Hiera dakrya, Ecclesiae anglicanae suspiria, The tears, sighs, complaints, and prayers of the Church of England setting forth her former constitution, compared with her present condition : also the visible causes and probable cures of her distempers : in IV books / by John Gauden ...

CHAP. VIII.

* 1.1THerefore, leaving these my hotter-spirited brethren to take breath, after their earnest pursuits against Episcopacy, and their zealous agitations for either Presbyterian or Independent interests by the new juncto's of their Associations; expecting in time to find them in a much cooler temper, as already I do all sober and moderate Ministers, who unfeignedly approve, and heartily pray for Episcopacy in its Primitive proportions; I shall in the next place apply my self to You of the Magistracy, Nobility and Gentry of this Nation, if possibly your spirits, less engaged, and so less imbittered in Church-contentions, may incline to the meditations and em∣brace the motions of Ecclesiasticall peace and accord in this Church and Nation.

* 1.2Saint Paul saw in a vision a man of Macedonia coming to him and calling for Help. It is not a vision in the night, or a dreame of distresse, but the noon-day or meridian of this Churches miseries, which

presents to you many thousands of poor people daily overgrown with Ignorance, Lukewarmness, Licenciousnesse, Unsetlednesse, Superstition, Faction, Atheisme, and all manner of Irreligion; also many hundreds of poor Ministers, (for none is to be esteemed rich, or renowned, where all are either envyed or condemned by one side or other) of all perswasions, Episcopall, Presbyterian, and Independent, many of them endued with excellent parts, most of them with com∣petent and usefull abilities, all these, and in them the whole Church and Nation, call to you, Come and Help us; Help to redeem us from that vulgar insolency, reproch and contempt into which we are faln (both our persons and profession) by our mutuall divisions, our childish contentions, our uncharitable factions, our unseasonable ambitions, our unreasonable revenges, by our immoderate, popu∣lar and implacable passions; Help us,* 1.3 as Constantine the Great did those Bishops and other Church-men who were met at the famous Councill of Nice, to burn and bury all those complaints, quarrels, li∣bels, jealousies, disaffections, reproches, dissentions, and mutuall dis∣paragings, under which the Ministers and Ministry of England now lie and labour; Manasseh being against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, and Judah against both; Episcopall Ministers against Presbyterians, and these against Episcopall, and Independents a∣gainst both, and some against them all.

Help to restore us to a condition beyond slaves and villaines, reduce us to the state of ingenuous freedom, such as the Law affords all honest and industrious men: Reform and reunite us, if it be possible, but not with Swords and Staves, with Pistols and Prisons, not by the arbitrary Discipline of Souldiers, and absolute Tribunals of Committee-men, not by plundering, sequestring, silencing, and eject∣ing us out of all upon meer politick jealousies, or onely veniall infir∣mities; (when for the main we carry our selves in all things Righteously, Soberly, and Peaceably.) Do not expose us to men of new lights, to men of erratick judgements and fanatick fancies; who lay as much Religion upon their new Disciplines and Church-mo∣dellings, as upon all the Doctrine, Piety, and Charity of Christi∣anity. Leave us not to the novel and illegall power and partiality of such men, who will try us with passion, and judge us with prejudice, destroy us with pleasure, & undoe us without appeal or remedy; who greedily receive accusations against us as Ministers, without letting us see or hear our accusers; which are not alwaies two or three, accor∣ding to Gods command both in the Law and Gospel, but many times (testis singularis) onely one, sometime none, besides some mens jealousies, disaffections, and surmises against us,* 1.4 who sel∣dome give us two admonitions (after the Apostles order) but at first dash they quite blot us out of their book of life, utterly routing us and our families, disabling us ever after to plead our innocencies, or exercise our abilities, or supply our necessities, in any convenient way of living.

Help to redeem, if not our persons, which are made by vulgar

scorn, as the filth and off-scouring of all estates in this nation, yet at least our Function and Profession, which was ever esteemed holy; re∣deem it from those invasions, intrusions and usurpations, which are made upon it by illiterate, mechanick, sordid and simple peo∣ple, who can have no true or tolerable authority to be Ministers of holy things, when they have no competent abilities, and who being on no hand duly consecrated, set apart, sanctified or ordained for such holy Ministrations, cannot but profane, abuse and abase them, by their abominable arrogancies and sacrilegious usurpations, which are the greatest abuses of you and the whole Nation.

Help to restore the dignity and Authority of the Evangelical Mini∣stry to its Pristine honour and reverence, to that Sanctity and Maje∣sty which becomes the deputation and vicegerency, the Command and Commission of your blessed God & Saviour. Let not that lie despicable and trampled under the feet of vile men, which is a means (and the onely ordinary) to instruct, to convert, to sanctifie, to confirme, to comfort, to save your and your childrens soules. Let not that office and function be made triviall, despicable, and execrable among men, which is holy, high and honourable in Gods esteem, as his Em∣bassage, venerable before the good Angels in Heaven, and terrible to the very Devils in Hell. Let not the preaching of the Word be slighted, mocked, and laughed at, by the unautoritative insolency and unsufficiency of unordained and impudent praters, who will never make powerfull Preachers. Let not the solemnity of publick prayers and Sacraments be made ridiculous, vaine and void, by the simpli∣city and barrennesse, the non-sense and flatnesse, the slovenly rude∣nesse and confusion of those undertakers to officiate, whom no man (in Christs name) hath duly authorised or sent according to any Primitive pattern, or Catholick custome in this and other Churches. When the Authority of Ministers is doubted, denyed, divided, despised on all sides, it is impossible there should be any unity or charity among either Ministers themselves, or those to whom they thus brokenly Minister holy things; nor can there be any reverent and sacred esteem of those things, which they so administer, with so much variety, dubiousness, and inconformity.

Civill respect to Ministers of the Gospel will follow, where there is a religious regard to their Ministry, as sacred and Divine, indeed as Christs, for so it is, or it is none upon any religious account: Therefore I forbear to urge you with any importunities, in order to restore the Pristine honors and dignities, the many priviledges and great plenty, which the Clergy enjoyed in England. I know those are unseasonable motions in an iron age, amidst so many sacrilegious Spirits as envy even those pittances that yet remaine of oyle in the cruses or meale in the barrels of poor Ministers, who are (generally) in a low, de∣pressed, squeesed and almost exhausted condition: not onely publick exactions, but private sharkings of people, in many, if not most places, have reduced heretofore convenient livings to pittifull tenuities. Mi∣nisters affect indeed to wear longer haire than they were wont; but

their condition is now so much shorne and shaved, since the Scots rasor was first applyed, that most of them are very bare and quite bald, to the great joy of Papists & the viler sort of licentious people, who want but one vote more to perfect their desired Reformation; That is, to take away all tithes and glebes, rather giving them to Mo∣loch or Beelzebub, than to Christ, his Church and his Mini∣stery, to whom these are paid by many men so grudgingly, shark∣ingly and superciliously, that few Scholars of any generous minds and parts will apply themselves now to be Ministers; and many grave men, heretofore devoted to that calling, are content to be silent, rather than to preach to ungratefull and gain-saying people; yea some Ministers think it better to starve with honor, than to be fed with scorn, preferring any calling before that, which must first work, then beg or contest for its wages.

But as the poverty and tenuity of Ministers, the popular contempt of their persons and calling, the neglect and irreverence of holy ministrations, the intrusions and usurpations of petulant people up∣on their function; as all these could not have grown upon them, had they not been scattered and divided among themselves (for by these cracks and leakes those bitter waters have prevailed thus far to sink and depresse them:) So the reducing of Ministers to some unity in their judgments, to uniformity in their Ministrations, to an identity or samenesse for their Ministeriall power and ordination, also to a decent subordination and government among themselves, these methods would be most effectuall, beyond any thing I can think of, to remedy all those great inconveniences and mischiefes under which they now labour and grone. From Ministers mutuall separations, affrontings, reprochings, oppressings, and despisings of one another, common people have learned the language and carriage of clownery and contempt: For how can people see any thing worthy their civill, much lesse consciencious respect and love toward any Ministers, when they see, hear, and read, how they de∣preciate and scorn, envy and maligne, shun and abominate one another on all sides, each invalidating or disparaging the others au∣thority to officiate, and almost annulling all they do in holy duties as Ministers? Be they never so able and fit as to their gifts, know∣ledge, utterance, holy lives and good report in all things; yet still they are thought by some side or other either to enjoy more than they merit, or to arrogate more than is their due, or wholly to u∣surp that which is no way their due.

Certainly, it is not a more pious and Christian, than heroick and prudent work, to reconcile the discrepancies and feuds that are grown among Ministers of severall formes and names, as to their ordi∣nation, or admission to their Ministry. And, since there are on all sides men of very good abilities, commendable lives, and usefull parts in this publick service, as Ministers of the Church, it is infi∣nite pitty that Christians should be by any prejudices deprived of the common benefit to be had by them; or by factious and frivolous dis∣criminations,

if their Ministeriall Authority be frustrated of those many blessings which all good Christians might happily enjoy, both publickly and privately, by a firm union and uniformity among all true Ministers, both in the origination of their power, also in the manner of the derivation and dispensation of it: Which harmo∣ny as (without doubt) it would highly contribute to the honor of the reformed Religion, so it would much obstruct the advantages which Popery gets by the scandall of Ministers discriminations and divisions in this point. For what sober-minded man will not ra∣ther adhere to what seems uniform, though an error, than to what seems divided, though a truth? Men will rather turne Seekers, Quakers, and Enthusiasts, than weary themselves in dancing after every Ministers pipe, and the new tunes they set to both their Mi∣nistry and holy Ministration.

For my part, I should rather choose to live in a solitude as a pri∣vate Christian, or retire to any corner of the land as a Minister, than to correspond with such societies of Preachers as are either evidently Schismaticall in their principles, or onely formally and partially Associating in their politick practises, which do but de∣clare their spirits to be at as great distance from their duties, both to their betters and their equalls, as ever they were. I prefer a cot∣tage in a smooth and peaceable wildernesse, before such palaces as are built among briars and thornes. I am sorry and ashamed to see those Ministers who are able and worthy to use the trowell for edi∣fication, should be so eagerly imployed at the swords, for mutuall destruction: Since they generally agree to preach and live Christ Crucified, since they do for the maine correspond in doctrinalls of faith and morality, yea in holy Mysteries and Ministrations; what a misery is it they should not all endure the same imposition of hands, or the same holy and Catholick ordination? yea what pitty is it, they should not all dare to say publickly and Ministerially the same Creed, the Lords prayer and the ten Commandements; to all which I suppose they all are ready privately to say Amen? How sad a prospect is it, to see those men who professe such zeal for Church Government and good Discipline, to be so little governed or correspondent in any wise communion and discreet subordination among themselves? And all this while every plausible preacher is ambitious rather to ordain and governe others after his own fancy, than to be ordained and governed as a Minister after the Apostolicall pattern, and that one ancient forme which was universally owned and uniformly used in Christs Church, both for the ordination and subordination of Ministers.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Of civill as∣sistance from Lay-men to restore this Church and Religion.
• * 1.2

  Act. 16.9.
• * 1.3

  Euseb. in Vita Const.
• * 1.4

  Tit. 3.10.