Christ they contented themselves with the ordinary titles of Bishops and Presbyters untill use the great arbitrator of words and master of language finding reason to distinguish by a peculiar name those persons whose power and office were indeed distinct from and above all other in the Church as succeeding the Apostles in the ordinary and constant power of governing the Churches the honour of whose name they moderately yet commendably declined all Christian Churches submitting to that special authority appropriated also the name of Bishop without any suspition or reproach of arrogancy to those who were by Apostolical propagation rightly descended and invested into that highest and largest power of governing even the most pure and Primitive Churches which without all doubt had many such holy Bishops after the pattern of Timothy and Titus whose special power is not more cleerly set down in those Epistles the chief grounds and limits of all Episcopal claim as from divine right than are the Characters of those perilous times and those men that make them such who not enduring sound Doctrine and clear testimonies of all Churches practice are most perverse Disputers and proud Usurpers against true Episcopacy Who if they be not Traytors and Boasters yet they seem to be very covetous heady high-minded inordinate and fierce lovers of themselves having much of the form little of the power of godlinesse Who by popular heaps of weak light and unlearned Teachers seek to over-lay and smoother the pregnancy and authority of that power of Episcopal Government which beyond all equivocation and vulgar fallacy of names is most convincingly set forth both by Scripture and all after Histories of the Church This I write rather like a Divine than a Prince that posterity may see if ever these papers be publick that I had fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical examples whereon my judgment was stated for Episcopal Government Nor was it any policy of State or obstinacy of Will or partiality of Affection either to the Men or their Function which fixed Me who cannot in point of worldly respects be so considerable to Me as to recompence the injuries and losses I and My dearest relations with My Kingdoms have sustained and hazarded chiefly at first upon this quarrell And not only in Religion of which Scripture is the est rule and the Churches Universal practice the best commentary but also in right reason and the true nature of Government it cannot be thought that an orderly Subordination among Prebyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and Civil Governments where parity breeds Confusion and Faction I can no more believe that such order is intonsistent with true Religion than good features are with beauty or numbers with harmony Nor is it likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the principles of schism and division as other men for preventing and suppressing of which the Apostolical wisdom which was divine after that Christians were multiplyed so many Congregations and Presbyters with them appointed this way of Government which might best preserve order and union with Authority So that I conceive it was not the favor of Princes or ambition of Presbyters but the wisdom and piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and enjoyed in those times which were purest for Religion though sharpest for Persecution Nor that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt Counsel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which were incident to any one man Also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christians least of all Church-men besides it will be a means to take away that burthen and odium of affairs which may lye too heavy on one mans Shoulders as indeed I think it formerly did on the Bishops here Nor can I see what can be more agreeable both to Reason and Religion than such a frame of Government which is Paternal not Magisterial and wherein not only the necessity of avoiding Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts which are prone to arise among equals in power and function but also the differences of some Ministers gifts and aptitudes for government above others doth invite to imploy them in referernce to those abilities wherein they are eminent Neither is this judgement of mine touching Episcopacy any preoccupation of opinion which will not admit any oppositions against it It is well known I have endeavoured to satisfie My self in what the chief patrons for other ways can say against this or for theirs And I find they have as far less of Scripture grounds and of reason so for examples and practice of the Church or testimonies of Histories they are wholly destitute wherein the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others As for those obtruded examples of some late reformed Churches for many retain Bishops still whom necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their inconformity to all Antiquity I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholike example of all Antient Churches which needed no Reformation And to those Churches at this day who governed by Bishops in all the Christian world are many more than Presbyterians or Independents can pretend to be All whom the Churches in my three Kingdoms lately governed by Bishops would equalize I think if not exceed Nor is it any point of wisdom or charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian world except a handfull of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government Whom though you may convince of their errours in some point of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical So far as never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except those Arrians have strayed from Unity and Conformity of the Church in that point ever having Bishops above Presbyters Besides the late general approbation and submission to this Government of Bishops by the Clergy as well as the Laity of these Kingdoms is a great confirmation of My Judgment and their inconstancy is a great prejudice against their Novelty I cannot in charity so far doubt of their learning or integrity as if they understood not what heretofore they did or that they did conform contrary to their Consciences So that their facility and levity is never to be excused who before ever the point of
being most commodious for their present State and hardly could there be found a more proper and fitting for a Church that lives under Magistrates of a contrary Religion and in such expectation of those who injoy the Ecclesiastical degrees to come in likewise into the Reformation They by their humble and equal order keep themselves in a State of obedience proper and ready to submit themselves to their Diocesans when it shall please God to convert them And that their Fathers chose this equality not as in opposition to the degrees of the Clergy but as a way to dispose them and as a Plank ready to invite their Bishops to passe over to the Reformation and so receive them into their charge We are not offended at the Degrees of the Clergy nor their Revenues c. This paper is intended to be very brief therefore these great lights of the reformed Churches are only now mentioned there being many others produceable to the same purpose who very highly magnifie and extoll both our Government by Bishops and also the Liturgical order and manner of our Divine worship to Almighty God Concerning which last particular I shall likewise present the opinions of some of those worthies of the Reformation who upon occasion have so declared their judgments thereupon that the Framers of the Directory had surely very little cause to make the Nation believe That by a long and sad experience as is expressed in the Preface to that Directory they find that the English Liturgy is offensive to the Foreign reformed Churches And that it is to answer the expectation of those Churches that they reject it Calvin himself shall again lead the Van upon this sally likewise for presently after the compyling of our Liturgy by those great Champions of the English Reformation men of signal eminency and renown for wisdom piety and learning and some of them upon that very score and account glorious for Martyrdome also The same was sent to Mr. Calvin who wrote thus back to the then Protector of England his Majesty Edw. the 6th being then in minority As for the form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Ceremonies I much approve That they should be established as a certain form from which it shall not be lawfull for the Pastors to go in the execution of their charge that so there may be provision made for simplicity and the consent of the Churches themselves may more certainly appear the extravagant levity of the affecters of novelty may be prevented Here we see Calvin the great Zam Zummim as to some particulars of the Framers of the Directory cleerly asserting both that there should be a certain form from which it should not be lawful to digresse And also approving the book of the Common Prayer sent to him and the Ecclesiastical Orders and Ceremonies of the English Church The same Calvin in his notes upon the 20th Psalm affords us a further and ample testimony of his approbation of set forms of Prayer and Liturgy And in the Confession presented in the name of the Churches of France to the Emperour and Princes of Germany he affirmeth thus That every Church hath right to make Laws Statutes or Canons and to establish a common Policy or Discipline And that obedience is owing to them and those that refuse this are to be accompted seditious and wilfull Thus Calvin Martin Bucer speaking of the form of our divine service or Liturgy saith thus Script Anglican p. 445 I thank God who hath given you grace to reform those ceremonies in such a purity For I have found nothing in it which is not taken out of the word of God or at least is not contrary to it being rightly interpreted Gualter and Bullinger men who cannot be denyed their rank and due place of eminency amongst those of the Reformation in a joynt Epistle of theirs wrote to some discontented Brethren here in England concerning the Discipline and Ceremonies of this our Church say thus That if any of the People perswade themselves that those things smell of Popery Let them learn to know the contrary and let them be perfectly instructed and that if the clamors of any raise up trouble among the multitude let them beware lest in so doing and provoking Authority they draw not upon their necks a more heavy yoke Beza likewise in his Epistle Ad quosdam Anglicarum Ecclesiarum fratres Speaking of the same subject matter expresses himself fully to the same purpose and tells them withall That the Surplisse is not of such importance to raise scruples in any against the wearing of it And so likewise for kneeling at the Sacrament Musick in Churches things of like nature That they are matters of such indifferency Lib. precum f. 202. 112. that they should no ways be troubled at them Gilbertus a German in a book of his long since written propounds the English Liturgy for a sample of the antient forms used in the Church of God Isaac Causabon that man of so great fame and learning admires the care of our English Church for Antiquity and Purity and generally proclaims it in all his Epistles That there was not any where else the like to be found nor that he ever hoped to see it in any place till himself came hither into England What the Church of Zeland especially the Wallachrian Classis returned in answer to some persons who addressed to them is manifest enough they not only approving of set prescribed forms of publique Prayer as tending much to edification but give reasons of such their approbation from Scripture and the practice of reformed Churches and conclude it to be a precise singularity in those who reject it It would be endlesse to relate the particular assertions of Foreign persons of choice sincerity and great learning mayn Opposers likewise of the Roman rubbish and superstition approving and applauding Liturgy and set forms of Prayer for publique use in the service of God the whole Christian World indeed in all ages including Christ himself and his Apostles and in all places asserting approving and advancing the same And surely had some persons but called to mind for it is not possible to be imagined they should be ignorant of it what general approbation the English Liturgy and Ceremonies of this our Church received at Dort by the Divines of Germany France Denmark Swedeland and Switzerland which appears in the Acts of that Synode many of which Divines as also some of our own then and there present 't is probable may either yet be living at this day or very lately Dead I say had they been mindful of this they would certainly have forborn to say there where it is publique legible enough That by long and sad experience they found that the English Liturgy was offensive to the foreign reformed Churches for certainly that is a very great error and mistake It being most manifest and notorious that we are so far from giving them offence in that particular that it
Church-Government had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former oathes and practice against their obedience to the Laws in force and against My consent have not only quite cryed down the Government by Bishops but have approved and incouraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the Bishops and many other Church-men of all their due Authority and Revenues even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church-lands from any Ecclesiastical uses So great a power hath the stream of times and the prevalency of parties over some mens judgments of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given besides the Scots Army comming into England But the folly of these men will at lâ—st punish it self and the Desertors of Episcopacy will appear the greatest enemies to and betrayers of their own interest For Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joyned to and crowned with Episcopacy All Ministers will find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as plants do between being watered by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of Heaven The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor carcase they are when parted from the influence of that head to whose supremacy they have been sworn A little moderation might have prevented great mischiefs I am firm to Primitive Episcopacy not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of Times or indulgence of Laws or corruption of Manners have brought upon it It being a grosse vulgar errour to impute to or revenge upon the function the faults of times or persons which seditious and popular principle and practice all wise men abhor For those secular additaments and ornaments of Authority Civil honour and Estate which my Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just rewards of their learning and piety whâ— are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthenings of their Authority in point of respect and observance which in peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governours by the measure of their Vertues so much as by that of their Estates Poverty and Meanesse exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners which persecuting times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those incouragements and best able to use them if at any time My Judgement of men failed My good intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose learning gravity and piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar neglect which besides an innate principle of vitious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my judgement touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratify any design or passion with the least parverting of truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian world whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by violence and infinite indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their King and Soveraign as some men have indeavoured to do against all these grounds of my Judgement to consent to their weak and divided novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do That the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themseves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Country or else they deny these most evident Truths that the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and that Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplyed and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their persons since the use and ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if ignorance superstition avarice revenge and other disorderly and disloyal passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Paterns they supply with violence and oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no lesse Sin than Sacrilege or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands be graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furthermore as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to My Judgement I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the unlawfulnesse of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniaâ—e I could soon with Judgement break that Oath which erroniously was taken by Me. But being dayly by the best disquisition of truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn How can any man that wisheth not My Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined Sins of Sacrilege and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelyhoods I have often wondred how men pretending to tenderness of Conscience Reformation can at once tell Me that my Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such violence though contrary to all that Rational and Religious freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes Yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me That I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of my Oath which binds me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My lot should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious unreasonable as being against
the very natural essential liberty of our Souls Yet it should be invalid to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in My Soul abhor as many wayes highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give My consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms For it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this For what I think in My Judgement best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My failing and Sin I can easily acknowledge it but that is no Argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point Nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and successeful as to incourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgement to be biassed or forestalled with some prejudice and wontednesse of opinion But I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least Reputation for their new wayes of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cryed up and obtruded upon the Churches under My Dominion that either Learning or Religion Works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in my Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right constitution The abuses of which deserve to be extirpated as much as the use retained for I think it far better to hold to Primitive and uniform Antiquity than to comply with divided Novelty A right Episcopacy would at once satisfie all just desires and interests of good Bishops humble Presbyters and sober People so as Church-affairs should be managed neither with tyranny parity nor popularity neither Bishops ejected nor Presbyters despised nor People oppressed And in this integrity both of My Judgement and Conscience I hope God will preserve me MEDITATION FOr thou O LORD knowest my uprightnesse and tendernesse as thou hast set Me to be a Defender of the Faith and a Protector of thy Church so suffer Me not by any violence to be over-born against my Conscience Arise O LORD maintain thine own Cause let not thy Church be deformed as to that Government which derived from thy Apostles hath been retained in purest and primitive times till the Revenues of the Church became the object of secular envy which seeks to rob it of all the encouragements of Learning and Religion Make Me as the good Samaritan compassionate and helpful to thy afflicted Church which some men have wounded and robbed others passe by without regard either to pity or relieve As my power is from thee so give Me grace to use it for thee And though I am not suffered to be Master of my other Rights as a King yet preserve Me in that liberty of Reason love of Religion and thy Churches welfare which are fixed in my Conscience as a Christian Preserve from Sacrilegious Invasions those temporal blessings which thy providence hath bestowed on thy Church for thy glory Forgive their sins and errors who have deserved thy just permission thus to let in the wilde Boar and subtile Foxes to waste and deform thy Vineard which thy right hand hath planted and the dew of Heaven so long watered to a happy and flourishing estate O let me not bear the inâ—amous brand to all Posterity of being the first Christian King in this Kingdom who should consent to the oppression of thy Church and the Fathers of it whose errours I would rather with Constantine cover with silence and reform with meeknesse than expose their persons and sacred Functions to vulgar contempt Thou O LORD seest how much I have suffered with and for thy Church make no long tarrying O my God to deliver both me and it from unreasonable men whose counsels have brought forth and continue such violent confusions by a precipitant destroying the antient boundaries of thy Churches peace thereby letting in all manner of errours schisms and disorders O thou God of order and of truth in thy good time abate the malice asswage the rage and confound all the mischievous devices of thine mine and thy Churches enemies That I and all that love thy Church may sing praises to thee and ever magnifie thy salvation even before the sons of men Concerning the Liturgy his Royal words are these IT is no news to have all Innovations ushered in with the name of Reformations in Church and State by those who seeking to gain reputation with the Vulgar for their extraordinary parts and piety must needs undo whatever was formerly settled never so well and wisely So hardly can the pride of those that study Novelties allow former times any share or degree of wisdom or godliness And because matter of Prayer and Devotion to God justly bears a great part in Religion being the Souls more immediate converse with the Divine Majesty nothing could be more plausible to the People than to tell them they served God amisse in that point Hence our publick Liturgy or Forms of constant Prayers must be not amended in what upon free and publick advise might seem to sober men inconvenient for matter or manner to which I should easily consent but wholly cashiered and abolished and after many popular contempts offered to the Book and those that used it according to their Consciences and the Laws in force it must be crucified by an Ordinance the better to please either those men who gloried in their extemporary vein and fluency or others who conscious to their own formality in the use of it thought they fully expiated their sin of not using it aright by laying all the blame upon it and a total reâ—ection of it as a dead letter thereby to excuse the deadnesse of their hearts As for the matter contained in the Book sober and learned men have sufficiently vindicated it against the cavils
and exceptions of those who thought it a part of piety to make what prophane objections they could against it especialy for Popery and Superstition Whereas no doubt the Liturgy was exactly conformed to the Doctrine of the Church of England And this by all Reformed Churches is confessed to be most sound and Orthodox For the manner of using Set and prescribed Forms there is no doubt but that wholsom words being known and fitted tâ— mens understandings are soonest received into their hearts and aptest to excite and carry along with them judicious and fervent affections Nor do I see any reason why Christians should be weary of a well composed Liturgy as I hold this to be more than of all other things wherein the Coâ—stancy abates nothing of the excellency and usefulnesse I could never see any reason why any Christian should abhor or be forbidden to use the same forms of Prayer since he prays to the same God believes in the same Saviour professeth the same Truths reads the same Scriptures hath the same Duties upon him and feels the same dayly Wants for the most part both inward and outward which are common to the whole Church Sure we may as well before-hand know what we pray as to whom we pray and in what words as to what sense when we desire the same things what hinders we may not use the same words our appetite and disgestion too may be good when we use as we pray for Our daily bread Some men I hear are so impatient not to use in all their devotions their own invention and gifts that they not only disuse as too many but wholly cast away and contemn the Lords Prayer whose great guilt is that it is the warrant and original pattern of all set Liturgies in the Christian Church I ever thought that the proud ostentation of mens abilities for invention and the vain affectations of variety for expressions or in publick Prayer or in any sacred administrations merits a greater brand of sin than that which they call Coldnesse and Barrennesse nor are men in those novelties lesse subject to formal and superficial tempers as to their hearts than in the use of constant Forms where not the words but mens hearts are too blame I make no doubt but a man may be very formal in the most extemporary variety and very fervently devout in the most wonted expressions nor is God more a God of Variety than of Constancy nor are constant Forms of Prayers more likely to flat and hinder the Spirit of Prayer and Devotion than unpremeditated and confused variety to distract and lose it Though I am not against a grave modest discreet and humble use of Ministers gifts even in publique the better to fit and excite their own and the peoples affections to the present occasions yet I know no necessity why private and single abilities should quite justle out and deprive the Church of the joynt abilities and concurrent gifts of many learned and godly men such as the Composers of the Service-Book were who may in all reason be thought to have more of gifts and graces enabling them to compose with serious deliberation and concurrent advise such Forms of Prayers as may best fit the Churches common wants inform the Hearers understanding and stir up that fiduciary and fervent application of their spirits wherein consists the very life and soul of Prayer and that so much pretended Spirit of Prayer that any private man by his solitary abilities can be presumed to have which what they are many times even there where they make a great noise and shew the affectations emptinesse impertinency rudenesse confusions flatnesse levity obscurity vain and ridiculous repetitions the senslesse and oft times blasphemous expressions all these burthened with a most tedious and intolerable length do sufficiently convince all men but those who glory in that Pharisaick way Wherein men must be strangely impudent and flatterers of themselves not to have an infinite shame of what they so do and say in things of so sacred a nature before God and the Church after so ridiculous and indeed profane a manner Nor can it be expected but that in duties of frequent performance as Sacramental administrations and the like which are still the same Ministers must either come to use their own Forms constantly which are not like to be so sound or comprehensive of the nature of the duty as Forms of publick composure or else they must every time affect new expressions when the subject is the same which can hardly be presumed in any mans greatest sufficiencies not to want many times much of that compleatnesse order and gravity becomming those duties which by this means are exposed at every celebration to every Ministers private infirmities indispositions errours disorders and defects both for judgment and expression A serious sense of which Inconvenience in the Church unavoidably following every mans several manner of officiating no doubt first occasioned the wisdom and piety of the Antient Churches to remedy those mischiefs by the use of constant Liturgies of Publick composure The want of which I believe this Church will sufficiently feel when the unhappy fruits of many mens ungoverned ignorance and confident defects shall be discovered in more errours schisms disorders and uncharitable distractions in Religion which are already but too many the more is the pity However if violence must needs bring in and abett those innovations that men may not seem to have nothing to do which Law Reason and Religion forbids at least to be so obtruded as wholly to justle out the publick Liturgie Yet nothing can excuse that most unjust and partial severity of those men who either lately had subscribed to used and maintained the service book or refused to use it cried out of the rigour of Laws and Bishops which suffered them not to use the Liberty of their Consciences in not using it That these men I say should so suddenly change the Liturgy into a Directory as if the Spirit needed help for invention though not for expressions or as if matter prescribed did not as much stint and obstruct the Spirit as if it were cloathed in and confined to fit words So slight and easy is that Legerdemain which will serve to delude the Vulgar That further they should use such severity as not to suffer without penalty any to use the Common-Prayer-Book publiquely although their Consciences bind them to it as a duty of Piety to God and Obedience to the Laws Thus I see no men are prone to be greater Tyrants and more rigorous exacters upon others to conform to their illegal Novelties than such whose pride was formally least disposed to the obedience of lawful Constitutions and whose licentious humors most pretended Conscientious liberties which freedom with much regret they now allow to Me and My Chaplains when they may have leave to serve Me whose abilities even in their extemporary way comes not short of the others but their modesty and learning far
exceeds the most of them But this matter is of so popular a nature as some men knew it would not bear learned and sober debates lest being convinced by the evidence of Reason as well as Laws they should have been driven either to sin more against their knowledge by taking away the Liturgy or to displease some faction of the people by continuing the use of it Though I believe they have offended more considerable men not only for their numbers and estates but for their weighty and judicious piety than those are whose weaknesse or giddinesse they sought to gratifie by taking it away One of the greatest faults some men found with the Common-Prayer-Book I believe was this That it taught then to pray so oft for Me to which Petitions they had not Loyalty enough to say Amen nor yet Charity enough to forbear Reproaches and even Cursings of Me in their own Forms instead of praying for Me. I wish their Repentance may be their only punishment that seeing the mischiefs which the disuse of Publique Liturgies hath already produced they may restore that credit use and Reverence to them which by the antient Churches were given to Set Forms of sound and wholsom words MEDITATION ANd thou O LORD which art the same God blessed for ever whose mercies are full of variety and yet of constancy thou denyest us not a new and fresh sense of our old and dayly wants nor despisest renewed affections joyned to constant expressions Let us not want the benefit of thy Churches united and well-advised Devotions Let the matters of our Prayers be agreeable to thy will which is alwayes the same and the fervency of our Spirits to the motions of thy holy Spirit in us And then we doubt not but thy spiritual perfections are such as thou art neither to be pleased with affected Novelties for matter or manner nor offended with the pious constancy of our petitions in them both Whose variety or constancy thou hast no where either forbidden or commanded but left them to the piety and prudence of thy Church that both may be used neither despised Keep men in that pious moderation of their judgments in matter of Religion that their ignorance may not offend others nor their opinion of their own abilities tempt them to deprive others of what they may lawfully and devoutly use to help their infirmities And since the advantage of Error consists in novelty and variety as Truths in unity and constancy Suffer not thy Church to be pestered with errors and deformed with undecencies in thy service under the pretence of variety and novelty Nor to be deprived of truth unity and order under this fallacy That constancy is the cause of formality LORD keep us from formal Hypocrisie in our own hearts and then we know that praying to thee or praysing of thee with David and other holy men in the same forms cannot hurt us Give us wisdome to amend what is amisse within us and there will be lesse to mend without us Evermore defend and deliver thy Church from the effects of blind zeal and ov-erbold devotion SIlence after this best becomes humanity No fit addition to this All-Comprehensive brevity can possibly be expressed by any Pen in the hand of a Mortal yet since Presumption hath dared to insert these few words after such divinely-inspired and transcendently elegant and pithy lines What better amends can be made than to cloze up this Rude breach by a second Retreat And listening again to what as to the particulars before treated of that Caelestial Quill left Ingraven as his last words amongst many others his truly Royal and most eminently-Pious and Paternal Instructions to his Son then Heir apparent of all his Earthly Crowns and Dominions and now our most Dear and Dread Lord and Soveraign ABove all I would have You as I hope You are already well grounded and setled in your Religion The best profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which you have been educated Yet I would have your own Judgement and Reason now seal to that sacred bond which education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens custome or tradition which you profess In this I charge You to persevere as comming nearest to Gods Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little amendment which I have otherwhere expressed and often offered though in vain Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your Souls than your Kingdomes peace when God shall bring you to them For I have observed that the Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretend new Lights When some mens Consciences accuse them for Sedition and Faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion when Piety pleads for Peace and patience they cry out Zeal So that unlesse in this point You be well setled you shall never want temptations to destr Yoy ou and Yours under pretentions of Reforming matters of Religion for that seems even to worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst designs Where besides the Novelty which is taking enough with the Vulgar every one hath an affectation by seeming forward to an outward Reformation of Religion to be thought zealous hoping to cover those irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severity of censuring other mens opinions or actions Take heed of abetting any Factions or applying to any publick Discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in your Judgement and the Church well settled c. You may never expect lesse of Loyalty Justice or Humanity than from those who ingage into Religious Rebellion Their interests are alwayes made Gods under the colours of Piety ambitions policies march not only with greatest security but applause as to the populacie you may hear from them Jacobs voyce but you shall feel they have Esaus hands Nothing seemed lesse considerable than the Presbyterian Fashion in England for many years so complyant they were to publique publick order nor was their party great either Church or State as to mens judgements But as soon as Discontent drave men into Sidings as ill humours fall to the disaffected part which causes inflamations so did all at first who affected any Novelties adhere to that Side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious Servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military successe discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of profits and preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all In these two points the preservation
of Established Religion and Laws I may without Vanity turn the reproach of My suffrings as to the Worlds censure into the honour of a kind of Martyrdome as to the testimony of My own Conscience The Troublers of My Kingdoms having nothing else to object against me but this that I prefer Religion and Laws Established before those alterations they propounded I have You see conflicted with different and opposite Factions for so I must needs call and count all those that act not in any conformity to the Lawes established in Church and State no sooner have they by force subdued what they counted their Common Enemy that is all those that adhered to the Lawes and to Me and are secured from that fear but they are divided to so high a rivalry as sets them more at defiance against each other than against their Antagonists Time will dissipiate all Factions when once the rough horns of private mens covetous and ambitious designs shall discover themselves which were at first wrapt up and hidden under the soft and smooth pretensions of Religion Reformation and Liberty As the Wolf is not lesse cruel so he will be more justly hated when he shall appear no better than a Wolf under Sheeps cloathing If You never see My face again and God will have Me buried in such a barbarous Imprisonment and obscurity which the perfecting some Mens designs require wherein few hearts that love Me are permitted to exchange a word or a look with Me I do require and entreat You as Your Father and Your King that You never suffer Your heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Churc of England I tell You I have tryed it and after much search and many disputes have concluded it to be the best in the world not only in the Community as Chriastin but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the pomp of superstitions Tyranny and the meanesse of of fantastique Anarchy Not but that the draught being excellent as to the main both for Doctrine and Government in the Church of England some lines as in very good figures may haply need some sweetning or polishing which might here have easily been done by a safe and gentle hand if some mens precipitancy had not violenly demanded such rude alterations as would have quite destroyed all the beauty and proportions of the whole The scandal of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to You against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily Answered to them or Your own thoughts in this That scarce any one who hath been a Beginner or an active Prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Me either was or is a true Lover Embracer or Practiser of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such rules nor ever before set such examples 'T is true some heretofore had the boldnesse to present threatning Petitions to their Princes and Parliaments which others of the same Faction but of worse spirits have now put in execution but let not counterfeit and disorderly Zeal abate Your value and esteem of true Piety both of them are to be known by their fruits the sweetnesse of the Vine and Fig-tree is not to be despised though the Brambles and Thorns spould pretend to bear Figs and Grapes thereby to rule over the Trees And if God will have disloyalty perfected by My destruction let My memory ever with My name live in You as of Your Father that loves You and once a King of three flourishing Kingdoms Whom God thought fit to honour not only with the Scepter and Government of them but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely death for them While I studied to preserve the rights of the Church the power of the Laws the honour of My Crown the privilege of Parliaments the liberties of My People and My own Conscience which I thank God is dearer to Me than a thousand Kingdoms Keep You to true principles of piety virtue and honour You shall never want a Kingdom I pray God bless You and establish Your Kingdoms in righteousness Your Soul in true Religion and Your honour in the love of God and Your people FINIS