floors, as well the gold of thofe apoftolic fucceffors that you boaft of, as your Conftantinian filver, together with the iron, the brafs, and the clay of thofe muddy and strawy ages that follow. Remonft. Let the boldeft forehead of them all deny that epifcopacy hath continued thus long in our island, or that any till this age contradicted it. Anfw. That bold forehead you have cleanly put upon yourself, it is you who deny that any till this age contradicted it; no forehead of ours dares do fo much: you have rowed yourself fairly between the Scylla and Charybdis, either of impudence or nonsense, and now betake you to whether you please. Remonft. As for that fupply of acceffory ftrength, which I not beg. Anfw. Your whole remonftrance does nothing else but beg it, and your fellow-prelates do as good as whine to the parliament for their flefhpots of Egypt, making fad orations at the funeral of your dear prelacy, like that doughty centurion Afranius in Lucian; who, to imitate the noble Pericles in his epitaphian fpeech, ftepping up after the battle to bewail the flain Severianus, falls into a pitiful condolement, to think of thofe coftly fuppers and drinking banquets, which he muft now taste of no more; and by then he had done, lacked but little to lament the dearloved memory and calamitous lofs of his capon and white broth. Remonft. But raise and evince from the light of nature, and the rules of juft policy, for the continuance of those things which long use and many laws have firmly established as neceffary and beneficial. Anfw. Open your eyes to the light of grace, a better guide than nature. Look upon the mean condition of Chrift and his apoftles, without that acceffory ftrength you take fuch pains to raise from the light of nature and policy take divine counfel," Labour not for the things that perifh:" you would be the falt of the earth; if that favour be not found in you, do not think much that the time is now come to throw you out, and tread you under foot. Hark, how St. Paul, writing to Timothy, informs a true bishop; "Bishops (faith he) muft not be greedy of filthy lucre; and having food and raiment, let us be therewith content: but they (faith he, meaning, more especially in that place, bishops) that will be rich, fall into temptation and a fnare, and into many foolish and hurtful lufts, which drown men in deftruction and perdition for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while fome coveted after, they have erred from the faith." How can we therefore expect found doctrine, and the folution of this our controversy from any covetous and honour-hunting bishop, that fhall plead fo ftiffly for these things, while St. Paul thus exhorts every bifhop; "But thou, O man of God, flee these things?" As for the juft policy, that long use and cuftom, and those many laws which you fay have conferred thefe benefits upon you; it hath been nothing else but the fuperftitious devotion of princes and great men that knew no better, or the base importunity of begging friars, haunting and haraffing the deathbeds of men departing this life, in a blind and wretched condition of hope to merit Heaven for the building of churches, cloifters, and convents. The most of your vaunted poffeffions, and those proud endowments that ye as finfully wafte, what are they but the black revenues of purgatory, the price of abufed and murdered fouls, the damned fimony of Trentals, and indulgences to mortal fin? How can ye choose but inherit the curfe that goes along with fuch a patrimony? Alas! if there be any releasement, any mitigation, or more tolerable being for the fouls of our mifguided ancestors; could we imagine there might be any recovery to fome degree of eafe left for as many of them as are loft, there cannot be a better way than to take the mifbeftowed wealth which they were cheated of, from thefe our prelates, who are the true fucceffors of those that popped them into the other world with this conceit of meriting by their goods, which was their final undoing: and to beftow their beneficent gifts upon places and means of chriftian education, and the faithful labourers in God's harveft, that may inceffantly warn the pofterity of Dives, left they come where their miferable forefather was fent by the cozenage and misleading of avaricious and worldly prelates. Remonft. Remonft. It will ftand long enough against the battery of their paper-pellets. Anfw. That must be tried without a fquare cap in the council; and if pellets will not do, your own canons fhall be turned against you. Remonft. They cannot name any man in this nation, that ever contradicted epifcopacy, till this prefent age. Anfw. What an overworn and bedriden argument is this? the last refuge ever of old falfehood, and therefore a good fign, I trust, that your castle cannot hold out long. This was the plea of judaism and idolatry against Christ and his apoftles, of papacy against reformation; and perhaps to the frailty of flesh and blood in a man deftitute of better enlightening may for fome while be pardonable: for what has fleshly apprehenfion other to fubfift by than fucceffion, cuftom, and vifibility; which only hold, if in his weakness and blindness he be loth to lose, who can blame? But in a proteftant nation, that should have thrown off these tattered rudiments long ago, after the many ftrivings of God's fpirit, and our fourfcore years vexation of him in this our wilderness fince reformation began, to urge these rotten principles, and twit us with the prefent age, which is to us an age of ages wherein God is manifeftly come down among us, to do some remarkable good to our church or ftate; is, as if a man fhould tax the renovating and reingendering spirit of God with innovation, and that new creature for an upftart novelty; yea, the new Jerufalem, which, without your admired link of fucceffion, defcends from Heaven, could not efcape fome fuch like cenfure. If you require a further answer, it will not misbecome a chriftian to be either more magnanimous or more devout than Scipio was; who, instead of other answer to the frivolous accufations of Petilius the tribune, "This day, Romans, (faith he) I fought with Hannibal profperoufly; let us all go and thank the gods, that gave us fo great a victory:" in like manner will we now fay, not caring otherwise to anfwer this unproteftantlike objection; In this age, Britons, God hath reformed his church after many hundred years of popish corruption; in this age, he hath freed us from the intolerable yoke of prelates and papal dif N 3 cipline; cipline; in this age he hath renewed our proteftation against all those yet remaining dregs of fuperftition. Let us all go, every true protefted Briton, throughout the three kingdoms, and render thanks to God the father of light, and fountain of heavenly grace, and to his fon Chrift our Lord; leaving this Remonftrant and his adherents to their own defigns, and let us recount even here without delay, the patience and long-suffering that God hath ufed towards our blindness and hardness time after time. For he being equally near to his whole creation of mankind, and of free power to turn his beneficent and fatherly regard to what region or kingdom he pleases, hath yet ever had this island under the special indulgent eye of his providence; and pitying us the first of all other nations, after he had decreed to purify and renew his church that lay wallowing in idolatrous pollutions, fent firft to us a healing meffenger to touch foftly our fores, and carry a gentle hand over our wounds: he knocked once and twice, and came again, opening our drowfy eyelids leifurely by that glimmering light, which Wickliff and his followers difpersed; and ftill taking off by degrees the inveterate scales from our nigh perished fight, purged alfo our deaf ears, and prepared them to attend his fecond warning trumpet in our grandfires' days. How elfe could they have been able to have received the fudden affault of his reforming fpirit, warring against human principles, and carnal fenfe, the pride of Heth, that ftill cried up antiquity, cuftom, canons, councils and laws; and cried down the truth for novelty, fchifm, profanenefs, and facrilege? whenas we that have lived fo long in abundant light, befides the funny reflection of all the neighbouring churches, have yet our hearts rivetted with those old opinions, and fo obftructed and benummed with the fame fleshly reafonings, which in our forefathers foon melted and gave way, against the morning beam of reformation. If God had left undone this whole work, fo contrary to flesh and blood, till these times; how fhould we have yielded to his heavenly call, had we been taken, as they were, in the starkness of our ignorance; that yet, after all these fpiritual preparatives and purgations, purgations, have our earthly apprehenfions fo clammed and furred with the old leaven? O if we freeze at noon after their early thaw, let us fear left the fun for ever hide himself, and turn his orient fteps from our ingrateful horizon, justly condemned to be eternally benighted. Which dreadful judgment, O thou the ever-begotten Light and perfect image of the Father! intercede, may never come upon us, as we trust thou haft; for thou haft opened our difficult and fad times, and given us an unexpected breathing after our long oppreffions: thou haft done juftice upon thofe that tyrannized over us, while fome men wavered and admired a vain fhadow of wisdom in a tongue nothing flow to utter guile, though thou haft taught us to admire only that which is good, and to count that only praise-worthy, which is grounded upon thy divine precepts. Thou haft difcovered the plots, and fruftrated the hopes, of all the wicked in the land, and put to shame the perfecutors of thy church: thou haft made our falfe prophets to be found a lie in the fight of all the people, and chafed them with fudden confufion and amazement before the redoubled brightnefs of thy defcending cloud, that now covers thy tabernacle. Who is there that cannot trace thee now in thy beamy walk through the midft of thy fanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks, which have long suffered a dimness amongst us through the violence of those that had seized them, and were more taken with the mention of their gold than of their starry light; teaching the doctrine of Balaam, to caft a ftumbling block before thy fervants, commanding them to eat things facrificed to idols, and forcing them to fornication? Come, therefore, O thou that haft the seven stars in thy right hand, appoint thy chosen priests according to their orders and courfes of old, to minifter before thee, and duly to prefs and pour out the confecrated oil into thy holy and everburning lamps. Thou haft fent out the fpirit of prayer upon thy fervants over all the land to this effect, and stirred up their vows as the found of many waters about thy throne. Every one can fay, that now certainly thou haft vifited this land,and haft not forgotten the utmost corners of the earth, in a time when men had thought that thou waft gone up from us |
