who hath been a parallel to King David both in his Persecution and Restoration is as truly his parallel in Piety and holy Zeal for the true Religion and hath made it his first Care as soon as God brought him back to his Kingdom to bring back the Ark of God to Jerusalem to restore the holy Doctrin Worship and Government of our Church which had with himself been long banished and having in the happy Examples of his most Royal and Religious Predecessors observed how exceedingly this Church hath florished under the established Order for many years how eminently her Faith hath been spread abroad in every place how all her Sisters of the reformed Church rejoiced to behold her order and stedfastness towards Christ The Daughters all calling her blessed as also finding by sad experience that in these times of Trouble and Confusion of which we may truly wish with Job That they were blotted out of times and might not come into the number of years the plucking up of the established Order hath been the loss at once of Truth and Peace in the Church and the cause of all the bitter Dissentions and lamentable Divisions wherewith it hath been wounded and dilacerated and which never could be cured or closed by any the Balms and healing Medicins applied by Presbyterians Independents or any other who pretended to be our Physicians this I say his Majesty in his Princely and Pious Wisedom observing hath restored to God's glory and his own great honour that Religion which had before this Rupture obtained and long flourished 2. But there is nothing can be so well devised so warily composed so innocently established as to satisfie all Judgments and anticipate all Objections That Manna wherewith God himself fed his people from Heaven that Angels food was soon loathed and despised As it was at King James his coming to this Crown so at his present Majestie 's there are Dissenters and Complainers who with great and loud Importunities vehement Accusations and a mighty specious Zeal cry out against the publick Worship and Order to be restored His Majesty imitating in the like case the example of that our English Solomon was pleased to give Commission for a Conference or Treaty between some select persons of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Judgment to consider of the Form of publick Worship the Common Prayers of this Church and if occasion be to make such reasonable Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as should be jointly agreed upon to be needfull and expedient and doubtless for the same reason with that of King James Not but that any thing in the Common Prayer contained might very well have been born with by men who would have made a reasonable construction of things But for that in a matter concerning the Service of God we were nice or rather jealous that the publick Form thereof should be free not onely from blame but from suspicion so as neither the common Adversary should have advantage to wrest ought therein contained to other sense than the Church of England intendeth nor any troublesome or ignorant person of this Church be able to take the least occasion against it The Treaty wanting that Issue his Majesty and all good men desired and no Accommodation thereby effected it is enquired and diversly censured where the blame lies 3. The Presbyterians charge the Episcopal Commissioners to be wholly in the fault and say They have petitioned the Bishops proposed their Alterations made their Objections against the Liturgy replied upon the Bishops Answers finally have cleared themselves and given account to his Majesty of the whole Transaction But the Bishops have answered nothing to their Petition have not considered their Alterations have said little to their Objections and granted as little by way of Concession Therefore they profess the Disappointment hath not been on their part and that they have quiet in their minds having discharged their duty and been Seekers and Followers of Peace But for all this fair flourish it will appear to any Judgment that is not forestalled that 't is on the score of the Presbyterians and for the fault of their undue managing thereof that the Treaty hath proved ineffectual and this I shall manifest by first answering their pretensions and then considering their Petition 1. That the Bishops answered not their Petition it was for good causes what they ask was not in the power of the Bishops to grant the matter was unreasonable the motives weak and not worthy an Answer being in number many but light in weight as when they come to be examined will appear and however directed to the Bishops the Petition was intended to gratifie the people of their own party the design of it being popular and the aim of it apparent to keep up their Interest 2. That they answer nothing to their new Form which they call their Alterations a perfect Abolition of the Churches Form was not their fault but their favour They were obliged to the Bishops for their silence who might justly have convented them instead of answering them the very publishing of that Form being a high Attempt against the Laws and a plain Violation of his Majestie 's Directions in his Commission 3. That they say little to their Objections is for that many of them had little in them were trivial and stramineous and little or nothing have they said in their Objections but what had been said before by Cartwright and others and by Archbishop Whitgift and Mr. Hooker abundantly answered 4. That they granted little by way of Concession they had great Reason and great Precedents Great Reason for 1. The Compilers of the Common Prayer Book were holy able zealous and orthodox Persons and such an Alteration as they desired as I said in effect an Abolition had been to question their Piety and Ability and to cast Dirt in the Faces of those venerable Fathers Confessors and Martyrs 2. The Common Prayer Book was revised approved and confirmed by divers Acts of Parliament and Proclamations in several Princes Reigns to alter it after their Model had been also to cast Dirt in the Face of Supream Authority and to question the Wisedom and Piety of the wisest and most pious Kings and Parliaments 3. It would have opened a gap to the Papists who cry out against us for Novelty and Inconstancy 4. It was his Majestie 's Order That there should be as little Alteration as might be for that the people were acquainted with and accustomed to the Form established 2. They had great Precedents for 1. In Queen Elizabeth's time it being revised very few alterations or additions were made and 2. In King James his time also who judged the Form so compleat that he would have some small things rather explained than changed nay more admonisheth all men That hereafter they shall not expect nor attempt any farther Alteration 5. For that the Bishops have said little and the Presbyterians much it makes nothing for the one nor against
Debate do make appear to all who are impartial and unprejudicate Their publishing them being directly against his Majestie 's Commission which is Our Will and Pleasure is that when you with the said Archbishops c. shall have drawn your Consultations to any Resolution that you forthwith certifie and present to us in writing under your several hands the matters and things whereupon you shall so determine 1. His Majestie 's Will and Pleasure is that what is done by virtue of this Commission should be done jointly by the Commissioners on both sides but the Presbyterian Commissioners set forth their Papers by themselves without those of the Episcopal 2. That they should certifie them in writing to his Majesty They wave his Majesty and scatter their Papers abroad in Print among the People 3. That they should present them under their several hands here are no hands no names but the general one of Commissioners 4. That they should certifie when their Consultations were drawn to any Resolution and present the Matters whereupon they should determine They Ahimaaz like run without their Errand and presume to certifie us the people not Us the King before any Resolusion without any Determination Whether this be agreeable to the King's Commission and conformable to his Order and Appointment let the World judge let themselves judge Nay whether it was not to appeal from his Majesty to those of their own Party But to close with their Papers and first I shall consider the Objections they make against the Common Prayers in general in their Grand Debate 1. They say They look upon the Common-prayer-book as an excellent and worthy Work for that time and after they contradict themselves and recall their Charity and stifle that Truth which brake from them and say As to our Consciences if we thought not the Common-prayer-book to be guilty And again We take it to be a defective disorderly inconvenient mode What excellent and worthy and yet guilty and disorderly defective inconvenient How are these consistent Yes for that time excellent and worthy but at this time guilty defective But pray what 's the difference between that time and this must we change our Religion with the times we have the same Doctrine the same Sacraments the same Government and why should not we have the same Worship must we have a temporizing worship must our Devotions as our Garments be changed after the new Fashions or Modes of times what Guilt hath our Liturgy contracted by time O that the times and men were such now for Zeal and Piety as when the Common Prayers were composed 2. They make Objections against the whole as well as the parts and is this fair to object against the whole of that some parts whereof they were onely to amend Their Commission was That if occasion be they should make such reasonable and necessary Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as shall be agreed upon to be needfull and expedient with an express Advice to avoid as much as may be all unnecessary Abbreviations of the Forms and Liturgy wherewith the People are altogether acquainted and have so long been received in the Church of England where his Majesty would have onely some parts amended and corrected if need be and all unnecessary Abbreviations of the Form avoided they fly at the whole their usual way of Reformation being Root and Branch For 3. Instead of the old Book amended they offer us a new Model not a Syllable of the old in it not one of the Churches Prayers is judged worthy to be joined with theirs These wise Master-builders can with less trouble and charge pull down the House and build a new one than repair the old as if it had not one Room convenient all must down to the ground and not so much as one stone in the old Building must be used in the new 4. They complain of the Length of the Common-prayer-book and make theirs in the ordinary Offices much longer but for this they have a Salvo That it may be left to the discretion of the Minister to omit it as occasion shall require Behold their Liturgy with a Liberty that he who will use it may and he that will not may choose 5. They would have it left to the Ministers choice to use their new Form or the old which is as much as to say All of their Judgment shall be free from using the Common-prayer for you will easily believe they will like this new Directory better and then what need this Treaty and yet give them their due they have no great fancy to their own Form for 6. They will have a farther Liberty They desire there may be no such Imposition of the Liturgy as the Exercise of the Gift of Prayer be totally excluded in any part of God's Worship So then a Set Prayer there shall be in every part of God's Worship and in every part the Minister may exercise his Gifts and shew his Parts and strive to out-go this Set Prayer and so the Prayer shall be despised and his Gifts extolled Is the Church a place the Worship of God a season to exercise such Gifts in Our Graces indeed should be there exercised which are best done in a Set-form Gift of Prayer there is none spiritual That which is cried up to be such is nothing but an acquired Art or Habit of ready speech and tends more to Ostentation than Edification The Spirit of Prayer the Prophet tels us what it is A Spirit of Grace and Supplication looking on Christ by Faith and Love whom by Sin and Unbelief we have pierced and by a deep Repentance mourning for our Sins and beseeching God's Grace to be delivered from them by Christ's most meritorious Sufferings We may pray without the Spirit when we exercise the Gift of Prayer we may pray with the Spirit when we use a Form of Prayer Sure the Spirit doth not ever withdraw or deny the Assistence of his Grace to our Devotion when we pray the Lord's Prayer The Spirit of Prayer requires not new words but new affections Should I make it my End or any part of it when I pray in publick to exercise my Gifts I should justly fear to be judged of God and Men if they knew it an abominable Hypocrite and Pharisee 7. They object The whole Body of the Common Prayer consists very much of many Generals as to have our Prayers heard to be kept from all Evil from all Enemies and Adversities that we may doe God's Will without any mention of the Particulars wherein these Generals do consist Ans 1. They make that an Objection which is a Propriety and Excellency The Common Prayers of the Church should be for common and general Mercies of which the whole Church stands in need 2. Daniel's Prayer for the Church in the Babylonian Captivity doth consist not very much but altogether of meer Generals without any mention of Particulars and yet it was graciously heard and do they not hereby
accuse our Lord himself is not his Prayer made up of meer Generals Sure so many grave Divines should not make their Objections by Number but by Weight and due and sober Consideration How little they considered this will farther appear in that 3. They confess their Objection to be untrue when they tell us that the Litany is for Grace Peace Rain Fair-weather c. and indeed I may challenge our Brethren to shew any Particulars needfull for the Church to petition at the hands of God in her publick Worship omitted in the Litany 8. They desire That all obsolete words may be altered Ans That may be soon done for few or no obsolete words are in the Liturgy but doth not God do not we understand old and plain words must we coin new ones to please him and our selves must we be rhetorical quaint and curious complement God in our Prayers Let us take unto us those words the Church hath from God's Word put into our mouths and join with them our Hearts and let us not doubt but God will hear us graciously 9. It troubles them That the publick Worship of God may not be administred by any that dares not wear a Surplice Ans Who are those tender ones that dare not What a frightfull Bugg is a Surplice that you dare not wear it in the Administration of the publick Worship Nay you dare refuse to administer in God's publick Worship rather than wear a Surplice Your Master Beza was not so timerous or dainty Mihi videtur Ecclesias minime deserendas propter Pileum aut Vestes aut aliquid aliud hujusmodi vere medium aut indifferens To me it seemeth that we ought not to forsake the Churches for Caps or Vestments or any other such like thing of a nature mixt and indifferent Mr. Moulin was not so tender could as he professed willingly wear a Fool's-coat and Cap so he might freely and publickly administer God's true and holy Worship Are not different and decent Vestures by God himself appointed to his Priests in their publick and holy Ministrations and why may not the Governors of the Church command under the Gospel the like decent and distinct Habits to Ministers which God commanded under the Law so as no Religion or Sanctity be placed in them as we declare there is not but they are onely enjoined for Comeliness and Gravity suitable to such Solemnities Solemn Actions of Royalty and Justice have their suitable ornaments enjoyned and they are unto them a Beauty and beget from the People a Veneration Are they onely a Stain in Religion These general Objections against the Common Prayers in their Grand Debate I thought good to consider together with their Reasons in their Petition of Peace that they may see we do not slight nor fear any of their Forces but dare encounter their whole strength Their particular Objections against the parts of the Liturgy are long since by Mr. Hooker and others so convincingly answered those which are old and the new are so weak and inconsiderable that they deserve not a sober Animadversion and therefore I shall not give the Reader the trouble of a Confutation To expose a few of them is enough and he may judge of the rest by their Assize 1. They desire the word Minister which is used in the Absolution and divers other places may be used throughout and not Priest and Curate 2. The Confession they tell us is very defective not clearly expressing Original Sin nor sufficiently enumerating Actual Sins with their Aggravations but consisting onely of Generals whereas Confession being the Exercise of Repentance ought to be more particular This is already answered 3. The often repeating the Lord's Prayer and the Gloria Patri comes within compass of those vain Repetitions our Saviour condemns a vain Objection and may be as well made against David Psal 136. and against many other his Psalms as also against Moses Solomon and our Saviour himself 4. They would have that Petition in the Litany Good Lord deliver us from sudden Death to be altered thus Good Lord deliver us from dying suddenly and unpreparedly 5. They would have that Prayer That it may please God to preserve all that travel by Land or by Water to be changed and expressed indefinitely all that travel 6. They express their dislike of Kneeling at the Reading of the Commandments did they never break any of them and is there not a Prayer subsequent to each of them Lord have mercy upon us 7. They are offended at that Expression in the first Prayer before Baptism That God by his Son our Saviour's being baptized in the River Jordan hath sanctified that and all other waters to the mystical washing away of Sin To satisfie this nice Scruple 't is changed and the word all left out I shall no further pursue these trifles professing my great grief and astonishment that persons pretending to so great Gravity can possibly be guilty of such Lightnesses 'T was a piece of pride and weakness in Calvin to charge our Liturgy as containing in it Tolerabiles Ineptias These and such like light and trivial exceptions of our Brethren will to any sober Judgment appear Ineptiae Intolerabiles Leaving their Grand Debate which I think in the Prophets and Apostles sense may without uncharitableness be affixed not onely as the Title but is much the Subject and Design too of their Paper I goe on to the Consideration of their Petition for Peace Sweet is the name of Peace and now if ever Sweet is the Peace of the State after so long Civil War and the Peace of the Church after so long Division and Persecution Peace is a Blessing of Blessings not a single but a complicated Blessing 'T is Peace that puts us into and keeps us in Possession of all we enjoy Saint Paul tels us of a Bond of Peace Peace is the Bond of our Liberties Properties Estates and Lives and of that which should be to us dearer than all these our Religion 'T is this Religious Peace for which they petition O that they had hearkned to the Petitions of others before But then they prepared for War and sounded the Trumpet to Battel Then to talk of Peace and Accommodation was the mark of a Malignant Then Curse ye Meroz was the Text And O take heed of Treaties Well 't is happy if at last Thoughts of Peace may be entertained But my Brethren why petition you for Peace is it not Peace if not where is the blame who are those which hinder Peace Then is it Peace in the Church when the Magistrate is at Peace with the Church and a Defender of the Faith when Ministers are at Peace with themselves and join regularly in their holy Ministrations when Ministers and their People are at Peace the one teaching and the other embracing sound Doctrine when Magistrates Ministers and People do publickly openly freely uniformly profess and hold the true Christian Religion do join and unite in the publick Worship
Hath Christ given such Laws Open our eyes shew us and let us see them Hath he not then not the Governours of the Church but you who judge he ought do accuse Christ's Laws as insufficient In their fifth Reason they say Suppose they be mistaken in thinking the things to be so displeasing to God yet it is commendable in them to be fearfull in displeasing him and carefull to obey him Ans We see be they right or wrong whatever they opine and act is commendable Suppose they mistook in preaching us into Rebellion in pulling down Bishops in taking away the Liturgy in overturning the Foundations of Church and State yet their Zeal is commendable May not all Zealots plead thus Suppose the Papists were mistaken in their Fiery Zeal to blow up the King and Parliament and in the Irish Massacre yet their Zeal was commendable in designing to destroy those they judged the Enemies of their Church Suppose they be mistaken in worshipping the Saints and their Images and Reliques yet since they think they please God 't is commendable Suppose the Quakers mistaken in denying Magistrates and Ministers and all Authority in Church and State yet in that they think they should displease God in owning those Powers 't is in them commendable to disown them Is this the Counsel you would give to one who doubts and seeks your Resolution Will this satisfie and deliver him from doubting to tell him Suppose you were mistaken yet if you think you are in the right pursue your opion 't is commendable Saint Paul is a better Casuist and gives other Counsel Prove all things hold fast that which is good abstain from all appearance of evil 7. That because men are forbidden to preach unless they conform they are tempted to infer that Preaching being necessary to Salvation and those things called Indifferent being made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it therefore they are made necessary to Salvation and preferred before that which God hath made necessary Ans The Accusation is most untrue those Indifferent things are not made necessary to Preaching much less preferred before it and those who are tempted thus to infer because men are forbidden to preach unless they dare subscribe and use those things therefore those things called Indifferent are made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it are very weak Logicians Every thing that is required is not required as necessary as you have been often told Many things are required as expedient as decent as comely as orderly so are our Ceremonies Ministers are forbidden to reade Prayers without the Surplice to preach without a Gown The Judges are forbidden to sit in Judgment till they reade their Commission and are required to sit in their Scarlet will any hence be tempted to infer that the Surplice and Gown are made necessary to and preferred before Prayer and Preaching and reading a Commission and wearing Scarlet Robes are made necessary to and preferred before doing Justice 2. Every thing that is made necessary to any End or Action is not thereby preferred before it Methinks so many Learned Divines should know that though these Indifferent things should be made necessary by the Command of the Church to Preaching yet it no way follows they are preffered before it The Means sure is made necessary to the obtaining the End yet is not preffered before it 'T is you will confess justly forbidden that Ordination should be given to any without Examination and Imposition of hands or that any should preached without Ordination yet I think you are not tempted to infer that Examination Imposition of hands and Ordination it self though necessary are to be preffered before Preaching Follows their 8. R. which implies we lay our Religion upon our particular Liturgy and so teach the Papists to insult Where was our Religion 200 years ago the Common-prayer-book as differing from the Mass-book being not so old 1. We thank you for your ingenuous Acknowledgment that our Common-prayer-book differs from the Mass-book A Mass-priest now yours turning from Popery to Presbyterianism most impudently affirms them to be the same 2. Religion is made up of Doctrine Worship and Government our Liturgy is our Form of Publick Worship and so a part of our Religion and being agreeable to God's Word nor Papists nor your selves can justly except against it For their Question Where was our Religion 200 years ago You might know they make it not so much upon the change of our Liturgy themselves in Queen Elizabeth's time for many years joining in it as upon pretence we have changed our Doctrine and the Question as it hath been oft ad ravim usque by them asked it hath been by us as oft and satisfactorily answered and if we should as we do not lay our Religion upon our Liturgy 't is most agreeable to the Scriptures where our Religion is and contains all the Fundamentals of Religion and your Mr. Calvin doth witness it for us That the Common-prayer-book doth excellently contain the chief heads of our Religion The 9. is A Request for Liberty upon on an Insinuation That no Liturgical Forms were imposed on any Church in the primitive times Ans 1. Then sure the now named your much Reverend Mr. Calvin was either ignorant of the Constitutions of the primitive times or had other Sentiments of them then you who declares his Judgment contrary to you Quoad formulam Precum Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valde probo ut certa illa exstet à qua Pastoribus discedere in functione sua non liceat As to the Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Rights I greatly approve that it be settled from which it may not be lawfull for the Pastors in their Function to vary or depart 2. You have surely heard of the Liturgies of S. Peter S. James and S. Mark and that of S. Mark S. Cyril owns and comments upon in his Catechism and S. Cyril was a Bishop in the primitive times living about the year of Christ 350. and S. Basil a famous and primitive Bishop too was deeply censured and put to make painfull Apologies for a little Change he made in the usual Church-liturgy It was thought in him saith our Authour an unpardonable Offence to alter any thing in us as intolerable that we suffer any thing unaltered in the Liturgy R. 10. And if you should reject which God forbid the moderate Proposals which now and formerly we have made we humbly crave leave to offer it to your consideration what Judgment all the Protestant Churches are likely to pass on your Proceedings and how your Cause and ours will stand represented to them and to all succeeding ages Answ Their moderate Proposals we have heard which they now make that they may be free from the established Government and Liturgy of the Church and they as Able and Godly continued in the choicest Livings they had invaded and the Episcopal kept out as Scandalous Negligent and Insufficient What moderate Proposals they made
formerly I am to learn they know his late Majesty made to them moderate Proposals but was refused and they confess the Lord Primate of Ireland made moderate Proposals but by them never accepted As to their bold Appeal to all Protestant Churches presuming they will give their Judgments for them and against the Church of England's established Constitutions which they have the huge Confidence to prophesie even of the Judgment of all succeeding ages They might without a Revelation by their Jugdment past and present have foreseen their Judgment for the future The past age hath cryed Grace Grace to our happy orderly and moderate Reformation in Doctrine Government and Worship the Protestant Churches have given us the Right-hand of Fellowship have maintained sweet Communion with us have in Marian Persecution received our Exiles their most eminent Lights have sent us high Congratulations their ablest Ministers have divers of them come over and with Joy beheld our Order and some have lived and died amongst us What Judgment did Mr. Beza give Let himself speak Quod si nunc If now the Reformed Churches of England being underprop'd with the Authority of Bishops and Archbishops do continue as this hath hapened to that Church in our memory That she hath had Men of that Calling not onely most notable Martyrs but also excellent Pastors and Doctors let them truly enjoy that singular Blessing of God which I wish may be perpetual unto her What Judgment did Peter Martyr pass in the Case of Bishop Hooper about the Ceremonies Did he not answer his Arguments vindicate the lawfulness of them exhort him to submit unto them The Judgment of Doctor Moulin you have heard and much more might be told you of the high Honour he had for the Church of England And to come nearer what Judgment the Protestant Churches passed upon your Covenant your Reforming the Church by the Sword and in the Bloud of the Nursing Father and the Prime Pastour of it with many Thousands more you have surely heard Were they not ashamed confounded and astonished at our Schisms and Seditions and Violations of all Authority Sacred and Civil And Have not your Actions in the late lamentable times cast a Blemish upon the Honour of our Nation never to be washed off An English-man daring scarce to look another man in the face in a foreign Countrey being under the Objection and Reproach of Rebellion Murthering their King Changing the best tempered Monarchy in the World into a puny Common-wealth and that swallowed up soon into a Barbarous Protectourship and Abasing the most primitive and venerable Episcopacy into a novel and contemptible Parity and Linsy-woolsey Presbytery made up of Preachers and Lay-elders and that too straight undermined and baffled by a Mushrome Independency Pudet haec Opprobria vobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli This is the past Judgment of the Protestant Churches abroad concerning our Church established and you who ruined it till God in mercy restored it For the Churches of succeeding ages I think they will hardly believe the History of ours That such men as you professing highest Godliness should in a pretended zeal for it preach up Sedition and Schism and embroil the Church and Nation wherein you were born and baptized in Bloud and Confusion and which seems more incredible Appeal to all Protestant Churches in your own Justification nay Supplicate the King whose Royal Father was martyred and himself long banished for standing up in defence of the Church which you opposed and by Force destroyed to screen you from the Churche's Power to grant you the chief Benefices in the Church and give you Liberty to be of another Church to enjoy a Worship and Government of your own Mode and Model But my Brethren how come you to make this lowd Challenge Why enquire you or rather Why presume you what Judgment the Protestant Churches will make of our Churches proceedings Sure your mighty Zeal and ardent Affection to your Cause hath clouded your own Judgment and quite bereaved you of your Memory You mention often and with seeming regard his Majestie 's gracious Declaration touching Ecclesiastical Affairs he therein tells you the present Judgment of the Reformed Churches abroad and had you Faith to believe his Royal word you might have spared this Argument and Out-cry which you may blush for and wish you had suppressed Hear his Majesty speaking their Judgment We do think Our self the more competent to propose and with God's Assistence to determine many things now in Difference from the time We have spent and the experience We have had in most of the Reformed Churches abroad in France the Low-countries and Germany where We have had frequent Conference with the most Learned men who have unanimously lamented the great Reproach the Protestant Religion undergoes from the Distempers and too notorious Schisms in Matters of Religion in England And as the most Learned among them have alwaies with great Submission and Reverence acknowledged and magnified the established Government of the Church of England and the great Countenance and Shelter the Protestant Religion received from it before these unhappy times So many of the have with great Ingenuity and Sorrow confessed that they were too easily mis-led by mis-information and prejudice into some disesteem of it as if it had too much complyed with the Church of Rome whereas they now acknowledg it to be the best Fence God hath yet raised against Popery in the World and We are persuaded they do with great Zeal wish it restored to its old Dignity and Veneration You see what Judgment the Protestant Churches have passed upon the Church of England and her former Proceedings and thereby may take an Estimate what Judgment they will pass on her present Proceedings and how the Churche's Cause and yours will be represented to them They will acknowledg and magnifie with great Submission and Reverence the established Government of the Church of England if you dare believe his Majesty and consequently will censure you as Schismatical and Disobedient to refuse to submit unto it But I must not misrepresent you your Submission you profess If after our Submission to his Majesty's Declaration and after our own Proposals of the primitive Episcopacy and of such a Liturgy as we here tender we may not be permitted to exercise our Ministry the Pens of those moderate Bishops will bear witness against you that were once employed as the Chief Defenders of that Cause we mean such as Reverend Bishop Hall and Usher who have published to the World that much less than this might have served to our fraternal Vnity and Peace Ans You before appealed to the Protestant Churches abroad now unto two Bishops of our own and with like Success 1. You say you have submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration you should have instanced wherein His Majesty there declares That having seen all the Liturgies that are extant and used in this part of the World he esteems that of
have all due veneration for Parliaments next unto and under the King But I never learnt that they were sharers in the Supremacy and I believe it would be a flattery as displeasing to a Parliament as injurious to the King to ascribe unto it a part of the Sovereignty One of yours tells us that formerly the Name of a King was an Idol unto his Subjects but now by the courage of the Parliament 't is death to that man and his father's house that durst name a King and you make an Idol of the name of a Parliament and dare to say that if you had known the Parliament had been the Beginners and in most fault yet their Ruin is a Punishment greater than any fault against a King his Murther and the Ruin of his Family and all his loyal Subjects can from him deserve And now Sir your Audacity begets in me the Confidence to tell you that your Rebellion was most foul and the Arms you bare were against both King and Parliament for that you call so was an idol a nothing no parliament but onely some corrupted members of it which had by tumults and threats frighted away as the King so all the sound and loyal Members of Parliament both Lords and Commons and that in so great a number that they made a Parliament in Oxford Now seeing the Parliament thus divided a part against the King a part as great for him Prudence and Loyalty might have taught you either to have sat still and bewailed the unhappy rupture and division and prayed for a closure and reconciliation or to have joyned with the King and the loyal part of his Parliament but of the Sovereignty of Parliaments enough I pray God grant the King and kingdom may nevermore see the like to that you plead for and served under with such a perseverance that you say you would doe it again in the same state of things Your honest Friend when he saw here a Leg and there and Arm in the way saith as you tell us it was time for him to stop 'T was in him a poor pusillanimity but such was your magnanimity that Legs and Arms could not stop your Career you could undauntedly march on through bloud and slaughters 'T was a cowardly cruel Triumph in your other honest Friend Mr. Love to flourish his handkerchief dipt in the bloud of that great Prelate when dead whose venerable face he durst not have lookt on when alive But your valiant Sword drencht it self in bloud in the field of Mars You were as bold as the brutish brave horse in Job You cloathed your neck with thunder the glory of your nostrils was terrible you rejoyced in your strength you went on to meet the armed man you mocked at fear were not affrighted nor turned your back to the sword you said among the trumpets Ha ha and your Trumpet sounded as loud as they Curse ye Meroz curse ye bitterly Cursed be the man that doth the work of the Lord negligently cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from bloud But 't is time to sound a retreat Valiant Sir had your Arms been no stouter than your Arguments you had forsaken the field as you plainly do when in the close of your Reasons for the late War you confess that every one of your Reasons is not a sufficient medium to infer your conclusion But altogether shew upon what grounds you proceed to dispute the point So that you justifie Treason upon the very same grounds on which the noble Earl of Strafford was condemned on pretence of it When none could be prov'd against him single he must die for Treason accumulative I shall ease your patience upon this subject when I have reminded you that you have much mis-timed your Holy Common-wealth Therein you shew your self a great Dictatour but little a Polititian and less a Prophet when you send it forth in the dark and dismal night of confusion and could not stay to take a prospect of the morning when the blazing and affrighting Comets pestiferous matter being spent the Sun was ariseing in brightness and returning in glory But your zeal for the restoring your prudent and pious Richard blinded your Eyes and that heat put out the light and so you thought the Common-wealth would bring him in again Well yet you were not wholly forsaken in your Politicks but when though late you discovered the Protectorship and the Common-wealth expiring and the King like to be restored you expiated your little errours by a great merit you preached to the honourable House of Commons in Parliament and as in your Epistle and elsewhere you boast God and they put upon you a great honour the next morning after they acknowledged his Majestie 's Authority But surely Sir 't was no effect of your Sermon but their own Loyalty which wrought upon them to make that acknowledgment You all along in your Sermon reflect on the Royal Party as profane and censuring the Puritans and Precisians who dare not be so bad as they Nay you implicitly accuse that Honourable House as if there were some among them and 't is easie to guess whom you mean that would take that man as a Puritan and Phanatick who would employ half so much time for his Soul and the Service of the Lord as they do in unnecessary sports and pleasures and pampering their flesh And you freely tell them that God must have the precedency and as our Calamities began with Differencies in Religion and still that 's the Wound that most needs closing and with grief and shame we see this Work so long undone Which plainly implies you would have this Work done according to your Covenant by the Parliament before the King come in and putting a high value on your self and all of your mind you declare they shut you out if they would enforce you to administer Sacraments without discipline and the conduct of your own discretion and say you Give first to God the things that are God's and then give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's that is first set up the Discipline before you admit Caesar This was the method of your Brethren in Scotland And you here again caution and share the Sovereignty 'T is right indeed as you say A Papist must cease to be a Papist if he be truly and fully loyal to his Sovereign and 't is as true A Presbyterian must cease to be a Presbyterian if he be truly and fully loyal to his Sovereign but you hide him under the general name of Protestant and tell us so a Protestant must so far cease to be a Protestant before he can be disloyal you should have said a Protestant truly conformable to the Church of England such a one can never be disloyal But behold how rarely you prove your non-conforming Protestant cannot be disloyal for Rom. the 13th is part of the Rule of his Religion but unhappily there hath been a difference among us which is
the other they are not the fullest vessels that make the greatest sound 't is not the best cause that is most clamorous the Bishops cause was not their own more than the King 's the Parliaments and the Churches having been by Law established and continued except in the Popish and Presbyterian Persecutions ever since the Reformation Therefore the Bishops judged it needless to give themselves and the World the trouble of any tedious Defence But the Presbyterians pleading against the Laws and established Order thought it necessary to bestir themselves and to make long Apologies for so high an Attempt Therefore they have left no Stone unturned have sent Paper after Paper and posted them through all parts of the Nation to keep up their Interest in the Party and their Party's prejudice against the Churches Liturgy I suppose it is hereby plain to all indifferent Judges that the Blame is not on the Bishops but the Presbyterians that the Treaty had not its desired success And to manifest it farther since they justifie themselves and wash their hands and cry We are innocent They must be told 1. That they have not duly prepared for an Accommodation before the Treaty 2. They have not demeaned themselves candidly and ingeniously in the Treaty 1. They have not duly prepared for an Accommodation before the Treaty There is no hope of a fair Agreement between two dissenting Parties so long as on the one part there remain causes of Jealousie which will not be removed Now since the Prebyterians do lie under the Scandal of holding divers Tenets in reference to his Majesty Episcopacy and the Liturgy to which if they still adhere they render themselves uncapable of a Treaty it highly concerns them to purge themselves by a full and free Declaration of their Judgments in those particulars which have an immediate influence upon the Treaty 1. Since the Presbyterians both from the Pulpit and the Press have taught That it is lawfull to resist Kings and have stirred up the People to arm against their lawfull Sovereign upon pretence of Reformation in Religion herein joyning with the Jesuits That Heretical Kings may be resisted and deposed as many of their Books and Sermons declare For the undeceiving of the People and clearing themselves of the guilt of that antichristian and impious Tenet they were bound in duty and conscience to have publickly disavowed that Doctrine and to have published to the World that they hold the Doctrine of our Church That Kings are Sacred above all coercive Power That they are Supreme the Highest Powers onely punishable by God and not upon any pretence of Liberty Property Law or Religion be it never so specious nay be it never so real to be resisted or opposed 2. For that they maintain and publickly teach the Civil Magistrate not to be Superior to the Ecclesiastical Governors They were obliged to make a publick acknowledgment of the King's Supremacy in all causes and over all persons Ecclesiastical in short to have offered to take the Oath of Supremacy The Denial of which is a second Opinion wherein some of them symbolize with the Papists 3. For that they have in their Writings so publickly opposed the Episcopal Government covenanted against it taken it away and in the place thereof set up another Government they should expresly have owned the Episcopal Government now restored and have promised to be obedient unto it 4. For that they had cast out and laid aside all set forms of publick Prayer Ordination and other Administrations their Directory being a very cypher neither used by themselves nor imposed upon any other every Minister being left to his own dictates in publick holy Offices they should previously have declared their Judgments that a set form of publick Prayer is in every Church necessary to which all in that Church should be obliged 5. For that their Party have taken away the Form of Prayer by Law appointed and forbidden all Ministers under great penalty to use it they should have declared that the substance of it was agreeable to God's Word onely they judged it needed some Alteration and that if his Majesty with the Bishops should consent to the Amendment of such things as by their joint Judgments should be thought needfull they would submit unto it and be obliged ever to use it in their Ministrations These things were necessary should have been precedaneous to the Treaty and would much have conduced to an happy Accommodation Such an ingenuous Confession and Retractation beseemed them and would have melted his Majesty and the Bishops and all good Christians would have wept with them and rejoyced for them and embraced them with the same Affection that Joseph did his repenting Brethren and indeed it was a wonderfull condescention in his Majesty to appoint the Bishops and a high Obedience in the Bishops to his Majesty to treat at all with them without and before such a Confession Surely till they do retract those not onely erroneous but some of them prodigious and most dangerous and unchristian Opinions they in vain go about to persuade the World that â—â—ey cannot submit to our Liturgy upon the Principles of Conscience 'T is not Conscience that swallows Camels and streins at Gnats 't is not Conscience that sees Motes and winks at Beams 't is not Conscience that neglects the weighty things of the Law and tithes Mint and Cummin Certainly they must have abundance of Charity that can believe be their words never so smooth that these men have no Motive but Conscience to oppose our Church Ceremonies do out of Conscience scruple at a Surplice a Gesture a Set form a Word obsolete or improper whose Conscience could swallow Sedition Rebellion could make War against their Sovereign King could overturn all Order both civil and sacred and fill the Church and State with Bloud and Confusion One thing more which evidences their Insincerity as to an amicable Treaty as if they resolved it should take no effect and feared lest Duty Piety Conscience and Reason should work upon their Brethren to submit to the Form of Worship now likely to be restored they sent to all of their Judgments in the Nation to send up whaâ— Objections they could make against the Common-prayer and advised them to hold off and not to conform by any means for their standing out was the onely way to obtain their own terms and liberty their numbers being so considerable that in case of their deprivation there were not Conformable Ministers enough to supply their places and so the King and the Church must be forced to indulge and continue them Surely this was not consciencious and discovered their Design to continue a Division and keep up a Party Though herein their Politicks failed them the Bishops sented the Design and provided for the Churches against the Vacancy 2. They have not demeaned themselves candidly and fairly in the Treaty which themselves in their two Papers the Petition for Peace and the Grand
of God serving him with one mind and with one mouth having the same Doctrine the same Worship the same Government Now consider who they are which hinder this Peace You need not petition the Bishops 't is in your own power to grant your own Petition and truly a Petition for Peace though it have a pleasing Sound yet carries a sad Supposition it suposes 1. That you are not in Peace with the Church and 2. it implicitly accuses his Majesty of Persecution But to come to the matter of your Petition two things you pray 1. That the Bishops will grant what you have in your Preface proposed and craved their Consent unto the Alterations and Additions to the Liturgy now tendred unto them that being inserted as you have expressed It may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other at his discretion upon his Majestie 's Approbation according to his gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs Here they desire That it may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other the new or the old Form and 't is not hard to judge which will be chosen the old by all who are Episcopal the new by all the Presbyterians So shall we have Altar against Altar Common-prayer-book against Common-prayer-book confusion in all Parishes and Division those who are for the old if the new be read will leave their Minister and go where the old is read and the like will they doe who are for the new So shall there be endless Contestations between Ministers and Ministers People and People one pleading for the old Form and exploding the new the other arguing for the new and despising the old Is this to petition for Peace nothing can be more against Peace Certainly we shall ever be two and the Church divided if we have two Liturgies And whereas they appeal to his Majestie 's Declaration his Majesty speaks plainly enough his meaning and more plainly in his Commission that he intends not two Liturgies be established but onely some Alterations in one and the same Liturgy some additional Forms to be left unto the Ministers choice to use one or the other at his discretion and these Alterations and additional Forms not to be made by the one Part separately as yours are but by those of both Persuasions You farther Petition since we cannot obtain the Form of Episcopal Government described by the late Reverend Primate Ireland and approved by many Episcopal Divines we may at least enjoy those Benefits of Reformation in Discipline and that Freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies which are granted in the said Declaration by the means of your charitable Mediation and Request Answ 1. Why did you not then when it was in your Power and the Staff in your hands hearken to Bishop Vsher and those Episcopal Divines did you not covenant against Episcopacy do you not still judge your selves obliged to keep your Covenant did not a prime Leader of your Party in his Sermon at the Treaty at Vxbridge call Episcopacy and the Common-prayer-book The Plague-soars of the Nation did not his late Majesty of blessed memory offer as great condescentions as could be desired to your Divines at the Isle of Wight and did they not oppose and disown all Episcopal Government Hear his Majesty I was willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with reason or discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the authority of that ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church and State Behold what his Majesty was willing to doe in yieldance to Presbytery so as Episcopacy might not be abrogated Behold what the Presbyterians will doe they will goe no lower than to abrogate Episcopacy and since they could not doe it by the Word they will doe it by the Sword But 2. Have you now really changed your minds are you in good earnest do you speak Verbo Sacerdotum when you make us believe you desire to obtain an Episcopacy How doth this consist with your Profession in your Grand Debate There you utterly disclaim all Episcopacy These are your words We doubt whether men in the same Order do by Divine appointment owe obedience unto those that gradually goe before them and they may scruple whether such making themselves the Governours of their Brethren make not themselves indeed of a different Order or Office and so incroach not upon the Authority of Christ who onely maketh Officers purely Ecclesiastical and whether it be no disloyalty to Christ to own such Officers Again 't is a matter of very great doubt whether a fixed Diocesan being the Pastor of many hundred Churches be indeed a Governour of Christ 's appointment or approbation and whether Christ will give us any more thanks for owning them as such than the King will gives us for owning an Vsurper He who can reconcile their Petition for Peace with their Grand Debate the one pretending for Episcopacy the other renouncing all Episcopacy Erit mihi magnus Apollo But the Instance you might have let alone of owning an Vsurper Did you not own and set up an Usurping Parliament against the King and will you not disown the most Lawfull King that shall deny your Will and Way and own the Greatest Usurper that will set up and yield his Neck to your Presbyterian Government But if you cannot gain your own you would be free from Obedience to any other That we may at least enjoy freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies by the means of your charitable Mediation A modest and merry Request That the Bishops will mediate with his Majesty that the Presbyterians may be free from Obedience to Episcopal Government Were your Presbyterian Government set up would you allow the Freedom you ask You have preached and printed against Toleration you would bind Kings with your Chains and Nobles with Links of Iron you would be very shy to give the Indulgencies and Dispensations your selves desire Nay you refuse them to your Independent Brethren Your second Petition is Seeing some hundreds of able holy and faithfull Ministers are of late cast out and abundance of Congregations in England Ireland and Wales are overspread with lamentable ignorance and are destitute of able faithfull Teachers and seeing too many that are insufficient negligent or scandalous are over the flocks we take this opportunity earnestly to beseech you that will contribute your endeavours to the removal of those that are the shame and burthens of the Churches and to the Restoration of such as may be an honour and blessing unto them and to that end that it be not imputed unto them as their unpardonable Crime that they were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by parochial Pastors without Diocesans Ans 1. Is not this a Pharisaical strain through all your Papers To cry
and might learn that the Church in prescribing Indifferent things takes away no man's Liberty The things prescribed are in their own nature and in the Judgment both of the Imposer and the intelligent Observer of them the same they were before Indifferent I obey the Church yet preserve my Liberty still judging the thing Indifferent which it commands and I obey not the Command as any necessary part of Religion but as the Church commands it which I am bound to obey for Decency and Order They that make Laws concerning Indifferent things have no intention at all to meddle with the nature of them they leave that in medio as they found it but onely for some reasons of conveniency order the use of them the Indifferency of their nature still being where it was They are very unhappy in alledging that Scripture Acts 15.28 which concludes directly for the Church against them we may tell them in their own words the Holy Ghost hath there so plainly decided the Point in controversie that it seems strange to us that yet it should remain a controversie they have here thrown down all they have built all their 20 Reasons fall and are broken in pieces as Dagon before the Ark. This Chapter acquaints us that some Jews though converted to the Christian Faith and embracing the Gospel yet thought themselves bound to the Observation of the whole Mosaical Law and they thought the converted Gentiles so bound also and told them that except they were circumcized and kept the Law of Moses they could not be saved Hereupon arises Dissention and Disputation and an Appeal is made to a Council at Jerusalem which upon the hearing and debating the Question determines That the converted Gentiles should not be obliged to Circumcision nor to the Ceremonial Law but in yieldance to the converted Jews who were zealous of the Law and to keep Peace with them they should abstain from some few things in their nature indifferent but necessary in order to Peace and Charity from Meats offered to Idols from Bloud and from things strangled Behold here the First and Greatest Council that ever was in the Christian Church to compose a Difference meets and makes a Law of Abstinence from some things indifferent and otherwise in themselves lawfull This is plainly the Case the Act of the Council and Decision of the Question and yet these men alledge the Act of the Council to prove the quite contrary I am amazed to see how they change and clip the words and pervert the sense of the Scripture they cite for their ends and I fear against their Conscience They say the Apostles and Elders Act. 15.28 declare unto the Churches that it seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and them to lay upon them no greater Burthen than necessary things Do the Apostles and Elders so declare then we yield the Cause Do they not then ought they with Sin and Shame to yield it They leave out the word These because they know it made against them limiting the Churche's Order to some few particular things there presently named Things offered to Idols Bloud c. Now whereas the Church makes a temporary Order for some particular things and declares thus It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater Burthen necessary besides these things or these necessary things They leave out that word these of main importance and hugely against them and would make a standing Canon of their own and father it upon the Apostles That the Church ought to impose no other then necessary things and yet too by their own confession these things imposed were not simply in their own nature unchangeably necessary but by accident pro tempore loco and whereas they say the Council imposed them because antecedently necessary The contrary is most true These things were not antecedently necessary but onely as themselves say pro tempore for the time There being at this time a difference risen about the Jewish Ceremonies it was not necessary before the Council now so determined That the converted Gentiles should abstain from things offered to Idols strangled and Bloud that Law belonging onely to the Jews never to the Gentiles Behold how rarely well these men argue To prove Church-Governours may not determine in things indifferent for Order and Unity but all ought to be left to their own Liberty They produce a Scripture which proves most plainly That Church-Governours have and may determine and restrain those under them from the use of things indifferent All the things touching which the Council they produce do give order being indifferent except one Fornication which is of another nature but with these prohibited for that the Gentiles allowed themselves in it and scarce looked on it as a Sin This of their 20 th and last Reason which I have thus at large considered for that they lay so much weight upon it though it prove as the rest light in the Balance I shall for a Conclusion of all clearly evidence the Churche's Power to prescribe external Rites and Ceremonies for Order and Decency and our Obligation to conform unto them from the Judgment of two ancient Fathers for whom I suppose our Brethren have some Reverence and if those cannot move them from the Judgment of a modern Father for whom I am sure they have a high Veneration 'T is St. Augustine's Rule Prudenti Christiano eo modo agendum esse quo agit Ecclesia ad quam devenerit and his Mother having used when she was in Africk to fast on the Saturday and coming to Millan where that Fast was not observed was doubtfull what to doe hereupon her Son consulted Saint Ambrose who thus answered When I am here at Millan I do not fast on the Saturday when I am at Rome I do fast on the Saturday and unto what Church soever ye come keep the custom of it if you be willing neither to give nor take Scandal From which Rule of St. Augustine and Advice of St. Ambrose a Learned person maketh these Remarks 1. That divers Countries professing the same Religion may have divers Ceremonies 2. That in Churches Independent one is not bound of necessity to follow another 3. That 't is the Duty of every private person to conform himself to the laudable Customs and Constitutions of the Church wherein he liveth or wherever he cometh You have heard the Judgment of these ancient Fathers Will you hear your modern Father Mr. Calvin and he delivers his Judgment so fully and with so much strength and clearness asserts the Churche's Power to ordain external Rites and Ceremonies that Master Hooker himself could not say more or better Whereas many unskilfull men when they hear that Consciences are wickedly bound and God Worshipped in vain by the Traditions of men do at once blot out altogether all Laws whereby the Order of the Church is set in frame Therefore it is convenient also to meet with their Errour Verily in this point it