that Dungeon where there is utter darkness there to remain in wailing and gnashing of teeth for evermore and upon serious and hearty repenrance to release the sinner again from this grievous judgement if he be humbled and professeth his penitency without delay and if we believe our Lord Jesus that which is done herein by the Bishop according to his direction is done by God For what ye bind saith he upon earth Math. 18. shall be bound in heaven and what ye loose shall be loosed in heaven most certainly As for any punishment corporall or pecuniary inflicting it is proper to him that bears the Sword Rom. 13. and a Sword-man an Apostle or Bishop must not be as our Saviour shewed when he gave Peter a check for drawing his Sword and smiting For he that smiteth with the sword shall perish by the sword that is he who is sent out to preach peace Fifthly touching the cause of excommunicating although this power hath been heretofore used for not appearing at the Bishops Court when he hath been summoned without any regard to the Calling or Righteousness of the man or for money or to bring in money which was an abuse intollerable yet there is no warrant by the Word of God to deliver over to Satan for any cause but scandalous living or blasphemous Heresie but for either of these causes there is as appeareth 1 Cor. 5. by the Apostles writing to have the incestuous person delivered over to Satan till he repented and to have all scandalous brethren Adulterers Railers Drunkards c. put from amongst them although Erastus denieth this to be a ground for excommunicating or putting the scandalous liver from the holy Communion for although but a Physitian he would seem to have so much skill in Divinity as to assert that none although most wicked who hold the true faith may lawfully be put from it because none such were kept from the Passeover but only such as were legally unclean 〈…〉 which uncleanness is now ceased therefore saith he none are now to be accounted unclean who are believers as though if legal uncleanness which was much lesser makes one unclean 〈…〉 but the uncleanness which is by sin doth not much more whenas that uncleanness which was only outward of this extending to the very conscience witness the Apostles saying to the unclean all things are unclean yea the very conscience is defiled and this is not clensed but by the bloud of Christ that by the bloud of buls goats For not keeping from the Passover the notoriously wicked by express Precept there may be this Reason yielded the keeping of the Passover was but a legal Ceremony and was to be eaten by all that were circumcised although not circumcised yet in heart and therefore neither Children nor Fools were debarred therefrom nor wicked livers it sufficed that they who did eat hereof were not legally unclean but the Lords Supper is so holy and separate from prophane use that whoso eateth and drinketh of it unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himself and this he doth whosoever doth not first examine himself and finding what a grievous sinner he hath been sorrows not therefore with Godly sorrow and confesseth it not neither is converted therefrom And if it be so how can they that rule in the Church but be accessary to their sin whom they know to be unworthy but put them not from participating of this holy Ordinance till that by repentance and promise of Reformation they be sanctified that so holy a thing may not be given but to the holy at the least so far forth as may be gathered from their own mouths although we cannot but admit of some unworthy whose wickedness is conceal'd but for the commonly known to be prophane or notoriously wicked even the Heathen abhorred from having them come to their sacrifices for one was at such times set to cry thus Procul procul este prophani for excommunicating blasphemous Hereticks we have S. Paul for our example who saith 1 Tim. 1.2 he delivered Hymeneus and Alexander to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme that is for a chastisement of the blasphemous Heresies which they held that they might be made to recant as is the excommunicating of notorious Offenders that being by Satan terrified who is now let loose upon them they may be made to repent and although they suffer in their bodies this have their souls saved at the last day for some then being excommunicated were grievously handled in their bodies by Satan whereby they were made to know how cruelly they should be tormented in the life to come if they were not made thereby to repent as we may gather that the incestuous person at Corinth was for that he was so terrified after his excommunication 2 Cor. 2. that he was ready to be swallowed up of despair 6. Touching more or fewer Bishops making in this Kingdome It is not so convenient that their Diocesses should be so large as they have been because that although in former Ages it might be necessary when the land was not so populous to enlarge the limits of Bishopricks laying many more Towns together and sometime two Counties to make one Bishoprick and able Shepherds of whom Bishops might be made were more rare yet now thanks be to God Christian people having far more encreased in Cities Townes and Villages and Pastors of great ability both to preach and govern it were much more convenient that there should be more Bishops made in this Land not onely one to a City and the Villages circumjacent but to each City-like Town most Diocesses in England as now they are constituted being too great a burthen to their Bishops to bear as Moses sometime complained of the burthen of so numerous a Nation laid upon him alone and therefore desired the help of more Rulers and had by the Lord added unto him 72 whereby he and the people were more eased and the better enabled to do the work for which they were raised up As Diocesses now are some belonging to their Charge are so far off that they cannot know or ever hear their Bishop preach although he continueth amongst them many yeares neither can he know all the Clergy or their worthiness or unworthiness to encourage or reprove them according to their deserts and what a trouble and weariness is it to the people to be forced to travel some of them 30 or 40 miles to have their Causes heard and to be at the charge to retain Proctors to plead for them yea and sometimes Rectores Ecclesiae also but if more Diocesses should be made whence should means be raised to maintain so many Bishops Even out of the Bishopricks that now are and Deanaries and Prebendaries of which what use is there in the Church of Christ and of which Antiquity was utterly ignorant If it would please God to move the hearts of the Kings Majesty and the right Honorable and worthy Members
the people perfect in them I hold it most necessary for if a man must in his own house dayly speak of the Commandements Deut. 6. how much more ought the Minister of God in his house and add together with the people the precatiuncle set forth in the end For the Ministers giving warning to keep divers holy days which have not most anciently been kept in the Church of God that is the Saints days Of Saints days there is great need to put down the keeping of all these both because we do not read of any such days keeping before anno 501. which was a time of great Superstition Anastasius being then Bishop of Rome who was a Nestorian Heretick and caused Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople to keep the Feasts of Peter and Paul which had never been done in the East before as I have shewed in my History of the Church where I have also proved by good reason that it was a corrupt Superstition crept into the Church to injoin the keeping of them First because working was prohibited poor men upon those days who can hardly live upon their labour all the six days when as the Lord alloweth all to work upon all the six dayes and prohibiteth work only upon the seventh Secondly such as are idly disposed both poor men and Servants had by this means a Cloak for their Idlenesse to the great detriment of the Common-wealth and because Idlenesse giveth advantage to to fleshly lusts which fight against the Soul the keeping of those days was a letting loose of the reins to wicked mens inordinate affections that they might run to all excesse of riot as former experience hath often proved especially at the Festival time of Christmas when so many dayes together were spent in idlenesse and vanity and if there were nothing else amisse in keeping these days but idlenesse when all should work it were enough to presse to the putting of them down for that idlenesse is so much condemned in holy Scripture Thirdly because they are commanded to be kept holy by resorting to Church to read and hear the word of God and to pray and yet no days are spent so prophanely there being no care had but to keep labouring men and Trades-men from the necessary work of their Callings and if they do their work to punish them and so the holy day is made but a stale to bring money into the Commissaries Court. Fourthly It is too great an honor to be given to any but God to call a day after his name to keep it in way of honouring them for this commeth near to the worshipping of the Saints departed and Mine honour saith the Lord will I not give to another If it had pleased God that such honour should be given to his Saints surely something would have been said of it and days should have been instituted under the old Testament by Abraham Isaac and Jacob Joseph and Moses Samuel and David c. and under the new by the Apostles before that so long a time as five hundred years had passed Lastly in other reformed Churches this burden of keeping any holy days besides the Lords days and some to the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ as the day of his Nativity without the tale of so many days more added of his Resurrection Ascension and of his sending down of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and the day of his Passion hath been long ago cast off but not the keeping of the day of the Lords Nativity as lately hath been done in England when our Divines Assembled at Westminster could not find that any days ought to be kept holy but the Lords days whenas by ancient History it appeareth that the day of the Lords Nativity was kept in the very first Century of years after Christs death for there it is recorded that in the year 130 Nativitatis Domini Telesphorus being Bishop of Rome he amongst other Decrees made this for one that three Masses should be said that is there should be three Communions as upon a most high day upon the day of the Lords Nativity one in the Evening when he was born another in the night when by Angels from heaven his birth was declared a third at day light because the first day of Salvation then began to shine whereby it is intimated that our Lords Birth day had been kept before in his Church no man being to tel how long whence it may be gathered that the custom began immediately after his Ascention to Heaven now the Solemnity thereof began to be more increased among Christans but the increasing thereof by keeping 12 days was not brought in til 400 years after wherefore upon the reasons before going they may be cut off and it will be best pleasing to our Lord to keep his day alone by doing duties of Devotion in Feasting and other expressions of joy and exercising liberality to the poor partly upon other days also when that day approacheth And thus much touching Holy days Now to say something touching the Holy Communion and the Service appointed about it the Exhortations to be made to the Communicants before receiving are all very good and Godly if they were not too much tyring to the Minister after his Spirits spent so much before in praying reading and preaching and therefore it were to be wished that all the Service going before might be omitted as being in effect said before amongst all the people and one of the Exhortations to prepare to the worthy receiving and so proceed immediately to that short one beginning thus Ye that do truly and earnestly repent ye of your sins c. to the end a Psalm being finally sung as Christ hath given us example and then The peace of God which passeth all understanding c. some places of Scripture tending to stir up Charity to the poor Of kneeling being in conclusion recited and the Alms gathered For the gesture of kneeling appointed in receiving it is a gesture shewing the greatest humility that can be as is in all reason expected by the Lord when at his hands we receive so great a Blessing and the Minister at the same instant is praying that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ should preserve us bodies and souls to eternall life Whereas it is excepted against by some because at the Institution the Apostles did not kneel but sit and as it was done then so ought we to do I answer this I deny but what they were commanded to do we ought to do that is to take bread Give thanks break and eat it as his body in remembrance of him c. for the gesture sith there is nothing said we are left to our own liberty therein and the Governours of the Church have power to appoint in what Gesture it shall be done so that it be according to the generall rule most decent such is kneeling for a subject before his Soveraign confering some honor upon him as he doth that
the burial of the Dead Buriall of the Dead what can be excepted against unlesse it be in that prayer that we with this our brother and all other departed in the true faith may have our perfect consummation and blisse in thine everlasting Kingdome but they are too quick of apprehension who say that this is with the Papists a praying for the dead whenas indeed it is not a praying that they may be saved but for the hastning of the time of perfecting our Salvation both in Soul and Body that is that the coming of our Lord Jesus may be hastned when this shall be done and the person deceased being a Christian who in the judgement of charity supposing him to be gone to Heaven in his Soul pray thus for him together with our selves and other believers The thanksgiving for women Thanks giving for Women and their bringing of an offering after child-bearing in way of real thankfulnesse is grounded upon Levit. 12. For although it were a Ceremonial Law and Ceremonial rites are now done away yet there was a moral in the same injoyned which bindeth alwaies that is to shew thankfullnesse in the house of God for so great a deliverance Isa 28.22 as Hezekiah being delivered from his deadly sicknesse went up to the house of the Lord and praysed God And thus by the help of God I have finished the task undertaken to shew how unity may be restored to the Church of England in respect of Episcopal Government and the book of Common Prayer now the God of peace and unity work so in the hearts of his Majesty and Parliament that it may be so done and the doubts and Scruples about the Book of Common-Prayer being taken away as hath been said the same good God work so in the hearts of all his Ministers that all contention being laid aside they may with one heart and one mind agree to serve God in the publick place in such uniformity that the Pristine splendor of this our Mother Church through uniformity may be restored and the foul blemish of differences may be done quite away to the great comfort of all true hearted Christians and the glory of God Almighty And because unity in opinion is no lesse necessary than uniformity indivine worship and there be many Sects in the Church of England at this day although it be not possible for the higher powers on Earth by their authority or for the learned in divine knowledge to make by their most convincing arguments all to be of one mind with the Chatholick Church reformed yet there may be some course taken to keep their erronious opinions from spreading further and their liberty may be so suppressed as that there may in appearance and ex professo be little or no discord and this may be by injoyning all under a penalty to be taken off such as shall afterwards offend to come duly to their own parish Church as is by Law required 2. By not permitting under a greater penalty private meetings in houses 3. By stoping the mouthes of their ringleaders and teachers the punishment of imprisonment or banishment being laid upon them that will not forbear for so godly Emperors have dealt with such disturbers of the peace of the Church in times past good reason for as Elijah said if the Lord be God follow him if Baal be he go after him it is intollerable that there should be more religions in one Kingdome than one generally professed therein under one head because as Religion hath the name a religando binding mens harts together so permit divers religions and although in some politick respects they may live together in external peace yet their hearts not being knit together but seperated from one another this peace cannot alwaies continue but as there is an oportunity offered break out into bloody dissention as was proved by woful experience in the Romish Chatholicks in Ireland and Anabaptists in Germany and when in time of peace so great a Massacre was made in France Anno 1573. To conclude whereas in this Tract I have made some mention of my History of the World from the creation to the end of Nehemiah his principality 2. From thence to the destruction of Jerusalem 3. From thence to the Year of our Lord 1648. His Majesty may be pleased to take notice and all others that delight in the best Histories that I have by Gods assistance finished this great work divers years agoe and have it ready to be published if it might be accepted of as being next unto the sacred history most necessarie for all Christians who are studious to read for the better understanding of the most notable things done in the world both before the Flood and since in the 4 Monarchies and other Kingdomes of the world and of the state of the Church of God in those 500 yeares of which the Holy Scripture saith nothing and lastly of the government that hath been by Emperours and Bishops of Rome and Councels of Heresies corruptions in Religion famous Doctors in the Church and most memorable occurrances in Kingdomes and miracles wrought to confirm faith or superstition true or false FINIS