CHAP. VII.

I Have already shewed you (O worthy Gentlemen) one great and evil instance of that inordinate li∣berty,* which some people have challenged of late to themselves in England, to the great dishonour and detriment of the Christian Reformed Reli∣gion; besides the disgrace and indignity cast up∣on this sometime famous and flourishing Church, while they have endevoured to abolish all those holy Summaries and wholsome Forms, which are the best and meetest preservers of true Faith, holy Obedience, and mutual Charity among the community of Christian people.

Nor are these the onely extravagancies of vulgar licentiousnesse, (whose inordinate and squalid torrent, like an inundation of wa∣ters, knows not how to set any bounds of modesty, reason, or con∣science to it self;) but they have farther adventured, as a rare fro∣lick of popular freedome, to invade and usurp upon, to confound and contemn, to divide and destroy the office, honour, authority, the suc∣cession and derivation, yea, the source and original of that sacred Priest∣hood, or Evangelical Ministry and mission, which was ever so highly esteemed, reverenced and maintained among all true Christians; as well knowing that Its rise and institution was divine, from our Lord Jesus Christ, as sent of God his Father, who alone had autho∣rity to give the Word and Spirit, the Mission and Commission,* the Gifts and Powers that are properly ministeriall.

Page  160Which, as the blessed Apostles first received immediately from Christ, so they duly and carefully derived them to their Successours, after such a method and manner as the Primitive and Catholick Churches, in all places and ages, both perfectly knew, and (without question) exactly followed, in their consecrating of Bishops and or∣daining of Presbyters, with Deacons, as the onely ordinary Ministers of Christs Church; whose ministeriall authority never was any way derived from, depending upon, or obnoxious to the humour, fancy, insolency, and licentiousness of the common people. To which mise∣rable captivity and debasement, as the Aaronicall or Levitical Priest∣hood was no way subjected, so much less ought the Melchisedekian, Christian, and Evangelicall Priesthood, which is no less soveraign and sacred, nor less necessary and honourable in the Church of God. So that those licentious intrusions, which some people now affect in this point of the Ministry, cannot be less offensive to Gods Spirit, than they are directly contrary to those holy rules of power and order prescribed in the New Testament; which both the Apostles and their successors, both Bishops and Presbyters, together with all faithfull people, precisely observed in all those grand Combinations and Ec∣clesiasticall Communions, whereto the Church of Christ was distribu∣ted in all nations: where, if sometime the peoples choice and suf∣frage were tolerable, as to the person whom they desired and nomi∣nated for their Bishop or Presbyter; yet it was never imaginable, that either Bishop or Presbyter was sufficiently consecrated and or∣dained, that is, invested with the power, office and authority mi∣nisteriall, meerly by this nomination and election of the people; which indulgence, in time, grew to such disorder, as was intolerable in the Church: much less was any esteemed a Minister of Christ onely because he obtruded himself upon that service.

The late licentious variations, innovations, invasions, corruptions and interruptions, even in this grand point of the Evangelicall office and Ministry in England, have, partly by the common peoples arro∣gancy, giddiness, madness and ingratitude, and not a little by some Preachers own levity, fondness, flattery and meanness of spirit, not onely much abated, and abased to a very low ebbe, that double honour which is due;* but they have poured forth deluges of scorn, con∣tempt, division, confusion, poverty, and almost nullity▪ not onely upon the persons of many worthy Ministers, but upon the very or∣der and office, the function and profession; whose sacred power and authority, the pride, petulancy, envy, revenge, cruelty and cove∣tousness of some people, have sought, not onely to arrogate and usurp as they list, but totally to innovate, enervate, and at last extir∣pate. For nothing new in this point can be true, nothing variable can be venerable: that onely being authentick, which is ancient and uni∣form; that onely authoritative, which is Primitive, Catholick and A∣postolick, both in the copy and originall, in the first commission and the exemplification.

I confess I formerly have been, and still am, infinitely grieved to Page  161 hear, and ashamed to report what enormous liberties many men have of late years taken to themselves in this point of being Ministers of the Gospel; what contradictions of sinners, what cruell mockings, & saw∣ings asunder; what buffetings, strippings, crucifyings, and killings all the day long, the Ancient and Catholick Ministry of this & all Churches hath lately endured in England, since the wicked wantonness of some men hath taken pleasure to be as thorns in the eyes, & goads in the sides of the Ch. of England, and Its Ministers, be they never so able, success∣full and deserving: whom to calumniate; contemn, impoverish and destroy in their persons, credits, estates, liberties, yea, and lives, hath seemed (like Mordecai to Hamans malice and wrath) so small a sacrifice to the fierceness and indignation of some men, that they have aim∣ed at the utter extirpation of the Nation, the nullifying, cashiering and exautorating of their whole office and function; either owning no Ministers in any divine office, place and power, or obtruding such strange moulds and models of their own invention, as are not more novell and unwonted, than ridiculous and preposterous; like Mon∣sters, having neither matter nor form proportionate to Mini∣sters.

Against whose petulant and too prevalent poyson, I have formerly sought to apply some Antidote; not more smart and severe, than cha∣ritable and conscientious: aiming (as now I do) neither to flatter nor exasperate any; but in all Christian integrity and sincerity, to discharge my duty to God and my neighbour, to this Church and to my Countrey.

Nor was it indeed then, or is it now other than high time to an∣swer that folly, to repell and obstruct (if possible) that Epidemick mischief, which (on this side) greatly threatens both Church & State, Faith and good manners, all things civil as well as sacred. What wise and honest-hearted Christian (that hath any care of posterity, or prospect for the future) doth not daily find as an holy impatience, so an infinite despondency rising in his soul, while he sees so many weak shoulders, such unwashen hands, such unprepared feet, such rash heads, and such divided hearts, not onely disown, cast off, contemn and abhor all Ministry and Ministers in the Church of England; but they are publickly intruding themselves upon all holy duties, all sa∣cred Offices, all solemn Mysteries, all divine Ministrations, after what fashion they list, both in their admission and execution? In many places, either pittifull silly wretches, or more subtill and crafty fellows, have become the mighty Rivals, the supercilious Censors, yea, the open menacers & opposers, no less than secret underminers, of the most learned and renowned, the most reverend, able and faithful, both Bishops and Presbyters, in England. All that ever these Worthies have done in former ages, or still do never so commendably in their religious services of God and this Church, is superciliously and scur∣rilously cried down by some men (under the presumption and prote∣ction of their ignorant and impudent Liberties) as no better than formall and superficiall, carnall and unspirituall, as unchristian, yea, Antichristian.

Page  162All their and our catechisings, preachings, prayings, baptisings, consecratings; their instructing of babes, their confirming of the weak, their resolvings of the dubious, their terrifying and binding over to judgement unbelieving and impenitent sinners, their censu∣ring and admonishing of the scandalous, their excommunicating the contumacious, their loosing the penitent, their comforting the affli∣cted, their binding up the broken-hearted; all the exercise and ope∣rations of their spirituall power, yea, their very ordination and holy or∣ders, their gifts and graces, their abilities and authority, either from God or this Church; all these are either baffled and disparaged, or invaded, usurped by some rude Novellers, with equall insolency and insufficiency, being for the most part by so much the more impu∣dent, by how much they are grosly ignorant.

Yea, some of them, the better to colour over their lazy and illi∣terate licentiousnesse (to which they are now degenerated) have such audacious brows, and seared consciences, as after they have pretended to have tasted how gracious the Lord was,* in the orderly and holy dis∣pensations of heavenly gifts by the Ministry of the Church of Engl. yet they now glory to cast off all her ministrations, to separate from her communion, and all due subjection to any of her Ministers, vapouring much of their own and other mens gifts, of extraordinary callings, of odde ravings and rantings, of new seekings and quakings, of rare dip∣pings and dreamings, of their extemporary prophecyings, and inspired (yet confused) prayings, of extraordinary unctions and inward illu∣minations; the grounds and fruits of which strange pretensions I have been a long time diligently curious to observe in the speech, writings and actions of these pretenders. And I must profess, that either I am wholly a stranger to right reason as well as true Religion, to the Word and Spirit of God, principles and practises of all godly men and women in former ages; or I am utterly uncapable to discern any of these, either rationall or religious, orderly or honest expres∣sions in any instances or degrees proportionable, or indeed compa∣rable to (much less beyond) what was most clearly observable (as the Suns light at noon-day) in the Sermons, Prayers, Writings, Lives and Actions of those Ministers, and other excellent Christians, who heretofore held, and still do, an holy communion with the Clergie and Church of England.

Beyond whose sober light and solid discoveries of true Religion, these new Masters (who will needs be Ministers) have yet offered to me no other but such strange stuffe, such rambling rhapsodies, such crude incoherences, such chymicall chimaeras, such Chaos-like confu∣sions, such Seraphick whimsies, such Socinian subtilties, such Behme∣mick bumbast, such profound non-sense, such blasphemous raptures, big as Behemoth,* and disdainfull as Leviathan, proud swelling words of vanity, as no sober Christian hath leisure to intend, or need to understand, if he had capacity; which he is not likely to have, since I am confident they pass their authors own understanding: not that there is any thing in them that flows from the higher springs of Page  163 grace, or the profounder depths of divine mysteries;* but they are meer puffings up of proud and fleshly minds, intruding themselves into things they have not seen, who delight in this froth of idleness, these lyings and vapourings of hypocrisie,* which never did of old (in the Gnosticks, Montanists, Manichees, or others of the like bran with these men) in the least degree advance the majesty or authority of Christian Religion, or the credit and comfort of Christian Preachers or Professors; however they served for a time the bellies and inte∣rests of such popular Parasites, more than Preachers of the Gospel, or Ministers of Jesus Christ.

Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father was of old,* still is, and ever will be in the minds and mouthes of true Mini∣sters (when these Hucksters and Mountebanks, these deceitfull workers are buried in infamy and obscurity with those their rotten prede∣cessors) a rich magazine of heavenly wisdome, a Treasury of sound knowledge, a store-house of pregnant and ponderous Truths, bring∣ing men to a good understanding of God, themselves, and their neighbours, free from the rust and scurf of childish easiness and po∣pular petulancy, planted by holy and humble industry, watered by prayers and patience, beautified with all manner of usefull vertues and moralities, dispensed to others with authority, industry and per∣spicuity, entertained in mens own hearts with honesty and charity; not studying to be admired of men, but approved of God; not affe∣cting to stupifie auditors with strange difficulties and curiosities, but to edifie them with saving Truths, and sound Doctrine, in words ea∣sie to be understood; five of which S.* Paul preferred before ten thou∣sand in an unknown tongue, or unintelligible gibberish, so much affe∣cted by these new-minted Ministers.

That primitive, plain, and profitable way of preaching, praying and writing, was the commendable method of those excellent, or∣dained, and orderly Ministers of the Church of England, who were furnished both with ability and authority for so great and sacred a work, whose notions were more in the fruitfull valleys of practicall piety, than in the barren heights of uselesse sublimities. Then was it that the sweet and fruitfull dews of heaven crowned those true Mini∣sters labours with all spiritual proficiencies and heavenly blessings: then was the Church of England, and thousands of pious souls in it, like Gideons fleece, full of holy distillations, or like the garden of E∣den, liberally watered with the rivers of God; I mean the faithful endeavours of able, honest, and Orthodox Ministers, both Bishops and Presbyters, duly ordained and divinely authorized for that ser∣vice: then was the time common people had less of curiosity and li∣berty, but more of piety and charity; they were more kept to their bounds and inclosures, but enjoyed far better pastures than they now find in the ramblings and extravagances of those commons, where they have chosen to enjoy their Pastors and Preachers after their own heart.

Nor is this insolency of people any wonder (though it be a great Page  164 grief) to sober Christians, when they consider how far this gangrene of abused liberty hath spread among men and women too: the meanest and most mechanick He or She (as Tertullian observes of some bolder Hereticks and Schismaticks in his dayes) dare,* contrary to all Primi∣tive pattern, and Scriptural precept, to preach, to baptize, to consecrate, to censure, to excommunicate; scorning and opposing all things that are not branded with their schismaticall marks, their novell badges, and factious discriminations.

Wherewith so soon as any silly men or women come once to be dubbed and signalized, their first vow and adventure is against the whole frame and constitution of the Church of England, but specially against the orderly, ancient, and Catholick Ministry of it; which is the rind or bark of Religion, by which the sap, life, and nourish∣ment of it is preserved and conveyed from the root Christ Jesus, to the severall branches of his Church in every place. This, this must by all means be peeled round, stripped off, and cast away, under pre∣tence of Christian liberty; and a better, because freer, course of deri∣ving Chirstian Religion to peoples eares and hearts, by another Mi∣nistry than that Ancient, Apostolick, Catholick and Primitive way of an orderly ordained Ministry, which consisted of Bishops, Presbyters & Deacons, be brought in. Against the constitution & succession of all these, as corrupt, adulterous, Popish, Babylonish, spurious and superstitious, in England, whole troops of plebeian spirits have been, and still are, engaged, whose fierce onsets and encounters were at first begun, and are still carried on with as great resolution and errour, as his that as∣saulted a Windmill instead of a Giant.

The great alarm given by their chief leaders, is, First, to rail bit∣terly against the whole Clergie, and all sacred orders used in the Church of England: thence they proceed to wipe off their Baptisme, as vain and invalid; to vomit up their Lords Supper, as nauseous and super∣stitious; to read their Creeds backward, to an unbelief of all things have been preached: next, they cancell the Decalogue, as a Judaick phylactery, a legall prescription: lastly, they learn to account and call the Lords Prayer a kind of spell and conjuration, being perfect ene∣mies to any thing that looks like a Liturgy, or set form of prayer and devotion. After this, with stiff necks and haughty looks, they scornful∣ly defie all ancient ordination, all Catholick succession, all Apostolick commission derived to any Bishops and Presbyters, as Ministers of Christ, altering and annulling, as much as in them lies, all the order, descent and power of the Evangelicall Ministry, both in this and all other Christian Churches since the Apostles dayes; the right of re∣sumption and redemption of which they challenge to themselves, according as their severall fancies list to make themselves or others Ministers, or to have none at all; which is the highest pitch of their Christian liberty, counting all Ministers to be but their curbs and manacles.

Having thus commenced Masters of mis-rule, their next work is to tu•n the garden of God, any setled Church, as this of Engl. was, into rui∣nous Page  165 heaps, or a very dunghil; to expel the Priests of the Lord out of his Temple; to make Churches of Stables, and Stables of Churches; to bring in the lips of bleating calves there, where the calves of learned, devout, and eloquent lips were wont to be offered. It is not liberty enough for them to separate from the Church of England, and apostatize from those Ministers that baptized them, unless they utterly destroy them both; setting up instead of one National and renowned, one uniform and flourishing Church, in which were truth and order, unity and beauty, strength and safety, all Christian gifts and graces, every good word and work to admiration, innumerable little swarms in severall Conventicles, with Ministers strangely multiform, mutable and mis-shapen: in which novell confederacies, both Preachers and people rather catch and hang together by chance, like burres, in confused knots, than grow like Olive-branches, or the kernels of Pomgranates, with order and comeliness, from the same root Christ Jesus, after the methods of those ancient Churches, which were the prime and exemplary branches whereto after-successions should conform themselves.

As these factious people are, so must their new Priests and Mini∣sters be. Grave and godly Bishops, with their learned Presbyters, must be set aside, as broken vessels, that they may set up, by popular and plebeian suffrages, some miserable mechanicks, some antick engines, some pittifull praters and parasites of the vulgar, who have had no higher breeding or degree in Church or State, than that of poore tradesmen, (for the better bred and more ingenuous sort of men ab∣hor such impudence and usurpation:) their shop hath been their school, their hammers, or shuttles, or needles have been their books. At last, coachmen, footmen, ostlers and grooms despair not to become Preachers, by a rare and sudden metamorphosis, coming from the office of rubbing horses heeles, to take care of mens souls, as some Farriers in time turn Physicians. It matters not how sordid, how silly, how slovenly, how mercenary, how illiterate they are, provided they have cunning enough to pretend a call, impudence enough to display their ignorance, and hypocrisie enough, by much talk of Gods grace in them, to supply the reall wants of all competent ability, as well as authority, to be Ministers of the Go∣spel.

Yet these, these (O my noble Countrey-men) are in many places rude intruders, insolent usurpers, doughty undertakers, to dis∣charge the duty of Evangelicall Ministers: in any one of these you must seek, and may find, as they pretend, a Bishop, a Presbyter, and a Deacon; all Evangelicall power, Ecclesiasticall offices, and Mini∣steriall authority: these are the new-invented Machines or En∣gines (which the Church of England, and all others, since the Apostles times, were not so happy as to know or use) which must set up the decayed Kingdome of Jesus Christ: these must propagate the glo∣rious Gospel; these must exalt Christ crucified; these must conse∣crate for you holy Elements; these must administer to you the bles∣sed Page  166 Sacraments; these must exercise all Church-power and Divine au∣thority over your consciences: whereas for my part I do not think that the best of these new Masters and Ministers can have from their own fancies or peoples forwardness so much authority (because they have none, either from God, or the Church of Christ, or the laws of this Land) as would make them petty Constables or Bom-baylies, a Lay-el∣der or an Apparitor.

This I am sure, that in the purest and a primitive times, as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, S. Cyprian, and others assure us, the holy mysteries of Christian Religion, the power of the Keyes, the sacrating of Sacraments, the pastorall ruling and preaching, as of office, duty and necessity, to any part of Christs flock, was esteemed the peculiar and proper work of Bishops and Presbyters in their order and degree, as the true and onely Pastors and Teachers that succeeded the twelve Apostles and the seventy Disciples in their ordinary Ministry; nor were men branded for other (how able soever) than insolent and execrable usurpers, who did adventure to officiate unordained, that is, not duly authorised as Ministers. Such intruders b Tertullian notes both some men and women to have been in his time, who were leavened with Schisme and Heresie: so c Epiphanius and S. Austin tell us of the Quintilliani, Pepuziani, and Colliridiani, who were con∣founders of the Ministeriall order.

*Sozomen, Socrates, Nicephorus, and other Church-historians sharp∣ly censure one Ischyras, or Ischyrion, who unordained pretended to be a Presbyter, and so to officiate; calling him a detestable person, and worthy of more than one death: whom Athanasius finding about to consecrate (or rather desecrate) the Eucharist, he in an holy and heroick zeal,* as Christ in the Temple, brake the Communion Cup, overthrew the Table, and repressed his insolent impiety, counting him as ano∣ther Judas Iscariot, a traitor to Christ and the Church.

Yet in the place of the Ministers of the Church of England, I be∣seech you how few Athanasiusses, how many Ischyrasses may you now see, challenging to themselves the care of mens souls, as Ministers of Christ, undertaking the managerie of mens eternall interests, con∣fident to interpret Scriptures, to resolve doubts, to decide contro∣versies, to satisfie mens consciences, to keep up the truth, power and majesty of Christian Religion, by new, undue, and exotick wayes, a∣gainst the torrent and impetuous force of ignorance, Atheism, pro∣faneness, errour, malice and madness of men and Devils?

For all which grand designs of Gods glory and the Churches good, those men are as fit agitators as Phaeton was to drive Phoebus his Chariot; and truly with like success they will do it: for instead of en∣lightening the world, these Incendiaries will set all on fire, as far as they meet with any combustible matter: in which sad conflagrations be∣gun and blown up by them in this Church of England, some of them Page  167 are so vain as to glory, calling them the spirituall day of judgement, an invisible doomesday, a coming of Christ in the spirit of burning and re∣fining, to purge his Church. For this purpose they say the Sun must be turned into darknesse, and the Moon into blood; government of Church and State must be subverted: nor do they (according to their seve∣rall fancies and interests) fail to presage and expect a glorious Resur∣rection to their parties, which they hope shall reign with Christ, if not a thousand years, yet as long as they can prevail, so as to get power, and preserve those liberties they have ravished to themselves.