Selected quad for the lemma: king_n
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A50916
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Of reformation touching chvrch-discipline in England, and the cavses that hitherto have hindred it two bookes, written to a freind [sic]
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Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing M2134; ESTC R17896
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44,575
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96
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Physick't And surely they were moderate Divines indeed neither hot nor cold 〈◊〉 Grindall the best of them afterwards Arch Bishop of Canterbury lost favour in the Court and I think was discharg'd the goverment of his See for favouring the Ministers though Camden seeme willing to finde another Cause therefore about her second Yeare in a Parliament of Men and Minds some scarce well grounded others belching the soure Crudities of yesterdayes Poperie those Constitutions of EDW. 6. which as you heard before no way satisfi'd the men that made them are now establish't for best and not to be mended From that time follow'd nothing but Imprisonments troubles disgraces on all those that found fault with the Decrees of the Convâ—…cation and strait were they branded with the Name of Puritans As for the Queene her selfe shee was made beleeve that by putting downe Bishops her Prerogative would be infring'd of which shall be spoken anon as the course of Method brings it in And why the Prelats labour'd it should be so thought ask not them but ask their Bellies They had found a good Tabernacle they sate under a spreading Vine their Lot was fallen in a faire Inheritance And these perhaps were the cheife impeachments of a more sound rectifying the Church in the Queens Time From this Period I count to begin our Times which because they concerne us more neerely and our owne eyes and eares can give us the ampler scope to judge will require a more exact search and to effect this the speedier I shall distinguish such as I esteeme to be the hinderers of Reformation into 3. sorts Antiquitarians for so I had rather call them then Antiquaries whose labours are usefull and laudable 2. Libertines 3. Polititians To the votarists of Antiquity I shall think to have fully answer'd if I shall be able to prove out of Antiquity First that if they will conform our Bishops to the purer times they must mew their feathers and their pounces and make but curttail'd Bishops of them and we know they hate to be dockt and clipt as much as to be put down outright Secondly that those purer times were corrupt and their Books corrupted soon after Thirdly that the best of those that then wrote disclaim that any man should repose on them and send all to the Scriptures First therfore if those that over-affect Antiquity will follow the square therof their Bishops must be elected by the hands of the whole Church The ancientest of the extant Fathers Ignatius writing to the Philadelphians saith that it belongs to them as to the Church of God to choose a Bishop Let no man cavill but take the Church of God as meaning the whole consistence of Orders and Members as S. Pauls Epistles expresse and this likewise being read over Besides this it is there to be mark'd that those Philadelphians are exhorted to choose a Bishop of Antioch Whence it seems by the way that there was not that wary limitation of Dioces in those times which is confirm'd even by a fast friend of Episcopacie Camden who cannot but love Bishops as well as old coins and his much lamented Monasteries for antiquities sake He writes in his description of Scotland that over all the world Bishops had no certaine Dioces till Pope Dionysius about the yeare 268. did cut them out and that the Bishops of Scotland executed their function in what place soever they came indifferently and without distinction till King Malcolm the third about the yeare 1070. whence may be guest what their function was was it to goe about circl'd with a band of rooking Officials with cloke bagges full of Citations and Processes to be serv'd by a corporalty of griffonlike Promooters and Apparitors Did he goe about to pitch down his Court as an Empirick does his banck to inveigle in all the mony of the ConÌ„trey no certainly it would not have bin permitted him to exercise any such function indifferently wherever he came And verily some such matter it was as want of a fat Dioces that kept our Britain Bishops so poore in the Primitive times that being call'd to the Councell of Ariminum in the yeare 359. they had not wherewithall to defray the charges of their journey but were fed and lodg'd upon the Emperors cost which must needs be no accidentall but usuall poverty in them for the author Sulp. Severus in his 2 Booke of Church History praises them and avouches it praise-worthy in a Bishop to be so poore as to have nothing of his own But to return to the ancient election of Bishops that it could not lawfully be without the consent of the people is so expresse in Cyprian and so often to be met with that to cite each place at large were to translate a good part of the volume therfore touching the chief passages I referre the rest to whom so list peruse the Author himselfe in the 24. Epist. If a Bishop saith he be once made and allow'd by the testimony and judgement of his collegues and the people no other can be made In the 55. When a Bishop is made by the suffrage of all the people in peace In the 68. marke but what he saies The people chiefly hath power either of choosing worthy ones or refusing unworthy this he there proves by authorities out of the old and new Testament and with solid reasons these were his antiquities This voyce of the people to be had ever in Episcopal elections was so well known before Cyprians time even to those that were without the Church that the Emperor Alexander Severus desir'd to have his governours of Provinces chosen in the same manner as 〈◊〉 can tell So little thought it he offensive to Monarchy and if single authorities perswade not hearken what the whole generall Councel of Nicaea the first and famousest of all the rest determines writing a Synodal Epist. to the African Churches to warn them of Arrianisme it exhorts them to choose orthodox Bishops in the place of the dead so they be worthy and the people choose them whereby they seem to make the peoples assent so necessary that merit without their free choyce were not sufficient to make a Bishop What would ye say now grave Fathers if you should wake and see unworthy Bishops or rather no Bishops but Egyptian task-masters of Ceremonies thrust purposely upon the groaning Church to the affliction and vexation of Gods people It was not of old that a Conspiracie of Bishops could frustrate and fob off the right of the people for we may read how S. Martin soon after Constantine was made Bishop of Turon in France by the peoples consent from all places thereabout mâ—…ugre all the opposition that the Bishops could make Thus went matters of the Church almost 400. yeare after Christ and very probably farre lower for Nicephorus Phocas the Greek Emperour whose reign fell neare the 1000. year of our Lord having done many things tyrannically is said by Cedrenus to have done nothing more grievous and
strook through the black and settled Night of Ignornnce and Antichristian Tyranny me thinks a soveraigne and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosome of him that reads or heares and the sweet Odour of the returning Gospell imbath his Soule with the fragrancy of Heaven Then was the Sacred BIBLE sought out of the dusty corners where prophane Falshood and Neglect had throwne it the Schooles opened Divine and Humane Learning rak't out of the embers of forgotten Tongues the Princes and Cities trooping apace to the new erected Banner of Salvation the Martyrs with the unresistable might of Weaknesse shaking the Powers of Darknesse and scorning the fiery rage of the old red Dragon The pleasing pursuit of these thoughts hath oft-times led mee into a serious question and debatement with my selfe how it should come to passe that England having had this grace and honour from GOD to bee the first that should set up a Standard for the recovery of lost Truth and blow the first Evangelick Trumpet to the Nations holding up as from a Hill the new Lampe of saving light to all Christendome should now be last and most unsettl'd in the enjoyment of that Peace whereof we taught the way to others although indeed our Wicklefs preaching at which all the succeding Reformers more effectually lighted their Tapers was to his Countrey-men but a short blaze soone dampt and stifl'd by the Pope and Prelates for sixe or seven Kings Reignes yet me thinkes the Precedencie which GOD gave this Iland to be the first Restorer of buried Truth should have beene followed with more happy successe and sooner attain'd Perfection in which as yet we are amongst the last for albeit in purity of Doctrine we agree with our Brethren yet in execution and applying of Doctrine home and laying the salve to the very Orifice of the wound yea tenting and searching to the Core without which Pulpit Preaching is but shooting at Rovers in this we are no better then a Schisme from all the Reformation and a sore scandall to them for while wee hold Ordination to belong onely to Bishops as our Prelates doe wee must of necessity hold also their Ministers to be no Ministers and shortly after their Church to be no Church Not to speake of those sencelesse Ceremonies which wee onely retaine as a dangerous earnest of sliding back to Rome and serving meerely either as a mist to cover nakednesse where true grace is extinguisht or as an Enterlude to set out the pompe of Prelatisme Certainly it would be worth the while therefore and the paines to enquire more particularly what and how many the che◅We causes have been that have still hindred our Vniforme Con◅ to the rest of the Churches abroad at this time especially when the Kingdome is in a good propensity thereto and all Men in Prayers in Hopes or in Disputes either for or against it Yet will I not insist on that which may seeme to be the cause on GODS part as his judgement on our sinnes the tryall of his owne the unmasking of Hypocrites nor shall I stay to speake of the continuall eagernes and extreame diligence of the Pope and Papists to stop the furtherance of Reformation which know they have no hold or hope of England their lost Darling longer then the government of Bishops bolsters them out and therefore plot all they can to uphold them as may bee seene by the Booke of Santa Clara the Popish Preist in defence of Bishops which came out piping hot much about the time that one of our own Prelats out of an ominous feare had writ on the same Argnment as if they had joyn'd their forces like good Confederates to support one falling Babel But I shall cheifly indeavour to declare those Causes that hinder the forwarding of true Discipline which are among our selves Orderly proceeding will divide our inquirie into our Fore-Fathers dayes and into our Times HENRY the 8. was the first that rent this Kingdome from the Popes Subjection totally but his Quarrell being more about Supremacie then other faultinesse in Religion that he regarded it is no marvell if hee stuck where he did The next default was in the Bishops who though they had renounc't the Pope they still hugg'd the Popedome and shar'd the Authority among themselves by their sixe bloody Articles persecuting the Protestants no slacker then the Pope would have done And doutles when ever the Pope shall fall if his ruine bee not like the sudden down-come of a Towre the Bishops when they see him tottering will leave him and fall to scrambling catch who may hee a Patriarch-dome and another what comes next hand as the French Cardinall of late and the See of Canterbury hath plainly affected In Edward the 6. Dayes why a compleate Reform was not effected to any considerate man may appeare First he no sooner entred into his Kingdome but into a Warre with Scotland from whence the Protector returning with Victory had but newly put his hand to repeale the 6. Articles and throw the Images out of Churches but Rebellions on all sides stir'd up by obdurate Papists and other Tumults with a plaine Warre in Norfolke holding tack against two of the Kings Generals made them of force content themselves with what they had already done Hereupon follow'd ambitious Contentions among the Peeres which ceas'd not but with the Protectors death who was the most zealous in this point and then Northumberland was hee that could doe most in England who little minding Religion as his Apostacie well shew'd at his death bent all his wit how to bring the Right of the Crowne into his owne Line And for the Bishops they were so far from any such worthy Attempts as that they suffer'd themselvs to be the commō stales to coun tenance with their prostituted Gravities every Politick Fe◅ch that was then on foot as oft as the Potent Statists pleas'd to employ them Never do we read that they made use of their Authority and high Place of accesse to bring the jarring Nobility to Christian peace or to withstand their di◅oyall Projects but if a Toleration for Masse were to be beg'd of the King for his Sister MARY lest CHARLES the Fifth should be angry who but the grave Prelates Cranmer and Ridley must be sent to extort it from the young King But out of the mouth of that godly and Royall Childe Christ himselfe return'd such an awfull repulse to those halting and time-serving Prelates that after much bold importunity they went their way not without shame and teares Nor was this the first time that they discover'd to bee followers of this World for when the Protectors Brother Lord Sudley the Admirall through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his life no man could bee found fitter then Bishop Latimer like another Doctor Shaw to divulge in his Sermon the forged Accusations laid to his charge thereby to defame him with the People who else was thought would take ill the innocent mans death unlesse the