conveniency When Religion is thus setled by publick counsel consent and sanction it ought in all reason and conscience to be preserved in wayes of honour peace and safety more carefully than those banks are which by keeping out the seas inundations preserve our pastures and cattel from drowning else every Polity and Nation pretending to be Christian proclaim to all the world that they think Religion to be no better than matters of Scepticall dispute and variable opinion having nothing in it clear or certain as to any divine truth or infallible Revelation Of which since their ignorance and weakness or passion and partiality to which every private man is subject makes them less capable either to search or judge to dispute or determine the wisdome of God hath alwayes either established or exemplarily directed his Church to use and enjoy some such constant Conservators of Religion besides the occasionall Reformers and restorers of it which were of old the Prophets extraordinarily sent besides those that were ordinarily brought up in the schooles of the Prophets which were the nurseries of those learned and wise men who made up the Sanhedrim or grand Council among the Jews consisting of seventy men who were for piety parts and place chief Fathers Doctors and Rabbies in the Church of the Jews and the great Conservators of their Law and Religion Answerably we read in the Primitive Churches and times this care and power was by the wisdome of Christ fixed and by all good Christians owned in the Apostles and Elders to whom in case of any dispute or difference in Religion address was made not onely to hear their counsel and judgement but to submit to their decisions and decrees which bound every man to preach no other doctrine different from much less contrary to what that venerable consistory both taught and summarily delivered to the Churches of Christ viz. wholsome formes and short summaries of sound doctrine as well as in their more diffused writings occasionally sent to particular Churches and divinely delivered to the use care and custody of the Catholick Church Agreeable to these holy precedents every Christian Church in after-ages had within their several distributions or dioceses distinguished by their Cities or Provinces their Synods or Ecclesiasticall Councils for all those emergencies or concernments of Religion which arose within their limits and combinations proportionably they had more extensive Conventions and generall Councils in cases of grand concernment for the comprimising of all differences in Religion and conservation of the Churches both purity and peace These methods of prudent piety and pious prudence as they were of divine Institution so they ought to be perpetuall in the Church of Christ as being the onely means left for the conservation and reformation of Religion 'T is true in the dimness of after-ages when the decay of Primitive zeal love sanctity and sincerity had too much prevailed over these Western Churches the Bishops of Rome taking the advantage of the higher ground whereon the fame of that City was raised not onely for being the Metropolis of the Roman Empire but for being a prime Church of Apostolicall plantation and high renown for the Faith and martyrly constancy of its first Bishops these with no great difficulty as with great art and policy contrary to the judgement and practise of Antiquity for the first 600. years sought to fix the Standard of Religion in the Popes chair and to make his breast the great Conservator of Religion certainly a very easie compendious and happy way to keep up the peace and honour of Christian Religion and Churches if the Bishop of Rome could in the noon-day-light of these times either convince the world of his speciall gift of Infallibility or make good his claim of being sole and supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion above any other Pastors and Bishops yea and above a generall Council This late prodigious pillar or huge Colosse of the Popes infallible sole and supreme power hath as of old so of late years not onely been much weakned by many Churches Greek and Latine dissenting but by some it hath been quite overthrown demolished and broken in pieces as an arrogant abuse and intolerable tyranny contrary to all rules of Scripture and reason never challenged by the first famous and holy Bishops of that Church nor owned in after-ages when Popes began to usurp upon other Bishops and Churches by the most learned and godly men of those times This justice being done to the honour and liberty of the Churches of Christ and their respective Bishops or Pastors against the Papall obtrusion of his sole judicature yet no Reformed Church of any repute hath been so transported by just indignation against the Papall usurpations as to expose themselves and their Religion to the various breach and giddy brains of the vulgar but every one hath both confined and setled their profession by some publick profession as the standard of Religion also they have some such Conservators of Religion either ordinary or extraordinary as do take care that the established Religion suffer no injury or detriment This authority or power seems now much wanting in England though it be very necessary in my judgement which should so preserve the publick stability of true Religion as not to invade any good mans private liberty which ought not to be too severely curbed yet not so indulged as to injure the common welfare contrary to all rules of reason justice and charity These Conservators of Religion should not exact of private Christians any explicite conformity or subscription under penalty of any mulct or prison much less with the terrour of fire and faggot which was the zealotry of Papal tyranny onely they should take care that people be duly taught that Religion which is setled that none be a publick Preacher that is a declared dissenter or opposer of it that no man do broach any novelty without their approbation that no man do petulantly blaspheme oppose scorn or perturb that constitution of Religion which is publickly setled as supposed to be the best that no man abuse the name of Christian liberty to the publick injury All sober and wise Christians do see and feel by late sad experience that liberty in the vulgar sense and notion is but a golden Calf which licentious minds set up to themselves under that specious name as the Israelites did their abominable Idoll under the popular title and acclamation of These are thy Gods O Israel If common people be indulged in what freedome they will challenge to themselves wise men will soon find that their Christian liberty is no better than an Image of jealousie a Teraphim a Tamuz or Adonis offensive to the God of reason order law and government destructive to humane society dishonourable to the name of Christ and that holy profession which was so renowned of old as Christian that is the most regular meek harmlesse strict peaceable and charitable Religion in
which can by no persons of any right understanding be thought to be the temper of any thing that is worthy to bear the name inscription of the true God or the Christian and Reformed Religion This is not the pulse of piety nor can be the influence of Gods holy wise and peaceable spirit No Christian can be so uncatechised as not to know that these wounds and scarres which are upon the face of Religion and made by Christians of the same countrey and communion are not the marks of Christs sheep nor the characters of his Disciples who have been in all ages most eminent for all graces and vertues for all things true comely orderly just generous benigne charitable none exceeded or equalled them for mutuall love while they were neer or far off insomuch that primitive Assemblies of Bishops Presbyters and people were most lively resemblances of that Angelick Order Quire and Harmony which is in Heaven before the Throne of God and of the Lamb. This union and subordination kept up the reverence of Religion and the dignity of the Evangelicall Ministry among Christians even then when persecution most raged against them when the persons of holy Bishops and Presbyters were imprisoned banished mangled and massacred by Heathenish and Jewish persecutors yet then was the authority of Ministers looked upon as sacred and divine not from the earth but heaven not from Kings and Princes not from Parlaments and civil Senates not from Protectors and Major-Generals or new Triers much lesse from any principle or power which is now challenged by popular arrogancy and vulgar usurpation but from Christ Jesus and so from the blessed God who sent his Son and He his Apostles and other Ministers as his Father sent him for the same end and work in those measures and proportions of his Spirit which were necessary for the calling converting continuing and perfecting the Church as the Body of Christ While these continued in an holy and uninterrupted succession of undoubted Authority as Apostles Bishops Pastors and Teachers of one mind and mission of one ordination and succession they easily preserved the doctrine of Christian Religion uncorrupted the Mysteries unprophaned the Ministry unviolated the reverence of Religion unabased but these once divided against each other in opinions and factions their ranks and order broken their succession interrupted their commission counterfeited or varied their office invaded their authority doubted denied and destroyed who knowes not what spring-tides what whole seas of faction and fury of negligence and irreverence of Atheisme and irreligion must necessarily flow in upon the face of any Church when the truest and compleatest Ministers shall be questioned or scorned the dubious defective or false ones magnified by secular policy or popular levity when Lay-men shall either think there are no Ministers invested with any due authority or themselves as good as the best set up after some novell and arbitrary modes of their own invention which must not onely vye with the true ancient and Catholick ordination of 1500 years standing but justle it quite out of the Church like the bastard Abimelech who slew all the legitimate issue of Gideon his Father Who can heare with trembling or pray with devotion or receive with reverence or be reproved with patience or be comforted with peace or be terrified with judgement or mortified to any lust or moderated to any passion or confined to new obedience or won to true repentance or moved in conscience or raised in hope when he applies to any or all these duties out of faction novelty curiosity levity custome affectation or hypocrisie when he thinks the Minister that officiates hath no more power than himself or his groom and footman when he looks upon his Minister as a poor man confined to his teddar staked to his petty living dependant upon mens charity exposed to plebeian contempt at best but an almesman of the State a publick pensioner or an Evangelicall Trooper whose commission is ad placitum hominum after the will of man having no divine power or authority to his office and work no legall right or title as to certainty or perpetuity in any thing he enjoyes as his wages further than the arbitrary favours or frowns of men are dispensed to him a very trembling and precarious orator whose pulpit is like the Ara Lugdunensis soon made his scene his coffin and his sepulchre especially if either fervently praying or faithfully preaching or justly yet wisely reproving he displease any captious and peevish Auditor who hath confidence enough to make him an offender for a word and influence enough to sequester to silence yea to starve him and his family if he use an honest and innocent parrhesy or freedome of speaking such as becomes the Messenger of heaven the Minister of Christ and the Ambassadour of God When the mouths of Gods oxen are thus easily muzled when his Prophets are so cheaply despised when his neerest servants are thus despitefully used no wonder if irreverence Atheisme and profanenesse in all sorts of people attend all religious exercises as necessarily as shadows doe those grosse bodies which intervene between the sight and light which is the first sad and bad consequence following and flowing from the inconstancie and unsetlednesse of Religion CHAP. V. BEsides the decayes of Piety and Charity in mens hearts both as to the principles power and practice becoming Christians which like a Lethargick numbnesse and stupor is come upon the old stock of Christians in England together with that unsetlednesse irreverence contempt Atheisme and profanenesse which grows upon the younger sort of people who have been bred amidst these our divisions distractions and extravagancies of Religion to very much of irreligion the lusts and vanities of their minds being not any way so curbed and repressed by the incumbent majesty and authority of any such setled and uniform Religion as is necessary either to perswade men to be good or to over-awe and restrain them from being so bad as they would be Besides these mischiefes which I have already set forth to you my Honoured Countrymen there is a second sad and bad consequence which like a Gangrene or spreading Canker daily frets the spirits and as it were eats up the very substance and vitals of Religion in this Nation by reason of those endlesse and vexatious disputes which agitate the spirits and exasperate the minds of all sorts of Christians and of none so much as Ministers who are looked upon as those that expose and offer themselves to be the chief heads or Champions of Religion in their severall parties who are to undertake the combates and challenges of all opposers which truly were no very hard province if either Ministers were unanimous and mutually assisted by concurrent judgement among themselves or if they were protected by the shield of this Churches declared Doctrine and uniform profession of Religion Which heretofore was justly esteemed as sacred inviolable and invulnerable having
as to question the usual and approved practise of it from all times which S. Austin so vehemently affirmes that in his Epistle to Volusia he sayes The custom of our Mother the Church in baptizing Infants as it is not to be neglected as superfluous so nor would it have been either practised or believed unlesse it had been so delivered by the Apostles as their undoubted sense and practise which Pelagius did not yea could not with any colour deny as S. Austin observes though it had much served his design about original sin if he could in that point have baffled the credit custome and authority of the Catholick Church which S. Cyprian who lived in the second Century so beyond all cavill or scruple so industriously and fully sets down that if there were no other testimonies of the Ancients that alone would satisfie any sober man being written not upon any heat of dispute but calmly and clearly as of a matter ever done and never under dispute in the Church to his dayes But I have in this part done more than I designed in order to advance not strifes and further contention but Christian peace and charity on all sides in this Church and Nation as to those religious differences which are a great occasion of our miseries CHAP. XIV FRom the Deformities Divisions and Degeneration of Religion also the Falsifications Usurpations and Devastations which of later years have been made by the violent sort of Anabaptists and other furious Sectaries against the Unity and Authority the Sanctity and Majesty of the Church of England destroying its Primitive Order and Apostolick Government its Catholick Succession its holy Ordination its happy and most successfull Ministry to the great neglect and contempt of all holy ministrations and duties of Religion I cannot but further intimate to your piety and prudence O my honoured Countrey-men that which is most notorious and no lesse dangerous both in religious and civil respects namely the great Advantages Applauses and Increases which the Roman or Papal party daily gain against the Reformed Religion as it was once wisely honourably and happily established professed and maintained here in England which is now looked upon by the more subtill superstitious and malicious sort of Papists as deformed divided dissolved desolated so conclamate for dead that they fail not with scorn to boast that in England we have now no Church no Pastors no Bishops no Presbyters no true Ministry no holy Ministrations no Order no Unity no Authority no Reverence as to things Divine or Ecclesiastick Insomuch that we must in this sad posture not onely despair of ever getting ground against the Romanists by converting any of them from the errours of their way to the true Reformed Religion but we must daily expect to lose ground to the Popish party and their Proselytes there being no banks or piles now sufficient to keep the Sea of Rome from over-flowing or undermining us in order to advance their restlesse interests which have been and still are mightily promoted not by the reverend Bishops and the other Episcopal Clergie who are men of Learning Piety Prudence and Martyr-like constancy as some men with more Heat than Wit more Spite than Truth have in their mechanick and vulgar Oratory of late miserably and falsely declaimed but by those who have most done the Popes work while they have seemed most furiously to flie in the Popes face as popularly zealous against Popery and yet at the same time by a strange giddinesse headinesse and madnesse they have risen up against that Mother-Church which bare them and those Fathers in it who heretofore mightily defended them and theirs from the talons and gripes of that Roman Eagle and this not with childish scufflings or light skirmishings to which manner of fight the illiterate weaknesse and rudenesse of our new Masters and Champions hath reduced those Controversies but with such a Panoply or compleat Armour of proof such sharp Weapons such ponderous Engines such rare dexterity of well-managed Powers raised from all Learning both Divine and Humane that the high places and defences of Rome were not able to stand before them heretofore when they were battered by our Jewels our Lakes our Davenants our Whites our Halls our Mortons our Andrews and the late invincible Usher who deserved to be Primate not onely of Ireland but of all the Protestant Forces in the world All these were Bishops Worthies of the first three seconded in their ranks by able and orderly Presbyters as Whitakers Perkins Reynolds Whites Crakanthorps Sutliffs and innumerable others while our Regiments were orderly our Marchings comely and our Forces both united and encouraged Whereas now there is no doubt but the mercilesse mowing down and scattering of the Clergie of England like Hay with the withering and decay of Government Regularity and Order in this Church these have infinitely contributed to the Papall harvest and Romish agitations the gleanings of whose Emissaries will soon amount to more than the sheaves of any the most zealous and reformed Ministers in England By the Papall interests and advantages I doe not mean the Roman Clergies preaching or propagating those Truths of Christian Doctrine Duties which for the main they profess in common with us and all Christian Churches if any of them be thus piously industrious I neither quarrell at them nor envy their successes but rather I should rejoyce in them with S. Paul because however Christ crucified is preached by some whom common people will either more reverence or sooner believe than they generally doe the decayed despised divided Ministers of Engl. who seem to have many of them so small abilities and carrying so little shew or pretence of any good authority for their work ministeriall nor can they be potent or esteemed abroad who are so impotent and disesteemed at home But I mean that Papall Monarchy or Ecclesiasticall Tyranny by which the Church or rather the Court of Rome by such sinister Arts and unjust Policies as were shamefully used and discovered in the Tridentine conventicle seeks to usurp and continue an imperiall power over all Churches and Bishops as if there had been but one Apostle or one Apostolick Church planted in the world also to corrupt abuse that ancient Purity Simplicity and Liberty of Religion which was preserved among Primitive Churches and their coordinate Bishops Further without fear of God or reverence of man opposing some Divine Truths and undoubted institutions of Christ also imposing such erroneous Doctrines and superstitious Opinions upon all Christians to be believed and accordingly practised as become not the severity and sanctity of true Religion adding to that holy foundation which was indeed first laid by the great Apostles and continued happily for many hundred years by the successive Bishops of Rome those after superstructures not of ceremonies onely which are tolerable many of them like feathers making but little weight in Religion but of corrupt Doctrines and
without which the welfare of this polity and intire Nation both in secular and religious regards could not be preserved by honest Magistrates conscientious Ministers or wise and valiant Princes Yet as our wise godly and sober Reformers first and last did worthy of the Honour and Piety of this Church and Nation vindicate the civil and religious Rights of both in all necessary points and interests of Doctrine and Government so their charity was no less cautious and commendable than their courage in this that as they did duly reforme what they thought amisse and establish what they judged in Piety and Prudence best so they did not by any heat and fury of popular transport either unnecessarily or uncharitably affect to give any offence to the Romanists by such distances as needlesse and groundlesse Innovations must needs occasion either to that or any other Christian Church in the world with all whom they ever aimed by their moderation to preserve merit a Christian communion correspondency not intending to schismatize or separate from them or their Christian Predecessors as to any Christian band and tie of Christian Verity or Charity not as to any point of Faith Morality or Sanctity not as to any right Order and Catholick succession of the Evangelicall Ministry not as to that Apostolick Government Inspection and Authority which either was of old or still is preserved in the Roman Church or any other nor last of all did they intend to vary from them in those things of honest policy and decent ceremony which were most commended by the Prudence and Piety of Antiquity onely they retained and rejected as they thought most became this Church in the use of its Liberty in matters Ceremonial wherein the Roman as all Churches have like freedome left them to be used with that Modesty Conscience and Charity which becomes all Christian Churches without giving or receiving any offence as St. Ambrose long ago expressed his sense to S. Austin But the aim of our wise Reformers who rather chose to be Martyrs Confessors for the Truth than popular Praters or Compliers with State-policies and private interests was onely this to purge away that drosse and dust which Christs floor had contracted by slovenly labourers in his husbandry They cast away the chaff but retained the wheat well winnowed they reformed those grosse Superstitions in Prayer Sacriledges in Sacraments Superfluities in Ceremonies Usurpations as to this Churches liberty and authority with all blind Innovations of later date compared to true primitive Antiquity all which were as evidently discernable by the reformed or restored light of Learning and Religion which God then brought into the Christian world to be upon the face of the then Roman Church as the leprosie of Naaman was upon Gehazi's forehead if neither they nor we may be judges but the pregnant testimonies of holy Scriptures evidently setting forth the institutions of Christ the Doctrine and Practises of the Apostles and the primitive constitutions of Churches All these further cleared to us if any thing be dark or dubious by the joynt and concurrent suffrages of the first Councils the ancient Fathers and all Ecclesiastical Historians which together ought to be valued far beyond the sense or example of the Roman or any one particular Church as the immovable bounds and unalterable measures of true Religion as to the substance and essentialls of it Nor doth any particular Church though heretofore never so justly famous as that of Rome was merit the honourable name and title of Christs Church or Catholick but rather of so far Apostatick and Antichristian when the Pastors and People of it do not by insensible degrees unawares slide into venial errours and small abuses but after so clear a light and conviction as the last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regeneration of Learning and Religion hath afforded these parts of the world they yet wilfully and obstinately persist to corrupt no lesse than pervert the Doctrine and Institutions of Christ Jesus who is the great Pastor of his Church and chief Bishop of our Souls whose voice all parts of it ought readily to heare and humbly to obey at all times without regard to the antiquity or prevalency of any errours or abuses in former times to which no time or use can give authority or validity against the first appointments of Christ which are every way as the ancientest so the best for Truth Comfort and Safety to any Church and to every Christians Soul CHAP. XVI I Shall not need here to enumerate at large and in particular points those many and great differences in Religion which make your and your posterities return to the Roman compliance and communion impossible if you have judgements to understand or consciences to act according to their dictates out of the Word of God understood in the sense of the Catholick Doctors and Councils of the first 600 years after Christ The work is already done by so many able Writers in this Church that it is needlesse to repeat and scarce possible to adde more weight to what hath been by them alledged to justifie their protestation against and reformation of the errours abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome He that seriously considers the Fraud Falsity and Pertinacy of the Romanists in that one grand point the Canon of the Scripture which is and must be when all is done that Policy and Art can invent the main pillar and standard of true Religion cannot but grow very jealous of their honesty in particular points of lesser concernments when he shall see beyond all reply or forehead that they have in the Council of Trent under the highest Anathema's or Curses of all that differ from them assumed into the Canon of Scriptures divinely inspired written and delivered to the Church as the Word of God those Apocryphal Books which however we with the Ancient Churches value according to their Worth Truth Credit and use yet we receive them not into the canon or rule of Faith because we find for certain that neither the Greek nor Latin Churches of old neither Jews nor Christians Councils nor Fathers for 1400 years did ever so own or receive them Which Truth after many others and beyond any other if I may say it without envy is exactly and fully cleared of late by a person whose reputation formerly clouded by some popular jealousies as to his Sincerity and Constancy in the Reformed Religion of the Church of England deserves to have its true lustre for Love and Honour with every true Protestant at home as he hath abroad for that learned Industry Courage and Honesty which he hath shewed in that particular to assert the main hinge of Religion the Canon of the Scriptures against the Papists effrontery in that particular which hath engaged them in such a Dilemma as is hard to be avoyded by the greatest sophisters of the Roman party For if the Canon of the Scriptures be such as
as much away from the Charity and Unity of Religion That Passion commonly darkens and sullies more than their pretensions of Piety do polish or brighten Religion That preposterous Reformers instead of snuffing the lamps of the Temple are prone to put them quite out especially when the ignorance and insolence of Lay-men undertake to set the Ark of God upon their Cart to draw it with Beasts and drive it with their whips and whistlings though they whistle to the tune of a Psalm yet Religion alwayes totters is oft overthrown by them being never safe but when it is as the Ark ought to have been carried upon the shoulders of able Priests and Levites such Bishops and Presbyters as ought to bear it up and to whose care that sacred depositum is chiefly committed by Christ and the Apostles Nor hath the learned and godly Clergy in England ever been so weak and unworthy as to want either ability or will Sufficiency or Authority to do this service to God and his Church however now they are so debased discouraged and almost beaten out of the Sanctuary Reformations of Religion ever prove either abortive or misshapen when they are either begotten or brought forth by Ministers factiousnesse or peoples fury tumultuating and irregular wayes of reforming any Church do but cut up and so kill the mother in hope to save that Bastard-child which having neither due form nor legitimation deserves no long life We see by too wofull experiences and infinite expences of blood that Churches when in some things decayed are easier mended in Fancy than in effect in the project than performance That this Church-work requires not onely proper workmen and skilfull Artists but tender hands and cautious fingers That where the Essentialls Vitals and Fundamentalls of Religion in any Church are good as to true doctrine saving faith holy institutions and honest moralls the prudentialls and ornamentalls cannot but be commendable if they be tolerable That the peace and safety of a setled Church ought not to be indangered for circumstances That it is a dangerous practice of Empiricks to give able and otherwise healthfull bodies uncorrected Quick-silver which shall kill them outright in order to kill some little itch or tetter upon them whose breaking forth to the circumference or outward habit of the body is a good effect of an ill cause a sign of firmer health in the nobler and more retired parts I must ever conclude with S. Austin and Dionysius Bishop of Athens it is better for the Churches peace and Christian charity sake to tolerate some inconveniences for some there will ever be or at least to some men seem to be in the best constituted Churches than to admit of such hazardous wayes and means of reforming as will endanger the ruine of Religion and totall routing of a well-setled Church that it is better in all respects to acquiesce in or submit to publick determinations and tried appointments of true Religion than to be still tampering with untried experiments and essayes of Novelty to the wast of that Order Peace and Unity which ought to be preferred before any such Truths as are but probable or so disputable that good men on either side have do and may hold them in some opposition without danger of their salvation It is but a delusion and device of the Devil which prompts men to wind up the strings of Religion to so high a note of Reformation as breaks both the strings themselves and the very ribs of that Instrument which they pretend to set to such a pitch An immoderation which hath as I have endeavoured to set forth by many sad instances in this third Book of the Church of Englands Sighs and Teares so defaced deformed shaken disunited weakned and endangered the state and honour of Religion as Christian and Reformed in this Church and Nation that it threatens like a Fistula Gangrene or Cancer a totall though it may be a lingring fatality both to Church and State unlesse by some wise hearts and worthy hands the Lord of Heaven vouchsafe to apply such Cures as may stop the prevailings of such sad Effects and remove the Causes which began or promoted them so far as to give occasion to this famous Church and her Children thus sadly to bemone themselves BOOK IV. SETTING FORTH THE SIGHS and PRAYERS of the CHURCH of ENGLAND In order to its Healing and Recovery CHAP. I. HAving set before you Honored and beloved Countrymen in the three former Bookes first the well-formed and sometime flourishing constitution of the Church of England Lib. 1. secondly its present decayes or destitutions both in the causes Lib. 2. and consequences Lib. 3. relating to Ministers and people in sacred and civill regards to the great diminution detriment and danger of the Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation It is now time to apply my thoughts and yours in this fourth Book to the Restitution or recovery of that which is the honour and happinesse of this as all Nations which undoubtedly consists in the Purity Unity Stability Sanctity Solemnity Autority and Efficacy of True Religion Hitherto I have powred Wine into the wounds of this Church not so much suppling as searching them by an honest severity The bruises and putrified sores which are all over the body of our reformed Religion were not capable of Oyles and Balsames of softer and sweeter applications till the putid and painfull ulcerations were first opened the cores of them discovered and the pus or sanies of them let out which to conceal and smother by gentle but unsincere salves by civil but cruel plaisters rather palliating our miseries than healing our maladies were a method of so great basenesse and unworthinesse in me as might for ever justly deprive me of the honour of faithfulnesse to God to this Church to true Religion to my Country to my own and to your soules I know the freedom of my pen hitherto like the sharpnesse of a Lancet or probe may be prone to offend on all sides few men are so humble as not to find fault with those that tell them of their faults those are commonly least patient of Phisitians or Chirurgeons hands who need them most crying out of other mens severities which are occasioned yea necessitated by their own debauchnesse and distempers Yet since my aymes are in this writing upon or rather ripping up the bilious inflammations of Religion not to spare my own disorders or theirs with whom I may seem most to symbolize in my opinion and practice I hope no good man great or small will be causelesly offended with the just incisions or scarrifyings I have made which as the gangrenous necessity of our maladies otherwise desperate and incurable have compelled me to so the pious peaceable and charitable intentions of my soul inorder to a common and publick good will then best excuse them when my Readers shall perceive with how liberall an hand and free an heart I do in this fourth Book
Roman Communion must not the fate of your either miscreant or miserable posterity necessarily be such that their teeth will be so set on edge by the sowre grapes you have eaten and left for them that they will not endure sound Doctrine much lesse wholesome Discipline Thus untaught and ungoverned unbred and unfed in Religion can you expect other from them than all debaucheries immoralities and such Atheisticall indifferences and impudencies as the heart of man easily runs into if left to it self as the Horse and Mule without bit or bridle of Religion and conscience to restraine them May they not have cause in their sad reflections upon the Beauty Order Honor and Happinesse of Religion in England which they may read of in former daies besides the many afflictions and civill dissentions which have and will inevitably follow divided Religion to an irreligion in any Nation may they not in their doubting dying and despairing retreates have cause to count you yea and to curse you as their carelesse and cruell parents who are never quiet or content till you settle your honors estates and civill affaires in some safe posture as you imagine but are wholly negligent as to any religious establishment which many men feare oppose and abhorre lest in cleare waters their faces should appeare the fouler varieties and uncertainties of Religion being most fomented by those whose piety is wholly resolved into policy who never tasted how gracious the Lord is in the waies meanes and fruites of true Religion But for you O my noble Countrimen that have seen and rejoyced in that glorious light of Reformed Religion which shined so long and illustriously in the Church of England how can you with any conscience or comfort leave the world and leave your posterity with your Country exposed to such variety uncertainties distractions deformities and confusions as to the Reformed Religion and its Ministry which makes them look like the Temple of God in Jerusalem after Nebucadnezzar and Nebuzaradan had visited it with fire and sword so defacing and deforming it that it was the pitty of all good men and the scorn of the wicked As Augustus Caesar was wont in his most impotent passion of grief and vexation to teare his haire and cry out Ridde Vare Legiones O Varus restore the Legions of brave and veterane souldiers which thou hast so unadvisedly or unworthily lost when they were slaine by the Germane surprises so may you heare the soberest Christians and truest-hearted English-men in their grief and shame cry out Reddite nobis Religionem Reformatam Uniformem Christianam primaevam Catholicam Reddite Ecclesiae Anglicana priscam pietatem pacem ordinem pulchritudinem patrimonium regimen Majestatem debitam decus antiquum Reddite nobis patres fratres filios spiritales Episcopos atate virtute authoritate venerandos Presbyteros literatura industria humilitate unitate ordine conspicuos Plebem probe instructam modestam sobriam mutua charitate amulam non effrâ—nem infrunitam laceram non erroribus lascivam non novitatibus foedam non scabie rigentem non nimia petulantia deformem non irreligiose Religiosam c. This was the voice of the Church of England while it dared to speake Latine which being now scandalous and reprochfull to many as the language of the Beast not understood by them She is forced to expresse her Prayer in English for mens better understanding Restore restore I beseech you to me to your selves to your country to your posterity the purity the peace the sanctity the solemnity the sobriety the order the honor the unity the solidity the stability the power the efficacy the fruites and works of true Christian and Reformed Religion Restore to us the happinesse of living not onely united in one civill polity as men but in one Ecclesiasticall Correspondency Combination and Communion as Christians It is more for our honor and peace to be Members of one Church than of one Commonwealth to have the same Religion and Devotion than the same Lawes and Statutes Restore to us those prime veines and Catholick conduits of Ecclesiasticall order of Church-power and spirituall authority under Christ those paternall Pastors those Primitive Bishops those successive Apostles That so we may have such Presbyters as have the Catholick Character of due Ordination and the most undoubted Derivation of Ministeriall Authority upon them being at once able and willing duly proved and empowered by Christs deputed Ministers and the whole Church to consecrate and dispense holy Mysteries to us not in the new names of Presbyters or people or Parlaments or Princes onely but in the name of Christ and his Church according to the commission he first gave to the Apostles and they transmitted to their successors in a constant undoubted and uninterrupted succession to this day Redeeme this ancient Church and renowned Nation from those lice and flies those locusts and frogs whose importune malice and wantonnesse seeks to deface and devour whatever yet remaines of the Reformed Religion in England Redeeme all sober Christians whose little life affords them no leisure to play with Religion redeeme them from the Rents and Schismes the raggs and tatters the breaks and divisions the fragments and fractions the chaines and fetters the childish and ridiculous janglings the scandalous and pernicious liberties with which pragmatick Spirits seek to poyson and to imprison their judgements and consciences Nothing is at least ought to be more pressive and urging upon your Honors and Consciences who are persons sensible of these two great regards to God and man than these concernments of true Religion whose influence reacheth to the eternall interest of your own and your posterities soules Nor is their lapsed estate to be helped by faire words and soft pretentions by demure silences and â—ary reserves by State-stratagems and politick artifices by vaporing of reformations and conniving at popular insolencies as if they were tendernesses and liberties due to conscience No the recovery of Religion is to be effected by potent convictions and impartiall suppressions of all enormous opinions and actions by serious trying of errors and establishing of sound Doctrine by just restraining all inordinate liberties by incouraging an able and uniform Ministry by discountenancing all fanatick novelties by composing al uncharitable divisions and by punishing all pragmatick arrogancies which evidently vary from or run counter against that truth order ministry authority and holy Discipline of Religion which Scripture and all Catholick conformity to it have commended to all Christians as Christs will and appointment which being accordingly setled in this Church and State ought not to be contradicted or rudely contemned by any new lights by pretended inspirations or the novel inventions of any man or men whatsoever seem they never so holy so devout so well-affected so sincere so saintly This and other true Churches of Christ did know very well what belonged to the unity sanctity charity and constancy of Religion as Christian and Reformed long before
blessings I enjoy The least of which I may say with Jacob is beyond my greatest deserts I am of opinion That No price is too dear to purchase civill peace except onely that which pawns or sels the peace of a good conscience for it That the Liberty and security of a private Christian under any Government and Governours to whom God hath subjected him is First to pray 1 Tim. 2.3 Next to pay Rom. 13.6 I am no stranger to the domestick defeats of humane policies pretensions protestations presumptions which have by their frustrations not onely confuted the light and vulgar confidences of some men and their parties But they have even non-plussed and confounded the most pregnant hopes and assured expectations of many both too credulous and too presumptuous Christians Who looking too much upon the supposed meritorious virtues of some men and the enormous vices as they thought of others have allowed lesse freedome to the wonderfull operations of God and the intricacies of Divine Providence than is fit to attend the Abysse of Soveraign power and the Majesty of Infinite Wisdome In which onely a wise man and good Christian who lives by Faith not Sense may safely rest and glory even then when he is most posed and least understands the riddles of Gods wayes or the depths of his unsearchable judgements whose fathomings and unfoldings are reserved to make up the eternall admirations and beatitudes of patient and humble Christians in another world I know we live in a querulous Age where few men are so modest as not to think they deserve larger enjoyments and better preferments than they enjoy Or so content as not to think they suffer more pressures than they have deserved You might no doubt have many importune monitors and would have infinite earnest Suppliants if YOU were in place and Petitions were in fashion from every County and Corporation in ENGLAND Where the meere vulgarity like Swine are prone to cry out more for a little bite by the eare than for all the sordidnesse of sin and irreligious faedities into which they shamefully fall and in which they securely wallow if left to themselves by the cruell indulgence of their betters and superiours The out-cries and complaints of the Commonalty in civill regards if you should every way effectually satisfie which is no easie matter It being as equally hard to please as it is base to flatter the Populacie And yet should leave the concernments of their soules as to the true Christian and Reformed profession of Religion to that loose licentious and languishing posture whereto some mens distempers and indifferencies already have and farther seek to reduce this Nation as to any setled doctrine uniform profession Catholick order and Nationall combination best becomming this as all such famous and ample Churches of Christ Certainly Your secular agitations complyances and successes would as little commend your fidelity and discretion much lesse your Christian zeal and charity as those cures would doe the skill of any Physicians who should take care to mend the clothes or heale the scratches of their raving and distracted Patients without any regard to their feavers and frenzies which are their greatest maladies and uncured will be their greatest miseries I presume you well understand That true Religion is the chiefest ingredient not onely to make up mens spirituall and eternall peace but even their civill and temporall tranquillitie That no men can be good Patriots who are not good Christians That men heal but slightly as Physicians of no value the hurts of the daughters of their people if they doe not apply seasonable and soveraign medicines to those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pestilent distempers which disaffect the heads and hearts of men in matters of Religion whose Body is Truth whose Soule is Love Its Beauty is Good Order Its Health is Peace with God and good men The indication crisis or judgment of its maladies are to be made not onely by that totall defect or absumption of Religion which is naturally incident to the profaner sort of men but many times it hath dangerous symptomes and effects arising from Pleurisies of piety from Surfets of Sanctity from the too hot Livers and over-boylings of Religion even in those that are as Solomon calls them righteous overmuch of too high and plethorick constitutions in Piety For as a wise and witty man once said The heads even of Gods children are as prone to breed nits and lice as other mens Infinite odde opinions like the itch and scabs or boils of Egypt arise from the ranknesse and luxuriancie of some mens crude and indigested godlinesse The best and most generous Vines even of Gods owne planting will soon run out by their luxuriancie not onely to sowrenesse but even to barrennesse as to good grapes unlesse they be carefully pruned and orderly bound up by those holy severities of Christian discipline order government and communion which are necessary to every Church especially those that are grown to so large a size to so numerous an extent as that of England Christian Counsellours and States-men such as YOU either are or may be will then prosper most in their politick counsels and designs when they suffer not Policy to overlay Piety when secular projects are neither the sole nor principall objects of their endeavours But primarily and impartially seek the kingdome of God and his righteousnesse Not putting that in the reare to be brought up in the fag end of a Civil war when both Church and State are sore and circumcised which should have been in the Van or front of all Parlamentary counsels and proceedings Nor setting mens heels above their heads Or which is more deformed preferring their Bodies and Estates before their Souls and Consciences Which preposterous methods doe oft make not onely Parlaments of State but even Church-Councils and Assemblies as Greg Nazianzen complains to become Nehustan broken idols and despised vessels while Christian men act more like cunning and pragmatick Politicians than charitable and sober Christians Passionately intending humane designs and Divine onely with partialities and factious byassings In such cases who can wonder if their results and conclusions be as wretched and ridiculous as their premises are unworthy of wise men and ingenuous Christians Who should never so remember they are Men as to forget they are Christians Related in Sacred and Religious as well as Civill and Naturall bands not onely to one another as Men as Brethren but also to one God their Father one Saviour their Elder Brother one holy Church both as Catholick and Nationall their common Mother I cannot but observe the solicitous counsels the sequacious complyances the vigilant cares the resolute endeavours of my Countrymen to preserve the civill unity and ancient polity of this Nation Not to suffer any part of this Commonwealth to be dismembred or under pretence of either naturall Liberty or a secular Independency to
among learned godly and wise men Nor doe I beleeve that in point of conscience they have hitherto found any great improvement of piety in themselves their families children and servants Yea I cannot but think they must be very sensible of those many breaches flawes and leakings which daily grow as upon their Country so upon their Parishes and Families by the extravagancies of their children strangenesse of their acquaintance and irreligiousnesse of their servants besides the factiousnesse of their neighbours and coldnesse of their very kindred who all affect according as they are cunning proud or simple the name of LIBERTY in Religion that is in some mens sense neither much to feare God nor to reverence Man However I wonder that any persons of great worth and prudence can with indifferency see the publique Nationall interests of Religion sinking which are the greatest jewels ornaments and honour of any Nation so as themselves may but have liberty to swim or paddle in what new pond puddle or plash of Religion they list to fancie 'T is strange to me that any persons of steady and sober brains should not easily foresee that these strange vertigo's these tempests and continuall tossings of Religion will in a short time if they have not already make the whole Nation quite giddie and as it were sea-sick even to a vomiting up of its Reformation But if there be indeed a Libertie indulged to every one for the picking and choosing what way of worship Religion Church and Ministery best likes them sure it will be the greatest honour and noblest freedome of all true English Christians to own and adhere to that solidly soberly Reformed Religion which was duly setled in this Church of England by better heads and I think as honest hearts as any either brochers or abetters of novelties can justly pretend to who as I conceive come vastly short in all their variations and new inventions of that Scripturall verity Catholick antiquity yea and of that Parlamentary authority and majesty which had once happily reformed and established Religion in this Church of England by the full counsell and free consent of all Estates Princes and People Clergy and Laity What is of late by Novellers pretended of an Apostolique rudenesse plainnesse illiteratenesse and simplicity which ought to be in Ministers of the Gospel is ridiculous unlesse these new Teachers could shew us their speciall gifts and extraordinary inspirations better than yet they have done which were indeed miraculously bestowed upon the Primitive Planters and Preachers but very superfluous in a Church so full and blest with the ordinary endowments of pious literature and all good learning both Humane and Divine as England was How childish an affectation were it in the Gentrie of England to forbeare to ride on good horses because Christ once rode upon an asse shewing that the greatest triumph of all Christians is humility lowlinesse and meeknesse How silly were it in them to expect that Asses should alwayes be able to instruct them because Balaams asse did once with great justice and a prodigious gravity rebuke his masters madnesse Much lesse should Gentlemen of worth and breeding be such silly sots and children as to fancie that every jingling hobby-horse will be sufficient to carry them to heaven No the ministery of your souls is a far greater work requiring greater ability and better authority to convince men of their sins to encounter their lusts to moderate their passions to purge out their corruptions to break and soften their hearts to terrifie and appease their consciences to prepare them for God to graft them by true faith into a crucified God and Saviour to wean them from the world to win them to goodnesse to pull them out of hell and the devils snares to bring them to heaven and into the arms of Christ All which are the great works of true able and authoritative Ministers requiring other-gates workmen than are now in many places much in fashion among common people though not so in favour with the wiser and better sort of Christians in England as to prefer these mens new and various fancies before the wise constitutions the ancient customes the Catholick and Religious Orders of the Church of England established by their pious and prosperous Progenitors All the world at home and abroad sees that after all the many changes and troublesome essayes of new-modelling the civill state of this Nation yet true reason of State and publique peace doe command yea inforce us to justifie the wisdome of our Fore-fathers by bringing back matters of Soveraigntie power and government to the former plat-form and polity as to reality onely changing a few formalities Truly this makes me not despaire but when all new fangles of Religion and popular models of Churches have been tryed in vain and are found as they will be both impertinent and incompetent for the happy state of Reformed Religion in this Church and Nation we may by Gods blessing return to those pristine and primitive forms of sound doctrine uniform order and government which were never taken up by any private inventions here or elsewhere but were of Catholick observation and so no doubt of Apostolique direction and divine institution Which if all men should silently forsake and in so doing reproch not onely the Church of England but the very first Catholique and Apostolique Churches yet let me cease to live when I cease to sympathize with them in their unjust reproches and with Her in her great distresses and 't is fit my tongue should cleave to my mouth when I forbear or am afraid to pray for the peace and happy restitution of our Jerusalem I who have seen Her in such order beauty peace plenty honour prosperity and piety I who have received in her bosome and tuition so many and great mercies not onely temporall but I hope spirituall and eternall I who desire my posterity kindred friends and countrey may never have other God or Saviour than what was owned and worshipped in the Church of England no other Scriptures and Gospel than what have here been excellently preached and comfortably believed no other Sacraments than such as were here duly administred and devoutly received no other Liturgie or prayers and holy offices than such as were here both publiquely proposed and privately used no better Bishops Presbyters pastors and guides of their souls both for learned abilities exemplary life than such as I have known frequent and flourishing in the Church of England I pray God they may but have as good for better Ministers and better means of salvation as they shall not need them so they cannot have them without miracles of which God is no prodigall I should greatly sin if I should not daily sigh and weep over the Church of England if I should not poure our my soule to the God and Father of Mercies for Her since she is now counted by many as Jeremie complains an out-cast and forsaken whom no
Christian Emperors the Churches Polity and Government being carried on by the same Apostolical power and Episcopal spirit was highly promoted even to secular Dignities and Estates Bishops being not onely every where unfeignedly venerated by all sorts of Christians as chief Pastors and spiritual Fathers succeeding to the chief Apostles by an uninterrupted and undoubted succession of which every Church had pregnant Records and Memorials but they were invested in such civil honors as make them Peers to the Senators Nobles or Patricians of the Empire which was more to their pomp and lustre but not more to their Episcopal authority and that filial respect which was paid to Bishops by all good Christians even then when they and their Clergy had nothing to live upon but the dona Matronarum oblationes Communicantium the contributions and offerings of devout people In this fair and sun-shine-weather as secular Peace and Plenty increased to the Church so Christianity spread very far as to the Fashion Profession and Form of it in branches and leaves but grew among many less fruitful in the real effects of Piety and Charity many now thronged into Christs Church but fewer touched him with the hand of Faith so as to heal their infirmities Yea as in the very first times under the Apostolical Episcopacy the Simonians Nicolaitans Gnosticks Corinthians and others afterward during the still-persecuting Ages the Marcionites Carpocratians Valentinians Montanists and others so in the most prosperous times the Manichees Novatians Donatists Arrians and Pelagians with diverse others became as branches either miserably split and slivered by their own schismatick and separate humors or quite wholy broken off by blasphemous Apostasies and the just sentences of Excommunication from that one Catholick Church and the unanimous Bishops of its communion for whom one Bishop did rightly excommunicate by the lesser or greater câ—nsure all Bishops Presbyters and Christians in all the world did the same virtually Hence many lesser and greater branches even some Bishops with their whole Presbyters and Churches grew sometimes scare and withered twice dead and pulled up by the roots by Error and Obstinacy by voluntary Desertion and Ecclesiastick Abdication as many Arrian and Donatist Bishopâ— Yet still by the correspondence and care of the excellently learned resolute and unanimous Bishops of the fourth fifth and sixth Centuries with their orderly Presbyters and faithful Flocks the Church ceased not to flourish for the most part in Verity and Unity in Piety and Charity as well as in civil Peace Plenty and Honour the holy and good Bishops every where still clearing the mosse and cankers which grew upon this fair Tree they pruned the Excrescencies and superfluities both of Jewish presumptions and Heathenish superstitions all and every one being prudently intent as far as times and the manners of men would bear to preserve his lot part or Diocese committed to him by consent of the people by the choice of his Presbyters and by the comprecation or consecration of his collegues the Neighbour-bishops so as became the relation they had to the whole Church after the grand patterns and models received from the blessed Apostles who first as Bishops of equal size and authority yet as men using an orderly precedency sprang from that one Root Christ Jesus and by their united Ministry spread abroad the Church far and neer 'T is true the primitive severity and rigour of Christian discipline much abated in times of greater peace and plenty many primitive signs of Christian love and communion as the Holy Kisse their Love-feasts their Oblations their Hospitality to all Christian strangers and the like were crowded out by the Wantonness Factiousness Hypocrisie Luxury and Avarice of some Christians besides Church-mens Ambition and Hereticall Furie none of whom would indure the sharp yoke of primitive Pennances Abstentions Castigations and many wayes of Mortification by Watching Sackcloth Fasting Prostrating Weeping Confessing c. At length Mahometan poyson and power cruelly pressed upon the divided and debauched Eastern Churches after this the Papal policy and power by insensible degrees in ignorant and turbulent Ages so prevailed upon the blindness and credulity of these Western Churches who were much wasted also with wars in Spain Italy Franee and here in Britanny by domestick Rebellions and barbarous Invasions that the face of this goodly Tree was much battered and altered from the primitive floridnesse and fruitfulnesse the Roman Church and its Bishop or Patriarch being like an Hydropick body swoln by secular Pride and Usurpation so much beyond its pristine comelinesse and honor that in stead of an holy and humble Apostolick Bishop of the same Order and Authority with his other brethren he must be owned in a superecclesiastical and a superepiscopal and a superimperial height as Lord and Soveraign and Prince above that is called God in Church and State Yet still while this Papal branch presumed thus to grow beyond its proportions to the over-dropping and dwindling of all other parts of the Church its form or fashion as a Tree in its winter or less-thrifty state remained even under those sad seasons of Papal perturbations and presumptions God never suffering the Church to be quite deformed much less hewen down because it was never so barren even in those dayes but it brought forth some tolerable Bishops Presbyters and other Christians yea many of them very commendable ones Neither Papal Foxes nor Mahometane Wild Bores had ever power to lay it quite wast or overthrow it both root and branch as to its saving foundations or its orderly constitutions or its authoritative successions in Bishops Presbyters and Deacons still holy Mysterys and holy Orders the holy Ministry and holy Scriptures holy Examples holy Doctrines holy Duties and holy Lives were continued in such order and by such conduct as easily represented the primitive pattern and Apostolick figure of this Tree though with many accressions and some deformities which time and ignorance and superstition or humane policy and secular pride had affixed to some main Branches of it in these Western parts of the Church yet the ancient Lineaments and true Model were very visible in Christian People Christian Deacons Christian Presbyters and Christian Bishops directed into several stations as Helps for the more orderly carrying on of the Churches Government in grand and national combinations In this posture stood the state of the Catholick Church as in all other places where the Vastations of Saracens and Turks had left any miserable Remnants of Christian Churches so most eminently in this Western world which the Providence of God had not yet wholly delivered over to Gog or Magog none of these Churches were without their Deacons Presbyters and Bishops untill that great Reparation rather than Alteration of Christian Religion began in these Western Churches about the Year 1520. which was justly called a blessed Reformation in many respects as to clearing the corruptions of Doctrine and Manners which had been contracted every where which
of Christ were ever esteemed the fruits of carnall not Christian minds of such as had more subtilty than sanctity in them As the Apostles so their Primitive successors ever looked upon the mincing and mangling of Churches as the reproch pest poyson and deformity of Religion being diametrally opposite to those holy customes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian and sixty years after him the great Council of Nice so command and recommend as Ancient Primitive and Apostolick For they were not such children as to fancy those to be ancient customs and usages in the Catholick Church which were not older than their own beards or the Gibeonites bread and bottles which a late Writer of Schisme seems to suspect of those renowned Fathers who were not above three descents from some of the Apostles Some Bishops in the Council of Nice might very easily know Irenaeus as he tells us he did Papias and Polycarpus who both knew St. John so that the traditions and customs so evident by matter of fact to all the world could neither be dark nor dubious nor justly called Ancient then if not Primitive The greatest glory and most conspicuous character of the first famous Churches was as Ignatius tells us for Christians to love one another to be of one mind and one heart for their lesser Congregations to be subject to their severall Presbyters or Preachers for their People and Presbyters to be meekly subordinate to their respective Bishops for their Bishops to correspond with one another and all Christians by them in their joynt Councils and publick Conventions also by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commendatory letters and testimonials which presently admitted every good Christian to communion with any part of the true Church or any congregation in all the world upon the testimony and account of their Baptismal covenant and orderly conversation or profession of the same faith once delivered to the Saints and that one hope or common salvation by which they stood related to the whole Church as one Body and to Christ Jesus as the onely Head of it without any new imposition or exaction of any other explicit covenants and formall professions or private engagements to any one Congregation or Preacher which must be renewed so oft as a Christian changeth his abode and may for ought I see as well be required by every private Family before they will pray or eat or drink with any stranger-Christian as by every particular Congregation which listeth to call it self a Church and so fancies it self to be absolute soveraign independent without any communion with or subordination to those greater Ecclesiasticall polities which in the primitive style and esteem were called and counted the onely regular politick organized and completed Churches the priviledges and benefits of whose communion every Christian was in charity presumed capable of and so allowed to enjoy who having been duly baptised instructed and confirmed in Christian mysteries did continue to professe the same by word and deed neither justly excommunicated out of that particular Church to which he was orderly joyned nor excommunicating himself by voluntary Schisme declared abscession separation or Apostasie To such Christians as thus professe the true faith and keep that comely order communion and subordination which is publickly professed and maintained in their respective nationall Churches and the several parts lesser Congregations contained in them to which private Christians are more immediately for order sake related there is no doubt but a just right and claim belongs according to their severall aptitudes and capacities as younger or elder catechised or fuller instructed novices or veterane and old Disciples to partake in due order of any ordinance and institution given by Christ to his Catholick Church as a mark and priviledge of his Disciples Nor can it seem lesse than a petulant and partiall if not a proud Schismatical and sacrilegious practise for any Minister or people to deny or rob any such approved Christian professor of the comfort of partaking such Christian rights as he duly requires meerly because he will not gratifie such a Minister or such a little Congregation in a new exotick way of bodying that is formally covenanting verbally engaging with them to them beyond the baptismall bond vow Thereby owning first a greater right and priviledge to be received by him from such covenanting with them than he had before as a Christian baptised and in Catholick communion with Christ and his Church next he must own an absolute soveraign and entire Church-power among them to the prejudice division and discarding of those higher relations by which he stands united and subordinate to the Church of Christ in order to higher ends and uses under greater notions and denominations as they are distinguished into severall bounds and orders both for Episcopal inspection and nationall correspondency or communion which are of far greater vertue and more publick concernment and benefit than that congregating or meeting together which is onely locall and onely followes the aptitude of a Christians residency or particular station in one place Undoubtedly the grand ecclesiastical relations and sacred generall bands of Christianity in one Body one Spirit one Faith one Baptism one Lord and Father of all c. are of a far higher and nobler nature than those which arise meerly from cohabitation or personall convention which are very variable humane and uncertain whereas the other are fixed divine and immutable except through mens own default by Infidelity Apostacy and Immorality Christian people owing to their Bishops or chief Governours as subjects do to their Princes a duty of love reverence and subjection also of due acknowledgement and holy obedience although they never see their faces nor meet them in any particular place as thousands of Christians never did at all or not for a long time and never any more after the Apostle S. Paul's departure from them who yet were subject to his orders and mandates instructions and traditions according to the mind and spirit of Christ declared by his own Epistles or such other Messengers and Apostles Bishops and Governours whom the Apostle sent to them and set over them as he did Timothy among the Ephesians Titus among the Cretians Epaphroditus among the Philippians Archippus among the Colossians These and such like with under and after the Apostles as eminent Pastors Bishops and Governours of such Churches and Christians as were contained in one great city and its Territory or Province which were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did take care that every Christian every Congregation every Presbyter or Preacher in those precincts should both do their duties keep their stations preserve the private and publick order and unity enjoy the priviledges of safety peace and assistance as parts or members of that Polity or Ecclesiasticall Body which still stood further related and so was subordinate
all ages if his prohibition be not against Separation Apostasy and total forsaking of the Churches communion both in Discipline and Doctrine in Polity and Verity as well as against Schisme The difference is not much between S. Pauls censure of Schisme and division as carnall and a work of the flesh Gal. 5.20 and that of S. Jude against such as separate as being sensuall and not having the Spirit especially where such communion is offered and required by a Church Christian and Reformed as is no way against the Word of God the Apostles example and the Primitive Catholick practise of all Churches such I believe and hope to prove that of the Church of England was and is as to those main essentialls of Religion which constitute a true Church both in the being and well-being But I needed not and therefore I crave your pardon worthy Gentlemen have spent so much breath to blow up and break the late thin bladders or light bubbles these new Corpusculas of separate Churches compared to the Catholick eminency unity and solidity of the Church of England and others of like size An easie foot will serve to beat down such new-sprung Mushromes of late perked up in this English soyle through the licentiousnesse of times and luxuriancy of mens humours since it hath been watered with Humane and Christian blood whose ambition seems to be not onely to divide and share but wholly to possess and engross this good land or else to leave desolate that field out of which they are sprung which bare far better fruits than now it doth long before their name was heard of under the new titles or style of bodyed and congregated associated or independented and new-fangled Churches Who have now the confidence to cry down the Church of England in its late visible polity harmony order and unity as a meer name and notion an insignificant Idea and empty imagination as if it were neither bonum nor jucundum good nor pleasant for Brethren in Christ to dwell together in unity or for men in one nation to be Christians in one Church as if bonds of civil polity reached farther than Ecclesiastick Some are so vain and vulgar as to boast that all Church-fellowship in England is no better then floten milk when once they have taken off the cream of some Saintly professors which they think worthy to make up and coagulate into their new and small bodyed Churches which are carried on by some with so high an hand and brow that a young master of that sect hath been heard to say not more magisterially than uncharitably he would sooner renounce his Baptism than own the Church of England to be a true Church And this notwithstanding that it is evident these new Rabbies have added nothing new and true to the Doctrine of the Church of England nor yet to the divine Worship and holy Ministrations or Duties used and professed in it with as much solemnity judgement and sincerity I believe as they can pretend to without blushing on mans part and with infinite more spirituall blessings and proficiency in all graces so far as yet appeares on Gods part Nor have they ever shewn any cause why It should be denyed the name honour priviledge and comfort of a true Church of Christ both in its principall parts and in the whole visible community or polity afflicted indeed at present but sometime famous and flourishing as in favour both with God and good men nor did it ever recede from its love or apostatize by any publick act or vote from such a profession of Christian and Reformed Religion as gives her a good Title to be and to be called a true Church of Christ in spight of men and Devils If any still list to quarrell at the name of a Nationall Church the same schismaticall sophisters may as well slight all those proportions and expressions used in all the grand Combinations and visible Constitutions of such ancient Churches throughout all descents of Christian Religion which never doubted to cast themselves into and continue in such Ecclesiasticall forms and parallel distributions as they found laid out by the blessed Apostles and the Spirit of Christ which without doubt most eminently guided those Primitive Churches When these new projectors have answered the Scripture style and the Apostolick patterns and pens followed by all antiquity which call and account all those Christians conjoyned in one Churches communion in point of Ecclesiasticall polity subordination chief power and jurisdiction who yet were dispersed in many places and so distinguished no doubt into many congregations as to the duties of ordinary worship throughout their Cities respective Provinces which I am sure were many of them far larger than any one Diocese or Province in England yea and possibly not much lesse than all England as Ephesus Crete Jerusalem Antioch whose province was all Syria as Ignatius tells us so Corinth Philippi Laodicea Rome c. with their Suburbs Territories and Provinces which extended as far as their proconsulary jurisdictions reached in one of which that learned and pious but fancifull interpreter Mr. Brightman doubted not to find a prophetick Type representing the Nationall Church of England with much more aptitude than his other Satyrick correspondencies were applied When the wit and artifices of Independent brethren if they allow me that relation have shrunk those great and famous Churches so distinguished and nominated by the Scripture line and record into little handfulls such as one mans lungs can reach at one time in one place when the Presbyterian brethren who have cast off yea cast out their Fathers the Bishops can manifest that the severall Congregations of Christians in those Parishes Classes or Associations which they fancy had as many Bishops properly so called and fully impowered as there were Presbyters or Preachers when by their joynt skill and force they can evince out of any Ecclesiasticall Records or Scripturall that there was not some one eminent person as the Apostle Angel Bishop and President or chief Governour among them over all those people and Presbyters who lived within such large Scripture-combinations as Churches such as was Timothy in Ephesus Titiâ— in Crete S. James the Just in Jerusalem either succeeding the Apostles after death or supplying their places during their absence from particular Churches who in their severall lots portions or Episcopal charges and divisions had while they lived the chief inspection rule authority and jurisdiction When I say these grand difficulties are cleared and removed as scales from our eyes who still honour the Church of England then we shall be willing and able to turn the other lessening end of the Optick glasse and to look upon the great and goodly Church of England as fit to be shrunk into decimo sexto volumes or to be divided into small pamphleting Congregations and bound up in Calves leather which heretofore by an happy deception of sight appeared to us at
true ministeriall authority precious liberties what sober men count defections from the ancient Catholick Apostolick pattern they boast of as perfections what plain-hearted Christians esteem as decayings of the Reformed Religion and ill omens and presages of its ruine these Seraphicks affirm to be edifyings and repairings of that structure which since the Apostles times they pretend was alwayes decaying and dropping down to Apostasy being overladen with the fair roof or covering of Episcopacy of which burthen some blessed Reformers seek totally to have lightened this Church as they have done some Cathedrals of their Leads that they may leave this Church and the Reformed Religion as without any roof and defence against the injuries of foul weather so without any band or coping to keep the walls and sides together What others call Extirpations these magnifie as rare Plantations in which they fell down Cedars and set up Shrubs they root up Vines and plant Brambles rejecting venerable Bishops and orderly Presbyters who are of the Primitive Stock and Apostolick descent that they may bring in a novel brood of Heteroclite Teachers equivocall Pastors and new-moulded Ministers whose late Origine without all doubt ariseth no higher at best than Geneva or Frankfort or Amsteldam or Arneheim or New England some are such popular pieces so much terrae filii of obscure rise of base and mean extraction that they have no name of men or place to render them remarkable being like Mushromes perking up in every molehill and in a moment making themselves the Ministers of Jesus Christ To whose strange and novell productions in Old England the late civill distractions finding it seemes much prepared matter gave not onely life and activity but so great petulancy and insolency that many do not onely change their former profession and utterly abdicate their Church-standing and communion in England but as meer changelings they prefer the saddest Succubaes and Empusa's the most fanatick apparitions of modern fancies in their poor and pitifull Conventicles before the Church of England as some children do the Queen of Fairies before their genuine Mothers instead of whose sound Doctrine sacred Order and Catholick Councils they betake themselves each to their private dotages and ravings to meer nonsense and blasphemies which some cry up as strong reasonings high raptures extatick illuminations to which all men must subscribe though no wise man know what they mean Such confidence some men have that Christians in England have lost not onely their Religion but their Reason upon whom they hope so rudely and grosly to impose their most childish novelties and frivolous follies that as Erasmus speaks of some monkish corrupters or interpolators of S. Jeroms works who had made it harder for him to find out what that acute and learned Father wrote than ever it was for him to write his excellent works so in England what was formerly plain and easie sound and wholsome orderly and Catholick as to true Religion both in Faith Manners Ministry and Government the modern Novelties Whimseys Factions Intricacies and Extravagancies of some men have made not onely perplexed confused but contemptible and ridiculous Yet these are the trash and husks which some mens nauseo us wanton palates in this age do prefer and chuse rather than that wholsome food and sincere milk of Gods word with which the Reformed Church of England alwayes entertained her children untill an high-minded and stiff-necked generation of rank appetites like Jewes growing sick of quailes and surfeited of manna longed for the garlick and onions of Egypt legendary visions fabulous revelations and fanatick inspirations Which Egyptian diet hath of late by a just anger of Heaven upon mens ingratefull murmurings and wanton longings brought many in England to those high calentures and distempers in Religion that like frantick people they flye in the faces of their Fathers and tear the very flesh of their Mother Though civil troubles and State-furies seem much allayed yet these Clero-masticks and Church-destroyers still maintain a most implacable war against the Church of England thinking yea professing some of them that they shall do God good service utterly to destroy it with all its assistants and adherents In order to which design they have sought every where to vilifie and set at nought to crown with thorns and crucifie or at best to counterfeit and disguise the merit worth and majesty of all the sacred Solemnities and Rites the Peace and Polity the Ministry and Ministrations of the Church of England yea and fancying they have a liberty to mock them first and after to naile them to the Cross Good God! how have they buffeted them how importunely do they obtrude upon them amidst their many Agonies gall and vinegar to drink what cruell contempts what virulent pamphlets what scandalous and scurrilous petitions do they frequently vent against all Churches and Church-men relating to or depending upon the Church of England some of them ripping up by a Neronean cruelty the womb that bare them others cutting off by a more than Amazonian barbarity the breasts that gave them suck Nor do they despair to pierce at last this bleeding Church to the very heart if ever the power of the sword come into such hands as are professed enemies to all other Reformed Churches as well as this of England whose languishing but living fate they now behold as with great pleasure so with no small impatience while they see that notwithstanding all their sedulous and industrious machinations against learning and Religion against the Church and Universities of England against Ministers and their maintenance yet there is still some life and spirit some liberty and hope left through the mercy of God and the moderation of some men in power for those Christians that have the courage and conscience to own the Reformed Church of England as their Mother and the Reformed Clergy as their spirituall Fathers Whose just Honour and Interests as I must never desert while I live because I think them linked with those of Gods Glory my Redeemers Honour the Catholick Churches veracity the peace of my conscience and my countrey's happinesse both as to the present age and to posterity so I have thought it my duty in her deplorable condition and in the despondency of many mens spirits to apply the cordiall of this confection mingled with her teares and with her sighs presented to you my most honoured Countrey-men by the help of which you may both fortify your own honest minds and oppose that diffusive venome which you cannot but daily meet in some mens restlesse malice who neither know how to speak well of the Church of England nor how to hold their peace By the example of your judicious favour and generous compassion I doubt not to excite like affections of courage and constancy in all worthy Protestants honest-hearted English whose duty it is amidst the pertinacy of all other parties and factions who like Burres hang together to hold fast that holy and
exercised to each other their numerous conventions their fervent devotions their reverent attentions their unanimous communions their cheerfull Amens those blessed hopes and unspeakable comforts which thousands enjoyed both living and dying in the obedience to and communion with the Church of England All these holy fruits and blessed effects as most certain seals and letters testimoniall were I conceive most pregnant evidences and valid demonstrations of true Religion and of a true Church so happily setled by the joynt consent and publick piety of this Nation that it was not in reason or conscience in modesty or ingenuity to be suddenly changed much lesse rashly deserted and rudely abandoned chiefly upon the giddinesse of common people or by the boysterousnesse of common souldiers whose buff-coats and armour cannot be thought by any wise and worthy Souldiers to be like Aarons breast-plate the place from which Priests and people are to expect the constant oracles of Urim and Thummim Light and Reformation Such of that profession as are truly Militant Christians that is humbly wise and justly valiant as I hope many Souldiers may be will think it enough for them modestly to learn and generously to defend as Constantine the Great said to the Nicene Bishops not imperiously to dictate or boldly to innovate matters of Religion in such a Church and Nation as England which was I am sure and I think still is furnished with many able Divines many Evangelicall Priests and Ministers of the Lord whose lips preserve saving knowledge who have many a one of them more learning and well-studied Divinity in them than a whole Regiment nay than an whole Army of ordinary Souldiers whose weapons are not proper for a spirituall warfare nor apt as Davids hands either to build or repair a Church otherwaies than as Labourers who may possibly assist the true Ministers who are and ought to be the Master-builders of Gods house whose skill is not to destroy mens bodies but to save their souls not to kill but to make alive It must ever be affirmed to Gods glory because without any vanity or flattery that the Church of England for this last golden century came not behind the very best Reformed Churches nor any other that profess Christianity in any part of the world which is not my particular testimony who may seem partiall because I unfeignedly professe my self a son and servant of it but it is and hath been the joynt suffrage of all eminent Divines in all forraign Reformed Churches who have written and spoken of the Church of England ever since its setled Reformation not with commendation onely but admiration especially those who coveting to partake of the gifts and labours of English Divines have taken the pains to learn our hard and untoward language Yea I may farther with truth and modesty affirm that saving the extraordinary gifts of Tongues Miracles and Martyrdomes the Church of England since its setled Reformation under Queen Elizabeth of blessed memory came not much short of the Primitive Churches in the first and second Centuries Which had at least some of them as I shall after shew rather more than fewer ceremonies partly Judaick partly Christian yea far greater errors and abuses were found among some of them than were generally among any professors in communion with the Church of England witnesse those touching the Resurrection of the body and in the celebrating of the Lords Supper among the Corinthians The first some denied the other many received covetously uncharitably drunkenly disorderly undecently in the Church of Corinth Besides the scandalous fact of the incestuous person with which they were not so offended as became Christians they were also full of factions and carnall divisions going to law one with another before Infidels undervaluing the blessed Apostle S. Paul and other faithfull labourers preferring false Apostles and deceitfull workers with no lesse folly than ingratitude challenging in many things disorderly and uncomely liberties which amounted to clokes of malice and a licentiousnesse tending to confusion These and other corruptions were among Christians of an Apostolicall Church newly planted carefully watred and excellently constituted Nor are there lesse remarkable faults found by the Spirit of God in six of the seven Asian Churches mentioned in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation while yet they were under Apostolicall inspection For the Devil who is a great rambler but no loyterer began betimes to sow his tares in Gods field by false Apostles unruly walkers deceitfull workers meer hucksters of Religion schismatick Spirits proud Impostors sensuall Separatists wanton Jezebels curious and cowardly Gnosticks with all the evil brood of Nicolaitans Simonians Cerinthians and other crafty Hypocrites brochers of lies patrons of lewdnesse extremely earthly and sensuall yet vaunters in proud swelling words of spirituall and heavenly gifts but more covetous of filthy lucre and sedulous to serve their own bellies than zealous to serve the Lord or to save souls In all which instances of diseases growing even upon any of those Primitive Churches however Christians are commanded to repent and do their first works to keep themselves pure from contagion private or epidemick yet are they no where put upon the pernicious methods of reproching rending and separating from the very frame and constitution of their respective Churches as they were holy Polities Constitutions or Communions setled by the Apostles in decent subordinations and convenient limits of Ecclesiasticall order government authority and jurisdiction without which all humane societies civil or sacred run to meer Chaosses and heaps of confusion Which as the God of order and peace perfectly abhors so he no where by any Divine precept or approved example recommends any such practises to Christians under the name notion or intention of reforming abuses crept into any Churches presently to rend revile contemn divide destroy and make desolate the whole order polity frame and constitution of them which is very Christian and very commendable If the grand example of Divine Mercy was ready to spare Sodom upon Abrahams charitable intercession in case ten righteous persons had been found in that city and Jerusalem in case one man could have been found there who executed judgement and sought the truth how little are those men imitators of Gods clemency or Abrahams pity who have studied and still endeavour by all acts of power and policy utterly to destroy such a Church as England was in which many thousands of good Christians may undoubtedly be found who are constant adherers to the Faith gratefull lovers of the Piety and most pathetick deplorers of the miseries of the Church of England Whose excellent Christian state and Reformed constitution deserved much better treatment from those at least who were her children carefully bred born and brought up by her however now they appear many of them better fed than taught more puffed up with the surfeits of undigested Knowledge than increased in humble
honour merited by the Emperours Diocletian Galerius for their extirpating Christian superstition restoring the worship of the Gods No pen saith Eusebius could equall the atrocity of those times against the Church of Christ Yet even then the gracious spirit of sincere Christians as the Ark in the deluge rose highest toward heaven then godly Bishops and Presbyters were as another Historian writes more ambitious of Martyrdome than now Presbyters are of being all made Bishops then were Christians more then conquerours and true Christianity most triumphant when it seemed most depressed despised and almost destroyed as Sulpitius Severus writes of the same times in his short but elegant History Thus Eusebius and others describe that horrid storm and black night which was relieved by the blessed day-star of Constantine the Great appearing In which dismall times learned men do not quarrell at the profession and state of Religion but at the irreligion and scandall of Christians lives the fault and provocation was not from the Faith Doctrine Liturgy Order and Government then established in the Churches of Christ but from the degenerous depraved and ungoverned passions of men as they all blamed these last whenever they appeared so they constantly asserted the other as was evident in the Synod of Antioch in which a little before Diocletians time the heresie of Paulus Samâ—satenus denying the Divinity of Christ was condemned by all being confuted by Malchion a learned man an accurate Disputant The Author or Heresiarch was excommunicated not onely from the Church of Antioch but also from the Catholick Church and separated from all Christian communion throughout the world by a just and unanimous severity Holy men then rightly judged that the meritorious cause of all those sore calamities arose not from the frame of Christian Churches which was holy uniform and Apostolick as yet but from the wantonness and wickedness of Christian professors neglecting so great means of salvation and abusing such Halcyon dayes as had been sometime afforded them Which censure I may without rashnesse or uncharitablenesse pass as to the present distresses incumbent upon the Church of England whose holy wise honourable and happy Reformation must ever be vindicated as much as in me lies against all such gain-sayers as make no scruple to condemne as all the generations of Gods children in former ages so those especially who worthily setled and valiantly maintained the Christian reformed Religion in the Church of England as against all Heathenish and Hereticall profaneness so against the more puissant and superstitious Papists also against the more peevish but then more feeble Schismaticks CHAP. X. IT were as impertinent a work for me in these times to insist upon every particular in the frame of the Church of England or to cry up every small lineament in Her for most rare and incomparable as it is unreasonable and spitefull in those that deny Her to have had any one handsome feature in Her or any thing grave comely Christian-like or Church-like in her main constitution and complexion Mr. Richard Hooker one of the ablest Pens and best Spirits that ever England employed or enjoyed hath besides many other worthy men abundantly examined every feature and dress of the Church of England asserting it by calm clear and unanswerable demonstrations of Reason and Scripture to have been very far from having any thing unchristian or uncomely deformed or intolerable which her then enemies declaimed and now have proclaimed whose wrathfull menaces the meekness and wisdome of that good man foresaw and in his Epistle foretold would be very fierce and cruell if once they got power answerable to their prejudices superstitions and passions against the Church of England which he fully proved to differ no more from the Primitive temper and prudence than was either lawfull convenient or necessary in the variation of times and occasions The excellent endeavours of that rarely-learned and godly Divine so full of the spirit and wisdome of Christ one would have thought might have been sufficient for ever to have kept up the peace order and honour of the Church of England also to have silenced the pratings and petulancies of her adversaries But alas few of those plebeian spirits and weaker capacities to whose errour anger and activity the Church of England now chiefly owes her miseries tears and fears were ever able to understand or bear away the weight strength and profoundnesse of that most ample mans reasonings and his eloquent writings Others of them that were more able were so cunning and partiall for the interest of their cause and faction as commonly to decry for obscure or to suspect as dangerous because prejudiciall to their interest or to bury in silence as their enemy that rare piece of Mr. Hookers Ecclesiasticall Polity which many of them had seldome either the courage or the honesty to read none of them the power ever to reply or the hardiness so much as to endeavour a just confutation of his mighty demonstrations Yea I have been credibly informed that some of the then-dissenters from the Church of England had the good or rather evil fortune utterly to suppress those now defective but by him promised and performed books touching the vindication of the Church of England in its Ordination Jurisdiction and Government by the way of Ancient Catholick Primitive and Apostolick Episcopacy Which one word Episcopacy hath of late years cost more blood and treasure in Scotland and England than all the enemies of Bishops and of this Church had in their veins or were worth 20. years ago whose importune clamours of old and endeavours of late to extirpate Primitive Catholick and Apostolicall Episcopacy out of this Church and to introduce by head and shoulders the exotick novelties and vanities of humane invention have brought themselves and this whole Church to so various and divided a posture as makes no setled or uniform Church-government at all by a popular precipitancy ruining an ancient and goodly Fabrick whose temporary decayes or defects might easily and wisely have been amended before they had agreed of a new model or seriously considered either their skill or their authority to erect a new one if they could find out a better which hitherto they have not done nor will they I believe ever be able to do as destitute in this point of any just commission direction power or precedent either from God or man I am sure the Supreme power of regulating all Ecclesiasticall affairs was under God by the laws of England invested in the Chief Magistrate and Governours of this Church without and against whose judgements consents and consciences no innovations were to be carried on nor indeed begun in this Church whose events or successes hitherto have been only worthy of such tumultuary beginnings the effects of them being full of dissolution confusion to all of injurious afflictions to many worthy men besides penall and perpetuall divisions among the Innovators themselves who
varying in this as in other things from the whole ancient Churches constitution no less than from this of England are likely to differ among themselves even till Doomesday unless they return under some new name and disguised notion of moderators and superintendents to what they have rashly deserted the true pattern in the Mount that paternall Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy which was the centre and crown of the Churches unity peace order and honour which imports no more after all this clamour and terrour than one grave and worthy Presbyter duly chosen in the severall Dioceses limits to be the chief Ecclesiastick Overseer and Governour succeeding in the managing of that Ecclesiasticall power and authority which without an Apostolick President or Bishop properly so called Presbyters alone in parity or equality never did enjoy and so never ought to exercise in the Churches of Christ as to ordination and jurisdiction no more than Bishops regularly may without the counsel and assistance of Presbyters Which ancient Order eminent Authority of Primitive Episcopacy if neither right Reason nor the Word of God either in the Old or New Testament did clearly set forth to us as best if neither Apostles at first nor the Primitive Fathers after them if neither Church-history nor Catholick custome nor Primitive Antiquity nor the approbation of the best Reformed Churches and Divines if all these did not commend it as they evidently do to my best understanding yet the late mad and sad extravagancies in Religion do highly recommend it yea the great want of it in England shews the great use necessity and excellency of it especially if advanced to its greatest improvement of counsel order and authority I may adde the votes of all sober and impartiall Christians even now in England who are grown so wise by their woes as generally to wish for such Episcopacy whose restitution would be more welcome to the wiser and better sort of Christians in this nation than ever the removall of it was or the medlies of Presbytery and Independency is like to be Nor do I believe that the restauration of a right Episcopacy would be unacceptable to many of the soberest men even of those two parties if any expedient could be found to salve and redeem the reputations of some lay-leaders and popular Primates of those sides whose credits lie much at pawn with the people upon this very score as having been by them rashly biassed against all Episcopacy the abusing of which Apostolick order on one side and the abolishing of it on the other side were I think two of the greatest Engines the Devil used to batter the Church of Christ withall pride and parity insolency and Anarchy being equally pernicious to Church-polity and Christian piety The overboylings of some mens passions which the Scotch Thistles being set on fire under them chiefly occasioned having now almost quenched themselves by bringing infinite fedities and deformities upon the whole face of the Christian Reformed Religion in this Church as well as otherwhere these sad events may save me the labour of further asserting in this place the use and honour of Catholick Episcopacy in the Churches of Christ which is already done as by my owne so many abler pens as it was also done by Mr. Hooker sufficiently proving that the Church of England deserved not upon the account of its retaining the Catholick and Apostolick order of Episcopacy to have suffered these many calamities which have ensued since the Schismes and Apostasy of many from this Church and from that Primitive Government other than which was not so much as known or thought of in the Catholick Church of Christ for 1500 years nor then when the Church of England began its wise and happy Reformation which did not indeed abolish but reform and continue as became its wisdom that Ancient and Apostolick government of the Church which was primitively planted in these British Churches as in all others throughout the world long before the Bishop of Rome had any influence or authority among them being highly blessed of God and honoured of all good men nor hath yet any cause appeared why it should be blasted or accursed or scared by Smectymnuan terrors CHAP. XI AS for the Doctrinals of Christian Religion this Church of England ever had so high an approbation from the best Reformed Churches and so harmonious a consent with the most Orthodox and Primitive Churches that it must be extreme ignorance or impudence on this part to esteem the present miseries of this Church as merited by Her wherein it was indeed most exact and compleat as wholly consonant to the Word of God so nothing dissonant from the sense and practise of the ancient and purest Churches Yea I find that the bitterest enemies of the Church of England do in This least shew their teeth or clawes except onely in the point of Infant-Baptism not for want of ill will for nothing more pincheth them then the Doctrine of the Church of England which was according to godliness teaching all men that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts they should live righteously soberly and godlily in this present world but for want as of just cause so of skill and abilitie most of them being such as have no great stock of knowledge learning or judgement nor very capable on this side to assault the Church of England whose strength and shield is the invincible Word of God rightly understood Therefore the cunning Adversaries and Vastators of the Church of England drive a lesser trade of small cavellings and bitings rather as the serpent at the heel than head not much engaging themselves in any grand controversies of Divinity which are generally above the reach of their capacities whose feeble assaults the Church of England hath no cause to fear against the Doctrine set forth in Her 39. Articles Her Catechisme Her Liturgy and Her Homilies since She hath so many years mightily maintained this post of her Doctrine against the Learning Power and Policy of the Roman party who are veterane Souldiers and mighty Troopers weightily armed in comparison of whose puissance these light-armed Schismaticks and small Skirmishers are like Pot-guns to Canons or Pigmies to Giants seeking to deface the Pinnacles and Ornamentalls of Religion but not capable to shake the foundations of it as it was happily established and duly professed in the Church of England CHAP. XII NOr have they had either more cause for or better successe in their disputings against the Devotionals of the Church of England in its publick worshipping of God by Confessions Prayers Praises Psalmodies and other holy Oblations of rationall and Evangelicall Services offered up to God by the joynt devotion of this Church the subject and holy matter of which ever was is too hard for their biting therefore most of them contented themselves to bark at the manner of performing them chiefly quarrelling at that prescript form or Liturgie used in this Church under the title
think their own refractoriness to be Religion and other mens honest devotion to be but superstition of which I confess I never thought either this Church or any other to be in the least degree guilty while they did observe such holy memorials with publick celebrity as were appointed to the honour of God and to the imitation of those graces which were remarkable in the eminentest servants of God renowned in the Gospel such as are the blessed Virgin and Mother of our Lord as also his prime Apostles by whose means the light of the Gospel shone through all the world Nor do we find our Saviour himself withdrawing in such cases his conformity to the Churches practise in those Encaenia or Feasts of dedication which were thankfull and joyfull memorials of the restauration of that material Temple which was to be demolished whereas these holiday-celebrations used in this Church have respect to such things as are never to be forgotten abolished or changed while the world continues and Christ hath any Church upon earth which I believe he will have to the end of the world according to his promised assistance to all his faithfull Ministers who continue in the fellowship and succession both for doctrine and authority of the blessed Apostles But I have done with these long and unhappy debates about the sacred Festivalls and other Ceremonies authorized by the Church of England on which some flesh-flies mistaking them for galls and sores when they were but decent variations of beautifull colours in its garment have so importunely fastened especially in the hotter season of these late dog-dayes that they have very much flye-blown the reformed Religion and endangered not onely the putrefaction but the utter corruption of the whole state of this Church of England whose quarrel and right in these things I should not have thus far revived or vindicated if I had not thought it necessary by this salt of sound speech to represse those further putrifying principles which upon this account are daily suggested to simple and well-meaning people against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England Whose publick commands and setled constitutions as I alwayes approved and obeyed but most readily since I best understood them in their late fiery triall because I have found them in great and weighty matters serious solid scripturall in lesser things moderate discreet and charitable so I never had either heart or hand tongue or pen to assert any thing that was by private or particular mens fancies brought in either to a peevish non-conformity or to a pragmatick super-conformity Though I willingly allow many of my calling to be much wiser and better than my self yet I cannot look upon them as wiser than the whole Church of England which saw with many more eyes both forward and backward than any one Bishop or Presbyter can do whose reall Innovations in later times beyond what either the letter or usage of this Church which best interprets Its meaning did enjoyn and authorize I am no way concerned to maintain nor was I ever discontent to have them both gainsaid and removed as insolencies mis-becoming any Church-man never so wise or great to impose upon the Majesty of so famous a Church as England was which never needed any other additions innovations or decorations either in Doctrine or Discipline or Worship than those which It self had soberly chosen as a wise Mother and grave Matron which justly disdains to be made gayer or finer by such ribbands feathers and toyes as any of her Children shall list to pin upon her It had better become in my judgement the learning gravity and discretion of those men who most admired and obtruded their own supernumerary and unwonted ceremonies to have confined themselves to the Churches known Injunctions and Customes for it were endless if every man never so good should be gratified in his Church-projects and religious inventions which became the great pest and oppression of the Western Churches when the Bishops of Rome by their own incroachments and other Bishops connivence undertook to innovate or regulate all things in all Churches which should have been ordered either by generall Councils or by the Synods of particular Churches as was most convenient for them Nor in England could ever prudent men with reason have doâ—ed on any of their novelties when they plainly saw that even those few sparks of ancient Ceremonies with which the Church of England contented her self and which neither made nor marr'd Religion being rather spangles than spots on the Churches garments even these I say have a long time been made beyond their merit not onely occasions for some to rail others to scorn a third sort to blaspheme the purity and honour of the Church of England but also to schismatize in Her and separate wholy from Her Yea from the later obtrusions of some mens either renovations of things antiquated or innovations of Ceremonies never enjoyned by the Church those dreadful conflagrations have grown which have almost quite consumed Her the quenching of which deserves as it needs not onely these drops of my pen but of all your tears and prayers most worthy Gentlemen who find your selves as I am very much concerned for the honour and happiness of this Church which was in all points prudently reformed and excellently constituted CHAP. XIV A Second grand Objection very popular and plausible which the enemies of the Church of England have made great use of to decry and destroy if possible the whole frame constitution of It is taken from the private infirmities personall failings male-administrations which some men have either suspected or really observed in some of the Clergie either Arch-bishops Bishops or Presbyters of the Church of England against whom it is objected that either they were not so warm and voluble Preachers as those men do most fancy or possibly less learned and industrious then was fit for Ministers or not so prudent it may be and compassionate toward weaker Christians as became those that were stronger in the faith or lastly not so morally strict unblamable in their lives as indeed all Ministers of the Gospel ought to be at all times Hence the Adversaries of the Church of England do conclude that both head and heart were sick that there was no sound part that all was full of bruises and putrified sores that in the Church of England nothing could be found worthy of a true Church a true Minister or a true Christian My answer is That all the modest Clergie in England desire to be so humble so ingenuous so impartial as not to forget their own infirmities while they coÌ„plain of others injuries For my self being conscious how little removed I am from fallings as a mâ—n and Minister I shall willingly confess and strive to amend what any mans charity shall with truth convince me of and for others my Fathers and Brethren I presume I have because I humbly crave their leaves to
wife mans censure yet even for these chiefly it is that some subtil and silly people do most bitterly inveigh against them and in them against this whole Church and Nation which must either be guilty with the Clergie or the Clergie must be free and unblameable with the Parlaments and whole people of the land who chose and by law imposed such orders upon themselves and their Ministers Secondly for the Clergies private failings and personal infirmities either immorall or indiscreet to which as frail men they may be subject in these they desire to be the first accusers and severest censurers of themselves which ingenuity is sufficient to silence the malice of the worst to satisfie the justice of the best and to merit the pity as well as pardon of all charitable Christians who are not strangers to their own excess or defects Thirdly Beyond these which are but personal and occasional so venial failings the Clergie of England do defie and challenge their severest adversaries to charge and convince any considerable number of them either in private parties and conventions or in more publick Synods and Convocations of having at any time conspired to broach or abet any Heresy or false Doctrine any gross Errour Schisme or Apostasy any Immorality or Exorbitancy contrary to Truth Faith and good manners That liberty which some of the Clergie conceived might honestly be indulged to such people as were tired and exhausted with hard labour in the six dayes for their civil and sober recreation on the Lords day or Christian Sabbath thereby to counterpoise those Jewish severities which they saw some men began to urge and obtrude upon Christians both as to the change and rest of that day which quarrell is not yet dead in England this I am prone in charity to believe neither arose from any root of immorality in the advisers nor intended any fruits of impiety in the publishers who were not ignorant how far in such a Toleration they did conform to the judgement and practise too of some forreign reformed Churches and to the chief instruments of their Reformation who neither did nor do even in Geneva abhor avoid or forbid modest honest and seasonable recreations to servants and labouring people on the Lords day Although for my part I confess I approve rather according to the Doctrine of the Church of England in the Homily of the time and place of prayer that holy strict observance generally used by the most cautious Christians in England which yet doth allow such ingenuous relaxations of mind and motions on that day as are neither impious nor scanlous being at once far removed from Judaick rigours and from Heathenish riots which medium was the sense and practise too of the best and most of the Clergie in England as to that one point of the Christian Sabbath or Lords day which Justin Martyr calls Sunday 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so sharply objected against some of them So then as to any reall enormities of opinions or scandalous practises in Religion the Clergie of England taken in their polity and integrality neither are nor ever were guilty since the Reformation either in Doctrine Worship Discipline or Manners which justification is as clear as the noon-day's light if not our selves nor our home-bred enemies but the Reformed Churches abroad or the ancient and Primitive Churches might be our Judges None but Papists and Separatists or Anabaptists and Schismaticks have ever condemned or suspected the Church or Clergie of England of any corruption in Doctrine of any flaw in the Foundation of any fraud in holy Institutions of any allowed licentiousnesse in our Conversations of any undecency in our Devotions of any superstition in our religious Administrations in all which according to the directions of Gods Word by the assistance of Gods holy Spirit through faith in the merits and mediation of the Son of God our onely Saviour Jesus Christ we worshipped the onely true God who is blessed for ever As to the point of Church-Discipline wherein some men were so clamorous and importune as if there had been no health in this Church because it did not take their physick which it needed not as the laws had not enjoyned all those ancient severities and strictnesses of penances because neither the temper of the times nor mens spirits would bear them so the wise Bishops and discreet Ministers under them did so manage this point of Church-discipline for many years by their care and vigilancy their good doctrine and exemplary lives their fatherly monitions and charitable corrections as far as the laws gave them leave that they happily attained to the reall use and best end of all Church-discipline which is the Churches peace and preservation in purity and honour in sincerity and conspicuity of true Religion whose interests might possibly have been carried higher as to the point of Discipline if the Clergie of England had been furnished with such a latitude of power as Primitive Bishops and Presbyters both enjoyed and exercised which the softness and delicacy of this Age would hardly endure especially when once the passions novelties ambitions of men were carried on under the pretexts of Reformation and new Discipline in which some men resolved never to be satisfied till all things fell under the tuition and gubernation of their own factions unless all Church-power be in some mens hands no Church-government is worth a button Not but that the remissness of some Church-governours and the rigours of others according to their private tempers judgements and passions might sometime by their excesses or defects possibly displease more calm and moderate men as warping too much on either hand from that medium and rectitude of charity discretion legality and constancy which the Canons of the Church intended Its constitution health and peace required especially in the peevishness and touchiness of those times when many Philistins and Dalilahs lay in wait to betray and destroy the Church of England Yet amidst these seeming exorbitances of some Church-men it may with truth be affirmed and is by all experience confirmed that the state of Christian and Reformed Religion for doctrine manners and government for piety charity and proficiency was far better both in England and in Wales than it now is or is ever like to be under those sad effects to which some mens fury faction and confusion seek to reduce this Church So then the male-administrations truly charged upon some Church-governours heretofore had not so bad an influence upon this Church and the Reformed Religion as the later want of able and fit Governours after the ancient way of Church-government hath now produced every where For the defects and inordinacies of some private Ministers which can be no wonder where there were above ten thousand of them I neither approve nor patronize them in the least kind onely I plead in behalf of the whole order and function as it stood in this Churches constitution that a few Ministers faults ought not in
so eloquent no pen so pathetick as to be able sufficiently to express eye no so melting as to weep enough no heart so soft and diffusive of its sorrows as worthily to lament when they consider that wantonness of wickedness that petulant importunity that superfluity of malice that unsatisfied cruelty of some men who have endeavoured to cast whole cart-loads of injust reproches vulgar injuries and shameful indignities upon the whole Church of England seeking to bury with the burial of an Asse either in the dunghill of Papall pride and tyranny or popular contempt and Anarchy all its former renown and glory its very name and being together with the office order authority distinction and succession of its Ancient Apostolick and Evangelical ministery which hath been the savour of life unto life the mighty power of God to the conversion and salvation of many thousand souls in the Church of England Whose sore Calamities and just Complaints having thus far presented to Your consideration and compassion it is now time for me to enquire after the causes and occasions of its troubles miseries confusions and feared vastations in order to find out the best methods and medicines for Her timely cure and happy recovery if God and man have yet any favour or compassion for Her The end of the first Book BOOK II. SEARCHING THE CAUSES AND OCCASIONS OF THE Church of England's decayes CHAP. I. BUt it is now time most honoured and worthy Countrey-men after so large and just so sore and true a complaint in behalf of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion heretofore wisely established unanimously professed in this Nation to look after the rise and originall the Causes and Occasions of our Decayes and Distempers of our Maladies and Miseries which by way of prevention or negation I have in the former Book demonstrated to be no way imputable to the former frame state or constitution of the Church of England but they must receive their source from some other fountain The search and discovery of which is necessary in order to a serious cure for rash and conjecturall applications to sick patients are prone as learned Physitians observe to commute their maladies or to run them out of one disease into another but not to cure any turning Dropsies into Jaundise and Feavers into Consumptions The greatest commendation of Physitians next their skill to discerne is to use such freedome in their discoveries and such fidelity in their applyings as may least flatter or conceal the disease In this disquisition or inquiry after the Causes and Occasions of our Ecclesiastick distempers I will not by an unwelcome scrutiny or uncharitable curiosity search into those more secret springs and hidden impulsives which proceed as our Blessed Saviour tells us out of mens hearts into their lives and actions such as are wrathfull revenges unchristian envies sacrilegious covetings impotent ambitions hypocriticall policies censorious vanities pragmatick impatiencies an itch after novelties mens over-valuing of themselves and undervaluing of others a secret delight in mean and vulgar spirits to see their betters levelled exauctorated impoverished abased contemned a general want of wisdome meekness humility and charity a plebeian petulancy and wanton satiety even as to holy things arising from peace plenty and constancy of enjoying them These spiritual wickednesses which are usually predominant in the high places of mens souls being Arcana Diaboli the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stratagemata Satanae the secret engines depths and stratagems used by the Devil to undermine the hearts of Christians to loosen the foundations of Churches and to overthrow the best setled Religion being least visible and discoverable for they are commonly covered as mines with the smooth surfaces and turfs of zeale sanctity reformation scrupulosity conscience c. these I must leave to that great day which will try mens works and hearts too when men shall be approved and rewarded not according to their Pharisaick boastings popular complyings and specious pretensions but according to their righteous actions and honest intentions Onely this I may without presumption or uncharitableness judge as to the distempers of our times and the ruinous state of the Church of England that many men who have been very busie in new brewing and embroyling all things of Religion would never have so bestirred themselves to divide dissipate and destroy the peace and polity of this Church if they had not been formerly offended and exasperated either by want of their desired preferment which S. Austin observes of Aerius the great and onely stickler of old against Bishops or by some Animadversion which they called persecution although it were no more than an exacting of legal conformity and either sworn or promised subjection as to Canonicall obedience Many men would have been quiet if they had not hoped to gain by rifling their Mother and robbing their Fathers Some at the first motions might perhaps have good meanings and desires as Eve had to grow wiser but they were soon corrupted by eating the forbidden fruit by the unlawfulness of those means and extravagancy of those methods they used to accomplish them But God and mens own consciences will in due time judge between these men and the Church of England whether they did either intend or act wisely or worthily justly or charitably gratefully or ingenuously This I am sure if they have the comfort of sincerity as to their intent they have the horrour of unsuccessfulness to humble them as to the sad events which have followed preposterous piety CHAP. II. THe chiefest apparent cause and most pregnant outward occasion of our Ecclesiastick mischiefs and miseries as I humbly conceive ariseth from that inordinate liberty and immodest freedome which of later years all sorts of people have challenged to themselves in matters of Religion presuming on such a Toleration and Indulgence as incourageth them to chuse and adhere to what doctrine opinion party perswasion fancy or faction they list under the name of their Religion their Church fellowship and communion nor are people to be blanked or scared from any thing which they list to call their Religion unless it have upon it the mark of Popery Prelacy or Blasphemy of which terrible names I think the common people are very incompetent judges nor do they well know what is meant by them as the onely forbidden fruit every party in England being prone to charge each other with something which they call Blasphemy and to suspect mutually either the affecting of Prelacy or the inclining to Popery in wayes that seem arrogant and imperious in themselves also insolent and injurious to others each aspiring so to set up their particular way as to give law to others not onely proposing but prescribing such Doctrine Discipline Worship Government and Ministry as they list to set up according to what they gather or guess out of Scripture whereof every private man and woman too as S. Jerom tells of the
Luciferian hereticks flatter themselves that they are meet and competent judges since they find themselves no way directed by any Catholick interpretation nor limited and circumscribed by any joynt wisdome and publick profession of this Church and Nation which heretofore was established and set forth in such a publick confession of their faith such Articles and Canons rules and boundaries of Religion as served for the orderly and unanimous carrying on and preserving Christian Doctrine Discipline Worship Ministry or Government This wide doore once opened and still kept open by the crowding and impetuosity of a people so full of fancy and fury spirit and animosity so wilfull and surly as the English generally are besides that they are naturally lovers and extremely fond as children of new fashions as in all things so in Religion it self it is not I say imaginable as at the pulling up of a great sluce or opening of a flood-gate what vortices voragines opinionum floods and torrents of opinions what precipitant rushings and impetuous whirlings both in mind and manners have every where carried a heady and head-strong people quite headlong in Religion not onely to veniall novelties softer whimsies and lesser extravagances in Religion which are very uncomely though not very pernicious but also to rank blasphemies to gross immoralities to rude licentiousnesse to insolent scandals to endless janglings to proud usurpations to an utter irreligion to a totall distracting confounding and subverting of the Church of Engl. All this under the notion of enjoying whatever liberty they list to take to themselves under the name and colour of Religion which anciently imported an holy Obligation of Christians to God and to each other carried on by a Catholick confession an unanimous profession an uniform tradition an holy ordination and orderly subjection but now they say it is to be learned and reformed not by the old wayes of pious education and Ecclesiastick instruction not from the Bishops or Ministers of this or any nationall Church but either by the new wayes of every private spirit's interpreting of Scriptures or by those new lights of some speciall inspirations which they say are daily held forth by themselves and others of their severall factions or according to the various policies of Lay-men and those pragmatick sanctions which serve the prevalent interests of parties This this is the project so cried up by some men for propagating the Gospel and advancing the Kingdome of Jesus Christ so rare so new so untried so unheard-of in any Christian Church ancient or later that it is no wonder if neither the Church of England nor its learned Clergy nor its dutifull children can either approve admire or follow such dubious and dangerous methods or labyrinths rather of Religion any more than they can canonize for Saints those vagrants and fanaticks of old who were justly stigmatized for damnable hereticks or desperate schismaticks for their deserting that Catholick faith tradition order and communion of the Churches of Christ which were clearly expressed in their Creeds and Canons founded upon Scripture and conform to Apostolick example The Gnosticks Cerinthians Valentinians Carpocratians Circumcellians Montanists Manichees Novatians Donatists Arians and others were esteemed by the Primitive Churches as Foxes and Wolves creatures of a wild and ferine nature impatient of the kindest restraints not induring to be kept in any folds or bounds of Christs flock which ever had an holy authentick and authoritative succession of ordained Bishops and Presbyters as its Pastors and Teachers also it had its safe and known limits for Religion in faith and manners Doctrine and Discipline for order and government both in lesser Congregations and larger Combinations The true Christian liberty anciently enjoyed by Primitive Christians and Churches was fullest of verity charity unity modesty humility sanctity sobriety harmonious subordination and holy subjection according to the stations in which God had placed every part or member in those bodies they were the farthest that could be from Schism Separation mutiny novelty ambition rebellion while every one kept the true temper order and decorum of a Christian Certainly if either particular Congregations or private Christians liberty had consisted in being exposed or betrayed as Sheep without their Shepherds to all manner of extravagancies incident to vulgar petulancy and humane infirmity those Primitive Churches and ancient Fathers those godly Bishops and blessed Martyrs those pious Emperours and Christian Princes of old might have spared a great deal of care cost pains and time which were spent in their severall Councils and Synods Parlaments Diets and Conventions whose design was not to make new but to renew those Scripture-Canons and Apostolicall constitutions which were necessary to preserve the faith once delivered to the Saints and to assert not onely the common salvation but also that Catholick succession communion and order of Churches transmitted from the Apostles in which endeavour the piety and wisdome the care and charity of ancient Councils expressed in their many Canons made for the keeping of the unity of the Spirits truth in the bond of peace among Christians were so far in my judgement from being meer heaps of hay straw and stubble burying and over-laying the foundations of Christian soundnesse and simplicity which seems to be the late censure of one whom I am as sorry to see in a posture of difference from the Church of England as any person of these times because I esteem his learning and abilities above most that have appeared adversaries to or dissenters from Her that I rather judge with Mr. Calvin a person far more learned judicious and impartiall in this case They were for the most part very sober wise and suitable superstructures little deviating from no way demolishing any of those grand foundations of Faith Holiness or Charity which were laid by Christ and his blessed Apostles which ever continued the same and were so owned by their pious successors however they used that liberty and authority in lesser matters which was given them by the Scriptures and derived to them by their Apostlick mission or succession for the prudent accommodating of such things as concerned the outward polity uniformity order and peace of the Church or for those decent celebrations and solemnities of Religioâ— which were most agreeable to the severall geniu'ses and civil rites of people and the mutable temper of times all which who so neglects to consider will never rightly judge of the severall counsels customes and constitutions of either ancient or later Churches The best of whose piety and prudence the Reformed Church of England chose to follow as exactly as it could first in Her decerning declaring determining translating and communicating to her children those Canonicall Books of holy Scripture also in the owning professing and propounding to them those Ancient Catholick and received Creeds which are as the summaries and boundaries of Christian Faith containing those articles which are necessary to be believed by all after this it used those
discreet limits and rules which it thought fittest to keep the visible profession of Christian Religion in due order and decency according as occasion required and the state of this particular Church would bear Nor was the Church of England in any of these things ever blamed or blamable by any well-reformed Church nor by any men that impartially professed Christianity among whom I cannot reckon either the politick Papist or the peevish Separatist much lesse those later rude rabbles of libertines and fanaticks who abhor all things in any Church or way of Religion which they suspect to be contrary to their loose principles and these must be conform to their several secular ends and interests which truly in England are now neither small nor poor nor modest but grand high and aspiring extremely inconsistent with those publick principles and ends of good order polity peace and unity which formerly were established and maintained in the Church of England as they ought to be in all well-ordered Churches whose work and design was not loosely to tolerate different publick professions of Religion in the same nation or community according as every man lists but seriously and impartially to constitute and authorize some one way grounded upon Gods Word and guided by the best examples as the publick standard of Religion for Doctrine Duties Worship Devotion Discipline Which methods of Piety and Charity were ever highly commended and cheerfully followed by the wisest and best Christian Magistrates in all ages and possibly they had been ere this recovered and renewed here in England if the beast of the people getting the bridle of liberty between its teeth had not so far run away with some riders who had too much pampered it that it is no easie matter not to be done by sudden checks or short turnes to reduce that heady and head-strong animal to the right postures of religious managing besides that wise men are taught by experience that nothing so soon tames the madnesse of people as their own fiercenesse and extravagancy which at length as S. Cyprian observes tires them by taking away their breath and vainly exhausting their ferocient spirits Time and patience oft facilitate those cures in Church and State which violent and unseasonable applications would but more enflame and exasperate I do not â—oubt but the greatest patrons for the peoples liberty in matters of Religion will in time if they do not already see how great a charity it is to put mercifull restraints of religious order and government upon them which are no lesse necessary than those sharper curbs and yokes of civil coercions No wise States-man will think it fit in honesty or safety to permit common people to do whatever seems good in their own eyes as if there were no King or supreme Magistrate in Israel nor can any good Christian think it fit that in Religion every man should be left to profess and patronize what he listeth as if there were no Christ as King and chief Bishop of our souls or as if he had not left us clear and setled foundations for faith also evident principles besides patterns of Christian prudence and Church-polity for order and office discipline and duty direction and correction subordination and union What these measures and proportions have been both as to the judgement and practise of the universall Church from the very Apostolicall times and their Primitive successors till this last century is so plain both in Scripture and other Ecclesiastick records that I wonder how men of any learning can be so ignorant or men of any honesty can be so partiall as by their doubting and disputing to divide the minds of Christian people and by rude innovations to raise so unhappy factions as have at this day overspread this Church and Nation like a leprosie which is a foul disease though it may seem white as snow blanched over with the shews of liberty but betraying men to the basest servitude of their own lusts and other mens corruptions as well as errours CHAP. III. I Know and allow that just plea which is made by learned and godly men for Christians mutuall bearing with and forbearing one another in cases of private and modest differings either in opinions or practises yea as S. Ambrose S. Austin S. Jerome and others observe there is a great latitude of Charity to be exercised among particular Churches in their different methods and outward forms of holy ministrations according as their severall polities are locally distinguished by Cities Countreys or Nations I willingly yield to all men much more to all Christians that liberty naturall civil and religious which may consist with Scripture-precept and right reason with grounds of morality and society which is as much as I desire to use or enjoy my self in point of private opinion or publick profession I have other where observed out of Tertullian that Religion is not to be forced but perswaded I admire the Princely and Christian temper of Constantine the Great who professed he would not have men cudgelled but convinced to be Christians that Religion was a matter of choice not of constraint that no tyranny no rape no force is more detestable than that which is committed upon mens consciences when once they come to be masters of so much reason as to chuse for themselves and to hold forth those principles upon which they state their Religion This indeed was the sense of that great and good Emperour But then withall he professed not to meddle by any Imperatorian or Senatorian power with matters of Religion either to alter and innovate or to dispute and decide them but left them to the piety and prudence of those holy and famous Bishops which were chief Pastors of the Church whose unanimous doctrine and uniform practise had carried on Christian Religion amidst all persecutions with so great splendour uniformity authority and majesty that few Christians were so impudent as to doubt much less contradict and openly dissent from their religious harmony publick order and profession which was grounded on Scripture-precepts and guided by Apostolicall patterns Yet amidst those primitive exactnesses to preserve the publick peace and unity of Churches nothing was more nourished and practised than that meeknesse of wisdome which every where sought to instruct men not to destroy them for their private differences in Religion when they were accompanied with humility modesty and charity not carried on with insolence and injury to immorality and publick perturbation in all which men shew malice and pride mixed with and sowring their opinions which easily and insensibly carry mens hearts from dissentings to emulations from emulations to anger from anger to enmity from enmity to despiciency from despising to damning one another Private perswasions like sticks when they come to vehement rubbings or agitations conceive heat and kindle to passionate flames whereas in a calm and Christian temper who so differs from me is in charity to be interpreted as desirous
liberty as to endanger their own and other mens safety they are like Porpuices pleased with storms especially of their own raising they joy in the tossings of Religion and hope for a prey by the wrecks both of well-built Churches and well-setled States they fancy it a precious liberty to swim in a wide sea though they be drowned at last or swallowed up by sharks they triumph to see other poor souls dancing upon the waves of the dead sea to be overwhelmed with ignorance idleness Atheism profaneness perdition which is the usual and almost unavoidable fate of those giddy-headed mad-brain'd people who being happily embarqued and orderly guided in any well-setled Church do either put their ablest Pilots under hatches or cast them over-boord which hath been of late years the religious ambition of many thousands in order forsooth to recover and enjoy their imaginary Christian liberties which soon make common people the sad objects of wise mens grief and pity rather than of their joy or envy For like wandring sheep they naturally affect an erroneous and dangerous freedome from their shepherds and their folds that they may be free for foxes wolves and doggs yea some of them by a strange metamorphosis that they may seem Christs sheep turn wolves seizing upon and destroying their own shepherds which the true flock of Christ never did either in the most persecuted or the most peacefull times of the Church but were ever subject with all humility and charity to those godly Bishops and Presbyters which were by Apostolicall succession and Divine authority over them in the Lord whom they were so far from stripping robbing or devouring that both Christian Princes and faithfull people endowed them with most gratefull and munificent expressions of their loves and esteem even in primitive and necessitous times as a due and deserved honour to men of learning piety and gravity who watched over their souls being both wel enabled and duly ordained to be their rulers and guides to heaven But now who sees not by the sad experience of the Church of England how the plebs or common people yea all persons of plebeian spirits of base and narrow minds who are the greatest sticklers for those enormous and pernicious liberties who sees not how much they would be pleased to set up Jeroboams calves if they may have liberty to chuse the meanest of the people to be their Priests or some scabbed and stragling sheep to be their shepherds if they may make some of their mechanick comrades to be their Pastors and Ministers examined and ordained by their silly selves O how willing are they poor wretches in their thirst for novelty liberty and variety as Theophylact observes to suffer any pitifull piece of prating impudence who walketh in the spirit of falshood to impose upon them so far as to be their Preacher and Prophet if he will but prophecy to them of liberty and soveraignty of sacred and civil Independency of corn wine and strong drink of good bargains and purchases to be gained out of the ruines of the Church and the spoils of Church-men O how little regret would it be to such sacrilegious Libertines to have no Christian Sabbath or Lords dayes as well as no Holy-dayes or solemn memorials of Evangelical mercies How contented would they be with no preaching no praying no Sermons no Sacraments no Scriptures no Presbyters as well as no Bishops with no Ministers or holy Ministrations with no Church no Saviour no God further than they list to fancy thē in the freedom of some sudden flashes and extemporary heats There are that would still be as glad to see the poor remainder of Church-lands and Revenues all Tithes and Glebes quite alienated and confiscated as those men were who got good estates by the former ruines of Monasteries or the later spoylings of Bishops and Cathedrals nothing is sacred nothing sacrilegious to the all-craving all-devouring maw of vulgar covetousness and licentiousness O how glorious a liberty would it be in some mens eyes to pay no Tithes to any Minister much more precious liberty would it be to purchase them and by good penniworths to patch up their private fortunes Nothing in very deed is less valuable to the shameless sordid and dissolute spirits of some people than their souls eternall state or the service of their God and Saviour whom not seeing they are not very solicitous to seek or to serve further than may consist with their profit ease and liberty They rather chuse to go blindfold wandring and dancing to hell in the licentious frolicks of their fancifull Religions than to live under those holy orders and wholsome restraints which in all Ages preserved the unity and honour of true Christian Religion both by sober Discipline and sound Doctrine In the later of these the Clergy of England most eminently abounded and in the former of them they were not so much negligent which some complaine as too much checkt and curbed few men being so good Christians as to be patient of that severe Discipline which was used in the Primitive Churches which if any Bishop or Minister should have revived how would the rabble of Libertines cry out Depart from us we will none of your wayes neither Discipline nor Doctrine neither your Ministrations nor Ministry neither Bishops nor Presbyters let us break these Priestly bonds in sunder and cast these Christian cords from us our liberty is to lead our tame teachers by their noses to pull our asinine Preachers by their luculent ears to rule our precarious Rulers if they pretend to have or use any Ecclesiasticall authority so as to cross our liberties to curb our consciences or to bridle our extravagancies we look upon them as men come to torment us before our time who seek to lead us away captive to deprive us of our dear God Mammon as Micah cried out after the Danites or of our great Goddess Liberty according to the jealousie which Demetrius and the Ephesine rabble had for their Diana against the Apostles This is the Idea of that petulant profane and fanatick liberty which vulgar people most fancy and affect for the enjoying of which they have made so many horrid clamours and ventured upon so many dangerous confusions both to their own and other mens souls in matter of Religion CHAP. V. I Shall not need by particular instances further to demonstrate to You my honoured Countrey-men what your own observation daily proclaims namely the strange pranks cabrioles or freaks which the vulgar wantonnesse hath plaid of late years under the colour and confidence of liberty in Religion provided they profess no other Popery or Prelacy than what is in their own ambitious hearts insolent manners Nor is this petulancy onely exercised in the smaller circumstances or disputable matters of Religion but even in the very main foundations such as have been established of old in all the generations and successions of
the due celebration of holy mysteries the high Doxologies or exaltations of the glorious Trinity the joynt testifications of Christians mutuall charity harmony and communion All these I say were carried on and consummated in the Churches publick worship which was excellently improved heightened and adorned by the use and recitation of those Summaries of Religion amidst the congregations of Christians to which they assented with a loud and cheerfull Amen Yet which of them is there now that is not openly not onely disused but disdained disgraced and disparaged by some men as nauseous crambe which their souls abhor so far as they from reverent attending or hearing when any Minister reciteth them that they scarce have any patience or can keep within those looks and postures of civility which become them yea they endure not to have their children taught them as the first rudiments of Religion the seminaries of faith and nurseries of devotion which being rightly planted and duly watered by catechising may in time by Gods blessing bring forth the ripe fruits of wisdome and holiness of faith and obedience both to power and order to an uniformity and constancy of Godliness The ancient Christian writers as Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Ruffinus Jerome Austin and others sufficiently tell us That these compendious forms of duty faith and devotion the Decalogue Creed Lords Prayer and Doxologies were highly valued and solemnly used in Christian Conventions as the gracious condescendings of our God and Saviour to the weakest memories and meanest capacities some of them being of their express and immediate dictating according to which pattern the blessed Apostles and the Churches of Christ after them took care that both those and other forms like to them should be used among Christians that so by frequent repeating and inculcating those excellent summaries of Faith and Catholick principles of Religion all sorts of Christian people young and old learned and ideots might be either catechised or confirmed in the very same things to be believed prayed for and practised in order to their own and others salvation Which great work can never be safely built upon Seraphick sublimities and Scholastick subtilties much less upon imaginary raptures childish novelties idle dreams and futile whimseys which of late do seek very impiously to justle out of all Churches use and out of all Christians memories those wholsome solidities and holy summaries which have in them both the warmth of Christian love and the light of Divine truth in comparison of which all novel affectations are dark and cold dull and confused silly and insipid Yet what sober Christian doth not see that of late years this popular liberty in England is risen to such a nauseating niceness and curiosity of Religion as hath not onely infected the simpler sort of common people with an abhorrence of all those usefull and venerable forms which the prudence piety of this or any Church commended to them in their publick celebrations but to the great incouragement and advance of ignorance Atheism and profaneness uncharitableness and insolence among the vulgar many persons of very considerable parts and good quality are shrewdly leavened with these Novellismes and Libertinismes Yea which is worst of all many Ministers especially of the Presbyterian and Independent parties yea and some of the ancient order and Catholick conformity of the Church of England even these as S. Peter was over-awed to a dissimulation misbecoming the freedome and dignity of so great an Apostle by too great fears and compliances with the circumcised Jews have been so carried down this stream of plebeian prejudice and popular indifferency more than liberty to say or silence to do or omit what they list that they have not onely much neglected all the devotionall set forms of this Churches prescription which in my judgement merited a far better fate and handsomer dismission than they found from many mens hands but some have wilfully disused and so discountenanced even all those sacred formes which have either Divine or Apostolick or Catholick characters of honour antiquity and Religion upon them How miserably are many publick Preachers either afraid or ashamed solemnly to recite so much as once every Lords day the ten Commandements or the Apostles Creed or any other of those ancient Symbols yea when is it that some Ministers dare use either so much courage or conscience as to use the Lords Prayer either by it self or in the conclusion of their own voluminous supplications before or after their Sermons in which neither much regard is had to the method nor the matter of the Lords Prayer which they pretend is the use of it but it is made to stand like a meer cypher silent and insignificant while men love to multiply the innumerable Logarithmes of their own crude inventions and incomposed devotions when as that Prayer which the wisdome of our Lord Jesus twice taught his Disciples upon severall occasions and in them all his Church both in a doctrinall and devotionall way as a method matter and form of Prayer is in it self and ever was so esteemed and used by all good Christians not onely as the foundation measure and proportion but also as the confirmation completion crown and consummation of all our prayers and praises to God Instead of which and wholy exclusive of it how many poor-spirited Preachers of late more to gratifie and humour some silly and self-will'd people than to satisfie their own consciences yea highly to the scandall of many worthy Christians and the dishonour of the Reformed profession are become not onely strangers but almost enemies to that and all other holy forms of Religion contenting themselves with their own private composures or their more sudden conceptions in all publick celebrations and solemn worship not having so much modesty and humility as to consider what is most evident to wise men that no private mans sufficiencies in point of publick prayer and celebrious duties can be such for method comprehensiveness clearness weight solidity sanctity and majesty as may compare much less dispense with and neglect yea utterly reject those sacred summaries and solemn formes which have been divinely instituted whose foolishnesse is wiser then the wisdome of men and whose shortness is beyond the amplest prolixity and largest spinnings of humane lungs and invention there being more spirit in one drop of Christs Prayer as in cordiall and hot waters than in whole seas of vulgar effusions which at best having much in them very flashy insipid and confused had need to have at last the sacred infusion of Christs prayer added to them to give them and us that sanctity spirit life completeness comfort and fiduciary assurance of acceptance which all good men desire in their service of God Certainly they seem much to overvalue their own prayers who wholy disuse or despise the Lords nor do I see how a Minister of Christ can comfortably discharge his duty to the flock of Christ if while he professeth to
pride covetousness and other discontented lusts and partly by Jesuitick arts and Papall policies whose joynt aims are at this day to extirpate the whole race root and branch of the Reformed Catholick Christian Church and Ministry in England They conspire nothing more than that they may serve both the Bishops and Presbyters of England as Elias and Jehu did Baals Priests for this is the sense some men have of us and this is the sentence they have passed and seek to execute upon us as upon so many Cretians not Christians as if we were onely liars evil beasts and slow-bellies either imperious masters or unprofitable servants to the Church that so these new Masters may on all sides freely enjoy those superstitious and fanatick liberties which they have designed for their divided parties who despaired to prevail in England untill they had brought the English Clergie to undergo all manner of indignities and injuries CHAP. XII ALl which Tragedies that the people of England might behold and bear with the greater patience and stupidity they must by popular orators be perswaded 1. That all Bishops or presidentiall Fathers and Over-seers among the Clergie such as the Apostles and their immediate Successors first were are Antichristian truly so are Fathers in families Magistrates in cities and Chieftains in armies 2. That the ordaining of Presbyters by Bishops is meerly Popish so is the celebrating of Baptisme or the Lords Supper or the Lords day 3. That Christs Ministry appropriated to one order of men is a monopoly or a taking too much upon mens selves when others of the congregation may be as holy and able so is all order office and authority civil and military a meer monopoly when others may be as able and wise as the best Magistrates and Commanders 4. That all humane Learning is not onely superfluous but pernicious in the Ministers of the Gospel so is all skill industry and ability in all other workmen 5. That Ministers maintenance by Tithes Glebe-lands and other oblations is Jewish so is all justice and gratitude in paying labourers their wages 6. That the distinction of Clergie and Laity is arrogant and supercilious so are the titles of Master and Scholar Teacher and Disciple Priest and People Minister and ministred 7. That it was proud and insolent for any Clergie-men to be invested with honour to be stiled and respected as Lords Truly if it be no dishonour to any temporall Lord to become a Minister or Christs glorious Gospel nor doth he thereby lose his civil Lordship and dignity no more is it misbecoming learned grave and venerable Ministers of the Gospel the chief Fathers and governours of the Church to be adorned with honours and to enjoy as the favours of Christian Princes and States both the Titles and Revenues of their temporall Baronies and Lordships which they might for ought I could ever see as well deserve and use as any other Lords who had their Lordships by birth by purchase or by favour nor did Honour less become Ecclesiastick Rulers than it doth those military Commanders who I see can endure themselves to be called treated as Lords I confess under favour I do not understand how Church-government should be less capable of degrees and distinction in Governours than those which are civil or military since order and subordination must be in them all nor do I more understand how such chief Governours of the Church-militant as Bishops were and ought to be might not as well both merit and manage such honours and estates as any men who by far less abilities or pains do get to be Major-generals or Colonels and chief Commanders in an Army over poor Souldiers Sure the saving of souls is every way as hard and honourable a work as the killing of mens bodies which is the worst of a souldiers work or as the saving of mens temporall lives and estates which is the best of that employment nor is it less of true valour vigilance and resolution in learned and good Scholars to fight with and overcome the ignorance errours and barbarity of mankind than it is fortitude in good souldiers to suppress the rapines and injustice of mens extravagant actions But these and such like are the envious cobwebs the thin and ridiculous sophistries formerly used by some men of evil eyes and worse hearts out of principles full of ignorance or envy or covetousness or licentiousness or Atheism whereby to perswade silly people to follow these novell easie and more thrifty methods of saving souls which some swelling Libertines propound who have the confidence earnestly to invite this noble Nation to commit the whole managery of Christian Religion and of their souls eternall salvation to such new cheap and bold undertakers who adventure to minister in Christs name without any such character commission or conscience of divine authority which as Irenaeus and all the Ancients tell us were ever in a solemn visible and orderly manner derived by the hands of Bishops to the Presbyters or lawful Ministers of the Church as from Christ and the Apostles in an undoubted and uninterrupted succession of which Tertullian gives so excellent an account in his Book of prescription against Hereticks Their ostentations of naturall liberty of civil indulgence of rationall abilities of speciall gifts and undiscernable graces or which is most incredible of extraordinary calls from God All or any of these if they were really true yet will not be allowed as a justifiable ground for any mans usurpation or intrusion into any office military or civil without a visible commission derived from the supreme power in both much less are they sufficient pleas for any man to officiate in the Ministry Ecclesiasticall whose Supreme Authority is confessedly in Christ and the derivation or deduction of it in all ages is so visible constant and uniform that no man honestly learned can be ignorant where it resided or how it was derived Certainly it never was dispensed by the hands or power of Emperours Kings Protectors Princes or any civil Magistrates whose duty I conceive if they will act as Christians is not to alter or innovate this sacred authority and method used by Christ the Apostles and the Catholick Church but to preserve it as sacred and inviolable much less was it left to the spontaneous confidence the passionate suffrages and confused petulancies of common people who are the great and infallible prostrators of all Religion vertue honour order peace civility and humanity if left to themselves but it was divinely setled by Christ in the Apostles and by the Apostles in their successors the ordained Bishops and Presbyters of the Catholick Church in its severall branches and combinations who ever have been and ought to be under Christ the great Conservators the onely complete and regular Distributers of this holy ministeriall power as they have been to this day in this and all other orderly Churches of Christ without any controversie or contradiction without dispute or doubt
little proportion of plain easie and well-known truth which neither needs nor desires such Gnostick disguises such vapourings and vampings of uncouth language such muddy rather than mysterious clouds of words which rather signifie a crackt brain a fanatick spirit or an affected hypocrite who either knows not or cares not what they say or do than any such blessed broachings of rarities as they set forth their pageantries of new-drest Divinity to be with the emphasis of Gospel-truths precious sparks spirituall manifestations rare discoveries unheard of emanations the Saints anointing the uncarnating of a Christian the pryings of Gods children into their fathers glory their rising and reigning with Christ their deification with God With these and such like either torments of opinions or terriculaments of expressions do these new sort of Preachers seek not to edifie in the most holy faith but to scare and terrifie their silly sectators out of their sober senses and mother-wits by which God knows they are onely capable as babes of milk things and words easie to be understood but not of such hard and strong meat as these men proffer them which are indeed stones rather than bread and many times serpents more than fishes dry and bare bones or rotten and noysome carrion rather than savoury and wholsom nourishments of sound and Christian Doctrine But if any of these rare Master-cooks of Christianity whose art is to new dress and disguise old Divinity when they have first learned themselves then taught others to despise those plain and practick methods of Faith and Repentance of Piety and Charity which were wont to be commended to good Christians by the learned orderly and excellent Ministers of the Church of England if these mysterious Mountebanks do by chance hit upon some new notions and odde expressions either by reading some of the Speculatists of the Roman party as Harpius Nubergensis Thomas de Kempis Martin d' Espilla Teresa or the like if they can spell out Theologia Germanica or conne by heart the religious Rhodomontado's of H. N. if they can as Heraclitus his ass feed upon the tall thistles of Jacob Behmen Vanhelmont or some such piece of Familistick nonsense and Seraphick curiosity if they have naturally a chimerick fancy a stroke of Evans or Gostelowes crowing brains if in many odde ravings they perchance light upon something that seems truish and newish gay and glistering in Religion beyond what was heretofore known by themselves or usuall to the common people because neglected and despised by grave and sober Ministers Yet still all this their glory and invention amounts commonly to no more than the Devils setting Christ on the pinacle of the Temple not to exalt him but to tempt him the end and aim is that from the precipice of pride and presumption he may cast them down and destroy them After much bigness they bring forth perhaps some Scholastick subtilty some Sceptick nicety or Seraphick sublimity which onely serves to puff up but not at all to feed either themselves or their windy Disciples much after the rate that Origen did when he decayed or doted when from a learned Catechist at Alexandria from a grave and admired interpreter of Scripture he turned Chymist in Divinity Allegorist in Religion for leaving the fruitfull valleys and plain paths of necessary Christian verities he fancied nothing but high-flying curiosities and far-fetch'd fancies of which as Tertullian speaks good Christians have no need and so no desire since the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ is sufficiently and plainly revealed to them in the Scripture although even Tertullian himself as a man of an enormous wit and transcendent fancy too big for it self was hardly able afterward to keep within those sober bounds which sometime he prescribed to others after the good rule of S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be soberly wise or wise with sobriety but He even He turned Enthusiast and driven by envy disdaine and anger beyond the bounds of Reason and Religion he forsook the Catholick Communion of the Church not in Doctrine so much as Discipline to comply with some fanaticks who fitted his sharp and melancholy humour which was prone to severities of conversation and extasies of speculation Not onely great wits as Origen and Tertullian so Nestorius and Apollinaris c. but lesser ones as Montanus and Manes and Arius whom Saint Jerome calls Daemonium meridianum are many times prone to adventure on the brinks of hell their itch and petulancy are not satisfied till their bold fancies and heterodox opinions have an haut-goust of blasphemy till they so far advance upon the suburbs of errour heresie and damnable Doctrine that they can hardly be fetched off by any salvoes of cunning sophistries with pretended inspirations or nice and subtil distinctions which are like high-tasted sawces made with garlick or onions purposely applied to tainted meats to make their putidness less perceptible or more passable with grosser palates As dead carcases so are the corrupt minds and doctrines of men the more putid by how much the more swell'd in the pomp of words Take their raptures rarities and novelties of our new Masters at their best they have ever much more in the shew than substance of Religion like Herons and Estriches they are more in the wing and feather than in the body and substance they are such precious discoveries as are justly nauseous to a gracious spirit and of which a good Christian may safely be ignorant If any simple souls do perchance light on any of their jingling notions and be taken with their new-sounding Divinity like the noyse of tinkling Cymbals or bag-pipes or Jews-trumps compared to that grave Church-musick which was made of the ancient harmony of Catholick Doctrine yet I see no cause for either the authors or followers of those novell niceties to be puffed up swelled so excessively in themselves nor yet to despise as they do all those grave Divines and godly Christians whose rack is not so high but their manger may be as full who can be content with manna though they have no quailes wherewith to gratifie their wanton appetites Truly I could never yet esteem these vapouring Seraphicks these new Gnosticks to be other than a kind of Gipsy-Christians or a race of Circulators Tumblers and Juglers in the Church who have more of little apish tricks and feats than of solid ability industry or honesty they impose upon the vulgar by a kind of legerdemain by a juggling and canting way in Religion much shifting up and down much capering and vaulting they use but they advance not at all in any vertue grace or knowledge They are a sort of funambulones dancers upon the ropes in Religion whose affected height and daring curiosity in their notions and motions doth not countervail the danger of their audacity or the impertinency of their activity nor have they any cause to despise those who walk more lowlily and soberly on
it self both as to the actors and permitters If such inordinate liberty which naturally men affect and which imposeth on mankind the necessity of having publick laws and magistratick powers above all private mens fancies if it be so pestilent in civil and secular regards that the indulgence of it is no more to be permitted by wise and good men for one moneth or one day than a fire may be left to its freedome for one hour in any private cabbin or chamber to the endangering of the whole ship and house how I beseech you can it be convenient or profitable to the common interests of Religion or the honour of any Nation that desires to be called Christian to let every man pick and chuse their severall doctrines opinions forms and fashions of Religion as they best fancy or to suffer them to set up to themselves what Prophets Pastors or Preachers what Churches Congregations Conventicles they most affect one being of Paul another of Apollos a third of Cephas one Episcopall another Presbyterian a third Independent a fourth owning no Ministers no Religion at all Specious names and godly pretensions may be very pernicious to the peace of the Church the honour of Christ and the good of mens souls as the blessed Apostle there observes through the folly and factiousness of people Better the most deserving names how much more the most flattering Novellers in the world should be buried in eternal oblivion than they should be set up in the Church of Christ as so many apples of contention so many wedges of division so many rivals to the glory of Christ so many moths to religious unity and the Churches beauty so many Molechs or Idols through whose fires your posterity as Christians that are not yours onely but Gods children and as it were Christs seed and off-spring should be forced to pass with popular noyses and incondite acclamations of liberty onely to drown the sad cries of those poor souls who are to be tormented in those flames those Tophets of uncharitable novelties and factious liberties Christian liberty as vulgar spirits commonly use it is but a corroding salve spread on a silk plaister it is a confection of carnal projects wrought up with spirituall mixtures it is poyson presented in a gilt cup the Devils rats-bane mingled with sugar The sad effects already upon us in England and further threatning us do promise nothing upon this account but envies wraths strifes jealousies animosities whisperings swellings tumults seditions oppressions and mutual persecutions with every evil work among us as men and Christians CHAP. XXVI NOr are these mischiefs only rife among Lay-men or ordinary people whose ignorance meanness and discontent are prone to tempt them to any thing but even among those who desire to be called the Ministers Teachers Pastors leaders of the people for even these in many places either mis-led by the people or sadly misleading them are very much bitten and infected with this epidemicall disease of mistaken corrupted and abused liberties in matters of Religion both as to Doctrine and Worship as to Ecclesiasticall order and Ministeriall authority many of these otherwise men of worth for soundness and integrity no way unfit for the work or unworthy to have the honour of being Ministers of the Gospel yet are miserably tainted with these divisions distractions and deformities even among themselves Which contagion among the Pastors as well as the Flocks as a farther sad and evident instance of the grand causes or occasions of this Churches present miseries and of the great decayes of the Reformed Religion I crave leave without offence to any of my worthy and deserving Brethren in the Ministry of what name or title of what stamp or metall soever they are a little to insist upon that I may by further discovering the rise and progress of our mischiefs the better make way for such remedies as your wisdome O my noble Countrey-men shall see fittest for the recovery of health strength and beauty to this deformed Church and the remnants of Reformed Religion in it As all experience tells us poor mortalls that our greatest enemies are many times nearest to us and oft lie in our own bosoms so the greatest mischiefs that have or can befall the Christian Reformed Religion in England do chiefly arise from some Preachers or such as would be accounted the Ministers of Christs Church under severall notions and formations Vulgar reproches plebeian contempts the injuries of Lay-men yea the persecutions of great and mighty men the Clergie or true Ministers of Christs Church in England might possibly have born with patience constancy comfort and honour though much to their outward diminution if they had had the grace wisdome and understanding to have kept among themselves that harmony constancy and integrity in judgements practise and affections which became men that should be both wise and warm prudent as serpents and innocent as doves if they had as Christs Disciples loved one another though the world hated them if they had as one man held together like a well-turn'd Arch surely they might at once have upheld themselves and easily sustained any pressures laid upon them by the levity violence and ingratitude of other men the Clergie being as the cable and anchor of Religion which firmly twisted together and fraternally combined in truth and love will in time bring the people to quiet and calmnesse in Religion however they may have their storms and tossings sometime partly by innate fluctuancy as the rollings and tidings of the sea and partly by outward winds and tempests What Nation hath there been so barbarous what heathens so truculent what persecutors so inhumane whom godly Bishops and other Ministers have not by their exemplary faith patience unity and charity with Gods blessing in time softened and sweetened convinced and converted to be Christians while they all spake the same things carried on the same interests of Christ as it were with one shoulder These once broken in their orderly and uniform methods varied in their Catholick succession and authority divided in their fraternall concord and harmony the peoples minds soon grow distracted and are violently driven as ships from their anchors and cables upon a thousand dangers When primitive Pastors and people were most cordially united though they were most cruelly persecuted yet Christianity spread and prospered what the fury of men pull'd down that the care and charity of their Ministers built up twisting what others ravelled either as Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks which reparations of Religion were easily effected while the sheep knew their true shepherds following them or flying to them in case of any danger when the people knew their proper Presbyters and orderly Presbyters owned those Bishops to whom they were duly subordinate when all ranks and orders in the Church of Christ as parts in the body kept their stations and ranks their orders and correspondencies their proportions and duties either in
Austin as a most setled and Catholick practise owned by S. Chrysost Athanas Ambr. Paulinus Gregory Nazian S. Basil Epiphanius so before them by Origen and Irenaeus Of whose testimonies I shall not need here to make more particular mention or repetition for they are in many books of late duly cited which have wrote in English and in Latin of this subject nor can any Anabaptists teeth so gnaw that chain and series of successive Infant-baptisme in the Church of Christ as to break any one link of it or instance in any one author or century where it appears to have been otherwise in the judgement or practise of any one Church or famous person 13. Which Catholick custome of the Church so fully consonant to Scripture and the evident mind of Christ set forth in all his Evangelicall dispensations both general to all men and specially to infants in the Church no judicious sober humble and charitable Christian can either doubt with any shew of reason or dispute against with any shew of modesty Considering that as the custome of the Churches of Christ is stamped with the authority of a law silencing all contradiction and suppressing all novelty by the Apostle S. Paul so Christ himself bids us to heare the Church which if it hold good in lesser censures and determinations of private Congregations how much more is it our duty to be attentive to and observant of the Churches directions which are Catholick whose authority is very great and sacred as the pillar and ground of Truth holding it forth by doctrine and example by Scripture and practise Nor do I doubt that Christ and his Apostles left many things as to the outward polity practise and ministration of Religion lesse clear and expresse in the letter of the Word that thereby the credit and authority of the Catholick Church might be more conspicuous and venerable with all peaceable and orderly Christians who may safely defer this honour to the Catholick Church and to every particular Church agreeing to it as to acquiesce in a conformity to its judgement and practise no way contrary to the Word of God from which it cannot be presumed that the Catholick Church of Christ from the beginning or in any Age did vary either through ignorance or wilfulnesse however particular Churches and Teachers might 14. The Catholick testimony of the Church of Christ is more than a bare humane or historick witnesse it is so sacred so divine so irrefragable that it is more to be valued than an Angels from heaven and therfore ought in all reason and conscience to end such controversies lately raised in the Church and so it would have done long ago if humane passions and interests had not swayed more with some men than matter of conscience and Religion or if the Baptisme of infants were the onely thing that some Anabaptists have an aking tooth at or a mind to pull down No that cannot much hurt them nor doth any mischief or inconvenience follow that pious custome either to parents or children yea much good and comfort accrues to both Religion never thrived but with it no point of faith is prejudiced by it no Evangelicall truth or mercy is diminished or over-stretched but rather asserted and magnified to its due and divine extent Yet Infant-baptisme must be still crucified between the policy of the Anabaptists and their partiality their partiality urgeth one or two limited places against many pregnant and large ones their policy I fear would attain something beyond and more to the advantage of their popular spirits and designes which have in many places been discovered as far from equity and charity in civil regards as they are in this of Baptisme far from verity modesty and antiquity scornfully slighting the testimony of the Churches of Christ in all ages for which undoubtedly they had sufficient warrant from Christ and his Apostles even before the letter of the New Testament was written or the Canon setled Nor did they either need or expect a more explicite commission of baptizing of infants of believing parents than that which was sufficiently expressed as in the generall command to make Disciples in all nations baptizing them so also by the particular words and actions of Christ toward infants not without check to his Disciples also by his requiring all to be born again of Water and the Spirit who pretend to be of the Kingdome of Heaven that is the visible Church and lastly by the former parallell-dispensations of Gods mercy in the Covenant of grace by Circumcision to the members of his Church as children of faithfull Abraham both young and old men and infants 15. Contrary to all which for a few new men spitefully peevishly and everlastingly thus to contest and indeed onely cavill I conceive is not onely a great irreverence and scorn put upon the Church of Christ which we should respect love and honour as the mother of us all but it is an high affront to Christ to his Word Truth and Promise to be ever with it even to the end of the world by his Spirit leading it into all Evangelicall Truths for precept and duty as well as promise and comfort also keeping it from all Catholick Apostasies into any errour destructive to the foundation If they that reject or despise any one of Christs Messengers despise himselfe and his father how much more they that disbelieve despise and discredit so many of his Messengers and Ministers who in all ages have by uniforme word and practise declared to us the mind of Christ as to this point of Infant-baptism By which unhappy Controversie as by many other the strange but just judgements of God have of late in full vials of wrath been poured upon this Church of England by the Anabaptistick spirit chiefly after so much light and truth peace and unity grace and piety poured forth upon us by Gods former munificent mercy sanctifying and sealing with his Spirit and grace in due time that Sacrament of Baptisme which thousands had received in their infancy to their parents comfort to the infants happinesse dying and living also to the great glory of God in this as other Churches in all ages Nor is there to this day after so many bickerings and contests so many publick heats and flames kindled upon this and other accounts any way of wisdome and meeknesse publickly used by which to quench these flames of wild-fire which threaten not onely to scorch but utterly to consume this Reformed and truly Catholick Church with all its true Ministers and holy ministrations in which the Anabaptists are highly subservient to the Papists grand projects and designs which is to deface disgrace and quite overthrow all the frame of Reformed Religion and the face of any either uniform or reformed Church in England CHAP. XII FOr my part I freely professe that if the administration of Baptisme in point of age and time
lesse safe in some respects for the Lay-people to receive the Cup or Wine and Blood of Christ apart as he instituted and the Church of old even the Roman constantly practised as do the Greeks at this day according to what Christ commanded and in what sense he gave it and called it reall Bread and Wine for such he took such he brake such he blessed such he gave to the Disciples when he said that is this Bread is my Body this cup is my Blood such S. Paul understood them to be and so declares this the mind of Christ as he had received it immediately from Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ For we are all partakers of that one Bread So whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup unworthily Let a man examine himself before he eat of that bread Certainly either the Apostles expressions must be affectedly very dark and his meaning different from his words or he was quite of another mind than the Papists are at this day who durst in the all-daring Council of Trent damn all those who follow Christs example use his words and are of the Apostles judgement expressing their sense of the blessed Sacrament in his words which we think much safer to follow both in the use of Sacramentall Bread and Wine communicated to all Receivers and in the perswasion we have of our receiving true Bread and Wine yet duly consecrated and so Sacramentally united to the reall Body and Blood of Christ which we faithfully behold thankfully receive and reverently adore in that blessed Mysterie according to the ancient Faith Judgement Reverence and Devotion of the Church of Christ void of sacrilegious novelties and incredible superstitious vanities If we Christians of the reformed Church of England had no other wall of separation to keep us from the Papall communion than these two so palpable and gross opinions with their consequences so rigidly enjoyned upon all Christians under pain of Gods eternall curse yet both so dissonant from and opposite to the example of Christ and the words of the Apostle these were sufficient to keep sober Christians at an eternall distance from them lest knowingly partaking of their sins and abetting their wilfull and obstinate sacriledge we also partake of their punishment who in vain serve God after the commandments and traditions of men contrary to the Divine Word and Prescription Nor will the silly shifts and pitifull salvoes serve here which are used by some Romanists whose Learning Wit and Sophistry are all set on work to take off the aspersion odium and envy of these grosse and rude Innovations How childish ridiculous is it to talk of the Popes imaginary infallibility or the Roman Churches usurped Supreme Authority in cases expresly contrary to the Institution of Christ and the Apostles explication from whom the Church of Rome professe to derive their Religion Nor may they with any foreheads or modesty becoming good Christians so rudely vary from them if they desire to have the name and merit of faithfull and good Christians whose greatest Liberty Duty and Honour is if they love Christ to keep his commandements and neither for pride nor policy to warp from them and after clear remonstrances to refuse to return in case of straying to a conformity with them which obstinacy makes little for the Pope's infallibility or Rome's supreme Authority never challenged by Popes or owned by any other Bishops in the Church for 600 yeares after Christ nor by Pope Gregory the Great who as an holy and humble Bishop abhorred the title and pride of that name Universal Bishop as appears in his works and others of the Ancients of whom I gave a particular account in my Hieraspistes p. 249. Yet these two are the main hinges on which the unhappy disputes of Christendome do turn and the chief anvils on which the animosities between Protestants and Papists are now hammered as otherwhere so here in England The ruine of which famous Church is the greatest prize which the Romish party hath gotten since Luther's dayes who began not without his passions and infirmities that pious Apostasie which being found just and holy moved as other Churches so this of England not to forsake the communion of the Church of Rome so far as it was or is a Church of Christ but onely so far as it seemed to have been oppressed with a Synagogue of Satan deformed with such sinfull deformities and sottish fedities besides their Court-tyrannies as became no Christians to endure who were either not in the dark and so could see the need they had to get out of such a dungeon full of mire and darknesse or were at their own dispose as was the state of the Nation and Church of England depending on none nor subject to any but God alone These so oft recocted Crambes of Popish controversies as I delight not to aggravate so I am forced here to touch some of them to shew you my honoured Countrey-men as what cause the Church of England had to reform her self with what prudence she did it so how inconsistent it must be with good conscience for us in Engl. to revert to the Popish Communion being of so different perswasions from them which wretched Apostasie being the grand design and agitation of Roman Counsels will in time draw this Nation away from Gods rectitudes to mans obliquities if the Roman furnace and bellows be so plied and advanced for them by these operators of severall sects and factions whose end will be whatever their aime is quite to melt down the former fashion of the Church of England and its well-reformed state of Religion that it may by degrees run into the Roman mould and form CHAP. XVII NOt that I repeat these differences in order to encrease or continue uncharitable bitternesses among any good Christians whose hearts are honest though their judgements may be erroneous the blessed God who is both light and love knoweth that I have not any design to widen the sad breaches of Christendom or to hinder the charitable closings of them so far as may stand with good conscience and Catholick truth whose rule and ground ought to be the Word of God rightly understood which is its own best interpreter and plain in those things of Duty and Perswasion of Faith and Devotion which are most necessary to salvation I confesse I cannot but vehemently approve being now past juvenile heats and popular fervours in Religion the pious and learned endeavours of those excellent men who after Melanchthon Cassander Saravia Wicelius Thuanus Grotius Casaubon and others have not onely seriously deplored the sad rents and wounds of Christian Churches but sought to pour in Wine and Oyle of wholsome and unpassionate counsels not palliating apparent errours yet not aggravating needlesse jealousies nor inflaming mutuall angers in order to gratifie either the sacrilegious policies of Princes or the pride of Popes or the
their Learning and their Preferments which though few persons could actually enjoy yet many were encouraged and excited by their example to deserve such preferments by their worth though they never attained them 3. They were great decorations advantages of Honor publick Respect given by the Nation to the whole Function of the Ministry as the Ornament of the Head and Eyes are the Crown and Glory to all parts of the Body 4. To say those Preferments and Revenues which some Church-men enjoyed were too much for them is a speech more worthy of Nabals Judasses Ananiasses and Julians than of Just Gratefull and Reformed Christians they must have very evil eyes against God his Church and his Ministers who grudge those means as too much for twenty nay an hundred of them which some one Lay-man can now possesse and engrosse whose worth for Piety Learning Charity Hospitality or any usefull Vertue is not comparable to the meanest of those men whose Estate he enjoyes and whose Bread he eats 5. If there had been no other advantages to Religion by those Preferments Dignities and Revenues but this that so it became the Honour Justice and Policy of our Reformation both for the avoyding of Rapine or Sacriledge also for the encouragement of the prime Pastors of the Church to conciliate respect both to them and in them to all other Ministers these had been reasons enough beside the Merits of the persons and Justice of their property to have preserved their Estates from such spoyl 6. For the publick need of Church-revenues and Church-mens Estates as no honest Man so no wise and worthy State ever needs any thing which he cannot with justice attain no mans or States Necessities can justifie Injuries against any one man much lesse against many and those Church-men yea deserving Church-men 7. Besides they that pretended the publick want of these Ecclesiastick Revenues had farre greater of their own nor should the Ewe-lamb have been taken away from the Church where the State had so many rich Flocks in publick necessities the Priests Lands should be last spent or invaded after the method of Joseph's Piety nor should they be ever quite alienated though their Revenue were for a time borrowed 8. God knowes there was in England no such necessity but Plenty Superfluity and Luxury however Lay-men should rather begge than rob God or his Church 9. Nor was ever either Prince or Nation or Family the richer in a few yeares which fethered their nests by Church-revenues Witnesse our Henry the 8. who took away vast Estates both movable and immovable from Monasteries and other Collegiate Churches which seemed but the superfluities of Religion the wens and excrescencies of a Church yet he spent more still and left the Crown much poorer than he found it witnesse also his great Engine the L. Cromwell who got an Estate neâ— to the value of 2000 l. per ann yet a little before the Kings death he lost his Head and in the third generation the Heir of his Family exchanged the last remnant of all that estate in Eng. for a little Land in Ireland where he might live lesse noted and molested by Law-suits Commonly Sacriledge makes an evil bargain even as to this world but ever as to another 10. Lastly as to the amends made by laying some Impropriations and by them making Augmentations to some Ministers Livings these are but a few feathers in stead of the body of a fair Fowl nor are they upon other termes than arbitrary Donations not fixed Revenues The mending of small and incompetent Livings is a work worthy of the Honour Riches and Piety of this Nation but Peter ought not to be robbed to pay Paul the waters of the Sons of the Prophets might have been healed without stopping up the wells and fountains of their Fathers and their Assistants which were of old from many Generations which hath given great scandall both to Reformed and Roman Churches few will ever desire such Reformations as extirpate Bishops and confiscate all Church-revenues CHAP. XXI CErtainly covetous Principles and sacrilegious Practises are more pernicious to true Religion both as to the Profession and Power of it than any superstition can be that holds the foundation For Superstition is but as an Itch or Scab which may easily be healed and Religion restored to its Health and Beauty as was done in England but Sacriledge is a Canker which eats up the flesh and frets the very sinews and bones of Religion defacing and destroying all the Beauty and Lovelinesse all the Strength and Stability of Religion all its Honour and Majesty as to outward Polity and visible Profession yea and it infinitely abates all the inward power of it as to the Reverence Value and Love of it in mens hearts Superstition is but as Misletoe which in time may grow upon old fruit-trees which are of a good kind and it may easily be pruned off but Sacriledge is like the very peeling or barking of a tree round about which will infallibly starve the Tree and in a short time quite kill it Besides Sacriledge hath greater insinuations and temptations on mens minds than Superstition in as much as worldly Lusts or earthly Affections urge more upon men than those that are of a pious and spiritual notion such as move to Superstition by a kind of over-boyling or excesse of Devotion which makes men prodigall of their Estates Lives too But Sacriledge is a Mischief so levelled to those covetous envious and despitefull humours which are naturally predominant in mens hearts that every one is prone to be courted by it to be tempted and inclined to it out of hopes that some gain may accrue to them by the spoyls of the Church and robbery of Religion Hence many common people heretofore seeming to be godly and peaceable Christians when once the hope of gain appeared though never so filthy lucre have been suddenly and strangely zealous to drive the principal Pastors of the Flock and chief Shepherds of this Church out of their Estates and Honours to utter Poverty and Contempt under the colour and clamour of Reformation which was as they pretended to be so mended and perfected as might invite all the world Papists and others to admire imitate and embrace the Beauty of such a Bride such a new Jerusalem coming down from Heaven but in a storm and whirlwind of Civil and Ecclesiastick dissentions between which it was to be stripped of its chiefest Ornaments and Encouragements and must have henceforth either no Bishops and orderly Ministers or these no ample Estates or due respect no double honour beyond what Tenuity and Contempt afford Which festring scratches have no more the true lineaments or marks of religious and liberall Reformation than Baboons Apes and Monkeys have of humane Beauty Procerity and Majesty That maxime of the Apostle is in no experience more verified than in those of the Churches interests and true Religion That Covetousnesse or love of Money
for the honour of Christ and the use of Christian people for the Service of God and the Glory of the Nation no they must be so pillaged and stripped that they are exposed to the injuries of Wind and Weather and at last left so bare and naked without covering as well as repaire that they must necessarily drop down with their own weight daily mouldring away and burying themselves in their own rubbish out of which some wretched Sacrilegists aim to extract and scrape some profit to their private purses by a most prodigious kind of prodigality and unthrifty thrift which reduceth the cost of many thousands of pounds and the publick Monuments of Piety and Honour to a pedling private gain or a three-half-penny account sacrificing so many sumptuous piles of many hundred yeares duration to the Purses Kitchins and Bellies of some pittifull and proling Reformers all which sacred and stately Structures were once consecrated to Gods Glory and dedicated to the publick celebration of holy Duties and Mysteries in the Name and for the Honour of our Saviour Jesus Christ Can you O my noble and honoured Countrey-men imagine that sober Ecclesiasticks or others among the Papists are so blind as not to see these sad Events and to foresee their own Calamities in other Countreys if they should give way to some mens rude reformings If a sober and setled Reformation such as was sometime so conspicuous and renowned in the Church of England if this did heretofore any way invite or incline many Romanists to embrace it as some did with the safety of their civill Profits and Honours as well as the Advantages of Gods Truth and Piety and if the unjesuited Papists could have found in their hearts as many did to apply to that Reformation of Religion which preserved together with the Sanctity Integrity and Majesty of true Religion the honest Interests of deserving Church-men as well as of other Christians from those popular Rapines and sacrilegious Exorbitances to which the Envy Basenesse Rusticity and Covetousnesse of vulgar Spirits are prone to be transported yet certainly now they cannot but with Shame Horrour and Disdain look upon speak or think of those boundlesse and bitter Reformations which some in later years have aimed at and endeavoured in England which will endure 1. First no Liturgy or Uniformity of Devotions in publick holy Celebrations by which to avoid those either Defects or Excesses those Partialities and Prejudices those Improprieties and Scandals which necessarily attend holy Duties and the minds of people while all Prayers and solemn Consecrations are left to the Varieties Sufficiencies or Deficiencies to the private and extemporary confidences of every Man and Minister that lists to officiate 2. Next it will endure no Ancient and Authentick Ordination of Ministers nor any degree of Eminency Order or Government among the Clergy but all must be left to a Presbyterian parity or higglede pigglede of Preachers yea and People too in which Young and Old Gray and Green Novices and Veterane Ministers must be levelled and jumbled together Notwithstanding God and Nature Age and Yeares Gifts and Graces Prudence and Gravity Piety and Policy have distinguished them and made them fit to be superiour and subordinate in Reason and Religion in Piety and Policy as Fathers and Sons yet these must all be blended and confounded in I know not what new consistory Chaos which at every meeting creates its raw Moderators and unexperienced Presidents turning by a continuall Circumgyration and multiplied Epicycles its Heads into Tayles and its Tayles into Heads its rulers into ruled and it s ruled into rulers 3. Last of all the new Modes of some mens Reformings will not endure that any Church-men as Ministers should have any thing certain or setled as their own whereon to feed unlesse it be their nailes and fingers ends no nor any constant either Mansions where they should dwell or Churches where they should meet with Christian Congregations to worship and serve the God of Heaven in that Order and Beauty of Holinesse which becomes his Name his People and Publick Service in times of Peace and Plenty CHAP. XXV IF such odious scandalous and sacrilegious Proportions of some mens Reformations were any way disputable or less discernable in every City Town and Corner almost of the Land to which as Cuckoes in April this evil Bird of Sacriledge is flown every where crying with its harsh and unwelcome note Give give yet there is one instance of its malignity and deformity so great so visible that as it cannot be hid so I cannot be silent of it even in that imperiall chamber that overgrown Metropolis of this Nation the Rich and Renowned the Opulent and Populous City of London where that vast and stately Temple which was once dedicated to the honour of the true God and the service of our blessed Saviour distinguished by the name of the great Apostle of the Gentiles S. PAUL whose Gospel sounded even to this Island this Church I say hath engraven upon its Ruines and written on its dust the dreadfull Characters of what thousands will interpret either a sacrilegious Covetousnesse or a great contempt of Religion or a Negligence and Indifferency as to any sense of publick Honor Nationall Renown there being not the like spectacle to be seen in all the Christian World All which both Forraigners and Domesticks present Age and Posterity will be prone to impute to the exceeding Disgrace and Reproch of that large luxuriant City which hath nothing in all that mighty forrest of buildings comparable to that magnificent pile on whose unrepaired and in a few years irreparable Ruines the irreligion of some mens Reformations besides the dishonour of that City that I say not of the whole Nation will be so written and recorded in the heaps of many generations that no time will wholly remove the one or obliterate the other Especially when it shall be remembred how vast a charge was not many years since laid out and how great a progresse was made by the Art Industry Piety Munificence Care Cost and Honour of that City and the whole Nation toward the reparation of that stupendious Masse three parts of four were so admirably restored even beyond their primitive beauty and strength that they needed not to fear the teeth of Time nor the corrosions of that fuliginous aire for many hundreds of years such Cost and Art conspired to its Restauration and Preservation that in all probability Pauls might have lasted a Monument of pristine Piety and modern Magnificence the Crown and Honour of that City as long as the world endured nor should have suffered any other fate than that which threatens in not many centuries of years to shake heaven and earth But now alas all this great Care and Cost is for the most part quite lost and run to wast for want of adding a little more to have gloriously completed what was generously begun What ingenuous soul not eaten up with
for their Worshippers should boast of their Temples to the upbraiding of Christians or that the Jewes and Mahometans should have cause to suspect us of a disesteem and slight of our God and Saviour who lived among us and died for us by our neglect of the places where we Christians meet to serve our God and Saviour While we ambitiously dwell in sciled houses Gods houses lie wast poor mortall worms affect Palaces for themselves and crowd their God the King immortall into a Cottage The pouring of that costly oyntment on our Saviours head was not that which he either absolutely needed or required but he deserved it and all that could be rendred to him as tokens of Love Honour and Gratitude and we see he was so far from finding fault with it or complying with the thrifty and thievish basenesse of Judas that he accepted it kindly he justified it publickly and commended it highly as worthy to be recorded whereever the Gospel is preached that it might be an everlasting example of generous Grace and liberall Love capable to give check in all Ages to such dangerous Christians and penurious spirits as are prone under pretences of Piety or Charity or any reforming Frugalities to quarrel at or condemn parallel expressions of munificent Honour and heroick Gratitude to Jesus Christ for the honour of whose name I thought it my duty thus farre to vindicate against sacrilegious Vastators the sanctity and sumptuousnesse of those places where the honour of our God and Saviour eminently dwels in the solemn and publick celebration of his Name Praise Merit and Divine Majesty who abasing himself to the shame of the Crosse and now ascended above every created name of Power and Honour in Heaven and Earth ought not to be in any respect treated in such a vile fashion as if we thought meanly of him or with the Samosatenians and Arians esteemed him no other than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a meer Man to be served in as mean or meaner way than we serve our selves which seems the sense of some wretches who are glad to see Churches lie like Hog-sties full of filth and confusion and to be made even as Jakes and Dunghils which fate Nebuchadnezzar threatned to those that spake any thing amisse against the true God A sight and example which I confesse I take to be as little to the credit or encouragement of any reformation of Religion as it is no advantage to a beautifull face which possibly is a little foul and besmeared to scratch and tear its skin till the blood come in stead of washing it clean I could not forbear to insist on this subject in which if I offend some penurious and sacrilegious spirits of the present Age I hope I shall please and promote the desires and designs of more generous posterity in whose dayes it may be God will restore the captivity repair the ruines wipe away the reproches unjustly by Papists others cast upon this Church and the true Reformation which indeed never owned any such Principles or Practises as savoured of Sacriledge which is a taking away from our God and the Lord Jesus Christ from his Church his Ministers such things as are dedicated to his Worship and Service to the Churches Benefit and his Ministers Maintenance Order and Honour without which Religion cannot flourish nor indeed well subsist especially among such Christians as under pretense of love and zeal for Reformation as friends daily pillage and spoil Religion as its cruellest enemies CHAP. XXVII IT was a speech in old times of better significancy than sound Luxus Clericorum Laus est Laicorum The Splendour or Pomp of the Clergy was the Praise and Honour of the Laity not that Church-men should at any time be riotous and luxurious in their greatest abundance but it is the commendation of Christian people as indeed of all men so to entertain the Ministers of their God and Dispensers of their Religion specially in times of peace and a Land of plenty as may set them and their Profession furthest off from Poverty and its inseparable companion vulgar contempt that Church-men might have not onely wherewith to keep up the outward Decency Majesty of Religion but to maintain themselves and their families at such a proportion as may extend to charity liberality and hospitality The habits and exercises of which vertues become no mens Hearts Hands and Houses better than Christian Ministers and Rulers of the Church nothing more confirming the Doctrine they teach of Gods munificence to mankind than their living so as to be ever giving Religion is never so acceptable to common people as when they not onely hear the Word and see the Ceremony but taste the sweetnesse and substance of it in the reall fruits of its bounty Which pious Policy and charitable Craft in former dayes kept up the credit of Religion both while it was Roman and when it was Reformed to as high a pitch in England as in any Nation under Heaven while the Clergy enjoyed those blessings of Gods and mans Donation which enabled many an one of them to build and endow many such noble foundations of Churches Colledges Hospitals and Almes-houses that any one of them now goes beyond all that ever sacrilegious spirits did or designed either for Gods honour or mans benefit if all their good works and thoughts were summed up and put together though indeed those men are uncapable of doing any good work as to Charity who are guilty of sacred Robbery stoln Sacrifices were not to be consecrated to God no more than dead carkases Every History of England shews at large what good and great works Bishops and other Church-men in England did not onely in their Papal Celebacy but in their Primitive and later Conjugacy fruits indeed of pious and Princely Magnificence such as now neither the joint abilities of the indigent and peeled Clergy nor the gripple charity of whole Counties can or will so much as keep up or repair no not so much as to the very fabrick of those fair Churches which were the honour of Cities Counties and the whole Nation Whose vast Revenues being taken away both from Churches and Church-men no wonder if the sordid vastations of them and their deplorable decayes as that of S. Pauls in London and of Ely-Minster in that Isle every where appear as shamefull scandalous and prodigious Spectacles to all ingenuous persons to Papists both at home and abroad also to all Forraigners Christian Mahometan or Heathen who come into this Island who may easily see such sights as rather proclaim Saracenism Barbarism and Atheisme than such a sense of Christianisme as possessed our noble Progenitors who were ashamed to seem base and niggardly toward a bountifull God and Saviour Every City in England besides other Towns had such stately and durable monuments of pristine Piety and Charity in them as were hardly to be destroyed by the malice of Time in many Centuries if the
carried on by Jesuitick Policies Principles and Practises against all rules of Morality and Piety Honor and Humanity when these and some of the like rank leaven are recanted and removed from the Roman party On the other side when the Protestants and all that pretend to any name of Reformation shall be ashamed under any cloak of Piety or Christian Liberty either to rob from God and his Church from his service and speciall servants the Ministers of the Gospell or not to restore to them what is theirs by all Lawes Divine and Humane by right of Testamentary Donation by religious consecration by civill sanction and confirmation by long use and peaceable fruition no way forfeitable by Man or alienable from God whose the fee right and property is as a gratitude and homage payed to the Honour Worship and service of his great Name When Papists forbear their Superstitious Sacriledge and Protestants their Covetous Sacriledge when the first restore the Truth Purity and Integrity of Christian Religion which they have long detained in unrighteousnesse when the other restores that Order Honour and Estate which belongs to the support and government the decency and Majesty of Christ his Church and true Religion Then and not before may we expect some happy close among these so divided Western Churches whom first Papall policy and pride now Plebian loosenesse and insolency on all sides factious and schismaticall covetous and cruell practises have now no lesse divided than former different Doctrines opinions and ceremonies did the reconciliation of which many learned and peaceable men have seriously studied soberly proposed and charitably endeavoured The want almost despaire now without multiplied Miracles of which most desirable atonement the sad consequences which must needs attend the continuance and increase of desperate defiances implacable violences and cruell immoderations on all sides these these I say are calamities more deplorable than any that a Christians eyes can behold in all the world since they are at once the sin shame and misery of Christendom besides the scandall and scorn of all the world It being a farre sadder sight to see Christians thus rob and spoile thus worry and wound one another than to see them persecuted by Heathens and Infidels Jewes and Mahometans as it is farre more horrid to see men fighting with one another than beasts or brethren than strangers Without any doubt the mutuall animosities and barbarities exercised by Christians on all sides as they will in time open a doore for Turkish power to prevaile against them so meane while it makes Christians turn Turkes one against another Besides that these unchristian Practises on all sides do leave not onely the looser sort of men and women to an Atheisticall indifferency as to any Religion but the more sober and just Christians on every side Protestants and Papists are so scandalized and perplexed that they do not wel know what course of Religion to hold nor how to steere between the grosse errors on the one side and the base rapines on the other It being an hard choice for a serious and honest Christian whether he should keep Communion with superstitious and Idolatrous Papists or with schismaticall and sacrilegious Protestants the one refusing to be justly reformed the other deforming even Reformation it self Amidst which miserable distances and disadvantages of Christian Religion this sad event and burden of the Lord may be too easily foretold by one of the smallest Prophets That as Atheisme Profanenesse and Irreligion is like to get ground on all sides through the deformities immoderations varieties inconsistencies of Religion so to be sure the Papall party repute interest will daily prevaile every where as of later yeares it hath against those of the Protestant and Reformed profession since they see even the most famous setled and flourishing Church of England which was the Mirror of Reformation the noblest standard of Religion the ablest Antagonist against Romish pride and superstition in all the world this even this sought now to be so reduced so battered and divided so peeled and spoiled distressed deformed dissipated and despised and this even by those that pretend high to Reformation which must they say be attained and perfected by utter devesting even this so famous a Church and its deserving Clergy of their former Honour and Estate Order and Government Authority and Dignity Revenues and Reputation Uniformity and Unity all which heretofore they enjoyed by the mercy of God and good will of such Princes and Peers Parlaments and People as were the best Christians and best reformed who justly abhorred those sacrilegious and sharking arts which make either Religion or Reformation Preachers or true Professors either avaritious or beggerly and necessitous which their Wisdome and Piety knew would be the way to undermine and obstruct all true Religion and progresse of Reformation all experience teaching us that mankind is naturally prone rather to follow liberall Errours than niggardly Truths few men will adhere to hungry Holinesse and famishing Reformations such as some men have designed and vehemently agitated of late years in England little God knows to the credit or advance of any true Reformation It cannot then but be most evident to you O my noble Countreymen and to all wise men that as the sad condition of the Church of England at once pleaseth and hardneth the Romanists who are glad to see her thus wasted though they abhor the means and methods of her misery so the reall interest of the true Reformed Religion in England seems now much weaker than ever it was much more exposed to the objections and obloquies the Policies and Practices of pragmatick Jesuits and other spitefull Papists who with infinite Industry with all Arts and Alacrity daily undermine all the remaining parts yea and the very foundation as well as the reputation of all reformed Religion in the hearts of the people of England Doubtlesse if Popish Priests which are men of learning and sober lives had liberty in publick to promote their party they would draw most men and women after them in the Novelties Distractions Confusions and Deformities of Religions yea and of Reformations here in England in despite of all the orderly and Orthodox Clergy yet left in England so little would they consider any stop or impediment that either Presbytery or Independency Scotl. or New-Engl can give them who have all been made active and contributive to their own shame and to the generall ruine of this Church and consequently to the reall advantages of Popery which professeth great uniformity and constancy in their Religion Nor can the subtil factors for the Papacy but expect and hope by degrees in a few years to bring in again into England the justly feared and abhorred Inundations of the Sea of Rome in its superstitions and usurpations against both which our wise and pious progenitors both since and before the Reformation did in many Parlaments make severall cautions provisions Premunire's and sanctions to preserve
Foxes and wild Boars of Romish Power and Policy to enter in and not onely secretly but openly as occasion shall serve to destroy all the remaining stock of the true Protestants and Professors of the Reformed Religion who at first soberly protesting against Popish Errours and Deformities afterwards praying in-vain for a joynt and just Reformation did at last reform themselves after the rule of Gods Word interpreted by the Catholick Practise of purest Antiquity What without a miracle can hinder the Papall prevalency in England when once sound Doctrine is shaken corrupted despised when Scriptures are wrested by every private interpreter when the ancient Creeds and Symbols the Lords Prayer and Ten Commandements all wholsome forms of sound Doctrine and Devotion the Articles and Liturgy of such a Church together with the first famous Councils all are slighted vilified despised and abhorred by such English-men as pretend to be great Reformers when neither pristine Respect nor Support Credit nor Countenance Maintenance nor Reverence shall be left either to the Reformed Religion or the Ministry of it without which they will hardly be carried on beyond the fate of Pharaohs Chariots when their wheeles were taken off which is to be overwhelmed and drowned in the Romish red Sea which will certainly overflow all when once England is become not onely a dunghill and Tophet of Hereticall filth and Schismaticall fire but an Aceldama or field of blood by mutuall Animosities and civil Dissentions arising from the variations and confusions of Religions All which as the Roman Eagle now foresees and so followes the camp of Sectaries as Vultures and Birds of prey are wont to doe Armies so no man not blinded with private passions and present interest is so simple as not to know that it will in time terribly seize upon the blind dying or dead carkase of this Church and Nation whose expiration will be very visible when the Purity Order and Unity of Religion the Respect Support and Authority of the Ministry is vanished and banished out of England by the neglect of some the Malice Madnesse and Ingratitude of others your most unhappy Countrey-men Then shall the Israel of England return to the Egypt of Rome then shall the beauty of our Sion be captive to the bondage of Babylons either Superstition or Persecution from both which I beseech God to deliver us As an Omen of the future fate how many persons of fair Estates others of good parts and hopefull Learning are already shrewdly warped and inclined to the Church of Rome and either actually reconciled or in a great readinesse to embrace that Communion which excommunicates all Greek and Latine Churches Eastern Western and African Christians which will not submit to its Dominion and Superstition chiefly moved hereto because they know not what to make of or expect from the Religion and Reformation of the Church of England which they see so many zealous to reproch and ruine so few concerned to relieve restore or pity As for the return of you my noble Countrey-men and your Posterity to the Roman Subjection and Superstition I doubt not but many of you most of you all of you that are persons of judicious and consciencious Piety doe heartily deprecate it and would seriously avoid it to the best of your skill and power as indeed you have great cause both in Prudence and Conscience in Piety and Policy yet I believe none of you can flatter your selves that the next Century shall defend the Reformed Religion in England from Romish Pretensions Perswasions and Prevalencies as the last hath done while the Dignity Order and Authority of the Ministry the Government of excellent Bishops the Majesty and Unity of this reformed Church and its Religion were all maintained by the unanimous vote consent and power of all Estates Nay the Dilemma and distressed choice of Religion is now reduced to this that many peaceable and well-minded Christians having been so long harrassed bitten and worried with novell Factions and pretended Reformations would rather chuse that their Posterity if they may but have the excuse of ignorance in the main controversies to plead for Gods mercy in their joining to that Communion which hath so strong a relish of Egyptian Leeks and Onions of Idolatry and Superstition besides unchristian Arrogancy and intolerable Ambition that their Posterity I say should return to the Roman party which hath something among them setled orderly and uniform becoming Religion than to have them ever turning and tortured upon Ixions wheel catching in vain at fancifull Reformations as Tantalus at the deceitfull waters rolling with infinite paines and hazard the Reformed Religion like Sisyphus his stone sometime asserting it by Law and Power otherwhile exposing it to popular Liberty and Loosenesse than to have them tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine with the Fedities Blasphemies Animosities Anarchies Dangers and Confusions attending fanatick Fancies quotidian Reformations which like botches or boiles from surfeited and unwholsome bodies do daily break out among those Christians who have no rule of Religion but their own humours and no bounds of their Reformations but their own Interests the first makes them ridiculous the second pernicious to all sober Christians Whereas the Roman Church however tainted with rank Errours and dangerous Corruptions in Doctrine and Manners which forbid us under our present convictions to have in those things any visible sacred communion with them though we have a great charity and pity for them Charity in what they still retain good Pity in what they have erred from the Rule and Example of Christ and his Catholick Church yet it cannot be denied without a brutish blindnesse and injurious slander which onely serves to gratifie the grosse Antipathies of the gaping vulgar that the Church of Rome among its Tares and Cockle its Weeds and Thornes hath many wholsome Herbs and holy Plants growing much more of Reason and Religion of good Learning and sober Industry of Order and Polity of Morality and Constancy of Christian Candor and Civility of common Honesty and Humanity becoming grave men and Christians by which to invite after-Ages and your Posterity to adhere to it and them rather then to be everlastingly exposed to the profane bablings endless janglings miserable manglings childing confusions Atheisticall indifferencies and sacrilegious furies of some later spirits which are equally greedy and giddy making both a play and a prey of Religion who have nothing in them comparable to the Papall party to deserve your or your Posterities admiration or imitation but rather their greatest caution and prevention for you will finde what not I onely but sad experience of others may tell you that the sithes and pitch-forks of these petty Sects and plebeian Factions will be as sharp and heavy as the Papists Swords and Faggots heretofore were both to your religious and civil Happinesse CHAP. XXIX FOr however the feeblenesse and paucity of lesser Sects and Factions in Religion in some places their mutuall
are safest healed by lenitive purgations rather than cold applications outwardly Factions in Religion like Fistula's or running sores in foule bodies are in least pain and danger when they have some vent allowed them by which the venemous humours may leisurely spend themselves and those pestilent opinions which carry with them pernicious practices so drain away as most keeps them from recoyling upon the head heart or other noble parts All sudden skinning over or closing of the orifices by which those sharp humours are obstructed but not purged is very dangerous and diffusive of the mischief making the source of the malignity to flow higher if it be not drawn away by such gentle dieticks or healing applications as strengthning the sound parts assisting the weak and purging the disaffected enables them by little and little to cast out what ever was unsound in them and noxious to them Nothing makes the nestitutions of true but decayed and divided Religion more difficult in any Nation than those mutuall corruptions and passions those animosities and transports which disaffect both the People as Patients and many times the Magistrates and Ministers as Physitians And nothing renders that work more facile and feisable than that calmnesse moderation and temper which ought alwayes to be in Physitians whatever violent fits and distempers appear in the Patients Governours in Church and State must ever expect such distempers in peoples minds especially when they are touched upon the tender place of their Religion with which mens consciences seem so vehemently to sympathize that Reformers had need carefully to furnish themselves with such meeknesse of wisdome as is the best antidote for their own security and against the others malady Then there will be hopes of healing in Religion not when Toleration or indulgence is granted to all opinions and professions which list to christen themselves but when such a publick way of solid and sincere Religion both as to doctrine and practice is seriously debated duly prepared publiquely agreed upon and solemnly established as carryes with it most of cleare Scripture-precept and Saintly pattern in faith and manners in vertues and graces in duties and devotions in order and authority in honesty and charity with the greatest uprightnesse and impartiality towards God and man However Epidemick contagions may for a time be permitted something of necessary connivence that they may more freely breathe out themselves yet this great remedy and soveraign medicine in due time ought to be applyed which consists in the owning and establishing of such a Religion as hath in it whatever is holy necessary usefull comely and commendable in any of the pretending parties This once approved and fixed by grave counsell and publique advice of all Estates as the Standard of the publique profession and practice of Religion being also asserted and propagated by Preachers of most indisputable authority of pregnantest abilities and of most exemplary lives orderly and unanimously agreeing among themselves hereby meriting and enjoying the double honour of publique respect and maintenance these gentle rationall and wholsome methods of Religion will certainly in a few years by Gods blessing either drein or drive out by secret and gentle workings all those pestilent distempers in Religion which vulgar minds by a corrupted Liberty as by a licentious and foule diet have contracted to the great disorder and deformity of any Church or Nation professing Christianity For in a short time such as are truly consciencious by the fear of God and love of true Religion will cease to be either pertinacious or contentious or factious or inconstant when they are convinced of so excellent a way as they cannot but conclude to be safe since it is holy and true sober and setled comely and charitable Others that are meer Politicians in Religion either formall Pharisees or false hypocrites or fawning Parasites ready to change and comply with any party and perswasion in order to secular advantages even these will soon give over their factious agitations their pragmatick sticklings and popular sidings and shiftings in Religion when once they find which way the wind or stream of publique favour and civill interest doe drive The Mils of Factions in Religion will soon give over their motions when once they perceive no grist of Profit or stream of Preferment or breath of vulgar Applause is brought in to them There is no wonder to be made at those late sad and mad extravagancies which of later yeares have prevailed against the reformed Religion once setled in England while the Majesty and Honour of this Church and State the sanctity of our Lawes Civil and Ecclesiastick the solemnity of Gods publick worship and service the authority and maintenance of his Ministers have all been through our civil broyles and tumults unhappily exposed to infinite arrogancies spoiles contempts and insolencies even of common people while they saw so many prisons and bonds so many sequestrations and silencings so many deaths and dangers attend not onely the Bishops but the Presbyters the chief Preachers and prime Professors on all sides of that reformed Religion which was established in England No wonder if while the populacy see great Preachers and Professors cast so much dirt and spit in each others faces while they suspect that all piety honesty and Christian charity are made to truckle under State Policies and bend to worldly interests no wonder if the vulgar desperately leap into the Sea of confusion and faction out of that ship which they saw not onely so leaky and crazy that it was almost sunk but so set on fire that they despaired to quench it No wonder if they venture upon either inventing what new wayes of Religion they list to fancy or despising all wonted publick formes and professions since they think themselves not onely incouraged but in a sort exemplarily commanded and almost compelled to cast off with scorn that Reformed Profession of Christian Religion which had so great a Name of Wisdome Law Honour and Holinesse Glory and Happinesse as that had which was established in the Church of England never to be mended as to the main and substantials of Religion in Doctrine Worship Discipline Devotion and Government however in some circumstantials something might possibly be altered or added by the sober counsels of wife and peaceable men who had both ability and autority for such a work Whose great difficulty now is chiefly heightned by that popular froth and vanity those animosities and arrogancies those infinite variations and confusions with which vulgar fury and passions have deformed the face divided the body yea almost devoured every joynt and limb of Chiristan and reformed Religion in England 'T is true these will in time very much waste sink and vanish of themselves while one Faction justles crowds and confounds another the new ones as the night-mares insulting and overlaying the Elder But this is onely as the changing of a Captives Chaines this will but bring in religious rabbles or successions of confusions but no
dissensions among us but must needs be now not onely out of love with them but in as great feare and abhorrence of them as he hath any favour and good will to the peace and prosperity either of his Country or this Church to the promoting of which as conscience binds him so all prudence and policy invites him CHAP. IV. THirdly to these I may further adde that great spur of generous industry which we call Sense of Honor or an impatience that worthy persons have to come short in any thing of that which doth best become them or is by God and good men expected from them I know how touchy even small minds and petty-spirited men are in point of reputation there where no true honor lies But meer shadowes and imaginary punctilio's deceive them under the notions of honor after that vulgar rate and esteem which gives many Gentlemen quicker resentments of any affronts neglects indignities or injuries done to themselves than of blasphemy to their God and Saviour more sensible for the honor of their mistresses of pleasure than for their Mother or Fathers I mean not so much naturall and politicall as Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall the Church and the Pastors of it such by whose care they have been bred and born to Christ baptised in the Name of the blessed Trinity brought up in the true Christian Faith nourished confirmed and sealed by the body the blood and Spirit of Christ directed in the waies of Holinesse and Eternall Happinesse Certainly the Command binds all Christians to Honour these parents as much as any No sense of Honor should be more quick and sensible than that which reflects upon our highest concernments in which not onely our private but our publick not onely our temporall but our eternall welfare is wrapped up and so confined that if in this we faile or miscarry all is lost that a great and gracious soul can consider If you were a Nation pinched with poverty over-awed with slavery despicable for your weaknesse base for your cowardise brutish for your ignorance dull with stupidity dejected by tenuity or barbarous through want of learning and civility if you were now to begin the principles of Christianity and knew not what belonged to true Religion which is the highest honor and happinesse of any Nation if that were the present State of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of England that they were now beginning to be Civilized and Catechized I should think my labour lost my oratory vaine and my importunity improper thus to conjure you by the highest sense of Honor to study the settlement of true Religion before you were acquainted with the sense of Civility Religion or Honor Or if I thought you had not so much pregnant light of Religion as might make you sensible of the truest and highest points of honor or not so much apprehension of honor as might make you most zealously tender in the behalfe of true Religion I would not be so impertinent as to think to move you beyond your inward principles But when I consider you as a people pampered with plenty exalted with liberty renowned for strength dreaded for valour enlightned with knowledge in all kinds accurately vigorous actively industrious as the chief of the Nations as the princesse of all Islands heightned to all magnificence polished with all good literature and civility old Disciples of Jesus Christ many hundred yeares agoe converted to Christianity and never wholly either perverted by Hereticks or subverted by the many barbarous invasions and warlike confusions which you have endured when I contemplate the grandeur the power the wisdome the majesty the publick piety heretofore of this Nation the antiquity of this Church and the prosperity of its reformed condition heretofore I cannot but with all humble and faithfull respects tell you That it is not worthy the name and honor of the English Nation so famous for Learning and Religion for Scholars and Souldiers for Magistrates and Ministers for Christian Princes and Christian people scarce to be parallel'd in all the world It is not for the Honor of such a Nation to halt between not two but twenty opinions to variate thus between the true God and the many new Baalims between Christ and the many Belials who will endure no publick yoak of Religion or Church-government but what themselves fancy and frame though never so different from that which this and the Catholick Church in all ages not onely used and submitted to but highly rejoyced in as the onely order that Jesus Christ and his Apostles had setled in all parts of his Church It is a shamefull posture for wise and sober men for ancient and renowned Christians to be thus inconsistent as divided between a doting upon former superstitions which some impute to us and indulging moderne innovations which others reproch us for 'T is ridiculous to be alwaies dancing the rounds of Religion and giddily moving in the mazes of endlesse Innovations which are but private and for the most part Childish inventions the effects either of proud and imperious or of peevish popular and plebeian Spirits who aime not at the publick Peace Piety and Honor of the Nation so much as at the gratifying their own little Fancies Humors Opinions and interests whose Novelties never so specious and plausible at first yet soon appeare pernicious to the publick so farre from mending and reforming the State of Religion that they threaten to marre all if the goodnesse of God and the moderation of wise men do not prevent Private formes and inventions never duly examined or solemnly allowed by the publick Representatives of any Church in Nationall Synods or Councills nor from thence recommended to and approved by the Representatives of the civill States in full and free Parliaments but surreptitiously broched at first afterward Magisterially obtruded by some pragmatick Preachers upon any Church or Christian people these prove no other in the end than like the ashes scattered over Egypt productive of sores and boyles swelling to great paine and insolency Especially in such a Church and Nation as this which was of the highest forme both for Christianity and reformation where God had to our admiration and his eternall praise blessed the former setled State of Religion and the Churches excellent constitution under those reverend and renowned Bishops assisted by Learned Orderly and Worthy Presbyters whose pious and profitable endeavours had long agoe advanced this Churches honor and happinesse to as high a pitch in point of Doctrine and Devotion and all spirituall experiences as any Church ever attained and further had improved its welfare in point of Discipline if they had not been ever curbed and hindered by the jealousies and impatiences of some Princes or people who would by no meanes endure the ancient just and holy Severities of Christian Discipline should be exercised by the Clergy against their Haughty and Licentious manners no not when the Ecclesiastick State of England was in its highest elevation and
part of the whole body so it exerciseth this authority with such confusion and passion with so much Childishnesse and petulancy that there is little or nothing of due subordination feare reverence and submission as to any Divine Authority as of Conscience of or for Christs sake but every one takes offence when he listeth growes froward and insolent divides and so destroyes as much as in him lyes and at as easie a rate as one doth crush a worme those petty bodies and puny Churches which are indeed but Infants Embryo's and Pygmies compared to that stature and strength that procerity and puissance which of old was preserved and ever ought to be in the Church of Christ when it hath its peace and growth not shred into poor patches and pittifull parcels but united maintained and managed in conspicuous combinations in ample and august proportions in which may well be contained many thousands of Christian people some hundreds of worthy Presbyters and Deacons under some one or more venerable Bishops in so holy so happy and so handsome a subordination or dependency as was of old that whatever was done by the Authority of those that ruled or the Humility of those that obeyed all was done with Charity and Unanimity while excellent Bishops knew how to keep the true temper of Christian Government and both Presbyters and people concurred with them in filial obedience and fraternall love CHAP. X. THus we see every party or side however it justifie or magnifie it selfe yet it falls under either the blame or jealousie of its rivals as defective or excessive yet not so much in the fundamentals of Religion or main points either for Doctrine Worship Duty or Manners as chiefly in matters of Ordination Discipline and Government Nor is the difference here so broad that any side denies them as necessary both in the parts and whole in greater and lesser proportions for the Church of Christ but the reall dispute is who shall mannage and execute them in whom the chief power and Authority shall reside whether eminently in Bishops or solely in Presbyters or supremely in the people as the Alpha and Omega the first recipient and the last result of Church-power All sides except Fanaticks Seekers and Enthusiasts seem to agree as in the Canon of the Scripture so in the soundnesse of the faith in the sanctity of divine mysteries in the celebration of them by such as are some way ordained and authorised for that holy service also in the participation of them by such onely as are in the judgement of Charity worthy or meet to be partakers of them All agree in the main Christian graces virtues and morals required in a good Christians practise yet still each party is suspected and reproched by others the brisk Independent boasts of the Liberty simplicity and purity of his way yet is blamed for Novelty Subtilty Vulgarity Anarchy the rigid Presbyterian glories in his Aristocratick Parity and levelling community which makes every petty Presbyter a Pope and a Prince though he disdain to be a Priest yet is taxed for petulancy popularity arrogancy and novelty casting off that Catholick and ancient order which God and Nature Reason and Religion all civill and military policy both require and observe among all societies Episcopacy justly challengeth the advantages right and honor of Apostolick and Primitive Antiquity of universality and unity beyond any pretenders yet is this condemned by some for undue incrochments and oppressions upon both Ministers and peoples ingenuous Liberty and Christian priviledge by a kind of secular height and arbitrary soveraignty to which many Bishops in after-ages have been betrayed as by their own pride and ambition so by the indulgence of times the munificence of Christian Princes and sometimes by the flatteries of people Take away the popular principle of the first which prostrates Government to the vulgar Take away the levelling ambition of the second which degrades Government to a very preposterous and unproportionate parity Take away the monopoly of the third which seems to ingrosse to one man more than is meet for the whole each of them will be sufficiently purged as I conceive of what is most dangerous or noxious in them for which they are most jealous of and divided from each other Restore to people their Liberty in some such way of choosing or at least approving their Ministers and assenting to Church-censures as may become them in reason and conscience restore to Presbyters their priviledges in such publick counsel and concurrence with their Bishops as may become them lastly restore to Bishops that Primitive precedency and Catholick presidency which they ever had among and above Presbyters both for that chief Authority or Eminency which they ever had in ordaining of Presbyters and Deacons also in exercising such Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Censures that nothing be done without them I see no cause why any sober Ministers and wise men should be unsatisfied nor why they should longer stand at such distances and defiances as if the Liberties of Christian people the Privileges of Christian Presbyters and the Dignity of Christian Bishops were wholly inconsistent whereas they are easily reconciled and as a threefold cord may be so handsomely twisted together that none should have cause to complaine or be jealous all should have cause to joy in and enjoy each other Bishops should deserve their eminency with the assistance counsel and respect of their Presbyters Bishops and Presbyters might enjoy the love reverence and submission of Christian people both people and Presbyters might be blessed with the orderly direction and fatherly protection of the Bishops all should have the blessings of that sweet subordination harmony and unity which best becomes the Church of Jesus Christ both in the Governors and Governed in Ministers and People wherein we see the most Antiepiscopall Presbyters and refractory people cannot but be so sensible by their own sufferings of the want of some principle of order some band of unity and some ground of due Authority among them that they are forced to make use of some Moderator Chaire-man or Prolocutor as a kind of temporary Pilot and arbitrary Bishop there being no regular moving of popular bodies in Church or State without such an head or President as the rudder of a ship whose order as it is usefull so then most when it is fixed and confirmed with a valid power and venerable authority which are the maine wheeles of all Government As for the Sacramentall scrutinies and other holy severities to be used in any part of Christian Discipline with charity and discretion however the Presbyterian and Independent preachers have very much sought in this point to captate popular applause and exalt themselves above measure as if they exacted farre greater rigors of preparatory sufficiency and sanctity than the Episcopall Clergy ever did or do either require or practise Yet is this but either a vapour or a fallacy or a calumny in respect of the
the new fry of any Factionists or Enthusiasts were known in the English or Christian world Then will the honor of the Reformed Religion recover take root flourish and fructifie again in England when it is by due authority and just severity cleared of all that rust and canker that mossy and barren accretion which of later yeares it hath contracted chiefly for want of those Ecclesiasticall Councils sacred Synods and Religious Conventions which being called and incouraged by civill authority will best do this great work of God and the Church freely and impartially solidly and sincerely learnedly and honestly discussing all things of difference disorder or deformity in Religion These these would by Gods blessing and your encouragement remove in a short time all that putid matter from which the scandals offences and factions do chiefly arise and by which they are nourished in the licentious hearts and lives of some men who dare do any thing that they safely may against Religion These as the ablest and meetest Judges of Religion would soon discerne between the vile and the precious and separate the wheat and the chaffe in Christs floore wisely using the flaile and fan of his word and Spirit CHAP. XV. THerefore is our Religion so miserably lapsed and decayed through the ignorance negligence and impudence of men because it hath not for these many yeares been under such hands as are most proper either for its care and preservation or its cure and recovery Courts of Princes and Councels of State the Spirit of Armies and the Genius of Parliaments are not alone apt agents or instruments for this work though they may be happy promoters and authoritative designers and contrivers of it Saint Ambrose and others of the Ancients observe that it never went well with the sound part of the Church when the disputes of Religion as between the Arrians and the Orthodox were brought into Princes Courts and determined by their Counsellors and Courtiers It was not more piety and modesty than prudence and generosity in Constantine the Great when he had conquered Licinius with other enemies and entirely obtained the Roman Empire when he had power absolute and soveraign enough to have made what Edicts he listed for Religion yet that he then called the Bishops of the Church throughout the Roman world and other venerable Teachers attending them to discusse the differences in Religion to compose the breaches to allay the jealousies to reforme the disorders to search and establish the true faith to confirme the ancient Government to adde vigor to the just Discipline of the Church and due authority to its true Pastors or Bishops All which were happily done by the wisdome piety and moderation of the famous Nicene Council in which Constantine himself was oft present as to his person and Counsell though he never voted or determined any thing of Religion among the Fathers of that glorious Assembly lest he should seem to over-balance or over-awe the truth by his authority or to eclipse the Church by the State This this was that Primitive and Catholick way of Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods used first by the Apostles and after by all their successors the Martyrly Bishops and Pastorly Confessors of the Church which endured the fiery trialls of heathenish and hereticall persecutions who had Ecclesiasticall Councills and Synods of Church-men for their reliefe and remedy before they had the favour of Christian Princes for their refuge or defence To this proper method for Reforming of any Church and restoring Religion all Princes that were true Patrons and Protectors of the true Church have applied their powers and counsels for the repairing of decayes rectifying disorders condemning heresies vindicating fundamentall truths composing differences and restoring peace in the Church of Christ calling together such Synods and conventions of the Clergy as did beare most proportion to those inconveniences or mischiefes which they sought to remedy either in greater or lesser circuits according as the poyson and infection of Heresie or Schisme had spread it self The welfare of Religion and healing of the Church of Christ was never heretofore left to every private Christians fancy or to particular Presbyters nor yet to single Bishops to act according as their opinions passions and interests might sway them nor was it ever betrayed into the hands of onely secular men either Civill Magistrates or Gentlemen or Tradesmen who are as fit generally for Church-work as Clergy-men are to marshall Armies or to manage battels The building of Gods Tabernacle and his Temple required men of extraordinary gifts and excellent Spirits proper and proportionate to those works As the Leviticall Priests of old did judge not onely of plagues and leprosies but of all controversies about the Law and Religion to whose determination all men were to submit under paine of death And as Aaron standing between the living and the dead stopped the spreading of a plague and mortality among the people even so hath the Lord ordained the Evangelicall Ministers to be as shepherds feeders defenders and rulers in his Church also as Physitians and Fathers of the flock of God whose lips ought to preserve knowledge so as to discerne both the contagion and the cure applying as their duty is such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sound Doctrine and Discipline as are both wholesome food and healing physick Certainly all other Lay-undertakers and tamperers with Reformation and Religion are but as Empiricks and Mountebanks having neither that ability nor that authority which is requisite in Religious undertakings But after much paines and charge they alwaies leave Reformation and Religion Church and Clergy more unsearched and unsound unbound and ulcerous than they found them God never following those with the blessing of the end who disdaine to use those orderly meanes which his holy wisdome hath directed them to who lay the Ark of God upon the cart and think to draw it by the beasts of the people when it should be orderly and solemnly born by the shoulders and hands of those that are consecrated to that holy service as the Priests of the Lord which method is not onely more for the honor and solemnity of Christian Religion than for the glory of the blessed God that his name might be sanctified even before the world in the managing of true Religion not flightly or slovenly not with unwashen hands and preposterous confusions but with that holy respect and humble reverence which is due to the Majesty of that God and Saviour whom Christians professe to worship T is ridiculous for Princes and States-men to have the best Musitians for their pleasure the most learned and experienced Physitians for their bodily health the most able and renowned Lawyers for their secular Counsels the gallantest souldiers for their military officers the best Mathematicians for their Engineers and the best Mariners for their Pilots that so these things might succeed to their worldly honor and happinesse and yet in matters of Religion
to common peoples grosser minds might be prescribed than those are of loose rambling arbitrary and diffused preaching where after twenty yeares preaching yea and with great applause many times as well as good paines yet poor people are most-what very ignorant or raw as to the very first and maine principles of Religion which I humbly conceive might be drawn up into so many short discourses and cleare Summaries as might every Lords-day take up one quarter of an hour or little more before and after noon in the Ministers distinct reading some one of them to the people in such a constant order as once in every half year might finish the whole series of them which might be printed for the use of such as can reade and for others that cannot reade this frequent inculcating and constant repeating of those main points so set forth could not but much improve the sound understanding of plainer people in the doctrines mysteries graces and promises precepts and duties of true Religion which now they learne either not at all in some necessary points or so rawly raggedly loosely and confusedly that it comes far short of that judicious and methodicall solidity which they might attaine if they were clearly uniformly and constantly taught so as they could best beare and heare understand and remember Nor would this be any hinderance to preaching praying or catechizing but a great furtherance to them all what ever people had beside from the meanest gifted Minister they might be sure to have every Lords-day one or two heads of good Divinity well set forth to them yea and one or two chapters of the Bible well explained to them till the whole were gone through Which would be a great meanes to prevent the odd idle and addle senses by which silly or pragmatick-spirited people pervert and corrupt the Scripture not onely by their private and weak but by their ridiculous erroneous and blasphemous interpretations the variety and loosenesse besides the easinesse and flatnesse of most mens preaching doth rather confound than build common people in Religion all which by constant Synods might be amended If the Church of England were so barren of godly able learned and honest Ministers that a good and safe choice of fit members cannot be made every time such venerable Synods and usefull Assemblies should meet if we of the Clergy are all so degenerated as to become of late yeares either dunces and unlearned or erroneous and corrupt in our judgements or licencious and immorall in our manners or partiall and imprudent in our designes or base and cowardly in all our dealings that we are not to be trusted in the mysteries or managery of our own calling and function truly t is pitty we should be owned any longer as Ministers of Christ in this or any Church being so unfit for our own sphere and duty Nor can I understand how it should be that Mechanick Artificers Merchants Tradesmen and Souldiers should still be thought fittest to be advised with in their severall waies and mysteries of life onely the Clergy should be thought so defective in all abilities and honesty as not to be trusted with any advise or counsell in publick matters of Religion no more than with any place in any civil counsell or transactions Parlament-men they may not be while the most puny-gentry petty Lawyers and triviall Physitians while Merchants and Milleners Gold-smiths and Copper-smiths while Drugsters Apothecaries Haberdashers of small wares and Leather-sellers and while every handy-crafts-man and prentice aspire to be not onely Committee but even Parlament-men yea and it may be Counsellors of State Onely Clergy-men must be wholly excluded as Monks condemned to their beades and bellies while those lay-Masters challenge not onely all civill Counsels and Honorable employments to themselves but they further seek to engrosse even those great concernments of Religion not allowing any Ministers of what ever size their Learning Wisdome and Worth be to move in their own mystery or joynt and publick interests further than as they are impounded to their parish-Pulpits and tedered to their texts or desks Every sorry and silly mechanick dares to arrogate as great nay far greater Empire-influences and latitudes in the publick management of Religion than the best Divines in England may ever hope to attaine or adventure to use in any sphere private or publick unless there be a more indulgent and equall regard had to the worth and calling of Ministers than of late yeares hath been had O happy England whose Laity and Communalty of late hath so excelled thy Clergy or rather O miserable England who either hast such Church men as are not fit to be advised with or not trusted in Religion or which art so unworthily jealous and neglective of them as not to trust or use them in those great and sacred concernments for which they were educated and in which they were heretofore not onely thought but known to be as able as any Clergy in all the world till they were thus divided and shattered thus disabled and disparaged most of them rather by popular discouragings prejudices and oppressions than by any reall defects in themselves either of Piety Learning or Honesty I cannot sufficiently pitty and deplore thy sad and miserable fate O my Country which either abasing or abusing at least not using thy worthiest Clergy for such publick ends deprivest thy self of the most soveraigne nay onely ordinary meanes under Heaven whereby to recover thy self to the former Beauty Honor Lustre Stability and integrity of true Religion which thou didst enjoy everlasting divisions deformities and confusions wil be thy portion without a miracle if thou trustest to those Egyptian reeds the novel pretensions and usurpations of ignorant and arrogant Lay-men of inspired and aspiring Levellers which will pierce into thy hand and heart while thou leanest on them Nothing can restore or preserve the health and soundnesse of Religion but those waies which are tryed Authoritative and Authentick which have Gods Image Christs Power the Spirits Wisdome the Apostles prescription and the Catholick Churches Character upon them which may first perswade mens judgements and then oblige their consciences to obey for the Lords sake All methods used in Religion that are perverse popular novell arrogant or invasive contrary to the sacred and venerable methods of Gods direction and the Churches Catholick Custome are like sluces and banks ill-bottomed soon blown up having neither depth nor weight foundation nor superstruction to make them good Nor shall I ever think the Lawes of Parlaments more binding to obey in civill things than such Canons of Church-Councils are obligatory as to submission in religious matters where nothing is decreed contrary to Gods express will in his Word nor beyond those generall latitudes and Commissions of Charity Order Peace Decency and Holinesse which God hath indulged to his Church Certainly the Wolves Foxes and Boares Hereticks Schismaticks and heathen persecutors had long ago scattered the severall flocks of Christ into
corners and dissolved the face of any visible Church on earth if after the severall sad dispersions and vastations of them the chief Pastors and Bishops of the Church succeeding to the ordinary power of Apostles had not either in Oecumenick Councills or in their particular Diocess Provinces taken care with their brethren to call together and settle in Holy Communion of faith and manners the remaines of their dispersed Presbyters and disordered people To which good work of calling Councils and Synods for the rectifying and restoring of Religion all good Christian Emperours besides the Bishops did cheerfully contribute both their favour and Treasure as the most noble way in the world to employ them Shall the Counsels and powers the tributes and revenues of Christian Magistrates and people be onely laid out in making war at home and abroad onely to recover or keep up their civill peace or to build their own houses and is nothing to be laid out to maintain the Faith of Christ to keep the fort of Sion and to build the Towers and Temple of Jerusalem to restore and preserve the Purity and Peace the Sanctity and Solemnity the Order and Authority of Christian yea Reformed Religion Must that be left like Pauls to impaire or repaire it self as well as it can or onely be committed to the care of such men as are commonly better at pulling down than building up Churches who neither know how to begin nor how to end any Church-work having neither heads nor hands materialls nor skill line nor rule fit for such businesse And when they have done all they can in bungling and new waies neither the Clergy or Ministers under their power nor the Laity or people under their command will much more regard as to conscience what is so done by only Lay-mens magisterial decrees and imperial appointments than they now do consider the Covenant and Holy League or the Directory and Engagement new models for Religion cut out not so much by nationall Synods and Councils as by swords and pistols and accordingly both esteemed and used by all men that are of sound and judicious minds not corrupted with partiality credulity popularity and novelty For how can those bind the conscience of the Nation in the most indifferent things of Religion who never had the choice counsell or consent of all Estates in the nation either to advise or determine or enjoyne any such things which require to make them valid and conscientiously obligatory the Soveraignes call the Clergies counsell and the Parlaments sanction CHAP. XVI I Well know how hard a work it is for the best and wisest of men to stop the leakes of Religion to repaire a broken Church or to buoy up a sunk and lapsed Clergy when once they are either overwhelmed with the corrupt Doctrines and licentious manners of Preachers and Professors or split with intestine Schismes and Divisions or debased with vulgar usurpations and presumptions or oppressed with the secular policies and sacrilegious injuries of violent and unreasonable men who are alwaies afraid lest the renewed light and restored vigor of true Religion with the due Authority of its Ministry in the Church should give any stop or check to their extravagant lusts and enormous actions To which purpose such pragmaticks will be sure either utterly to hinder all good meanes that may effectually recover the true interests of Religion and its Ministry or else they labour impertinently to apply such onely as they know will render them more uncurable and set them next doore to an impossibility Which will be the State of the Church of England if the Recovery of Religion as to its visible Beauty Order Unity and Polity be either managed by Lay-mens Counsels and activities onely excluding all Ministers from all publick equall and impartiall consultations or if on the other side Church-affaires be wholly left to the various heads divided hands and partiall designes of such as are now called Preachers and pretend to be Ministers among whom commonly the weakest heads have the most pragmatick hands and men of least abilities are greatest sticklers though it be but more to puzzle confound and destroy themselves and others On the other side such Clergy-men as have most of solid Learning sober Piety sacred Authority and real Sufficiencies for such a work will be either afraid or ashamed to act or assist in it if they have not some publick Commission with equall and impartiall incouragement from those in power For certaine meer mechanick and illiterate preachers such as some people now most affect will never be able if willing to do any good in so great and good a work no more than wasps are like to make honey Ignorance and disorder faction and confusion being for their interest as muddy places are best for Eeles Other Ministers though never so willing and able yet as tooles that are blunt and have no edge set on them can never carry on such a work handsomely unlesse their late rust and dis-spiriting their poverty and depression be taken off unlesse their mutuall contempts distances and jealousies be fairly removed unlesse they be restored to such Charity Comfort and Courage as becomes Learned and Godly Ministers Such a constitution as was heretofore most eminently to be seen in the Ecclesiasticall Synods and Convocations of the English Clergy while they enjoyed by the favours of munificent Princes and the assistance of unanimous Parlaments those many noble priviledges both of Honor and Estate together with their undoubted Ecclesiasticall Authority which were by ancient and moderne Lawes setled upon them which kept up the Learning and Religion the Credit and Comfort of the Clergy of this Nation to so great an height both of Love and Reputation that neither the petulancy of people nor the arrogancy of any parasitick preachers either dared or were able thus to divide and wound them and the Church through the pretences of such Liberties and Reformations as knew no bounds of modesty or common honesty so far were they from any true grounds of piety or Christianity Nor will the divided and depressed State of Religion in this Church ever recover its pristine vigor its due authority its holy influence or its honorable esteem unlesse you O my noble and honored Countrymen who are persons of most publick eminence and influence be pleased to make it one of the chiefest objects of your Counsells Prayers and endeavours to revive the drooping Spirits to raise the dejected estate and to re-compose the shattered posture of the Clergy or Ministry of England in whose ruine the Reformed Religion will be ruined and in whose recovery true Christian Religion will be recovered to its just harmony stability and honor for it is impossible that Religion as Christian and Reformed should enjoy either unity reverence or authority while the chief Pastors Preachers and Professors of it are in so dubious debased and divided a condition Since then the Religious happinesse of this Church and Nation chiefly depends
the very beasts of the people are so far flattered as to be suffered with their foule feet daily to trouble and confound that cleare fountain and constant streame of Ministeriall Authority and Ecclesiasticall succession by way of Episcopall Ordination which was ever of so solemn and conspicuous use in all Churches of so venerable a succession of so ancient and uninterrupted a derivation from the very Apostles dayes and hands that it never failed to keep its course as some rivers do through salt waters amidst all the confusions which either heathenish hereticall or schismaticall persecutions raised in the Church Yea no Hereticks no Schismaticks except Aerius and his few complices who discontent for not obtaining a Bishoprick which â—e sought and turning Arrian was the first the onely and the fitâ—â—st engine to oppose Episcopacy as Epiphanius observes were ever so wild so fanatick so desperate as to cast off all Episcopall succession Authority over them both in Ordination and jurisdiction yea they knew no meanes to keep their confederacies and factions better together than that which they saw had alwaies been serviceable to preserve the true Churches communion Though the Manicheans Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Pelagians and others together with the Novatians Donatists withdrew from or were justly excluded by the Bishops of the sound and orthodox profession yet still these Heterodox Opiniasters had not onely Deacons and Presbyters but Bishops of their own Some of which Bishops afterward returning to the Catholick Communion were not degraded from their Episcopall power but onely suspended from the exercise of it in another Bishops jurisdiction or Diocese without his leave which being granted to some of them gave occasion to those Chorepiscopi which were Bishops without particular title and locall jurisdiction but yet enjoying and using this power of Ordination in some Country-Townes and Villages by the permission of the Bishop or Metropolitane of the Diocese or Province residing in the chief City which indulgence was after as the Church-Histories tell us taken away from the Chorepiscopi when it was found to occasion great inconveniences by admitting two Bishops in one Precinct or Diocese Certainly what is so pregnantly Catholick and usefull that not onely all good men but even such as were evill could not but approve and use it it were not onely folly but frenzy to cast quite away if it were the full vote and free act of the Nation What Apology could be sufficient to excuse this Nation either among Churches abroad or to posterity at home when they should see that by a rash partiall and popular precipitancy we have been hurried against all Reason Honor and Religion to forsake or to stop up the ancient fountaines of living waters which have alwaies flowed from Episcopall Ordination supplying this as all Churches in all places and offices with orderly Presbyters and usefull Deacons onely to try what those pits will afford which novellers have digged to themselves and which they eagerly obtrude upon this Church notwithstanding they are already found by sad experience to hold no such cleare and pure waters either for Doctrine or Discipline for Authority or Unity for Order or Peace as those were which the Apostles digged and the Catholick Church ever used and esteemed for sacred In this great point then of Right Ordination and true Ministeriall Authority of which the Learned Mr. Mason professeth next his salvation he desires to be assured it is as I humbly conceive not onely piously but prudently necessary for our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry to be effectually vindicated and by all possible meanes fairly united If there were ever any other way of Ordination used or allowed in the Church of Christ let the Authors Histories and instances be produced either as to their grounds or their practise If there were never any other either used or approved or thought of besides that which was in the Church of England managed by Bishops as necessary and chief agents in it truly it is but Justice Reason Conscience and Honor to own this Truth to follow this Catholick precedent to returne to an holy conformity with pious Antiquity which neither invented nor induced Bishops or Episcopall Ordination and jurisdiction as an affected novelty or a studied variety but they followed doubtlesse herein what was received from the very first Bishops who succeeded to the Apostles as authorized and placed by them So that as the succession of Bishops was lineally reducible to the Apostles which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Nicephorus and others evidently prove not onely by their publick Registers but by their private memories when the names of Bishops were fresh in Christians minds and not very numerous as in the second and third Centuries No lesse may be affirmed of Ordination by Bishops it had its precept and pattern from the Apostles expresly committed and enjoyned to some persons as chief Bishops never trusted to meer Presbyters alone much less to people in common so far as any Record of the Church Sacred or Ecclesiastick doth informe us whose constant silence in this case is a better Testimony against all innovation of Ecclesiasticall Ordination than all the Sorites the Rhapsodies heapes and scamblings of I know not what broken scraps and wrested allegations out of any Scriptures or Fathers can be by which I see some men have sought with much dust sweat and blood to bring in their new uncertaine unaccustomed and unauthentick formes of Ordination exclusive of any President or Bishop who ever was as the principall Verb in a sentence which cannot be wanting without making the sense of all other words very lame defective incoherent and insignificant These grand perswasions joyned to the sad experiences made in Englands late variations do thus far command me to be more intent and earnest that in this point of valid complete undoubted and most authoritative Ordination we might be made uniform that all Ministers like currant money might have the same image and superscription upon them It is most certaine that the Christian and Reformed Religion will never be able to shine either clearly or constantly or comfortably upon the consciences of Christians either as Ministers or people while it is in this great point of Ordination so darkned clouded and eclipsed that it lookes like the Sun wrapped in sackcloth or the Moon turned into blood What Ministry what Ministers what Ordination what Ordained what Ordainers what Ordinances of Christ will in time be much esteemed in England by the Nobility Gentry or Yeomanry when they shall see various waies of Ordination daily invented and obtruded pittifull Novelties induced uniform Antiquity discarded Primitive Episcopacy exautorated a subordinate Presbytery scorned a popular parity and petulancy indulged every where to make what extemporary Priests and Preachers they list of the dregs and meanest of the people as little God knowes to their own soules benefit as to the Churches peace or to the honor of this Nation though they do it with as much
faith or manners they may more testifie their distances from and animosities against each other as Ministers Men of very good parts yea and of piety many times as Saint Jerome and Ruffinus from lesser disputes and differences are transported to wide and sharp defiances not onely as to their persons but as to their perswasions Hence we see Ministers of different descents commonly affect to be known by some different points Doctrines Presbyterians and Independents are thought generally to follow Mr. Calvin in all points as sworne to his dictates or determinations who was a man though of excellent parts yet not of Divine and infallible perfections but mixed with humane infirmities passions and imperfections Episcopall Divines are suspected most-what to have at least a tang and relish of Lutheran Arminian Pelagian opinions some are said to run out to a ranknesse of Socinianisme though the most and best of them I know do confine themselves to the Doctrine of their Mother the Church of England which was neither inconstant curious nor superfluous but cleare necessary and constant owning no Dictator but Christ and no Canon of Faith but the Scriptures doing and determining all things of Religion with great gravity counsell moderation charity and circumspection besides a just soveraigne Authority which swayes much with the Episcopall Clergy As the Church of England did not despise Luthers Melanchthons or Calvins judgement so it justly preferred its own before theirs or any one mans being alwaies guided by the concurrent Wisdome and Piety of many Learned and Godly Clergy-men both Bishops and Presbyters no way inferiour to those or any forraigne Divines and in some things far their superiours not onely as to the eminent places they held in this Church but as to the great discretion and temper of their Spirits which made many of them fitter for the glorious Crown of Martyrdome which they enjoyed than either of those two hotter-spirited yet renowned men who died in their beds who had not onely to contend with the Papall errors and superstitions which then extreamely pestered them and all Christendome but with their own passions and transports yea and with those many popular extravagancies which they rather occasioned I hope than designed among the vulgar who presently fancyed that they had the precepts and patternes of those great men Luther and Calvin to animate them to popular seditious rude injurious and rebellious methods of Reformation in which the very plebs or populacy imagined themselves better able to judge of Religion than any of their Governours in Church or State and because they had more hands therefore they must needs have better hearts and heads to do that work when and how they listed Which mad methods as the Church of England never used in its practise so it perfectly abhorred in its Doctrine to which few Ministers do heartily ingenuously and fully conforme who have forsaken its Discipline and Ordination from which who so flies furthest commonly wanders and wilders most in Enthusiastick Familistick and Anabaptistick opinions In order to this designe of restoring an uniforme and Authoritative Ordination O how ingenuous how religious how prudent how just how charitable how noble a work would it be on all sides for wise and worthy men to have some regard to those few clusters of Episcopacy which are yet remaining in England as a seed in which may be a blessing if the learned and venerable Bishops yet living among us were fairely treated and invited to such a concurrence and common union in this point of Ordination as might transmit both it and their Authority without any flaw or scruple of schisme interruption or fraction as most valid complete and authentick to posterity according to the Catholick and Primitive patterne O how great a security and satisfaction would this conjuncture and derivation completion of holy orders by Bishops with Presbyters give to many learned mens scruples and to many good Christians consciences without any injury or offence that I know to such of any party as are truly pious and peaceable who no doubt would be glad to see that no disorder or discord might be in holy orders from which as from a good well-tempered spring in a Watch all the regular motions of the wheeles and the true indications of the hand are derived directed and depending There can be nothing but clashings enterferings and confusions in any Church or society of Christians where there are crosse-grained contradictive or counterfeited Ministers as to their Ordination Here must be laid the principall and corner binding-stone of our happy Constitution and Communion as a Christian Church or Ecclesiasticall polity The affecting of novelty and variety in this as to the maine of the Ministeriall Order Power and Authority had been the way to have made at first a very crasie and weak Reformation in England and is now the way to deforme yea to destroy all again giving infinite advantages to the projects and policies of Rome also to the licentious distempers of mens own hearts and manners which considerations have made me the more large and importune as in a point of no lesse consequence and importance as to the visible constitution and managery of any Church than the unity and uniformity of civill power or Magistratick Authority is necessary for any Commonwealth or Kingdom where divided magistracy doth certainly tend to distraction and so to destruction as our own late miseries do abundantly convince us as to our civill peace and secular interest And truly no lesse will a divided Ministry infallibly tend to the distraction first and then the destruction of this Church and the Reformed Religion a new Ministry portends either no Ministry or no true one And where most Reverend Episcopacy which hath so many glorious marks of Primitive Antiquity Rare Piety Signall Prosperity Undisputable Universality Apostolick Order Scripturall Authority and Divine benediction upon it where this comes after 1600. years of Christianity and one hundred yeares of an happy Reformation to be questioned baffled exautorated there is no great likelihood that the novices and punyes Presbytery or Independency or Anabaptisme or Enthusiasme should take any great root in the love and esteem of any Christians who if Learned Wise and Upright must needs have greater confidence of and reverence for an Episcopall Ministry than for any new-modes which never yet had at their best any thing either very desirable or very commendable in them as to Wise and Grave mens affections and judgements And take them in their passions pragmaticalnesse popularities partialities novelties varieties inconstancies confusions and injuriousness and insolencies by which they have either begun or increased their parties waies and designes in many places many times against the will and Authority of lawfull Magistrates and Soveraigne Princes no lesse than against the dignity authority of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church look upon the best of them I say under these marks which are almost inseparable from them
they lose him who is best to be found in the Evangelicall and still voyce to which the Priests and Prophets of the Jewish also the Apostles with their successors the Godly Bishops of the Christian Churches have alwaies listned and generally obeyed judging nothing more diametrally distant from and opposite to true Religion than Rebellion that is the usurping of that power which is by Right and Law anothers upon any religious pretence whatsoever Certainly the Jewel of Loyalty neither was nor ever will be safer kept than in the Cabinet of Primitive Episcopacy as Aarons Râ—d and the Tables of the Law were best preserved in the Ark of the Testimony and in the most holy place which were laid up with the pot of Manna Emblems most lively setting forth the happy State of any Christian Church and Nation while it maintaines the Lawes of God and man while it subjects all men to the Rod or Scepter of just Government both in Church and State supporting as the Princes so the chief Pastors Bishops and Guides of the Church with an honorable plenty and all other Ministers both in Church and State with competent and ingenuous alimony As Christian Kings and Queenes have ever been according to Gods promise the most indulgent liberall and tender nurses of the Church of Christ in all Countries every where retaining and reverencing Episcopacy as most agreeable with their Soveraignty and Monarchy so have all true Christian Bishops in all Ages and places ever been the most Learned Assertors of and the humble submitters to Soveraigne and Monarchical Authority of Princes and no lesse to that of Aristocracy in Common-weales or Republiques such as Florence was and Venice still is who never yet saw any reason of State to move them to change the ancient and honorable Government of Catholick Episcopacy for any other which hath as more of parity popularity and poverty so lesse of honest policy firm peace and religious loyalty Certainly a Christian Prince or State that designes stability to their power and peace will need these two swords of Soveraignty and Episcopacy to keep himself his people and his Church safe A wise Governour cannot but see and say of Episcopacy compared to all other formes as David said of Goliahs sword there is none like that in respect of its principles operations and influences as to religious loyalty and publick tranquillity The loyalty and civil subjection of all novellers seemes to be with so many salvo's and reserves of godlinesse and grace of Religion Christs Discipline or true Church-waies of Princes not being tyrants or persecutors in their subjects sense that there is little certainty much lubricity and as many dangers as evasions But the Loyalty of Episcopacy is positive and plenary resolute and absolute according to those cleare Evangelical precepts and patternes either to act or suffer with good conscience owning no pensations as from God or Man Pope or Presbyter or People which some Antiepiscopall Preachers and Professors seem to have found out as the Gnosticks of old did being loth to be Carbonated or Crucified Christians if they can help it pleading that Right followes Might especially in Cases and Engagements of Religion excusing the Primitive Martyrs softness and easinesse to suffer as Bellarmine and others do the Popes pristine submission to the Emperours by reason of their Minority being then in their bibs and hanging-sleeves CHAP. XXI MY third Plea to recommend Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy to my wise and honoured Countrymen is taken from the consideration of the Genius or temper of the English Nation in which the Spirits of people are generally so heady and giddy so high and stout that they cannot long bear any way of Government or any Governours which seem levelling popular plebeian and prostrate however they may for a fit of novelty or discontent be pleased with such Pageants yet these are not the Mansion-houses that English people will dwell in They are too stiff-necked and stubborn a people ever to reverence or submit to such Magistrates in State or such Discipliners in Church as are but their Peers and Equals at best and many times their Inferiours as in estate and learning so in all those things Divine Civil and Humane which are proper to conciliate respect and command submission upon the account of some eminency of merit or worth set off with some conspicuity of riches honour or power The late Presbyterian design and defeat in England as to inducing their Checker-work of Lay-elders to be Joynt-rulers and Partners with Preachers in Ecclesiastical autority placing as they must needs even silly Mechanicks in many places in a parallel jurisdiction with the ablest Scholars and Ministers as to Church-government and Discipline yea and above them in their numbers and suffrages the speedy baffling I say and discountenancing of this pitiful project with all its long train baggage and ammunition by a general dislike difuse and neglect of it sufficiently shews that either Common people in England have more modesty yet left in them than to think themselves fit judges and rulers in the State or Church with their Magistrates and Ministers or else that they utterly disdain to be Catechized and controlled by such as are their plain country-neighbours and trivial Comrades of the same forme for rusticity and simplicity and many times as much below them in prudence as in estate in civility as in solid piety to which a factious and pragmatick ambition in any man adds very little The speedy confutation of this incongruous polity and stratagem which to please the people sought to besiege my selfe and all Ministers both in City and Country with four or five or more Lay-elders made up of Farmers Shop-keepers Clothiers and Handicrafts-men to be our Assessors and Assistants as Censors and Supervisors of all the Parish and our selves too not only with us but in some things above us Ministers both in number and popular influence this hath really wrought such an abhorrence and disdain in most people of all such Lay-ruling-elders and such a despiciency of all such Disciplining-plots as are neither prudent nor pertinent for the English temper that even those Ministers who were at first most zealous to set up in stead of the fair Temples and Cathedrals those small Synagogues and low Consistories of Lay-partners in Church-government even these Ministers find they have lost much of that pristine respect and influence they had among their own and all other people so that upon the point neither great nor small will now be further than they list governed by such methods of imprudent men who have reproched their own mother-Church diminished themselves and their Order blasted their Ministerial Ordination soiled that fountain whence they sprang disgraced those venerable Bishops who were lawfully and worthily their Fathers and Rulers despised as much as in them lyes the very Catholick and honourable name of Episcopacy abolished its ancient honour and autority which were ever established and preserved till now by the
occasionall preaching to get their bread Ecclesiasticall Courts we have none nor any considerable or competent Judges of our own Cloth and Calling To Convocations or Synods we are never called which I conceive might be as usefull and necessary for the religious interests of the Nation as Parlaments are for the secular and civil out of which the Clergy are wholly excluded Bishops being ejected out of the House of Peers where they sate so many hundreds of yeares yea ever since there was such a great Councel in the Nation and long before there was any House of Commons Neither Presbyterian nor Independent Ministers are admittable however they have either renounced their Clericall Order or Metamorphosed themselves both in apparel and in principles to a Laick forme Other men though they ordinarily preach yet may be chosen as Members of the House of Commons and sit there onely professed Preachers though not in Orders may not So that in neither House the Clergy or Ministry now have any other Proxyes Deputies Representees or Patrons than such as the meanest Mechanicks or Trades-men have no nor so much for these may have of their own Art and Calling there to assert their Rights which Ministers have not as any spirituall Corporation or Fraternity not so much as the meanest Burgesse Towne or civil Corporation Nothing is left the Clergy but a Lay-Committee for Religion which may in time be as great an injury and a grievance to the true Religion as any they sit to inquire of while all the Concernments of the Church all matters Ecclesiastick all the Doctrine and manners of the Clergy all that concernes the Preservation or Reformation of Religion all disputes and determination of controversies yea and of cases of Conscience all setling and asserting of true Doctrine all confutation of dangerous errors all Antidotes against the poysons and infections of Religion all direction for the decency of Gods publick worship for administration of holy Mysteries for Ordination of Ministers for execution of Church-Order and Discipline all the Liberties and Livelihoods of Ministers must be wholly left either to the Learning Religion and Discretion of some plaine Country Gentlemen who God knowes are most-what but very superficially studied in these cases being better skill'd in hawks and hounds in their oves and boves than in the deep studies or points of Divinity nay t is well with many of them if they have not forgot their first Catechize and principles of Religion or else the Clergies concernments must fall under the judgement of Lawyers who finding no worldly profit to come by their Pleadings for Religion do not much mind them or enable themselves for them or they must be exposed to the piety of Physitians which was never thought very intense nor much in the Rode of their practise or the cases of Ministers must fall under the tender-heartednesse of Souldiers who are more skilled in Swords than Bookes in Military than Ecclesiasticall Discipline men of blood as David himself are not fit to build Temples or Churches as God tels him or at last the affaires of Ministers must be referred either to the formall gravity of some solemn Citizens whose Shops and Counting-houses have been their most constant and profitable studies or to the pragmatick activity of some confident Mechanicks who whetting each other by their disputes and janglings are every where ambitious to be as thornes in the flesh and goades in the sides of poor Ministers left they should be lifted up above measure To the mercy of some of which sharp censors had the Ministers of England been sometime left they had not left one Minister in his Living nor one Church Living in England for a Minister But God then hampered them in their strange Vagaries preserving still some Remains of this Church and its Clergy from being wholly left like Sodom and Gomorrah And indeed who almost is there of any profession never so sober that ingenuously now or at any time sympathizeth with either Scholars or Ministers who is there that by a native as St. Paul saith and genuine affection careth for their affaires All seek their own Profit Honor Pleasure Any of them may invade the place and office of a Minister if they list Few are scrupulous to pinch or deprive Ministers of their profits none expects any great good from them but rather unwelcome reproofes and censures according as every Minister is either severe or supercilious and cholerick setting up his small Tribunall and exercising his Discipline as he fancies best scaring silly men and women sometime with the thunder-bolts of his Excommunications Examinations and Suspensions that generally all people are jealous of Ministers peartnesse and ambition which aime to rule them with a Rod of Iron when they have but the Scepter of a Reed in their hand Hence is it that most Gentlemen Noblemen Yeomen and Artizans not onely do not much care for Ministers that are weighty and steady but they generally look asquint on them and are afraid of them as their Tetricall Reprovers and Moroser Monitors In all respects all men are now tempted to despise them as made every way inferiour to all sorts of men of small gaines and uncertaine Estates of no publik power honor or influence not worthy to be adopted to any friendship nor to be feared for any distance and enmity persons most safely to be injured of any men having nothing to revenge or right themselves with but their sad lookes and sharp tongues a generation of men rather filled as with wind and swoln with their own airy speculations than any way considerable for solid sufficiency and usefull worth yea by very many and most illiterate persons all Ministers are esteemed no other than their Leeches Hangby's and Dependants whom grudgingly they entertaine rather out of formality than conscience out of policy more than piety Persons of some literature and ingenuous breeding have many times secret emulations and rivalries against their Ministers judging themselves not onely the better men in all other respects but the better Scholars too as it oft falls out now so that they think it time lost to heare their Ministers preach because they find them do it with little study or dexterity and with lesse Authority The meanest poorest and plainest sort of people expect neither much good nor hurt by any Minister whom they see every where reduced to such a tenuity and minority that there is no spark of Majesty or beam of Magistracy among them since the ancient and honourable Chairs of the Bishops of England have been turned into Joint-stools and their Jurisdictions or Courts both Ecclesiastical and Civil resolved into Lay-Committees This blessing hath the Clergy of England gained since Ministers affected to ride on Scotch saddles and Galloway-Naggs which was once made an Article of accusation against Bishop Farrar in Queen Elizabeths third year as a diminishing of his Episcopal dignity Thus desolate dejected and despised is the condition of the Clergy now in England both
in horrid and desolate plantations I confesse things of this nature which being obsolete are urged afresh upon the publick practise of Christians in Religion ought as I conceive to have their revived and renewed Authority from the joynt Counsell pblick prudence and consent of the Nation else rigorous remedies even of disorders may prove worse than the supposed or reall diseases For many antiquated Ceremonies in Religion though they be not quite worne out yet as garments long agoe made and now out of fashion are rather to be kept as Monuments in the Wardrobe and Records of Religion than to be on the suddaine put upon mens backs and urged to be worne especially when they seem antique to the most and uncomely by their unwontedness to be commonly worne though the stuffe be never so good and the state of them not unhandsome Although all these might not amount to any thing that is properly Popery no more than a thousand shadowes can make one substance or body yet many did judge them as a cumulative kind of Popery which cloyes Religion with such a Masse of needless Ceremonies that it is like a tree too much over-growne with mosse even to a barrenness or like a garment not adorned and set off but wholly hidden incumbred and buried with a superfluity of lace which is either a great Prodigality or as great a Vanity and Affectation especially considering the matronely gravity which best becomes Christian and Reformed Religion as that sancy was of our Henry the Fifth who when he was Prince of Wales came one day to the Court and his Fathers presence with a suite all cut and embroidered with oilet-holes having a needle hanging out of every hole that he looked more like a Porcupine than a Prince But as that Prince afterward proved a very brave King very pious and valiant besides successfull which adds much to any Princes piety in the opinion of common people when he left his needless needles betook him to his Victorious Sword so it is probable this Bishop if he had received so grave an admonition as the wisdome and meekness of a Parlament could have given him and other Bishops of his mind would easily have amended any such luxuriancy of Ceremonious observations which if they would be a meanes to induce any judicious Papists to change their opinion as to these points of Doctrine which most divide us and them truly it were a very great uncharitableness in us not to comply very far with them in whatever the Church commands as innocent and decent ceremonies But sure they must be very silly birds and scarce worth the catching which will be taken onely with the chaffe of ceremonies or pictures in a case of Religion which so highly concernes their consciences and salvation so as to change their side upon these formalities untill their judgement in the maine matters of Doctrine be convinced and satisfied nor do I know how we can well lay such strong lime-twiggs among such chaffe as would hold any Papists firme to our party and perswasion Not that I would have them scared or scandalized the more against us for want of that reverence and decency which becomes us in the worship of God and in holy mysteries by the dictates of Reason as well as the Indulgences of Religion but considering that just and vast distance in some grand points between us and the Papists as to outward worship grounded upon inward perswasion and devotion I think it becomes the wisdome and wariness of Protestants according to the admirable temper and moderation of the Church of England in its Reformation as not to deny themselves the use of any things enjoyned as decent because Papists had abused them so not to affect by any particular modes to symbolize so far with them as may confirme them in any thing that we judge Superstitious or Idolatrous This made many sober men so much strangers to the Policy and Piety of those who so much urged to set the Lords Table Altar-wise to adorne it with the Crucifix and other pictures and to bow with adoration toward it Though these might be lawfull in the abstract yet sure not expedient in that state wherein the Reformed Profession stands opposite to the Papists superstitious veneration of a Creature transubstantiated to a God Though I have no conscience of duty toward an Idol so as to worship it but onely to the true God who is every where yet I think it best for me not to go into an Idols Temple there to worship the true God when I may do it other-where without any such appearance of evill or scandall to those that see me and know my principles against it But as to the true and real discriminations between the Religion of the Church of England and Popery in Doctrine I conceive the best dimensions of this Bishop are to be taken by those that are wholly strangers to him as I am by that notable Book which was lately published and dedicated to his Lordship by Dr. Cosins his well-known friend and successour than whom no man ever fell under greater popular jealousies for Popish yet no man it seems less deservedly as appeared when he came to the Test before the Committee of Lords who then cleered him as to Mr. Smarts accusations for Superstition and since that he hath further cleered himself no man more handsomly before the best Protestants in France where his long exile and sufferings have not so exasperated him as to make him yield any way to the Papists yea no man hath at home or abroad been a more stout Defender of the Protestant Religion as it was established in the Church of Engl. which the testimony of Mr. Daillé one of the Protestant Ministers at Charenton neer Paris fully and freely confirms telling all the world That they are either beasts or fanaticks who count Dr. Cosins a Papist from whom no man is really more removed which his very excellent History touching the Canon of the Scripture fully assures us being a grand and fundamental point in difference between the Papists and us wherein he having so irreparably battered and shaken their Apocryphal Babel by solidly proving the Church of Rome to be erroneous and pertinacious in that point all sober men will soon suspect her honesty fidelity and pretended infallibility in other things which do as little agree with the pristine Practice and judgement of the Catholick Church Truely it is pitty so great and able a vindicator of the Reformed Religion should longer suffer a pilgrimage among Papists being forced to dwell in Mesech and to have his habitation in the Tents of Kedar and not have leave to return in peace to his native Country of which he hath so well deserved in this learned undertaking which piece sure he would not have dedicated being so Antipapistical that it peels the very bark of the Church of Rome round to his friend the Bishop of Ely if he did not intend him a collateral security
the maine Rule End and Order of Religion This once done however there might still be some tossings and dis-satisfactions as to private mens opinions yet as to the maine interests of Religion as Christian and Reformed also as to the grand concernments of this Church in its Unity Honor Purity and just Priviledges these would by such Ligatures and limits of Truth and Love be much preserved from running into endlesse factions and sacrilegious confusions which cannot but tend to civil combustions and end at last in the Romish usurpation which as the Dam of Romulus never failes to make its prey of any Churches that are divided and any Christians that are scattered dis-satisfied or scandalized with their Religion by which meanes either our Thames will run to Tiber or Tiber will come to our Thames This will be the last result these the dregs and bottom of our Religious distractions and unsetlednesse if they be not wisely remedied Mean time for want of some such sober fixation and equall standard of Religion in its publick profession to which both Prince and people of all sorts might both wisely consent and conform First there cannot be that mutual Christian Charity and neighbourly Communion among subjects Next there cannot be that kindness or correspondence that Love and Fidelity between Prince and people which would be if they did say Amen to the same prayers and serve the same God in the same manner Civil disaffections do infallibly follow between Soveraignes and Subjects upon any Diversity in Religion as is evident not onely in Germany Poland France Ireland and Scotland where the greatest popular dis-satisfactions and asperities against their Princes were still raised by the jealousies which some people had of their Religion but also in England while Subjects suspected as if their Governors in Church and State did daily warp from that Religion which was Reformed and established in the Church of England from which at last it appeares none varied lesse than those that have been most destroyed none more than those whose jealousies and passions for Reformation have over-born them and this Church to as great deformities as there are novelties and to as many distractions as there are divisions which in Religion as wounds do not onely divide but deface the beauty of any body Naturall Civil and Ecclesiastick Nor can there be any publick discrepancies of Religion between Prince and people but either the Prince cries out of Faction Sedition and Rebellion against his subjects or subjects complain of Tyranny and Persecution as to their Princes injunctions at least of superstition as to his profession if it be with more ceremony or lesse solemnity than they fancy or are wonted to Yea we find by some mens interpretation of their Covenant the clause for allegiance thus limited in the preservation of true Religion that is say some as far as we think the King preserves what seemes to us true Religion so far we will be faithfull to him if he varies from that we may fall from him Besides these mischiefs which are either imminent or incumbent and indeed unavoidable where Prince and People are still left to chuse their several Religions amidst the Varieties and Uncertainties of different Modes and Forms of opposite Preachers Parties Professions and Churches such as now divide not onely England but all Christendom in time the Prince or chief Magistrate here in England or any Christian and Reformed Church may be either an Atheist as unsetled in any Religion because he sees so many or else he may be an Idolater an Arrian a Socinian a Papist an Anabaptist a Familist a Seeker a Quaker any thing or nothing as well as a Protestant or Professor of the true Reformed Religion which is never well Reformed if it be not well united and established no more than a diseased body is well cured or purged which is daily breaking out in boyles and botches And since experience shews us in England that many Subjects by the scandal of our Divisions are turned Atheists Papists Socinians Anabaptists Familists Seekers Ranters Quakers any thing yea nothing as to true Religion which consists in Piety Equanimity Charity the Love of God and our Neighbour what shall hinder those that hereafter may be in Soveraign power and exposed to many temptations to take the same freedom when they list and to profess Popery or any thing when Religion is left to their choice and Indifferency there being no publick Worship Catechize Articles or Canons to which all agree as the Card and Compass of Religion by which both Prince and People may safely and unanimously steer their course towards Heaven in a Christian consent and harmony much more punctual and explicit than that is of owning onely one God which the Turks do and one Lord Jesus Christ which all Hereticks and Schismaticks do Which sad fate of a Prince and People who are every day to seek and chuse or change their Religion cannot befall England without sore conflicts and many bloody bickerings the temper of the English being not so dull and flegmatick and over-awed as that which possesseth some Dutch-men and Almaines whose zeal for trade and gain besides their social drinking which begins and ends all their differences makes them more capable to endure different professions of Religion among them so far as they do not endanger the civil peace nor obstruct their blessed commerce yet even these Churches and States have some setled form and profession of Religion in Doctrine worship and discipline yea they in the Netherlands have a very handsom Liturgy and other publick boundaries or Symbols of their Religion from which when once their Magistrates perceived such variations to grow by the Remonstrants party as might shake their civil peace and the stability of their Church they did to their no small cost and pains stop the breach both by the Synod of Dort and the power of the Sword not permitting those whom the publick sense counted Innovators in Religion to enjoy any such freedom or toleration as might endanger any publick perturbations which would have grown easily from such parties as wanted not Learning Wit and Pretentions of Piety on each side to carry on their Opinions as far as their passions and interests listed which is to have Empire and Dominion not onely over all mens bodies but their souls too either by fair or foul means for no Opinion or Sect is content with the Trundle-bed or Footstool but affects the Throne and Scepter of State and of Religion that it may have a complete soveraignty over men which is never well managed by private mens petty activities and therefore best prevented by the publick Wisdom Moderation and Setledness which ought to be in every Nation State Kingdom or Commonwealth that owns it self as a Church of Christ who is but one Lord and hath taught all his Disciples but one Religion All sober and honest men whose fishing and harvest lyes not in our troubles do sufficiently see that Religion as Christian
to excommunicate here and there several Christians and their families as single Slips and Off-sets of Christianity which might grow apart by themselves but their aim was with preaching Verity to plant Unity and with true Faith to graft fraternal Charity which conjoyned them to and with Christ and all Christians in the world This being a most visible mark of Christs Disciples also a special means for mutual assistance and comfort amidst the many persecutions which Christians would meet with sufficient utterly to discourage them if when they were scattered from each other they were presently without any joynt harmony greater combination and ampler communion of Saints by which means whereever Christians fled from one place to another if they met with Christians they were sure of hospitable friends bringing as they ever did letters of communication or commendation from their Bishops which presently made their way to such a kind reception and communion in all holy duties as that station permitted as Catechumens or Penitents or Eucharistical Communicants in which they stood whereever they had lived Therefore as the Apostolical wisdom so all their successors diligently gathered single believers and private families of Christians into greater Congregations these they led on to larger combinations which comprehended the Christians of many Villages Towns Cities and Territories according as the Spirit of Christ directed them for the greater conveniency and benefit of both Ministers and people who scattered in small bodies or parcels must needs be both more cold and more feeble but so united in grand Societies they would be both warmer stronger and safer and besides more eminent and conspicuous in the eyes of all the world Such beyond all doubt were those Apostolical and famous Churches distinguished by the Spirit of God according to the chief Cities which were the centre of their Religious addresses for Church-Order Authority and Communion as the Church of Jerusalem Antioch Rome Ephesus Corinth Sardis Smyrna Colosse with many more whose Cities being most-what Metropolitan or Mother-cities as to secular power and distribution of civil justice they were chosen as meetest for the principal residency of Religious Order Polity and Authority wherein as was meet the blessed Apostles did during their lives preside as Bishops either in their persons or by those faithful Apostolick men whom they as St. Paul did Timothy Titus Archippus others appointed as Rulers or Bishops under them for the carrying on of the service of Christ his Church partly by the common duty and office Ministerial which was to preach baptize celebrate other holy Mysteries in an orderly way even in lesser Congregations yea to private Families and single persons as occasion required which was the work of Bishops and Presbyters in common and partly to manage that presidential power and Episcopal Authority over both Presbyters and people united in larger combinations and Churches as might best preserve the Purity Unity and Honor of the Church and Christian Religion in doctrine and discipline also derive by way of right Ordination after the pattern given to Timothy and Titus and others a continued succession of an holy and authoritative Ministry by such an eminent power of Order as was specially delivered to the chief Apostles and by them to their principal successors as Bishops in those great Apostolical and complete Churches where as Christians increased many Presbyters were ordained by the chief Pastor or Bishop to be both Counsellers and Assistants to him in that Evangelical work of teaching and governing the Church committed to him First as appointed immediately by the chief Apostles while they lived and after as chosen by the surviving Presbyters in every precinct or Diocese to succeed so far in that Apostolical eminency and presidential authority as was necessary for the Churches constant Order and good Government according to that precedent Charter and Commission which all Churches had received from the Apostles and they from Christ not as a temporary Ordinance but such as for the main end and method the Lord would have continued till his coming again by a succession of ordinary Bishops who are a lesser or second sort of Apostles in many things short of their gifts yet having the same ordinary power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons to appoint them their offices and places in the Churches Ministry and to see they execute the same as is meet for the edifying of the Church in Truth and Love to rebuke and reject them in case of failing and obstinacy As the Church daily thus increased spreading its boughs even to the utmost seas still its Polity or Government as the bark or rinde of the Tree enlarged with the body or bulk being most necessary for the preserving both of lesser and greater branches to knit and bind all together to convey the sap and juice to every part and to the whole This once peeled or broken or cut wounds the tree weakens and oft kills that part which is so injured Trees may as well thrive without their bark and bodies live without their skins as Churches without setled and united Government Therefore that all true Christians might still keep a Catholick Correspondence Subordination and holy Communion between the whole and every branch or member they had not onely Deacons above the people but Presbyters above Deacons and Bishops above Presbyters yea and as the borders and numbers of the Church so increased that not onely Presbyters but Bishops grew many and so fit to be put into some method and order they had Archbishops or Metropolitanes above ordinary Bishops and Patriarchs above Archbishops or Metropolitanes and a generall Council above all thus still drawing nearer to a center of union and mutuall intelligence So that first three afterward five Patriarchs had the general Episcopacy Superintendency and Inspection over all the Christian world Nor were these Bishops Metropolitans and Patriarchs any ambitious affectations or forcible intrusions of pride or tyranny upon the Churches of Christ but by a wise and general consent on all sides Christian Bishops did so cast themselves into comely rancks of Subordination after the Apostolical pattern as might most suit to the good order correspondence and unanimity of all Christians as but one Church there being in the first 300. years of sore persecution no other motives to these eminent places and regular orders in the Church of Bishops Archbishops Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs but onely those of Labours and Cares of Sufferings and Martyrdoms which still pressed most upon the Presidents and chief Governours or Bishops of the Churches as was evident in the glorious marks of the Lord Jesus to be seen on the Faces Hands and other parts of the Bodies of those venerable Bishops 318 which met at the first great gaudy-day of the Church in the Council of Nice which all made but one Episcopacy and were Representers as well as Presidents or Rulers of but one Catholick Church After which time by the favour of
by learned and godly men Bishops and other Ministers were notably discovered and by some Christian Princes or States happily amended with great order and by due authority as in other places so no where with more Wisdom Justice and Moderation than in England Where as in most of the Churches protesting against the Roman deformities especially those of the Lutheran denomination the ancient Orders and Authority both of Bishops and Presbyters were preserved as is evident in the Augustane confession which finds no fault with but highly approves the Government of the Church by Bishops under Episcopacy provided Bishops would joyn in a just Reformation of those gross abuses which were the Churches intolerable grievances as well as the dishonour of Christian Religion and Christian Bishops whose deserved Honours Estates and Eminencies in Authority they saw no cause to envie grudge or diminish So far were these first Reformers from hewing down Episcopacy as if it cumbred the ground that they onely digged about it and mended it that it might bring forth good fruit as it did in England and elsewhere While the Western Churches Reformation was yet but crude and in motion by Luthers means there arose Mr. John Calvin about the Year 1541. a man of good Learning acute Wit copious Eloquence great Industry quick Passions sharp Pen of reputed Piety and of no less Policy Him the people of Geneva thought the fittest man in the world to settle their distracted Church and State after they had with the wonted arts of tumultuating and discontented people forced Eustace their Bishop and Prince to flye from his Palace and City his Bishoprick and his Seigniorie because he would not presently gratifie them with such a Reformation as they imperiously demanded rather than modestly desired Mr. Calvin as Mr. R. Hooker hath excellently set it forth undertook with much difficulty and after many indignities worthy of popular levity fury and petulancy put upon him to settle their Church-affairs together with the civil State in such order as he thought not most Scriptural primitive and Catholick but most prudential plausible and probable in humane reason and honest policy to take and hold the tumultuating inconstancy of that people so to bring them to something of civil and religious order acting herein not upon any Wiclefian or the after Presbyterian and Antiepiscopal Principles as imagining either Episcopacy to be unlawful or sole Presbytery to be necessary as of Divine Institution neither of which were his judgement as is sufficiently and vehemently declared by his passionate approbation of reformed Bishops and his esteeming so honourably of regular Episcopacy that he passeth all Anathemas or curses on those that are against them so far was Calvin from laying the Axe to the root of this Tree which with Christianity had ever as he confessed born Episcopacy But he rather went upon Erastian principles and politick grounds looking it seems upon the Government of the Church as he did upon the Lords-day which is not elder nor more authentick or Catholick as to the Churches use and observation than Episcopacy to be in their nature mutable as of Ecclesiastick yet Divine prescription according as Times Occasions and Minds of men might fall out He well knew being a learned man and oft confesseth in his Writings the primitive blessing and universal authority of presidential Episcopacy in all Churches yet he neither thought it nor any forme of Government any more than clothes to be essential to the substance and body or any Church or of the Christian Religion but variable to several forms and polities as prudence might invite or necessity require so that he never set up any soveraign and unepiscopal Presbytery as an Idol or Moloch to which not onely the children but the Fathers of the Churches even very godly and reformed Bishops were all sacrificed He thought it did not misbecome his policy and prudence to serve the times and humors of the Citizens so far as to seem to vary the outward mode of their and all other Churches ancient government provided he served the Lord and that people in setling such a government as might preserve the Christian Reformed Religion among them in true Doctrine and good Manners which was the main work which Calvin seemed to mind most To have reconciled the City and their former Bishop was a matter impossible unless he or they had changed their minds in Religion to have perswaded them to elect a new Prince and Bishop of their own profession and opinion had been very imprudent considering either the fair offers they made to himself of being not titularly indeed but virtually and really both the Prince and Prelate or remembring that strong fancy of Liberty which had now so filled and intoxicated all sorts of Citizens In the last place to have set up himself in the pomp and formalities of a Bishop and a Prince had been an act of too much Impudence and Envy for a person of his Ingenuity Policy and Dexterity in publick managements it sufficed his design so far to gratifie both the Populacy with seeming Liberty and the Optimacy with some civil and Magistratick Authority all of them with such reformed purity in Religion as most pleased them and yet to keep up himself and his collegues of the Ministry to such an height of Ecclesiastical Influence and Church-power as made them far from being either slaves to the Vulgar or cyphers to the Government for all cases civil and criminal as well as religious were one way or other reducible and so responsible either by way of comprimising or upon scandal or repentance or satisfaction to the cognizance and consistory of him and his collegues himself being as the Caesar they as his Bibuli In effect his Wisdom Reputation Eloquence and Courage set him up in Geneva and other places to so high an eminency of respect and authority as he equalled yea exceeded most Bishops however his pomp train and pension were but small after the usual bounty expectable from any State or City that list to make their Reformations of Religion compleat by robbing the Church and Clergy of their ancient Lands and Revenues which doubtless in that City had been so great and princely as upon the confiscation of them to their Town-box or Exchequer they might well have allowed Mr. Calvin their great Reformer and chief Pastor and his Associates a Salary much beyond an hundred pounds per ann with a little provision of Corn. But he wisely dissembled this Indignity finding that as Riches Pomp and Luxury had undone former Bishops so a voluntary kind of Poverty and Austerity would now best conciliate to him and his collegues a greater Reverence and Authority nor was it considerable to have a gay or rich scabbard provided they had sharp and well metall'd swords their Ambition was rather to intend Gods work in reforming Religion of its Leprosie with Elisha than in taking mans rewards with Gehazi In this Presbyterian Prelacy or Prelatick Presbytery
behold without seven dayes silence and astonishment like Job's friends the rufull and dismall spectacle of the Church of England which is like Job or Lazarus living indeed but almost buried in its Sores and Sorrowes not onely lying but even dying on its dunghill like the sometime lovely and beautifull Daughter of Zion now grovelling in the dust deserving another tender-hearted Jeremy who might write the book of England's Lamentations with his Teares since the History of her Fall and Ruine is written in blood Her own brood like the young Pelicans feeding upon her without any pity or remorse growing daily fiercer after they have once tasted of her flesh and more resolute as Absalom by the rapes they have rudely made upon a Matrone lately so comely chast and honourable whom Her destroyers dare now to count and call the filth and off-scouring of all Churches crying down Her holy habitations and conventions as cages and flocks of unclean birds Her holy Ministrations as impious and odious Her holy Bishops and Ministers as Antichristian usurpers and impostors Her whole Constitution as Babylonish and abominable worthy of nothing but their curses and comminations CHAP. VII HAth any Nation changed Her Gods though they are no Gods saith the Prophet expostulating with the inconstant and Apostatizing Jews who had despised the Word forsaken the Law and broken the everlasting covenant of God made with their forefathers What people that owns a God or a Saviour or a Soul immortall or any Divine Veneration under the name of their Religion was ever patient to heare their and their fore-fathers God blasphemed or to see that Religion wherein to the best of their understanding they agreed and professed publickly to serve and worship their God vulgarly baffled and contemned Was ever any part of mankind so stupidly barbarous as to behold without just grief and resentment their Oracles and Scriptures vilified and abused their solemn Prayers and Liturgies torn and burnt their Temples profaned and ruined their holy Services scorned and abhorred their Priests and Ministers of holy Mysteries impoverished and contemned In matters of Religion the light of nature hath taught every Nation to be commendably zealous and piously pertinacious esteeming this their highest honour to be very tender of any diminution dishonour or indignity offered to their Religion which reflects upon the majesty of their God whom every Nation may in charity be presumed to serve in such a way as they think to be most acceptable to their God every man being convinced that he ought to pay the highest respects to that Deity which he adores from which to be easily moved by vulgar clamours and inconstancy without grand and weighty demonstrations convincing a man of his own errour and his Countreys mistake or contrary to the dictates of conscience for any man shamefully to flatter or silently to comply with any such designs as appear first reproching their Religion next robbing their God and at last destructive to all publick Piety is certainly a temper so base so brutish so ignoble so servile so sordid so devilish that it is worse than professed or avowed Atheisme for he sins lesse that owns no God than he that mocks him or so treats him as the world may see he neither loves nor feares Him And can it I beseech you O noble Christians and worthy Gentlemen become the piety wisdome and honour of this so ancient and renowned Nation of England to behold with coldnesse and indifferency like Gallio the scamblings and prostitutions the levellings and abasings the scorns and calumnies so petulantly and prodigally cast by mechanick and plebeian spirits for the most part or by mercenary insolency upon that Christian and Reformed Religion which hath so long flourished among you and your fore-fathers and which was first setled among you not slightly nor superficially not by the preposterous policies passions and interests of our Princes not by the pusillanimity or partiality of over-awed Parlaments nor yet by the superstitious easinesse or tumultuary headinesse of the common people but upon learned publick and serious examination of every thing that was setled and owned as any point or part of our Religion There was godly grave mature and impartial counsel of most learned Divines used there was the full and free Parlamentary consent of all estates and degrees in this nation there was a strict and due regard had to the Word of God and the mind of Christ as to doctrine and duties to the faith and fundamentals of Religion without any regard to any such antique customes or traditions as seemed contrary to that rule As for the rituals and prudentials the circumstantiating and decorating of Religion great regard was had in them to the usages of pure and Primitive Antiquity so as became modest wise and humble Christians who seeing nothing in the ancient Churches Rites and Ceremonies contrary to Gods Word or beyond the liberty allowed them and all Churches in point of order and decency did discreetly and ingenuously study such compliance with them as shewed the least desire of novellizing or needless varying from and the greatest care of conforming to sober and venerable Antiquity Against all which sacred suffrages and ecclesiasticall attestations for the true Christian and Reformed Religion once setled in the Church of England now at last to oppose either popular giddinesse and desire of novelties or any secular policies and worldly designes or any brutish power that is neither rationall nor religious but meerly arbitrary and imperious altering and abolishing as the populacy listeth matters of Religion which are the highest concernments of any nation and so require the most publick counsels impartial debates and serious consent of all estates by such pitiful principles and the like unconscientious biasses for a Nation to be swayed in or swerved from the great and weighty matters of Religion once well established is certainly a perfect indication of present basenesse also an infallible presage of future unhappinesse Which I beseech God to divert from this Nation of England by your prayers and teares by your counsel and courage by your moderation and discretion who are too knowing to be ignorant and too ingenuous to be unsensible of your duty to God and your own souls of your respect and deserved gratitude to your Countrey and to this Church of England which was heretofore loved by its children applauded by its friends reverenced by its neigbours dreaded and envied by its enemies and this not onely for that long peace and prosperity it enjoyed which alone are no signs of Gods approbation but chiefly as Irenaeus observes for those rare spirituall gifts ministeriall devotionall and practicall which were evidently to be seen in Her those pious proficiencies those spirituall influences which preachers people found in their own hearts those gracious examples and frequent good works which they set forth to others those heavenly experiences they enjoyed in themselves those charitable simplicities they
reformed Religion as to its unity order stability and constancy either in doctrine or duty Sure it was far better to have the holy complete and reverent Sacrament of the Lords Supper administred and received by humble devout and prepared Christians meekly kneeling upon their knees than to have none at all celebrated for twice seven yeares both Ministers and people willingly excommunicating themselves and starving one another as to that holy refection It was much better and more Christian-like to have infants baptized with the ancient signe of the crosse as a token of their constant profession of the Faith of Christ crucified than to have them left wholly unbaptized and so betrayed to the Anabaptistick agitators who boldly nullifie that Sacrament when they see others either vilifie and wholly reject it as to infants or dispense with so great partiality as if every petty Preacher were a Lord and Judge not a Servant and Minister of the Church of Christ It was better to have some things lesse necessary yea inconvenient that looked like order decency and harmony in the Church than daily to run thus to endlesse faction ataxie confusion and irreligion Better that Bishops and Presbyters and Deacons officiate after the ancient manner in Eastern and Western Churches in white garments under which form Angels who are ministring spirits are represented to us and Christ himself in his transfiguration duly administring holy things to the people of God than to have no true Ministers no divine or due ministrations at all as is now in many places of England and Wales where either Churches and people are desolatâ— or pitifull intruders neither truly able nor duly ordained dare to officiate in their motley and py-bald habits as they list superciliously affecting such odde and antick fashions as they most fancy to please themselves or amuse the people with over whom they seek to have an absolute dominion If those few ceremonies appointed and accustomed to be used in the Church of England were not herbs of grace or of the most fragrant and cordiall sorts of flowers yet certainly they were never found to be so noxious and unsavoury weeds as some pretend the squeamishnesse of some people was no argument of any thing pestilent or banefull in them There are noses that have Antipathies against Roses and some will faint at any sweet smell If a few modest Christistians could lesse bear the sent or sight of them for my part I could willingly indulge them such a connivence and toleration as might consist with the publick peace order and rules of charity but I can never approve the counterscuffle of those who for their private disgusting of one sawce or dish rudely overthrow an orderly feast and well-furnished table who upon the suspicion of weeds root up all the good plants in a garden who jealous of briars and thorns destroy the vines and fig-trees Ceremonies if they bear no great or fair fruit yet they may as hedges be both a fence and ornament to Religion which truly for my part I esteemed them and so used them nor did they grow so offensive as now they have proved untill over-valuing on the one side and under-valuing on the other side pertinacy and obstinacy as S. Austin expresseth his sense and sorrow like a pair of alternative bellows kindled such flames of animosity as instead of bearing and forbearing one another in love sought to consume each other in those heats and flames which would not have risen had both sides more intended the substance and lesse the ceremonies of Religion There were infinite more obligations to Christian union by the true faith they joyntly professed than there were occasions of dividing by the ceremonies about which they differed But one sharp knife will easily cut in sunder many strong cords if it be in a mad or indiscreet mans hand Although Ceremonies of mans invention be no more to be made rivals to Religion than Hagar was to Sarah or Ismael to Isaac yet it is hard to cast them out having been sons or servants to the Churches family with scorn unlesse they be found to grow too petulant either jeering or justling pure Religion of whose genuine substance indeed they are not yet they may as hair is to women and men too be given It for an ornament nor do they deserve to be suspected for superstitious much lesse irreligious untill Christians make more of them then they deserve or the Church intended either so much contending for them or against them as takes them off from intending those main things wherein the grace and kingdome of God doth consist It doth not become the children of God either so to please themselves with toyes and bagatelloes as to neglect their meat or so to wrangle about them as to forget either the mutuall love they owe as brethren or the duty they owe to their parents But those little scratches which some Anticeremoniall mens itching fingers heretofore made upon the England's beautifull face would never I believe have so far festred and deformed all things of Religion in this Church if some men had not mixed of late some things of a more venomous nature and malignant design in order to gratify the despite of those rude Demagorasses of Rome who have most ill will and evil eyes against the beauty of this Parthenia the Church of England I know the common refuge of many who eagerly opposed the Church of England in this point of its Ceremonies was when they could not answer those arguments which learned and godly men brought to justifie the lawfull nature of the things in themselves also for the Churches undoubted liberty and power in chusing and using them lawfully they then flew to that popular and plausible argument which is in it self very fallacious arguing a mind rather servile to mens persons and enslaved to their opinions than enjoying the freedome of its own reason and judgement Namely that some learned and many godly men did greatly scruple those ceremonies being so scandalized with them that they either never used them or with very great regret others bitterly inveighed against them petitioning God and man for the removall of them Thus do most men plead who were but coppy-holders under the chief Lords of this Faction against the Ceremonies of the Church of England Ans I do not unwillingly grant as having been no stranger to some of them that many of those who were no great friends to the Ceremonies were yet learned grave and godly men such as they are reputed to be by those who pretend to be their followers and have rather out-gone them in the rigour of non-conformity than kept pace with them in that moderation gravity and charity which those men seemed to have who were not therefore sworn enemies against the Church of England because they were no great friends to Ceremonies yea I am perswaded there were few of them who truly deserved in former ages the names of godly and wise
men who would not have born ten times more such Ceremonies with patience rather than have occasioned so great troubles and confusions to this Reformed Church which they highly honoured and stoutly asserted against those who under pretence of straining at gnats intended it seems to swallow down Camels and under colour of battering a few Ceremonies aimed at last to overthrow the whole frame of so famous and flourishing a Church which hath now suffered more from some mens malice or immoderation than ever it can hope to recover by the wisdome or godlinesse of any of that Anticeremoniall party But grant it that some of their patrons and predecessors who opposed Ceremonies were good and godly men yet still they were but men subject to like passions as others were Their hearts to God-ward I hope were sincere as to the inside of their Religion but they might as is usual even in good men be much warped as to the rinde or outside of their Religion both in their judgement and practise of things by their native tempers and complexions as they were either melancholick dark and scrupulous or cholerick hot and bold or more phlegmatick dull and easie or more sanguine popular and pompous for through the tincture of these glasses most men behold even religious forms either as more or less agreeable to their Genius and temper nor are they seldome lesse biassed and swayed by the prepossessions and prejudices of their education by custome conversation reputation expectation admiration of mens persons addition to particular parties private relations and interests all which though matters of no rationall or morall weight yet have a strong secret tide and influence upon mens minds and professions especially in cases disputable in matters of Religion that are of a sceptical dubious indifferent nature wherein most men are prone to be so superstitious as to imagine that to be most pleasing or displeasing to God which is so to themselves Many things are by some practised because they ever did so and by many omitted because they never did use them men flie from positive superstition with a strong rebound to negative superstition Nor is it lesse superstition I conceive for men to think it a point of Religion to forbear or remove such things than it is in others to think it necessary to retain and observe them upon a religious necessity which last was not the judgement of the Church of England as to any Ecclesiasticall ceremonies which were not held to be of necessity but onely of decency The opposers of them indeed pressed an absolute necessity of duty and conscience to remove them Who then were in this point superstitious persons is no hard matter to judge If the reputation of mens parts and pietie of their devotions and austerities of life signified much in the outward Rites and Ceremonies of Religion to make them good or bad lawful or unlawful certainly by those marks the Romish party will be able to produce many instances of exemplary sanctity severity and austerity in outward abstinences or observances by which to maintain the concurrent errours and grosser superstitions of their Religion Persons of applauded piety are many times like smooth and ponderous wedges the Devils fittest engines to cleave the Church in sunder the weight of their example presents all things to the minds of weak and sequacious Christians as great importances of Religion So Origen and Tertullian became the great scandalls and temptations of the Christian world by the greatnesse of their parts piety and reputation as Vincentius Lirinensis observes nor had Novatus Donatus Pelagius and others of old done so much mischief in the Church if they had been men either obscure for their parts or infamous for their moralls It is not onely to be considered how able men are in any setled Church but how peaceable how humble how far removed from private passions secular designs worldly discontents popular and pragmatick humours all which doe oft leaven men otherwise of commendable parts and piety especially in their younger dayes when they are most prone to have good conceits and confidences of themselves Once on wing in their own fancy and mounted by the breath of vulgar esteem they are loth to light and afraid to fall when their fame and credit are thus at stake besides the glimmering of some oblique interests of profit or preferment which lye within their eye and reach Elder years do morosely resolve to maintain what once they have adopted under the name of stricter piety and purer Religion Few men know how to revert or recant when once engaged in a party or difference which carries any mark or ensign of a speciall way of Religion Reputation is the bearded hook which holds most men faster than conscience to their sides even after they perceive how delusory the artificial bait was which first invited them to entangle themselves I have known some Ministers of worth and ability who in all things materiall agreed to the doctrine and worship of the Church of Engl. yet in point of non-conformity to some Ceremony rather chose being once engaged before they had so well examined all things to live a scrambling vagrant and almost mendicant life from one good house to another by which means some of them sucked no small benefit rather than they would take any setled living in the Church of England in which obstinacy they persisted to their dying day although they grew very calme and coole as to their first heats and perceiving in time the weaknesse of their own and others motives they durst not in their maturer years perswade any others no not their own sons which were Ministers in the Church of England to be non-conformists onely they were ashamed to be retrograde in their reputation though they were got well forward in their better judgements Yea even as to the polle and number of names which I think to be but the number of the Beast if we onely tell noses and not consider reasons who knows not but the conformable part both of Ministers and people in England were for many years twenty to one beyond the Non-conformists nor did they more exceed them in number than they equalled them every way in learning piety gravity in all good words and works yea in many things of publick and more generous charity they far exceeded them the one were for the most part getting and scraping for their private advantages the other were much more hospitable munificent and charitable The first and second generation of Non-conformists were more excusable and more modest in their dissentings for coming newly out of not onely the dungeon of Papall superstition and darkness to a marvellous light of Reformation they were jealous of any cloud or shadow which they suspected as threatning to eclipse that light but coming also out of the fiery furnace of Romish persecution they were jealous of every thing that had once past the Popes fingers lest it might be too hot for them
Christian can deny his assent if he hath ever made use of their excellent lives or labours to which as I formerly touched God himself hath set to the broad seal and great witnesse of his own Spirit upon the hearts and consciences of many thousands both still living and long ago dead These at the grand Assize or day of Gods righteous judgement will I am confident highly justifie before men and Angels the Church of England and its Clergie or Ministry as blessed means of their salvation these will convince the gainsayers enemies blasphemers and destroyers of this Church and its Ministry of their envy partiality blindness unthankfulness and malice also of their unreasonable lusts and injurious passions for nothing but such black and hellish clouds could ever hinder men after an hundred years experience from seeing owning esteeming and enjoying so great and glorious a light of grace and mercy truth and peace as hath shined in the Church of England ever since the Reformation while the golden Candlesticks were unbroken the beautifull order and proportion of their branches unconfounded the burning lamps of Bishops and Presbyters in them either not wholy extinguished or not snuffed so close as might put them quite out in respect of that pristine beauty and lustre love and honour which they formerly enjoyed and deserved in this as all well-composed Christian Churches What wise and gracious Christian comparing as the builders of the later Temple former times with these doth not with sadness of soul see and confess that the generall state of this Church the visible face of the Christian Reformed Religion the tempers of mens hearts and the praâ—â—ses of their lives were heretofore both as to truth order and peace to piety morality and charity incomparably beyond what now they commonly are or are like to be while so much emulation faction and confusion prevail among us which are the dry nurses of ignorance Atheism and irreligion Blessed be God in former times while worthy Bishops presided and discreet Presbyters assisted them in the great work of teaching and governing the Church of God in Eng. O what beauty what order what harmony what unity what gravity what solidity what candor what charity what sobriety what sanctity what sincerity what improvements what perseverance what correspondency what constancy was there generally to be seen among Christian Pastors and true Professors under their potent Ministry and prudent inspection Who is able to express or conceive unless he had some experience of those blessed times and tempers what sound and judicious knowledge what fruitfull faith what hearty love what discreet zeal what severe repentings what fervent prayers what earnest sighs what godly sorrows what unfeigned tears what just terrours what unspeakable comforts what well-grounded hopes what spirituall joyes what heavenly meditations what holy conversations what humble softnesses what diligent assurances what longing desires what unwearied endeavours what patient expectations what tender compassions what meekness of obedience what conscientious submissions were observable in the general frame of good Christians carriage as to God and their Saviour so to their Superiours both Civil Ecclesiastical in order to their own souls and their neighbours good And all this blessedness was enjoyed while some mendid pitifully complain that a few Ceremonies pinched their consciences that a white garment dazeled their eyes that the ancient transient signe of the Crosse crucified both the Sacrament and their senses that kneeling at the Communion bowed down their souls even to the ground that the devout Liturgie loaded their spirits that grave godly Bishops pressed Church-order and Discipline too hard upon them Yet then even then it was that Learning flourished Knowledge multiplied Graces abounded excellent preaching thrived Sacraments were duly administred and most devoutly received the fruits of Gods Spirit were every way mightily diffused Justice and common honesty were practised hospitable kindness exercised Christian charity maintained plain-heartedness and good works abounded without any such crafts and policies such frauds and factions such jealousies and distances such malice and animosities such rudeness and disorders such insolencies and hypocrisies such indignities and diminutions as are now of later years generally cast upon the Reformed Religion and those Preachers of it that adhere to the constitution and communion of the Church of England who are implacably maligned by those men who in persecuting and oppressing them and this Church do boast as if they had done God very good service and highly advanced the interests of Jesus Christ Which Themselves will then begin to doubt and disbâ—â—ieve when the heat of their passions is allayed when their popular fallacies and froths are vanished when their secular designes are frustrated when their high metal is abated when their strength begins to fail them when their sectators flatterers feeders and abettors are scattered from them when the tide of successes is come to its ebb when the terrours of death are upon them when their consciences shall give them a true and impartiall prospect of their actions and passions when they shall see how little holy fire there was amidst so great a smoke how much dross and trash hath been their superstructures how much their pragmatick spirits have ruined how little they have edified as to any thing of true serious solid and usefull Religion beyond what was formerly enjoyed to a satiety in England while they make it their master-piece of piety and reformation utterly to debase the Clergie to divide Christian people and to demolish the whole frame of the Church of England The great day of burning and refining will best discover and determine what the hearts and works the purposes and practises of such men have been Mean time that I may not be deceived in my own perswasions or prejudices who possibly may be partiall to my mother the Church of England I crave the favour of your upright judgement as wise Gentlemen and worthy Christians who remotest from all designs and discontents have most impartially observed the rise and progress the variations and depravations the folly and fury the divisions and confusions of some mens spirits and practises in England who have earnestly sought and still do to obtrude their fancifull deformed and many-formed Reformations upon this Church as much God knows against Her will as a lothsome potion is against the stomack of an healthfull patient Do you O my noble Countrey-men bona fide apart from fears and flatteries which are below persons of true honour and piety do you in earnest find the temper and constitution of Religion as Christian or Reformed either its inward power or its outward polity any way bettered and advanced in this Nation as to the visible form of it in essentials or ornamentals in Doctrine or Discipline in faith or good works in profession or reputation in order or peace in solidity or decency in authority or charity Do you find it in your own present comforts and enjoyments or in your hopes of after-blessings
either to learn of me or to instruct me better and therefore such an one deserves to be treated not as an enemy but as a brother not tetrically morosely injuriously but candidly charitably christianly Yet because experience teacheth us that the ignorance infirmity and incapacity of most people is such that they cannot easily find out of themselves the Truths of God which are the grounds of true Religion yea some are so lazy and indifferent as to neglect all means which might help them yea and many are either so peevish or proud as they are impatient not to be singular or not to lead Disciples after them in Religion the highest ambition being that of Hereticks which seeks to domineere over mens souls and consciences for these and other weighty reasons both in civil and religious regards Christian Religion ought not in any Christian Church-polity or Nation to be left so loose and dissolute as to have no hedge or wall to the vineyard no limits or restraints set to the petulancy of those who under the name of liberty study to be malicious licentious abhorring any thing solid strict or setled in Religion either as to themselves or others counting all those as enemies to their factious designs and interests who enjoyn them to live in any godly order Hence these Oecumenicall censors and universall criticks as boldly and easily reproch revile contemn injure as they please all those Christians and Churches too who humbly conform to that profession of Religion though never so Christian and Reformed which is once established in any Nation or Church by publick consent and sanction upon the most mature deliberation and impartiall advise in order to Gods glory and the common good of that society If these dissolute fancies of Christian liberty should be followed or indulged to people by such Magistrates and Ministers as own that Religion certainly no society of men would be more unsociable more sordid more shamefull or more miserable Common people will be starved or poysoned if they be left to feed themselves they will be as so many ragged regiments if they be left as the Israelites to pick up Religion like straw where they can find it Therefore all piety policy and charity commands that in every Nation professing the faith of Jesus Christ as the only true Religion there should be as there was in Engl. some such wise and grand establishment as should be the publick measure or standard of Religion both as to Doctrine Worship Government This in all uprightness ought to be set before people not onely propounded and commended to them but so far commanded and enjoyned by authority as none should neglect it or vary from it without giving account much less should any man publickly scorn and contemn it or the Ministers and dispensers of it by writing speech or action to the scandall of the whole Church and Nation yea to the scandall of the very name of Jesus Christ and his holy Institution which ought to be as Tertullian rarely expresseth it received with godly fear and reverence entertained with solicitous diligence maintained with honourable munificence contained within the bounds of charitable union and humble subjection such as no way permits any private fancy upon any pretensions whatsoever rudely and publickly to oppose or despise it But because it is possible that some truths of Religion may be unseen and so omitted by the most publick diligence and some may afterward be discovered by private industry and devotion which ought not to be prejudged smothered or concealed if they have the character of Gods will revealed in his written Word whose true meaning is the fixed measure and unalterable rule of all true Religion to prevent the suppressing or detaining of any Truth which may be really offered to any Church or Christians beyond what is publickly owned and established also to avoyd the petulant and insolent obtruding whatever novelty any mans fancy listeth to set up upon his own private account variating frō or contrary to the publick establishment nothing were more necessary and happy than to have in every Nationall Church which hath agreed with one heart one mind one spirit and one mouth to serve the Lord Jesus according to the pattern of primitive piety and wisdome persons of eminent learning piety prudence and integrity publickly chosen and appointed to be the constant Conservators of Religion whose office it should be to try and examine all new opinions publickly propounded no man should print or preach any thing different from the publick standard and establishment of Religion untill he had first humbly propounded to that venerable council in writing his opinion together with his reasons why he adds to or differs from the publick profession If these grand Conservators of Religion who ought to be the choisest persons in the Church and Nation both for ability gravity and honesty do at their solemn and set meetings once or twice every year allow the propounders reasons and opinions he may then publicate his judgement by preaching disputing writing or printing But if they do not he shall then keep his opinion to himself in the bounds of private conference onely for his better satisfaction but in no way publicate it to the scandall or perturbation of what is setled in Religion Here every man may enjoy his ingenuous liberty as to private dissenting without any blame or penalty which he shall incurre and undergo in case he do so broach any thing without leave as a rude Innovator and proud disturber Private and modest dissentings among Christians safely may and charitably ought to be born with all Christian meeknesse and wisdome but certainly it would be the very pest and gangrene of all true Religion also the moth and canker of all civil as well as Ecclesiastick peace to tolerate every mans ignorance rudeness and pragmaticalness to innovate and act what they please in Religion Though Christians may be otherwaies sound and hearty yet they may have an itch of novelty popularity vain-glory It would make mad work in Religion if every man under the notion of Christian liberty should be permitted not onely to scratch himself as he listeth but to infect others by every pestilent contagion yea to make what riotous havock he pleaseth of the publick peace and order It were a miserable childishnesse in any nation professing Christianity to be ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of saving and necessary truths to be still tossed to and fro with winds of doctrine and never cast anchor upon sure and safe grounds which are easily found if men aimed at piety as well as policy and regarded Christs interest or his Churches more than their own private and secular advantages which was once happily done by Gods blessing in the Church of England to so great an exactness and completeness of Religion that nothing for necessity decency or majesty was to be added or desired by sober Christians nor could much be added for
the Churches of Christ both as to good doctrine and orderly conversation First if you consider the Magna Charta grand charter of your souls the holy Scriptures Those lively oracles which were given by inspiration and direction of Gods Spirit which beyond all books in the world have been most desperately persecuted and most divinely preserved having in them the clearest characters of divine Truth love mercy wisdome power majesty and glory the impressions and manifestations of greatest goodness grace both in morals mysteries in the prophecies and their accomplishment in the admirable harmony of prescience performance of Prophets Apostles setting forth the blessed Messias as the prefigured Sacrifice the promised Saviour the desire of the world those Books which have been delivered to us by the most credible testimony in the world the uniform consent of the pillar and ground of Truth the Catholick Church of God which the Apostle S. Paul prefers before that of an Angel from Heaven that divine Record which hath been confirmed to us by so many miracles sealed by the faith and confession the repentance and conversion the doctrine and example the gracious lives and glorious deaths of so many holy Confessors and Martyrs in all ages besides an innumerable company of other humble professors who have been perfected sanctified and saved by that word of life dwelling richly in them in all wisdome Yet even in this grand concernment of Religion the holy Scriptures whose two Testaments are as the two poles on which all morality and Christianity turn the two hinges on which all our piety and felicity depend much negligence indifferency and coldness is of late used by many not onely people but their heaps of Preachers under the notion and imagination of their Christian liberty that is seldome or never seriously to read either privately or publickly any part of the holy Scripture unless it be a short Text or Theame for fashion sake which like a broken morsell they list to chew a while in their mouths but the solemn attentive grave devout and distinct reading of Psalms or Chapters or any other set portion of the holy Scriptures old or new to which S. Chrysostome S. Jerome S. Austin and the other ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin so oft and so earnestly exhorted all Christians this they esteem as a poor and puerile business onely fit for children at school not for Christians at Church unless it be attended with some exposition or gloss upon it though never so superficiall simple and extemporary which is like painting over well-polished marble being more prone to wrest darken and pervert than rightly to explain clear or interpret the Scriptures which of themselves are in most places easie to be understood obscure places are rather more perplexed than expounded when they are undertaken by persons not very learned or not well prepared for that work which was the employment anciently as Justin Martyr tells us chiefly of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop or President then present whose office was far above the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Readers who having done his duty the other as Pastor of the flock either opened or applyed such parts of the Scripture as he thought best to insist upon Yet there are now many such supercilious and nauseous Christians who utterly despise the bare reading or reciting of the Word of God to the Congregation as if no beauty were on it no life or power in it no good or vertue to be gotten by it unlesse the breath of a poore man further inspire it unlesse a poore worm like a snaile flightly passing over it set a slimy varnish upon it as if the saving truth and self-shining light of Gods Word in the precepts examples promises prophecies and histories were not most cleare and easie of it self as to all things necessary to be believed obeyed or hoped as if honest and pure-hearted Christians could not easily perceive the mind of God in the Scriptures unlesse they used alwayes such extemporary spectacles as some men glory to put upon their own or their auditors noses Certainly such new masters in our Israel forget how much they symbolize with the Papists in this fancy while denying or disdaining all reading of Scriptures in publick unless some expound them though never so sorrily slovenly and suddenly they must by consequence highly discourage yea and utterly forbid common people the reading of any portion of them privately in their closets or families where they can have no other expositors but themselves and it may be are not themselves so confident as to undertake the work of expounding the hard and obscurer places as for other places which are more necessary and easie sure they explain themselves sufficiently to every humble diligent and attentive reader or hearer the blessed use and effects of which if these supercilious Rabbies had found in themselves while the Word of God is publickly distinctly and solemnly read in the Church to them doubtlesly they would not have so much disused despised and decried this godly custome in the Church of England of emphatick reading the Word of God in the audience of Christian Congregations O rare and unheard of Christian Liberty which dares to cast so great a slighting and despiciency upon the publick reading of the Scriptures which are the Churches chiefest Jewel so esteemed and used by Jewes and Gentiles full of its own sacred innate and divine lustre then indeed most spendid and illustrious when handsomely set that is when the Priests lips preserve the knowledge of them and duly impart them to Christian people both by discreet reading and preaching that is explaining and applying them CHAP. VI. AFter these vulgar slightings and depreciatings cast upon the publick reading of the Word of God by some novellers I shall in vain set forth to You what is less strange yet very strange and new in the Church of Christ that is the supercilious contempt and total rejection of all those ancient venerable forms of sound words and wholsome doctrine either literally contained and expresly commanded in the Scripture such as are the Ten Commandements and Lords Prayer or evidently grounded and anciently deduced out of the Scriptures such as are the Apostles Creed with other ancient Symbols and Doxologies which were bounds and marks of all Christians unity and soundness in the faith generally used by all pristine and modern Churches of any renown who mixed with their publick Services of God these great pillars and chief foundations of piety these constant rules standards and measures of Religion by which they took the scantlings or proportions of all their duties and devotions of their sins and repentance of their faith and hope hence the humble confession of their sins the sincere agnition of their duties the earnest deprecations of divine vengeance the fervent supplications for mercy and pardon the hearty invocations for grace the solemn consecration of the sacramentall elements
sacred office charge and ministration how infinitely ought you to be ashamed and regretted to see them usurped many times by the dogs of your flocks by your hinds and foot-men your grooms and serving-men by threshers weavers and coblers by taylors tinkers and tapsters any mean and mechanick people whose parts and spirits are onely fit for those trades to which their breeding and necessities have confined them Not that I despise or reproch these honest though mean employments but I highly blame their insolence and other mens patience to see these usurp upon the dignity of the Ministry Certainly such proud poor wretches may to some men possibly seem fittest Ministers in a disordered State and decaying Church as factors for Satan and Antichrist setters for Ignorance and Superstition turning Faith into Faction but they will never prove after that fashion of preparing and admitting either able or faithfull or fruitfull Ministers of Christ or his Church seeming themselves and making others despisers of Christ with the blasphemous Jews while they so look upon him and treat him as under the notion of the Carpenters son as their equall or inferiour in some handicraft forgetting his divine glory and majesty as the onely-begotten son of God to whom all power is given in heaven and earth who hath executed this power most visibly in sending forth his Ministers to teach and baptize all nations out of which to gather and govern his Church in his name They rudely slight Christs ministerial authority in such as are truly excellent and duly ordained Ministers that they may proudly challenge it to themselves without any reason or Scripture law or order command or example either from Christ or his Church These men who say they are Apostles Prophets and Preachers and are not will be in the end and already are found liars against God and their own souls deceitfull workers false Apostles Mock-ministers Pseudo-pastors disorderly walkers authors of infinite scandall and confusion of scorn and contempt to Christian and Reformed Religion both here and elsewhere many of them serving their bellies and gratifying their carnall lusts and momentary wants much more than designing to advance the glory of God the Kingdome of Christ or the eternall good of mens souls which are not to be carried on save in Gods way that is by fit abilities and with due authority both are required as necessary for a true Minister the first though reall is not sufficient without the second For as the meer outward materiall action cannot be a divine sacramentall or ministerial transaction more than every killing of an Ox was a sacrificing so nor are meer naturall or personall abilities sufficient to acquire any office or authority much less this of the Ministry which is divine or none any more than every able Butcher was presently enabled to be a Priest Any mans ability fully to understand or handsomely to relate the mind of his Prince makes him not presently an Embassador or Minister of State unless there be a commission or letters of credence to authorize the person The blessed Apostle S. Paul who was extraordinarily converted called and sent of God as a Christian a Minister or Apostle yet we see did not take upon him the exercise or office till first Ananias had by Gods speciall command laid his hands on him and he became endowed with the ministerial gift or power of the holy Ghost which were afterward in like sort solemnly confirmed and increased by the express command of God when Paul and Barnabas were separated and sent upon special service with fasting prayer and laying on of the hands of some Prophets and Teachers in Antioch where the Apostle had formerly preached in the Church a whole year among much people This same Apostle oft blames and bids Christians beware of false Apostles not onely false in their doctrine but in their ordination and mission as the Prophets of the Lord did of old the false Prophets whom God had not sent yet they ran The Spirit of Christ commends the Angel of the Church of Ephesus where as Irenaeus and others tell us S. John lived long and left the most pregnant examples of Ecclesiasticall order Episcopall power and Ministeriall succession for trying those that said they were Apostles and were not for finding esteeming and declaring them as liars no way listning and adhering to or communicating with them as being Falsaries and Impostors enemies at once to the truth order and peace of Christs Church For 't is seldome that a bastardly generation of Preachers doth not bring forth some false and base doctrines for it is observable in this as in civil Histories that Bastards in nature and so in office are commonly most daring and adventurous spirits Certainly the late illegitimate Ministers or spurious Preachers of new and strange originals in England have in less than fifteen years brought more monsters of opinions and factions in Religion than have arose in so many hundred years before in any one Church I know some Christians are prone to gratifie their curiosity as those do who sometime go to see monsters in making some triall and essay of these pretended Preachers that once knowing their ignorance and insolence they may upon juster grounds ever after abhor them If this be tolerable for some persons of able and sober judgements yet it is no better than a snare and dangerous temptation for others that are weak and unstable nor may the venture be oft made by the more steddy Christians lest they seem thereby to countenance and encourage so great a confusion innovation usurpation and scandal in the Church of Christ besides the abetting of that high profanation of holy duties and mysteries which ought not to be transacted but in the name power and authority of our God and Saviour Certainly good Christians ought not at any hand to communicate with such usurping intruders in any sacramentall action nor ought they to own any thing more of a Minister of Jesus Christ in them than they would of a King or Magistrate in a Stage-player Doubtless as no good Christian so least of all those that profess to be Ministers of Christ ought to live as sons of Belial disorderly refractory unruly after the arbitrary rude and presumptuous dictates of their own wills The spirit of true Ministers and Prophets will be subject as it ought to that rule order and custome which in all ages hath been the canon measure and commission of all Evangelical Ministers and Pastors of Christs Church As naturall and morall endowments are no plea to invest any man into any office military or civil much less into any power and authority Ecclesiastical The pretenses of new and extraordinary calls of missions immediate from God are not in any reason expectable nor in Christian Religion credible where the ordinary power and commission was continued and might duly be had as it was and yet is in the Church of England
till of later years CHAP. XIII THe late licentious Invasions made upon this Church of England the Reformed Religion the Ministerial Order Office and Succession established in it through all ages since the Nation was Christian were yet something tolerable justifiable if those Ministers who profess to be of the ordination and communion of the Ch. of Engl. either wanted ability or industry skill or will to serve God and to deserve well of you O worthy Gentlemen and all their Countrey-men or if you and the rest of the nation were already better provided in order to your souls good by any new generation of Preachers better learned more rarely gifted more spiritually extracted or more regularly consecrated and duly ordained if these new-minted Ministers these self-intruding Teachers did afford you weightier Sermons warmer Prayers more solemn Sacraments more sacred Examples more usefull writings if they brought you with all this bustling and parado a better God a better Saviour a better Gospel better Scriptures or a better Spirit than those were which the excellent Bishops and other Ministers of the Church of England set before you and this nation many wayes for many years with mighty successes while they were countenanced encouraged and ingenuously treated if the advantages of Religion as Christian and Reformed or of your and your posterities souls were either reall or probable by these new intruders we might well bear with your and the common peoples pious inconstancy when it should tend to the improvement and happinesse of your souls But these great and good interests of your souls for my part as I have not yet found any where in any new wayes so I do not think that any wise and honest-hearted Christian can by any one instance prove that those Libertines who are Levellers of the Ministeriall duty and dignity either have been hitherto able or will ever be probable to advance them in the least kind or degree beyond or equall or any way comparable to what the former Clergy of England have done and are still both able and willing to do As for these new Rabbies you shall have commonly their best at first by soft and as they think saintly insinuations they first creep into houses next into bosoms at last into pulpits The small and light bundle of the gifts they have picked up are soon set on fire by the least sparks of popular desire and applause then as squibs or granadoes they flie off amain with more extravagant motion panick terrour thick smoke foul stench and vapour than with any great or good execution done against Sin or Satan or the World After a few godly prefacings about the Spirit Grace Christ and the new Covenant together with some gallantries or light skirmishings with some starveling errors and useless sins you shall know the utmost of their sufficiencies which is with egregious impudence to scorn what they cannot attain that is all good learning and the manners of their betters When they have loudly ratled at more than confuted any thing which they list to call an Error when they have huddled together wrested distorted a great many places of Scripture without any regard to the Grammaticall and genuine sense of the words or to the propriety of phrases or to the main scope of the place or to the clear Analogie of faith after all these flourishings you shall see the bottom and dregs of their hearts poured forth in vile and uncomely railings scurrilous and odious rantings against all Bishops and Ministers against the whole Hierarchie Ministry and Church of England At last with equall vociferation and emptinesse without any principles of reason or grounds of Religion without proof or plausibility with more lungs than brains they cry up their own new lights their rare discoveries their excellent Reformations and pure Ordinances of Jesus Christ all which are as much beyond all former dispensations and ministrations in this or any Church as the deceits of Mountebanks excell all that Fernelius Galen or Hippocrates could ever use or invent especially when these are in a new Paracelsian way applied and dispensed not by the old Empiricks the Papall and Episcopall Clergy but by new-called and ordained Preachers by specially-inspired Prophets by precious men extraordinarily qualified and sent either by the inward and unknown impulses of Gods Spirit or by the call and election of some godly select people who casting off all ancient Christian Communion with this Nationall or the Catholick Church do first body themselves to a new way of Church-fellowship then they assume to themselves some Brother and Member as they can agree to be their spirituall Pastor him they invest by their bare suffrages with all ministerial power and authority as from Jesus Christ himself Such a kind of confused noise doe these land-floods these popular torrents these turbulent Teachers make where once they have found a vent and course for their liberty to break through all bounds of law and order being indeed very muddy shallow fatuous and feeble in all things divine and humane for the most part onely they have a strong high conceit of themselves and a perfect Antipathy against those Ministers in the Church of England to whom they owe all they have of Knowledge and Religion which is worth owning Do but look near to their new doctrines and opinions and you will easily see how loose how false how futile how fanatick they are look to their speech and writing how rude how improper how incoherent how insignificant how full of barbarismes soloecismes and absurdities mark their whole form of preaching how raw how rambling how immethodicall how incongruous how obscure impertinent consider their Prayers how are they farced with odde expressions with forced affected confused dull dead and insipid repetitions weigh their lives and actions how pragmatick licentious injurious sacrilegious spitefull uncharitable pernicious scandalous are they to many sober and quiet men and specially to such as they have most cause to suspect to be much their betters and their most accurate censurers Last of all look to all their novell principles and you shall see how various versatile ambiguous temporizing and dangerous they are while much of their Divinity depends upon Diurnalls their Religion is most-what calculated by the Almanack or Ephemeris of their hopes and feares their interests and lusts their prevalences and advantages measured not by Scriptures but by Providences These distempers evidently appearing as they daily do in your new Teachers must not you and all sober Christians confess that these Comets these blazing and wandring stars mostly made up of gross vulgar and earthy exhalations full of portentous malignity to this Reformed Church are infinitely short of that benign light and that divine sweet and heavenly influence which heretofore shined from the fixed starrs of this Church which were in the right hand of Christ the godly Bishops and other Ministers to the great honour and unspeakable happiness of this
the firm ground less indeed to vulgar admiration but more to their own safety and others benefit S. Paul seriously represseth the vanity of knowledge falsly so called when men intrude themselves into things they understand not being puffed up as those primitive Gnosticks in their fleshly minds not holding the Truths as they are in Jesus nor content with the simplicity of the Gospel as it hath been delivered received understood believed and practised by the Catholick Church of Christ this check the Apostle gave to humane curiosities and Satanick subtilties even then when speciall gifts and revelations were at the highest tide CHAP. XVII THe better learned and more humble Ministers of the Church of England both Bishops and Presbyters ever professed with S. Austin and the renowned Ancients an holy nescience or modest ignorance in many things no less becoming the best Christians the acutest Scholars and profoundest Divines than their otherwayes vast knowledge and accurate diligence to search the Scriptures and find out things revealed by God which belong to the Church The modesty and gravity of their learning commends the vastness and variety of it as dark shadowes and deep grounds set off the lustre of fair pictures to the greater height They were not ashamed to subscribe to Saint Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfathomable depth the divine Abyss of unsearchable wisdome and knowledge they were not curious to pry into things above them or to stretch their wits and fancies beyond that line and measure of truth which God had set forth to his Church in his written Word and in those Catholick summaries thence extracted as the rule of Christian Faith Manners and Devotion whereto the spirits of all good Christians great and small learned and idiots were willingly confined of old as Irenaeus tells us they never boasted of raptures revelations new lights visions inspirations special missions and secret impulses from Gods Spirit beyond or contrary to Gods Word and the good order of his Church thereby to exercise their supposed liberties and presumptuous abilities that is indeed to satisfie their lusts disorders and extravagances in things civil and sacred to discover their immodesties and impudicities like the Cainites Ophites Judaites and Adamites to gratifie their luxuries and injuries their sacriledges and oppressions their cruelties against man and blasphemies against God their separations divisions and desolations intended against this Church The godly Pastors and people of Christs flock never professed any such impudent piety or pious impudence because they were evidently contrary to sound Doctrine and holy Discipline beyond and against the sacred precepts and excellent patterns of true Ministers sincere Saints and upright Christians whose everlasting limits are the holy Scriptures sufficient to make the man of God and Minister of Christ perfect to salvation They were not like children taken with any of these odde maskings and mummeries of the Devil who is an old master of these arts in false Prophets and false Apostles with their followers whose craft ever sought to advance their credits against the Orthodox Bishops Presbyters and professors of true Religion by such ostentations of novelties and unheard of curiosities in Religion which never of old or late made any man more honest holy humble or heavenly they never advanced Christians comforts solitary or sociall living or dying but kept both their Masters and Disciples in perpetual inquietudes perplexities and presumptions which usually ended in villanies outrages and despairs Nor will these new Masters late discoveries prove much better whereof they boast with so insolent and loud an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for all their rarities are but dead carkases which are become mummy by being long dried in the sands or wrapped up in searcloths they are not less dead though they seem less putrified to those whose simplicity or curiosity tempts them thus to rake into the skulls and sepulchres of old Hereticks idle Ecstaticks such as the very primitive times were infinitely pestred withal but blessed be God they were all long ago either extinct of themselves and gone down to the pit or crucified dead buried and descended into hell by the just censures Anathemaes and condemnations passed against them by the godly Bishops and Ministers of the Church in those ages Nor have these Spectres ever much appeared in this Church of England till these later years in which by the ruines and rendings of this Church they have gained a rotten kind of resurrection not to their glory but to their renewed shame and eternall infamy I trust in Gods due time when once the honour of the true Christian and Reformed Religion once happily setled and professed in the Church of England shall be again worthily asserted and re-established by your piety and prudence my noble and religious Countrey-men who have been and I hope ever will be the chief professors and constant Patrons of it under your God and your pious Governours Your prudence and piety your justice and generosity is best able to see through all those transports which are so transparent those specious pretences those artificiall mists and vapours which are used by some novel Teachers to abuse the common people that engaging them into eternall parties animosities and factions they may more easily by many mouths and hands not onely cry but utterly pull down this Reformed Church of England in its sound Doctrine wholsome Discipline Catholick Ministry sacred Order solemn Worship and Apostolick Government All which must now be represented to the world by these new Remonstrants as poor and pittifull carnall and common meer empty forms and beggarly elements fit to be cast out with scorn as reaching no further than Christ in the letter Jesus in the flesh Truth in the outward court Religion in the story or legend but they say the Ministers and other Christians of Old England are not come within the vaile to the Spirit and Mystery they have not that light within which far out-shines the paper-lanthern of Gods word without them CHAP. XVIII THese and such like are the uncouth expressions used to usher in under the names of liberty curiosity sublimity nothing but ignorance idlenesse Atheisme barbarity irreligion and utter confusion in this Church or at best as I shall afterward more fully demonstrate they are but van-courriers or agitators for Romish superstitions and Papall usurpations the end of all this gibberish is Venient Romani Put all these fine fancies and affected phrases together with all those strange phantasms in Religion which of late have haunted this Church like so many unquiet vermin or unclean spirits truly they spell nothing but first popular extravagances which are the embasings and embroylings of all true and Reformed Religion next they portend Popish interests and policies prevailing against this Church and State whose future advantages are cunningly but notably wrapt up in these plebeian furies and fondnesses as grocery wares are in brown paper Be confident the spirit of Rome which is
foot by the very beasts of the people Hence it is that the Christian and Reformed Religion appears to many great spirits and young Gentlemen not as a matter of eternal truth of infinite weight and highest concernment to them not as having the Catholick testimony of the wisest and best of mankind in all ages the expectation of the Patriarchs the prediction of the Prophets the preaching of the Apostles the signatures of Martyrs and characters of Confessors by their bloodshed and sufferings which they chose rather to endure than the least abnegation Apostasie or swerving from so great so holy so constant so necessary so divine principles as the Christian Religion is grounded upon Many good wits of later years in England look upon Religion with a supercilious eye with a squeamish coynesse with a nauseating and huffing aspect so far are they from fear and trembling as if they did God a good turne to own him in any fashion or Religion were beholden to them if they were but civil to it not considering the majesty of Miracles the admiration of Angels the accomplishments of Prophecies the manifestation of the Messias the expresse image of Gods grace and glory mercy and truth upon it in the holiness of the precepts in the honour of the examples in the preciousness of the promises in the astonishing love compassion wisdome and goodness of God contained in it laying out gracious and glorious methods of reconciling and saving sinfull mankind by such a way of propitiation satisfaction and merit as no whit blemisheth or diminisheth his justice but every way advanceth and magnifieth his mercy All this divine beauty majesty glory and extasie of true Religion so highly valued heretofore in England by Princes and Peers by Noblemen and Gentlemen of all degrees is now looked upon by many as a mimicall play a popular pageantry a business so scepticall and litigious so mutable and various so childish and impertinent so trivial and plebeian that many think it a point of gallantry and greatnesse of mind totally to undervalue all Religion as a meer fabulous flourish set forth with some pomp and solemnity heretofore now with specious liberties and indulgences in order either to amuse and over-awe or to please and gratifie common people whose brutall strength and refractory rudeness is found to be such by all wise Governours in all ages that nothing can over-awe or bridle the populacy so much as the opinion of some Religion derived from a Deity whose power being represented as omnipotent can onely give either terrour and check to vulgar presumptions or fixation to their everlasting revolutions Which volatile temper of common people some cunning men of later years having observed how in nothing of received Religion they were setled they have flown anew to the old craft of those heathenish Legislators to pretend Nymphs and caves to dreams and visions to extatick grotts and groves to converse as Sibyls with Demons or Spirits and to keep immediate intelligence with God himself by special inspirations beyond any thing of traditionall Religion anciently received and constantly delivered by this or any other Church of Christ Nor doth this sorry artifice fail to take some simple birds that are more silly and incautious who hardly ever get out of these snares and lime-twigs of pretended new Religion till they lose their feathers much of their time and estates besides the hazard of their souls and consciences But others of more bold and robust tempers are from these temptations and scandals of snarled and entangled or loose and unsettled or arbitrary and nulled Religion betrayed to down-right Atheism from thence they are carried down the stream of all sensuall debaucheries without any stop or check of conscience as to God or any Religion by which they stand obliged and responsible to a Divine power above them All which comes to pass by reason that they fell into such unhappy times as to their Religion education and imitation as offered them for many years very little but novelties and in them nothing worthy of the name of true and solid Religion as to any publick certainty harmony unity or authority Nothing must be owned as the uniform piety of this Nation or the consent of the Church either as from wise men or good Christians nothing fixed as becomes the majesty of a glorious God and a gracious Saviour an immutable goodness and unerrable truth held forth by the most idoneous and credible witnesses in the Catholick Church through all ages and successions but as if all Christians had been either ignorant or impostors in this and all Churches as if no Christian Princes no Presbyters no Bishops had had either wit to discern or grace to retain true Religion so have many people on all sides run up and down to pick and chuse to begin and invent to contrive and cut out what they listed to call their Religion yea many rigid Reformers and most severe pretenders to Religion upon new accounts as schismatizing in or separating from the Church of England even these are daily found either split upon the rocks of uncharitablenesse or beating upon the quick-sands of change and uncertainty not onely their several factions but the same persons having as many faces successively of Religion as Proteus had shapes The stakes and cords of that Christian and Reformed Religion which was fixed in the Church of England these are pulled up quite ravelled and broken into pieces by many Nor are these new modellers such as made modest trials and essayes of truth but they are generally fixed to their unsettled fancies constant in their inconstancy pertinacious in their extravagancies and hardly ever to be perswaded by any experience of their own folly to recant or repent of their apparent and imprudent transports much less to return from their exotick novelties and fanatick inventions they have lately chosen to that solemn sacred uniform and majestick primitive and Catholick posture of Religion in which it was for many years illustrious in the Ch. of Engl. and in all other famous Churches CHAP. IV. THe very light of nature and common reason commands mankind to be serious and setled grave and reverent in the publick service and veneration of their God to which end they added as Varro Tully and Isidore Hispalensis tell us not onely many Ceremonies to adorn their Devotion but a publick consent and sanction to authorize and confirm and fence their Religion against all those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that affected to be rude or dared to be profane For right reason tells us that Novices strangers or beginners in Religion must be miserably betrayed to all manner of irreligion where they see all things of Religion presented to them like a kind of Matachin dance or counter-skuffle full of fraction and novelty of change and contradiction of intricacy and incongruity of emulation and faction of strife and envy of hatred and enmity of contempt and confusion debased to meanness and prostituted to vulgarity
time prove extreamly pernicious to the peace piety honour and welfare of this Nation not onely in respect of the Reformed Religion whose authoritative Ministry and maintenance they will ever seek to devour and utterly destroy but even in respect of secular interests and civill peace For the first The integrity and true interests of the Reformed Religion who that hath read what I have already not more passionately then impartially written can be so blind as not to see That the pride petulancy and despite the ignorance licentiousnesse and covetousness of some of these men hath been and still is such that they have not onely sought to wast and deforme to reproach and defame all that outward order visible beauty polity support and unity which became so famous a Church and Nation but they have further studied to weaken and destroy the most solid and essentiall parts of Religion by many grosse errours damnable Doctrines bold blasphemies high Atheismes and rude immoralities all which do naturally boile up in the corrupt hearts and violent lusts of mankinde when they have any fire of temptation or encouragement What is then so immodest so impudent against the glory of God against the honour of our Lord Jesus Christ against the written word of God against the reputation of the Catholick or any well-reformed Church against the Lawes of nature civill societies and common justice against the good of men and Christians their temporall and eternall welfare which some of these Abaddons these Apollyons will not adventure to broach and abet to act own and applaud when they see their raveries are apt not onely to amuse the vulgar people but to mend their own fortunes which are the first and neerest designes they aime at as the chief ends of the agents But the end or effect following their actions though possibly not some of their intentions will be this to prepare by these various windings confused circulations and distorted wrestings of the Reformed Religion the way for Roman factors Papall interests and Jesuitick designes whose learned abilities orderly industry and indefatigable activity is such that by that time the old stock of Reverend orderly and authoritative Bishops and Presbyters the truest and most unquestionable Ministers of the Church of Christ are worn out in England and the reformed Religion is reduced with its titular and extenuated Ministers to a meer medly or popular Chaos of confusions the most of sober people being either sick or ashamed or weary of their home-bred disorders and unremedied diseases in Religion by this time I say the Romish agitators will not onely devoure all these petty parties and feeble factions of Reformers with as much ease as the Stork did the Froggs but they will in time utterly destroy the remaines of the defamed Doctrine and deformed Religion which your fore-fathers owned and to the death professed as most true and well reformed with great Honour Holinesse and Happiness which yet the ignorance and insolence the Illiterateness and Rusticity the Barrennesse and Barbarity of novel Sects have already rendred poor and despicable much to be pitied and deplored both at home and abroad I must ever so far own my reason as to professe that I look upon the Defamers Dividers and Destroyers of the Church of England whatever they are or seem to be no other than the perdues or forelorn hope of Popery which by lighter skirmishes open advantages to the Popes maine Battaglio the Vancourriers or Harbingers sent and excited in great part from the Pragmatick Policies of Rome whose grand interest since the Reformation hath been not more to advance the House of Austria and preserve the Papacy than to regain the Church of England to the Romish slavery In whose present calamities may easily be discerned a far greater reach and deeper Spirit than is usuall to be found in ordinary Sectaries and Schismaticks who are commonly of low and mean parts short-sighted and short-spirited of very shallow wits and extemporary designes rarely aiming at any thing that is of a publick concern of a grand notable and durable proportion but rather gratifying their sudden passions and occasionall fancies or correptions which are pitifully poor and plebeian seldome reaching higher than the pleasure of scratching their own or other mens itching ears with some novel fancies and opinions or setting up themselves by a sorry ambition to be Heads and Leaders the Pastors and Teachers of some credulous company which makes it self into some new mode and very superciliously calls it self The Church not in charity and communion with but in contempt and defiance of all other Churches Parochiall Provinciall Nationall or Catholick owning none of the Primitive Grand and Apostolicall Combinations or their Successions to be truly constituted Churches By such little arts some of them feed their bellies and cloth their backs better than heretofore when they made no such cakes for their Queens of Heaven nor Shrines for their severall Diana's but were confined to their lesse gainfull trades some of them feed meerly upon popular breath which as the wind will never last long in one point or corner lastly some of them keep up their vulgar Pride and sad Ambitions by nothing else but by the fame of their Antagonists the glory they have to contest with the Church of England and her ablest Ministers who are in earnest so much superiour to these sorry Rivals and Ruiners of them in all Learning Religion Vertue Wisdome Honesty and Modesty as the Stars in the firmament are beyond the glittering of rotten chips in the dark or the shining of Glow-wormes in a ditch Certainly these petty parties who scarce know what they drive at and are full of varieties in their Fancies Forms and Factions these cannot produce so constant a current and so strong a tide as is alwaies urging against the Church of Engl. and the honour of the Reformed Religion but they are driven on by a subtill and secret yet potent impulse as waves of the sea not onely dashing and breaking upon each other but all of them battering the Honour and Stability of the Church of England as the great rampart or bank which stands in the way of the Sea of Rome mightily opposing and hindering heretofore both fanatick Confusions Papal Usurpations and Romish Superstitions whose advantages now are evidently prepared and carried on by those that under the name of Reformation will most effectually at last overthrow it For after these petty spirits who have been and are the great Dividers Despisers and Destroyers of the reformed Church of England have a few years longer played their mad pranks in this sometime so flourishing and fruitfull vineyard of the Lord pulling up the hedge of Ecclesiasticall Canons and Civil Sanctions throwing down the wall of Ancient Discipline and Catholick Government breaking in pieces the wine-press of holy Ordination and Ministeriall Authority and Succession pulling up both root and branch of holy Plants and regular Planters what I beseech you can hinder these subtill
infinite detriment and damage as of our selves and our neighbours at present so of posterity to after-ages Who will with astonishment and horror read the Histories of our times so desperately ingaged to reforme Religion that they well-nigh ruined it so pertinacious to retaine their Christian and Reformed profession that they almost made a shift to lose both as hunters do that game which they onely scare from them while they eagerly but indiscreetly pursue it Secondly besides conscience to the Glory of God the honor of our Saviour and the good of Soules all civill prudence and true policy not onely invites but necessitates sober and worthy men to study and endeavour the restitution and establishment of true Religion in this or any Nation to its true proportions and just fixation as Christian and Reformed Now although nothing can in true Oratory be among Christians added after the weighty considerations of Gods glory Christs honor the hazard of our own and others souls to eternall darknesse ignorance confusion and misery all motives being as the dust of the balance compared to these yet because I must levell the force of my perswasions as arrowes to the proportions of most mens principles and designes in point of temporall interests as well as draw them home to the head and height of Spirituall and Eternall concernments give me leave to represent and inculcate that consideration as to Religions necessary setling which of all other makes the quickest and deepest impression on mens minds the neglect of which will certainly forfeit all that reputation of wise Men great Statists and good Polititians even after the worlds calculation of wisdome which Magistrates and Gentlemen are ambitious to obtain and leave to the honor of their Names and Memories It is this There is no hindge upon which the civil Peace and Secular welfare of you and your posterity doth so much depend and move as this of True Religion which is at no hand to be left to a plebean Liberty and vulgar latitude but to be confined and setled upon its own weight and basis to its Verity Certainty Sanctity Solemnity true Ministery and due Authority In vaine shall you hope to enjoy the Peace of men in worldly affaires if you want the peace of God if you have nothing but wars and jarrs distances and defiances as to Religion both with God your Ministers your selves and with one another Which Sacred Fires will infallibly kindle horrid conflagrations not onely from those hot disputes and attritions which concerne the principall Articles and more solid parts of Religion which are held necessary to salvation but even from the lightest and smallest materialls which seem but as the chips and parings the bark and leaves of Religion even these like tinder and touch-wood are prone to strike and entertaine such sparks in small and vulgar minds as will set all on a light fire at last Which is most evident in our late Holy Warrs where few men of any modesty or honesty did at first stickle so much about the weighty points of Religion in Doctrine or manners tending to true Faith or practicall Holinesse objects too deep and weighty for the weak and shallow braines of most Novellers and Vastators few I say or none of any worth did or do contend about true Grace or reall Virtue who shall be most Holy Penitent Humble Faithfull Pure Patient Just Charitable Meek Devout Sincere inoffensive to God and Man No the Lord knowes a little touch or dash and colour of these serves the turne with most men that are most eager for any side and party of Religion in their rude disputes and uncharitable janglings The greatest strifes the sharpest emulations and most unfeigned feudes of Religion arise from principles of Envy Revenge and Ambition in mens Spirits when once they are divided upon any spark or pretext of Religion their ambitious Zeal like fire presently ascends and lifts them upward The grand interest of their Godlinesse is like the Sons of Zebedee who shall be chief what person what party shall prevaile and rule over others who shall sit on the right hand of Christ judging the rest not as brethren but as subjects and vassals For all pregnant factions in Religion are not onely solicitous to preserve themselves in some honest liberty and modest tranquillity as a candle whose confined flame keeps within its own socket and compasse but they presently meditate the extinguishing of all others They aime indeed at Conquest and Soveraignty every ones fingers itch at the Scepter of Jesus Christ that is at such power and authority as may governe the soules and bodies too the consciences and carkases of other men both in Church and State that they may in Christs Name have Dominion over the opinions and judgements the minds and spirits of all men subduing them if not at first by disputation and arguments yet at length by Fightings and Armes by silencings and imprisonings by plunderings and undoings For which purpose each party the better to justifie its insolency and cruelty against all others holds forth some Ensigne and Flag as of difference so of defiance either as to some lesser matter of Opinion and Doctrine or rather than faile of some meer outward Form and Discipline yea of some sorry Ceremonie and Custome no way essentiall to true Religion Yet from hence the eager but weaker Zelots on all sides Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent have and do foment those miserable flames which have not onely scorched but almost consumed this Church of England For these petty contests readily fall under vulgar capacities as more obvious and sensible these fit the humors of the minue people and petty Preachers too who are naturally as proud and imperious as masterly and surly as the greatest Clerks or Scholars whose learned abilities may better excuse their pertinacies ambitions and other insolencies Who is so blind as not to see that from the first differences which were spawned at Frankfort and hatched at Geneva about non-Conformity and Church Discipline the Presbyterian and popular Spirit hath alwaies grumbled and mutined at that eminency and government which Episcopacy for the maine hath enjoyed from the beginning not of Reformation onely but of Christian Religion From whence some other mens Spirits too high perhaps and Prelaticall out of jealousie have on the other side sought to engrosse and exercise more of a sole arbitrary and absolute power not onely above but apart from all Presbyters and people than was ever challenged or used in the Primitive Constitution in the first and best practises of Episcopacy which seems to have had more of Aristocracy by the joynt Counsell and assistance of select and Grave Presbyters than of absolute Monarchy or soveraigne and sole authority further than an eminency of Office Order Place and Presidencie might keep an united and regular power in their more ample and combined Churches which consisted of many Christian congregations and Presbyters But as the Duke of York first professed with
seat faire Cathedrall or Mother-Church with which England formerly abounded to the great honour of the Nation no lesse than of the Clergy and Ministry of all degrees the Slips and Shrubs of Churches which some have lately planted thrive so ill that they wish them fairly removed and reingrafted into that ancient stock that goodly and venerable tree of Episcopacy which was so flourishing and so fruitfull to all orders of Christians in England and in all ancient Churches ever since the first plantation of Religion in this Island or the other world O how would all sober Ministers and others rejoyce to come under that shade and superintendency which might not sadly over-drop but gently protect every Minister and member of the Church in their severall branches and boughs Who sees not by experience that verified which St. Jerom told them long agoe That a regular Episcopacy is the best if not the onely defensative both in the Catholick and particular Churches from the scorching heates of factions and schismes to keep men from those shiftings and tossings in Religion from those uncharitable rendings and separations which are so uncomely and inconvenient yea so noxious to the Churches of Christ and therefore to be conscienciously avoided by all good Christians Besides this constitution containing in its bosome the true interests of Presbyters and people as well as of Bishops redeemes the Clergy beyond any other form of Church-order and Government from that which is very intolerable to men of learned piety and ingenuous Spirits that is the sordid dependence upon yea and slavish subjection even in religious concernments unto those Lay-dictators and plebeian humors who are generally very crosse-grained and spitefully peevish to men of more learning than themselves Vulgar minds are alwaies contemptuous to their teachers and rugged to their Monitors but most unsufferably insolent when they find either Magistrates or Ministers dependants upon their benevolence never triumphing more unfeignedly than when they see those deformed spectacles which this last age hath oft shewen them namely those grave and worthy Ministers who taught them in the name of Christ on the Lords-day the very next day pale and trembling to appeare before them in some Country Committee compounded of Lay-men yea and of some Trades-men who are generally not guilty of much learning in any kind and least in Divinity yet these are the men that must catechise examine censure and condemn Ministers in the sight of their people both in points of Doctrine and in practises Ministeriall for which some one Minister is able to say more in one houre than most of those Assessors or silly Spectators can understand in ten or ever have read in all their lives What ingenuous Christian blusheth not to see Ministers of excellent learning and lives so disparaged so degraded so discouraged by the Incompetency of those who must be their Judges when many of them cannot so much as understand the state of the question or matter in dispute What Christian is there of so popular plebeian triviall and mechanick a spirit as not to desire to see proper and meet judges set to examine and determine matters of Religion for doctrines manners and discipline in all which there are many cases so obscure and intricate that they require men of very good learning of composed minds of sober judgements and unbiassed consciences to debate and determine them being very dubious and disputable in truth and holinesse in faith and morality which when some silly Saints and devout bunglers will undertake to manage and modelize beyond their line and measure after their rash rude and slovenly fashion it is not to be expressed how much detriment both Religion and its sacred Ministry suffer through the ignorance and passion the rusticity and confidence the petulancy and impertinency of such ridiculous arbitrators and incompetent judges who are so farre from being fit for any such Authority and Judicature that they are not onely not equals but in most points very much inferiours to those whose doctrine and manners whose callings and consciences they presume not so much to search as to insult over with as much unfitnesse and unreasonablenesse as if Divines should arrogate to themselves the Judicature of Common-Law or of persons and cases Martiall so that both Pleaders and Judges Souldiers and Commanders should fall under Ministers decision in all debates incident to their functions and affaires Every man not ambitiously vain and fulsomely foolish doth now wish in his soul to see that grave solemne idoneous and equable dispensation of Religion both in its Mysteries and Ministry its Doctrine and Controversies its Scandals and Indignities as may best become the Honour and Majesty of Christianity most avoiding those improprieties and absurdities which have been sufficiently manifested in our late confusions which have chiefly risen from want of that wise settlement in Religious administrations which would lay out every part and parcell of them so as is proper for them both as to persons places and proportions after the order and method anciently used both in Gods Tabernacle and his Temple Indeed nothing can be managed orderly and happily in Church or State in Civill or Ecclesiastick affaires unlesse they passe through such wise hearts and pure hands as can both well understand them and discreetly discharge them so as may conciliate in all mens mindes an inward reverence to their persons that do dispence them Which respect ariseth not from parchment Commissions or popular approbations but from personall and reall sufficiencies which appearing to all sober men both in reason and Religion give them the greatest satisfaction and thereby as it were charme the common people not more by feare than love and shame to preserve that peace and to observe those orders which they see wisely setled and authoritatively used in any Church or Christian Common-wealth CHAP. VI. THe happinesse and honour of which religious harmony and authoritative order as every Christian is ashamed not to seem at least to desire and all honest men no doubt do really intend as their chiefe end and designe so the greatest differences now perpetuating our Religious distractions in England seem to arise from the severall meanes propounded and methods prosecuted by men possibly of honest meanings but of differing minds who each presuming their own waies to be best for the Reforming reconciling and establishing of Religion grow so divided in the use of their meanes as still to hinder the attaining of the end just like Physitians who honestly and heartily aime at the cure of their patient but every one of them so urgeth the taking of his particular receipt that either they give him no physick at all or so various and contrary prescriptions as first confound and at last kill him more by the mutuall repugnancy of their Medicines than by the Malignity of the disease Such is the state and fate of the Church of England as to my observation having I hope many honest and upright hearts in it but
may make or boast of and prescribe to those that list to be their tame and credulous customers who will find that all these new Balsames of Covenanting and Associating against Episcopacy are not onely not soveraignly or solidly healing but full of noxious festering and pernicious qualities scalding one place while they seem to skin over another So that if I should onely look to the arme of flesh or at some Ministers inconstant ingratefull violent partiall and intractable spirits there is little hopes that either they or their Sectators will return to any happy close and generall accord without a miracle and indeed it would be as strange to see some Ministers return with meeknesse and submit to their lawfull and worthy Bishops as their Fathers or Chief Heads and Rulers of their Ecclesiasticall fraternities and families under any the most innocent qualification and temper of Episcopacy as it was to see Saint Dennis his Corps or trunk take up his head and carry it 3. miles after it was cut off as the French Legends report of that Martyr so prepossessed and prejudiced some Ministers and their Disciples are against the Order and Honour of their own calling and function no lesse than against the happiness of this Church both Ministers and people against the peace also and prosperity of the reformed Religion of this Nation all which are so concerned in a right Episcopacy wherein the reall interests of Christian people sober Presbyters and worthy Bishops should be all preserved that in earnest I cannot see how they can without such an orderly Communion and venerable Authority ever be happy because not united either in principles or practises in opinion or affection I believe no good Christian is so blind as not to see that faith cannot in this world be separated from charity that Churches divisions are their confusion as leaky and unhooped vessels let out much if not all the good liquor in them CHAP. VIII THerefore leaving these my hotter-spirited brethren to take breath after their earnest pursuits against Episcopacy and their zealous agitations for either Presbyterian or Independent interests by the new juncto's of their Associations expecting in time to find them in a much cooler temper as already I do all sober and moderate Ministers who unfeignedly approve and heartily pray for Episcopacy in its Primitive proportions I shall in the next place apply my self to You of the Magistracy Nobility and Gentry of this Nation if possibly your spirits less engaged and so less imbittered in Church-contentions may incline to the meditations and embrace the motions of Ecclesiasticall peace and accord in this Church and Nation Saint Paul saw in a vision a man of Macedonia coming to him and calling for Help It is not a vision in the night or a dreame of distresse but the noon-day or meridian of this Churches miseries which presents to you many thousands of poor people daily overgrown with Ignorance Lukewarmness Licenciousnesse Unsetlednesse Superstition Faction Atheisme and all manner of Irreligion also many hundreds of poor Ministers for none is to be esteemed rich or renowned where all are either envyed or condemned by one side or other of all perswasions Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent many of them endued with excellent parts most of them with competent and usefull abilities all these and in them the whole Church and Nation call to you Come and Help us Help to redeem us from that vulgar insolency reproch and contempt into which we are faln both our persons and profession by our mutuall divisions our childish contentions our uncharitable factions our unseasonable ambitions our unreasonable revenges by our immoderate popular and implacable passions Help us as Constantine the Great did those Bishops and other Church-men who were met at the famous Councill of Nice to burn and bury all those complaints quarrels libels jealousies disaffections reproches dissentions and mutuall disparagings under which the Ministers and Ministry of England now lie and labour Manasseh being against Ephraim and Ephraim against Manasseh and Judah against both Episcopall Ministers against Presbyterians and these against Episcopall and Independents against both and some against them all Help to restore us to a condition beyond slaves and villaines reduce us to the state of ingenuous freedom such as the Law affords all honest and industrious men Reform and reunite us if it be possible but not with Swords and Staves with Pistols and Prisons not by the arbitrary Discipline of Souldiers and absolute Tribunals of Committee-men not by plundering sequestring silencing and ejecting us out of all upon meer politick jealousies or onely veniall infirmities when for the main we carry our selves in all things Righteously Soberly and Peaceably Do not expose us to men of new lights to men of erratick judgements and fanatick fancies who lay as much Religion upon their new Disciplines and Church-modellings as upon all the Doctrine Piety and Charity of Christianity Leave us not to the novel and illegall power and partiality of such men who will try us with passion and judge us with prejudice destroy us with pleasure undoe us without appeal or remedy who greedily receive accusations against us as Ministers without letting us see or hear our accusers which are not alwaies two or three according to Gods command both in the Law and Gospel but many times testis singularis onely one sometime none besides some mens jealousies disaffections and surmises against us who seldome give us two admonitions after the Apostles order but at first dash they quite blot us out of their book of life utterly routing us and our families disabling us ever after to plead our innocencies or exercise our abilities or supply our necessities in any convenient way of living Help to redeem if not our persons which are made by vulgar scorn as the filth and off-scouring of all estates in this nation yet at least our Function and Profession which was ever esteemed holy redeem it from those invasions intrusions and usurpations which are made upon it by illiterate mechanick sordid and simple people who can have no true or tolerable authority to be Ministers of holy things when they have no competent abilities and who being on no hand duly consecrated set apart sanctified or ordained for such holy Ministrations cannot but profane abuse and abase them by their abominable arrogancies and sacrilegious usurpations which are the greatest abuses of you and the whole Nation Help to restore the dignity and Authority of the Evangelical Ministry to its Pristine honour and reverence to that Sanctity and Majesty which becomes the deputation and vicegerency the Command and Commission of your blessed God Saviour Let not that lie despicable and trampled under the feet of vile men which is a means and the onely ordinary to instruct to convert to sanctifie to confirme to comfort to save your and your childrens soules Let not that office and function be made triviall despicable and execrable among men
and tyrannies of some Bishops as if all were to be blamed none to be commended and highly magnifying the zeal themselves have for a through Reformation that is that they might freely and fully gratifie their own and peoples ambitions by setting Episcopacy and all Bishops quite beside the saddle on purpose to make way for themselves who are for the most part as fit to governe Churches alone as apes are to build houses I crave leave in order to promote a faire and firme accommodation with all ingenuous freedom and candor to make some more particular application of my desire and designs to those Ministers of the Presbyterian and Independent waies who have opposed their faces sharpned their tongues or pens and hardened their hearts most against all Episcopacy even in the most innocent usefull regular and moderate constitution of it I meane that Primitive order and paternall residency which was universally acknowledged to be eminently in one President as Bishop or chief Pastor over many Presbyters in his Diocese after the pattern of the 12. Apostles who were by Christs appointment above the 70. and so their declared successors as Timothy Titus Archippus those others who are called the Angels of the 7. Asian Churches with many others to whom they derived not onely their example and practical constitution but their Authority and Power Ecclesiastical as is evident by the Canons and Rules set forth not onely in ancient Councils but in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus for the setling and managing of Church-order Discipline and Government in such a way as clearly gives not to any consistory or company of Presbyters and people but to one man a Paramount Authority as Bishop or Superiour both in Ordination and Jurisdiction above others as his inferiours and so subordinate to his spirituall power so far as to reprove examine censure reject c. All which being to me immoveable and immutable foundations for the establishing of Episcopall presidency as the onely succession of that ordinary Apostolick power and authority which is necessary to be alwaies in the Church of Christ they do make me dayly by these considerations more restive and lesse compliant to any new waies or Associatings than perhaps otherwise I should be both by the sociablenesse of my temper and my earnest desire for another way of happy union among Ministers of worth and moderation This uncorrespondency to which I am upon those grounds compelled is with the greater regret to me because I know the learning the industry the zeal the piety the ingenuity the potency of some of those my dissenting brethren in their preaching writing praying and living I am charitably perswaded of many of their sincerity in aiming at Gods Glory and at the purity of holy Ministrations I do not see wherein many of them differ from the best Episcopall Divines ancient or modern as to any main matter of Religion in doctrine or duty Nor can I find any reason yet alledged by any of them sufficient to justifie that pertinacious distance and defiance which of later yeares onely they have taken up against Episcopacy meerly upon the account of jealousie and impatiency to choose and admit a learned grave and worthy Bishop as a fixed Father or constant Governour and Grave Moderator authoritatively to preside among them in their severall grand distributions or Dioceses after that order and eminency which were most comely for them and most unquestionable as to the fixing and completing of Church-order and Government to all sober Christians satisfaction I will not tax or suspect the soberest of my Presbyterian or Independent brethren of such pride and arrogancy as can endure no superiour or chief among them I rather conceive it was a Sympathethick impulse at first from those Scotish motions and pretentions which swerved them not onely from the former good constitution of the Church of England to which they heretofore very orderly and happily submitted but also from their conformity to the Catholick Church in that point to which I believe their judgement heretofore ahd inclination now may incline and lead them as apparently best for their publick and private interests Some are prone to suspect that the best of them did not heretofore submit so humbly and heartily to their Lawfull Superiours and Governours in the Church as in duty and conscience by the lawes of God and man they ought to have done others challenge them for want as of piety and honesty so of Christian charity yea and of common humanity or compasâ—ion for their forwardnesse and fiercenesse to undoe all Bishops and all dignified Clergy-men at least for their ready consent to their utter ruine holding the garments of those that stoned them to death never so much as praying heartily for them while they were in power nor yet pittying them in their miscarriages or calamities no nor so far interceding for or listning to any just moderation which was oft proposed and offered as might have been not more happy for the Bishops than for themselves as Presbyters yea for this whole Church and all Christian people in England I am willing to hope that many Ministers mutations began with good affections and were carried on at first with principles of sincerity and zeal though not with that knowledge meekness and wisdome which was requisite But to many of them that are now the most haughty stiffe and obstinaâ—e against all accommodating with Episcopacy I cannot but still appeale whether they do not in their consiences find that either at first or afterward some secular advantages and private hopes did not a little warp and sway their inclinations to novelties whether they felt not the secret but dissembled strokes of discontent anger envy revenge popularity ambition feigned jealousies inordinate affectations of liberty exciting and animating them to the utter extirpation of Episcopacy whether they did not by a self-conceit generally imagin themselves not onely jointly but severally as fit and able to govern the Church in the whole or in parcels as any yea all the Bishops in England whether any of them do believe the case of Episcopacy to have ever been fully heard freely discussed and impartially stated by the peaceable wisdom and piety of this nation whether many of these Ministers as Politicians and Statesmen did not rather comply with the streame and vogue of times running fiercely against Episcopacy than with their own clear convictions in reason law scripture antiquity conscience whether they kept that equanimity and moderation in all things of this nature which became wise and good men of an Evangelicall Spirit and temper or were not biassed yea transported by something that was popular and sinister whether they do not think that the violence and precipitancy of some of their examples was beyond all solid arguments to drive many well-meaning Ministers and People to such heady and hot petitionings against Episcopacy and to such pittilesse Antipathies against all the most excellent Bishops which were then and still are England
desire may be extended to themselves The contentions and confusions in Religion must needs be endlesse if they be left to the naturall passions of most men Then they may find happy conclusions when those that are Rulers and Teachers of others and so not onely more learned but more prudent unpassionate and composed as Magistrates and Ministers ought to be beyond any men when I say these men do apply the utmost of their Piety Power Parts Zeal and Discretion by fit meanes to compose all controversies among themselves which will then soon decay and dye among the common people The Spirits and reputation of Ministers are commonly the chiefe sparks and bellowes that first kindle and after increase to publick flames the fires of dissentions and disaffections both among themselves and the people once extinguish or moderate these enormous heates among Ministers there will be no such conflagrations of Religion among ordinary people which have of late been more like the black and confused eructations of mount Aetna than the sweet and holy fires of mount Sion or the flames and perfumes of Gods Altar and Temple Which that I might be some meanes to restore to this Church and Nation I have thus made my amicable humble and Christian addresse as to all good men so chiefly to all my Brethren and Fathers of the Ministry in England who are persons of any competent abilities and considerable worth as to the duty and dignity of that great and holy that dreadfull Angelick Divine employment I confesse I cannot but passionately deplore as other mens so my own solitude for these many yeares by reason of that uncorrespondency as to any fraternall meeting with any of them in any publick way being hereby deprived of that great Comfort Improvement Joy and benefit which might be had by those excellent abilities and graces which are in many of them It is great pitty good and able Ministers should be longer severed whose brotherly union and frequent convenings in orderly and publick meetings would not onely set a greater edge and brightness on their studies and parts which alone and confined onely to Country-auditors and associates grow rusty flat and dull but they would highly advance the progresse of the Reformed Religion both in profession and power giving hereby a mighty check as to the encrease of profaneness atheism so of Popery and superstition mightily conducing also to the generall peace of the Nation by allaying those unchristian feuds and uncivill heates which every where so much at present affect infect and disaffect the minds both of Ministers and people But these meetings of Ministers must be authoritative not arbitrary not precarious but subpenall otherwise the restiveness laziness wantonness and factiousness of some will mar all either forbearing all meetings or perturbing them if they be not kept in some awe as well as order by their betters and superiours If I knew any Motives more prevalent any words more pathetick any charmes of love more effectuall any grounds of piety or polity more pregnant if Writing Preaching Praying Beseeching if any Words any Teares any Sighs might work upon Ministers of all sides to bring them to this blessed accord to publick friendly and fraternall meetings to grave orderly and comely conventions which would be of great use as well as honor to them I should in nothing be more prodigall of my time spirits and paines Then would Ministers be able to redeeme their Persons their Office their Orders their Sacred Authority their Religion from vulgar contempt from mechanick arrogancy from those base prostitutions and levellings to which those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 terrae filii sons of the earth vile and mâ—ane men have of late yeares debased as the holy Ministry so all heavenly Mysteries then would that rust and rusticity that plebeian Spirit and ungenerous temper which possesseth many Ministers out of feare and flattery be removed then would that scurfe and mosse that barrenness and canker which is now upon Christian and Reformed Religion be taken away and that floridness with fruitfulnesse that beauty with holinesse be restored which Tertullian so excellently sets forth among Primitive and persecuted Christians in their assemblies In which were highly conspicuous a reverentiall fear of God a modest and mutuall regard to each other a most intentive diligence to duties a most solicitous care of themselves and others a most prepared and deliberate communicating in holy things carried on by the most deserving eminency of some and the most religious subordination or consciencious subjection of others all parts of the Church and Clergy were happily united and God was all in all his glory the centre his love the circle or band of all their aimes and actions their hearts and thoughts The venerable piety and almost Divine Majesty of such conventions wherein Bishops Ministers and people were of one heart and one mind in the Lord advanced the reverence of their censures monitions reproofes abstentions and excommunications to so great a regard and just dread that no good Christian great or small disdained the authority of the Bishop or slighted the judgement of the Clergy which judged and declared the mind of the whole Church because according to the mind of the Lord Christ and of God himself Then was it that lapsed and scandalous sinners were soonest brought to be penitents in so humble yet comfortable a manner that as St. Jerom saith of Fabiola and St. Ambrose of others They furrowed their faces with sorrowes and plowed their cheeks with teares they paved the Churches with their prostrate bodies which were so penitently pallid and deplorable that they seemed only living corpses and breathing carkases So few Christians did then entertain their sins with smiles or laugh at those Teachers that reproved them or schismatically separate from those Orthodox Bishops with the Clergy that justly censured them as obnoxious to Gods judgements and unworthy of Christian Communion till they amended no man or woman ever lived or died in peace of conscience whose soul was justly wounded with these arrowes the censures of the Church they either drank up their sensuall and proud Spirits and brought them to repentance or they sank them into a desperate state both of obstinate sin and eternall horror Such holy and happy Assemblies of Ministers consisting of authoritative Bishops and orderly Presbyters were farre more to their honor and comfort more befitting their breeding and learning their labours and industry their parts and worth their sacred function and dignity than to be pittifully scared and over-awed by Country-Committees and a new sort of Tryars where grave Ministers are oft catechised chastised and contemned by such men as are some of them at least of very moderate that I say not meane abilities except their estates be instead of all reason and Religion all learning worth and wisdome very incompetent judges God knowes of the Doctrine and Manners of Ministers unlesse in matters of civill misdemeanors for which there
to content themselves either with no idoneous Physitians and fit medicines or with such quacking applications and applicators as are no way apt for the work having neither skill nor dexterity to handle so tender yet so dangerous sores and wounds as those of Religion many times are not onely affecting the heads of men but coming neerest the very hearts of them yea and I may say these Church-distempers affect the very heart of Christ himself both God and man We find secular Magistrates and Judges many times with Herod and Pilate ready to set Christ at nought and condemne him souldiers we know have mocked him buffeted him crucified him and parted his garments among them But they were his choise Apostles with other ordained Ministers that professed and preached him These these first planted fenced and watered Christian Religion these preserved propagated and pruned the Church of Christ to this day as the husbandmen or labourers of Christs own sending into his vineyard as workers together with God in the great work of saving soules with these Apostles and Ministers he promised to be meaning them and their true successors to the end of the world as he hath been to this day never failing to assist Godly Bishops and other faithfull Presbyters of his Church to do his work as in private so in publick when they did orderly meet as his servants in his name to his glory and his Churches good suffering themselves to be impartially guided by his word and Spirit without serving the factious interests and sinister policies either of Prince or people Then then was it that Councils and Synods appeared to all sober-minded and humble-hearted Christians as the Starre did to the wise men at Jerusalem guiding them to Christ with exceeding great joy in orderly waies of truth and peace becoming Christian Ministers and people which was the blessed effect of the first Church Council we read of where James Bishop of Jerusalem with the Apostles of the Lord as chief and other Elders or Presbyters being met in the presence of Christian people did so consult discusse and resolve the dissensions then risen in the Churches as to send their determinations with this style and title It seemed good to the holy Ghost and to us whose Canons were read and received not onely with reverence and conscience but with joy and consolation So welcome and usefull to all good Christians are those meanes which are fitly and wisely applied after Gods method and the Apostles pattern to the reliefe and recovery of the Church The care of summoning and convocating such Ecclesiasticall Parlaments when need requires is worthy the piety and Majesty of Christian Princes and soveraigne Magistrates in whom that Authority resides as nursing Fathers of the Church but certainly the management and transaction of Religious affaires in them by way of devotion disputation and determination is the proper work of Church-men that are Godly Learned Wise and Honest both of Bishops as fixed and chief Rulers of the Church and of grave Presbyters as the Representees of the other Clergy chosen deputed intrusted and empowered by them fully and freely to deliberate and determine in those great concernments as Gods word and their own consciences shall direct them without any to over-awe them or to dictate to them I am not ignorant of the jealousies and prejudices that many even wise and good Christians have of such Assemblies Synods Convocations or Councils as are made up onely of Ecclesiasticks or Clergy-men Whos 's oft unhappy successes Gregory Nazianzen that great Divine and good Bishop complaines of in his dayes when the Arrian faction by the partiality of Emperours infected with their poyson strongly vyed in their Conventions against the Orthodox decisions the ancient Faith and Catholick customes of the Church setting up ever and anon in their juncto's and conventicles as St. Hilary expresseth it Diurnall Creeds and Menstruous Faiths being many times but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 theevish Synods furtive Conventicles suborned and slavish Assemblies either transported by humane passions or biassed by partiall affections or levened with popular factions or over-awed by secular powers and sacrilegious policies which made such conventions as the hills of the robbers predatorious oppressors of true Religion pillagers and spoilers of the Church of Christ of which too many sad instances have been in ancient and later daies both at home and abroad Especially when such Assemblies meet not summoned by lawfull Authority not chosen with Ecclesiastick freedome not sitting with completeness of members not voting or disputing with rationall ingenuous and Christian liberties but all things must be carried not after the Nicene but Tridentine fashion as if the holy Ghost were sent to the Assessors in a carriers cloke-bag or a souldiers knapsack the most learned and sober men must be mute and not dare freely to speak their minds without being posted and exposed to popular hatred even to the outraging and hazard of their persons unlesse they speak to that key and tune to which the organe of faction is set These methods of Church Councils and Assemblies I confesse are so Mechanick so Tyrannick so Satanick that nothing is more mischievous to the Church of Christ and true Religion whose condition instead of being thus mended is alwaies marred and betrayed to further errors factions and confusions I pray God deliver his Church from such Conventions where either Lay-men shall over-number and over-awe the Clergy or Clergy-men shall vassalate their consciences to gratifie any potent party and novell faction to the prejudice of that truth faith order ministry and government which were once delivered to the Churches of Christ Not onely England but all Christendome hath cause to curse the day when such snares and stratagems of Satan began to be laid in Synods and Assemblies from thence to take effect on the whole or any part of the Christian Church as eminently in the second Council of Nice the last of Trent and that at Westminster the first setting up Images in Christian Churches to the scandall of Religion the other a thousand new imaginations never owned before as of Christian faith the last which is the first of any that cryed down Episcopacy or Prelacy But the abuses incident to good things through the distempers of men and evill hearts must not exterminate or deprive us of the right use of them for then we should not onely forsake our wits and reason but our meat and drink our clothes and sleep yea and the light of the Sun and breathing in the aire yea our very Sacraments and Scriptures our frequent Sermons and extemporary as well as set prayers yea our Presbyters as well as our Bishops for in all these hony-combes or hives do hornets wasps and drones very oft shrowd themselves by these as St. Austin observes all errors heresies and schismes seek to support and shelter themselves But where such Ecclesiasticall Synods and Councils as were the first so famous Generall ones of
Nice Ephesus Chalcedon and Constantinople besides many other Provinciall and Nationall Synods in Asia Africa and Europe also here in our Britany of which the most learned Sir H. Spelman hath given us a liberall account as Sirmondus of those in France where I say they were lawfully called by the chief Magistrate or freely convened by the Bishops consents and impartially managed with the feare of God and love of his truth so as becomes men of learning gravity and good conscience in so grand concernments as import the peace of the Church the satisfaction and salvation of mens soules in these cases it cannot be denyed nor sufficiently expressed with how happy successes God hath alwaies blessed those meetings their pious results and peaceable determinations being the votes of that publick Spirit of Christ to which the private Spirits of all true Prophets and Preachers no lesse than of Christian people will as they ought be subject Truth and Peace have for many yeares after flourished in those Churches that have been most blest with the frequency of such Synods As frequency of Parlaments when they are as they ought to be the highest fullest and freest Counsel of the Nation is the best preservative of our civill peace and of the vigor of our Lawes so would frequent Nationall Synods rightly constituted and managed be as I formerly demonstrated the best Conservators of the purity peace and proficiency of our Religion as Christian and Reformed When Convocations of Ministers should meet and sit not onely for forme and fashion to be the Umbra's of Parlaments to put on their gownes to tell the clock and to give their monies but to look seriously and effectually into the state of Religion that it suffered no detriment by any practise or pretention by profanenesse or superstition by any defects or excesses under the colours of affected novelty or antiquated Antiquity if the hand that held the scale and standard of Religion were here fixed by Authority that Nationall Synods should be the Conservators of Religion it is not imaginable how much all worthy Ministers would study to improve their studies and imploy their parts to increase their gifts and graces that they might be meet helps in so grand and publick services for God and his Church such as now are like bitten and over-dopped shrubs would then grow to the procerity of tall trees and goodly Cedars What is there so great so glorious so usefull so advantageous for Religion and the good of the Church that might not here by many acute eyes diligent hands able heads and honest hearts be effected 1. How might all new opinions which the luxuriancy of mens imaginations are prone to conceive and bring forth it may be with no evill minds as honest women oft do monstrous births be here timely and duly examined and either smothered or allowed to live being either fully confuted or seriously confirmed 2. How might the purity solidity and profundity of true Doctrine here be contained and maintained as the waters for the Temple were in the brasen Sea 3. How might the first Catechisticall principles or foundations with the second and third storyes of Religion be here methodically digested and prepared for the use of all sorts of people younger and elder 4. How noble an appeale and impartiall a Sanctuary would both Doctrine and Discipline here have which none could in reason or modesty either wave or refuse 5. How might the Devotionall parts of Religion be here admirably composed and so disposed as might supply both the infinite defects which have followed the late indirect Directory and the apparent wants which are found of a fitting publick Liturgy The disuse of which hath not onely exposed the solemnity of publick Prayers and Sacramentall consecrations to each private Ministers Spirit and abilities but to his defects disorders excesses errors indispositions and extravagancies yea they have brought a very great neglect of publick and private duties among all people through the ignorance and indevotion which is grown among us Further they have occasioned infinite partialities whisperings tumults strifes disdaines and divisions among all sorts both of Ministers and people who have not onely the word of God but the water and the blood both the Sacraments of Christ in great respect for mens persons parts and gifts One Minister will have Sacraments another will have none one is cryed up another cryed down as consecrating and officiating better or worse than another one is very long flat and tedious another too short obscure and concise one affects such strange words and odde phrases in his consecration and distribution as either amaze or scandalize the receivers which I have known some Ministers do all by their own either constant or occasionall formes others covet to imitate the patternes and expressions of leading and popular Preachers I humbly conceive much good might be done even in this particular if all Ministers were tyed to use some one grave devout complete and emphatick form such as should be established with all due regard to the former Liturgie and yet permitted with that to use what further prayers and praises they thought convenient or their fervent hearts moved them to for their own and their peoples occasions of the discreet performing of which they should have other judges besides themselves who should not suffer them to be tedious extravagant or impertinent 6. By such Synods moving in a constant orb or fixed sphere how easily might a noble Commentary upon the whole Scripture be composed and commended to the use of this Church for the clearing of the Scripture-sense and meaning and for confirming the Readers of them in the true faith which many not understanding with the Eunuch wrest to their own destructions for want of an interpreter For neither Geneva notes nor Diodates touches nor the late endeavours of some of the Assembly do in my judgement come up to that light and lustre which would be required and might be attained in so admirable and usefull a work whereto much good materialls are already prepared by the excellent labours of English Divines upon most parts of the Scripture To this Commentary might be added such directions for Readers more at leisure as might commend to them those excellent English or other Authors who had wrote well on any one book or chapter or verse with reference to the most remarkable Treatises or Sermons which have been set forth in the Church of England which beyond any Church ancient or moderne had a fulnesse of such spirituall gifts or prophesying powred forth upon it which are now generally shrunk and withered much abated and quite buried chiefly for want of such publick imployment improvement and incouragement as Ministers are capable of and aptest for 7. By the concurrent influence of such publick Counsels all difficulties in Doctrine Discipline and Church-Government might easily be maturely debated gravely resolved exactly stated and wisely composed 8. More compendious cleare easie and constant waies of instilling Religion
facility as children make little babies of clouts or statues of clay as Nazianzen alludes For what I pray you will these new propagators with all their progeny of new-ordained new-fashioned new-coyned and new-commissioned Preachers signifie to the more sober sort of mankind or indeed to the very plebs and vulgar especially among people so curious so querulous so proud so pragmatick so petulant so insolent as are in England Will sober Christians ever much care for any Ministers unlesse they be commended to them as meet to be such not onely by the highest wisdome and civill orderings of this Nation but also as set over them in the Lords Name and Christs Authority by an holy and solemn Ordination such of which they have the least and indeed no cause to have any doubting or slighting thoughts which is the case onely of Episcopall Ordination English Christians of any estate worth weight or wisdome will never be contented to be taught and reproved to have their children baptized at the Font or themselves communicated at the Lords Table by such Ministers as shall have onely the petty tickets of an humane act or State ordinance No they will and justly ought to require the grand Charter of Divine Authority conferred in the way of Catholick and true Ordination That so Ministers may be able to justifie their function and actions not onely in Law but in conscience not as Emissaries from men but as Embassadors from God Commissionated by Christ and his Deputies imployed in his work and armed with his power There goes much more to make a Minister of Jesus Christ than to make a Constable in an Hundred or a Parish or to make a Captaine in a Troop or a Justice on a Bench who yet cannot expect to be owned as such unlesse they can evidence their Commission and Authority to be rightly derived from the soveraigne originall of civill power no more may Ministers unlesse they can shew the right source and course of their sacred Authority While Ministers preach and practise Baptize and Consecrate with divided tongues distracted hands and distorted heads as to this point of their Ordination they are likely to produce no better successes either to this Church or Nation than those morter-men did whose work deserved the nick-name of Babel or Confusion The essentiall forme and difference the whole life and operation the proper virtue and efficacy of a Christian Ministry and Minister depending as I have shewed upon the truth sanctity and validity of that Authority with which he is invested and by that enabled to do the work and office of a Minister without which no man hath any more to do than his meanest groom or foot-man with the acts properly Ministeriall Military or Magisteriall whatever abilities or call he fancie himself to have So that if once your Wisdome and Piety O worthy Gentlemen could find a way to put the Clergy or Ministry of this Church as formerly we were into an uniform way of sacred complete and undoubted Authority as to their Ordination then and not before will they appeare like the Angels of God ascending and descending in their orderly courses then will they be enabled and esteemed powerfully to pray to God for you powerfully to preach from God to you powerfully to consecrate and exhibit holy mysteries to you Then will they be like the Lamps of the Temple or the shafts of the Golden Candlestick which were all of the same make and fashion and supplied with holy oyle from the same source shining with a lustre more than humane in your severall congregations how much more will they appeare like Angelick and Celestiall Quires in their Ecclestastick Convocations and Synodall Conventions Whereas now Ministers are in all Places Cities and Countries wretchedly divided monstrously deformed and miserably disabled mutually accusing and clamoring against each other alwaies barking or biting or howling either tormenting or tormented as the Devils in Hell One superciliously abhorrs what another devoutly adores One vilifies what another venerates One Minister with his party pulls down what another builds up One execrates what another consecrates One nullifies what another magnifies One formally officiates who is counted no Minister and really is none another is thought to be but halfe a Minister or a kind of mungrell a third is reputed for more than an ordinary Minister as having his Commission by inspiration or conspiration One is thought superfluous yea superstitious in his Ordination because he had a Bishop with Presbyters to ordaine him another is judged defective and dwarfish for want of a Bishop a third hath neither Bishop nor true Presbyters to ordaine him but either begets a body to himself as an head or is chosen by a popular body to be their head This makes both Preachers and people at such distances and defiances in Religion that one counts that sacriledge which another boasts of as sacred One is called a mocker of God an usurper in holy offices and a contemner of the Churches Primitive and Catholick Custome another is derided as a doting Antiquary a superstitious Priest or proud Prelate who can relish no bread but what is old and moldy nor any drink but what is out of a Gibeonitish bottle Thus are all holy mysteries and duties which any Ministers performe made either very disputable or despicable to the people while all their authority on all sides as dispensers of them is so much questioned doubted divided and denyed in the great point of their mission and Ordination which is most essentiall to a Minister and most fundamentall to any Churches Peace and Polity requiring next the maine Articles of Faith to be setled in the clearest and most unquestionable way with most uniform Authority most conforme to all pious Antiquity whose ancient and Catholick patterne as to Episcopall that is Apostolicall Ordination is no more with prudence to be changed either into Presbyterian or Independent new formes than the Church hath cause to exchange Davids Psalmes for any such godly Balads or moderne Hymns as we see some Ministers with more piety I hope than good poetry have sometime commended to the harsh and unharmonious voyces of ill-tuned and ill-stringed Congregations Adde to all these not onely the inconveniencies but mischiefes which are not more uncomfortable than pernicious to the interest of the true and Reformed Religion For from the divisions of Ministers as to their rise and descent or Ordination follow not onely strangeness but strifes and emulations evil eyes and secret feudes against one another each being either jealous of or contemptuous toward another But furthermore from this difference in their Ordination they are tempted to affect to broach and to preach different Doctrines For those peeled rods which alwaies lye before their eyes as to their Orders or Characters their Ministeriall Admissions and Stations do occasion their conceiving and bringing forth a ring straked and spotted kind of Religion even as to Doctrine that by the discriminations of their opinions either in
the Emperour did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as men suffer their native passions to carry them somewhat beyond tha discretion and temper which became grave and godly Bishops while they did too much proscind and prostitute as it were the Imperial purple vilifying that Majesty which ought to be sacred to Christian Subjects although the persons wearing them may be Tyrants Persecutors and Apostates as the Censers were to be holy in which Incense had been once offered though with strange fire Bishops Miters and Crosiers ought in no case to clash with the Crowns and Scepters of Soveraign Princes however their discreet zeal may seasonably represent to them and in Gods name reprove their misdemeanors as Christians much less may any Presbyters pert upon them who are of a far lesser size and never had any ensignes of honor and autority as chief governours of any Church Be Bishops or Presbyters never so zealous and gracious yet they are not beyond the ancient and best Bishops of Rome and of other chief Cities who with Gregory the Great owned the Emperours as their Soveraign Lords So did St. Ambrose respect both Theodosius and Valentinian so did the venerable Council of the Nicene Bishops reverence the Emperour Constantine the Great Neither their number being three hundred and eighteen nor their publick representation of the Catholick Church did encourage them to do or meditate any thing beyond prayers and petitions recommending all their Counsels to God the Emperour and all the Church No Preachers or Christians warmth needs go beyond the pitch of Christ and his Apostles who are so absolutely for obedience respect and civil feare to Princes whether heathen or Christian that no supreme power whatever need to fear the overthrow or shaking of their Empire Soveraignty and Dominion by admitting true Christian Religion and true Christian Bishops nor need they feare it as any sin persecution or injustice in them to curb represse and punish by all meanes the inordinate pragmatick and seditious zeal as of Bishops so of any Presbyters or people who shall pretend to bring in any Religion or Reformation against their will and permission it being the work and mark of true Religion and undefiled to establish the Thrones of Princes to preserve the publick peace to teach subjection not onely of purses and persons but of soules and consciences so far as Princes do not require them to disobey God and in these cases they need not rack their wits to find out rebellious remedies or disloyall evasions the onely lawfull and laudable refuge is neer at hand namely Christian patience which sets men furthest off from railing or resisting both which are but the scorchings and soote of black and over-burning zeal which makes a kind of Charcoale of Religion What wise sober and humble Christian then can sufficiently love honour and admire the modesty humility and loyalty of true Episcopacy ever expressed by the carriage of the best Christian and reformed Bishops towards all Princes And who can sufficiently abhor the petulancy and insolency of those Novellers and Reformers who shall dare to lift up either the Presbyterian virgula or the Independent ferula or the Anabaptistick flail not onely to threaten but to chastise Soveraign Princes that list not to admit their wayes into their dominions before they can approve them in their Consciences and Judgements following the disciplining methods and penance used by some Monks of Canterbury against our King Henry the second Surely Christianity and the Clergy are never so healthy and comely as when their complexion is rather pallid with the fastings and prayers the studies and pains of humble Bishops and Presbyters than purpled or sanguine with blood and fury The over-hot breathings of Ministers like the chaud of Charcoale stifle and suffocate the vital spirits of true Religion Godly Bishops and Presbyters ever abhorred as Hell and damnation to teach Princes their Religion their Canons Catechises and Directories as Gideon did the men of Succoth with Briars and Thornes or to discipline Soveraigne Majesty with Swords and Pistols in order to perswade them to submit to the Gospel-Scepter and Discipline No they never did attempt so to do either in the Primitive and persecuting times when Magistrates were most froward and injurious or in those times which were afterward more propitious and prosperous when the Clergy fed highest and was most indulged by the munificence of Christian Emperours and Empresses devout Kings and Queens who as good nurses never repined at the fulness of their own breasts or the hearty sucking of their dear nurslings joyning the Prince to the Prelate and adding Lordly Honors with Estates to Christian Bishops never fearing hereby to make them too wanton or insolent while they saw them keep to the sober principles of Christianity conformable to that Apostolick and Primitive Episcopacy which was alwaies pure and peaceable faithfull to God humble and loyall to man so Ruling the Church of Christ as not to be Masters of mis-rule in any Nation State or Kingdom Yea in the amplest enjoyments of that pious munificence and those generous liberalities which Christian Princes Noblemen Gentlemen and inferiour persons devoutly afforded to Bishops and the rest of the Clergy as tokens of their gratitude to God their honor to their Saviour their love to their spirituall Fathers and their value of their own and other mens soules however some few Clergy-men among many might possibly surfeit sometime and as Jesurun grow petulant sensuall and sottish through fulness of bread idlenesse and luxury yet still the generall face of the best Bishops and Clergy was comely and venerable there wanted not in all Ages such Bishops and Presbyters both in England and all Churches for Gravity Learning Sanctity Charity Fidelity and Loyalty as kept up the Office Name and Honor of the Clergy and of Episcopacy to an high degree of honor and veneration both with Princes and people that were good Christians No men were more usefull or more imployed for the good ordering both of Church and Common-weale than Bishops were none were better Counsellors to Princes and greater Benefactors to their fellow-subjects none further from faction sedition popularity sacriledge and rebellion none did greater service or better offices for their King their Church and their Country How loyal resolute and religious a Remonstrance did the Bishop of Carlile make in Parliament against the deposing of King Richard the Second when the whole stream ran against him Was not Morton first Bishop of Ely and after of Canterbury the first designer and a principal effecter of the union of the White and Red Roses the two great houses of York and Lancaster to the blessed extinguishing of those long flames of civil war which drank up the blood and consumed the flesh of this Nation whose greatest miseries rise from its own bowels Was not Richard Fox Bishop of Durham the chief Counsellour Promoter and Actor of that other union between the two Crowns of England and Scotland by treating
obloquies and affronts which sometimes either weak or wicked foolish or factious men sought to cast upon all Bishops and all the Clergy under them yet still the kindness of Parlaments the favour of Princes the worth of good Ministers the discretion of wise Bishops and above all the goodness of a gracious God kept the Clergy of England in such a condition as was rather to be envied than pittied No Minister of any worth was then so cheap despicable so obvious to injuries and obnoxious to all indignities as now he is no not by an hundred degrees Every grave and good Minister in his place then moved as wheels in an Engine by that concurrent strength which then was in the whole Fabrick Juncture of the Church the beams of Episcopal honor shined on the meanest Clergy-man whose own fatuity or factiousnesse weaknesse or wickednesse did not obscure him The secular interests and worldly enjoyments of the whole Clergy were then much more considerable both for profit and honor their livings much better and more secure to them as their Free-holds if they kept within the bounds which our Laws had set their preferments more ample and more easie to be had their reliefs in case of any loss burthen or charge more easie their reputation more conspicuous when they had something of authority and commission besides their Desks and Pâ—lpits when some of them were not only in Ecclesiastick Commissions but assessors on Benches of civil Judicature for which as they might well have leisure enough without neglecting their spiritual employment so I believe they might be as able to serve their Country and their neighbours in that way as a great many Justices of latter edition especially so far as to preserve the honor of the Church and true Religion from suffering any detriment in any County It is evident that in all times since England was Christian no Courts of Justice were ever had without some Divines at them and in them our Fore-fathers alwayes judging it to be of no less concernment to preserve Religion in authority and Church-men in conspicuity than to preserve their Estates civil Peace and Lifes Beyond this how great a lustre I beseech you was added by the piety and generosity of the English-Nation to all the Clergy when some of the Bishops were taken into the Privy Counsell of the Princes when all the Bishops had the places and priviledges of Peers in Parlament having temporall Baronies yea when the whole Clergy in their Representees had place and power in Convocation both to consult of all things Ecclesiasticall and to give of their own Spirituall Estates a free-will-offering to the publick Treasury These and such like marks of publick conspicuity looked indeed like the beams of honor upon the Clergy making their faces to shine before the common people This posture of the Clergy was manly generous heroick becoming the Honor and Piety of the Nation worthy of the munificence of Christian Princes of the Devotion of Christian Parlaments of the Learning and Merit of so excellent a Clergy and Christian Ministry as England enjoyed which of all professions in any Nation should be least Eclipsed and most illustrated with the tokens of publick respect because no men have to encounter with so many Devils of disdain and Spirits of opposition in private breasts as good Ministers have if they will be friends to mens soules and foes to their sins Now poor wretches wherein are any of us as Ministers of the Gospel considerable for any publick remarques of respect and honor either to our persons or callings Are we not even ashamed of our selves and one another when we see the nakednesse to which the justice of God by our own sin and folly hath exposed us and our profession Not onely all Bishops under whose wings Presbyters were wont to be best sheltred but even Presbyters yea Presbytery it self and all sorts of Preachers or Ministers whatsoever are miserably disputed and despised by those many fac'd parties in Religion which have been gendred of late in England while people have looked upon that ring-streaked py-bald and party-coloured Ministry which hath been set before them vastly different from that Candor Beauty and Uniformity which heretofore was both in Shepherds and their severall flocks agreeable to that Primitive pattern which never had a Christian Congregation without an appointed Minister nor a Minister without due Ordination nor Ordination without a Bishop nor a Bishop without great honor and respect among all good Christians The Bishops of the Church being as St. Jerom expounds that of the Psalmist those children of the Church which are prophesied to be made Princes in all Lands under the Gospel and in the Government of Jesus Christ All these united together in an holy and happy correspondency kept up Christian Religion its Doctrine Ministry and Discipline to some height and eminency which is now faln here in England to a very poor and pittifull a plebeian and precarious yea in many to a Parasiticall posture not daring to discommend what they dislike nor to owne what they desire nor to desire what they approve nor to complaine of what they feel pressing and pinching them yea some are such Cossets and Tantanies that they congratulate their Oppressors and flatter their Destroyers calling that a State of precious Liberty which is indeed no better than a tamer slavery boasting in their shame and triumphing in the ruines and disparagings as of their profession so of the true Christian and Reformed Religion which cannot but be darkned when the Clergy is Eclipsed as now it is in England where not any one Minister great or small can keep himself in any tolerable esteem with all parties no nor avoid the contempts and reproches cast from some hand or other on him let his worth be what it will for Learning and Integrity for Piety and Paines yet he wants not those friends to Reformation that seek to depresse him and would heartily joy in his utter ruine Some poor Ministers may possibly now shrowd themselves here and there under some particular shelter of some civil and less supercilious patrone or some more sober and good-natured people but to speak the truth none of them have any proper Sanctuary or any meet refuge among themselves where they may equally expect protection for their Rights Persons and Profession as Ministers of the Church or as men in holy orders How many with scorne disallow and disavow any such Church or Orders as the best Ministers pretend nor do they that are first Antiepiscopal and then Antiministerial think that there is any thing of right due to any of them besides poverty and contempt Yet to such ports many times most Ministers put in when tossed to and fro in the tempest of popular contests forced thus to run themselves a ground sometimes to avoid utter Shipwrack many have given over their Livings to enjoy their Liberties and to preserve a capacity either to get another or by
dead and buried yet no Corruption no Dissolution no Dissipation can hinder the hand of omnipotent Goodnesse when he shall please to command a Resurrection even to dry bones and scattered dust Then may we hope that this salvation of the most High draweth neer to us when those that are in highest place for power and Counsell shall by impartiall advise both of States men and Church-men in Synods as well as Parlaments deliberate and determine such things as shall gratifie no one or more Factions or Parties but the community or publick with regard not so much to the present pregnant and pugnant interests which are not without passion prosecuted and urged as chiefly to the future blessings of their Country and Posterity which no Government as to the civil State will make long happy or peacefull unlesse they be combined in religious regards as Christians no lesse than as men For though Christians properly do not fight and contend yet the men and beasts will if their hearts and hands be not bound with mutuall Charity and Religious Harmony which are the surest bonds of Unity Perfection and Peace To let the concernments of this Church and the state of the Reformed Religion alone to leave them as now they stand or fall rather into daily Decaies Divisions Distractions mutuall animosities abhorrencies between Ministers and other Christians to let them take their course and work out themselves by an irreligious tolerancy and imprudent indifferency is as St. Basil the Great observes like the leaving of a desperate Consumption or a spreading Cancer or a venemous Gangrene or a contagious Plague to the cure of good nature and providence expecting what Time will do which is indeed a Catholicon that either cures or consumes mends or ends all things A method far short of that Prudence and Conscience which ought studiously and industriously to apply all those seasonable and apt meanes which both Reason and Religion Piety Charity Policy and Humanity do dictate to us and require of us which being in the power of our hands not to use them must needs be such a supine negligence and sottish lazinesse as neither becomes wise men nor good Christians savouring more of an earthy dulnesse and an Atheisticall indifferency than of any quick sense of Honor or Conscience in behalf of our God our Saviour our Religion our own or other mens soules In all which to be carelesse and stupid is the lesse veniall in us as men because in other things like Spiders we have a very quick sense and most acute resentment of any thing that in the least kind toucheth or threatneth our civil worldly and momentany concernments for Estate Honor or safety here we are vigilant to prevent speedy to consult diligent to endeavour desperate to adventure Which high activity in matters Momentany renders our coldnesse and lukewarmenesse in Religion most unexcusable before God and man being more afraid of an Enemy than an Heresie of civil Sedition than of Ecclesiastick Schisms of a sharp Sword than a damnable error more solicitous to save our Carcases than our Soules and to sleep in whole skins than to keep good Consciences pretending as some do that nothing is more Religious than to urge injoyne and require nothing in Religion that the highest Christian Liberty is an Indifferency or toleration left to all men toward all Religions especially if they do but pretend to any smack of Christianity I know that this indulging of an equall toleration to all parties and Sects in Christian Religion by which as Cocks in a pit they may fight it out till they have got the Mastery of each other hath a popular shew of Equanimity and tendernesse being much applauded by those that have had of late yeares the reall benefit of it though they are the most supercilious and severe suppressors of others who do but crave an equall and inoffensive share of freedom as to their Judgements Consciences and Religion yet if we look to the bottome of such indulgences as gratifie mens endlesse Novelties Varieties Vanities and Extravagancies in Religion we shall find they have little of true Charity lesse of true Piety and least of all of true Policy either in Magistrates or Ministers whose duty I humbly conceive is not so much to build their own severall nests and to feather them with their private fancies where to lay and hatch up their various opinions but they should all agree to build Gods house to advance that common salvation according to the Catholick Order and Example of Christs Church They should speedily faithfully and impartially set themselves to settle and maintaine by all fit meanes such a way of true Religion as to its publick Profession solemn Ministration and paternall Government as shall be found by the joynt Wisdom and Piety of the Nation in Learned Synods impartially convened and in free Parlaments peaceably disposed to be most consonant to Gods word as to the substance of duties and to Primitive Custome as to the manner or Circumstances of them A work certainly not more necessary than easie if mens hearts were as upright as they are able with Gods blessing to attaine so good a designe Nor would men faile to be warme and diligent in it if they had a true perception either of the great advantages which attend the Unity of any Nation in Religion or of the mischiefes publick and private which follow their distractions while every one out of a childish and inordinate delectation is indulging their own private humors and opinions to the injury and neglect of the publick I see that in Terrors of fire shipwreck or inundation even devout people will fly from their Prayers Sermons and Sacraments to secure themselves or their neighbours with how much more zeal and earnestness should wise men dispense a little with their private interests secular Counsells and civil agitations and sometimes apply to the reliefes and securities of Religion if they did apprehend and lay to heart the pernicious consequences which are inseparable from the Divisions and Distractions of Religion whereof I have given in the Second Book so many and so miserable instances If the work were but once well begun it would be half done lesser disputes would fall of themselves if once as to the maine of Doctrine Worship Discipline and Church-Government sober men were agreed if the maine sores of Pride Passion Prejudice and Presumption were well searched and clensed Charity like a precious balsame would soon work out close and heale all uncomfortable jealousies and distances among good Christians However some publick standard owned established for the setled Truth and Order of the Reformed Religion on all sides would by casting Anchor as it were give some good stay at present beyond what the particular Confessions of several parties are like to do such as I see both Presbyterian Associations and Independent Congregations daily bring forth and so will every new form do till we all agree in something uniform as to
and Reformed hath suffered very much in England when it was best setled we have upon us the wounds both of peace and war As our former long peace and undeserved prosperity treasured up much morbifick matter so the civil war by mutual chafings and exasperatings did breed higher inflammations and festrings yea and our late truce rather than tranquillity hath been so far from a serious consideration and well-advised setling of our distractions in Religion that many men have had but more leisure and liberty to scratch their own and other mens scabious itchings and to make wider the gaping corifices of our religious Ulcers Indeed private hands can do no other who besides their petulant passions being under no publick restraint and modesty have infinite partialities both as to self-flatteries and designs It must be the Gravity and Majesty the Nobleness and Ampleness of publick Wisdom and Authority which must by prudence and impartiality both in counsels and actions reach the depth and equal the proportions either of our maladies or our remedies to which if wise and worthy men do not in time contribute their counsels prayers and endeavours for the help and healing of our Religious Affairs doubtless the disorders and sinister policies of either weak or wicked men will utterly ruine the very remains and ruines of this Church Nor can the Civil State be ever steddy or permanent where Prince and Subjects Preachers and People are so divided in their principles and practises of Religion both as to their Ministry and Ministration as to the original and exercise of all Ecclesiastical Authority and Communion that they still think it a great part of their Religion either to reform or ruine each other It is observed to be one main pillar of the Turkish Polity Peace and Empire which is so vast and diffused yet generally so peaceable and unanimous that their Religion or Holy Law as they call it being once setled is never permitted by any man to be shaken or disputed much less altered or innovated in the least kind I know it is not fit for Christians to follow all Mahometan rigors and severities no more than their follies and simplicities yet if the setledness of so wild a Rhapsody of Religion as the Alcoran contains which is made up of Truth and Falshood of Fables and Fancies of Dreams and Dotages be of so great moment to preserve their civil peace where no wise man can be much concerned what is believed or disbelieved by him or any man in such a meer Romance of Religion of how much more consequence and conscience would it be to all Christians in any Polity or Nation to have their Religion well fixed and setled which is so Ancient so Holy so True so Venerable so Divine so in its Nature Centre and Circumference but one so deserving to be most United and Uniform both as to its Doctrine and Profession It is a shame to see Mahometans wiser in their generation than Christians who are or ought to be the children of that Wisdom and that Light which shines upon them all by the Scriptures as the Beams of the Sun of Righteousness It is childish for us who are cunning careful enough to preserve civil peace to be so careless of religious Unity and Harmony as to be tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine according to the sleight of men who lye in wait to deceive the hearts of the simple serving not the Lord but their own bellies We should rather study to be rooted and grounded in the Catholick Truth which is according to Holiness Justice Order and Charity after the primitive pattern and constant practise of all true Churches Preachers and Professors whose Authority and Reverence ought to sway more with us than any new and private mens Inventions which no man will admire that well understands the old which were so founded upon Verity so fortified by Charity so edified in Unity so reverend for Antiquity so permanent in their Constancy according to the particular constitutions of every Church which still kept the great and Catholick Communion as to the main amidst some little varieties of outward profession not as to substance but onely in Circumstances or Ceremony For as to the main every Christian Layical or Clerical Catechumens Penitents and Communicants Deacons and Presbyters kept the stations in which God and the Church had set them Every member kept to its Congregation every Congregation to its ordained Presbyter or lawfull Minister every Presbyter to his own Bishop every Bishop to his Metropolitane every Metropolitane to his Patriarch every Patriarch not to the Pope but to the Generall Councills and every Generall Councill to the Scriptures and those Apostolick Traditions which were Catholick and so agreeable to them All which orderly gradations were certainly in the Catholick Church as lawfull as those which the policy of Presbytery hath invented for Congregationall Classicall Provinciall and Nationall Consistories I am sure they were much more usefull For those of old preserved every private Christian every Family every City every Country every Province every Nation that was Christian not onely in a Church-way or Ecclesiasticall Communion and Correspondency as to their particular bounds and neerer relations in every Parish or Congregation or City or Country but as to that Catholick bond of Charity which binds up all Christians in all the world in one fellowship of one body and one Church whose head is Christ to whom every true believer and visible Professor in the whole latitude of the Church being by the Word and Spirit of Christ fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part doth both edifie and increase it self and others in Truth and Love without which all Churches all Religion and all Reformation are but like parts or members separate from their body not without flesh sinewes substance or bones but yet without blood and Spirits Life and Soul For as the particular parts and members of the naturall body do not live thrive and move onely by that particular substance spirit life and aptitude which is apart in them but by a concurrence with an influence from and a participation of that common Spirit Life Virtue which they have from the whole while they are in Communion with it so is it with Christians singly and severally considered their virtue is small and separated none at all because they want so much of Authority and Validity as they want of Catholick Unity and Ecclesiasticall harmony which keep Christians and Churches intire to Christ and to each other by that one and common spirit which runs through all true Christians by virtue of which and not of any private spirit all publick transactions which concern any nobler part or portion of Christs Church are to be carried on and anciently were in all orderly Churches as branches of the Catholick This this great and publick Communion in the
of the Temple and city of God were wont to do to the joy or amazement of all Spectators so grand so stately so august so amiable so venerable so formidable that no man could with any modesty despise them or with any ingenuity refuse their sense and sentence Whereas Schismaticall scraps and scambling separations of Christians either in their persons or parties as disjoyned and Independent from these Primitive polities and Catholick integrations of Churches make their scattered fractions unsociable societies appear not onely to the scornfull world and to perverse minds but to all sober Christians and rationall men like so many poor Cottages or like the late ruined pieces of our Cathedralls like a flock of Sheep or Pigeons scattered by Wolves or Kites or like the parts of a Lamb or Kid which a Lion or Bear hath torn without that Grandeur Majesty Authority and Efficacy which ought to accompany Ecclesiasticall judicatures and Christian Churches In which pitiful posture so feeble so desolate so despicable if the wisdom of our blessed God and Saviour had intended to have alwayes kept his multiplied Church and numerous people which were to beas the Stars of the Firmament that they should ever be like the small parties of wild Arabs and wandering Scythians certainly those Primitive and purest Churches nominally distinguished and locally defined by the Word of God the Spirit of Christ and the Pens of the Apostles would never have grown by an happy diffusion and holy coalescency to such great and goodly combinations such vast yet comely statures and extensions to so large combinations and harmonious subordinations as contained great Cities Provinces and whole Countreys For such Churches those are which are signally described and punctually circumscribed in the New Testament as well as in all other records of the Primitive Churches Which fair and firm models of Churches comprehending many Christian people Deacons Presbyters and Congregations under one chief Pastor Bishop Angel or Apostolick â—resident who was as the nave of the wheel the centre of Union the anchor of Fixation I make no doubt but the Spirit of Christ in the Apostles which so framed and setled them did intend to have them so preserved as much as morally prudentially and providentially they could be yea rather to have them ampliated and enlarged as time use and the Churches occasions required than curtailed like the garments of Davids messengers or pared and divided into small shreds and shavings The reason is evident because the life and spirit the truth and charity the honour and vigour of Christian Religion and Church-polity like Wine are better preserved in great quantities than in small parcels in Tuns than in Terces Christian people Presbyters Congregations and Bishops like live-coals united glow to a more generous fervour scattered they cool and extinguish themselves unlesse in cases of persecuted Churches where Martyrly fervencies are kept high and intense by the Antiperistasis of persecution the most heroick love and ambition of suffering and dying for Christ and his Church then uniting Christians spirits most when their persons are most scattered BOOK I. CHAP. II. THe Primitive Piety and Charity so perfectly abhorred all fractures and crumblings of Churches that we see they kept for many hundred of years as Ignatius Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Clemens Alexandrinus Cyprian Eusebius and all Ancient both Fathers and Historians tell us their respective Combinations Fraternities and Subordinations to their Bishops Patriarchs and mother-Churches according to those Sedes principales Cathedrae Apostolicae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 limits or boundaries which were laid out and distinguished either by the Apostles first lots and Episcopall portions or by their chief residencies and setled inspections governed either by themselves or their Vicegerents and Successors most of them Primitive Martyrs and Confessors which was done even till the famous Council of Nice which in the point of distinguishing Churches and keeping their severall Dioceses or bounds took care to preserve to after-ages and successions of the Church those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ancient customes measures or dimensions some of which begun by the Apostles and carried on by their Successors had passed through and endured the hottest persecutions without ever being so melted and dissolved as to run into any such new moulds and fashions as this last Century in these Western Churches and these last seventeen yeares in the Church of England have produced to such frustula fragments chips and fractions as look more like factious confederacies and furtive subductions of yesterday than like those Primitive combinations and that ancient and ample Communion of Christians and Churches The endeavour of many People and Preachers too being now like that of Plagiaries to entice and steal children from the care of their mothers and the custody of their fathers to ruine as Tertullian speaks rather than to edifie themselves or the Churches of Christ to that full measure and complete stature which the love of Christ and the wisdome of his Apostles first designed and assigned to the Church of Christ in its severall limits and distributions In order to preserve which Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace not onely as to private veracity and charity but as to publick polity and harmony for strength and safety we find the Primitive Bishops and Presbyters forewarned by S. Paul of grievous Wolves who first divide then devour such as should be authors and fautors of Hereresies and Schismes too affecting to lead Disciples after them apart from the Churches setled order and communion The Roman Christians are commanded to mark with the black brand of schismatick pride those that caused divisions among them not onely as to private differences in judgement opinion and affection which are of lesse danger and easily healed among Christians where the health and soundnesse of the whole as to publick order and entireness is preserved which as the native Balsam easily heals green wounds in any part of the body But the Apostles caution as to the Corinthians seems chiefly against those that divided the publick polity and unity of the Church of Corinth which having many Christians many Congregations and many Preachers in the city and countrey adjacent was united by one Church-communion under some one Apostle or such a Vicegerent as in the Apostles absence was over them in the Lord To break which holy Subordination Harmony and Integrality the simplicity or subtilty of some factious spirits made use of those Names which were most eminent in that Church as Planters Waterers or Weeders of it such as Paul Apollos Cephas were seeking by factious sidings and adherings to those principall Teachers to withdraw themselves into severall Churches or Bodies from that grand Communion and Subordination which they received first from the Apostle converting them next from that chief Pastor or Bishop which had the rule inspection and authority over them by his appointment Which practises in the Churches
zelotries Anarchicall furies deformed reformings and desperate hypocrisies by which some men have like very foul chimneys not onely taken fire themselves according as their own lusts kindled them but they have sought to set this whole house of God the Reformed Church of England on fire under pretence forsooth of cleansing the soile and soot of it which appear now to have been more in their own hearts than any where else Have we not had enough of insolent railings bitter calumnies odious indignities and endless divisions brought upon this Reformed Church of England upon its Apostolick Ministry and all its Evangelical Ministrations as invalid superstitious Popish Antichristian abominable Besides the tragick depressions and undoings of many sober Ministers in their persons credits and estates who were justly esteemed by good Christians for very pious painfull and peaceable men yet have the storms of times not onely faln heavily upon them during the paroxysme of our civil wars but even since that tempest hath been allayed many poor Ministers beyond all other men have been afflicted with the strifes of tongues with schismatical despites with opinionative and disputative besides operative persecutions so far that many a grave and godly Minister hath not known whither to flie not so much for employment as for his safety or quiet that he might in any corner or cottage of the land be free from the molestations of those importune wasps those ill-natur'd Factionists who are his eternall Antagonists who first separating from him at length they preach or prate against him against his office orders and function counting themselves as a new swarm of Teachers sent of God to be to the former stock of Preachers like the hornets sent against the Canaanites that driving all the ancient orthodox duly ordained and well-learned Ministers out of the employment and communion of the Church this Canaan of England this good land this famous Church may wholly be in their possession Have we not had enough and too much of petulant practises scurrilous expressions and blasphemous insolencies cast even upon that God that Saviour that holy Spirit that blessed Trinity whom we adore and admire besides the neglects contempts and profanations cast upon our Sacraments our Sermons our Prayers I need not to adde and repeat the diminutions and indignities under which many worthy Ministers both Bishops and Presbyters do lie together with that whole Evangelical order and office which planted preserved and reformed this Church of England How many have questioned others derided a third sort divided from and not a few have utterly denied and as much as in them lies destroyed them all Hence many are grown to esteem all our Religion all our Reformation all Christian duties all Worship and Devotion no better than meer politick frauds specious fables popular fallacies cunning captivities witty mockeries and delusions of the people Yea that nothing might be wanting which malice can invent or act there are some so fierce and cunning enemies of the Church of England that to bring our Reformation into further defiance and disgrace among Papists Atheists and profane livers they dare to impute even their most putid errours their most extravagant fancies their most factious and flagitious practises either to reforming principles or to Gods Spirit and divine impulses O what astonishment what stupor what a lethargie what a dumbnesse what searednesse what deadnesse must needs possess the spirit of any Nation so Christian so Reformed so knowing and enlightened as the people of England sometime was to hear with patience yea with silence yea with connivence yea with smiles and seeming approbation such insolencies such extravagancies imputed to their Religion yea to their Reformation nay to the Spirit of their God and Saviour horrid and black enormities which deserve to be expiated with teares of blood as Gregory Nazianzen speaks of some abuses of Religion in his times O blessed God stir up such a pious shame sorrow and abhorrence in the generality of the people that these fedities may not become the sins of the nation Have we not had enough and too much of scepticall disputes and unedifying contests of unhealing questions and uncharitable quarrellings of bitter strifes and bloody contradictions of evil eyes and envious emulations prevailing like gangrenes or cancerous distempers even among those that profess to be godly and contend for the superiority of Sanctity By all which as S. Hilary passionately complains after the Arian fury had poysoned the Church in his times not onely unkind distances but mutuall defyances and damnings the Christian Reformed Religion sometime setled uniform and flourishing with verity charity decency divine authority and publick majesty in the Church of England is now made an annual menstruall and diurnall Faith or Religion as S. Hilary aptly deplores All things are either so snarled and intangled by infinite doubts and scruples or so wire-drawn by popular and petty disputes or so broken in sunder by factious divisions or so horrid by reciprocall Anathemaes like thunder-bolts cast on all sides in each others faces that the common sort of people know not what to make of Christian or Reformed Religion nor to what Ministers or Ministry to apply themselves with comfort and conscience The solid masse of pure gold which was the highest riches and honour of this nation the true and invaluable treasure of your souls while Religion as Christian and Reformed was carefully preserved as a precious and holy depositum this well-refined gold is now so dim and embased with dross or so malleated and beaten thin by perverse disputations that most men use Religion onely as leaf-gold to tip their tongues or gild over the superficies of their conversation withall or to set off as S. Austin observed of old in the crafty Manichees and others both Hereticks and Schismaticks of his time with the shew and lustre of Christian Religion all the new fancies projects policies and opinions of severall parties which are presently by their authors and abettors cryed up as the pure Ordinances of Jesus Christ the perfect mind of the Spirit the true meaning of the Scripture Gospel-truths hidden treasures Evangelick rarities yea that nothing might be thought to have been Christian Catholick clear and constant setled and indisputable as to Religion in this or any other Church of any other frame and fashion some men have sought not onely to shake and batter but to demolish and utterly overthrow the whole house of wisdome beating down all the grand and goodly pillars on the one side of faith repentance charity good works on the other side of Scriptures Ministry Worship and Sacramentall Mysteries as to the validity authority majesty sanctity solemnity and saving efficacy of them all Upon which the Catholick Church was every where anciently built even then when it was by the hands of the Apostles their successors the Primitive Bishops Presbyters Martyrs Confessors hewn out of the rock of heathenish barbarity idolatry polished by
heavy sharp persecutions fixed by the solidity and patience honoured by the charity and constancy of Christian people even all these solid supports of Religion are sought by some men to be either sawn in sunder or to be cut into chips and shavings by their infinite scrupulosities by their importune longing after novelties by their affectations of Schisms and separations and usurpations Alas how many poor souls rather weak than wicked of easie heads yet honest hearts have in these later years since the vertigo of Religion befell this Nation ravelled out their time and ended their dayes in Obs and Sols in cavilling and contending in shifting their sides and parties in seeking and shaking in ranting and raving in quarrelling and jangling about their Religion What new models of Churches what new methods of worshipping God what new forms for Ministry and Ministers have distracted and distorted them while they have been picking and chusing what way they could best fancy and with most advantages follow Thus poor mortalls who have infinite sins to be pardoned and infinite wants to be supplied who have precious and immortal souls to be saved by the happy improvement of their short uncertain moment are by a pragmatick vanity continually itching and scratching while they should be cleansing and healing sceptically and miserably disputing and doubting while they are decaying and dying while they should in all piety and prudence by sound faith and serious repentance be doing that great work which is evidently set forth in the Word of God and faithfully delivered unto them by the Ministers of his Church Behold the terrours of death prevent them Eternity presseth upon them before they are resolved what side to take when to begin where to fix what to hold fast the flower of age passeth gray hairs are here and there giddiness in their heads stupor in their minds hardness in their hearts searedness in their conscience a Manichean dotage and delirancy seiseth upon them before ever they are resolved whether the Scriptures be the true onely and sufficient revelation of the Word and will of God whether it be their duty to live righteously soberly and holily in this present world toward all men whether this Church of England and all the Churches of Christ in all ages have not till now cheated them and all the world whether there be any Ministers in the Church of England that are duly set over Christian people in the Lord to whom they owe double honour whether they may not in some cases follow their own fallacious fancies and other mens flattering suggestions rather than the Scriptures plain and pregnant precepts in order to carry on the covetous ambitious factious fanatick and novell designs of such as call themselves godly whether they may not in some junctures of times and things when opportunity suits with their lusts and worldly interests dispense with Gods revealed will in his word that they may fulfill his secret will hinted as they suppose by his providences whether in order to advance the glory of God men may not sometimes break his express commands presuming that then they please God best when they most please or profit themselves as the onely people of God These strange scrupulosities or extravagancies rather in Religion do ordinarily not onely intangle but debauch the minds of common people when once they please themselves with inordinate liberties and ramblings in Religion which fill their heads and hearts with such snarlings and intrigues as resemble those deformed knots of burres which colts get upon their manes and tails when they run loose upon heaths or commons they are easily got on but very hardly shaken off or cleared mens interests lusts and passions once leavening their Religion and blinding no less than biassing their judgments it is not imaginable what sport the Devil makes with them and with what compasses and fetches of godliness he plays his game by them Have we not enough and too much hitherto in England of verball sanctity and titular Saints not after the Catholick Christian account which was Scripturall and orderly unblamable and charitable most imitable and honourable in an uniform and constant holiness full of equity and charity purity and sincerity but upon new notions names and factions We have sects of self-canonizing Saints as well as self-ordaining Ministers every petty Schismatick every solitary Seeker every extatick Quaker every Independent Noveller every Presbyterian temporiser each of these have learned of late to tip their tongues crown the heads of their parties with these precious names which are the ambition of Angels the beauties of heaven and glory of God himself And this they do not in a way of charitable communion and Christian emulation as allowing others with them an interest in that honour which I have the charity to believe some of the soberest in most of those sects may deserve but peculiarly and exclusively as if none that had or still have communion with the Church of Engl. either as Bishops or Presbyters or people ever had or have any right or claim to be called or esteemed Saints yea some of the most noysome weeds of late grown up in the garden of this Church the most vile polluted and profane wretches affect to style themselves the onely herbs of grace hereby causing the silly people to mistake hemlock for parsley and to gather hen-bane for hearts-ease Thus while either with great superstition many men scruple or with great pride they disdain to give the name honor of Saints to those holy men and women whom the judgement of the Catholick Church or the Scripture-Records have ever counted and called Saints yet they very superciliously and Pharisaically arrogate nay some monopolize these Titles to themselves and their comrades as absolutely and magisterially as Popes have done that of His Holinesse though they be never so black and abominable as some Popes even by Roman writers are reported to have been in the darkness and degeneracy of times very monsters of men and prodigies of all impiety such as Guicciardine describes Pope Alexan. the sixth a Father worthier of such a Son as Caesar Borgia or the Duke of Valentinois was than to enjoy so high a place of paternal presidency in the Church of Christ For what I pray can be more unsaintly than to desire yea delight and glory as some in England now do in most unjust and uncharitable actions in immoderate revenges in the poverties disgraces and dejections of their lawfull Pastors in the divisions distractions and destructions of that nobly Christian and Reformed Church in whose bosome they were duly baptized and instructed legitimately begotten wholsomely nourished and carefully educated as Christians and as Reformed to all excellent proportions of piety What is less Saintly than for Christians to mutiny nay rebell as S. Cyprian calls it against those reverend Fathers orthodox and godly Bishops and other worthy yea excellent Ministers to whom they and their fore-fathers do really owe themselves as
fed in their cage or restraint than by wandring from them to be starved The best Bishops were wisely severe and most venerable when least remisse the most rigid of them were not more imperious or intolerable than some Presbyters have been to all Bishops The last but greatest terror to some men is that if any thing like a true Primitive Bishop should revive and authoritatively act again in England especially fortified and assisted with such a strength of wise and grave Presbyters orderly combined with their Bishops there might be great danger of the Clergies recovering the Lands and Revenues which once belonged to Bishops and other Church-men in England Thus the jealous hearts and mis-giving consciences of many men do beat within them who have bought Bishop◠〈◊〉 other Church-lands which do make them as vigilant over the Bishops Sepulchers as the Jewes and Souldiers were over Christs lest the second error of losing Bishops Lands should be worse than the first of taking them away not onely from very worthy Bishops then in lawfull and unforfeited possession but from the whole Clergy yea from the service of the whole Church and of Christ and of God who had a sacred interest in them By what right they were alienated and are now possessed let them see who first did seize upon them and upon that title have either sold or bought them For my part I can look upon Episcopacy in its Primitive poverty and present barenesse with as much respect and reverence as in its greatest pomp and superfluity I value it and desire it not for state but conscience not for secular ambition but spirituall satisfaction Let them keep the lands that have justly got them or paid a valuable consideration for them provided they will but help to restore Primitive and Catholick Episcopacy without which Ecclesiasticall authority yea and Ministeriall power seemes to me and to many wiser men if not wholly dead and void or null yet very defective dubious and infirme as one that is lame and maimed yet is still a man having an esse or being as a true man but yet esse defectivum a being short of that fulness firmness and perfection which might be were he so complete as he ought to be according to the pattern of God and nature The Herculean work of resuming Church-Lands and restoring either Revenues or civill Honors to Episcopacy is not to be expected without a miracle such as shall shake heaven and earth despising all humane opposition and making the unjust keepers to be like dead men for no thunderbolts of divine vengeance are more penetrant and irresistible than those which fall upon the head of sacriledge as both Humane and Divine Histories tell us True I think it were an act worthy of this Nations pristine piety and renowned munificence to add something comely for Hospitality and Charity besides civill respect to Bishops if they will have any Nor were it as I conceive a work lesse becoming the Honor and Devotion of England to repurchase and restore those ancient Church-Lands or patrimony to the Church than it was to take them away and sell them to lay-hands But in this I am not so solicitous the honor of all Bishops and so of Presbyters will be diligently and wisely to do the work of God which its probable will never want the respect love and liberality of all good Christians as was seen in Primitive times where Bishops were never poore if Christian people were in plenty peace and unity As Mephibosheth said to David so do I to all my Countrymen and brethren Let Ziba take all as to Bishops Lands so as those Bishops may returne in peace which are after the Lords mind and the Scripture-rule the Apostles pattern the Primitive judgement and Catholick practise in the Church of Christ The lesse there may be of riches and secular honors added to Episcopacy the more it must provoke both Bishops and Presbyters to holy industry and eminent virtues which are the best foundations of true honor CHAP. XIII MY chief ambition is not to procure civill honors or estates to Bishops but so to reconcile all sober Ministers and others to true Episcopacy as may promote that Christian union between all Ministers that are worthy of that name and office and all sober Christian people in England which may most remedy and avoid those miserable factions and sad divisions which we see are the pests of true religion the moths of all Reformation the advantages of superstition and nurses of profaneness against which St. Paul in his Epistles and St. Clemens in his to the Corinthians so much inveighs as carnall and not spirituall methods of Religion I should heartily rejoyce to see before I die the dry land to appeare this deluge of factious confusion not onely to abate but to be quite spent by which Christian Religion and true Reformation hath lost together with Episcopacy in one score of yeares very much of that publick Majesty and Authority that Power and Improvement that Love and Honor that Sanctity and Solemnity that Charity and Unity which they formerly had and held in England for above a hundred yeares highly to the glory of God to the happinesse of this Church and to the Honor as well as Peace of the Nation It is great pitty that any man who bears the name of a Minister of Christ should appeare to the world other then an able wise humble holy peaceable and orderly person that we may not cease to be sociable and reasonable creatures so soon as we undertake to be Preachers as if we presently turn'd Tragedians when we grew Theologians Divines in profession but Devils in our dissentions that none of us may be so far bereaved of our wits as to fancy that we Ministers or Clergy-men beyond all men may not enjoy nor endure that comely and holy subordination which is lawfull and most necessary in all other societies and fraternities of men and no less among those that are Presbyters or Preachers where we see God and nature age and gifts learning and prudence distinguish even these men so far as makes some one or few very fit to govern and the other though many more onely fit to be governed There is much folly rashness juvenility indiscretion presumption and vulgarity to be seen even among the community of Ministers as well as other common people who can never be safe or happy unless they be setled in some comely Government Ecclesiasticall as well as civill yea and governed by some men that are much wiser than themselves Certainly Religion cannot prosper or be glorious in the eyes of the world as Christian or Reformed if it be not uniforme as to the main both in its source and course its origination and dispensation For every notable difference especially in the same Church and State seemes to the severall parties and divided sides as a great deformity in their adversaries Religion will never be uniforme if the Ministers or
dispensers of it be not wisely united not onely in their doctrine but in the derivation and reception as well as dispensation of that holy Authority by which they officiate for otherwise one Minister is prone to magnifie himself against all others of any other make mold to disparage all that is done by others as sacred to draw disciples from one side to another perswading people according to the feuds which were between the Samaritan Jewes and Priests of that Temple against those of Jerusalem that what is done in holy duties by such as are not of his stamp form is unauthoritative presumptuous invalid meer nullities and profanations of holy mysteries without Spirit Life Power or Efficacy an histrionick pageantry of Preaching Praying Baptising Consecrating Celebrating Censuring Binding Absolving Terrifying Comforting as in the name of Christ when indeed there is either no power or authority but a new one that must needs be a false one either usurped or obtruded or pretended by those that have nothing to shew for their Commission Order and Derivation of such spirituall power either from the Scripture or the constant practise or the Catholick Custome of the Church of Christ Thus everlasting feuds distances and defiances will follow among people and Pastors where an harmony is not in this maine point of ordination or Ministeriall Authority which certainly were no hard matter to effect if Ministers would so far agree by an Episcopall subordination in an uniformity of ordination and all other Ecclesiastical Ministrations as no Ministers or peoples just claime and interest should be either neglected excluded or oppressed 1. First the rights of people should be so far satisfied that no man should be ordained a Minister but in the most publick and solemn convention of the Diocese after publick notice given of his name and demand what any could say against his being ordained in like manner no Minister should be obtruded upon any people by patron or Bishop without hearing what they had to object against him and rationall satisfaction given to them which was required in St. Cyprians time 2. Next the rights of Presbyters should be so far satisfied that none should be ordained a Presbyter untill he had passed the orderly triall as of the Bishop so of any Minister that list to examine his sufficiency or his manners and life after which done Presbyters should not onely be present at the solemnity of preaching and praying but such as could conveniently of the eldest and gravest Ministers might lay their hands with the Bishops or Presidents upon the ordained both in their own and others behalfe as a testimony of a joynt consent on all sides to his ordination 3. Last of all the rights and claime of Episcopacy or Bishops would easily be satisfied and very compliant with the other of Presbyters and people if no ordination might passe without either the presence of the Bishop as President or of such a Presbyter as in the Bishops necessary absence should be his suffragane or Vicegerent nominated by him and allowed by that Presbytery over whom the Bishop presideth This method and moderation would as I humbly conceive both complete and settle in all sober mens judgements the ordination of Ministers and giving satisfaction to all just demands or ingenuous pretensions it would powerfully and happily unite both Bishops Presbyters and people as answering all the claimes and expectations considerable of Episcopall Presbyterian and Independent parties as to the maine point of unanimous and uniform Ministry Among whom a like correspondency would easily if wisely and meekly be carried on in all other Ecclesiasticall affaires of publick concernment for Doctrine Worship Discipline Censures Appeales Admission Abstention Excommunication Absolution Synodal conventions and the like It is not imaginable how great an harmony honor and happiness would hence arise to the infinite content and comfort of all good Christians to the great advantage of the Reformed Religion to the peace of this Church to the happiness of the Nation to the Glory of God and to the unspeakable quiet of many thousands of poor soules who are now agitated with infinite Scruples Feares Anger 's Jealousies and Despites in Religion according as they are ingaged and exasperated in their first entrance or beginnings all these would peaceably and comfortably apply by Gods help and Ministers harmony to the improvement of their soules in faith and repentance in truth and love to lead holy and orderly lives to hear with diligence and reverence to receive with frequency and charity to pray with understanding and fervency to do all things with meekness and wisdome lastly to die with earnest desire and blessed hope of further enjoying that Christian and sweet Communion with God with Christ Jesus and his holy Servants Saints and Angels in an other life of which he hath had so blessed experience and pleasing a fore-taste even in this world where the onely heaven a good Christian can have consists in the happy Communion he hath with God and good Christians without which all society is but solitude or worse an harmony no better than what may be found in hell which is a conspiracy in sin and conjunction in misery This holy Communion is so much the more divine and joyfull even in this world by how much it enlargeth it self to greater numbers and extentions true Christian love being loth to be confined to a narrower compasse than the Christian and Catholick faith is but coveting as light and heate most ample dilatations and Catholick diffusions seeking if possible and as much as in it lies to live peaceably with all men and chearfully with all that are of Christs family or the houshold of faith who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity By these and such like peacefull methods of prudence and love of moderation and mutuall condescension among Ministers without further disputing or urging any of their former principles upon which they seemed to differ much lesse casting any further reproaches upon each other I do not see but by the blessing of God upon them they might all meet in an happy union and accord in Church-Government according to those principles of right Reason and Religion of Piety and Polity of Scripture-Canons and Catholick Customes in which all sober Ministers must necessarily agree as the best rules of Christian prudence the surest methods of holy order and the firmest bonds of Christian Communion To which maine ends as all good Christians should chiefly bend all their Counsels Prayers and endeavours so I do not conceive they are so strictly confined and limited by any precise rules or formes of any externe Polity and Order but they may as occasion requires for the peace of the Church and edification of Christians in love use such a liberty in their mutuall condescendings and compliances as shall no way offend the blessed God of Truth Order and Peace nor violate any of their own consciences while they bear such a tender regard to other mens as they