peace and extern order in which the publique wisdom and consent of the Nation confined it self them and all men in it by laws are to be called superstition tyranny and oppression in Ministers more then all other men who being under government thought it their duty to submit to every ordinance of man 1 Pet. 2.13 which did not crosse any divine ordinance but kept within the bounds of that liberty order and decency which are left to the wisdome of any Christian Church and State whereby to preserve the honor of Religion and the order and peace of the publique Those jejune and threadbare objections oft used against Ministers in these things wherein there were but obedientiall and passive the activity lying in those who had the power to enjoyne and command them which was done by all Estates in Parliament have been so oft and fully answered that all sober and wise Christians see the weaknesse of reason and the strength of passion in them as they are charged for faults on Ministers in their respective obedience and conformity For which they were like to know better grounds than any their enemies had against them And being in all other main matters very knowing and consciencious men they are not in charity to be suspected in those lesser and extern matters to have sprung any leak of sinfull weaknesse or to have made any shipwrack of a good conscience Later events have much recommended former duties and laws * Vires inordinatae mole ruunt sua Quo vehementiores eo infirmiores inque propriam ruinam valentissimae Salust shewing how weak even Truth and Religion are as to extern profession where like loose and scattered souldiers Beleevers or Professors are destitute of all order and just discipline But if the Ministers of the Church of England had discovered many failings as men compassed about with infirmities 6. Ministers in their weaknesses yet superiour to their adversaries who cannot supply their roome which easily beset them for which they oft mourned against which they were alwayes praying and striving yet what is it wherein the pretended perfections of their presumptuous and implacable adversaries doe excell the very weaknesses and defects of Ministers yea wherein will the vapouring of any new projectors be able to repair the dammage or recompense the want which thousands must have yea this whole Nation suffer if by these mens cruell designes they be deprived of the blessing of these whom they please to count so weak unworthy and contemptible Ministers Will those old pieces or those new Proteusses who pretend and fancy to be new stamped with the mark of popular ordination which is none of Christs whose wisdome never committed any power of Ministry and holy offices or divine Ordination to the common people as I have proved who are betrayers haters and desertors of that true power and authority which they formerly received in that just and lawfull ordination which was from all antiquity derived to this Church from which no mean and vulgar complyance should have drawn any man of piety learning and honesty to so great a schism defection and Apostasie from the Catholick rule and ancient practise will I say these new masters or those heaps of Teachers which country people are prone to raise up to themselves in their fervent folly and zealous simplicity will they furnish Church or State with better and abler Ministers in any kinde with better learning better doctrine better preaching better praying better living then those former Ministers did in the midst of their many infirmities Yea will not these new obtruders with most impudent foreheads while they looke you in the face cheat and deceive you Will they not while they smile upon you with shews of Gifts and Spirit O miserandam sponsam talibus creditam Paranymphis Ber. de Cons Praedatores non praedicatores peculatores non speculatores Raptores non Pastores Id. and Prophets and speciall calls and extraordinary ordinations exchange counterfeit for true Jewels brasse for gold stones for bread pebbles for pearls dirt for diamonds gloeworms for stars candles full of theives and soil for the Sun In stead of the excellent and usefull worth the divine and due authority of your learned and godly Ministers you shall have either confident ignorance or fraudulent learning or Jesuitick sophistry or fanatick nonsense or flattering errors or factious semblances of truth to usher in most damnable doctrines and most unchristian practises Doe men gather grapes of thornes or figs of thistles Can these bitter fountaines send forth sweet waters or these burning Etnas breath forth other than such sparkes and flames as their sulphureous spirits and their hearts full of envy Jam. 3.12 and malice and pride afford which seek to darken the Sun of Truth at noon day or to scorch up the fruits of holinesse to infect the common air of Christian charity order and peace in which true Christians delight to breath When these plagiaries have destroyed or driven away the fathers of Christs family and Church will they not either seduce and steal away the children to their own erratick factions or even sell these Orphanes for a pair of shoes to Cantors and Tom-a-bedlams committing or rather casting away the soules of men to the carelesse care of those sturdy vagrants whose minds are more unsetled than their eyes or feet or tongues which are so far bent against true Ministers as they are intent to their booty and prey from every quarter Will these who seek to be the maules and hammers of the Ministers of this Church either by their skill or power wit or learning prudence or policy ever forge on the hard anvils of their heads or bring forth out of the rude moulds of their inventions any thing that shall be like a true Minister of the Gospell Are there ordinarily any such blocks to be found among them of which there is any hope that they may be shapen to such Mercuries as are the true Gods Messengers Are there any such tempting materials as any art and industry may promise to fit them up to such a degree and pitch of competent Ministers as may direct the countrey plainnesse and guide that peevish and disputative madnesse which is among even the meanest people in every village Will these skippers or skullers ever furnish out such Pilots as may safely steere the ship of this Church in which the Truth of God the honour of Christ the reformed Religion the happinesse of thousands of soules are embarqued amidst the rocks of errours Syrens of secular temptations and piracies of strong enemies on every side They say that better ships are now built in England than ever were and shall we be content with worse Pilots lesse able Ministers in the Church who are as the Argonautae bringers of the golden fleece the riches and righteousnesse of Christ the Lamb of God the treasures of heaven the true gold of Ophir which hath been seven times tryed in stead of which
Petrus abnegando Jeron silence or reservedness in such a cause and at such a time as this will be your sin as it would have been mine How much more if you use not your uttermost endeavors in all fair and Christian ways to stop this Stygian stream but most of all if you contribute any thing of that power you have whereby to carry on this poysonous and soul-destroying torrent Words are never more due than in Christs behalf who is the Incarnate Word and for his Ministers who are the Preachers of that Word 22. The sense of the best Christians as to the Ministers case 2 Sam. 19.30 Non is this my private sense and horror alone but I know you O excellent Christians who are truly men of pious and publick not of proud or pragmatick spirits cannot but daily perceive That it is the general fear and grief of honest and truly reformed Christians in this Nation Who with one mouth are ready to say to those in place and power as Abraham did to the King of Sodom or Mephibosheth to David Let those cunning cruel and covetous Zibas whose treacherous practises and ingrateful calumnies seek to deprive us of our Houses Goods Lands and Liberties let them take all so as our David the beloved of our souls our Christ our true Religion our glory our true Ministers and Ministry may be safe Let others take the spoils and booties of our labors Gen. 14.21 onely give us the souls of our selves and our posterity for a prey which are like to perish for ever unless you leave us those holy means and that sacred Ministry which the wisdom and authority of Christ onely could as he hath appoint which the Churches of Christ have always enjoyed and faithfully transmitted to us for the saving of our sinful souls This request the very Turks unasked do yet grant in some degree to the poor Christians who live under their dominion And if it may seem to be our error and fondness thus to prise our true and faithful Ministers Illos nimis diligere non possumus Christiani quorum Ministerio Deum diligimus à Deo diligimur Cypr. and that onely divine Authority which is in their Ministry yet vouchsafe to indulge us in the midst of so many epidemical errors this one pious error and grateful fondness which not custom and tradition but conscience and true judgement have fixed in us since we esteem next * Vnicus est modus diligendi Deum nescire modum Aug. God and our blessed Saviour and the holy Scriptures the true Ministry of the Church as that holy necessary ordinance which the divine wisdom and mercy hath appointed whereby to bring us to the saving knowledge of God and our Lord Jesus Christ by the Scriptures That as we ow to our parents under God our Natural and Sinful Being whom yet we are bid to honor so our Christian Mystical and Spiritual Being 1 Cor. 4.15 Though you have ten thousand teachers in Christ yet you have not many fathers For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel we ow to our true Ministers as our holy and spiritual Fathers by whose care we have been truly taught and duly Baptized with divine Authority in the Name of the blessed Trinity both instructed and sacramentally confirmed in that faith which is the onely true way of eternal life By their study pains love and diligence when we would have been otherwise willingly ignorant and wholly negligent of our souls good our darkness by Gods grace and blessing on their labors chiefly hath been dispelled our ignorance enlightned our deadness enlivened our enmity against God and our Neighbor removed our hardness softned our consciences purged our lusts mortified our lives as to an holy purpose prayer and endeavor reformed our terrors scattered our ghostly enemies vanquished our peace and comforts obtained our souls raised and sealed to a blessed hope of eternal life through the mercies of God and the merits of our Redeemer whose Embassadors our true Ministers are â— And indeed we have no greater sign or surer evidence of our faith in Christ and love unfeigned to God than this That we love and reverence those and their calling as men who onely have authority in Chriss name to administer holy things to us And however others who have lately sought to come in 23. Of Praâ—enders to the Ministery not in * Seducunt è via incautos viatores ut securius ipsos perdant lenocinantès lairenes Greg. by the door but ever the wall who seek also like * John 10.8 All that came before me i. e. as Messias or Christ are theeves and robbers John 10.1 He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth some other way is a thief and a robber Vers 7. I am the door of the sheep We can neither come to be of the sheep of Christ but by faith in him nor shepherds of those sheep but by that door of authority which Christ hath set open in the Church by Ordination Bishop Downam Serm. theeves and robbers to lead us plainer people out of the right way that they may the better rob and spoil us pretend they are so rarely gifted that they will teach us the same or higher truths and administer the same holy things in a new and more excellent way than ever the best ordained Ministers of this Church have done Yet truly saving the confident boasting of these new masters we could never hitherto discern in any of them either by their much speech or writing with which they may make a great sound and yet be very empty any such sufficiencies as they lift every where so much to boast of Muchless have they ever produced any shew of Scriptural power Divine authority Mission from Christ or footstep of Apostolical succession in the Church in which every one that can speak tollerably we cannot think is presently sent of God for a publick Minister of holy things no more than every well-spoken Traveller or diligent Factor or Carrier is a Publick Agent Herauld or Embassador to any Prince or State or City although they may know their Princes Masters or Neighbors minde in many things We know it is not what waters men fancy but what God appointeth which will cure the blinde or leprous And we finde by daily sad experience that they whose pride or peevishness forsakes or scorns to use the waters of Jordan the means which Christ hath instituted and the Ministers which by his Church he hath ordained do commonly get no * Sacra mysteria non vi naturaliÌ„ sed voluntate dei supernaturali perficiuntur August In sacâ—â— sine mandato Divino vel maxima virtus deficit cum illo vel minima valescit Jeron more good by their padling 2 Kings 5.12 or dipping in other streams which they fancy better than Naaman would have done if he had gone to his so much extolled Rivers of Damascus and
so poor and feeble an engine as this of private compacts and covenantings by which they threaten with severe pens and tongues and brows to batter and demolish the great and goodly Fabrick and Communion of this and all other National Churches which are cemented together by excellent Laws and publick Constitutions so as to hold an honorable union with themselves and the whole Catholike Church That we rather wonder at the weakness and simplicity of those inventers and abetters who in common reason cannot be ignorant that as in civil respects and polity so in Ecclesiastical no private fraternities in families nor Corporations as in Towns and Cities can vacate those more publick and general relations or those tyes of duty and service which each Member ows to the Publick whereof it is but a part and it may be so inconsiderable an one that for its sake the greater good of the publick ought not in Reason or Religion to be prejudiced or any way neglected No more ought it to be in the Churches larger concernments for Peace Order and Government Nay we dare appeal to the Consciences of any of those Bodying Christians whom charity may presume to be godly and judicious Whether they finde in Scripture or have cause to think That the blessed Apostles ever constituted such small Bodies of Covenanting Churches when there were great numbers and many Congregations of Christians in any City Province or Country so as each one should be thought absolute Independent and no way subordinate to another Whether ever the Apostles required of those lesser handfuls of Christians which might and did convene in one place any such explicite Forms or Covenants besides those holy bonds which by believing and professing of the Faith by Baptism and Eucharistical communion were upon them Or Whether the blessed Apostles would have questioned or denied those to be true Christians and in a true Church or have separated from them or cast them off as not ingrafted in Christ or growing up in him who without any such bodying in small parcels had professed the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ in the due use of Word Sacraments and Ministry who endeavored to lead a holy and orderly life themselves and sought by all means which charity order or authority allowed them to repress the contrary in others No doubt the Apostles wisdom and charity was far enough from the wantonness and uncharitableness of some of these mens spirits who do not onely mock our Church and its Ministers 2 Kings 2.23 as the children did Elisha the Prophet but they seek to destroy them as the she-bears did the children Sure enough the Apostles instead of such severe censures peevish disputes and rigorous separations would have joyned with and rejoyced in the Faith Order and Vnity of such Churches such Christians and such Ministers where-ever they had met with them in all the World without any such scruple or scandal for their not being first broken into Independent Bodies and then bound up by private covenantings which are indeed no other than the racking distorting and dislocations of parts to the weakning and deforming of the whole VVe covet not a better or truer constituted Church than such as we are most confident Col. 2.5 Joying and beholding the order and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ the wisdom and charity of the Apostles would have approved in the main however in some lesser things they might gently reprove and reform them as they did divers famous and flourishing Churches And such a Church we have enjoyed in England by Gods mercy before ever we knew those mens unhappy novelties or cruelties who seek now to divide and utterly destroy us unless we conform to their deforming principles and practises And however we have not been wholly without the spots of humane infirmities yet we have professed Jesus Christ in that truth order purity and sincerity which gives us comfort and courage to claim the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 privilege of being true Christians and a true Church that is a very considerable famous and flourishing part branch or Member of that Catholike Church which professeth visibly or believes savingly in the Name of Jesus Christ the Head of the whole Body and of every part to whom we are united by the same common Faith and by Charity to one another Certainly the best Churches and Christians were antiently like the goodly bunches of Grapes Numb 13.24 which the Spies brought between them as an emblem of Christ crucified hanging on a staff so fair so full so great and united clusters From which no small slips did ever willingly divide or rend to Schism but presently they became not as the fruit of Canaan but as sowr Grapes fit onely to set mens teeth on edge wheting them to bite and devour one another For the maner of each particular holy Administration in our Church to answer all the small cavils which men list to make 23. The great shield of the Church of England is to encourage too much their petulancy and to make them too much masters of sober mens time and leisure Onely this great and faithful shield * See those Reverend and Learned Writers Bishop Bilson Bishop Cowper Doctor Field Master Richard Hooker Master Mason and others Learned men heretofore have and we do still hold forth to repel all their darts and arrows That both in the Ordination of our Ministers and in their celebration of holy things and in its Government Order and Harmony the Church of England hath followed the clearest rules in Scripture and the best paterns of the antient Churches onely enjoying those Christian liberties of prudence order and decency which we see the gracious wisdom of Christ hath allowed his Church and which particular Churches have always used and enjoyed in their extern rites and customs with variety yet without blemish as to the Institutions of Christ or to the soundness in the Faith or to any breach of Charity or any prejudice and scandal to each others liberties in those things So that those busie flies upon the Wheels of this Chariot the Reformed Church of England in which the Gospel of Jesus Christ hath hitherto been carried among us for many years with great triumph and success have stirred up very little dust so as might blinde any eyes that are not full of motes and beams or blood-shotten from seeing clearly and evidently a true Christian Church a true Ministry and truly religious Administrations among us Blessed be God though these sowr Momusses finde or make some faults and flaws in lesser matters the mending of which they most oppose and hinder yet their strength cannot shake the foundations of our Jerusalem which are of pretious pearls and solid stones nor can their malice overthrow our grand and goodly pillars the true and able Ministers and their holy Ministrations of Word and Sacraments among Professors of the Faith who do as unquestionably constitute a true Church as a reasonable
false teachers to stop their mouths Tit. 1.11 to exhort command and rebuke with all authority Tit. 2.15 to do their work as workmen that need not to be ashamed 2 Tim. 2.15 as those that must give an account of their Ministry and the souls committed to their care and charge by God and the Church Adorns them also with peculiar privileges promises and speciall assistances takes care for peculiar maintenance 1 Cor. 9.9 19. and double honour to be given them by all true Christians 1 Tim. 5.17 and encourageth them in a work of so great pains exact care and consciencious diligence which must expect to meet alwaies as now it doth with much opposition and contradiction of sinners promising to them speciall degrees of glory and more ponderous Crowns of eternall rewards in Heaven 1 Cor. 12.29 Are all Apo. are all Prophets are all Teachers c. 1 Cor. 9.16 Though I Preach the Gospell I have nothing to glory of as superogating so necessity is layd upon me yea woe is unto me if I Preach not the Gospell By all which and many others which might be added the Demonstration is clear as the Sun at Noon day to all that are not wilfully blind That some and not all in the Church and these not arbitrary and occasionall but chosen and ordeined persons are sent in a succession from Christ in his name and by vertue of this divine mission speciall authority and ordination to the care service and work of the Ministry they are bound in the highest bonds of conscience to the glory of God and the salvation of their own and others souls under a dreadfull woe and curse of being guilty of their souls damnation who perish by their neglect to attend diligently to discharge faithfulâ—y and couragiously as in the name and authority of Jesus Christ the Lord of glory this great and dreadfull imployment of the Ministry which Angels would not undertake without they were sent nor if sent without some horror Onus opus iâ—sis angelicis formidandum humoris Betn 2 Cor. 2.16 Who is sufficient for these things i. e. to speak the word of God as of God in the sight of God in Christ i. e. of sincerity 2 Tim. 2.4 2 Tim. 4.13 14 15 16. Acts 4.19.20 The Epistle of Paul to Tim. and Tit. are the constant Canons and divine injunctions for the succession of Ministerial power by way of tryal imposition of hands prayer c. To which no earthen vessels are of themselves sufficient but through the grace of God they are made able and faithfull 1 Tim. 1.12 and being such are both successefull and accepted while they give themselves wholy to this work not entangling themselves with other incomberances but devoting the whole latitude of time parts studies gifts to this business of saving souls and this not in popular and precarious wayes or only upon grounds of charity but with all just confidence of having that authority with them as well as necessity upon them which makes them bold in the Lord that they cannot but speak the things for which they have received power and commission from Christ by the Ordination and appointment of the Governours and guides of the Church who formerly had received the same power To which none can without high impudence blasphemy and impiety pretend who are conscious to themselves to have received no such authority from Christ either immediatly or in that one mediate way of successive ordination by which he hath appointed it to be derived to posterity which I have already proved cannot by any shew of Scripture no more than in any way of reason and order becomming Religion be found to have any other way than by those that are in orders as Ministers neither is it intrusted with the community of people among Christians nor left to every private mans pleasure As then some men are duly invested with power ministeriall 7. None can be true Ministers but such as are rightly ordeined both to act in this power and to confer it to others after them and these only are commanded by the rule of Christ by their duty or office and by all bonds of conscience to make a right use of this peculiar and divine power for the Churches good So are all other men whatsoever not thus duly ordeined and impowred though never so well gifted in themselves forbidden under the sins of lying falsity disorderly walking proud usurpation and arrogant intrusion of themselves into an holy office uncalled and unsent either to take this office and Ministry of holy things on themselves or to confer the power which they never received on others which neither Melchisedeck nor Moses nor Aaron nor Samuel nor any of the Prophets nor the Lord Jesus Christ nor the blessed Apostles Heb. 5.1 Every high Priest taken from among men is ordeined for men in things pertaining to God c. 4. No man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Anon c. 5. Christ also glorified not himself to be made an high Priest c. nor any Evangelist or any true Bishop or Presbyter nor any holy men succeeding them did ever take to themselves either as to the whole or any part of that power and Ministry not so much as to be a Deacon but still attended the Heavenly call and mission either immediatly Luke 12.42 Who then is a faithfull and wise Steward whom the Lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion in due season 43. Blessed c. 1 Tim. 3.15 If I tarry long that thou mayst know how thou oughtest to behave thy self in the house of God c. which was confirmed by miracles and speciall revelations or predictions or mediatly in such an order and method of succession as the Lord of the Church who is not a God of confusion hath appointed and to this day preserved who otherwayes would have left his Church short of that blessing of orderly Government and Officers appointed for holy ministrations which is necessary in every society and which no wise man that is Master of any Family doth omit to appoint and settle especially in his personall absence where he governs by a visible derived and delegated authority given to others as Christ now doth his Church as to the extern order and dispensation of holy things Peoples duty The duty of all faithfull people in which bounds their comforts are conteined are no less distinct and evidently confined Quomodo valebit homo secularis sacerdotis magisterium adimplere cujus nec officium tenuit nec disciplinam agnovit Isid Hisp off l. 2. c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lay man is bound up by Lay commands to keep his rank and order Cl. ep pag. 53. Nor can saith he the Presbyters be cast out or degraded without a great sin Pag. 57. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Exors officii exors solatii praemii Is Hisp Matth.
and enabled to effect those things which none other can presume to perform without vanity sin and presumption who hath not that gift power or authority consigned to him The right Ordination then of Ministers in the way of an holy succession in the Church of Christ hath in Religion and among true Christians these holy uses and clear advantages peculiar to it 1. 1. It confirms the truth of the Gospel 2 Cor. 8.23 First as to the main end the Glory of God and the saving of mens souls by their believing and obeying this testimony of all true Ministers that Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of the world Nothing gives a more clear and credible testimony to the glory and honour of Jesus Christ and to truth of the Gospel than this uniform and constant succession of Ministers Multi barbarâ—rum in ChristuÌ„ credunt sine charactere vel attramento scriptam babenter in cordibus sum per spiritum salutem et veterum traditionem diligentes custodientes quam Apostoli tradiderunt iis quibus committebant Ecclesias cui ordinationi assentiunt multa gentes c. Iren. l. 3. c. 4. by a peculiar Ordination and authority even from Christ himself in person who at first began this Ministry and sent some speciall men as his messengers to bear witness of him in all the world that so men might believe not only what is written in the word before it was or as it is now written but also as that glorious truth hath been thus testified every where and in every age by chosen and peculiar men as a cloud of most credible witnesses whom thousands at first did and to this day do hear preaching and see them Celebrating the holy mysteries of Christs Gospell who never had or used any written word nor ever read it and for the most part believed before ever they saw any part of the Bible which the constant Ministry of the Church hath under God hitherto preserved chiefly upon the testimony and tradition or record of those that were ever thought and alwayes ought to be most able and faithfull men specially appointed by Christ in his Church as a perpetuall order and succession of Witnesses to testifie of him and to minister in his Name to the end of the world This walking Gospel and visible Ministry consisting as it ought of wise and worthy men Minister est verbum visibile ambulans Evangelium who have good reputation for their piety learning and fidelity running on to all generations is as a continued stream from the blessed Apostles who were the first witnesses immediatly appointed by Christ to hold forth his name and Gospell to the world Acts 1.8 which though never so far off in the decurrence of time from the fountain yet still testifies and assures all wise men that there is certainly a divine fountain of this ministeriall power and so of Evangelicall mysteries and truth which rose first from Christ and which hath constantly run as may appear by the enumeration or induction of particular descents in all ages in this Channel of the Apostles and their successors the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church for the better planting confirming and propagating of the Gospell to all Nations and times As a duty charge or office injoyned by divine command to some men and lying ever as a calling on their consciences Hereby evidently declaring the divine wisdom and Fatherly care of Christ for the good instruction and order of his Church in his personall absence In that he hath not left the Ministry of the Gospell and his holy Institutions which he would have alwaies continued for the gathering edifying of his Church to a loose and arbitrary way among the rabblâ— and promiscuous heards of men which would soon have made Evangelicall truths seem but as vagrant fables and generall uncertain rumors which run without any known and sure authority in the common chat and arbitrary report of the vulgar by which in a short time both the order beauty honour purity and credit of Truth is easily lost among men This holy and successionall ordination of the Evangelicall Ministry gives great proof and demonstration as of Christs personall presence as chief Bishop and Minister of his Church so of the fulfilling of Christs word and the veracity of his promise Mat. 28. after his departure to be with them that were sent and went in his name to the end of the world That the gates of hell neither yet have nor ever shall prevail against the Church While it carefully preserves a right succession holy order and authority of true Ministers the devill despairs of ever overthrowing Christian Religion in its reformed profession in any Country Down with the order Mat. 16.28 and sacred power and succession of the Ministry and all will in a short time be his own 2. 2. Evidenceth the Churches care Agnitio vera est Apostolorum doctrina antiquus Ecclesia status in universo mundo charactere corporis Christi secundum successiones Apostolorum quibus illi eam quae est in unoquoque loco Ecclesiam tradiderunt Scripturarum sine fictione custodita tractatio plenissima lâ—ctio sine salsatione secundum scripturas expositio legitima diligens sine periculo sine blasphemia Irenaeus l. 4. c. 43. In Ecclesia Catholica bacte nus inviolabili observatione tenetar qua potissimum Catholici ab Haereticis discriminantur nimirum ut cujusvis meriti atque praestantiae â—ir fuerit non sua sponte praedicationis munus suscipiat sed expectet donec ab Ecclesia mittatur ab eaque sacris functionibus initietur siâ—que initiatus praedicationi Evangelii mancipetur Baronius An. Anno Christi 44. It is also a notable evidence of the Churches care and fidelity in all ages not only in the preservation of the oracles of the word which it hath done but also of a constant holy Ministry to teach and explain them Also to celebrate those holy mysteries which are divinely annexed to the word as seals to confirm the faith of Christians And lastly to exercise that wholsome discipline for terror or comfort the power of which is chiefly in the Pastors and Rulers of the Church As it is then for the honour of the wisdom of Christ in the originall to have instituted such holy mysteries and such a Ministry so it is for the honour of the Church in the succession of all ages to have thus preserved them and it self in that order which becomes the family of Christ which had come far short of any well ordered family if the Father and Master of it Jesus Christ had left every servant to guess at his duty and all of them to scramble what part they list of employment aliment and enjoyment but the Lord Christ as every wise Master doth hath appointed and his Church hath preserved to this day constant Stewards and dispensers of holy things in his house-hold whose duty t is to
have a name to * Revel 3.1 live by the Spirit and covet to be called spirituall who are dead in their lusts and walk after the flesh * Prov. 30 12. They seem pure in their own eyes and yet are not washed from their filthinesse Yea there is a generation O how lofty are their eyes yet are their teeth swords and their jaw teeth as knives Nothing is more cruell than supercilious hypocrisie * Ioh. 18.28 They were forward to crucifie Christ who were shy of being defiled by entring into the Judgement Hall They are most zealous to destroy the true Ministers yea the very function and succession who seem most devoted to be Teachers Prophets and Preachers of a new Spirit and form Many seem rich in gifts and increased in spirituall endowments thinking they need nothing of Christs true Ministry Revel 3.17 when they know not that they are poore and naked and blind and miserable Ephes 6.12 There are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spirituall wickednesses usurpant in the high places of mens soules as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more sordid and swinish spirits that dwell in the lower region of mens lusts It is expresly stigmatized on the foreheads of some pretenders to the Spirit Iude 19. which was the glory of those first and purest times that they are sensuall not having the Spirit Irenaeus l. 3. c. 1. of the Gnasticks andValentinians Gloriantur se â—mendatores esse Apostolorum perfectam cognitionmen non habuisse Apostolos cap. 2. Dicunt se non tantum Presbyteris sed Apostolis sapientiores sinceram invenisse veritatem So the Circumcelliones Quae non viderunt confingunt opiniones suâ—s habentes pro Deo honores quos non habuerunt se habuisse protestantur Isid Hisp de off Eccl. l. 3. c. 15. Vain and proud ignorance as we see in primitive times is not onely content to be without the true wise humble and orderly Spirit of God but they must also study to cover their follies disorders and hypocrisies with the shews of it as if it were not enough to sin against its manifest rules and examples in the Word which have alwayes been observed in the Church unlesse they impute also to it their simplicities fondnesses impudencies filthy dreams extravagancies and confusions Counting it no shame to ascribe those unreasonable and absurd motions speeches and actions to Gods most wise and holy Spirit which any man of right reason and sober sense or common ingenuity and modesty would be ashamed to owne Our humble prayer is that these new modellers and pretenders to the Spirit may learn not to blaspheme not to grieve resist and doe despite to the Spirit of God which hath been and still is evidently manifest in the true Ministers of this Church and our earnest study shall be that we may be truly endued with such gifts graces and fruits of the Spirit of Christ that we may both speak and doe and suffer as becomes good Christians and true Ministers after the example of holy men and of our great Master Bishop and Ordainer Jesus Christ That so the judicious Charity of those that excell in vertue wisdome faith and humility may have cause to say the Lord hath sent us in the power as well as in the order and office of the Ministry to which we were rightly ordained On the other side we fear that the great earthquakes in the Church and darknesse over the Reformed Religion which may follow the true Ministers being set at naught and crucified by the malice and wantonnesse of men may in after times give too much cause to those Mat. 27.54 that now neglect us or afflict us to say as the Centurion did of Christ Doubtlesse these were the messengers of the most high God the true Ministers of Jesus Christ and of his Gospell to this Church While we have any liberty and leave to live as Ministers it will become us not to be so discouraged by the impotent malice of any enemies as to desert this holy calling whereto the Lord by a right ordination in this Church hath duly called us Not to look back to the world having once put our hands to this plough to consider our persecutors no further than to pity them and pray for them notwithstanding all the injuries and blasphemies not against us so much as against God while they fear not to ascribe the great and good effects which the Lord hath vouchsafed to work by his Ministers upon the hearts of thousands in England to Beelzebub Mat. 12.24 to the spirit of Antichrist or to any thing rather than to own the Spirit of Christ among us which hee hath promised should ever be with his true and faithfull Ministers in an holy succession of authority and power to the end of the world Scandalous inconstancy of Professors Indeed the greatest grief to the Soules of all godly Ministers and which hath brought the greatest scandall and dehonestation on their Ministry next to some of their own grosse failings is this when the world sees so many of those who seemed to be baptized with water and with the Spirit to have been illuminated and sanctified by their teaching to have tasted of the heavenly gift Heb. 6.5 and the powers of the world to come that is of the authority and efficacy of the Evangelicall Ministry which was to come after the Leviticall and Aaronicall order Many who seemed to have rejoiced for many years in those burning and shining lights of this Churches Ministers to have by their Ministry been well instructed reformed washed and escaped from the pollutions of this world That I say some of these like Jesuruâ— should thus lift up the heel and thus kick against the Ministers and Ministry like Demasses thus to forsake them like Judasses thus to betray them whom lately they kissed and followed as Disciples like Swine that they should thus turn and revile those that cast pearl before them returning to the wallowing in the mire and dirt of unjust covetous ambitious erroneous seditious licentious perjurious malicious and sacrilegious courses No more now ashamed of their lusts then those unclean beasts are of their filthinesse in the midst of the fairest Sun-shine day and when they are neerest to the most pure and Crystall streams But the light which they will not see in this their day shining on them and discovering the frauds and evill of their wayes they may after see in that darknesse to which they are hastning and to which they seem even of God to bee condemned But to conclude my answer in this particular 15. Conclusion and resignation of our Ministry if c. wherein the Antiministeriall adversaries pretend to such spirituall gifts and speciall calling beyond the ordained and setled Ministry if any excellent Christians or any of those that have either wisdome to discern or power to dispose of things to the advantage of this Church and State if they doe in
hear with the greatest ease order and decency the ablest Ministers of England in those places which are dedicated to the Churches publique use and service Indeed the ruder way of these mens exercising their small endowments and discovering their great idlenesse by extemporary pratings may well enough consist with those mechanick imployments to which they have been brought up and from which this their predicating now and then is but a sport and recreation if it should not turne to some account for profit But to such men as make the Ministry of the glorious Gospell Nulla res bene exerceri potest ab homine altas occupato Sen. de brev vit to be their work and study dayly to fit themselves for that great and sacred dispensation of saving Truths and sublime mysteries it will appeare to be alone an imployment so more than enough that there will be little vacancy to intangle themselves in secular and inferiour businesse which is casting down the stars of heaven from their orbs and firmaments to things terrene and sordid which at best are but losse and dung in comparison of the excellency of that knowledge of Jesus Christ 1 Cor. 2.2 which they determine above all things to know and make known If the work of the Ministry which is of so vast a latitude and of so high concernment require and takes up the prime and flower of the time as well as the thoughts of the best and ablest men that ever were conscientiously imployed in it and all little enough how sordid are those projects which seek to divert Ministers by worldly necessities to debase their minds below that worthy office and weighty work But contempt and beggery are the double honour which these mens bounty and gratitude would give to those that have and still do diligently labour in the Word and Doctrine Either they own them not as invested in any holy office and divine authority or they would have them so debased by poverty and vile dependency that they might not be thought fit to be owned as such while they are forced to intangle themselves contrary to the Apostles Canon 2 Tim. 2.4 in the meanest affaires of life hindering other poor men in their manuall trades and receiving no other benefit of their learning and labours but what comes in an arbitrary way from others or is extorted by their most illiberall importunities bringing down to the lowest step of disgrace the dignity of this holy function in this reformed Church as if Ministers were to be nothing but an order of mendicant Fryers these beg when they need not but those shall need and beg and have not O how desirous are these men to have all true Ministers like to Christ their Master not to have whereto hide their heads while the Foxes have holes Matth. 8.20 and the birds of the air have nests Such airy light and high flying fancies as these who like feiled Pigeons the lesse they see the higher they sore doe dayly build their nests on high and feather them very well Yet they could be well content the Apostle Paul and all his successours in the Ministry of the Gospell among the Gentils should either lie in the tents of their own making or else with the dogs of their flocks out of dores while they fatted and anointed may rest at ease within the curtaines of Solomon and dwell in seiled houses to which some of them have hardly so good a title as Ministers have to their houses glebes and Tithes Thus these Pharaohs dream of none Gen. 41. but lean cattell in the field of this Church or to compleat the Vision they see the following lean cattell which are now coming up after the former which were fat and wel favoured devouring them up as if they had not been The new ill ordained ill gifted ill maintained and every way ill favoured Ministers will in short time they hope consume all those learned worthy able rightly ordained and sometime competently if not honorably entertained Ministers which have been the glory of this Church and Nation for many ages These must now give way to hungry necessitous crowching and fawning pieces of impudent ignorance such as their Antidecimall Masters affect as if they thought that the more thread-bare and hunger-starved Ministers were and the lesse wool or flesh they had on their backs the more spirituall they must needs be the more like Angels or separate and naked soules and the lesse chargeable they are the more acceptable they will be to these patrons of avarice and sacriledge Such are the noble generous and blessed projects or proposals of these Antidecimists than whom a meaner spirited subject never exercised any ingenuous pen nor more infested any Christian Church not like gadflyes more importunely disquited learned godly and true Ministers of the blessed Gospell O you excellent spirited and liberall hearted Christians 14. Appeal to the liberall soules to whose candour I must still appeal as the great incourager and comforter next God and a good conscience of all faithfull and true Ministers in these blustering encounters Although 〈◊〉 know by too much experience that there are many such whining people penurious protestants triobolury Christian whose beggerly soules are prone to be leavened with the suggestions of these Antideclinists who for the most part are pitifull pieces of ignorance avarice and sacrilegious envy through whom as through whom as through vaults and trunkes the divell whispers into common peoples eares this Infernall Oracle Save your purses though you damn your soules yet all worthy and true Ministers who are humbly conscious to their endeavour to deserve well of this Church of England of their own charges and all other good people are still far from that dejection or despondency into which their adversaries seek to cast them For they still have frequent experiences of their peoples unfeigned love respects and chearfull kindenesse to them whose generous piety oft seems to tell their Ministers 2 Sam. 24.24 as David did Araunah That they would be ashamed to serve their God of that which costs them nothing Notwithstanding they have many other publique pressures upon them which are of a far later edition than Tithes and of a greater print yet they cannot finde in their hearts the least grudging at their paying Tithes to their Ministers since they see no reason why these as Christs Agents and Gods Embassadours should not as well deserve and enjoy a competent and comely maintenance as any publique Officers either Civill or Military Who have more of power to exact but not more of right either humane or divine nor yet more of merit to require their payes and fees Yea Ministers still dare to hope that those in power have not any such Nabalitick and churlish humor as to feast those that shear and sometimes slay the sheep while they starve the Shepheards So great a confidence alwayes ariseth from the conscience of well doing And whereas the strongest insinuations
sincerity and godly simplicity We beleive he will not fail us nor forsake us though men though Christians though reformers doe There is not a better sign of Gods love than to be persecuted for righteousnesse sake It is our honour Matth. 5. as St. Jerom wrote to St. Austin Heb. 12. that the divell and his fanatick factions do unanimously hate us and malign us for if they were for Christ they could not be against us And we finde by experience that these Antiministeriall agitators have no such displeasure against any men be they never so flagitious or their estates never so luxuriant as against the most orderly and deserving Ministers So that it is their piety and pains which afflicts their enemies more than their plenty And if they cannot strangle Christ in the Cradle yet they hope to starve him in the Desart Blessed be God we see the end and bounds of these mens power and malice They are finite flesh and not infinite Gods yea they are proud flesh lately risen up which God will eat off with fitting corrosives if ever he heals this Church and Nation These murmurers never set us on work nor doe we depend on such unjust masters for our wages Though they be not converted or gathered from their follies Isai 49.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cle. Al. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7. Dei particeps nulliâ—â— indigus factions and separations yet our reward shall be from the Lord who hath sent us and whom we have served with faithfull hearts as to our temporary subsistence we hope wee shall never depend on these mens injurious justice or câ—uel mercies much lesse on their envious alms and supercilious charity who are our enemies for the Gospels sake which we preach And although we should not be protected in point of our civill rights from their despight and rage yet as to the honour and vindication of our Ministry and holy function Gal. 2.5 we must not give place no not for an houre to their cavils and calumnies Yea we doe not despair but that we may find so much equity and pity in some mens hearts in whose hands is power that they will rather harken and incline to the just plea of those labourers in Christs harvest who have borne the heat and burthen of the day and who crave but liberty first to doe the work to which Christ and the Church hath ordained them and next which is but a just and righteous thing to enjoy that reward which the Law hath assigned them than to listen to the envious suggestions or injurious proposals of those novell intruders upon the Ministry who have yet given not the least assurance to the wiser world or any reformed Christians that they in any thing exceed or equall the true ancient Ministers of England nor have they yet by any demonstrations of modesty ingenuity sense of honour or of shame nor by any part of good learning which they decry and hate nor by any other usefull and commendable quality redeemed themselves from the most sordid passions and saddest distempers of humane nature nor yet reconciled themselves to any love and value of vertue worth and excellency in others We know well that their ignorances and errours are grosse in many things both divine and humane for how can they but erre excessively who are very active and for the most part both bold and blind Any piece of rustical ignorance clownish confidence serves some mens turn to oppose any Minister withall setting up their puppetly Teraphims their deformed Dagons their Images of jealousie in the place and temple of the living God Among their other errours this we hope is none of their least that they fancy and every where proclaim that they have so charmed with their philters and enchantments which are Confections made up of ignorance and malice pride and cruelty covetousnesse and uncharitablenesse together with a perfect disdain of all that is rationall learned or excellent that with these charms they have so possessed many or most of those in power That they are resolved to root out abase and destroy all those Ministers who are any way eminent in learning courage and constancy both for the honour of their function and of the reformed Religion and of this Church and Nation We cannot think those in power to be so easily perswaded to be enemies to themselves and the publique by being made enemies to true Ministers without a cause One of whose serious and solid abilities is able to doe more good to Church and State in one year than can be hoped from the whole fraternity and faction of those supercilious adversaries of the Ministry in as many ages as a year hath dayes For if wise men may guesse at the future by what they already finde of them they must conclude that like Fistulas and gangrened Vlcers the longer they prevail the more desperate and incurable they will be both to the Church and the State every day bringing us neerer either to old Rome or the elder Babylon to superstition or confusion For there is nothing almost in this Church of England as to the extern order and profession of Religion which some of these Antiministerials and Antidecimists doe not contest against and study to overthrow Which makes me here a little digresse 20. Answer to other lesse scruples yet not from my maine design which is to satisfie all excellent Christians and others as to any thing by these men objectable against the Ministers and Ministry of the Church of England by looking at some lesser calumnies and cavils which they every where scatter among the common people to alienate them from or prejudice them against their Ministers quarrelling against the places where publiquely we meet to serve God and many things used by us in our holy Ministrations 1. Of publique places called Churches As to the publique places where Christians meet and Ministers officiate these supercriticall masters of words and censors of all mens language and manners but their owne cannot indure the impropriety and profanenesse as they say of calling those places Churches This they scorn with very severe smiles and supercilious frownes so profound is their judgement It was the work of Diocletian to burn all the books and destroy all the Churches of the Christians Euseb hist l. 10. and so scrupulous their conscience that they had rather pull down such publique and convenient places than venture to be defiled by coming into them or once so much as to call them Churches they say they have far higher senses and definitions of a Church than will agree with piles of wood and stones Answ We doubt not of their deep Divinity touching a Church which it may be they will not dare yet to define as not being well agreed what a Church is or what is the right matter and forme or way of a Church Much broken and wrangling stuffe they have heaped up touching a Church but scarse one stone is yet
persons countries or Churches It is hard to discerne the Star of Prophecy so over any one man or place or time as that was over the house where Christ was in Bethlehem Hence many meteors falling Stars and fatuous fires are frequently discovered in the writings of fancifull and factious men as if all they did or desired or approved were evidently foretold and commended in the Revelation In whose Visions one sees this Princess another sees that learned man a third that State or Kingdome a fourth that Commander and Conqueror c. according as men list to fancy themselves or flatter others whose sparks are far extinct and their glory presently vanisheth as no way proportionable to that fixed light and ample glory which the spirit of prophecy holds forth chiefly to the Christian world in opposition to Heathens Jews or Antichrists After the way of these Prophetick fancies and passionate methods of some mens misinterpreting and misapplying Prophecies great Religion we see hath been placed by small mindes in pulling down and extirpating the ancient order and government of Episcopacy which was in all Churches as here in England from the first plantation of Christianity Also in setting up the supremacy of an headlesse Eldership and Presbytery or in dashing both of them into sheards and small pieces by the little stone of Independency How doe some glory in their dividing and destroying the ancient goodly frames of Churches that they may new modell them to their popular way of calling chusing and ordaining of Ministers Many boast much in their forsaking the calling and communion of all former Ministers and religious assemblies in their despising and demolishing the very places of publique meeting to serve God which not conscience of any divine particular precept but common reason and civility have presented Christian Religion withall for its honour and its professors conveniency Some here with us in England a place whose Genius much disposeth people to prophecies novelties and varieties are as Pygmalion with his Image so inamoured with their Corpusculo's the little new bodies of their gathered Churches that they deny any Nationall Church in any larger associatings of Christians by harmonies of confession and peaceable subordinations yea and many will allow no Catholick Church nor any religious sense to that article of our Creed denying any true Church at all to be now in the world Some place all Church power in paucities in parities in popular levellings and Independencies others contemn all those broken bodies as schismaticall slips having nothing in them of that goodly beauty stature strength and integrity to which the Church of Christ was wont to grow and wherein it flourished and continued conspicuous so many hundred of years before these novelties were broached or brewed either in England or any other countrey The height of some mens Religion and Reformation is to have neither Bishops nor Ministers of the ancient authority succession and ordination Others refuse these also of the new Presbyterian stamp which is not much older here in England than the figure and superscription of the last coin A third will have no Minister but such as the common people shall try chuse consecrate and judge Some will have no Minister at all by office or divine mission others will have any man a Minister or Prophet that lists to make or call himself one In like manner some will allow Baptism to no Infants others to none but such whose parents they judge to be Saints a third baptize the children of all that professe they beleive the truth of the Gospell a fourth sort deny the use of any water Baptism at all By a Catabaptisticall boldnesse or blindenesse magisterially contradicting and sophistically disputing against the expresse letter of the Scripture against the command of Jesus Christ against the practise of all the Apostles and against the custom of all Christian Churches Pretending as a rare and warm invention that the Baptisme of fire and of the Spirit which they now at last hold forth will both supply and explode that colder ceremony of sprinkling or dipping in water It is strange these Rabbies and Masters in Israel should be so silly as not to know that long before their brain brought forth any such blasphemous brood against baptizing by water all judicious Christians ever esteemed baptism by water to be an extern sign and meanes by which the wisedome of Christ thought fit to administer to his Church on earth not onely that distinctive mark of being his Disciples but also the representation of his bloud shed for their redemption and the obsignation of that Baptismall grace which his Spirit confers on those that are his by the cleansing of the conscience and renewing of the inward man 1 Pet. 3.21 Christians must not after the short and more compendious methods of their fancies therefore neglect the sign or ceremony because they presume of the thing signified but rather with humble obedience doe the duty and use the meanes divinely instituted that they may obtain the grace offered On the same grounds all outward Ministrations among Christians may be despised and abolished by those that pretend to the Spirits inward efficacy which is never in any man that doth not obey the Gospell in its outward mandates as well as the Spirit in its inward motions Proud idle and ignorant fancies are dayly finding shorter wayes to heaven than the wisdome of Christ hath laid out to his Church in following of which no good Christian can judge that there is either piety peace or safety Some boast much of their popular and plausible gifts for knowledge utterance prayer c. others slight all but inward grace and the Spirits dwelling in them Some dote much upon their select fraternities and covenanting congregations others are onely for private illuminations solitary seekings sublime raptures and higher assurances Some admire themselves in their tedious strictnesses and severer rigors by which they gird up the loins of their Religion so strait that it can hardly take civill breath or the air of common courtesie others joy as much in the Liberty they fancy themselves to have attained both of opinions and actions Some make every thing a sin and errour which they like not others count nothing a sin to which they have an impulse and are free as they call it Some tolerate all wayes of Religion in all men till it comes to be private Atheisme and publique confusion others crack all strings which will not be wound up to their pitch damning and destroying all that are not of their particular mode and heresie though never so novel and differing not onely from the Catholick practise of the primitive Churches but also from the expresse rule of the Scriptures Whom would not these monsters of novelties varieties and contradictions among Christians in their Religion as it is Christian and reformed too even amaze and greatly astonish ready to scare all men from any thing that wee in England call Religion Reformation Church or Conscience
Hemlock very hurtful or death in the pot being judged by the wisdom of the Church and State here and by the most learned Divines abroad to be within the liberty and compass of those things of Order and Decency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut ordinata acies As an Army with Banners in Rank and File where nothing may be deformed by being disorderly which by that one grand charter 1 Cor. 14.40 are allowed by God to be ordered by the prudence of any particular National Church And in which all Churches in all ages and places have esteemed their several Customs as Laws to them without any breach of Charity or prejudice of Christian Liberty or blemish of the Faith yet never perhaps without the offence of some particular Members in the Churches whose fancies easily finde fault with any things whereof themselves are not Fathers or at least Gossips Humble Christians will thank God for moderate enjoyments nor are they bound to contend for what they think best to the perturbance of the publick Peace Patience is a remedy always near easie and safe nor is it likely that the state of any Church on Earth will ever be so happily compleated as to have nothing in it which may displease any good man Cato optimè sentit sed nocet interdum reipublicae Tacit. or which may not exercise his tollerancy and charity which are generally more commendable and unsuspected virtues than those of zealous activity and publick opposition which commonly draw somewhat upon the dregs of self either as to Passion or Interest Et multis utile bellum Luc. Party or Concernment For who is so mortified that doth not hope to get something of credit profit or honor by adhering to any side or new faction against the former setlings How many learned and godly men are and ever will be till better grounds be produced from Scripture Reason and practise of the Primitive Church unsatisfied with the parity and novelty yet pretended Divine Right of the sole-headless-Presbytery which chalenges to it self as from Christ such a supreme power as is exclusive and destructive of all Episcopacy that is of the constant Presidency of one among other Presbyters so placed by their own choice and consent And no less unsatisfied are thousands of learned and good Christians with that power of Lay Elders for so they are best called for distinction sake and not Ruling Elders lest by that title of Ruling they should fancy and usurp the sole power of rule to themselves which undoubtedly is equally if not eminently due to the Preaching Elders who labor in the Word and Doctrine Touching which point of Lay Elders in the Church I have read two Books written above thirty years since by a very learned godly and impartial Divine Master Chibald of London In the first of which he proved these Lay Elders to have no place office use Mr. Chibalds two Books of Lay Elders power or maintenance assigned them by Scripture nor ever in any Church of Christ which he demonstrates in the second Book which is full of excellent reading as to the Fathers Councils and Histories of the Church In none of which he findes them to have any footing as to office and power upon any Divine Right ever owned in the Church nor can they now have in every little Parish or private Congregation where the Country plainness may afford careful Over-seers for the Poor and Church-wardens but not fit men to match with the Minister and to fit as Rulers to govern their other Neighbors who will hardly believe they have authority from Heaven to rule them unless they see more abilities in them than usually can be found What use may be made of such Elders in the way of Prudence among greater Representations of the Church as in Synods and Councils he leaves to the wisdom of those that have power in such Conventions to call and regulate them But he denies any thing as of Divine Right belonging to them so as to binde every Parish or Congregation to have them which would be ridiculous and most inconvenient Both these Books being seven years since committed to the hands of Master Coleman as then a Licencer were unhappily either smothered and embezzled or carelesly lost to the great detriment of truth in that particular For truly in my best judgement and in other mens of far better to whom I imparted them never any thing was written of that subject more learnedly more uprightly more copiously or more candidly especially considering the Author was one that scrupuled some things of Conformity In like maner how few Christians in any Reformed Church are satisfied with those new and strange Limbs rather than Bodies of Independent Churches which word of bodying into small Corporations is as a novel so a very gross expression and hath something of a Solecism not onely in Religion which owns properly but one Body of Christ Rom. 12.5 We being many are one body in Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 By one Spirit we are all baptized into one Body which is Christs which is his Catholike Church whose communion with Christ the onely Head and one another as Members in several Offices and Operations is by the same Faith the same Scriptures the same Ministry the same Ministrations and as to the main and substance the same Christian Profession But it is also incongruous and absurd in ordinary significancy of Language while by such a singular Bodying they mean a Spiritual Union of those that pretend to be most Spiritual Christians Which names and novel inventions about constituting and compleating Churches in so many fractions parcels and places a part from all others by the means of an explicit Church Covenant as they call it how unscriptural how unconform to the examples of all ancient Churches how impertinent as to Piety how dangerous and destructive to the Truth Union Harmony and Dependance which ought to be among all Christians 1 Cor. 12.25 That there be no schism in the body i. e. In that one Body of Christ the Catholike Church and all Churches to avoid Schism in that one Catholike Body of Christ do they seem to many judicious and gracious Christians who think themselves and all others that profess to be Christians sufficiently added and united to the Church as the Primitive Believers being once baptized were without any more a do yea and declaredly bound by their * Acts 2.42 They that gladly received the word were baptized and the same day there were added to the Church about 3000. souls Baptism and Profession to all Christian conversation charitable communion and holy walking by these Publick Bonds and Sacraments of Religion which they owned and of which they were publickly partakers and professors So that not onely in these but in many other things we see the remedies which some men apply to former seeming distempers do to many men seem worse than the diseases ever were The little finger of grievances scruples
man is less to be imagined when we consider in the sacred story That man had most of divine counsel and deliberation in his Creation Gen. 1.26 not as needful to God who can work by omniscient and omnipotent power in an instant but implying to us those most exact and accurate proportions observed by the great and all-wise Creator in his formation of man All other Creatures rising up as bubbles on water so soon as the formative Word of God in its several commands fell like distinct drops from Heaven on the face of the great deep the Chaos or Abyss But man as a signet or seal was graven by a special hand and deliberate method of God with the marks and characters of his own holy image in spirituality wisdom righteousness purity liberty eternity and a proportionate capacity to enjoy whatever felicity he can understand and desire 5. Mans improvement That if we raise man to the highest glory and perfection which he covets and is capable of in this world of vanity and mortality we shall see something in him of a little god like the figure of a great monarch expressed in a small model or signet For bring him from the sords of his nativity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. from his infant infirmities from his childish simplicities from his youthful vanities redeem him by the politure of good education from his rustick ignorance his clownish confidences his brutish dulness Stolida ferocia Tac. his country solitude his earthy ploddings his beggarly indâ—gences or covetous necessities rack him off further and refine him from the lees of sensual and inordinate lusts from swelling and surly pride from base and mean designs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. de Cupiditat from immoderate affections violent passions unreasonable impulses and depraved temptations from within or without Then furnish him with health procerity and beauty fortifie him with competent strength both single and social endue him with all wisdom both divine and humane which the minde of man is capable of compass him with all fulness and plenty invest him with that publick honor which as beams of the Sun concentred in a Burning-glass arising from the consent of many men to unite the honor of their protection and subjection in one man makes up the lustre of a majesty something more than earthly and humane coming neerest to the resemblance of what is divine and heavenly Adde to these endowments of power opportunity and place to do good those real and useful graces those charitable and communicative virtues which enlarge the nobler soul to a love of the publick good and a zeal for the common welfare of mankinde in works of humanity gentleness pity patience fortitude justice mercy benignity and munificence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. è Menandro How goodly a creature is a man while he continues a man Exod. 22.28 Psal 82.6 John 10.34 Magistrates are called gods Paternum est docendi munus Psal 34.11 Jer. 9.34 Beatitudo est interminabilis vitae perfecta possessio Boet. What can more lively express to us a terrene visible Deity whom we may without Idolatry own and reverence so far as without blasphemy we may call such a man a God while he wisely teacheth and instructeth others a work worthy of a Parent a Prince a God or he powerfully protects or he bountifully rewards or justly punisheth or mercifully pardoneth or graciously loveth others and rejoyceth in their well-doâ—ng and happiness without any design or interest of his own Yea what do we ordinarily wish and expect or fancy more from God than all these excellencies of which we see there are some sparks and beams even now in mans nature sublimated to infinite perfections and extended to us with eternal durations is not this that estate of full enjoyment which we call Heaven Wherein we hope never to want those divine and immediate communicatings with the all-sufficient bounty and unenvious benignity of God is as well able so no less well pleased to impart to the soul than its necessities do require and its desires ambitiously and unsatiably covet to be supplied by them Not oneâ—y in order to this natural and politick Being which as men we have with men for a moment which is daily pressed upon with the fatal and inevitable necessity of dying which is a ceasing to enjoy God by the mediation of the Creatures in this visible world but also in reference to that rational religious spiritual gracious perfect and unchangeable Being whereto we naturally aspire for who would not be ever happy by enjoying himself in the wisdom strength beauty fulness love and sweetness flowing for ever from the excellencies of the Creator The fruition of whom is onely able to exclude aâ—l defects and fears to satisfie all desires to reward all duties to requite all sufferings to compleat all happiness to crown and perfect all true Religion which in Heaven shall be no other than what we desire it to be here on Earth that is a right knowledge and a willing performance of that duty which the reasonable creature Man ows for ever to God First as his Creator Conservator and Redeemer by Jesus Christ. 6. True Religion internal instates the Soul in Christ and in the true Church 1 Cor. 2.10 11. John 15.5 He that abideth in me and I in him c. 2 Tim. 2.19 The Lord knoweth them that are his Extra ecclesiam non est salus This then we look upon as the Religious frame and temper of a reasonable Soul in its internal dispositions and private devotions toward God it self and others By which it is daily preparing for a glorious and blessed immortality of which holy frame it self onely can be conscious with God and the greatest evidence is That sincerity of heart which hath no other rule but Gods Word no other end but Gods glory and no other comfort but in the constancy of this disposition which is the fruit of Gods holy Spirit in it Certainly such a Soul cannot but be in and of the true and to man invisible Church of God so far as it hath a mystical spiritual and invisible life which consists in the union to Christ as the head by faith love and all other obediential graces of his Spirit which are common to every true believer Out of this Church its most true There is no revealed salvation possibly to be had for any that live to be masters of their own reason will and actions Yea further such a religious soul hath a capacity of and right unto that external visible politick and social communion with the Church of Christ where ever Christians enjoy outward fellowship with one another in publick profession Which communion however such a soul solitary it may be and sequestred from all Christian company may not actually enjoy being forcibly denied that happiness of which many do wilfully and peevishly deprive themselves by proud or peevish and uncharitable separations through
soul and body make a true man Essentials of a true Church in England 1 Tim. 6.3 It is well some of their charity is such that they allow us for they cannot shift it thus much First That we have the onely true ground and sure rule of Religion the written Word of God that beyond this we hold nothing as a matter of faith or Christian duty Secondly That we celebrate the holy Sacraments according to the sum and substance of the divine Institution Thirdly That our conversation aims to be such Phil. 1.27 as becomes the Gospel in all maner of holiness to the saving of our own and others souls What can these Aristarchusses carp at in the ground of our faith the Scriptures the Seals of our Faith the Sacraments the life of our Faith 1 Pet. 1.9 holy conversation and the end of our faith the salvation of our souls Is it not strange That all these sweet and fair flowers of Christs planting and watering should grow so well in that which some call Babylon in Antichrists Garden or on the Devils dunghil That it should be no true Church of Christ which owns nothing for Religious but what is according to the truth of Jesus either commanding or permitting instituting or indulging of pious necessity or of prudent liberty We should put these rigid Catoes too much to the blush for â—heir unnatural ingratitude to the Ministers and Church of England if we should ask them Whence they had this privilege by which they own themselves to be Christians whence this power to cast or call themselves into Bodies or Churches as Believers which is by them presupposed whence they had till of late years their instruction for the most part in the knowledge of Jesus Christ Sure these holy leaves or fruits grow not but in the Pale and Garden of the Church of Christ not in our own rude mirdes and untill'd natures not among desolate Indians obstinate Jews oâ— barbarous Turks and not often in private closets and corners which nourish a neglect and contempt of Publick Ordinances But if these men were self-taught and converted yet sure not self-baptized too nor their Teachers self-ordained too If they had nothing of their Christianity from the Ministry of the Church of Englandâ— It is no wonder they prove such Scholars such Christians and such Preachers as some of them seem to be having been their own Masters Ministers and Baptizers They are indeed onely worthy of themselves and of wiser mens pity For that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the retreat 24. Of pretensions to be above any Ministry as taught of God immediately or reserve of some men by which as Eaglets they would seem to soar out of sight and to build their Nest on a Rock that is higher than our ordinary Reason Religion and Experience can reach as if they were immediately inspired specially called and taught of God baptized by his Spirit without any Minister or outward Ministry they must give us leave not to believe them upon their bare word which hath not always been so sure till they demonstrate and prove it better by Gods Word and their better maners For which we will give them time enough Mean while we are sure the best Christians among them were made such by the ordinary Ministers of this Church and these made Ministers by no other means but that Ordination derived from and ascending up to the blessed Apostles whom Christ first chose to be Disciples and after ordained and sent them as Publick Ministers not onely as to personal discharge but as to successional descent These were Eagles indeed who flew high in their knowledge and piety yet stooped low in their humility and charity Those others of a new brood are more like yong Cuckoes which devour the Bird in whose nest and by whose fostering they were hatched Some of them have knowledge I would they had more humility and charity they would not disdain to own the parents that begat and educated them even this now so poor desolated beaten torn and wasted Church of England and its Antichristian Ministers as they please to call them Be it so some mens tongue is no slander If we neither adde to nor detract from the Scriptures as Jews Papists and Euthusiasts do If we erre in no fundamentals of faith or maners if we refuse no duty divinely required if we allow no error in our selves or others if we drive on no worldly designs injuriously or hypocritically but study to approve our selves in all godliness and honesty with meekness of wisdom to all men we need no more fear the drops of peevish tongues or dashes of malicious pens as to the honor and comfort of being a part of the true Church of Christ than a cloth dyed in grain need to fear stains by the aspersions of dirt cast on it by unclean and envious hands 25. Of the power of the People in Church affairs 4. But it is objected against us in England That neither Church nor Minister of England did or do own that high and mighty principle of all Church power which some call The People Answ True indeed Although we highly love and esteem as Brethren the faithful and humble people for whom Christ hath died yet we are not of so spungy and popular a softness as to own any part or Congregation or Body of People to be the original or conduits of any Spiritual or Church power which no learned and wise men ever esteemed to be Popular or Democratical but rather an excellent Aristocracy where many able men were in Counsel and some one eminent in order and authority among them We do not dig or descend to these low valleys for these holy waters nor do we seek for the flowings of it through such crazy and crooked pipes nor do we hope to draw it forth out of such broken Cisterns which can hold no such waters We have them from higher fountains and derive them in straiter channels Matth. 28.19 and conserve them in fitter vessels than the vulgarity of even honest Christians can be presumed to be That is from the ordinary Power and constant Commission which from Christ was derived to the Apostles Matth. 16.19 Matth. 18.18 John 20.23 and from them to their Successors in their ordinary Ministry and Church power in after ages who had this peculiar power of the keys of Heaven to binde or remit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pascere cum imperio pastor inde ut princeps To feed and rule Revel 12.5 19.15 Acts 20.28 1 Pet. 5.2 Vulgus ex veritate pauca ex opinione multa aestimat Tul. pro. Ros Com. to gather to guide to feed and to govern the several parts of the Church in Christs stead and name orderly committed to them People may rudely wrest these keys out of true Bishops and Ministers hands but it is evident they were never committed to them by the great Master of the House Jesus Christ nor do they
Donatists of old were who so challenged the title of the Church to their factions as to exclude all others and refuse the offers and means of accord As Cyprian Ep. 95. and Aust Ep. 164. tell us To which brands of Schism we are then lyable only when we recede or separate from visible communion with any Church without just and weighty cause shewn out of the word or when we go further from them than there is just cause and that too without charity refusing the good which they have while we withdraw from the evill we suspect Which would be the case of the Church of England in this point of immoderate Reformation if we should as some would have us therefore separate from all Scriptures Sacraments Ministry Primitive Government and order because all these were retained used and after abused much by the Roman Church and Papall party we are bid to come out of Babylon Rev. 18.4 but not to run out of our wits to act as Gods people with meekness moderation and Charity not with that fierceness passion and cruelty which makes us as Sons of Belial inordinatly run from one Antichrist to another Many Christians in the Roman Church may have in them much of Antichrist in some kinds and so God knows may many others in other kinds either in Doctrine or manners in endless innovations and unsetled confusions or in rigor and uncharitableness All which may betray us to what we seem most to abhor in Antichrist for if nothing have more of Christ than Charity nothing can have more of Antichrist than that uncharitableness Uncharitableness is as Antichristâ—an as error A ChristianoruÌ„ dissidiis venturus Antichristus occasionem accipiet Naz. Orat. 14. which many men nourish for zeal mistaking a Cockatrice for a Dove and a firy Serpent for a Phenix Which may be as Anti-Christian in popular furies as in papall tyrannies in confusions as in oppressions It is strange how some men cry out against the cruelty of some Papists which indeed hath been very great when yet Qui Christi non est Antichristi est Jeron Ep. 57. ad Damas they have the same Spirit of destruction in their own breast both against the Papists and others longing for such a Kingdom of Christ as they call it and such a downfall of Antichrist which shall consist in War and Blood and Massacres against and among all Christians which are not of their mind and side We think that in charity we ought not to impute the faults and errors of every Pope or Doctor of the Roman side to all those of that profession Nor ought we take those learned men among them alwaies at their worst finding there is great difference between what they may hold in the heat of publike disputes and what they opine and practise in a private way noâ— are their death-bed tenets alwaies the same with those of their Chayrs and Pulpits Besides many of the more devout and learned men among them are now both in opinions and lives much more modest holy and Reformed than some were heretofore whose Reformation in judgement or manners in verity purity and charity we do really congratulate and joy in And for the Body of the common people among the Romanists many are ignorant of those disputes wherein the mistaking is most dangerous which if they do hold yet it is under the perswasion and love of truth Qui à seductis parentibuus erâ—oâ—em acceperunt quaerunt autem cauta solicitudine veritatem corrigi paâ—ati cum invenerint hi nequaquam sunt inter haereticos deputandi Aust Ep. 162. 1 Cor. 3.12 retaining still the foundation of Christ Crucified and hoping for salvation only by his merits as many now profess to do and living in no known sin but striving to lead an holy and charitable life in all things Charity commands us to think that in such the mercy of God accepting their sincere love to the truth and their unfeigned obedience to what they know pardons particular errors which they know not to be such wherein no lust of pride or covetousness c. either obstructs or diverts them from the way of Truth Though the superstructures may be many of straw and stubble which shall perish yet holding the foundation Christ crurcified in a pure conscience they shall be saved in the day of the Lord Though the vessell be leaky in many places yet by great care in steering and frequent pumping that is true faith and repentance it may keep the soul from Shipwrack and drowning in perdition which is embarked in the bottom of Christian Religion and which steers alwaies by the compass of conscience setting all the points of conscience by the Chart or rules of Scripture as neer as he can attain by his teachers or his own industry We are sorry for our necessary differences from the Romanists or others which yet our consciences so far command us as we think our selves enlightned by the word of God contrary to which we cannot and ought not to be forced actually to conform or to comply with any men in things Religious Yet have we no lust of faction no delight in separation no bloody principles or tenets against any Christians of any particular Church desiring the same charity from them to us which may in lesser differences from each other yet unite us to Christ and to the Catholick Church as true parts of it though infirm or diseased This temper we should not despair of in the devouter and humbler Romanists if they were not daily enflamed by politick Spirits and violent Bigots among them who will endure no Religion as Christian which doth not kiss the Popes Pantofle or hold his stirrop or submit to that pride flattery and tyranny which some of them have affected when indeed it ill becomes those that chalenge a chief place in Christs Church to be so vastly different from the example of the crucified Saviour of Christians Such talents then as have been once divinely delivered to the Roman as to all other Christian Churches we have all aright to as believers in private and as Christians or Churches in publike communion and profession nor can these Jewels be so embezeled by being buried or abused but that we may safely take them up clear and use them together with those other which we have obteined through the grace and bounty of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ In whose name and right we as a part of his Catholick Church received them first and enjoy them now only Reformed according to what we first received of them without any prejudice or diminution to their true and intrinsecall worth which is divine by reason of our fellow servants former or present idle imperious impure or injurious use of them We accept and use the holy vessels which belong to the temple and the Lord of the Church Ezra 7. without scruple when they are graciously restored out of the profane hands of revelling Balshazzers The remaining silver censers
are holy Numb 16. though the hand and fire were unholy which were applyed to them Our Ministery then may be and certainly is very good holy 4. Our Ministry not from nor of the Pope and divine as well as the Scriptures and Sacraments or other holy Ministrations and duties are when duly restored to their primitive purity order and authority which go along with their right succession notwithstanding they are derived to us through or by the Romish Church or the Popes dispensation yet do they not therefore descend from them but only from Christ the first institutor of his Church and of this Ministry with a perpetuall power of succession Possunt esse pastores Lupi alio respectu Pastores in veritate quam profitentur in potestate quaÌ„ ritè obtinuerunt Lupi in erroribus quos admiscent in corruptelis morum c. ut Scribae Pharisaei in Cathedra Mosis panem veritatis proponebant sed non sine fâ—â—mento errorum officium distinguendum à persona potestas à moâ—ibus Gerrard de Minist Rev. 2.4 Jer. 3.1 Thou hast played the harlot with thy lovers yet return to me saith the Lord. Rev. 3.2 Our Lord Jesus Christ the gracious Spouse of the Church as of every Soul that truly believes and obeys though with much unbelief and frailty disdains not to own his relation to any Church or Christians though they are not so faithfull to him though they lose their first love yet they may be still his by what still remains of soundness and outward profession Yea and Christ will vouchsafe to admit us again to the communion and covenant of his love even after long wandrings and unkind absences when ever we wash our selves and return to him from our disloyall adulteries and pollutions He doth not utterly divorce any Church when the substance and essentials of Religion which are but in a few things do remain notwithstanding the many meretricious paints and disguisings which the wantoness of humane inventions may have put upon it thereby disfiguring its Primitive beauty and simplicity Mans vanity and arrogancy against God or men doth no whit abrogate either the right which Christ or any Church and Christian posterity hath to the purity and power of his gifts and institutions in the right way of his Mâ—nistry All which may remain with a blessing in the root and Seed though they be much pestered over-dropped choked and almost starved by humane additions which keep them for some time from their full glory vigor and extension Therefore the learned and godly Reformers of this Christian Church in England did not dig any new fountain of Ordination or ministeriall power as some Romanists calumniated at first and were afterward convinced of the contrary by Master Masons learned defence of the Ministry of England as to its right succession but they only cleared that which they saw was divine in the first broaching or Institution by Christ and as in the purest derivation by the Apostles however in time it became foul by humane feculencies and dregs as it passed rightly though not purely through the hands of some Bishops and Presbyters even to their dayes Nor was ever any thing required by the best Reformed Churches further to confirm and validate the Authority or power Ministeriall which any had received when he was first ordeined Presbyter in the Romish Church Contaminarunt non sustulerunt Ministerium Ecclesiae Alsted but only this to renounce not his Baptism but his errâ—rs and former superstitions to profess the Reformed Truths of the Gospell and accordingly to exercise that Ministeriall power which he had received truly as to the substance and duly as to the succession both as to the Office conferred and the persons conferring it Howsoever the sword of the Ministry had through the neglect of those to whom it was committed been suffered to contract the rust of superstitions and to lose much of its beauty and sharpness yet it was still that true and same two-edged sword which came out of the mouth of Jesus Christ Rev. 2.12 the first ordeiner of a peculiar setled Ministry in his Church Nor may it be broken or cast away when it hath been rightly delivered but only cleared whetted and furbished from its rust bluntness and dulness That Pen which now writes blottingly might be well made at first and will write fairâ—y again if once the hairs or blurs which its neb hath contracted be but cleared from it It is still Gods Field and Husbandry with good Wheat in it though the enemy hath while men slept sowen many tares Bishops and Ministers reformed may be Gods true labourers and appointed Husbandmen though they have some time loytered as the Disciples were Christs when their eyes were so heavy to sleep that they could not watch with him that one hour of his most horrid agony Mat. 26.40 It were then but a passionate scuffling with mad men a most impertinent disputing with unreasonable minds further to argue about the Popes usurped or abused Authority in any kind over Churches or Bishops or holy Ordinances and Ministry For which he had as little grounds of Scripture or reason as these Anti-Ministeriall Obâ—ectors have now against this Church of England and the function of the Ministry in it against which these cunning cavillers have not so much pretence to argue from the Popes usurpation that our Ministry and Religion are all Antichristian as they have both Scripture Reason and Experience besides the consent of all Reformed Churches to conclude them to be truly Christian if anger or envie or covetousness had not blinded their blood-shotten eyes they might easily see some of those mighty works Mat. 11.20 which have been wrought on mens Souâ—s by the Ministry of England since the Reformation and without this efficacious Ministry I believe neither these Calumniators had been so much Christian as they pretend nor so able spightfully to contend with shewes of Piety and popular falacies against the true Ministry of this Church and the best Ministers with whose Heifer they have plowed We know well that not only the reformed Churches 5. Of the Popes pretended Supremacy in England but even the Gallican and Venetian which keep communion with the Romish Church and Papall party besides the Greek Asian and African Churches do generally oppose and vehemently deny the Popes abusive usurpations both in things Ecclesiasticall and Secular And this upon most pregnant grounds not only from Scripture whence nothing was ever fairly and pertinently urged as some places are fouly wrested and yet but little to the Popes advantage but also from * Caeteri Apostoli par consortium honoris potestatis acceperunt qui in toto orbe dispersi Evangelium praedicaverunt quibusque decedentibus successerunt Episcopi Is Hisp l. 2. off Eccl. c. 5. Qui sunt constituti in toto mundo in sedibus Apostolorum non ex genere carnis ut filii Aron sed pro unius cujusque
supplied to the Churches good order peace and honour If Reason and not Passion Religion and not Superstition Judgement and not Prejudice Calmness and not fierceness Learning and not Idiotism Gravity and not Giddiness Wisdome and not Vulgarity Prudence and not Precipitancy impartiall Antiquity and not interessed novelty may be the judge of true Episcopacy I think nothing further from a true Bishop Vid. Bern. ep 28. 152. 42. ad Ep. Senonum Aug. ep 203. in Ecclesiasticâ—â— honoribus tempora ventosa transigere c. Amb. de dig Sacerd. Cum honoris praerogativa etiam congrui merita requirimus c. than Idleness set off with pomp than Ignorance decked with solemnity than Pride blazoned with power than Covetousness guilded with Empire than Sordidness smothered with state than Vanity dressed up with great formalities Bishops should not be like blazing Comets in their Diocesse having more of distance terror and pernicious influence than of light or Celestiall vertue But rather as fixed Stars of the prime magnitude shining most usefully and remarkably in the Church during this night of Christs absence who is the only Sun for his light and Spouse for his love to the Church yet hath he appointed some proxies to woo for him and Messengers to convey love tokens from him among whom the holy Bishops of the Church were ever accounted as the chiefest Fathers next the Apostles when they were indeed such as evill men most feared good men most loved Schismaticks most envied and Hereticks most hated Right Episcopacy is so great an advantage to the Churches happiness and so unblamable in its due constitution and exercise that it is no small blemish to any godly mans judgement not to approve it and nothing as to imprudence is I think more blame-worthy than not to desire esteem love and honour it Since such Prelature is as lawfull as it is usefull and it is as usefull as either Reason or Religion polity or piety can propound in any thing of that nature which if not absolutely necessary yet certainly most convenient for the Church and commendable in the Church so far as it stands in a visible Pâ—lâ—â—y and society being no way either sinfull in it self or contrary to any positive Law of God any more than it is for Christians in civill governmenâ— to have Maiors in their Cities Colonels in their Armies Masters in their Colleges Wardens in their Fraternities Captains or Pilots in their Ships or Fathers in their Families Nor is indeed the venerable face of true Episcopacy so deformed by some mens late ridiculous dresses and disguises but that wise and learned men still see the many reverend and excellent lineaments of it not only of pious and prime antiquity but of beauty order symmetry In plebe nec veritas nec judicium inter saedam potentium adulationem praceps prostratorum odium inanibus studiis inconditis motibus omnia miscent Tacit. and benefit such as flow from both humane and divine wisdome if popular contempt and prejudices in some of the vulgar be any measure of things or any argument against any thing in Religion or in the Church of Christ it will serve as well to vilifie and nullifie all Presbytery and all Ministry as all Episcopacy Indeed neither of them can preserve their honor use and comliness if they exceed their proportions and either dash against or incroach upon each other contrary to those bounds and methods which primitive wisdom observed between power and counsell Order and Authority Community and Unity It is very probable that a few years experience of the want of good Bishops will so reconcile the minds of sober and impartiall Christians to them that few will be against them save only such who think the best security for some of their estates to be the utter exploding and perpetuall extirpation of Episcopacy A thing which one of the wisest of mortalls so much abhorred and for which he was able to give so good an account in Reason Piety and true Polity that it appears to have been not pertinacy and interest but judgement and conscience that so long sustained that unhappy Controversie which I have no mind to revive but only if possible to reconcile which is no hard matter where clear truths meet with moderate affections and peaceable inclinations For I find by the proportion of all Polity and Order that if Episcopall eminency be not the main weight and carriage of Ecclesiasticall government yet it is as the Axis or wheel which puts the whole frame of Church society and communion into a fit order and aptitude for motion especially in greater associations of Christians which make the most firm and best constituted Churches This being then the true figure of a learned grave godly and industrious Bishop there need not more be sayd to redeem Episcopacy from prejudices or to assert it against those triviall objections which are not with truth and judgement so much as with spight and partiality made against it Those light touches which are by some men produced from the antient Writers in the Church for the countenancing of the power of Presbyteries without any Bishop and President or for the Independency of power in Congregations are indeed but as the dust of the balance or drops of a full bucket compared to those full and weighty testimonies which they every where give for the use of Episcopacy unless men be allowed the confidence and liberty to bastardise the works of the Fathers as they list and by a new purgatorian Index tâ— antiquate all Records after 1500. years legitimation by the consent of all Churches as one lately hath endevoured to do D. Blondell a person indeed of great reading and learning but in this not of equall candor and impartiality who endevouring to find some foundation whereon to build his Presbyterie seeks to cast away as rubbidg and trash all the Epistolary writings of holy Ignatius Ignatius called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who if he had wrote nothing yet the fame of his piety and sufferings made him sufficiently renowned in those Primitive times and after ages both for a Bishop and a Martyr his seat Episcopall being at Antioch and his grave at Rome But his writings being never so far questioned by Antiquity By Euseb Clem. Alex. Jerom. Phâ—tit bibl See the Lord Prim. of Arm. edition of Ignatius as to reject those Epistles which we urge in this point of Episcopacy for genuine and which are oft mentioned with honour and in part the very words which we now read so that it seems a passion and boldness too servile to the cause which that learned man undertook so to endevour at once to expunge those testimonies and remains of Ignatius which indeed are very weighty and many for the distinction of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons even in the first century after Christ which our learned and industrious Country-man Dr. Hammond hath lately as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a valiant
vindicator defended not more to the honour of Ignatius than of himself whom providence hath chosen and so enabled to be a Patron to so glorious a Martyr and in so just a cause as to redeem one of the first Fathers from that Presbyterian Limbo How uncomly and petulant some other mens carriages have been and are daily toward the antient Fathers of the Church I need not tell when 't is too evident how they put them oft on the rack to make them speak somthing in favour for either an Headlesse Presbyterie or a confused Independency Indeed it is a shame to see young men and novices so to make those antient holy and learned Writers to scratch or blot their own faces with their own Pens and to put out their Eyes with their own stiles wringing as it were their noses till they bleed a drop or two for those new Modes and exotick formes of Church-government which neither they nor their forefathers even up to the Apostles times ever saw or knew And this tyrannie of quotations must be exercised upon the works of the Fathers though never so much against the clear judgement and practise of those holy men who were themselves either eminent Bishops as most of the Antients were whose Works are extant or humble and peaceable Presbyters who universally owned and submitted to the authority of their Bishops yea some men have the forehead to urge a few obscurer passages in a few them against clear places which are a hundred to one wherein they express their own judgements or the whole Churches practise in their times to be without any dispute for Episcopacy and Bishops with Presbyters as succeeding the Apostolicall eminencie in the ordinary power of Ordination and Church-government Indeed I have oft wondred how men of learning and piety had the confidence to cite testimonies even out of Ignatius Tertullian Irenaeus Origen Cyprian Clemens of Alexandria Ambrose Austin and others in favour of a Presbytery without and against a Bishop or President when all of them as all others of the Fathers are most clear both in their own judgements and as to the Churches Catholick practise yea and so is St. Jerom too for the right use of regular Episcopacy 5. Regulation of Episcopacy Omni actu ad me perlato placuit contrahi presbyterium Cornel. ep Rom. ad Cyp. Epist 46. In the absence sickness or death of the Bishop the Preâ—byters some me govâ—rnâ—d the Church So in Cyprians absence Epist 26.30.31 So Theod. l. 4. c. 22. when the Orthodox Bishop banished the Presbyters Flavianus and Dioderus c. guided the Church o â—nno 1194. hen the â—rks prevaiâ—d over the Greek Churches Balsamon tels they had no Bishops in many places a long time De Petro Apost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Crysost hom 3. in Act. Apost Florentissimo illic clero tecum praesidents ad Cornel. Episcopus nullius causam audiat absque praesentia Clericorum suorum alioquin irrita eâ—â— sententia Episcopi nisi clericorum praesentia confirmetur Con. Carth. 4. can 23. such as all sober men plead for and approve What ever the Fathers are brought in as speaking for the Ministers rights in a joynt Presbyterie or the people 's as for Independency amount to no more but either to repress the arrogancy ambition and tyranny of some Bishops who in more favourable times usurped or used their power against or with neglect of the Counsell and assistance of Presbyters which in all reason ought and in Antiquity were ever joyned with the Bishop in weighty matters or else when the insolence and scorn of some Ecclesiastick governours arose to the oppression of the faithfull people To whom in Primitive times great regard was had both by Bishops and Presbyters in all publick transactions which concerned their and the Churches good government that so all things might be done with charity good liking and approbation of all Christians This was not only very comly and convenient but almost necessary in point of Christian prudence in those times when Christians of all degrees were full of humility and Charity kept short and low by persecution and much depended upon the love and union between Pastor and people Afterward indeed in times of peace and plenty there oft appeared so much of levity fury and faction in the common people that it was the wisdom of Governours to withdraw much of that liberty and indulgence which formerly people enjoyed but afterward abused to Sedition Fury and Murthers in their tumultuary motions and clamorous Elections This is all that ever I observed from the Antients in favour of the Presbyters power in common with Bishops or of the faithfull people Namely that they would have after the pattern of the Apostolike love wisdome and humility all things of publike concernment in the Church to be so managed by the chief Governour or Bishop as neither Presbyters nor People should think themselves neglected wherein their suffrage consent or approbation was fit to be had but the one should be used as brethren the other as sons which temperance I greatly approve It were endless and needless to answer or excuse personall Errors in Bishops Bishops personal errors no argument but of envy and malice against the office or those common inconveniences which are prone to attend all Power and superiority among men For those are the fruits of Power perverted of Authority degenerating of Governors ill governing themselves through personall errors and passions or the corruptions and indulgencies of times but they are not by any wise and impartiall man to be reckoned as the genuine and proper effects of that order government and proportion which is in right Episcopacy and which all reason as well as Religion allows to all sorts of men and Christians no more than sickness is to be imputed as a fault to health or deformity to comliness since both are incident in humane nature to the greatest strength or beauty Yea 't is most certain that there is nothing usefull or commendable in any other way of governing the Church in small parcells or in greater bodies which is not inclusively eminently and consummatively in a well-ordered Episcopacy such as was not only in primitive times but in our dayes As all Oeconomick vertues are in a good Father or Master and all politick excellencies are in an excellent Prince or Magistrate which cannot be found in any other short of and inferiour to those eminent relations All other lower and incompleater forms are as defective in point of advancing a common and publike good as they come short of that main end for with Episcopacy as the Crown and perfectest degree of order was by Apostolicall and primitive wisdome and piety setled in the Church which was to avoid Schisms to preserve the Unity of the faith and peace of the Churches to keep good correspondencies by Synods and Councills which could not be done by multitudinous meetings which no place could hold nor wise men manage to any order
Presbyters in their due place regard and honour so that they should not have been put thus to plead for their Ordination and Ministry or to play this after game much to the hazard of their very Function and succession of Ministeriall authority The despising or abolishing of which threatens the annihilating of the very being of this reformed Church in which the right Ministry is as the Ark in Israel 1 Sam. 4. a visible token of Gods presence among Christians And though the Philistins may for the sins of this Church take it captive and detein it for a while yet I believe 1 Sam 6. the Lord will bring it back again with shame to his enemies and joy to all true Israelites In the mean time this trouble and terror may be a means to a mend the personall faults both of Bishops and Presbyters which formerly might viciate but they could not totally vacate the Religion reverence and conâ—cience which is to be had of Christs institution as to the Ministry Personall faults of Bishops or Presbyters may viciate but not vacate divine duties 1 Sam. 2.12 nor yet could they make voyd the honour of Religion nor the authority vertue and efficacy of hoâ—y Ministrations Where the persons duâ—â— ordeined did administer and the holy things themselves were according to Scripture right y administred which alwaies remain holy whatever is objected against mens persons administring as sickness lameness or deformity deprive no man of the privileges of humane nature nor his actions of rea on nor his civill interest of the benefit of the Laws Ely's scandalous sons unworthy indeed of but yet rightly invested into the Priests office did not take away the necessity and sanctity of the services and sacrifices much less of the Priestly function which depended not on the morality of the persons administring but on the authority of the Lord commanding and the right investiture into the office The miscarriages of Bishops or Ministers may take away the beauty but not the being of Religious duties or of that holy power which they duly received no more than lapses after Baptism do unbaptise any Christian No Christian thinks the series of Christs genealogy broken or blemished corrupted or interrupted stayned or maymed by the names of Tamar Rahab and Bathsheba which are links in that h ly chain which hath its verity in the history but its sanctity from Christ to whom it relates as to the holy seed So in the succession of Ministeriall order and authority we dispute not by what personall vertues it was continued but we are sure it hath been continued successively from Christ and tends to him as to the compleating of his second incarnation in his body the Catholick visible Church In which Christ is daily begotten and formed by the means of a right Ministry and duly ordeined Ministers 10. Of Ordination of Ministers Where Bishops are Orthodox and may be had Ordination cannot regularly be had without them Vbi Episcopi desunt nec haberi possent Orthodoxi Preâ—byteri in necessitate ordinare possunt Sarav de grad Mi. So Bishop Dâ—wnham Con. in Apocal. Or by the Bishops authority delegated as to the Chorepiscopi who were but Presbyters Isid Hippa de Eccl. off Whether Bishops ordeined Presbyters as Prelates in a superiority of divine power and peculiar order as succeeding the Apostolicall eminency which antiquity for the most part thought looking on Episcopacy in ordination confirmation and jurisdiction not as the only but as the highest branches of Church power lineally descended from the Apostolicall ordinary power of ruling and governing the Church or whether they did those acts of power and authority only as chief by Ecclesiasticall right in degree and order of place among the Presbyters as chosen or approved by them and placed in a precedency of place and presidency of action and inspection but still of the same intrinsecall power and order Ministeriall as to the first act or originall I need not further gratify any mans curiosity in setting down my opinion Ego vero à Presbyteris solis administrata 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regularem ad EcclesiasticaruÌ„ regularuÌ„ amussim factam non dixerim Aut in ea institutum ab Ecclesia post Apostolorum transitum ordinem per omnia servare Blondel test Hierom pag. 255. St. Pauls Epistle to Tim. and Tit. This I am sure What ever dirt and mire the restless hearts of wicked men cast up against the calling of the Ministry in England The Gospell and the holy Institutions of it appointed by Christ to be dispensed to all the world have never in any other way been derived to this long succession save only by the power of ordination which never was in ordinary cases believed or owned in the Church to be valid and effectuall in any men or from any hands but those who were formerly consecrated Bishops or ordeined Ministers Nor was this custom ever esteemed as the act of any generall Councill or Ecclesiasticall Canon but it had both example and precept and constant succession from Christ to the Apostles and from them to others with a command of continuation which was necessary for the Church and ever most conscienciously observed in the Church which never flourished better than when the modesty humility and wisdom of Presbyters joyning with and submitting to their Bishop as fellows to the Master of a College carried on that order peace and comly proportion in the Church before all the world that they were in the first century compared by Ignatius for their harmony to the strings well set and tuned on the Harp Ignat. Ep. ad Ephes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist ad Smyrn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yea in an higher strain he compares them to the blessed accord between the Father and the Son Christ as man mediator and God where in the sameness of the divine nature yet there is the order and priority of relation These were the antient pipes and conduicts of Ministeriall Ecclesiasticall power which were first layd in the head and fountain Christ Jesus after branched to all places by a continuall order and derivation of Ministeriall authority Where the pipe is once broken there the stream of living waters must needs fail If any foulness flows or obstructions have befaln these pipes of due ordination as all that passeth through earthen vessels is prone to do in time which Christ and his Apostles have layd to serve his Church with the living waters of grace and truth and which have flowed these sixteen hundred years to the refreshing of infinite souls yet we must not cut them off nor quite stop them or turn the waters another way as choosing rather Independent wells and broken Buckets but we ought to cleanse those pipes and repayr those conduicts which only can hold and convey that holy water as the vessels of the Temple restoring them to their Primitive use and integrity Which by Gods help is easily done where pride passion
made the beauty of his works to consist and to be evident in those distinctions which he hath set upon every thing both in the species and individuall God I say cannot be displeased to see mankinde on whom is the beauty of Reason or Christians on whom is the beauty of Religion to use such order distinction and decency in all things which becomes them both as men and Christians after the examples of the Apostles and Christ himself Matth. 9 35. who went about all the Cities and Villages teaching in their Synagogues and preaching the Gospell of the Kingdome which also befits and adorns Christians as to extern profession which is all that appears of any mens devotion or Religion to the eye of man setting forth in comely sort that duty relation and service which we publiquely professe to owe and pay to God who abhors sordidnesse and confusion as much as profane vastators love it Necessity indeed admits no curiosity of place nor affects any elegancy Aegrotantium amicorum sordes toleramus non item valentium Sidon but excuseth that which in plenty and freedome is esteemed sordidnesse and sluttishnesse Religion requires externally no more than God hath given of extern power and opportunity where these are wanting and by providence denyed a sick bed a Barn a Lyons den a Dungeon a Whales belly is as a Temple or Church consecrated by the holy duties which any devout soul there performs to God But as the Church of Christ considered in its extern communion or profession is visible and Christians are exemplary to each other and to the world it is warrant enough for Christians to build and to set apart to those publique holy duties some peculiar places upon Gods and the Churches account which grant we have in that great Charter and principle of Church policy which like a common rule 1 Cor. 14.40 measures all things of extern sociall Religion Let all things be done decently and in order Both which fall not properly under the judgement of Religion but of Reason not of Scripture but of Nature not of piety but policy or society nor need we other command to doe them than the judgement and consent or custome of wise and holy men which we have for this use of locall Churches thus peculiarly applyed to holy services ever since Christians had either ability to build them or liberty to use them which is at least 1400 years agoe If humane or Romish superstition used or affected or opined any thing in consecrating Churches which is beyond true reason and sound Religion yet we do not think that to be a Leprosie sticking so to the wals of the buildings that they must be scraped all over or pulled down else they can't be cleansed No But as places are not any more than times capable of any essentiall gratious or inherent holynesse which is onely in God Angels or Men so neither are they capable of inherent unholinesse The superstition is weak on either side weighs little but the worst is on this side to which these men so incline which tends more to profanenesse supinenesse and slovenlinesse in the outward garb of Religion which is not either so Cynical Sacerdoti maxime convenit ornare Dei templum decore congruo Amb. off l. 1. c. 21. or so tetricall as these men would make it What ever there is reall or imaginary of Superstition in the places or rather in mens fancies of them who possibly ascribe too much to them it will as easily recede and quit them when they come to be consecrated by the Churches reall performing of holy services or publique religious duties in them as dreams doe vanish when one awakes or as the dark shadowes of the night depart from bodies when the Sun comes to shine on them or into them if these poore objectors mindes and spirits could as soone be freed from those profane superstitious and uncharitable tinctures with which they are as with a jaundise deeply infected against those places and against those that use them with the decency becoming duties done to the Majesty of God and in the presence of the Church of Christ as those places justly called Churches may be freed from all misapprehensions of their name of their dedication If the former were as easie as the latter both locall and rationall materiall and mentall Churches both places and persons might long stand and flourish Psal 74.6 Both which some furies of our times seek utterly to break down and demolish that there may be neither Christian Congregations nor decent Communion in any publique place beyond the beauty of a Barn or Stable But these men have so much tinder and Gunpowder in them against Ministers 22. Answer to other quarrels against Ministers publique duties that whatever they enjoy say use or doe in their function be it never so innocent and decent yet they kindle to some offensive sparkes or coales and flames against them As if all the Ministers of this Church knew not what to doe as they should till these new masters undertook to School and Catechise them If any Minister prayes publiquely with that gravity understanding and constancy either for matter words or method which best becomes a poore sinfull mortall on earth when he speaks to the God of heaven It is they say but a form and a stinting of the Spirit If they preach with judgement weight exactnesse and demonstration of truth it is not by the Spirit but of study and learning If they read the Scripture 't is but a dead letter and meer lip-labour If they celebrate the Sacraments with that wisdome reverence and decency which becomes those holy mysteries they quarrell at the place or time or gesture or company or ceremonies used Not considering that Ceremonies in Religion are like hair ornaments though not essentials and ought to be neither too long lest they hide and obscure it nor too short lest they leave it naked and deformed Since the end and use of them is no more but to set forth piety with the greater comelinesse and auguster majesty to men If they name any Apostle Evangelist or other Christian of undoubted sanctity with the Epithet of Saint they are so scared with the thought of the Popes canonizing Saints that they start at the very name so used as if it were an unsanctified title and not to be applyed to the memory of the just which is blessed but onely arrogated to some persons living who frequently and ambitiously call themselves and their party 2 Tim. 1.13 The Saints If they use the ancient Doxology giving glory to the Father Son and holy Ghost which all Churches Greek and Latin did the Socinian and Arian Ears of some men are highly offended at it as if Christians must ask them leave to own the holy Trinity and to give solemne publique glory to the Creator Saviour and sanctifying Comforter of the Church If Ministers use those wholesome forms of sound words which are
be faithfull to their Masters profit and credit to do their duty and to maintain that place and authority in which the Lord hath set them nor is it any thing of a pious easiness but an impious baseness in them as Bishops and Ministers voluntarily to desert their station and to suffer every one to usurp upon them and to do what they list Nor is any thing more intolerable than the rudeness riot and impudence of those inferior servants who pretending Christian liberty and not induring those officers and Ministers whom the Master hath orderly placed over them neither will they long indure the Lord or Master himself to rule over them we read Mat. 21.38 They kill the Son who first beat and shamefully intreated the servants which were sent But thirdly as to the persons duly ordeined This holy Ordination gâ—ves a reall divine power which is necessarily to be delegated and derived from Christ since no man hath it in and of himself or of any will of men by which he is enabled to perform those duties which Christ only hath injoyned in his word to be done and to be thus done by such men and in such a manner and no other 1 Tim. 5.22 Lay hands suddainly on no man i. e. by way of Ordination Ergo no man is of that office or hath that authority and power till ordeined be his parts and gifts never so great and good So 2 Tim. 2.2 These things commit to faithfull men who may be able to teach others ergo some peculiar Commission must be given to these and to no other to perform Ministeriall duties with authority Such are those of making Disciples by Preaching the Gospell by distinguishing from others and also confirming and uniting together among themselves in holy Communion those Disciples with the holy seals of Baptism and the Lords Supper To edify confirm and preserve them by teaching reprooving praying for them comforting guiding governing binding and loosing by the use of that power of the Keys which is committed only to them both in doctrine and discipline doing all things toward penitents and impenitents believers and unbelievers Tit. 2.15 not magisterially but ministerially as from Christ and for the Churches good yet not precariously and arbitrarily oâ— depending on mans pleasure Iren. l. 4. c. 43. Episcopalus sucâ—essionâ—m ab Apostolis habentes Charisma veritatis certuÌ„ acceperunt Ubi charisâ—ata domini posita sunt ibi discere oportet veritatem apud quos est successio ab Apostoliâ— sanum ac irreprobabile sermonis Cap. 45. 1 Tâ—m 4.14 but autoritatively and conscientiously as doing the work of the Lord knowing the power they have received of the Lord the duties enjoyned them the care required in them the account to be exacted of them as to the Stewardship of the souls solemnly committed to their care which is done by that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ministeriall gift of the holy Ghost which Christ gave to the Apostles John 20.22 and by their hands as by St. Pauls to Timothy 2 Tim. 1.6.14 to others and so to a perpetuall succession For without this gift or power of the holy Spirit of Truth 18. The holy Spirit given in right Ordination how whose property it is to lead the faithfull into all truth no man is truly a Minister of holy things in the Church So that it is a pittifull piece of ignorance or putid scurrility and profaness for any that profess Christianity much more for those that pretend to be Ministers in the Church to slight and expose to vulgar scorn that passage used as of antient times in all Churches so in the Church of Englands manner of ordeining Ministers Receive ye the holy Spirit As if this were a meer mockery and insignificancy in point of any sanctity conferred When it is expressed to be meant as it ever was in the Church understood not of sanctifying graces infused qualities or habits of inward holiness which are immediatly from God and not by man to be conferred nor from man to be communicated to another nor do they invest any one that hath them in any Church office or publick power over others for then every holy man and woman should have this power but it is only meant of those peculiar gifts or powers of the holy Spirit Eph. 4.8 which are properly ministeriall and officiative as from Christ and in his name not by internall infusion but by externall separation or sanction not endâ—ing with grace but investing in a new relation and authority distinct from the common Christians duty place and officers of charity c. which are as parchment wax and writing usefull in their kind but not valid as to any conveyance till sealed subscribed delivered and witnessed as the act and deeâ— of the conveyer who lawfully hereby confers to an other his right and power of acting possessing or enjoying c. So by a form of such Commission or delegation as Christ instituted that power and ministeriall gift of the holy Spirit is continued which was first committed to the Apostles by Christ who only would do it Nor can this power be understood so much for extraordinary miracles which were to cease as for that ordinary Ministry which was to continue as necessary for the Church in all ages This power or gift of the Holy Ghost as ministeriall and officiating in Christs name as that of miracles may be where there is no sanctifying grace as was in Judas and probably in Demas and others who might be sheep as to their profession Acts 1.17 and shepheards as to their office or Episcopacy of which Judas had a part and fell from it and yet wolves as to the inward habits and graces 1 Cor. 5.4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my Spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ c. When the Spirit of Paul was joyned with the Corinthian Ministers and believers in excommunicating the incestuous persons it was not the sanctifying Spirit or grace of the Apostle but that ministeriall power which he had eminently in and joyntly with the Church The power and Spirit of Christ as it is given so received in right Ordination by every true Minister that is worthily promoted not as to grace and inward vertue of which man judgeth not but as to office and relative power from Christ in the publike service or Ministry to his Church As every officer civill or military that hath commission acts in the Spirit name and power of those by whom authority is primarily derived to them In this sense and to this use the Spirit of Moses was put on the 70. Elders Num. 11.25 and Elias on Elisha 2 Kings 11.9 3. Yea further I doubt not but the solemn and right manner of Ordination by fasting Deus largitur gratiam homo imponit manus Sacerdos imponit supplicem dextram Deus benediâ— potents dentre Episcopus initiat ordinem Deus tribuit