these now desire to appear as Goliah in their compleat Armour boldly braving the whole Church of England and this not onely as great Scripturists but great Artists too yea they would seem great Statists Pragmaticks and Politicians They pretend to be curious inspectors beyond all men into all religious mysteries yea rigid and exact Anatomizers of all both Modern and Ancient Churches subtile Insinuators into all Interests and grand Modellers of all Polities both Civil and Ecclesiasticall aiming no doubt in time to erect some Saintly soverainty for their party in England though their former ambitious attempts have every where miscarried as in severall parts of Germany so of late in Ireland These Anti-paedo-baptists who are such hard-hearted Fathers such unkind and unchristian Parents to their Children as to deny them those distinctions and indulgences of divine grace and favour which God of old granted to the Jewish infants and which the Catholick Christian Churches in all ages have thankfully accepted and faithfully applied to the Children of professed believers as a priviledge and donation renewed to them by Christ and confirmed by the Apostles these Birds glorying like Ostriches in their negligence toward their young ones are risen up to be not onely nimble Disputants against children but valiant combatants against men For they find after the way of the world more is got in one year by the terrour of armes than in ten yeares by the shew of arguments And although the pretended principle at first of that party was to go with soft feet as Lions and Cats do hiding and preserving their Clawes till there is use of them crying up Peace and crying down all Warre and sword-work upon Christs or the Gospels score yet the latter sort of their Disciples being in hopes to become more regnant and triumphant have interpreted the meaning of their Grandsires to be onely in prudence and caution not in piety and conscience that fighting was onely forbidden them when they had cause to despair of getting the better or just fear to be worsted but if Providence gives them honest hopes and advantages by the arm of flesh and the sword of Steel to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and his spirit they are ready with S. Peter not onely to fight for Christ but to cut off Malchus his eare yea and his head too if they find any Christian Prince or Prelate Magistrate or Minister stand in their way or if he seemeth to fight against that Anti-infantall Christ which they say is so predominant in them that he ought by their assistance to reform and rule all the Christian world first beginning to destroy the Baptismall rights of Christians Infants and then to go on to invade the rights of their parents both Civil and Ecclesiasticall The ancient Church as in England so every where adored a Saviour who invited infants to him and blessed them These men set up a Christ who will not endure the Infants of his Church and people to come neer him or have any relation to him as Lambs of the flock to that great Shepherd Thus the Papists on the one side agitate an endlesse controversie with this Church of England and all Reformed Churches touching the Lords Supper First in not restoring the Cup to Lay-men agreeable to Christs institution and intention which was best declared by the practise of the Apostles and the Catholick Church after them for a thousand years next in their stating precisely and explicitely as matter of faith under a grievous curse and Anathema the manner of Christs presence in that Sacrament which as we confesse to be very mysterious adorable and ineffable yet most reall true and effectuall to a worthy Receiver according to the proper capacity of Faith receiving its object so we conclude that it is not in that grosse and contradictive manner which they have lately invented and imposed upon the Churches credulity by way of Transubstantiatings which is a strange nulling of the substance nature of the signes Bread and Wine owned as such by the Apostle after consecration and inducing the intire substance of Christs Body and Blood under every crum and drop of those accidents or shadows which seem still to be Bread and Wine to the four Senses And this must be first done even then when Christ was yet at table with the Disciples and had not yet suffered so that they corporally eat of Christs Body made of the Bread when he gave them the Bread and was at once in their eyes and between their teeth Which strange and unheard-of manner of super-omnipotent transmuting or transposing or annihilating of Substances the Papists owe more to the wit and subtilties of some Schoolmen of later ages who scorned to seem ignorant of any thing or to be posed in any Christian mystery than either to the verdict of their senses to the principles of true Philosophy to the grounds of sound Reason to the Analogy or tenour of Scriptures in parallel Mysteries or Sacraments or last of all to the Testimony of the Primitive Fathers and ancient Churches as hath been amply and unanswerably proved by many Reformed Divines at home and abroad Who though they spake very high things of this blessed Sacrament as to its holy use end and relation to the Lord Jesus yet they thought it enough for Christians to believe adore and admire the invisible mysticall and spirituall yet reall presence of Christ in it for truly and fully present they ever believed him to be though they confessed themselves ignorant how and so were both humbly and modestly silent of the manner of his presence In which bounds if the later Church of Rome could have contained it self I believe much trouble and misery much blood-shed and persecution had been saved in these Western Churches which are now divided and destroyed upon no point more than this of the Lords Supper which was the greatest Symbol of Christians communion with Christ and one another till the Papall arts and policies did so maim and mishape that blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper as to make it a ground of everlasting contention On the other side the peevish and petulant Anabaptists who for many years past almost since the first day-spring of the Reformation visited these Western Churches have by the pens and tongues the writings and preachings of many learned and godly men been brayed in the mortar of Scripture-testimonies Ecclesiastick practise Catholick custome and tradition yet wil not their folly depart from them These I say have heretofore in Transilvania Westphalia and many parts of Germany and the adjacent Countreys and of late in England since it became Africa Septentrionalis the Northern Africa full of Serpents and fruitfull in Monsters with greater boldnesse and freedome than they ever enjoyed under any Christian Magistrate or in any Reformed Church sharply contested against the other great Sacrament of Baptisme so far as it was in the Church of England and ever hath been in all ages and
lesse safe in some respects for the Lay-people to receive the Cup or Wine and Blood of Christ apart as he instituted and the Church of old even the Roman constantly practised as do the Greeks at this day according to what Christ commanded and in what sense he gave it and called it reall Bread and Wine for such he took such he brake such he blessed such he gave to the Disciples when he said that is this Bread is my Body this cup is my Blood such S. Paul understood them to be and so declares this the mind of Christ as he had received it immediately from Christ The Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ For we are all partakers of that one Bread So whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup unworthily Let a man examine himself before he eat of that bread Certainly either the Apostles expressions must be affectedly very dark and his meaning different from his words or he was quite of another mind than the Papists are at this day who durst in the all-daring Council of Trent damn all those who follow Christs example use his words and are of the Apostles judgement expressing their sense of the blessed Sacrament in his words which we think much safer to follow both in the use of Sacramentall Bread and Wine communicated to all Receivers and in the perswasion we have of our receiving true Bread and Wine yet duly consecrated and so Sacramentally united to the reall Body and Blood of Christ which we faithfully behold thankfully receive and reverently adore in that blessed Mysterie according to the ancient Faith Judgement Reverence and Devotion of the Church of Christ void of sacrilegious novelties and incredible superstitious vanities If we Christians of the reformed Church of England had no other wall of separation to keep us from the Papall communion than these two so palpable and gross opinions with their consequences so rigidly enjoyned upon all Christians under pain of Gods eternall curse yet both so dissonant from and opposite to the example of Christ and the words of the Apostle these were sufficient to keep sober Christians at an eternall distance from them lest knowingly partaking of their sins and abetting their wilfull and obstinate sacriledge we also partake of their punishment who in vain serve God after the commandments and traditions of men contrary to the Divine Word and Prescription Nor will the silly shifts and pitifull salvoes serve here which are used by some Romanists whose Learning Wit and Sophistry are all set on work to take off the aspersion odium and envy of these grosse and rude Innovations How childish ridiculous is it to talk of the Popes imaginary infallibility or the Roman Churches usurped Supreme Authority in cases expresly contrary to the Institution of Christ and the Apostles explication from whom the Church of Rome professe to derive their Religion Nor may they with any foreheads or modesty becoming good Christians so rudely vary from them if they desire to have the name and merit of faithfull and good Christians whose greatest Liberty Duty and Honour is if they love Christ to keep his commandements and neither for pride nor policy to warp from them and after clear remonstrances to refuse to return in case of straying to a conformity with them which obstinacy makes little for the Pope's infallibility or Rome's supreme Authority never challenged by Popes or owned by any other Bishops in the Church for 600 yeares after Christ nor by Pope Gregory the Great who as an holy and humble Bishop abhorred the title and pride of that name Universal Bishop as appears in his works and others of the Ancients of whom I gave a particular account in my Hieraspistes p. 249. Yet these two are the main hinges on which the unhappy disputes of Christendome do turn and the chief anvils on which the animosities between Protestants and Papists are now hammered as otherwhere so here in England The ruine of which famous Church is the greatest prize which the Romish party hath gotten since Luther's dayes who began not without his passions and infirmities that pious Apostasie which being found just and holy moved as other Churches so this of England not to forsake the communion of the Church of Rome so far as it was or is a Church of Christ but onely so far as it seemed to have been oppressed with a Synagogue of Satan deformed with such sinfull deformities and sottish fedities besides their Court-tyrannies as became no Christians to endure who were either not in the dark and so could see the need they had to get out of such a dungeon full of mire and darknesse or were at their own dispose as was the state of the Nation and Church of England depending on none nor subject to any but God alone These so oft recocted Crambes of Popish controversies as I delight not to aggravate so I am forced here to touch some of them to shew you my honoured Countrey-men as what cause the Church of England had to reform her self with what prudence she did it so how inconsistent it must be with good conscience for us in Engl. to revert to the Popish Communion being of so different perswasions from them which wretched Apostasie being the grand design and agitation of Roman Counsels will in time draw this Nation away from Gods rectitudes to mans obliquities if the Roman furnace and bellows be so plied and advanced for them by these operators of severall sects and factions whose end will be whatever their aime is quite to melt down the former fashion of the Church of England and its well-reformed state of Religion that it may by degrees run into the Roman mould and form CHAP. XVII NOt that I repeat these differences in order to encrease or continue uncharitable bitternesses among any good Christians whose hearts are honest though their judgements may be erroneous the blessed God who is both light and love knoweth that I have not any design to widen the sad breaches of Christendom or to hinder the charitable closings of them so far as may stand with good conscience and Catholick truth whose rule and ground ought to be the Word of God rightly understood which is its own best interpreter and plain in those things of Duty and Perswasion of Faith and Devotion which are most necessary to salvation I confesse I cannot but vehemently approve being now past juvenile heats and popular fervours in Religion the pious and learned endeavours of those excellent men who after Melanchthon Cassander Saravia Wicelius Thuanus Grotius Casaubon and others have not onely seriously deplored the sad rents and wounds of Christian Churches but sought to pour in Wine and Oyle of wholsome and unpassionate counsels not palliating apparent errours yet not aggravating needlesse jealousies nor inflaming mutuall angers in order to gratifie either the sacrilegious policies of Princes or the pride of Popes or the
dissensions among us but must needs be now not onely out of love with them but in as great feare and abhorrence of them as he hath any favour and good will to the peace and prosperity either of his Country or this Church to the promoting of which as conscience binds him so all prudence and policy invites him CHAP. IV. THirdly to these I may further adde that great spur of generous industry which we call Sense of Honor or an impatience that worthy persons have to come short in any thing of that which doth best become them or is by God and good men expected from them I know how touchy even small minds and petty-spirited men are in point of reputation there where no true honor lies But meer shadowes and imaginary punctilio's deceive them under the notions of honor after that vulgar rate and esteem which gives many Gentlemen quicker resentments of any affronts neglects indignities or injuries done to themselves than of blasphemy to their God and Saviour more sensible for the honor of their mistresses of pleasure than for their Mother or Fathers I mean not so much naturall and politicall as Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall the Church and the Pastors of it such by whose care they have been bred and born to Christ baptised in the Name of the blessed Trinity brought up in the true Christian Faith nourished confirmed and sealed by the body the blood and Spirit of Christ directed in the waies of Holinesse and Eternall Happinesse Certainly the Command binds all Christians to Honour these parents as much as any No sense of Honor should be more quick and sensible than that which reflects upon our highest concernments in which not onely our private but our publick not onely our temporall but our eternall welfare is wrapped up and so confined that if in this we faile or miscarry all is lost that a great and gracious soul can consider If you were a Nation pinched with poverty over-awed with slavery despicable for your weaknesse base for your cowardise brutish for your ignorance dull with stupidity dejected by tenuity or barbarous through want of learning and civility if you were now to begin the principles of Christianity and knew not what belonged to true Religion which is the highest honor and happinesse of any Nation if that were the present State of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of England that they were now beginning to be Civilized and Catechized I should think my labour lost my oratory vaine and my importunity improper thus to conjure you by the highest sense of Honor to study the settlement of true Religion before you were acquainted with the sense of Civility Religion or Honor Or if I thought you had not so much pregnant light of Religion as might make you sensible of the truest and highest points of honor or not so much apprehension of honor as might make you most zealously tender in the behalfe of true Religion I would not be so impertinent as to think to move you beyond your inward principles But when I consider you as a people pampered with plenty exalted with liberty renowned for strength dreaded for valour enlightned with knowledge in all kinds accurately vigorous actively industrious as the chief of the Nations as the princesse of all Islands heightned to all magnificence polished with all good literature and civility old Disciples of Jesus Christ many hundred yeares agoe converted to Christianity and never wholly either perverted by Hereticks or subverted by the many barbarous invasions and warlike confusions which you have endured when I contemplate the grandeur the power the wisdome the majesty the publick piety heretofore of this Nation the antiquity of this Church and the prosperity of its reformed condition heretofore I cannot but with all humble and faithfull respects tell you That it is not worthy the name and honor of the English Nation so famous for Learning and Religion for Scholars and Souldiers for Magistrates and Ministers for Christian Princes and Christian people scarce to be parallel'd in all the world It is not for the Honor of such a Nation to halt between not two but twenty opinions to variate thus between the true God and the many new Baalims between Christ and the many Belials who will endure no publick yoak of Religion or Church-government but what themselves fancy and frame though never so different from that which this and the Catholick Church in all ages not onely used and submitted to but highly rejoyced in as the onely order that Jesus Christ and his Apostles had setled in all parts of his Church It is a shamefull posture for wise and sober men for ancient and renowned Christians to be thus inconsistent as divided between a doting upon former superstitions which some impute to us and indulging moderne innovations which others reproch us for 'T is ridiculous to be alwaies dancing the rounds of Religion and giddily moving in the mazes of endlesse Innovations which are but private and for the most part Childish inventions the effects either of proud and imperious or of peevish popular and plebeian Spirits who aime not at the publick Peace Piety and Honor of the Nation so much as at the gratifying their own little Fancies Humors Opinions and interests whose Novelties never so specious and plausible at first yet soon appeare pernicious to the publick so farre from mending and reforming the State of Religion that they threaten to marre all if the goodnesse of God and the moderation of wise men do not prevent Private formes and inventions never duly examined or solemnly allowed by the publick Representatives of any Church in Nationall Synods or Councills nor from thence recommended to and approved by the Representatives of the civill States in full and free Parliaments but surreptitiously broched at first afterward Magisterially obtruded by some pragmatick Preachers upon any Church or Christian people these prove no other in the end than like the ashes scattered over Egypt productive of sores and boyles swelling to great paine and insolency Especially in such a Church and Nation as this which was of the highest forme both for Christianity and reformation where God had to our admiration and his eternall praise blessed the former setled State of Religion and the Churches excellent constitution under those reverend and renowned Bishops assisted by Learned Orderly and Worthy Presbyters whose pious and profitable endeavours had long agoe advanced this Churches honor and happinesse to as high a pitch in point of Doctrine and Devotion and all spirituall experiences as any Church ever attained and further had improved its welfare in point of Discipline if they had not been ever curbed and hindered by the jealousies and impatiences of some Princes or people who would by no meanes endure the ancient just and holy Severities of Christian Discipline should be exercised by the Clergy against their Haughty and Licentious manners no not when the Ecclesiastick State of England was in its highest elevation and
they now obtrude including the Apocryphall books then did their Church erre for so many hundred years before it so owned them for properly Canonicall as Cardinall Cajetan confesseth who saith that all Fathers and Councils in their expressions as to the larger Canon of Scriptures must be reduced ad Hieronymi limam to S. Jeroms file If the Canon be such as we with the Ancient Churches with Josephus S. Jerom Ruffinus the Council of Laodicea Gregory Nazianzen S. Austin in his riper years and others did and do hold as to the Old Testament then is the Church of Rome now in a very great and obstinate errour So that one way or other the Popes Infallibility and his party is shrewdly endangered unless they distinguish to salve their credit the books into Protocanonicos Deuterocanonicos Books of Divine Authority and Ecclesiasticall use as Sixtus Sen. Bibl. l. 1. and Stapleton Fid. doct l. 9. c. 6. do To tell you further how undigestible to sober Christians because Preter-scripturall and Anti-scripturall the Roman practise and opinion is of worshipping and praying to Saints departed and to Angels of worshipping with Divine worship the Images Crosses and Reliques which they so credulously and highly prize their so unprofitable using of a Language in their Divine and publick Services which to common people is not understood so far from Religion and the Apostles Rule that it is against all sense and reason against the end of speech and devotion which is to instruct or edifie the hearers their snares of celibacy and such vowes as many have cause to repent full sore either that they made them or no better kept them Adde to these their profitable and popular imaginations of Purgatory they applying not onely Prayers but Masses and Oblations Pardons and Indulgences yea other mens merits besides Christs to those that are dead as well as to the living and this in so mercenary a way as makes the most ingenuous Papists not a little ashamed to see Piety so much a servant to Policy and Religion a lacquay to Superstition Adde to all these so oft decantated Instances of Papall errours and presumptions which have so little Scripture for them one enormous Errour both in practise and opinion which hath so much Scripture-evidence against it as nothing can be desired more yet in this when we would have healed Babylon she refused to be healed This is their so great rude and sacrilegious maiming of the Lords Supper by their partial communicating of the Bread only to the people without the Cup then their strange racking of Christians Faith against all sense and reason nay beyond all Scripture-phrase and proportion of Sacramentall expressions or mysterious predications to believe they doe not receive so much as Bread but another substance under the accidents and shews of Bread What learned Romanist can deny but that both Clergy and Laity did for above a thousand years receive the Lords Supper in both kinds after the constant use of all Primitive Churches the Apostles Practise and Christs Institution Nor is there any more doubt but that the ancient Churches received those holy Mysteries with an high veneration indeed of that Body and Blood of Christ which was thereby signified conveyed and sealed to them in the truth and merits of his Passion but yet without any Divine Adoration of the Bread and Wine or any imagination that they were transubstantiated from their own seeming Essence and Nature to the very Body and Blood of Christ. Which fancy of Metemsomasis changing the Body and Substance of Sacramental signes into the bodily Substance of the Thing signified and represented by them as the incomparable Primate of Ireland hath observed out of Irenaeus began from the juglings of one Marcus a Greek Impostor or jugling Presbyter who using long Prayers at the Celebration of the Eucharist had some device to make the Cup and Wine appear of a purple or red and bloody colour that the people might think at his invocation the Grace from above did distill Blood into the Cup. After this the imagination spred from Greeks to Latins by popular and credulous fancies promoted much by one Paschasius Radhertus who in a legendary spirit tells us of Flesh and Blood of a Lamb and a little Child of appearing to those Receivers that were doubtfull of Christs corporall presence so he tells of limbs and little fingers found in the hands and mouths of Communicants From hence Damascen among the Greeks and P. Lumbard among the Latins carried on this credulity or vain curiosity using all their wits to make good this strange and impossible transmutation of disparate subjects and substances in which having nothing from Sense or Reason Nature or Philosophy from Scripture-Analogy or Sacramentall and Typicall predications frequent in Scripture as the Lamb is called the Passeover so Christ our Passeover Christ the Rock Vine Door these drie bones are the house of Israel the seven eares of corne are seven years c. the Tree is thou O King to prove the Miracle they flie to absolute omnipotency whether God will or no and shut out all reasoning from Sense Philosophy Scripture Nor do they regard ancient Fathers and Councils all which though highly and justly magnifying the great Mystery yea and the Elements consecrated as related to and united with the Body of Christ as Signs and Seals of its Reality Truth use and merit to a sinner yet generally they held them to be substantially and physically Bread and Wine but Sacramentally relatively or representatively onely the Body and Blood of Christ as the Council of Constantinople anno 754 consisting of 338 Bishops did affirm the Bread to be the Body of Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in substance but in resemblance use and appointment Which Doctrine as Catholick was maintained to the Emperour Carolus Calvus by Bertramus or Patrannus anno 880. which was also maintained in England by Johannes Scotus in King Alfreds time untill Lanfranks days anno 1060. who condemned that Book of Scotus about the Sacrament agreeable to the opinion of Bertram whose Homily expressing his judgement at large against Transubstantiation was formerly read publickly in Churches on Easter day in order to prepare men for the right understanding and due receiving the Lords Supper Nor did the Doctrine of Transubstantiation obtain in the Church untill the year 1225. when Pope Innocent the third in the Council of Lateran published it for an Oracle That the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ are truly contained under the forms of Bread and Wine the Bread being transubstantiated into the Body of Christ and the Wine into the Blood of Christ by the power of God Hence followed the invention of Concomitancy which presuming that the Communicant received under the accidents and shew of Bread the whole Body of Christ and so his Blood it was judged rather superfluous than necessary yea and
the very beasts of the people are so far flattered as to be suffered with their foule feet daily to trouble and confound that cleare fountain and constant streame of Ministeriall Authority and Ecclesiasticall succession by way of Episcopall Ordination which was ever of so solemn and conspicuous use in all Churches of so venerable a succession of so ancient and uninterrupted a derivation from the very Apostles dayes and hands that it never failed to keep its course as some rivers do through salt waters amidst all the confusions which either heathenish hereticall or schismaticall persecutions raised in the Church Yea no Hereticks no Schismaticks except Aerius and his few complices who discontent for not obtaining a Bishoprick which â—e sought and turning Arrian was the first the onely and the fitâ—â—st engine to oppose Episcopacy as Epiphanius observes were ever so wild so fanatick so desperate as to cast off all Episcopall succession Authority over them both in Ordination and jurisdiction yea they knew no meanes to keep their confederacies and factions better together than that which they saw had alwaies been serviceable to preserve the true Churches communion Though the Manicheans Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Pelagians and others together with the Novatians Donatists withdrew from or were justly excluded by the Bishops of the sound and orthodox profession yet still these Heterodox Opiniasters had not onely Deacons and Presbyters but Bishops of their own Some of which Bishops afterward returning to the Catholick Communion were not degraded from their Episcopall power but onely suspended from the exercise of it in another Bishops jurisdiction or Diocese without his leave which being granted to some of them gave occasion to those Chorepiscopi which were Bishops without particular title and locall jurisdiction but yet enjoying and using this power of Ordination in some Country-Townes and Villages by the permission of the Bishop or Metropolitane of the Diocese or Province residing in the chief City which indulgence was after as the Church-Histories tell us taken away from the Chorepiscopi when it was found to occasion great inconveniences by admitting two Bishops in one Precinct or Diocese Certainly what is so pregnantly Catholick and usefull that not onely all good men but even such as were evill could not but approve and use it it were not onely folly but frenzy to cast quite away if it were the full vote and free act of the Nation What Apology could be sufficient to excuse this Nation either among Churches abroad or to posterity at home when they should see that by a rash partiall and popular precipitancy we have been hurried against all Reason Honor and Religion to forsake or to stop up the ancient fountaines of living waters which have alwaies flowed from Episcopall Ordination supplying this as all Churches in all places and offices with orderly Presbyters and usefull Deacons onely to try what those pits will afford which novellers have digged to themselves and which they eagerly obtrude upon this Church notwithstanding they are already found by sad experience to hold no such cleare and pure waters either for Doctrine or Discipline for Authority or Unity for Order or Peace as those were which the Apostles digged and the Catholick Church ever used and esteemed for sacred In this great point then of Right Ordination and true Ministeriall Authority of which the Learned Mr. Mason professeth next his salvation he desires to be assured it is as I humbly conceive not onely piously but prudently necessary for our Reformed Church Religion and Ministry to be effectually vindicated and by all possible meanes fairly united If there were ever any other way of Ordination used or allowed in the Church of Christ let the Authors Histories and instances be produced either as to their grounds or their practise If there were never any other either used or approved or thought of besides that which was in the Church of England managed by Bishops as necessary and chief agents in it truly it is but Justice Reason Conscience and Honor to own this Truth to follow this Catholick precedent to returne to an holy conformity with pious Antiquity which neither invented nor induced Bishops or Episcopall Ordination and jurisdiction as an affected novelty or a studied variety but they followed doubtlesse herein what was received from the very first Bishops who succeeded to the Apostles as authorized and placed by them So that as the succession of Bishops was lineally reducible to the Apostles which Irenaeus Tertullian Cyprian Eusebius Nicephorus and others evidently prove not onely by their publick Registers but by their private memories when the names of Bishops were fresh in Christians minds and not very numerous as in the second and third Centuries No lesse may be affirmed of Ordination by Bishops it had its precept and pattern from the Apostles expresly committed and enjoyned to some persons as chief Bishops never trusted to meer Presbyters alone much less to people in common so far as any Record of the Church Sacred or Ecclesiastick doth informe us whose constant silence in this case is a better Testimony against all innovation of Ecclesiasticall Ordination than all the Sorites the Rhapsodies heapes and scamblings of I know not what broken scraps and wrested allegations out of any Scriptures or Fathers can be by which I see some men have sought with much dust sweat and blood to bring in their new uncertaine unaccustomed and unauthentick formes of Ordination exclusive of any President or Bishop who ever was as the principall Verb in a sentence which cannot be wanting without making the sense of all other words very lame defective incoherent and insignificant These grand perswasions joyned to the sad experiences made in Englands late variations do thus far command me to be more intent and earnest that in this point of valid complete undoubted and most authoritative Ordination we might be made uniform that all Ministers like currant money might have the same image and superscription upon them It is most certaine that the Christian and Reformed Religion will never be able to shine either clearly or constantly or comfortably upon the consciences of Christians either as Ministers or people while it is in this great point of Ordination so darkned clouded and eclipsed that it lookes like the Sun wrapped in sackcloth or the Moon turned into blood What Ministry what Ministers what Ordination what Ordained what Ordainers what Ordinances of Christ will in time be much esteemed in England by the Nobility Gentry or Yeomanry when they shall see various waies of Ordination daily invented and obtruded pittifull Novelties induced uniform Antiquity discarded Primitive Episcopacy exautorated a subordinate Presbytery scorned a popular parity and petulancy indulged every where to make what extemporary Priests and Preachers they list of the dregs and meanest of the people as little God knowes to their own soules benefit as to the Churches peace or to the honor of this Nation though they do it with as much