven of faction sincerely to Gods glory to this Churches good and the Nations both honor and happinesse which will never so much thrive by the vast charges of any domestick or forraigne war as it would by one such noble benevolence and contribution which would very much set the Reformed Religion on floate again which every where now toucheth ground by reason of the low estate either of many Ministers who have small and killing Livings with great Charges or of the poor people who must needs have leane and starving preaching yea some people have no Ministers at all others as good or worse then none men whose sordid lives confute all that little they do or can preach which God knowes is very little and little worth full of froth and vapour if they aime to make up their abilities with popularity or very flat and dead while they are at best very small and run very low in their preaching praying and living And all this misery for want of such ingenuous meanes as should invite entertaine encourage and oblige a Minister to be able carefull and painfull among them which is now more necessary than heretofore because the fashion we see is to have all duties exposed to and performed by Ministers private abilities and personall sufficiencies which are not to be obtained nor maintained nor encreased at cheap rates But this great and good work so much to the honor stability and advantage of the Reformed Religion as it would be infinitely to the regret of the Romane party who are glad with exceeding great joy to see the Reformed Learned and Renowned Clergy of England thus foyled and cast down to the ground licking the dust of mens feet and trampled under foot so it is a mercy which Satan hath hitherto envyed and hindred to this Church and Nation by Gods permission who hath hitherto thought fit to deny such a blessing both to Ministers and people from whom he hath suffered the policies and passions of men in order to save their purses of late to take away almost all that ancient Ecclesiasticall patrimony or dowry of Estate and honor which was long agoe given to maintain the dignity and authority of this Churches Ministry and Government in the persons of its Ecclesiasticall Governours Bishops and others of the dignified Clergy who I think might very well deserve as good salaries as any Major Generalls Colonels and Captaines being no lesse both usefull and necessary for the eutaxy or good ordering of the spirituall Militia in the Church than those are for the secular Militia in the state if they were as duly impowered payed and encouraged as the others are Nor do I doubt but if ever this Nation be so happy as to know its greatest defects and miseries in this point and heartily to resolve the speedy applying of meet remedies to them it will be so wise and worthy so just and generous as to find out waies not onely to provide a setled competency for all competent Preachers but also to annex some comely and honorary reward to the eminency of those who shall be fit to be used and owned as chief Presidents Moderators and Governours that is Bishops in the Church without which all Religious polity will be as a body without sinewes For Rulers without some remarques of estate and respect upon them will be like veines without blood or spirits I have heard there are yet some such fragments remaining of the Bishops and Cathedrall Lands unsold which might serve in this case to good use Theodoret tells us that Constantine the Great gave provision of Corne out of the Imperiall Granaries to Christian Bishops the better to sustaine their dignity which allowance Julian the Apostate took away from them but following Christian Emperours restored to them That great and witty engine of Antichristian policy Julian well knew that neither the Polity Order and Government of the Church nor yet Christian Religion it self in peacefull and plentifull times can thrive increase or prevaile among the generality of mankind if it be not either loved or reverenced neither of which it can be if it be not publickly valued valued it cannot appeare to them when they see the chief dispensers of it despised despised of necessity they must be if either their spirituall and sacred Authority be doubted and denyed or their civill condition be either necessitous or no way conspicuous which posture will soon give great advantages to any contrary party and faction never so deformed with error and superstition against all pretentions that may be brought of such reformation as shall end in the beggerie and desolations in the disorders and distresses of its chief Preachers and Professors Under which burdens of poverty and disgrace Reformed Religion and its able Ministry wil soon decay and moulder away to nothing while poverty and contempt shall be on this side but plenty with honor shall attend the deformities of its enemies I know there have been of late some petty projects offered by men of wary and thrifty piety to levell greater Livings and to make such augmentations to one Minister as shall gripe and grieve another so robbing Peter to enrich Paul But alas so grand and heroick a work is not to be done any way except by publick munificence either of restitution and donation or redemption purchase which may redeem the long captive Livings from Papal Appropriations Regal Confiscations and Layâ— Impropriations which have a long time detained them from those Religious uses and ends for which they were at first by God designed and by man devoted which was the comfortable subsistence of preaching Ministers that they might help both to save the soules and to relieve the bodily necessities of poor Christians who will never learne or value true Religion very much when they see the preacher one of the poorest men in the parish jealous that when he dyeth the parish must be charged with his poor wife and children Alas Ministers are sad Pastors of soules when they want food for their own bodies they are pittifull Rulers of Christs flock who are in worse case than ordinary poor shepherds who have their scrip as well their crook and something in their bag to relieve as well as in their hand to discipline their sheep and defend themselves But I leave this to many men unwelcome consideration of Ministers maintenance either as governing or governed to the wisdome of those who have largest hearts purest consciences and liberallest hands None but such will lay to heart so great a concerne as this is for Gods glory Christs honor and the good of souls
Bishop in that Precinct or Oeconomy which either the Apostles had constituted or the Church had digested it self into as it increased Contrary to which meridian patterne and most manifest exemplar of Church-Government if as learned Zanchy acknowledgeth any one instance in any age or place of any Father Councill or Historian could be found of any one Church in its grand Polity or larger Communion I confesse I should then make some scruple whether Episcopall Government however it might seem the best were the onely one to be used in all times and places whether Church-Government were not a matter of Ecclesiastick prudence rather than of Apostolick prescription or Divine appointment To which opinion St Jerom that he might qualifie and moderate the incrochings of some Bishops upon Presbyters or gratifie perhaps his own passion and discontent sometimes seems to have inclined contrary to his cooler and more constant judgement set forth at other times in many passages of his potent and vehement writings as well as in his practise Which allay as to the Divine institution and absolute necessity of Episcopall Government as established by the Apostles seemes also to have swayed with Mr. Calvin and his followers when they found themselves put upon such a necessity as they thought might justifie their altering of it for a time though not their rejecting or reprobating of it for ever which he never did however his reputation interest and engagement carried him off from the more pompous and usuall way of Episcopacy as it was abused in the Church of Rome but he well knew ever judged and confessed that Primitive Episcopacy which consists in a presidentiall eminency of power and jurisdiction in one Minister over many appears to have been laid out by the wisdome and Spirit of Christ in the Apostolicall patterne and prescription as is evident in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus not as a matter of arbitrary freedome which might be lightly changed as people or Ministers or Magistrates listed for their conveniences but as an holy method and wise proportion of Government best in it self fittest for the Churches Order Peace and Communion sacred by the Characters of Gods direction Christs designation constitution of his Church in the Apostles execution and derivation of it also in the Churches Catholick imitation upon all which grounds it hath ever been esteemed by all godly and learned Christians not onely venerable but as to the main modell and fabrick of it inviolable so that they who first factiously presumptuously and rashly change it must needs highly sin against God his Church and their own soules however others that are forced to follow such changes may be excusable The superstructures of Episcopacy as to civill Honor and Estate may indeed be variable by publick consent with times and manners of men but the foundations I believe are not to be removed which are laid upon the naturall civill and religious grounds of diversity disparity and excellency of one man above many proportionable to which Polity Order and Authority are best setled and managed and not upon the loose or slippery bottomes of parity or popularity neither of which have either those principles proportions or perfections of Government which the Spirit and wisdome of God hath laid out by the Apostles practise in Primitive Episcopacy and transmitted by a constant succession for the Churches good which cannot be preserved or advanced where there wants comely gravity due authority and a diviner beame of Majesty in Government and Governors than can be found in any way of levelling and abasing them which are the high-waies as all wise men ever observed to all faction sedition and confusion both in Churches and States of which truth no Age hath seen and suffered greater or sadder experiments than ours since some pragmatick or ambitious Spirits have made miserable essayes to alter and abolish the ancient authority and order of Episcopacy onely to bring in their various novelties which are so far from the true Grandeur and solid Majesty of Government that they are already found to be pittifull and petty projects rather than pious or profound inventions confuting themselves as much as confounding others Could we then on all sides in England be so ingenuous and candid as to lay aside all moderne designes disputes and differences which have made mens eyes so squinted bleared or blood-shotten in the point of Church-Government could we remove the fancy of secular pride pomp and ambition in one sort of Ministers the vulgar passions prejudices and envies of a second sort also the pragmatick and plebeian humors of a third sort with the private designes and worldly interests of all cleare all our hearts of these prepossessions and distempers no doubt the face of holy order and wise Government in the Church will easily appeare to the satisfaction of all wise and good men who are either worthy to govern or willing to be governed in a true Christian and charitable way For certainly Church-Government or Ecclesiasticall Polity about which we have had of late in England so great contests even to much bitternesse and blood is no Scholasticall subtilty no intricate nicety no speculative sublimity no metaphysicall profundity which require either accurate Criticks or long-winded Divers or Logicall Disputers or Scepticall Sophisters to find out the Primitive form the true proportions or ancient patterne of it It is plaine as Beza and Bucer observe in right Reason pregnant in the proportions of all order naturall civill military religious It is palpable in Scripture-patternes as Mr. Calvin confesseth it is most apparent in the practise of all Churches It must be weaknesse or wilfullnesse passion or peevishnesse that hinders any man from seeing the true Idea of it It is made up of wisdome and power not onely humane but divine of due authority cemented with true charity a modest and moderate superiority with meek subordination faithfull counsell with equanimous commands meeting together these make up the holy Oeconomy or Polity of Church-Government In which first many humble Christians of one congregation do submit to one duly ordained Minister as set over them in the Lord so far as concernes their private duties and relations secondly many grave and discreet Presbyters with their people submit to one venerable Bishop as a Father or chief Pastor chosen to be over them in things that concerne more publick relations and common duties in which their joynt counsell assistance or obedience is required The Bishops office and work is not only Ministeriall in common with their brethren the other Ministers but Juridicall or Judiciall declaring and exercising the necessary power and eminent acts of Ecclestasticall Discipline and authority with them among them and over them not in the way of secular dominion gotten and kept by civill force or factious ambition which our blessed Lord forbids to those that are chiefest or greatest of his Disciples and flock but in a way of paternall authority which chides with love chastens with
credit of the Church Catholick the comfort and authority of all true Ministers the surest test and Character of due Ordination the peace and unity of all good Christians are bound up and mainly concerned 3. What if these new masters these sharp censors and imperious dictators whom perhaps not Piety so much as Policy not Religion but Reason of State not reforming severities but needlesse jealousies and imaginary necessities have put upon such violent sticklings against Episcopacy and reprobating all worthy Bishops what if they have been deceived themselves and deceivers of others in that point which is much more veniall to think and say of the very best of them than to passe any such censure or suspicion of error or ignorance upon all Churches even in their purest and Primitive Antiquity when one spark of Martyrly zeal which was as holy fire from Gods Altar had more divine light and heat in it than all the blazes and flashes of Moderne Zelotry 4. I do in all Christian candor demand of the severest Presbyterian and sharpest Independent whether when they ask of the generations of old and enquire of all Ages from the beginning of Christian Churches whether ever they find any Christians or congregations at any time either Christening or Churching themselves either by their own vote choise and authority or by separating from their ordained Presbyters and Bishops which were sound in the faith and regular in their administrations who had duly taught baptized confirmed and ruled them in the Lord. When did any Presbyters or Ministers ever pretend to ordaine themselves or one another without some Apostle or Bishop When where and by whom was the first Schisme Rupture or Chasme of Ecclesiasticall parity as to Mission and Commission begun When and where was the first intrusion or encroachment upon the pretended authority of Presbytery made by Episcopacy Did not all Presbyters owe ever own their legitimate birth breeding to their respective Bishops whose Authority was ever as much above meer Presbyters in degree and office as it was before them in the order of nature and causality no lesse than in time and antiquity 5. If then all the novel presumptions pretentions and objections of either Presbytery or Independency against Primitive Catholick and Apostolick Episcopacy should in earnest be nothing but passionate false and frivolous mistakes arising from ignorance and error carried on by envy and arrogancy in many men O what needlesse troubles what heedlesse angers what inordinate furies what dreadfull disorders must they all this while have been guilty of what causelesse contentions innovations confusions vastations have they brought into the Churches of Christ what cruell and uncharitable contentions have they raised as elsewhere so in this famous and flourishing Church of England without any just cause God knowes and beyond the merits of Episcopacy even in its greatest defects declinations and deformities to which as all holy Institutions may in time be subject so they ought to be humbly wisely and moderately reformed by the prayers teares counsels honest and orderly endeavours of all sober Christians of all sorts and sizes in their places and stations with due regard to the first pattern and originall But certainly as the whole order and office of Presbytery which may have had its personall depravations also so the ancient and venerable Authority of Episcopacy as to its Primitive Institution and Catholick succession ought not on any hand to be utterly ruined rased and extirpated root and branch by any tumultuary rashnesse or popular precipitancy which can never become any Church of Christ or any wise and godly Christians nor can such methods of sharp and soure Reformations ever end in the peace or comfort of good men who if they find themselves guilty of excesses so dangerous and destructive to the true Church true Religion and true Reformation have nothing lesse to do than to persevere in their extravagancies or pertinaciously to assert their former transports yea they have nothing more to do speedily and conscienciously than humbly to recant seriously to repent and effectually to amend as much as lies in their power the affronts and assaults the breaches and wasts they have made of the Churches Peace and Unity Power and Authority by returning to that duty which they owe to God and that obedience they owe to their spirituall Governours and that reverence which they owe to uniform antiquity which so fully commends the presidentiall authority of Apostolicall and Primitive Episcopacy Their first errors may be weaknesse but their obstinacy must needs be wickednesse who still sin when they are convinced silenced and afflicted 6. What if after all this dust and noyse which hath so blinded and deafned the eyes and eares of many Presbyters and people that they cannot and will not see the Truth and Testimony of Antiquity which is no lesse cleare for the presidentiall authority and eminency of Episcopacy than for the subordination counsel and assistance of Presbytery what if it should be the mind of God the order and Institution of Jesus Christ the designation and direction of his blessed Spirit evidently signified and setled in and by the blessed Apostles in all Primitive Churches and so continued to this day according to the measures of Divine Wisdome and Order though not without mixtures of humane infirmities and disorders incident to all holy Institutions 7. What if after all these seditious and schismaticall distempers in Ministers and people the Lord should say to these refractory and irreconcilable spirits against Episcopacy as he did to the Jewes when they revolted from Samuels Government They have not rejected you O my faithfull servants the Bishops whom I have constituted and used in all ages as vigilant Over-seers and wise Rulers of my flock but they have rejected me who in this point of Episcopacy have so sufficiently declared my will and pleasure to all the world that no Church was ever ignorant of it or varied from it being manifested from heaven First in the evident instances of divine wisdome among the Jewish Church and Priests yea as it is an orderly and gubernative method in all societies where right reason and so true Religion necessarily command and commend superiority and subjection Secondly in the paterne and Rules of Ecclesiasticall Polity set down by my Son Jesus Christ and followed by his Apostles who setled all Churches in such an orderly subordination Thirdly in the constant custome and Catholick testimony of all succeeding Churches whose joynt suffrages and uniform practises in cases of any darkness dispute or difficulty where Scripture-precepts may seem lesse clear and explicite ought by all sober Christians to be esteemed as the safest measures of conscience and surest rule of religious observance especially as to things of outward Polity Order and Government nor may any novel inventions or pretentions never so specious be put into the balance against the Authority of the Catholick Church which is the pillar and ground of Truth the great
Custom and Canons of this as of all Churches also by the ancient Lawes of this Nation thus splitting even their dear Presbytery in pieces which was best embarqued with Episcopacy while they ran this on ground upon the Rocks Quick-sands the oppositions of power and the despiciencies of people between which all Church-government and publick respect is now removed from both Bishops and Presbyters Alas how pitiful a part of any Government have any of these Ministers now to act and please themselves with who affected to play a new game at Chesse in this Church onely with pawns and rooks without Kings or Bishops whose unseparable fate at least as to the Genius of England King James very wisely foresaw would stand and fall together if he had as wisely prevented the danger and damage of both it being very hard for any Soveraign Prince to govern such an head-strong people unless he have power over their minds as well as their bodies This a Prince cannot have but by Preachers who as the weekly Musterers Orators and Commanders of the populacy do exercise by the Scepter of their tongues a secret and swasive yet potent Empire over most peoples soules These preachers he knew were not easily kept either in good order or in just honor being men of quick fancies of daring and active confidences great valuers of themselves and ambitious to be many Masters yea popular and petty Monarchs in the Thrones of their Pulpits and Territories of their Parishes unlesse there were some men over them who are fittest to be above them as being too hard for them in their own sphere and mystery best able to judge of Ministers Learning Opinions Preaching Praying and Living men for yeares of Gravity and Prudence rewarded with Estates and Honors And such were Bishops without whom Christian Monarchs are like those Kings who had their thumbs and great toes cut off it being not possible for a Prince immediately to correspond with every petty Presbyter nor is it comely to contest with them nor can he be quiet from their pragmatick janglings unlesse they be curbed by some such Learned Authoritative and Venerable Superiours as are properest for them who were the fittest mediums between the King and his other Clergy both to perswade Princes to favour the Church and to perswade Church-men to preach and practise loyalty toward their Princes which tends to the honor of both Magistracy and Ministry So that it was no other then an obvious conjecture to foretel No Bishop no King since the same Scriptures and Principles of both reason and religion piety and policy lead men to obey both as rulers over them in the Lord or to reject both by affecting popular parities and communities as in Church so in State Which abatement of Kingly or Soveraign power in one person as to its civil Magistratick and Monarchical eminency hath by late experience been found so inconsistent with the Genius of this English Nation that the Representatives of the People have not onely importunely petitioned the restitution of Monarchical yea Kingly government but they have actually setled the main authority in one person under an other Name and Title justly fearing lest the dividing and diminishing of Soveraignty Majesty and Authority as to the chief Governour should in time make a dissolution of the civil Government by frequent emulations and ambitions incident to any such Nation as England is which hath so many great and rival Spirits in it prone to contemn or contest with any thing that looks like their Equal Nor do I doubt but Time will further shew us if it hath not done it already sufficiently that no less inconveniences and mischiefs both as to Church and State may follow the debasing and destroying of Ecclesiastical power and authority in England dividing and mincing it so diverting the ample and fair the ancient and potent stream of Episcopacy which flowed from the Throne of Christ and of Christian Kings into the new rivulets small channels and weak currents either of Presbytery or Independency The Scepter of Government in Church or State like the staff or rod of Moses when it is cast out of his hand on the Earth or populacy turns to a serpent Democracy being a very terrible Daemogorgon untill it be resumed into Moses his hand as King in Iesurun it doth not return to its former beauty strength and use which that did after it had justly devoured the rods and serpents of the Magicians as in time Monarchical Government will do all other kinds or essayes in Engl. which are but the effects of popular passions and encroachments carried on more by some Preachers Inchantments then by Lay-mens Ambitions Strabo and others tell us that the people of Cappadocia when the Romanes had conquered their Kings and offered them their Liberty as a Province or free State under them they refused the favour affirming the temper of their Country was such that the people in it could not live if they were not governed by a King So pertinacious were they as indeed most people in the world have been and are at this day to retaine the sacred Tradition of Kingly or Monarchicall Government which being parentall and Patriarchall is most naturall and divine derived to us by nature and confirmed by good experience ever since Noah and Adam who had their just Soveraignty as Fathers and Kings over all mankind derived to them from God the Great Father and Eternall King over all from whom Monarchy and so Episcopacy derive their Majesty and Authority Primogeniture carrying with it as Princely so Priestly power which made the same name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gen. 41.45 Exod. 3.1 to signifie both Prince and Priest The want of either of which and the swerving from either of them commonly occasioneth infinite distractions in any Nation and Church especially if they have been in all times wonted to be governed by them To avoid which miseries among Mankind the Wisdom of God hath guided as most Nations to Monarchy so this and all primitive Churches to the royall Priesthood of Episcopacy from the very cradle or beginning of Christianity At which time S. Jerom to Euagrius confesseth it was toto orbe decretum a Catholick Decree and Order through all the Christian world which could be no other then Apostolical at least And however other Reformed Churches may make a shift to live and some of them thrive without the formal name and title of Bishops though most of them have the efficacy of the power and the reality of the authority in their Superintendents yet I am confident till English Spirits are wholly cow'd and depressed with war and such exhaustings as utterly dis-spirit and embase the Nobility Gentry and Communalty nothing will be more inconsistent with them than what savours of parity and popularity in Church-Government They will rather affect to have every one what they list which in effect will be no Government properly Ecclesiastick further then they may be commanded
not worthy to be their Rulers in the least kind This submission cannot be expected unless Englishmen are now to be subdued by fine words and made obedient by the formal and supercilious looks of some men who affect in their Churches and Parishes to govern all and are not fit alone to govern any unless they had been more able and willing to govern themselves and to have kept within that compasse of Ecclesiastical Order and subjection to their Bishops and betters which the example of all Churches and all worthy Presbyters and true Christians in all Ages commended to them besides the particular Laws and constitutions of this Church and State These considerations of the unproportionableness of any other Church-government than a right Episcopacy to the temper of England moved the supercilious yet very learned Salmasius in his advice to the Prince Elector then in England and to some other of the long Parlament and of the Scotized Assembly who desired his judgement upon the then hot and perboyling yea passionate and over-boyling debates touching Episcopacy to tell them That as the Episcopal Government rightly constituted and executed is very agreeable to the Word of God and most conform to all Antiquity so it was of all other most suitable to the English spirit and constitution The want of which he already foresaw was and would ever be the cause of much disorder and distraction of infinite Factions Heresies Schismes and Confusions Thus the great Dictator of Learning as he esteemed himself was pleased in this passage and other-where graciously to express his judgement and pleasure according to the humour he was in or to the Interest which he was pleased to adopt Sometimes he is Walo Messalinus and ashamed to own his Name against Episcopacy he was in that disguise to gratifie the pretentions of Presbytery and the adherence or dependence which he had to the French and Dutch Churches otherwhile he puts off the vizard and with open face owns the eminency authority antiquity and universality of Episcopacy yea the incomparable utility of it when joyned with a grave and orderly Presbytery besides a particular aptitude in it to the English Genius For he well saw that all Government and Church-Government as much as any is a beame of Divine Majesty and requires not onely something of a Diviner sufficiency as to inward abilities and endowments but also of a Diviner conspicuity and lustre for Authority civil eminency and ornament We read that God besides his choice of Aaron and his Sons to be complete persons to make them chief Priests according to his Command and Commission gave also strict order for their garments to have them made with such comelinesse cost and curiosity as should be for glory and beauty even before the eyes of the people over whom they were placed And we further read that God forbad to his people the Jewes all birds that did creep and yet fly they were uncleane and abominable to be eaten An Emblem that nothing is lesse comely in Gods Church than to see those men ambitiously affect to fly high in governing others whose condition is low and creeping on the ground Indeed no Government can be carried on in Church or State especially in Engl. but either by the absolute terror of the sword and secular power commanding or by such legal injunctions and religious perswasions as bind good men in conscience to submit first to God and for his sake to those whom he as Lord of all is pleased to set over us Then is government in Church or State most complete and constant when it hath first that rational Empire and religious prevalency over mens hearts which ariseth from the perswasion that people have of the worth abilities right and authority which Governours have by their laws as from God in the State so from Christ in the Church Which perswasion as it brought all Christian people Presbyters and Bishops to be so wholy subject to their civil Magistrates and Soveraigns so it made all Christian Presbyters and Professors to be filially submiss to their Bishops as to Fathers given them by Christ even then when Bishops were rich in graces and gifts of the Spirit but low as to worldly greatness and under much persecution yet then did the Majesty of Episcopal authority prevail on which the lively Characters and pregnant Memorials of the Apostolical pattern designation and succession were still fresh and most remarkable then did it draw all true Believers and good Christians to venerate their Bishops or chief Pastors for Conscience sake by so much the more by how much Presbyters and People had more of the power of Godlinesse in them whereas now it is made a new mark of Godliness and Saintship with many to cast off to hate abhor despise and destroy all Bishops and all eminent Episcopacy Sure either primitive purity or modern dreggs must be very much out of the right way and which of them erres I leave to all sober men to judge As for other Christians of looser Consciences and Conversation which were prone in all Ages to be as weeds in the garden of the Church especially in times of Peace Plenty and Prosperity the piety and wisdom of Christian Princes and other godly people ever took care to keep them in the more awe and reverence toward their Bishops and Ecclesiastical Governours by investing these in such outward and visible enjoyments for estate and honour which might adde some outward respect and authority to them and that no small one before those that had most need to be so restrained overawed and dazled Hence the piety and policy of Constantine the Great not onely gave liberal supports to the Bishops of the Church but gave them places and honors equal to the Patricii the Senators in order and degree which were the Roman chief Nobility It is not onely an imprudent but an impious presumption and a tempting of God to needless miracles for any people to invest those men in any Government as in State so in Church who are as St. Paul saith little esteemed because deserving little who have neither personal abilities for the Office nor any clear and undoubted commission to authorize them in it from God or Man from Christ and his Church which I conceive can hardly if ever be found in any wayes of Church-government which are suspected for Novelty or tainted with Parity and Popularity contemners of Catholick Custom Primitive Antiquity and Apostolical Succession in an holy Uniformity From all which depravations as venerable Episcopacy is sufficiently known to be farthest removed of any so it cannot but seem to all impartial Christians to be as every way best in it self so fittest for the native temper of England where mens spirits are more accurate and acute more inquisitive and searching into the rights foundations and grounds of all authority over them then in other Countries where meannesse and easinesse servility and credulity of common people makes them venerate
of many particulars that Episcopacy is no enemy to Piety no way prejudiciall to Church or State yea a maine pillar to support the welfare of both Many Bishops may have been bad yet is Episcopacy good as many Priests of old were like Elies Sons vile men yet was the Priesthood Honorable and Sacred many Judges and Justices may be base and corrupt yet is Judicature good many Magistrates unworthy yet is Magistracy an excellent and necessary Ordinance of God He that should sift all the Presbyters or Ministers of any sort that have been or now are even the greatest zealots against Bishops and Episcopacy I believe he would find among them drosse enough yet must not the Office of Presbytery or the Function of the Ministry be cast off or abhorred He that shall examine by right Reason Religion Conscience and Honor what some Princes yea some Parlaments have been and done as to the persons of men will find they have been neither Gods nor Angels nor Saints nor Saviours alwaies but poor sinfull men of common passions and infirmities yet is the honor and use of Soveraigne power in Princes and supreme Counsel in full and free Parlaments of admirable concern to the publick good So is it in point of Episcopacy notwithstanding that many Bishops were but men yet some yea many nay I hope the most of them especially since the Reformation were as Mortall Angels Faithfull Pastors and Venerable Fathers There are upon account reckoned up by Bishop Godwin and others 1479. Bishops in England and Wales for above 1100. yeares of which time some Histories remaine though Bishops were long before but of these there are some Records both before and since the Reformation Who will wonder that in so great an harvest in so large a field there be found some light some empty some blasted eares This is certaine that till these last tempestuous times Bishops in England had given so ample and constant experiments of their Prudence Piety Worth and Usefulness in all Ages and States for Ecclesiasticall and Civil Affaires that they did abundantly conciliate and conserve those great measures of Love Respect Honour and Estate both publick and private which their Persons and Function by Law enjoyed Insomuch that as there were no where to be found better Bishops so no where had they better entertainment before and since the Reformation while they enjoyed the favour of Princes and the love of Parlaments who never heretofore listned to the plebeian envy or petulancy of those who sometime petitioned and prated against Bishops and Episcopacy as Diotrephes did against St. John The Wisdome Gravity Piety and Honor of this Nation never thought it worthy of them to overthrow so Venerable so Usefull so Ancient so Catholick so Honorable an Order meerly to gratifie the peevishnesse or passion or revenge or discontent or ambition or envy of inferiour people or inferiour Presbyters who were at their best every way when kept in compasse by wise Bishops No men heretofore never so much fly-blown with faction could so far prevaile by their insinuations and agitations as to have any Vote passed in England against Episcopacy all men of Learning Gravity and Prudence for these thousand yeares and more in England as in all Christian States owned and highly reverenced as Episcopacy in generall so good Bishops as the chief Conduits that had conveyed to them their Fore-father and their Children all Christian Ministry and Ministrations all Christian Mysteries and Comforts yea Christianity and Christ himself Which Spirituall Divine Eternall and Inestimable blessings this as other Nations and Churches ever owed as chiefly to Gods mercy so instrumentally to the hands of Bishops by whose Ministry they were taught by whose Authority they had many other Ministers duly ordained and sent into the harvest when it was great and required many Labourers These in their order assisted as Presbyters their respective Bishops in Teaching and Governing the Church but without or against their Bishops they never acted upon any account of Parochiall or Congregationall pretentions of Ministers Equality or peoples Immunity and Liberty Alas what ground was there for either of these pretenders in England when there were no Parishes divided as now they are till the yeare of Christ 634. when Honorius an Archbishop of Canterbury began that way for the more easie and orderly carrying on of Religion among the Country-people who had now generally received the Christian faith and Baptisme Till then the Pagani or Country-people either repaired to their Bishops and his Clergy in the Cities and chief Townes where they resided or they occasionally attended their Bishops in their visitations of them or such Presbyters as were sent out by the Bishops to officiate among them There was then no fancy nor many hundred yeares after of any petty Churches either of Associated Presbyters or Independent people without yea against the Episcopall Ordination Inspection and Jurisdiction still Bishops and Episcopacy were preserved and honored in England And this not onely by private persons of all ranks and qualities who were considerable for their honesty or Devotion but by our most admired Princes our noblest Peers our wisest Parlaments who did ever keep up the use and honor of Episcopacy in England nor did they ever disdaine to have Bishops their Assessors and Assistants in Parlaments esteeming it a rustick and plebeian temper to admit men to publick Counsel and Honors for their Valour and Estates and not for their Learning and Religion by which all worthy Bishops did as much ennoble themselves in all wise mens esteem if they wanted that of blood and descent which many of them had as those who most swelled in the conceit of their great Ancestors who left them great noble Estates but many times ignoble minds little wits and lesse honesty or vertue which hath been the fate of some who have most puffed against Episcopacy and despised those Bishops who were in all Morall Rationall Religious and reall Excellencies not their equalls but far their betters What Prince was ever more sage in her Counsel or more solemn in her Government more advised in her favours and frownes than our Augusta Queen Elizabeth what Soveraigne ever more reconciled Empire and Liberty or held the balances of Justice more impartially and more prosperously between all interests and degrees of men both in Church and State between Clergy and Laity Nobility and Communalty for neer half an hundred yeares In all which time she had no greater blemish than her yielding sometime too much to the sacrilegious importunities of begging Courtiers who terribly fleeced and sometimes flayed the Estates of some Bishopricks in England and Wales not so much out of her malice or covetousness as out of her mistaken munificence For never any Prince did more really religiously and constantly honor her Bishops as Fathers in God one of whom She had for her God-Father namely Archbishop Cranmer another I think it was Archbishop Whitgift she called her black Husband most-what
greater difficulties and necessities as to his Estate yet never any had greater Antipathies against what he thought Sacriledge nor a less longing to tast of the Priests portion which he esteemed sacred because it was Gods dedicated to him and so vested in him both by Law and Conscience by true Divinity and just Humanity that he judged no power on earth could without manifest sin and robbery alienate it from God and his Church This made him so zealous not onely to preserve Bishops upon his Fathers principles but their Rights and Estates also because he thought them to be Gods and his Churches to maintaine whose right he remembred himself to have sworne in the first place at his Coronation and so was no lesse bound to them than to the rest of the people as to their civil Properties Lawes and Priviledges Certainly however some have denyed this King the Title of Pater Patriae yet he seemes to have deserved that of Filius Ecclesiae both Alumnus and Patronus of which he appeared more ambitious than of any earthly glory or Kingdom or Life For whence I beseech you before God Angels and Men do you think arose that his Princely and Christian pertinacy even to the death in the point of Episcopacy and Church-Lands Henry the Fourth of France could change the whole scene of his Religion from the Reformed to the Roman meerly upon reasons of State dispensing with conscience to preserve his Kingdom and his short-liv'd greatnesse yet is he cryed up for Henry le Grand how much greater is that King to be esteemed whose consciencious constancy which some counted obstinacy lessened him to nothing when to the very last he maintained those sharp Agonies Contests and Disputes he had as to the interests of the Church and Episcopacy which he counted his greatest concerns as to Religion Justice and Honor How did he encounter Mr. Henderson Mr. Marshall and others upon this point chiefly how indeed did he confound them by Scripturall grounds by Ecclesiasticall precedents by Catholick consent by the sacred venerable and unanswerable custome of all Churches till his daies What answers what offers of moderation and conciliation did he make as to this point of Church-Government to the admiration yea astonishment of his Antagonists Although as to Military successes and Civil concessions he yeilded much to an over powering power yet as to this rock of Ecclesiasticall affaires like the Ark upon mountaines of Ararat where he rested there he fixed there he continued rooted unmoveable invincible chusing rather to be dashed in pieces than to renounce his principles or to move contrary to those conscientious perswasions for which he thought he had such cleare and valid grounds such ancient prescriptions such constant presumptions that he thought nothing in Religion could be safe or certaine if in this point of Church-Government the Catholick Church were not to be believed or imitated in Episcopacy Good God! whence should it be that a Prince so knowing so sensible of his dangers when he saw the Presbyterian proposalls power and interests so pressing upon him for Independency that little stone was not then cut out of the Mountains whence had so great a restivenesse and obstinacy seised upon so great a Prince in a posture of so great storms and danger which would in all likelihood at first have been appeased if he would have cast this Jonas Episcopacy over-board and swallowed the Church-Lands into the Sea of the Exchequer He that could as to civil and Regall concernments much deny himself why should he chuse upon the Churches account to suffer so long a war so many wounds so tedious prisons so sad Tragedies living and dying For however differences at last were inflamed upon other accounts in the procedure of the war which necessarily multiplies offences on the conquered party yet certainly the maine propose and motion first of the Scots and then of the English Presbyterians was this Destroy the Temples of Episcopacy and set up the Synagogues of Presbytery Which any politick Prince would speedily have done at least when he saw so terrible a tempest in present pressing upon him yea and prevailing against him What Prince was ever so in love with any Bishops or any Church-men as to love them better then himself which in Reason he could not and in Religion he ought not to do nor would certainly have done so far as he did if he had not had such perswasions deeply rooted in his conscience of a justice gratitude and duty he owed to God to his Saviour and to the Church more than to the persons of a few Clergy-men which he solemnly avowed as in Gods presence to Mr. Marshall of Finchfield in Essex after a long conference at Newcastle as I take it had with him touching Episcopacy as Mr. Marshall himself soon after told me assuring him and conjuring him to assure others of his Majesties uprightnesse and resolvednesse in this point of Episcopacy as to matter of Conscience and not of State or Policy else in point of secular advantages his own peace and preservation the publick tranquillity the increase of his revenue by the Confiscation of Bishops and Cathedral-Lands would have amounted to much more benefit than ever he or his could expect from a few Bishops Deans and Prebends Thus riveted was the Kings Conscience to Episcopacy unable upon any terms till convinced not by Arms but Arguments to consent to the utter extirpation of it although he offered condescended to many moderations which were from him as much in vain for nothing but root and branch would serve as all the Extirpators Allegations to his Majesty against Episcopacy to prove it not to have been the Primitive Catholick and Apostolick Government of the Church were in vain for indeed nothing was produced new all were trivial and thred-bare arguments which had been answered ten times by learned men in this Church and had for ever silenced all sober and modest men if they had had so great regard to the Churches Catholick and constant Testimony or to the Scripture-rule and Apostolick pattern as indeed they should have had Besides this insuperable difficulty fortifying Episcopacy in his Conscience his Majesty no doubt had prejudices enough against Presbytery as to its novelty its first violent intrusion his Fathers vexation it s now armed obtrusion upon himself a Soveraign Prince and chief Governour of Church as well as State to these were added all the former Troubles and Tragedies in Scotland by the scufflings of Presbytery against Episcopacy besides he saw the destroyers of Episcopacy already divided among themselves neither Presbytery nor Independency could agree whose the child should be yea he lived to see Presbytery when it had been set up in the House of God faln like Dagon with its hands and head broken off before the captive Ark of Episcopacy Mean while His Majesty and all the World at home and abroad saw the miserable Distractions Confusions Luxations and Licentiousnesse which brake in daily
such Those are of an other sphere and of other principles which I neither censure nor it may be understand I quarrell with no particular mens persons I encounter onely that colluvies of factions parties and novel principles which like the sewers collected from many sinks and kennells have met together to besmeare or over-beare the Church of England I despise no mans Religion so far as it is Religion deserving that holy name in any Catholick and Christian sense But I abhorre an unreasonable immodest unjust and licentious way in any I esteem and embrace with all Charity whatever of Gods Spirit of Christs Truth of Grace and Vertue of Gifts and Parts of Morall Honesty and Humanity I find in any men of any side But I am too old and serious to be abused with vaporings with affectations with popular pretentions with rude and rash Reformations I am for solid sober orderly humble constitutions or restitutions rather of Order Honor and publick encouragement to Religion the Church and Clergy No man hath justled or offended me in all these turbulent times worth owning nor have I an evil eye or an ill will against any man What I write as to my Ecclesiastick Calling Honor and the Church of Englands common concernments may possibly have something of salt but nothing of gall there may be some corrosive to mortifie and meet with the diseased and proud flesh but no venome to poyson or hurt either the diseased or the whole parts It extremely grieves me to see how far the contagion of Ignorance Impudence Profanenesse Irreligion Faction Division Levity Popularity Disorder and Uncharitablenesse hath spread among some of my brethren of the Ministry and many of my Countrymen without any present advance that I can see or future hopes I say not as to their own Honour or Profit but as to Gods glory or the publick interests of the true Christian and Reformed Religion or the good of mens soules or the improvement of any grace and vertue What any side offers as really good or convenient I allow what they partially cry down and causelesly condemn or change that I defend upon the account of this and all Churches Wisdome Honour and Happinesse If what I have written may do any good to the present or after-Ages I have my designe if not I shall by Gods help hereafter redeem this waste of time and labour by applying to studies more suitable to my Genius Spirit and Age which may more improve those graces which are least in dispute among good Christians yet in this I have not wholly lost my labour because I have hereby further discharged my own soul my conscience and reputation from any approbation of what I judge to be either the sins or imprudencies the wickednesse or weaknesse of this Age in which I do not so much live as dye daily weary that my soul finds so little hope of an happy rest or composure unity or harmony in our Church which I had rather see and enjoy before I dye than to have the greatest preferment in the world I envy no men that have wrapped up their worldly interests in their religious policies and daily gaine by the shrines of godlinesse they have made I do indeed boldly rifle their godly principles and pretentions as to their novelties for I see no reason as yet to yield to any of them no not for an hour though they seem never such pillars while they import as if the Church of England had heretofore consisted of a company of silly people and silly Priests whose either ignorance or superstition or sottishnesse or basenesse had hidden the beauties and blessings of true Religion from all peoples eyes so that neither Bishops nor Presbyters nor Princes nor Parlaments nor Convocations ever till now saw what was fit to know and do in Church-matters which are now to be taught and brought to light by the new methods of Presbytery and Independency or by Anabaptism Quakerism and other rarities of Religion untried and untamed Novelties every way as short of the Piety Prudence Unity and Majesty of the Religion and Church of England heretofore as they are wide of or beyond the true ancient bounds and Catholick grounds of Order Government Unity and due Authority I may adde and of the Blessings or Prosperities internal or external spiritual and temporal which attended Episcopal Order and Paternal Presidency which I profess to value as now it is in its rags and ruines far beyond the others in their silks and sprucenesses Episcopacy is now far from being the object of any sober mens Flattery or Ambition yet I cannot but look upon it with such an eye of pitty and reverence as primitive Christians were wont to do upon their Bishops such as Polycarpus Ignatius Irenaeus Cyprian and other Martyrs when they saw them imprisoned beaten tormented destroyed I know yet I plead for those men and for that cause which was once strong but now is weak was honourable and is now despised was favoured but is now frowned upon by many yea I fear most men of ordinary spirits yet I plead for that reverend Order and those reverend persons who have been made a spectacle to Angels and Men such as to this present hour suffer both hunger and thirst are naked and buffeted having no certain dwelling-place which being reviled do blesse being persecuted have suffered with patience being defamed do intreat and being the Glory of all Churches as to Order Unity and Government in all Ages are now looked upon by many as the filth and off scouring of all things yet am I one of those Angels which attend Lazarus on his Dunghil I have chosen to follow the clear though now more exhausted stream of Antiquity rather than the troubled torrents of any Novelties which may be as short-lived as they have been suddenly started I have looked upon all mens principles and pretensions as to Ecclesiastick affairs with what Candor Equanimity and Sincerity I could If in any thing I was inclinable to be partial it was neither for Presbytery nor Independency I confess which I never was catechized in nor accustomed to nor convinced of as to any such Piety or Policy Wisdom or Worth in them which might make me see cause to desire or esteem them but I was swayed against some things not in the constitution so much as some mens administration of Episcopacy I was originally principled to no small jealousies of Bishops actions when they were in their greatest glory and power nor do I yet think but that some Bishops might have been greater Masters of pious Arts than they have proved yet I find now that in many things people were more afraid than hurt For the main I conclude no Ministers or Governours no Superintendencies or Presbyteries in any Reformed way exceeded the Usefulness Merit and Excellency of our English Bishops and Presbyters nor is any thing as to Church-government comparable to a primitive Episcopacy which includes the just Rights Liberties or
5.45 1 Tim. 2.2 Gen. 32.10 Vide Tert. Apol. cap. 30 31 32. 39. Rom. 11.33 34. Hab. 2.4 Jer. 9.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is Pela eth l. 3. ep 249. Jer. 6.14 Job 13.4 Eccles 7.16 Isa 1.5 Mat. 6.33 Jer. 22.28 Non est Respublica in Ecclesiâ sed Ecclesia in Republicâ Optat. l. 3. Reipublicae Christiana constitutio ea quae est in Deum pietate praecipuè nititur multaque inter Ecclesiam Rempublicam cognatio intercedere solet ex se invicem pendent utraque prosperis alterius successibus incrementa sumit Tom. 1. Concil Bin. Hag. 1.4 Eph. 1.23 Anhelantium animarum sudores sunt piae lachrymae Rev. 12.3 Eccl. 7.7 Zach. 12.3 Rev. 18.21 Gen. 14.25 Amos 2.6 Jer. 45.5 2 King 5.26 Jer. 39.18 Jer. 8.22 Jerem. 20.9 Amos 5.13 Rom. 12.20 Jerem. 30.20 Amos 8. â— Joh. 12.15 Numb 22.28 Ps 122.6 Isa 62.7 Isa 40.1 2. Job 42.11 Psal 74.6 Psal 80.9 10 11. 1 Cor. 12.28 Eph. 4.11 12. Eph. 4.15 1 Pet. 2. â—5 The beginning of Episcopacy Annâ— Christi 30. Joh. 20.20 21. Acts 2.2 Acts 1.26 Mat. 28.19 Rom. 16. â—6 Rom. 10.18 Gal. 2.7 Gal. 1.18 Cum nobis totus orbis commâ—rcio fermâ—turum in unâ communionis sociâ—tate concordat Optat. l. 2. Rami erroris pâ—â—teâ—ti de mâ—ndacio non de radice veâ—itatis Id. The compleating of Ecclesiastical Combinations or great Churches by the Apostles Joh. 13.14 15 and 15.12 The Succession of Episcopacy 1 Tim. 3.2 Tit. 1.5 The primitive care of the Union and Communion of all Churches The withering decay and falling of som branches Mark 5.30 The laxation of Ecclesiastical discipline The state of Episcopacy under the Papacy The beginning of the Presbyterian-government Anno 1541. Mr. Calvins grounds for Presbytery were not against Episcopacy Mr. Calvins difficulties in setling the Church-government of Geneva The growth of the Presbyterian way of Church-government Whence the former brotherly correspondency between Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches Mr. Beza's Patrociny of Presbytery beyond Mr. Calvins principles The heats about Church-government among some reformed The first planting of Presbytery in England to supplant Episcopacy The terrible equipage of Presbytery at fiâ—st The activity of Presbytery The dwindling and withering of Presbytery in England The soft and gentle rise or springing up of Indâ—pendency An. 1641. Independency supplants both Presbytery and Episcopacy The advantages that other parties make by Presbyterian and Independent sticklings against Episcopacy and Ecclesiastick unity The Name and Thing the Title and Truth of the Church of England asserted Eph. 3.30 Hos 1.10 * Rom. 2.28 Asserimus Ecclesiam visibiâ—eÌ„ in S Scriptura descriptam non tantum fuisse parochialem seu particularem sed esse etiam Ecclesiam quandam Nationalem unius gentis aut regni quae constatex diversis multis Ecclesâ—is Parochialibus uno regimine Ecclesiastico junctis mutua communione societate Ecclesiastica visibili inter se devinctis Apollonius Consid c. 3. Ass 2. Suam utilitatem potiùs considerantes quà m unitatem Ecclesiae c. Iren. l. 4. c. 62. Damasus of Rome Aurelius of Carthage Calinicus of Pelusium are called Bishops of the Catholick Churches in those Cities by Eusebius Socrates Sozomen c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euseb l. 4. Hist c. 16. Rom. 16.5 Col. 4.15 1 Cor. 16.19 Ubi tres Ecclesia est licèt laici Tertul. Ecclesiae entitativae non organicae materialiteâ— non formaliter ecclesiae Paroeciarum in quibus convenitur numerus accidentaria res est nihil ad ecclesiae particularis essentiam pertinens quae uni Presbyterio subjuncta sacros conventus pluribus locis aut uno potest agitare Bucer de gubern eccl p. 10. Corpus sumus de conscientia religionis disciplina unitate spei foedere Tertull. Apol. c. 39. Luke 15.10 a 2 Cor. 8.5 b Zach. 2.11 c Ps 72.11 17. All nations shall serve him Isa 52.10 15. c. 66.20.65.1 He shall sprinkle many nations Zach. 2.11 And many nations shall be joyned to the Lord in that day shall be my people Isa 55.5 Thou shalt call a nation whom thou knowest not and nations which knew not thee shall run unto thee Mat. 21.43 Ro. 10.19 d Ecclesia in Episcopo clero in omnibus stantibus est constituta Cyp. ep 27. Radiâ— Christianae societatis per sedes ApostoloruÌ„ successiones Episcoporum certâ per orbem propagatione diffunditur Aug. ep 42. a 1 Tim. 1.3 I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus that thou mightest charge c. Tit. 1.5 For this cause I left thee in Crete b 2 Phil. 25. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 8.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Rev. 2. 3. ch See the Primate of Armagh's discourse of the Lydian or Proconsular Asia Ecclesiae salus in summi sacerdotis dignitate pendet cui si non exors quaedam ab omnibus eminens detur potestas tot in Ecclesâ—is efficientur schismata quot sacerdotes Hier. advers Lucis Quia principali successione absistunt Iren. l. 3. c. 40. Neque enim aliunde Haereses obortae sunt aut nata schismata quà minde quod sacerdoti Dei non obtemperatur nec unus in Ecclesia ad tempus sacerdos ad tempus judex vice Christi cogitatur Cyp. ep 55. Summum futuri judicii praejudicium Tert. Apol. c. 39. Cant. 6.4 1â— Qui non participant SpirituÌ„ neque à mamillis matris autriuntur in vitam neque percipiunt de corpore Christi procedentem nitidissimum â—â—ntem c. putidam bibuâ—t aquam c. Irâ—n l. 3. c. 40. a 1 Cor. 4.15 Summus sacerdos qui est Episcopus Tert. de bap c. 17. Tot in Ecclesiis efficâ—eÌ„tur schismata quot sacerdotes nisi Episcopo exors quaedam ab omnibus eminens detur potestas Hieron adv Lucif Judicabit Dominus eos qui schismata operantur qui sunt immanes non habentes Dei dilectionem suamque utilitatem potiùs considerantes quà m unitatem Ecclesiae propter modicas quaslibet causas magnum gloriosum Christi corpus conscindunt dividunt quantum in ipsis est interficiunt pacem loquentes bellum operantes veri liquantes eulicem camelum deglutientes Nulla enim ab eis tanta potest sieri correptio quanta est schismatis pernicies Iren. l. 4. c. 62. Câ—imus in coetum congregationem ut ad Deum quasi manu fâ—cta prâ—caâ—ionibus ambiamus oraâ—â—es Tertul. Apol. c 39. Ecclesias vocat Tertullianus etiam eas quae ordinis consessum non habebant ubi quisque sacerdos erat sibi quorum erat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. At excommunicare non commune est sed proprium coetus habentis ordineÌ„ Grot. Appen de Antichrist Mar. 3.24 Si duo unanimes tantum possunt quid si unanimitas apud omnes esset quid si secundum pacem quam Dominus nobis dedit universis fratribus conveniret Cyp. ep 8. Gen. 26.4 2 Sam. 10.4