PREFAT DISCOURSE, 276 No security except in conforming to Divine appointments. case. Secondly, because the goodness of God, if He pleases, SECT. XX. may in such cases supply all defects in Churches, as well as one; even the want of all ministry, as well as the want of that ministry which we think you ought to have; nay even the want of Sacraments in those religious societies which reject them and therefore, in the third place, those extraordinary mercies, being secrets which belong to God Himself, ought to be no encouragement to us to cast off His institutions, or to continue in the want of them, when we may have them. It is not therefore reasonable, as I conceive, to presume that God, though infinitely merciful and good, will supply unto us the want of such things, which we may supply ourselves with, but will not. I had much rather therefore desire you not to trust to those extraordinary supplies, which when God grants, we cannot tell whether He grants or no. His known, ordinary, covenanted mercies are the greatest and most comfortable security for all Churches, as well as for all particular Christians; and therefore your truest security will be to reform your Churches into the first Divine government, ministry, and priesthood, in which for certain they were first formed. Nay, rather than seem to flatter you with the hopes of God's supplying the want of those things by His extraordinary mercy, I would for God's sake beseech you to consider how far the present constitution of your Churches agrees, or disagrees, with your, and our belief of the Holy Catholic Church, or the One Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is the corporation of all true Christians, and of all true Churches, founded into one communion by one priesthood, as well as upon one confession of faith; and I leave it to yourselves, after serious consideration, to determine whether your want of that ministry, in which the whole Catholic Church and all the members of it were founded, as in an unchangeable Divine institution, doth not press you with great difficulties, which relate to that new frame and constitution of a Church which you have devised for yourselves, so different from the primitive form. All this I have said to you in answer to my adversary's objection; but why do I say my adversary? for you will find he is as much an adversary to your Churches and ministry as ours. He makes this objection of "your unchurching Rights, p. 314. Hickes' regard for the foreign Protestants. 277 TION OF BISHOPS. yourselves by throwing off the episcopal government," with INSTITUan ill design upon you, as well as upon us. He would render us odious unto you for maintaining the principle upon which we have reformed, and which I think it is not in the power of man to change. But if you will not come up to that principle and practice, we hope you will still not only bear with us, but still approve what we have done in reforming ourselves. But as strict and inviolable a principle as I take it to be, yet, I protest in the presence of God, so far am I from having any ill will to you, who I think live in the violation of it, that as the Apostle of his great affection for his brethren saith, he could wish that he were accursed for them from Christ; so my love is so passionate for you all, and my good will so great, that I could wish for your sakes it were not a principle; but what God hath made so for all times and places, cannot be unmade; what He hath so joined with His Church, no man ought to put asunder from it, nor lay other foundation for that holy building than He hath laid, who is the Founder as well as the chief corner-stone of it, and purchased it with His most precious blood. I appeal to what in great kindness and pity I formerly preached and published in behalf of some of you, for the sincerity of this declaration; nor do I repent in the least of the good character I have given of them, though Monsieur Baudan's sermoni, h In a sermon entitled "The True Notion of Persecution stated [in a sermon on 2 Cor. iv. 9, preached at the time of the late contribution for the French Protestants. Published at the earnest request of many who heard it. 1681." In this sermon Hickes distinguished between the English laws against non-conformists and Roman Catholics, and those of the French against the Huguenots, and endeavoured to remove the prejudices entertained against the refugees. At that time, shortly before the revocation of the edict of Nantes, the Huguenots emigrated in great numbers, and were encouraged to settle in England. Charles II., July 28, 1681, granted them letters of denization, relieved them from various payments, and encouraged voluntary contributions for their support. Hickes refers to this sermon in the Letter to Dr. Turner of May 5, 1707; part of which was quoted note o, p. 57. DISCOURSE, 278 Rejection of Bishops by the Scottish people wilful. PREFAT not long ago preached and printed at Delf, in which the SECT. XX. Church of England is so deeply concerned, perhaps would make some other men repent. Thus much I have said in answer to my adversary; with all the tenderness for the Protestant Churches who plead necessity for their not having the episcopal government and ministry, for which many of their pastors have expressed great respect. But there is another Protestant Church which pleads not necessity to excuse their abdication of episcopacy, but declares it was their duty to cast it off, as an unlawful antichristian constitution, contrary to the word of God; and pursuant thereunto have more than once deposed their own bishops, forced some of them by persecution to renounce their episcopal function, and entered into a solemn league and covenant, which they still think obliging, to endeavour the destruction of it. If the ancient fathers who were saints and martyrs, were now living to see such a strange Church, how astonished would they stand at the sight of it, and with what holy indignation would they thunder against the iniquity of it, and charge the people to separate themselves from the ministry of it, as from Corah and his company, lest they perished with them in their sin. They would think such a pretended Church no better than a band of rebels against the Catholic Apostolic Church, and altogether unworthy of the name of a Church, as being not only an absolute variation from the Church of Christ as to its polity and mission, but a sworn confederacy against them, even "the abomination of desolation" in the house or kingdom of God; of which they would think their pastors not ministers, but by their old principles most malicious enemies; not pastors of the flock, but wolves; to many of both which, notwithstanding, I trust that God, who can make dispensations and allowances for the greatest ignorances, mistakes, and prejudices of His frail creatures, which men cannot make, will shew mercy in the great day, according to the prayer of our Lord upon the cross, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do." I have now answered the invidious objection of our worthy author against the necessity of the episcopal government, and now cannot but desire my readers to reflect a little with me Tindal excludes Churchmen from his natural rights.' 279 TION OF BISHOPS. on his great disingenuity, who loads us of this opinion with INSTITUbitter invectives and opprobrious names, although he hath laid it down as the foundation of his whole work), "that all men, except atheists, have not only a natural freedom, but a strict natural right to believe and profess such speculative points as they think true, and to follow the dictates of their own understandings in all religious matters, to which," he saith, "the magistrate's power doth not extend." Yet without any consideration of us, or the antiquity and universality of our principles among Christians, and contrary to his own doctrine of natural right, he upbraids and ridicules us for it, though he knows we follow the dictates of our own consciences in believing and professing of it, and as much as in him lies, he endeavours to expose and theatrize us and our opinion, as it were to put us in the pillory with it written on our breasts, that that may be flouted, and we pelted for it by the mob. His disingenuity is no less observable in charging our principle with great seeming concern, as destructive to the presbyterian Church of Scotland; "those," saith he*, "who are for episcopacy, jure divino, if they act and speak consistently with their opinion, can have no favourable opinion of the Revolution, whereby in Scotland the true Church, by the abolition of episcopacy, hath been destroyed." Good God! what stuff is this for a man to vent, who would be thought some great one among the writers against the Church; for first, why should not they who believe the Divine right of episcopacy, act, and speak, and write too, consistently with their opinion, which they have a natural right to believe and profess? Secondly, how can they help the consequences of their opinion, more than other men can help the consequences of theirs, "who," he saith, "must judge for themselves in matters of religion?" or more than he himself can help the consequences of his, whose opinion of Churches, and of the absurdities of the independent power, destroys the Scottish presbyterian Church, as effectually as the episcopal Church of England? I say the presbyterian Church of Scotland, which carries the independent power and all the absurdities he charges upon it, much higher than the highest flyers of the Church of England ever did, or now P. 315. j [Rights, pp. 14, 15.] * Ibid., 280 His malice against the Church and Clergy. PREFAT. do? Lastly, what hath this opinion to do with the RevoluSECT. XX. tion, more than that of the "high Scotized flyers" (pardon DISCOURSE, me for using one of his scurrilous names) among the presbyterians, who in both nations, by his way of reasoning, must have no favourable opinion of the Revolution, which hath continued the antichristian, unlawful episcopal form of government in the Church of England and Ireland, though never so contrary to the word of God? Doth he not know that men may like a government, and yet have no favourable opinion of some proceedings in it? Or hath he forgot what he saith', that in a society, and by consequence in all governments, men "must be determined, even in things they do not like, by the greater number, as having the greater force." But any turn of speech or fallacy will serve as an argument against the Church of England and her clergy, if it will expose them. He represents her hierarchy as the “spiritual Babylon," whose fall will be great; and notwithstanding all his declamations against persecution, he persecutes her and her loving and dutiful sons, through his whole book, even as [Ps. 137.7.] the children of Edom did Jerusalem, when they said, "down with it, down with it, even to the ground." He will not allow her to maintain herself and her assemblies, neither by his natural, nor her own Divine right. In short, all her sons who derive not her power from the people, but God; all that are not, as he himself is, sons of Belial, or latitude, or disguise, he would, if he could, if he durst, take them; or make the people take them, as children of Babylon, and “dash them in pieces against the stones." I appeal to the strain of his whole book for the truth, at least for the probability of what I say; and indeed if they are such as he with all his art and malice represents them to be, they deserve but little better usage; if by principle they indeed are enslavers of mankind, and as certain of their poets said of us, with a love and respect like that of his, SECT. XXI. Of an uninterrupted Surcingle knaves, Whose lives make atheists, and their doctrine slaves"." His next objection is against "the bishops deriving their right by an uninterrupted succession of bishops in the 1 Rights, p. 6. [The Editor has not been able to find from what work this quotation is made.] |