Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A52036
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An answer to a booke entitvled An hvmble remonstrance in which the originall of liturgy, episcopacy is discussed : and quares propounded concerning both : the parity of bishops and presbyters in Scripture demonstrated : the occasion of their imparity in antiquity discovered : the disparity of the ancient and our moderne bishops manifested : the antiquity of ruling elders in the church vindicated : the prelaticall church bownded / written by Smectymnvvs.
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Smectymnuus.; Milton, John, 1608-1674.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing M748; ESTC R21898
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76,341
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112
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not what this Arrogancy might attempt to fasten upon your Honors should the bowels of your compassion bee enlarged to weigh in the Ballance of your wisdomes the multitude of Humble petitions presented to you from severall parts of this Kingdome that hath long groaned under the Iron aâ—d Insupportable yoake of this Episcopall Government which yet we doubt not but your Honours will please to take into your prudent and pious consideration Especially knowing it is their continuall practise to loade with the odious names of Faction all that justly complain of their unjust oppression In his addresse to his defence of Episcopacy he makes an unhappy confession that he is confounded in himselfe Your Honours may in this beleeve him for hee that reades this Remonstrance may easily observe so many falsities and contradictions though presented to publike view with a face of confident boldnesse as could not fall from the Pen of any but selfe-confounded man which though we doubt not but your Honours have descryed yet because they are hid from an errant and unobserving eye under the Embroyderies of a silken Language wee Humbly crave your Honours leave to put them one by one upon the file that the world may see what credit is to be given to the bold assertions of this confident Remonstrant First in his second page he dubs his Book the faithfull messenger of all the peaceable and right affected sons of the Church of England which words besides that unchristian Theta which as we already observed they set upon all that are not of his party carry in the bowels of them a notorious falsity and contradiction to the phrase of the booke for how could this booke be the messenger of all his owne party in England when it is not to be imagined that all could know of the comming forth of this booke before it was published and how can that booke crave admittance in all their names that speakes in the singular number and as in the person of one man almost the whole booke thorow But it may besome will say this is but a small slippe well be it so but in the seventh page hee layes it on in foure lines asserting these foure things First that Episcopall Government that very same Episcopall Government which some he saith seekes to wound that is Government by Diocesan Bishops derives it selfe from the Apostles times which though we shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 more fully confute anon yet we cannot here but ranke it among his notorious for how could there be such Government of a Diocesse by a Bishop derived from the Apostles times when in the Apostles times there were no Bishops distinct from Pâ—esbyters as we shall shew and if there had beene Bishops yet they were no Diocesans for it was a hundred yeares after Christ or as most agree 260. before Parishes were distinguished and there must be a distinction of Parishes before there could be an union of them into Diocesses Secondly it is by the joynt confession of all reformed Divines granted that this sacred Government is derived from the Apostles What all reformed Divines was Calvin Beza Iunius c. of that minde Are the reformed Churches of France Scotland Netherlands of that Iudgement we shall shew anon that there is no more Truth in this Assertion then if he had said with Anaxagoras snow is black or with Copernicus the Earth moves and the heavens stand still Thirdly he saith this Government hath continued without any interruption What doth he meane at Rome for we reade in some places of the world this Government was never known for many yeares together as in Scotland â— we reade that in Ancient times the Scots were instructed in the Christian faith by Priests and Monkes and were without Bishops 290. yeares yea to come to England we would desire to know of this Remonstrant whether God had a Church in England in Q. Mariâ—s daies or no and if so who were then the Bishops of this Church for some there must be if it be true that this man saith this Government hath continued without any interruption unto this day and Bishops then we know not where to finde but in the â—ine of Popish succession Fourthly he saith it hath thus continued without the contradiction of any one Congregation in the Christian world It seemes he hath forgotten what their own darling Heylin hath written of the people of Biscay in Spaine that they admit of no Bishops to come among them for when Ferdinand the Catholike came in progresse accompanied among others with the Bishop of Pampelone the people rose up in Armes drove back the Bishop and gathering up all the dust which they thought he had trode on flung it into the Sea Which story had it been recorded only by him would have been of lighter Credit But we reade the same in the Spanish Chronicle who saith more then the Doctor for he tels us that the People threw that dust that the Bishop or his Mule had trode on into the Sea with Curses and Imprecations which certainly saith he was not done without some Mysterie those people not being voide of Religion but superstitiously devout as the rest of the Spaniards are so that they is one Congregation in the Christian world in which this Government hath met with contradiction And are not the French Scottish and Belgicke Churches worthy to be counted Christian Congregations and who knows not that amongst these this Government hath met not only with verball but reall contradiction Yet he cannot leave his But within two pages is at it again and tels us of an unquestionable clearnesse wherein it hath been from the Apostles derived to us how unquestionable when the many volumes written about it witnesse to the world and to his conscience it hath been as much questioned as any point almost in our Religion And that assertion of his that tels us that the people of God had a forme of prayer as ancient as Moses which was constantly practised to the Apostles dayes and by the Apostles c. though we have shewed how bold and false this assertion is yet we mention it here as deserving to be put into the Catalogue And that he may not seeme Contra Mentem ire but to be of the same minde still p. 18. he saith Episcopall Government hath continued in this Island ever since the first plantation of the Gospell without contradiction Had he taken a lesse space of time and said but since the resuscitation of the Gospel we can prove it to him and shall that since the reformation Episcopacy hath been more contradicted then ever the Papacy was before the extirpation of it Yet still the man runs on thinking to get credit to his untruthes by their multiplications for pag. 21. hee saith Certainly except all Histories all Authors faile us nothing can be more certain then this truth Oâ— Durum Nothing more certain what is it not more certain
prayers but such as were approved of in a Synode which was not determined till the yeare 416. Conc. Milev 2. Can. 12. And had there been any Liturgies of Times of the first and most venerable antiquity producible the great admirers of them and inquirers after them would have presented them to the world ere this we know that Bishop Andrews in his zeale for Liturgies pursued the inquiry after the Iewish Liturgie so far that he thought he had found it and one there was which he sent to Cambridge to be translated but there it was soone discovered to have beene made long after the Iewes ceased to be the Church of God and so himselfe supprest it that it never saw the light under a translation We wonder therefore what this Remonstrant meant to affirme so confidently that part of the forme of prayer which was composed by our blessed Saviour was borrowed from the formes of prayer formerly used by Gods people An opinion we never met before indeed we have read that the Rabbines since the daies of our Saviour have borrowed some expressions from that Prayer and from other Evangelicall passages But we never read till now that the Lord Christ the wisdome of the Father borrowed from the wisdome of the Rabbines expressions to use in Prayer And as much we wonder by what Revelation or Tradition Scripture being silent in the thing he knew that Peter and Iohn when they went up to the Temple to pray their Prayer was not of a sudden and extemporary conception but of a Regular prescription Sure we are some as well read in Iewish antiquity as this Remonstrant shewes himselfe to be have told us that the houre of Prayer was the time when the Priest burnt Incense and the people were at their private prayers without as appeares Luke 1.9 where we reade that while Zachary the Priest went in to offer Incense all the people stood with out praying in the time of the Oblation Which Prayers were so far from being Prescript Formes or Liturgies that they were not vocall but mentall Prayers as Master Meade tels us in his exposition upon the eighth of the Revelations And what ever Peter and Iohn did this we know that when the Publican and the Pharisee went up to the Temple to pray as the Apostles did at the houre of prayer their prayer was not of Regular prescription but of a present Conception But if this Remonstrant be in the right concerning the Iewish Liturgies then the Evangelicall Church might better have improved her peace and happinesse then in composing Models of Invocation and Thanksgiving when there is one extant and ready to be produced that was constantly used by Gods people ever since Moses daies and put over to the times of the Gospel and confirmed by Apostolicall practise or else great is our losse who are so unhappily deprived of the best improvement the Church made of her peace and happinesse in the first 300. yeares for rejecting those Liturgies that are confest by the Learned to bee Spurious We challenge this Remonstrant to produce any one Liturgie that was the issue of those times And blessed Constantine was herein as unhappy as we who needed not have composed formes of prayer for his Guard to use upon the Lords day but might and would have taken them out of former Liturgies if there had been any And can ye with patience think that any ingenuous Christian should be so transported as upon such weak and unproved premises to build such a Confident conclusion as this Remonstrant doth and in that Conclusion forget the state of the controversie sliding from the question of a prescribed and imposed Liturgie to an arbitrary book of prayer In his Rhetoricall Encomium of conceived prayer wee shall more willingly bear a part with him then they whose cause he pleads for had that been in their hearts which is in this book to hate to be guilty of powring water upon the Spirit and gladly to adde oyle rather so many learned able Conscientious Preachers had not been molested and suspended for letting the constant flames of their fixed conceptions mount up from the altar of their zealous heart unto the throne of grace nor had there been so many advantages watched from some stops and seeming solecismes in some mens prayers to blaspheme the spirit of prayer which though now confest to be so far from being offensive that they are as pleasing Musick in the eares of the Almighty yet time hath been when they have â—ounded as meere Battologies nay no better then meere Blasphemies in the â—ares of some Bishops And if this conceived prayer be not to be opposed in another by any man that hath found the true operation of this grace in himselfe with that spirit then are those possest that have not only thus raged with their tongues against this way of prayer but by sealing up the mouthes of Ministers for praying thus in publike and imposing penances upon private Christians for praying thus in their Families and compelling them to abiure this practise have endeavoured with raging violence to banish this divine ordinance from our Churches and dwellings and profest in open Court it was fitter for Amsterdam than for our Churches But howsoever this applause of conceived prayer may seeme to be Cordiall yet he makes it but a vantage ground to lift up publike formes of sacred Church Liturgie as hee calls it the higher that they may have the greater honour that by the power of your authority they be reinforced which worke there would have beene no need to call your Honors to had not Episcopall zeale broke forth into such flames of indignation against conceived prayers that we have more just cause to implore the propitious aide of the same Authority to reestablish the Liberty of this then they to re-inforce the necessity of that Yet there are two specious Arguments which this Remonstrant brings to perswade this desired re-inforcement the Originall and Confirmation of our Liturgie For the first he tels your Honours it was selected out of ancient Models not ROMAN but CHRISTIAN contrived by the holy Martyrs and Confessors of the blessed reformation of Religion where we beseech your Honours to consider how we may trust these men who sometimes speaking and writing of the ROMAN Church proclaime it a true Church of CHRIST and yet here ROMAN and CHRISTIAN stand in opposition sometimes they tell men their Liturgie is wholly taken out of the Romane Missall only with some little alteration and here they would perswade your Honours there is nothing Romane in it But it is wholly selected out of pure Ancient Models as the Quintessence of them all Whereas alas the originall of it is published to the world in that Proclamation of Edward the sixt And though here they please to stile the Composers of it holy Martyrs and contrivers of the blessed Reformation yet there are of the Tribe for whom