stairs to hatred and destroying it 's his way to cure Schism that is commonly painted with Horns and Cloven feet If a man come from a Countrey Village and be made by Covenant a Citizen of London how prove you that he renounceth King or Kingdom But he saith p. 9. Those who wilfully separate from the Corporation to which the Charter was granted forfeit their Interest in the Charter Ans. What Reader doth this man presume upon that will not ask him how he proveth 1. That Gods Law or Charter to his Church doth not require them to congregate in distinct single Churches as London Charter doth to erect several Companies and the Universities several Colledges 2. And that God hath not in his Word given order or command for such single Churches But that the Apostles and Titus by fixing Elders to their several Churches and Cities separated from the Universal Church 3. And that their subordinate Churches have not need of distinct subordinate consent and duty And that our Diocesan Churches all separate from the Universal Did he think these things need no proof at all It may be he will say that the Diocesan depend on the Vniversal but the Presbyterian or Independent do not I Answer Dependance is either that of Subjects on Soveraign or Magistrates for Government or that of a Community of Equals for Communion In the former respect they depend on none but Christ as Universal Soveraign Nor on any Foriegners for Governments In the latter they depend on all true Churches for Communion And Doctor Hammond and most Diocesans hitherto have said that Diocesan Churches are thus far Independent or National at most And if any be for a Forreign Iurisdiction in Charity before they perswade England to it they should procure them a Dispensation from all the Oaths that have sworn all this Kingdom against endeavouring any change of Government and against a Foreign Iurisdiction For some Fanaticks now Dream that PER is the Mark of the Beast and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the number of his Name is nominal as well as numeral and refers to CH-urch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and STate For as for them that find a mans name in them I abhorr their Exposition more § 11. P. 9. God saith he hath not made any Covenant in particular with the Church of Geneva France or England c. A. 1. God hath made one General Law for Christians congregating with their fixed Elders or Bishops in particular Churches all the World over And his Command is not without Promise of being with them to the End of the World and that Promise becometh a Promise to every Church so congregate God hath not made distinct Laws or Promises to every Christian But the Promise to Justifie all Believers justifieth each single Person when he believeth If the King should make one common Law to command all his Subjects that are Freeholders to live in Corporations or Hundreds described with their priviledges those priviledges would be all theirs that are so incorporated As one Charter may Priviledge every London Company diversified by subordinate Agreements 2. And that God who will have them thus incorporated and distributed into several single Churches doth Covenant or Promise according to their demerits to each Do I need to recite the peculiar Promises and threats to the seven Asian Churches Rev. 2. and 3. which are Covenants to them § 12. Next Pag. 10. He will tell us what Communion is and in many words it is to tell us that Communion is nothing but Vnion I know that quoad notationem nominis Communion may signifie Vnion with others But they that write Politicks have hitherto distinguished Vnion and Communion taking Communion for Actual Communication or exercise of the duties of men in Union But to speak cross to other Writers on the same Subjects and give no reason for it and to confound Vnion and Communion is one part of this edifying Resolution § 13. Pag. 11. Our Communion with the Church consists in being members of the Church which we are made by Baptism saith he Then the Baptized are still in Communion with the Church till their baptism be nullified And hath he proved us Apostates § 14. Pag. 12. Should any man who is no member of the Church nor owns himself to be so intrude into the Church and Communicate in all Holy Offices it 's no Act of Communion c. A. I thought communicating ordinarily in Holy Offices had gone for an owning of Communion If it do not would you would tell us how to know who are of your Church § 15. P. 13. Saith he church-Church-Communion does not consist in particular Acts of Communion which can be performed among those who are present and Neighbours but in membership Now as a member is a member of the whole Body not meerly of any part of it c. All the Subjects of England who never saw nor converst with each other are members of the same Kingdom A. 1. That word meerly hath more Craft than Justice or Honesty Meerly signifieth Only I suppose and if he would make his Reader think that they that are for single Church peculiar membership and consent do take themselves to be meerly or only members of those single Churches and not of the Universal it is shameless injury 2. Will he ever draw men to conformity by making them believe that because they owe Common Communion to all Christians therefore we owe no special duty to the Bishops Priests Churches or Neighbours where we are setled Do the Men of one Colledge School Corporation owe no more duty to that than to all others Do the Free-holders of Bedford-shire choose Knights for Middlesex or the Citizens of Oxford choose Officers in London These seem strange Resolutions to us 3. But doth he remember that if Communion consist not in Acts of Communion to such but in membership even with the distant then he that is baptized and no Apostate and performeth no other Acts of Communion to the Bishops Parson or People where he liveth than he is bound to perform to them a hundred or thousand miles off is no Separatist Methinks this favours Separation too much § 16. Pag. 14. When he denyed any Divine Covenant to make us members of particular Churches distinguish't from the Vniversal as all National Diocesan and Parochial are as parts from the whole he presently confuteth all again saying The exercise of Church Communion as to most of the particular duties and Offices of it must be confined to a particular Church and Congregation for we cannot actually joyn in the Communion of Prayers and Sacraments c. but with some particular Church A. Oportuit fuisse memorem 1. Reader doth not this man here confess that there are particular Churches 2. If these be not distinct from the whole then each particular is the whole 3. If the Exercise must be in particular Churches must not men Consent to their Relations and Duties Is it a sin to Promise
Duty 4. Sure it is not meer Place but a mutual Relation of Pastors and People that distinguisheth these Churches The Presbyterians preach't once in the same Places that you do and yet you take them not for the same Church Pastors If one from York or Cornwall come into your Pulpit without consent do People stand as much related to him as to you Some men are of extraordinary sufficiency to resist and conquer the clearest evidence of Truth But he addes every Act of Communion thô performed to some particular Church is and must be an Act of Communion with the whole Catholick Church A. And who denyeth this No sober Independent or Presbyterian that ever I met with It 's a weighty Truth § 17. P. 14. Saith he Praying and Hearing and Receiving the Lords Supper together doth not make us more in Communion with the Church of England than with any other true and Orthodox part of the Church thô in the remotest part of the World A. I think that 's not true With the remotest parts you have only Catholick Communion with the Church Universal In England and London you have that and more even special subordinate Communion with your own King Bishop and Flock 2. And hath not the Church of England such Communion in obedience to its own Laws as the Act of Uniformity Convocation and Canons which you have not with all abroad Do your Bishops in Convocation make Canon Laws for all the World Do you Swear Canonical obedience as much to the Bishop of Paris or Haffnia c. as to your Ordinary Do the Canons of all Churches impose our Liturgy or ipso facto excommunicate all that affirm any thing in it or our Ceremonies or Church Government to be against Gods word Sure this is a peculiar kind of Communion 3. If not why are all the Nonconformists cast out that offer to officiate and Communicate on such terms as are common to all sound Churches Pag. 15. Saith he There is nothing in all these Acts of Communion which does more peculiarly unite us to such a particular Church than to the whole Christian Church A. What neither in these Acts nor any other Then we are no more bound to hear you or maintain you as our Pastor than to hear and maintain the whole Christian Church § 18. P. 20. Saith he There is no other Rule of Catholick Communion for private Christians but to communicate in all Religious Offices and all Acts of Government and Discipline with Christians those with whom they live A. 1. Elsewhere you added sound and Orthodox Else they that live with Arians Socinians Papists in Spain France Italy c. are bound to communicate with them in all Religious Offices and obey them 2. This concludeth that where Presbytery or Independency is the way of the place where we live all must thus communicate and obey The King and Custom then may make any way to become our Duty 3. If you tell us that it 's only with the Sound and Orthodox you were as good say nothing unless you tell us who must judge that whether the People themselves or who for them 4. But if this be the only rule for private Christians what shall they do e. g. in Aethiopa Egypt Syria and many other Countreys where the Churches are such as General Councils and other Churches judge Hereticks or Schismaticks And what shall they do when at Antioch Alexandria Constantinople c. one party is uppermost by the Judgment of Councils and Prince one Year and another contrary party the next And what shall they do where the Prince equally tolerateth both and it 's hard to know which is the more numerous as in Zeno's and Anastasius Reign c. And what shall they do when many Churches in one City are of divers Tongues as well as Customs Have the Greeks French and Dutch in London no rule of Catholick Communion but communicating in all Offices with the English and obeying all your Bishops Courts § 19. P. 21. Saith he Distinct and particular Churches which are in Communion with each other must have their distinct bounds and limits as every member has it's natural and proper place and Situation in the Body A. Why may not the Greeks Dutch and French live in Communion with the Churches London though they live dispersedly among them In Brandenburg Hassia and many free Cities and Belgia where Lutherans and Calvinists as called live together and own each other as Brethren why may not both be Churches of Christ § 20. P. 21 22. A great deal more he hath of the like making Schismaticks at his Pleasure This is plain in the Case of the Presbyterian and Independent Churches and those other Conventicles They are Churches in a Church Nothing can justifie the Distinction of Christians into several Churches but only such a distance of place as makes it necessary c. p. 22. Distinct Churches in the same place can never be under the same Communion A. These things are repeated so oft and the word separate so deceitfully rolled over and over that I will answer all together under his third Case at the End § 21. P. 27. See how openly he recanteth most aforesaid There is a sence indeed wherein we may be said to be members of one particular Church considered as distinct from all other particular Churches But that principally consists in Government and Discipline Every Christian is a member of the Whole Christian Church and in Communion with it but he is under the immediate instruction and Government of his own Bishop and Presbyters and is bound to personal Communion with them and this constitutes a particular Church in which all Acts of Worship and all Acts of Discipline and Government are under the Direction and conduct of a particular Bishop A. Omitting that he seemeth to make the Parochial Churches no Churches but parts of one here he saith all that he seemed to write against and that those that he reproacheth hold allowing the difference of the extent of Churches And is it Edifying to read such a discourse that saith and unsaith by self-contradiction And he adjoyns 28. p. how by agreement Patriarchal and National Churches are made And is not Agreement a humane Contract CHAP. II. Of his first Case § 1. PAge 31. His first Case Whether Communion with some Church or other be a necessary Duty incumbent on Christians And he thinks the Resolution of this is as plain as whether it be necessary for every man to be a Christian For every Christian is baptized into the Communion of the Church A. In this I know no Christian adversary to him But it being the Vniversal Church that he giveth his proof of necessary Communion with it 's odde to say We must have Communion with some Church or other As if there were more than one Universal Church 2. But we grant more that all that can well should be also members of some single Church § 2. P. 32. He saith External and Actual
Communion is an Essential duty of a Church-member meaning a Christian. A. 1. And yet before he denyed that Communion lay essentially in this Exercise but only in Vnion Yea and Nay is his Custom 2. Some few Christians as those that live where such Communion cannot be had without sin c. are not bound to it therefore it is not true that it is Essential to Universal Church-membership And I think sickness endeth not the essentials that disableth men 3. Note Reader that by this mans Doctrine we are all unchristened and damned if we do not gather into disallowed Churches if we be unjustly cast out of the allowed ones For all must be Church members that will be Christians and an unjust Excommunication cannot disoblige us from Christianity nor bind us to consent to be damned Now read the 5 th 6 th 7 th 8 th c. Canons of the Church of England which ipso facto Excommunicate all that affirm any thing in their Liturgy Articles Ceremonies or Government sinful and answer Spalatensis arguments against Excommunicating ipso facto and prove all this just and you may prove what you will just But you see where he layeth the Controversie If any be Excommunicated without sufficient cause or by Lay Civilians to whom God never gave that power or by such Bishops or Pastors as have no just Authority for want of a true call or Consent or if any unlawful thing be made necessary to Communion all such persons must by his own confessions hold church-Church-communion whether these imposers will or not for all Christians are bound to be of some Church § 3. p. 33 34. He saith that None but publick Prayers are the Prayers of the Church properly and acts of Communion that is such as are offered by the hands of men authorized and set apart for that purpose c. Ans. Who would have thought that we are more for the Liturgy than he I undertake to prove that all the Responsal Prayers and all the Litany Prayers in which the Minister names but the matter to them and the People make it a Prayer by speaking the petitioning parts are all the publick Prayers of the Church and so are all the petitioning Psalms spoke or sung by the People and not only that which is offered by the Priest I do not think that he believeth what he carelesly saith here himself But the Independents are stiffer for his first Thesis of the necessity of Church-communion than he is his unfit words I pass by CHAP. III. Of his second Case § 1. THE next question of Occasional Communion as distinct from fixed he turns out of doors as if there could be no such thing and it 's very true as to the Church universal but as to visible actual Communion with this or that particular Church it is not true 1. A Traveller of another Country who on his journey communicateth with every Church where he passeth is not a fixed Member of that Church for 1. The Pastor or Bishop hath not that peculiar Charge of him as of fixed members 2. He is not bound where he passeth to take such notice of the lives of Communicants or Pastors and to admonish the Offenders and tell the Church as fixed members are 3. He hath not the right in chooseing Pastors or Deacons as the fixed Members have 4. An itinerant Bishop in transitu is not their fixed Bishop ergo an Iterant Lay-man is not a fixed Member The same I may say of one that is a fixed member of another Church in the same City and cometh to that only to signifie universal Communion or neighbourly which though he deny to be lawful I shall further prove anon And the same I may say of those that dwell where there is no fixed single Church at all for want of a Pastor but they congregate only when some strange Minister passeth through the Town CHAP. IV. His third Case § 1. PAge 48 49. He resolveth his third Case Whether it be lawful to Communicate with two distinct and separate Churches negatively and saith It is contrary to all the Principles of Church Communion as any thing can possibly be it is to be contrary to our selves it is Communicating with Schism That the Presbyterian and Independent Churches have made an actual separation from the Church of England he hath evidently proved and they are Schismaticks and to communicate with them is to partake in their Schism and if Schism be a great sin and that which will damn us as soon as Adultery and Murther then it must needs be a dangerous thing to communicate with Schismaticks And p. 42. There cannot be two distinct Churches in one place one for occasional and another for constant Communion without Schism Ans. To save those that are willing from the Poyson of these Schismatical Doctrines lapt up in confusion by men that abhor distinction or understand not what they say I will first lay down that truth that he fights against with convincing evidence and then shew you the mischief of his false Doctrine and Application § 2. The confusion of these words Church Communion Separation and Schism which every one signifie divers things is the chief means to blind and deceive his Reader whether it do so by himself I know not I. The Word Church signifieth sometime the universal Church sometime a single Organized Church as part of it and sometime humane combinations of such single Churches and that into Diocesan Classical Provincial Patriarchal National and Papal II. The Specification and Nomination of Churches is from the formal cause and the proper Government is that form And the Individuation is from matter and form but principally from the form III. The Union of Pastor and Flock in Relation makes that which is a form aptitudinal as the Soul to the Body to be the form in act as the Union of Soul and Body and Gods command and consent with the consent of the necessary relate and correlate cause that union IV. Union is in order to Communion which is primary by the exercise of the formal powers on the matter and secondary by the action of all the parts according to their several capacities and Offices V. The Union of the Church is of divers degrees 1. The formal Union of the Head and Body which maketh it essentially the Christian Church 2. The Vnion of the parts among themselves as Christian which maketh them a Body capable of Union with the Head 3. The Union of the parts as unequal Organized the Official with the rest which maketh it an Organized Body fit for its special use and welfare 4. Union in integrity of parts which maketh it an intire Body 5. Union in due temperament and Qualities which maketh it a healthful Body 6. Unity in Common Accidents which make it a Comely Beautiful Body joined with the rest But 7. Union in mutable Accidents is unnecessary and impossible VI. These several degrees of Union are found in Bodies natural and Politick 1. The
us that he did not place this Communion in any transient Acts but in a fixed permanent state Ans. But 1. Taking the Bishops for true authorised Pastors and the Church for a true Church are transient acts Believing in Christ and repenting of sin are transient acts quoad objectum tho immanent quoad subjectum effectum Baptism and Profession of Christianity and of love and obedience to others are transient both quoad objectum effectum Coming to Church communicating obeying Bishops and departing from Schismaticks are transient in both respects You see that by Catholick Communion the Doctor meaneth none of all these 2. What meaneth he then a fixed permanent state But 1. Which Predicament can you conjecture that word state is in It 's commonly applied to Relation Quality and Scite and Place These latter I am confident he meaneth not If he mean Quality it is Dispâ—sitiâ—n or Habit sure But those come by Acts and he tells us not what he meaneth nor is it probable that this is it Relation is most likely to be that fixed state which is indeed the true form of a Church and a Church-Member and saith Durandus is meant by Baptism's indelible Character Supposing this his meaning 2. Are not transient acts the fundamentum of this Relation as verily as of Paternity Marriage-Relation c. Is any Man a Church-Member or Christian but by the transient acts of Baptism Profession Covenanting c. And do you define a Relation without the Fundamentum 3. But if Relation be all wherein lieth our damning Schism We profess Catholick Communion then somewhat more than you do For as we profess the same Relation that you do to Jesus Christ so we profess our Relation of Fellow-Members to all his Body even to those that in such Matters depart from each others and if I can understand you to the greatest part of Christ's Church on Earth which you damn as Rebels This is our profest Relation If you can disprove it 〈◊〉 § 9. He adds I conclude it 's sufficient to let you understand what the Ancients meant by Christian-Communion which in a large Notion signifies the Christian Church or Society which is called Communion from Communication which all the Members of it had with each other The plain and obvious sense is All the Churches of the World are but one Church or Society and have the same right and the same obligation on them to communicate with each other for the sake of which Christian Churches are instituted as the members of a particular Church are Ans. 1. Such large Notions may be sufficient to you but they signifie little more than noise to me Here we are told that by Communion he meaneth the Church And so when we read of Communion with the Church it meaneth the Church with the Church and church-Church-Communion are Two Synonimal words and signifie Church Church And in the Creed the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints is a Tautology 2. But the Church is called Communion from Communication And is Communication no transient act but a fixed state 3. If the plain sense be That all Churches in the World are one Church as parts in the whole who differs from you in that We are all then of one Catholick Communion and shall believe that all true Christians are of one Church till the Excommunicators better disprove it 4. But have all the same right and obligation to communicate with each other 1. All do actually communicate with each other 1. In their Union with and Relation to our Saviour and Head 2. And in having one holy Spirit 3. Being the adopted children of one God 4. Being of that one body formally related to Christ. 5. Believing in the same God and Father Saviour and holy Spirit And 6. Consenting to the same Baptismal Covenant 7. Having the same hope of everlasting life These are the Instances of Christian Union and Communion in Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. And 8. They have also Communion in the same common benefits Pardon and Justification and right to life 9. And besides all this when they may be had they have Communion in the same species of necessary worship the use of the same Gospel and Sacred Scriptures and Creed of the same sort of Eucharistical Sacrament and Prayer and Praise and Thanksgiving in all parts of absolute necessity and holy Assemblies to that end consisting of several Pastors with their Flocks 10. Yea and all true Christians love one another as such and live in sincere tho imperfect obedience to the same holy Laws of Christ. In all this all Christians have Communion 2. And all have right to such measures of Local Communion where they come as they are in a more immediate capacity of 3. And all are obliged to exercise so much Mental and Local Communion as is necessary to edification and to the exercise of Christian love and peace besides what is forementioned But yet 1. All Churches on Earth are separate by distance as to Local Communion 2. No Two Churches or Men on Earth are perfectly united as to Mental Câ—mmunion There are Multitudes of degrees of differences in this 3. There are very many just causes of diversifying Local Communion in the same City Diocess or other Precincts and of diversifying individual Pastoral Relation and single proper Church-Communion Diversity of Languages is a cause that no man can deny The excessive Magnitude of a Church that is the Multitude of Persons is another Suppose that I were first and alone made Pastor of a Church in Mexico or Quinsay and I am not able to do the work of a Pastor for a Thousand Souls I get the help of Three or Four Presbyters and Deacons and we all are utterly unable to do the Pastoral work for Four Thousand may Four Thousand or Forty Thousand more claim of me the performance of the Pastoral Office Am I bound to undertake Tenfold more than I am able to perform Then Men may not only enslave me but damn me at their pleasure and pretend their right to Communion with me If you say I am bound to multiply Presbyters in the same Church to sufficiency I answer 1. What if I can neither have Men nor Maintenance 2. What if I think that when the Multitude is so great that I cannot know them nor they ever speak with me or know one another any more than Men of several Countreys that I ought not to undertake a personal oversight of them but perswade them to associate in Churches capable of such oversight It 's no breach of Charity for one School-Master or Physician to refuse a personal Relation as School-Master to Five Hundred Schools or Physician to all the City or Five Hundred Hospitals tho he have Apothecaries or others under him No Man hath right to more of my labour than I am able to perform If I be a Bishop and bound to hear and try the Causes of all that ought to come under Church Censure in a whole Diocess and am
the Catholick Church is Ans. He maketh me think of the Man's Answer to the Pharisee John 9. I have told you and you heard not Would you hear it again If you would know what Unity is in uno which is affectio entis I must again send you to Schibler or Suarez or some such Tutor for I am not meet to tutor you If you would know in what this Unity consisteth I have told you before and oft § 16. But tho this Doctor use it not we use first to enquire whether the Controversie be de nomine or de re And 1. If I satisfie him what maketh the Church to be One will he grant that if we agree in that Union we are in Catholick Communion If he will we shall soon be Friends and no Schismaticks at least with any that knows what Unity is If he will not doth he not all this while abuse his Reader when he so hotly damneth us for want of Catholick Communion and tells us that he meaneth Unity and chargeth me with wilfulness or nonsense if I think that he meaneth any transient act But 1. De nomine I will once more tell him why I distinguish Unity and Communion and think he should have done so too Words in Dispute are to be used in the sense that Men of the Profession which the Subject most belongs to use them unless otherwise explained But Men that write of Logick Metaphysicks Physicks and Politicks use to distinguish Unity from Communion so far as that usually Communion presâ—pposeth Unity secundum quid and ever includeth some transient Acts when Unity is but the denomination of Eus qua Uâ—um I hope I may take the Language of our Creed to be so tollerable as that it is not necessary to salvation to condemn it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by the Church of England which I hope is no damned Schismatical Sect translated the Communion of Saints That by Communion they mean some tâ—anâ—ient Acts and not meer Union all Expositors that ever I read among them shew as do all the Fathers and all Forreign Interpreters that I have read At least methinks he should not disdain to learn his Grammar again of Dr. Hammond and Dr. Heylin I remember not that ever I read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated Communion Indeed Eph. 4.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresseth Communion in transient acts but bare Unity doth not But Communion must maintain it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the bond of peace King Iames so liked Bishop Usher's Sermon on that Text that a Knight then near him told me that when by his winking posture the Courtiers thought he had been asleep at the end of the Sermon he spake aloud This is the Religion that I will live and die in or to that sense The regardful reading of consenting learned Commentators on Eph. 3.4 5 6 7. Verses might have quenched this fire-â—rand Indeed I believe with Beza that they who translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by meer participation say too little For it is not all participation which is the Communion which many Texts express but such a participation as connoteth an Union in quibusdam For Union absolute and simple is uncapable of Communion except with some other thing having no parts 1 Iohn 1.6 7. we are said to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with God and with Christ or one another I find no Expositor that taketh this for meer Union Some call it Partnership some Society some Friendship others Communion but all take it to include transient acts Dr. Hammond goeth so far from this Doctor that he will have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 almost every where in the New Testament to signifie Communication by transient acts Yea he goeth so far from his Friend Grotius who placeth it in the exercise of Friendship that he saith It is appliable to Friendship or Society no otherwise than to knowledg or anything else So he expoundeth Rom. 15.26 2 Cor. 8.4 2 Cor. 9.13 Phil. 1.5 Heb. 13.16 Phil. 6. and the Creed Tho for my part I doubt not but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 1.9 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2.1 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10.16 c. do signifie such a participation of that which is common to them all as implieth and connoteth that Unity which is the thing signified in this Communion tho it includes transient acts II. I should now again answer his question de re What makes all these Churches one But he stops me with a profession that he will not be to me intelligible and complaineth that I am unintelligible to him So that we seem Barbarians or Men of strange Languages in disputing with one another And it would be no edifying work for any to hear e. g. a Dutch-man and a Spaniard dispute in their several Tongues not understanding one another When I distinguisht of unifying the Church and uniting a single Member to it he tells me That he supposeth the particular Churches formed and particular Christians united to them and only enquireth how they are one Church and saith my distinction is to prevent understanding which his confusion promoteth And when I distinguish between Union in essential parts and in integral parts and in accidents without which distinction no true satisfaction can be given to the Querist he saith He perceiveth that we shall never come to the business for he did not enquire wherein the Essence of a Church consists or what degrees of Communion are more or less necessary to its being but how a thousand Churches become one Church Ans. Which words are to me as unintelligible as any Nonsence Doth any thing make it One Church but that which maketh it A Church Doth not that which maketh it eus existens make it Unum Doth not the word Church name its Essence If he ask me how the parts of Man come to make One Man Who would think but he meant either One Man essential or else improperly One entire Man And what Answer would any give but this If your how mean what was the efficient cause it 's God and the Generators If you mean what are the constitutive causes They are Soul and Body united that make a Man in Essence and the integrating parts united that make him an entire Man O! but saith our Doctor I ask not wherein the Essence of the Church consists Ans. Then you ask not what maketh it One in constitution What then do you mean unless it be the efficient cause which no Man would think you meant that read the rest of your Book For my part I despair of knowing what you mean till you have better learned to speak But this seemeth to imply that we are agreed of the constitutive Causes of the One Catholick Church and our disagreement were of the Efficient If that be it I 'le tell you what maketh the Church One efficiently 1. God maketh Man to be Man and so capable
Communion of all Forreign Pastors the validity of whose right to their places we have not just notice of our Task would be impossible or our Communion narrow And if forreign Bishops will become so pragmatical as to make themselves Judges of other Kingdoms which party of Competitors are the truly called Pastors when they cannot try them or will take the words of one party against the other because they are uppermost it is just to disregard their Judgment tho they do it on pretence of Communion XII If men will turn a voluntary consultation for concord into the Nature of a Law tho they call it but Communion the Church should not own their Usurpation As the Princes of Europe are bound to do the best they can to promote by their concord the interest of Christ and may well hold Diets or Meetings for that end yet no man calls that Diet a Kingdom nor hath the Major Vote a power to bind the Minor to consent when the reason of the thing doth not bind them So is it in the concord of forreign Churches All are bound to agree in what Christ commandeth But in circumstantial determinations no man is bound further than the End and Reason of the thing requireth Communion here is not Subjection XIII There is an Excommunication which is a governing act This no Church or Bishop can use over others And there is a meer renunciation of Communion which equals may use XIV If any Bishops or Councils Usurpers or not excommunicate men unjustly or forbid them Communion unless they will sin such prohibited men must obey Christ and not forbear Church-Worship and Communion where they can have it specially if they are many Schismatical imposing Church tearers must not be encouraged by sinful obedience to them Whomever they call Schismaticks God will judg them as Schismaticks themselves and their revilings and persecutions are self-condemnation I doubt I weary the Reader with oft repeating the same thing to make them plain against perverters § 24. Let us follow him further p. 47. he saith But how to apply the Copula in a Proposition either to the union of Soul or Body or of Christ and his Church I cannot tell and shall never be able to learn till I meet with some new Baxterian Logick as well as Grammar and Metaphysicks Ans. And yet you will think your self wise enough to stir up men against us for our ignorance while you are raging confident Are you resolved to read no Logick that 's already written One would have thought it should have pleased one that pleads for Unity As it is no Proposition but made so by the Copula uniting the terms as Subject and Predicate and the Union maketh one the Predicate so it is no Man and no Church by the bare existence of Soul and Body or of Christ and Believers without the uniting of both together that so the Soul may become in actu the forma hominis and Christ the forma Ecclesiae Homo Animal rationale are no Proposition without a Uniting est Is not this plain § 25. P. 47 48. Granting that there is no Universal Government but Christ he 's again at it that there is somewhat more than Organization and all the Essentials of Christianity and Union with Christ to make the Church One and thereupon feigneth me to say That which maketh this Body to become a Church is no union among themselves and leaveth out the rest of the Sentence but their common union with Christ As if their common Union with Christ were not an Union among themselves If I have not made this plain enough That 1. the Church hath the Unity of the parts to make it a capable Body or Matter 2. That it hath a consequent Union and Communion after it is a Church 3. But that it is only the Union of adapted Matter and Form that makes it essentially the Church of Christ in the proper political sence then I despair of making it intelligible that forma dat esse nomen And if that which maketh it the Church do not thereby make it hoc unum then eus unum non convertuntur and unum must have a distinct cause from eus § 26. He adds I should rather think that the Unity of several Churches makes them one Church and does not only prepare and dispose them to be one Ans. Their Unity in Christ doth make them one formally And this is the informing Unity among themselves But all other Unity is but preparatory or consequential to the formal unity I told you out of Dr. Barrow and may see in Rod. Goclenius Martinius and many more beside Metaphysicks in what abundance of loose sences things may be called One We deny no such Unity no not in an heap of Sand. But of formal political Unity why would you never tell us what it is but Union with one King that makes many Cities one Kingdom Do you rather think they are One Kingdom by any other Union among themselves Yes if you take Kingdom materially and equivocasly but not else Dare you say That they are the Church of Christ without their Union with him as the Form Or dare you say That all Christians united to Christ as their Head and Form are not eo nomine one Polity or Church And what 's the reason that all this while you will not name that thing else that makes the Church one Do it if you can § 27. P. 49. Falsly saying that I have not told him what Union of the Churches among themselves is necessary he feigns an Union in Christ the Center consistent with as great distance as the two Poles Ans. What base thoughts hath this man of Christianity Is it a contemptible Union to have all one Faith one Hope one Baptismal Covenant and so one God one Lord one Spirit and one body of such and all the Twelve parts of Union and Communion before named 2. Were it not worth the labour for this man to tell us what the more near and excellent Union is which he hath a mind to set up Paul saith I tell you of a more excellent way when he speaks of the Union of Love even Love to God and our Saviour first and to all his Members as united in him Out of all this man's books I cannot find what his nearer Union is unless it be to unite in such as he that is in obedience to their Wills and so Subjection to them be this high Communion He saith over and over the general word Catholick Communion but what he placeth it in let him find that can § 28. He saith This is a pretty easie way of determining Controversies to out-face all the authority of Scripture and Antiquity by a dogmatical assertion without offering the least Reason or shadow of Reason to confirm it Ans. Reader find one word of Scripture or true Antiquity that I contradict or that ever he shewed that I contradict and judg who giveth Reason and take not his word or
mine § 29. Saith he I had at large proved the necessity of one Catholick Communion to make one Catholick Church and instead of answering the proef he asserts the contrary upon his own naked authority and that must pass for confutation Ans. Could a man have spoken more untruly that had studied it 1. While he tells us that by Communion he means Union did I ever deny it No nor ever met with a Christian that denied it 2. Yea I said more than he That besides Union some Communion in transient acts is necessary which he placeth not his Communion in Is not this an hardened Disputer Who can doubt but Union and Communion is necessary to one Church But the doubt is wherein it doth consist whether in Essentials Integrals or Accidents and what these be We are far more for Catholick Union and Communion than you We are for Communion with all true Christians even those that you represent odious and excommunicate and ruin and you are for Communion with a Sect that will honour you and obey your will We know that to have one God and Christ and Holy Spirit one Faith and Hope of Heaven one Baptism and a true Love to one another and to be all under one Law and Covenant of Christ and in our several Assemblies to read the same Scripture use the same Sacraments and the same Rule of Prayer the Lord's Prayer and Praise this is a most excellent Catholick Communion We believe that true Christian Unity is the Unity of the Spirit that is mental in Faith Hope and Love but that it must be held exercised and preserved in the bond of peace Eph. 4 3. And therefore if any Christian take it for a sin to joyn with us in the circumstances of Worship if we can we 'l alter them to satisfie them If we cannot we will gladly allow them to worship God together in their own circumstances and there we will love and pray for one another We will not cut men off from Christ or the Catholick Church and damn them for not swearing or saying that they will obey us and that there is nothing sinful in any of our Government Liturgies Forms or Ceremonies Our Union is in greater matters common to all Christians and not in wearing the same fashions and reading the same forms and obeying the usurpers of the power of the Keys that are Lay-men c. And as for having obligation and right to Communion with all other Churches which is all that I can gather he placeth it in save obeying the same Bishops and Canons we make no doubt of such right to be used in due order And therefore we condemn all Church Tyrants that deny men their right And we do not believe that our right is in the power of Prelates to take from us unless we forfeit it and cast it away And we grant obligation to due Communion as well as right and therefore will be no such Separatists as you are that refuse Communion with Dissenters in their Churches yea condemn all that do but call them Churches And seeing no man is obliged to sin we disown their crime that will not let men preach nor communicate unless they will make a solemn Covenant to sin The Catholick Communion that he seems to aim at is to receive and reject the same persons in every Church that are received in or rejected by any one We are for as much of this as is needful to the purity and peace of the Church But we do not believe that all the Christian World is bound to take all the godly persons for excommunicate who shall be excommunicated here according to the 5 th 6 th 7 th 8 th c. Canons of the Church of England nor to silence all Ministers that you silence When we were newly silenced 1662. some great men were imployed to affirm That if we would go and preach to the Americans it was an excellent work and they would bear our charges I told them that our lives would be spent e're we could learn their Languages as fit to preach to them But it seems if we had gone Catholick Communion would have silenced us there too and have obliged the Americans if we converted them to reject us What if Bishops excommunicate men for not paying the Civilians their Fees or for not repenting of a truth or silence us for not assenting and consenting to all in their book must all the World reject us in conformity to them It 's an heinous crime for any one man to draw a Nation to sin with him but much more to engage all the Christian World to sin with him yea and that on pretence of Catholick Communion Christ saith by his Spirit in his Apostle Him that is weak in the faith receive and receive one another as Christ received us If Bishops silence and excommunicate even them that ate strong in the Faith must all the World disobey Christ to obey them If you grant that clave errante they bind not must we take their bare words that claves non errant or must we become Tryers and Judges of all the World that they will judg And how shall all Churches receive the same that some receive when you know not whom you receive your selves Are all the score thousands that are in some of your great Parishes in your Church Must all the World take all the Sadduces Hobbists Infidels and Damners that dwell in your Parishes into their Communion No nor all that come to the Altar when the Priest knows not who they be and never saw them before Do you use to write Testimonial Letters for every one of your Communicants when he travelleth into other Parishes or Diocesses Any man save a Nonconformist that had rather take the Sacrament than lie in Goal is admitted unless some rare Minister stop a notorious scandalous man till the Court absolve him If you make a Prison of your Church and say to all men Chuse this or Newgate c. must all the World receive such because they chuse the Church-Prison rather than the other And if we cannot possibly know which of our Neighbours be of your Church and which not in the same Parish e. g. Martins Giles c. how shall we know who hath right to Communion all the World over You must needs cast us on believing the Bishops words when as 1. They use not to give the World such notice 2. If they did we know not forreign Bishops credibility in France Spain Italy Poland Germany c. they most separate from one another § 30. P. 50. He proceeds He takes that for granted which I can never grant him That the Churches which are divided from one another by separate and opposite Communions may yet be all united to Christ for Christ hath but one Body one Spouse one Flock one Church and if we be not Members of this one Church as no Schismâ—ticks are we are not united to Christ Ans. 1. The Lord have mercy then
proper Authority but only in such matters as concern the Unity of the Episcopacy or the Peace and Communion of the Catholick Church If a Bishop be convicted of Heresie or Schism or some great wickedness or impiety they may depose him and forbid his people to communicate with him and ordain another in his stead because he subverts the Unity of the Faith or divides the Unity of the Church or is himself unfit for Communion Ans. 1. Either these are meant as acts of Government or not If yea then why do you so oft disclaim it and call it only Advice and Communion Then you place this governing Power in Forreigners when they are no further off than with ease and convenience we may confederate with them And whither this will lead I 'le not enquire If nay then it seems men may depose Bishops and set up or ordain others in their stead without any governing Power over them If so then by Authority you must mean Authoritatem Doctoris vel Nimcii and so I confess Pastors may in Christ's Name require other Churches to do their duty and not Authoritatem Regentis And if so it 's as true that when there is just cause a few may depose many as many depose a few But men use not to call it deposing and ordaining in his place when men do but charge others in Christ's Name to do their duty I find not thaâ— St. Martin excommunicated the Bishops and Synods in Ithacius and Idacius time but I find that he renounced Communion with them and so may Equals do § 43. P. 140. he saith The sensless imputation of Cassandrianism and French Popery is managed so knavishly by Mr. Lob and with such blind fury by Mr. Baxter with so much confusion c. Ans. The Terms I wonder not at but whatever we are for Knavery or blind Fury if this man help us against Confusion it 's strange § 44. P. 173. he grants that the Bishops are not the Governours of the Church as united in one common regent Head over the whole Church but as every Bishop governeth his own share And this of true Bishops who denieth him P. 183. It is but a voluntary combination and stricter associasion for preserving Unity by advice c. All this is good tho damned by him in the Independents if they would combine to rule according to the Laws of Christ and not make any of their own without authority nor so as to accuse Christ's Laws of insufficiency nor make dividing noxious snares § 45. Saith he p. 189. That this Church is Universal is founded on the Laws of Catholick Communion Ans. No Humane Laws make the Church Universal Men may make their own Subjects or Confederates unite in accidents either just as in one Translation of Scripture one time and place and meeting c. or unjust when it 's hurtful vain or belongs not to them but it is only he that maketh the Church a Church who thereby maketh it One Church in Essentials And in Integrals he that maketh it entire by institution or efficiency 2. This Union is founded in mens Unity in Christianity Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. § 46. P. 192. He saith The Association and Confederacy of Neighbour-Churches is founded on the Law of Catholick Communion and the Catholick Communion cannot be maintained without it Ans. Not without Baptismal Confederaâ—y in the necessary Duties commanded by Christ But as to your Confederacies in Humane new Church-Forms Patriarchal Metropolitan c. was not the Church One without them before they were invented Here he maketh voluntary Confederacies to make new Church-Canons or Laws of Discipline necessary to Unity and that Unity necessary to Salvation all being cut off from Christ that break it As if Christ had not made Laws enough necessary to salvation and he that only kept his Laws and not mens Canons could not be saved Can he tell us then where to fix our Religion On what Bishops and on what Canons I am certain that his Religion will not stand with certainty of salvation when no man can be certain what is necessary to salvation nor what de novo will by Bishops be made necessary the next year nor who those Bishops must be 2. See here again When he made it a renouncing our Christianity to confederate and associate to do mens duty in a particular Church he yet maketh it necessary to Unity and so to salvation by confederacy to make new Humane Church Forms All this is to bring all mens salvation opinionatively into the power of those that can get uppermost as if men could as easily damn others as themselves § 47. P. 200 201. saith he If the Church cannot be a Political Society without one constitutive Regent Head then the Church is not a Political Society for it neither has nor can have any such on Earth over the whole Ans. We thank you for that much But the Church is a Political Society and to deny it is to deny an Article of the Creed and to unchurch it quoad ipsam formam And Christ is its constitutive regent Head The whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named by him from whom the whole compacted body is increast and edified And it 's dangerous false Doctrine worse than breaking one of your Canons to hold that the Church cannot be a Political Society unless it have an Head on Earth § 48. He adds when I shewed that all Episcopal Writers as Hooker Spalatensis c. of Church Polity take the Church for one Body Politick But what is this to the purposo Does Hooker set up one Regent Head Ans. 1. Yes Christ. 2. Was it not directly to my purpose to prove it a Polity which was that which I alledged it for But saith he do any of them prove That Civil and Ecclesiastick Polity is the same thing Ans. Yes in genere Do they use the word equivocally Is not Polity or Government in Civils and Ecclesiasticks Polity in genere How can these else be distinct species of it Was this ever denied by Conformist before Saith he ' Do not the Civil and Ecclesiastick Commonwealth differ as much as the Church and the State Ans. And do not Church and State differ in specie as being both Politick Bodies sub uno genere He adds Therefore he must still prove That as one supreme Regent Head is necessary to the Unity of a State or Kingdom so it is to the Unity of the Church which will be a fair advance towards Popery Ans. 1. Every Christian holds That Christ is the Head over all things to his Church But every Christian says not That this is an advance to Popery Is Christianity Popery 2. Is one State and Kingdom all the World All that I have to prove is That as all the Earth is one Divine Kingdom God being the absolute Soveraign and each particular Kingdom is part of it a Political Body subordinate informed by its One Humane Soveraign even so the Universal Church is one Body
Pastors have to the Universal Church will enable any of them more or fewer confederate or not ex authoritate Ministri Nuncii to tell any other Bishops or Churches of heinous scandalous sin and admonish them and renounce Communion with the impenitent and exhort people to forsake Heretick Bishops c. But all this as Equals and not as the fixed Overseers of other Churches nor as Rulers of other Pastors And so one Martin may do by a Synod of Bishops IX Kings are as truly and I think as much obliged to do their work in Concord and Communion The contrary dreadful Doctrine of Dr. Parker for setting up an Vniversal Council of Princes to govern all the Kings on earth is to be confuted elsewhere as also his subjecting Christ to Kings which implieth that they may command reward and punish him as Bishops And Kingship is as truly One as Episcopacy That is 1. It is of the same species 2. Under the same Universal King 3. Governed by the same Universal Laws 4. Bound to regard the Good of all the Church and World above that of their own Kingdoms 5. And bound to contribute the utmost of their Wit Interest and Power for the said common good of Church and World And because all the Kings in Europe may do more to this common good of all than Bishops without them can do I may say That they are bound hereto rather more than less than the Bishops As a rich man is bound to liberality more than a poor man and one that hath the Tutorage of Princes and Nobles Sons or a Physician that hath an Hundred such Patients is bound to more care and more bound to care than another And all Kingdoms are as truly parts of God's Kingdom over men as all Churches are parts of the Universal Church If Justices or Mayors will of themselves make a New Body Politick by Confederacy and Association and say We claim no Superiority but an Authority in order to Communion to make Laws of Government for the Kingdom or many Counties and should say It is One Kingdom as Unified by this Communion and these Laws of ours and not by their Relation to one King I should doubt whether to call them Sots or Rebels or Traitors § 5â— P. 206 207. he boldly repeateth How oft have I told him what it is that makes the Catholick Church One Catholick Church which is the constitutive Form he enquires after viz. Not one superior power over the whole Church but one Communion and this Communion is in Humane Forms and Canons Ans. How oft doth he tell us that which if a Dissenter had asserted I should have thought the Name of an Heretick too gentle for him as coming so near the denying both of the Church and Christ. See here the Church is not made One and so not made the Church by its unitive Relation to Christ the Head He is not the constitutive Regent Form but a Voluntary Agreement to make Laws of Government c. is the constitutive Form And yet he saith before It is not made by Man but God § 51. But p. 220. he disgraceth the Dean by these words Mr. B. indeed says That the Universal Church is headed by Christ himself But as the Dean adds this doth not remove the difficulty For the question is about the Visible Church whereof the particular Churches are parts and they being visible parts do require a visible constitutive Regent Head as essential to them Therefore the whole Visible Church must likewise have a visible constitutive Regent Head Ans. Dangerously false and the Fundamental Principle of Popery When they know how frequently the Papists are answered to this by Protestants and I told them how fully I had answered it to Iohnson and oft why have we no Reply but say over and over the same things Viz. 1. No Kingdom nor thing is Visible simpliciter but secundum quid Our King is not visible in Ireland nor but to â—ew in England His soul is visible to none nor his body save the outward Accidents If he were seen by none but Courtiers it were a Visible Kingdom 2. In all these Respects the Church is Visible 1. The Bodies of the Subjests are Visible 2. Their Oath af Allegiance Baptism and Profession are Visible 3. Christ lived Visibly on Earth 4. He is Visible in Heaven to his Courtiers 5. He hath one Visible Law and Covenant to govern all his Church 6. He hath Visible Officers 7. He hath Visible administrations of Mercy and Justice by himself and his Officers 8. And he is coming to Judgment Visibly and all Eyes shall see him Now the Controversie is either de re or de nomine De re none but a false Teacher will deny any one of these that I say not a gross Heretick 2. De nomine either this much may warrant the Name of a Visible Church or not If not we must go the old way of some former Protestants and say That the Chatholick Church is not Visible And for ought I see we must say That the Kingdom of Ireland if not of England is Invisible because few see the King and no man ever saw the Soul of King or Subjects or their Bodies save the skin If all this warrant not the Name of Visible Church the Confederacy of an unknown Company of Bishops will not But remember that the Controversie is but de nomine and we say more by far to prove it Visible than you do while you deny Popery § 52. P. 2â—5 I Argued That if a Regent Supreme be the informing part of a Diocesan Metropolical c. Church so must it he of the Catholick if the word Church be used univocally Hence he inferreth that I thus argue If there be not a Supreme Head over the whole Church there is no such over any part So little doth he understand an Argument When as I argued only from the parity of Reason That if the summa potestas be not the Form of the Catholick Church then it is not of Diocesan Churches But it is of Diocesan Churches as is confest Ergo This supposeth that they confess Christ to be the summa potestas Therefore I say He must be the Constitutive Form The man blusht not here to say That I infer A Bishop cannot govern his own Church unless one Bishop or a Colledge govern the whole How little Belief is due to such a Man § 53. P. 844. He saith I think it as certain That those Churches cannot be Members of the Catholick Church whose Communion is unlawful Answ. Seeing it is plain That he meaneth not only mental Communion in Essentials of which it's true but local Communion in outward Acts I take him to be one of the grossest Schismaticks that ever I had to do with and one of the greatest Enemies to Christian Catholick Love If any could prove it unlawful to have Ministerial Communion in England where he cannot have it without declaring Assent and Consent to all
thingt in their three Books that would not prove the Church of England no part of the Catholick Church If a Lay-man could prove it unlawful to trust other men with his Child in Baptismal Covenanting as far as the Church here doth or sinful to joyn in avoiding the Communion of all such gâ—dly men as the Canons or a Lay-Civilian may Excommunicate This will not prove the Church of England no part of the Catholick Church If any Church will deny men Communion unless they subscribe to some one small Untruth as the Liturgies false Rule to find out Easter-day or a mis-translation or the denial that Christ died for all c. this doth not unchurch them all But men have made so many snares by their numerous invented sinful forms of Communion that by such schsmatical Censures as this one scarce knows what Church on Earth is â—ot unchurched § 54. He saith Where there is 〈◊〉 bâ—â—ach of Communion no declared 〈…〉 act of communiâ—n between 〈…〉 be in communion with each 〈…〉 You may say of them what you will But all these Negatives speak no positive Act And is Communion nothing but Negations All this I may say of those that never heard of each others being 2. There may be an express disowning of each as the Romans did the Asians about Easter and the Africans about rebaptizing and the Britains disowned Augustine and as some disown a Pair of Organs or neglect of Discipline c. And yet both be parts of the Catholick Church § 55. P. 326. He is so Catholick in Doctrinals as to say that We may safely communicate with any Church how different soever our Opinion in other Matters may be when we agree in all the Fundamentals of Christian Faith and Essentials of Worship Answ. What could one wish more Is this the same Man May you not then admit those that so far agree with you Are all your humane Associations and Confedearcies and all the Laws for Church-Discipline and Government made by men that have no Legislative Power Essentials of Worship or Fundamental Doctrines of Faith Are all that your foresaid Canons Excommunicate Men for such Essentials If this much be enough in the Church notwithstanding all other Sins and Errors why not in those that you should receive But it seems by this that Matters of Divine Faith and Worship besides bare Essentials are small things to him in comparison of Bishops Rules and Canons § 56. Pag. 395. He saith To separate causelesly from any true and sound part of the Catholick Church cuts such Separatists off from the Church If they will justifie their Separation they must prove that what is Enjoyned is Sinful Answ. 1. Have you answered what they have said and said again towards a Proof Remember that you call them to it and justifie their Separation if they prove it 2. But your Conclusion is false and odious leaving it doubtful what part of the Christian World you damn not If I could prove that you separate causelesly from the Nonconformists doth that certainly cut you from all the Church I doubt there are too few Christians on earth who do not in some degree separate causelesly from others Grotius joyned with no Church locally in Worship long before he died Most of the Church in East West South and North is damned falsly by this Rule He that doth but causelesly separate pro tempore from a Preacher by Passion or Mistake as Mr. Martin aforesaid from Mr. Lapthâ—rne separate causelesly from a true and sound part of the Christian Church His words make me think so sadly of the Case of the Church that must be tempted and distracted by such men as puts me far from a sporting frame But as Dr. Twisse and some of the Gravest Writers sometime divert their Readers with a sad Story that hath somewhat in it ridiculous why may I not put him another such Case At Bridgenoth before 1639. One Parson Crosse a thorough Conformist Preacht a Sermon In which inveighing against Marriage he said If you marry a Widow She will be like a Banbury Cheese when all the Paring is cut off there 's little left So when all Portions and Legacies are paid â— Whoever Maid or Widow if you will hope for a Wife and virtuâ—us Woman you must be like a Man that will find out one Ele in a Barrel of Snakes It 's a hundred to one you miss her But if you light on her you have but a wet Snig by the Tail a slippery handful Now the Women were angry with the Preacher he was an Orthodox Licens'd Man They separate from him Quere Whether they separated from the Catholick Church Reader I am tired with following this Writer and Mr. Crosse's Sermon makes me think of his Book By that time all the wordy mistakes are pared off the good matter is like his pared Banbury Cheese And if you fish for them at a venture it 's great odds but you meet with some scurvy words or matter instead of them Or if you light of that which is better his Sence is so uncertain in undistinguisht words that you have but Mr. Crosse's wet Snig by the Tail But not to seem more incredulous and indifferent from him than I am I subscribe to his words to Mr. Humphrey pag. 226. Ignorance and Insensibility is as great a security to some Men against Shame as Impudence is to others And to his words to Mr. Lobb pag. 388. What a blessed thing is Ignorance which helps Men to confute Books without Fear or Wit And I do acknowledge That this â—r hath helpt me more sensibly to understand St. Paul 1 Tim. 3.6 Not a Novice lest being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil FINIS UNNECESSARY SEPARATING disowned in the Reasons of the Authors Censured Practice § 1. WHEN I see 1. How many suffer for refusing Communion with the Parish Churches 2. And how many are offended with Me and such others for Communicating with them censuring Us as mistaking compliers with Sin The Cause and some good Peoples request invite me to answer these following Questions I. Whether Men should be compelled to Communicate with any Church by Corporal Penalties II. Whether they who consent to Communicate with some Church may chuse their own Pastor and Company or may by force be confined to their Parish Priest and Church III. For what Reasons I and such others Hear in and Communicate with the Parish Churches And whether so to do be a Sin or a Duty or a thing Indifferent § 2. I. To the first case I answer 1. It were happy if the Sword could compel Unbelievers to Believe but it cannot nor is a way which Nature or Scripture ever allowed Man to use for such an end 2. To force an Unbeliever to Lie by saying he Believeth is a Sin 3. An Infidel must not be Baptized till he profess with seeming Seriousness and Willingness that he Believeth in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and will Vow
tho those that in 1661. brought us into this state do manifest no repentance 10. Lastly I find that our mutual Censures and Separations greatly hinder the success of the whole Ministry against sin while they seek to bring each other into disesteem and teach the people to disesteem them all and some will not hear one sort and some the other The rest of my Reasons you may gather from the fore recited Reasons of my Practice § 12. I confess that ad hominâ—m the Canons Excommunicating us may stop the mouths of the severe Canonists if they accuse us Would they not have us take their Canons to signifie their will concerning the extent of their Church-Communion Or would they have Excommunicate persons come to Church All that do but own Non-conformity by a word are ipso facto Excommunicate till they publickly repent of it as a wicked Error And their Writers Damn those as Schismaticks that obey them not And so consequentially all that they call Indifferent and Impose are made necessary by some men to Salvation I haâ—e this at my heart But yet it is not all the Parish-Ministers that like these Excommunicating Canons And they are not bound to reject me till the Fact be proved and I am not bound to do Execution on my self but I am bound to all Offices for Love and Concord I doubt not but some of the Excommunicating Clergy will set these two Writings against each other and say as their Tutor and Advocate doth that R. is against B. and that I am hardly reconcilable with my self but if goggle Eyes judge each line to be a yard distant from another I cannot cure them but I can bear their Disease and the effects And if any will make use of my detection of the mistakes of conscionable peaceable Christians in some matters of Communion to have a pretence to revile and persecute them I enter my Protestation before God against them and warn them to remember that while they condemn others for Infirmities of so small a degree as few men are free from they raise up matter of terror to their own Consciences when awakened who have so much more heinous Sin to answer for before a holy dreadful God even those little 〈◊〉 of whose scandalizers and neglecters Christ spake so terribly were none of them without some Sin Though Paul and Barnabas differed to a parting neither of them was silenced for it nor called a Schismatick If all shall be ipso facto Excommunicated who have far greater Sin than humbly and peaceably saying There is something sinful in some part of the Liturgy Ceremonies Articles Subscription or in some that bear office in the Church as to Government I am past all doubt that there will no one living either Prelate or Priest Lord or Peasant be left to be a Member of their Church and that by parity of reason they have Excommunicated every person in the land however the predominancy of their Wills and Interests above the Will of Christ and the interest of the Church and Souls may still bewitch them into a confidence that those are the worst Men who most cross their carnal will and interest and that the most ungodly are fitter for their Church Communion than they Psal. 14.4 Have all the workers of Iniquity no Knowledge who eat up my people as they eat bread and call not upon the Lord Acts 28.30 31. And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house at Rome and received all that came in unto him Preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord Iesus Christ with all confidence no man forbidding him 1 Thes. 2 15 16. Who hoth killed the Lord Iesus Christ their own prophets and have persecuted us and they please not God and are contrary to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alway For the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost James 5.7 Be patient Brethren unto the coming of the Lord. And if both sides call me worse than I am for these displeasing Admonitions I say as St. Paul Gal. 1.10 If I yet pleased men I should not be the Servant of Christ. 1 Cor. 4.3 4. With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of mans judgment He that judgeth me is the Lord. Senec. Nemo pluris virtutem aestimat quam qui boni viri fâ—mam perdidit ne virtutem perderet Jan. 10. 1680. AN ACCOUNT OF THE REASONS WHY THE TWELVE ARGUMENTS Said to be Dr. IOHN OWEN's Change not my Judgment about Communion with Parish-Churches By RICHARD BAXTER 1 Thes. 5.21 Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Pet. 3.15 Be ready always to give an answer to every man who asketh you a Reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear Gal. 2.11.12 13 14. When Peter was come to Antioch I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed For he withdrew and separated himself fearing them which were of the circumcision And the other Iews dissembled likewise with him insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulations But when I saw that they walked not uprightly c. Acts 11.2 3. They that were of the circumcision contended with Peter saying Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with them 2 Tim. 2.20 In a great house there are not only Vessels of gold and of silver but also of wood and of earth and some to honour and some to dishonour LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers-Chappel 1684. THE PREFACE REader when the last sheet of the foregoing Paper was Printed I received these Twelve Arguments famed to be Dr. John Owen's Whether Fame truly or falsly father them I know not It is the Cause that I am concerned in After Three and Twenty years practice since the Bishops return I was by Accusations called to give the Reasons of my Practice which yet I had often done in part before They said That my communicating in the Parish-Churches even when my self and others were maliciously persecuted by a sort of proud and worldly Clergy-men did more harm than ever I did good Tho I am bound with meekness to â—ender them a Reason of my practice I have found by experience that neither side can bear the account which they call for Some wise and good men will blame me for making our differences to be so much known especially for remembring old miscarriages I obey my Conscience All these things are commonly known already and we hear sharply of them from God and Man because Men hear not our Repentance but our Iustification Had we confâ—st God is faithful to forgive Impenitence threatens our yet greater suffering When we give glory to God and take shame to our selves our hopes will revive Nothing bringeth so much scandal and armeth Enemies against us as owning sin or hiding it
so of Politick Bodies of the same species But the Churches of Ephesus Smyrna Thyatira Philadelphia c. were of divers matter and form numerically Ergo they were divers Political Churches Sure God doth not commend Laodicea for Philadelphia's Church Virtues nor condemn the Church of Philadelphia for the other Churches Sins And if the Angels be Bishops why are some Bishops praised as the Bishops of such Churches and the Bishops of other Churches threatned But I confess this is a ready way to end the Controversies between the Bishops of several Churches which shall be greatest if they be all but one But I hope that when the Bishop of Rome and his Church was corrupted it is not true that every Bishop and Church fell with him or with any that hath turned to Mahumetanism To be no longer on this which I thought no Prelatist would ever have put me on if these men speak not notoriously against Scripture against the constant Language of Canons and Fathers Historians and Lawyers and all Antiquity and all Christian Countreys and Divines yea even those that at Trent would have had only the Pope to be of immediate Divine Right then I know not any thing by Reading And if poor Nonconformists must be put to defend themselves against such singularities and be Schismaticks unless they will differ from all the Christian World of all Ages there is no Remedy § 7. But p. 5 6. he tells us that a Church is made by a Divine Covenant God only can constitute a Church Such Persons if there be any so absurd are not worth disputing with who dare affirm the Church to be an humane Creature or the invention of men And no Church can depend on humane Contracts for then a Church would be a humane Creature and Constitution whereas a Church can be founded only on a Divine Covenant 1. Who would think but this man were a Nonconformist that talks so like them e. g. Amesius in Medul Theol. against humane Church Forms But what then will Bishop Bilson and almost all other Bishops and Christians be thought of who affirm Patriarchal and Metropolitical Churches and many of the Diocesane to be but humane Constitutions and Inventions And if these be not worth the disputing with it seems that you differ from them more than Separatists do and then were not all these Schismaticks and then are not you a Schismatick if you communicate with them yea your Mr. Dodwel himself maketh Diocesan Churches to be a humane Creature and A. Bishop Bromhall much pleadeth for mans power to make Patriarchal Churches and so do such others 2. But is it true that humane Contracts make not a Church Ans. No◠alone But I think that all Churches are made by mutual Contracts and humane is one part of that which is mutual I. As to the Vniversal Church 1. God as Legislator and Donor instituteth the species of Covenanting by Baptism and therein he commandeth mans consent to his offered Covenant and conditionally promiseth to be our God But Conditionale nihil ponit in esse This much maketh no Christian nor Church To command a man to be a Christian and conditionally to promise him life if he will be one proveth him not to be one else all were Christians that reject an offered Christ. 2. But when man consenteth and covenanteth with God then Gods conditional gift becomes actual and efficacious the man being a capable Recipient and not before and in this it is the Contract that is the Fundamentum Relationis but a single Promise is not a mutual Covenant or Contract So that it is no wiser Divinity to say Gods Covenant and not mans consent Covenant or Contract with God doth make Christians and the universal Church than it is sober Reason to say That Gods Institution of Marriage or Magistracie only doth make the Relation of Husband and Wife without their covenanting consent or doth make Common-wealths without the consent or Covenant of Sovereign and Subjects Did this Doctor think that Voluntariness is not as necessary to the Relation of Christianity as to the Relation of Prince and Subjects yea or of Husband and Wife if he do he is shamefully mistaken Baptism delivereth men possession of Pardon Grace and right to Glory and can men have this against their wills One would think by the Doctrine and course of some men that they could force men to Pardon and Salvation if I believed that their force could accomplish this I would never call it Persecution If they can force men to be true Christians they may force them to be justifyed and saved and then they are very uncharitable if they do not Let them then cease preaching and disputing us to their Opinion but bring us all to Heaven whether we will or not Yea the self-contradictor playing fast and loose confesseth p. 6. That no man at age can be admitted to Baptism till he profess his faith in Christ and voluntarily undertake the Baptismal Vow And is not that humane Covenanting Yea he knoweth that the Liturgie maketh even Neighbours or Strangers vow and covenant both in the name of the Child and for the Child And so necessary doth the Episcopal Church think humane Covenanting that without this no Child must be Baptized publickly though the Parents would covenant and that they can neither for Love nor Money for many poor men hire Godfathers get any one much less three who examined will seriously purpose to perform the Covenant for the Child 's holy Education which they make II. But is not humane Covenanting a cause of single Church Relation as well as of universal I see no cause to doubt it and I am sure that the Church for a thousand years before and since Popery came in have declared him no Bishop that comes in without consent of Clergie and People which Consent is their covenanting act To make a single Church manifold consent goeth to the Fundamentum Relationis 1. God commandeth single Church Officers order and consent and promiseth them his blessing where they are met The Lord and his Angels are among them No command is vain and without a virtual Promise 2. To this a threefold humane consent is needful Ordinarily 1. the Persons called 2. The Ordainers when it may be had 3. The Peoples He that formerly from the Apostles dayes for a thousand years should have said that neither the covenanting that is the consent of the Pastor or People or Ordainers is necessary to the Fundamentum of a single Church Relation or Form would have been taken for a wild-brain'd Schismatick at least § 8. But saith this Doctor and another of them p. 6. But the Independent Church Covenant between Pastor and people is of a very different nature from this Vnless any man will say that the voluntary Contract and Covenant which the Independents exact from their Members and wherein they place a Church state be part of the Baptismal vow if it be not then they found the Church upon a
the same place their neighbourhood maketh them capable of Personal presential Communion as men that may know and admonish each other and meet by turns and in presence manage their concerns which differenceth single Churches of the lowest order from associated Churches of men that have Communion only by others at distance XV. As Logicians say of other Relations the matter must be capable of the end or it is not capable of the name and form so is it here e. g. It is no Ship that is made of meer Sponge or Paper or that is no bigger than a Spoon it is no Spoon that is as big as a Ship One House is not a Village nor one Village a City nor a City a meer House So twenty or an hundred or a thousand Parishes associate cannot be a single Church of the first or lowest Order being not capable of mutual Knowledge Converse or personal present Communion Nor are two or three Lay-men capable to be such a Church for want of due matter But supposing them capable thô a full and rich Church have advantage for Honour and Strength yet a small and poor one is ejusdem ordinis as truely a Church and so is their Pastor as Hierom saith of Rome and Eugubium so Alexandria and Majuma c. Gregory Neocaesar was equally Bishop of nineteen at first as after of all save nineteen in the City XVI If the Apostles have Successours in their care and Superiority over many Churches it will prove that there should yet be men of eminent worth to take care of many Churches and to instruct and admonish the younger Ministers But it will neither prove 1. That they succeed the Apostles in the extraordinary parts of their Office 2. Nor that they have any forcing power by the Sword 3. Nor that one Church hath power over others by Divine right for the Apostles fixed not their power to any particular Churches but were general Visitors or Overseers of many Yet if the same Man who is fixed in a particular Church have also the visiting admonishing oversight of many as far as was an Ordinary part of the Apostles Office and be called an Archbishop I know no Reason to be against him XVII There be essential and Integral Acts of the Sacred Ministry instituted by Christ These none may take the Power of from any Ministers nor alter the species or integrity of the Office by setting up any such Superious as shall deprive them of that which Christ hath instituted or arrogating the like uncalled But as in worship so in Order and Church Government there are undetermined accidents As to choose the time and place of Synods to preside and moderate and such like And these the Churches by agreement or the Magistrate may assign to some above the rest And if the Magistrate affix Baronies Honours Revenues or his own due Civil forcing Power and make the same Men Magistrates and Ministers whether we think it prudent and well done or not we must honour and obey them XVIII Some call these humane Accidental Orders forms of Church Government and affirm as Bishop Reignolds did and Dr. Stillingfleet in his Irenicon and many excellent men by him cited that no form of Church Government is of Divine Command Which is true of all this second sort of Government which is but Accidental and humane but not at all of the first sort which is Divine and Essential to Christ himself first and to Pastors as such by his appointment so that the essential Government of the Universal Church by Christ and of each particular Church by Pastors specified by him if not of Supervisors of many as succeeding Apostles and Evangelists in their Ordinary work are of unalterable Divine right But the humane forms are alterable Such I account 1. The Presidency and Moderatorship and accidental Government of one Bishop in a single Church over the other Presbyters Deacons c. 2. The accidental Government of a Diocesan as an Archbishop over these lowest Bishops and Churches 3. And the Superiority of Metropolitans and Patriarchs over them so it be but in such Accidentals and within the same Empire not imposing a forreign Jurisdiction These tota specie differ from the Divine Offices XIX All these single Church being parts of the Universal are less noble than the whole and are to do all that they do as members in Union with the Whole and to do all as Acts of Communion with them XX. The General precepts of doing all to Edification Concord Peace Order c. oblige all the Churches to hold such correspondencies as are needful to these Ends And Synods are one special means which should be used as far and oft as the Ends require And if National Metropolitans and Patriarchs order such Synods I am not one that will disobey them But if on these pretences any would make Synods more necessary than they are and use them as Governours by Legislation and Judgement over the Particular Bishops by the use of the Church Keyes and will affixe to them or Metropolitans besides an Agreeing Power and the said Government in Accidentals a proper Church Government by making and unmaking Ministers or Christians excommunicating and absolving as Rulers by the said Keyes it may be a duty to disown such usurpations As the King would disown an Assembly of Princes any where met that would claim a Proper Government of him and his Kingdom Thô it were much to be wisht that all Christian Princes would hold such Assemblies for the Concord and Peace of Christendom XXI The Essentials of Faith Hope and Loving Pracâ—â—ce essentiate the Church objectively And these are all summarily contained in the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalouge and all with much more even Integrals and needful Accidentals in the Sacred Scriptures which taking in the Law of Nature are Gods Universal Law XXII There is no Church on Earth so sound and Orthodox as to want no Integral part of Christian Religion Proved There is no man on Earth much less any multitude so sound as to want no Integral part But all Churches consist only of Men And therefore if all the Men be so far defective all the Churches are so It is not their Objective Religion Generally and implicitely received that I mean but their Subjective Religion and their explicite reception of the Objective The Scripture is our perfect Objective Religion in it self and as an Object proposed and in general and implicitely we all receive it But as a man may say I believe all that 's in the Scripture and yet be ignorant of the very Essentials in it so a man may explicitely know and believe all the Essentials and more and yet be ignorant of many Integrals All things in Scripture proposed to our Faith Hope and Practice are the Integrals of our Religion But no Christian understandeth all these proposals or words of Scripture Therefore no Christian explicitely believeth them all or practiceth all To hold the contrary
Convocations govern but as their Representatives 2. All that say that it is only the Bishops and not the Presbyters in Convocation that are the Governing Canon-making Church 3. All that say that the Clergy represent not King Nobles Parliaments Laiety and that these are true parts of the Church of England All these are ipso facto excommunicate 45. The 140. Canon Excommunicateth them that deny the Canons obligation of absent Dissenters which yet even many Papists deny of Councils Canons 46. The last Canon Excommunicateth all that contemn these Canons as taking them to be the work of a Company of Persons that conspired against Religious Godly men All this huge Catalogue are here excommunicate 47. If any part of all this be Schism Mr. Dodwell and this man seem to teach Separation from the Church of England Or if the late silencing hunting and ruining of two thousand Ministers were Schism and as bad as Bishop Taylor in Duct Dubit Mr. Hales of Eaton Chillingworth c. say of the like then these men make all the Church of England to be in as damnable a State as Adulterers and Murderers Yea they make all damnable Schismaticks that hold Communion with the Church of England for that is their Sentence on them that communicate with Schismaticks viz. that they are guilty of their Schism 48. They unchurch and damn the Churches of Corinth Galatia Laodicea Ephesus Smyrna c. in the Apostles dayes For the Scripture tells us of many guilty of Schism in all these and yet the rest communicated with them for the Scripture speaks more of Schism in a Church than of Schism or Separation from a Church Rom. 16.17 1 Cor. 1.10 3.3 11.18 Mat. 12 25. Luke 12. 52 53. 1 Cor. 12.25 Iam. 3.15 16. And yet no one was commanded to separate from those Churches no not from those that had Heresies among them such as denyed the Resurrection and taught Fornication and eating things offered to Idols that were drunk at the Sacrament or Love-Feasts nor those that had Jewish Schismaticks who talkt like ours Act. 15. Except ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses ye cannot be saved The Churches were not all unchurcht and damn'd that communicated with such Yea Peter was guilty of encouraging them in Schism that would not eat with the Christian Gentiles but he was not unchristened by this 49. They separate from or unchurch almost all the Ancient Churches in the dayes of the most famous Emperours and Councils For I have manifested past doubt that they almost all did Hereticate or separate from one another It was Schism either in Victor to Excommunicate the Asian Bishops or in them to deserve it and be excommunicate The owning or disowning several Councils specially that of Calcedon and that at Const. de tribus Capitulis c. was the Schism of almost all the Imperial Churches one part condemning the other And if either were in the Right it salves not the Case with them For most of the same men that went that way call'd the Right in one Princes Reign went contrary in the next and so condemned each other round especially about Images adoration 50. Hereby they cut off that Succession of that sort of Ordination which they say must be uninterrupted while it came down from Churches excommunicated by one another or make the Proof of it impossible 51. They separate from all the Greek Church at this day as guilty of Schism both in their Succession from Schismaticall Bishops at Constant Alexand. Antioch Ierusalem c. and in their excommunicating not only the Church of Rome for a wrong cause the filioque but other Churches and for divers Acts of Schism 52. They must by their Principles Separate from the Abassines Aegyptians Syrians and all the Eastern and Southern Churches that are called Iacobites and Nâ—storians For Councils and other Churches condemn them And they condemn the Councils of Ephesus and Calcedon and all since And they must separate from and condemn the Churches of Armenia Georgia Circassia c. because they separate from others and are separated from 53. Their Principles utterly unchurch the Church of Rome 1. Especially because it is guilty of the greatest Schism on earth by setting up a false Church form and head 2. And because they Schismatically condemn and Unchurch three parts of the Church on earth even all save their Sect 3. And for their many other Schismatical Doctrines and Practices 4. And as being condemned by the Greek Protestants and most Churches and separated from by the Church of England which they own 54. They separate in Principles from all or near all General Councils save the first as having separated from other Councils and condemned them and being again condemned by them 55. Some of them condemn and separate from all the Protestant Churches that have Bishops in Sweden Denmark Germany Transylvania c. because they had not their Ordination Successively from Bishops but Presbyters at the Reformation And because they have been guilty of Schism against others 56. The Principles of Mr. Dodwel and his Associates condemn the Church of England as Schismatical 1. Those that claim Succession from Rome whose own Succession hath been oft and long interrupted by incapacities and Schisms 2. For holding Communion with those Protestant Churches which these men call Schismaticks 57. They condemn and separate from all the Churches called Presbyterian in France Holland Geneva Scotland formerly and those in Helvetia that have no Bishops Thô some would threat kindness on them by saying that they would have them and cannot And why cannot they 58. Their Principles make the Bishop of Oxford Bristol c. Schismaticks For their Dioceses are Churches taken out of Churches being lately parts of other Dioceses 59. And they condemn all the Parish Churches in England as Churches distinct from Cathedrals For they are all Churches gathered out of Churches At first the Cathedrals were the only single Churches Next Monasteries were gathered and next our Parish Churches And the Parish Church of Covent-garden is a Church taken out of a Church 60. Their Principles damn St. Martin that separated to the death from all the Bishops Synods and them that were near him save one Man because they perswaded Maximus to use the Sword against Priscillian Gnosticks and brought men of strict Religion under Suspicion of Priscillianism And sure the ruined persecuted Protestants here are more Orthodox than the Priscillians And they damn Gildas that told the English Clergy that he was not eximius Christianus that would call them Ministers Do they not disgrace the many Churches dedicated to the Memory of St. Martin if he be a damned man I doubt they damn Paul and Barnabas for local angry separating from each other Whatever they do by Peter and Barnabas for the Separation blamed Gal. 2. 61. If all are Schismaticks that here conform not all those called Conformists are such that conform to the words in a false sence 62. They separate from
say Rom. 14.17 18. That Idolaters were acceptable to God or approved of men or Rom. 15. or bid them receive Idolaters as Christ received us He regulateth their Church-Meetings How many shall speak at a Meeting and by what course and order and that women shall be vailed and not men and that they salute each other with an holy Kiss c. not by a Law that setleth the Particulars but by the General Law of doing all in order and to edification and pleadeth not Institution but the Custom of the Churches which is alterable as the signification of such acts are And St. Iames will have the Elders anoint the sick with Oyl for recovery which yet bindeth not us The Papists use this as an Institution as they do imposition of hands in Confirmation They say in Ordination Receive the Holy Ghost and breathe on the Person They wash the feet of one another in imitation of Christ And yet these men condemn them in this as superstitious for imitating Christ and his Apostles and Scripture-Examples and cry down Popery and at the same time call us Idolaters for going beyond Scripture-institution The same I say of their keeping Lent in imitation of Christ's forty days fast c. Is it Idolatry both to follow and not to follow Scripture-Examples To all the rest I add one Instance more Swearing by appeal to God is a most solemn act of worship but the sign of taking an Oath is left free to convenient choice Abraham's Servant did it by putting his hand under his thigh Was this a common Law or Institution Others did it otherwise We do it by laying our hand on the Book and kissing it These are neither sinful additions or Idolatry The Memorial of God's Works and Mens Covenants were kept sometime by pitching Stones sometime by Pillars sometime by set days as the Feast of Purim sometime by laying up the Ensigns as Goliah's Sword c. And all these lawful and no Idoâ—latry IV. Lastly I will unveil these mens Doctrine of Separation and then judg whether it be the Doctrine of Christ which is a Law of Love and Union and Peace or the Wisdom from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle c. 1. â—t is false that all such Secondary Medal Worship is unlawful which is not instituted by a fixing Law 2. It is deceit not to distinguish these different things 3. The charge of false Worship unexplained is meer deceit 1. Worship is so far false as it is contrary to the Rule Every Sermon Prayer or Sacrament which we administer hath faultiness and sin and is so far false Worship 2. But Worship offered God on pretence that he instituted it when he did not or that Man hath authority to command the like is yet worse false Worship 3. And the worship of false Gods or Idols is yet worse than that and abhorred of God 4. His making all faulty circumstances such as he nameth to be Idolatry because false as he calls it is yet more sinful and of mischievous importance 5. So is it to make the Churches Idâ—ls Temples where they do kneel at the Sacrament and use the Liturgy 6. So is it to feign falsly that God calleth men to come out from such and be separate because he calleth them out of Babylon falsly adding to the Laws of God 7. By his Doctrine he maketh Christ an Idolater which I mention with horror For he 1. used Circumstances not instituted before or by himself He preached on a Mountain in a Ship c. not commanded He commended Mary for anointing him washing his Feet with Tears wiping them with her Hair not instituted in particular He commended the Publican for smiting on his breast standing far off not looking to Heaven without particular command His Custom was to go to the Synagogue-worship He from his childhood performed Temple-Duties and Service He commanded the Lepers cleansed to go to the Priests and offer their due and his Disciples to hear the Scribes and Pharisees in Moses Chair c. And yet 1. The High Priests were not of Aaron's line according to Institution 2. They bought the Office of Heathen Romans 3. They had it not for life according to institution 4. Doctrine Worship Discipline and Manners were heinously corrupted so that the Hearers were to beware of the Leaven of their Doctrine and not to imitate their lives 4. They were bitter enemies of Christ and Persecutors yet Christ never bid his Disciples to separate from any thing but their errors but saith They shall cast you out of the synagogues And doubtless Christ committed no sin nor can we be so holy as he 8. He condemneth Abraham and all the Iewish Church of old that used such things that were not instituted in Worship as is before mentioned in swearing c. 9. He maketh the Apostles Idolatrous that used the like 10. He maketh the Primitive Churches Idolatrous and the Scriptures to approve it For they used such uninstituted things yea the Romans were guilty of differences in God's Service and despising and judging each other for them The Corinthians were Carnal in making Parties and Divisions they defrauded each other and went to Law before Heathens They had Fornicators Judaizing envious Slanderers of Paul Heretical deniers of the Resurrection such as eat in Idols Temples or of their Sacrifices Were drunk at or before the Sacrament The Galatians are yet sharplier charged Almost all the Seven Churches Rom. 2. and 3. had Nicholaitans or Iezabels Doctrine which God hated and no Christian is called to separate from the Communion of any one of all these but commanded to amend and live in Unity without division 11. He condemneth as Idolaters all the Churches on Earth for Six Hundred if not One Thousand Years after the Apostles not One Church Christian or Heretick as far as any History tells us that I have found did ever deny such things as he calls False Worship or Idolatry They all went further than our Parish Churches do At Baptism they used the White Garment tasting Milk and Honey Chrisme or anointing the Forehead Crossing they adored onely Standing and not Kneeling every Lords Day all as significant Ceremonies No one Church or Person is said to scruple these I think they did not well but God rejected not their Worship 12. He maketh all or near all the Churches on Earth Idolaters at this day All on Earth save the Protestants are far grosser in their Liturgies and Ceremonies than the English Of the 〈◊〉 Sweden Denmark Saxony and all the Lutherans have Liturgieâ— Crossing Ceremonies Church-Images Consubstantiation The Helvetians are such as are called Erastians making the Magistrate the onely Ruler and Sacraments common Geneva and France yea and Hâ—lland have their Liturgies and some Rites 13. He condemneth Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists and all Dissenters that are here called Protestants For they have all many of the foresaid uninstituted things They put off the Hat in Church at Prayer They stand up at the
Bare Unity is more intelligible tho no one know wherein it must be § 39. He adds To preservt the Peace and Unity of Episcopacy it 's necessary that every Bishop do not only observe the same Rule of Faith but especially in matter of weight and consequence the same Customes and Usages and the same Laws of Discipline and Government and when any difficult case happens for which they have no standing Rule to consult Ans. The longer the worse If I ask him whether he mean such Customs and Usages as are part of God's Word materially commanded or commended in Scripture I know not what he will say but I strongly conjecture he will say No It is Tradition and Church-Customs not there mentioned If I ask how these come espcially to be mentioned as matter of weight and consequence he confesseth that God and not Man made the Church And is not God's Law sufficient to be its Universal Rule If man make these matters of weight man may unmake them 2. But is it not Universal Church-Communion that he is speaking of I provoke him to tell me if he can who on Earth hath power beside God and our Saviour to make Laws the same of Discipline and Government to the Universal Church Is not Legislation the prime part of Government Have not you oft denied any Humane Supreme Government under Christ over all the Church Do you not here say the contrary Know you not the difference between the Contracts of a Community and the Laws of a Polity It 's no true Law if it be not the act and instrument of a Rector to govern his Subjects If Twenty Kings meet or School-Masters Physicians c. and agree on certain Points of Government this maketh them not One Polity Kingdom or School Their Contracts are neither Laws to each other nor to their common Subjects but every King may make them a Law to his own Subjects 4. If you should mean only National Laws of Discipline and Government how come all the Churches in the World to be obliged to observe the same Laws e g. our Canons This as to Traditions is expresly contrary to our Articles of Religion which you subscribe And when the Church-Laws of all Countreys differ so much which must all be reduced to If you say They must all agree to those called the Codex Ecclesiae Universalis or the Four or Six first approved Councils c. I answer 1. It 's gratis dictum And how prove you those universally obligatory and no other And how will you satisfie Conscience which are the obligatory Laws indeed 2. Why do you then cast all from Communion that observe the 20 th Canon of the Council of Nice 3. What power have dead Bishops over us and all Christ's Church They were Canons for one Empire which is dissolved and of which we are no part 4. Is Christ so insufficient a Lawgiver even for Laws necessary to the Unity of his Church as that we must have more Laws of Government and Discipline which the Catholick Church must unite in or be no Church And shall that man plead for such Laws that yet saith There is no universal Governor I never said you are a Cassandrian or a Papist But it was such ignorant Doctors that saddled the Horse and held the Stirrup while the Pope got up § 40. This saith he makes it highly reasonable for Neighbour-Bishops at as great a distance as the thing is practicable with ease and convenience as the Bishops of the same Province or Nation to live together in a strict Assâ—ciation and Confederacy to meet in Synods to oblige themselves to the same Rules of Discipline and Worship There may be a primacy of order granted to some Bishops and their Chair by general consent and under the regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons for the preservation of Catholick Unity Ans. You make this Catholick Unity essential to the Church And yet doth it lie in Humane Canons and Assâ—ciations Did Christ leave things so essential to Humane Invention And is concord in your Canons necessary to salvation And yet the proof of all this is but this and such Doctors Assertion that it's highly reasonable And so Unity and Salvation must lie on all that such will think highly reasonable 2. If Subjects may thus make their own Laws no doubt they will make them suitable to their Natures and Inclinations And it 's confest that oft the most even of Bishops are bad and worldly men and suitable to their Ends and Interests How many would be glad if Soveraigns would thus let Subjects make their own Laws 3. But how were the Canons or Laws of a National Church to be a Rule to all the Church on Earth and necessary to its Unity 4. And how comes this man that made it damnable in the Independents to make a Church-Covenant as if they renounced Baptism now to make Church-Associations and Confederacies to be so necessary to Catholick Unity Truly I know no answer for the man but the same that Binnius giveth us when Pope Iohn and Hormisda gave a contrary determination de fide on the question Whether it may be said that One of the Trinity was crucified One said Yea But the Nâ—storians taking hold of it the other said Nay Ita mutatis hostibus saith Bâ—â—nius arma necessario mutanda sunt That 's true when it 's for themselves which is false when it 's for others 5. But it was modestly done to confine these Confederacies to the greatest distance that the thing is practicable with ease and convenience And so he fairly denieth General Councils and after more plainly But when the Armenians Syrians Abassines Greeks c. cannot with ease and convenience go above Five or Six Hundred miles at most and so each Countrey hath different Customs Laws and Canons Can the Catholick Church obey them all § 41. P. 127. This saith he seems to be the true Original of Archiepiscopal and Metropolitical Churches Ans. If so I will not believe that they are necessary to Catholick Unity and Salvation till I know who invented them and whether they had as good a Commission as the Apostles 2. If Bishops made the first Achbishops and Parish-Bishops say others the first Diocesans and Presbyters the first Parish-Bishops then 1. Inferiors may make Superiors and give the power which they never had 2. Why then may they not ordain Equals and propagate their species 3. Then Presbyters or Bishops are of God and Archbishops of Men. § 42. Page 128. Saith he Every Bishop is the proper Governour of his own Diocess and cannot be regularly imposed on against his consent Ans. Yet even now He that causelesly breaks this Union is no Catholick Bishop It seems then it goeth not by Vote but a Dissenter may be a free Catholick I pray you then impose not on others against their conâ—ent The whole Authority saith he of any Bishop or Council over other Bishops is founded on the Laws of Catholick Communion Therefore they have no
judgment entangleth a man in sin whether he follow it or not And there is no possibility of avoiding the sin but by using God's helps till his judgment be set right For Conscience is not the Maker of the Law but the Discerner of it And the Law-maker changeth not his Law because men change their thoughts of it But while men are under a self-made necessity of sinning the lesser sin and the greater may be distinguished e. g. If you mis-judg it unlawful to keep a Saints day holy to eat Flesh on Fridays to use a Cross as a sign of Christianity it is a greater sin to do these than to omit them But if you judg it unlawful to pray or hear God's Word or worship him or to feed your self or children your error is the aggravation and no extenuation of the sin And if you think it a duty to keep a Fast once a week to wear a course garment or to do any indifferent thing it 's a greater sin to omit them than to do them But if you take it to be a duty to lie slander steal be drunk murder persecute it aggravateth the sin that both mind and practice are defiled with it 4. I perswade no one to own the Ministry of an uncapable Person viz. one utterly Insufficient Heretical or Malignant who doth more harm than good The Conformists own this Rule while they silence so many and tell men that those that have not Ordination by Diocesans are not to be communicated with or owned as Ministers Both sides then confess that uncapable persons are not to be owned 5. I perswade none to be indifferent in the matters which concern their souls as whom they hear or chuse to be their Pastor nor in what manner they worship God nor to prefer any person or mode which all things considered is worse before better nor to deny themselves the great help of a learned skilful godly faithful Pastor to teach them publickly and counsel them privately when they may have such meerly because it is forbidden them by men and the Patron hath chosen them another who hath no such qualifications 6. I am perswading none that are under the government of their Parents or Masters to disobey them in the choice of the Pastor whom they shall ordinarily attend as long as they perswade them to a safer choice than the Patron hath made for them 7. I perswade none by Profession or Subscription to justifie as true or good the least untruth or evil in the Doctrine or Worship or Discipline of any Church or in any extemporate performance of the Minister 8. I perswade no Minister to conform to the Act of Uniformity and all the Canons 9. I perswade none to make light of any Church-corruptions nor to forbear endeavouring by lawful means in their place and calling to reform them much less to swear or promise it were that any where required or to renounce any Oath as not obliging them to any thing which God had made their duty 10. I perswade none to the sinful fear of man or to abate Christian fortitude constancy and patience in a good Cause nor to be over-tender of the Flesh or make too great a matter of their suffering Alas what are Worms that in the way to the Grave they should be feared more than God Poverty and Prisons may be as safe and near a way to Heaven as Wealth and Liberty None of all these are the things that I am for § 8. II. That you may know the Reasons of my own practice I shall next tell you what it is that my judgment is for which leads me to it And 1. I think all persons are visible Christians who are Baptized and profess their continued consent to the Baptismal Covenant and are not proved to have renounced or forsaken it by Word or Deed. 2. I think that the Pastor is by Office made the Church-Judge whether the persons Profession be understanding serious and credible or not and whether he be proved to forsake it And if the man dissemble or the Pastor judge falsly it 's their Sin and not mine if I contribute not to it by omitting any Monitory duty of my own nor is it lawful for me to usurp the Pastors judging power Nor am I bound to know my self the Case and Lives of all in the Church that I joyn with much less where I occasionally or seldom come 3. I think that a tollerable man though unduly chosen yet after received and consented to by the Parish Communicants is a true Pastor supposing his own Consent And that he and they are a true Church 4. I hold that Christ commanded his Apostles to endeavour to Disciple to him all Nations and Baptize and Teach them Mat. 28.19 20. And that we should pray and endeavour that the Kingdoms of the World may become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. And that all Christian Kings are bound to do their best to make all their Subjects the Subjects of Christ more than the Jewish Kings were bound to promote the Iews Religion And that Christian Kingdoms are much more honourable and desirable than Christian Churches in an Heathen Kingdom And that the Civil State and Interest should be sanctified and made religious and more than a Shell or Body to the Religious State as the Kernel or the Soul And so they should be as far coherent and commensurable as can be procured Yet not so as to corrupt the religious state on that pretence by crookening it to any carnal interest The Body formeth not the Soul nor is it to be cut meet to the Cloathes nor the Foot fitted to the Shooe I intreat those that be not sensible of the great importance of National Christianity to read a little Book called The whole Duty of Nations written by a Conforming Minister who is much more Honourable by his Extraordinary Worth than his Great Estate and Birth which will bear down dissent by a stream of Evidence 5. In order to the promoting of this National Concord in Religion I have still resolved to conform to all the National Laws and Orders about Religion which corrupt it not nor command any sinful thing 6. Tho I renounce all Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical or Aristocratical and usurpation of an Universal Government over all the Christian World which hath no civil or religious Universal Lawgiver or Judg but Christ neither Monarch nor Senate being capable of it yet I much more value the concord of the Universal Church than of one Nation And do more abhor doing any thing which is a sinful separation or discord from the Church Universal And I take the unchurching of the Univerâ—al Church to be a denying or deposing Christ. 7. All Christians must be known to be Christ's Disciples by loving one another as themselves And love judgeth no evil till constrained 8. Therefore I will separate from no Christian or Church without necessity no further than they separate from Christ. 9. I do not
to sin they will shew so much partiality and self-esteem and so much impatient tenderness of themselves as will too much harden their Accusers Obj. 4. Many Learned good men do differ from you Ans. I think a thousand to one through the World differ from them Obj. 5. It will save none from suffering there being so many other Laws against them Ans. It is my duty to save men from mistakes and sinful censure and suffering for mistakes and so it may save me from the guilt of Omission Obj. 6. It is but Man's Law which you suppose maketh it a duty Ans. 1. I make not light of the Laws of men about lawful things But your supposition is not true Were there no Law for it but God's it is my duty Obj. 7. Some body will answer you and so it will cause strife Ans. Do or must all men forbear giving a Reason of their Judgment and Practice to those that think them sinful yea or to confute the mistakes of others for fear of being censured Will you censure us and must not hear our Reasons Are you so much worse than Lawyers that can plead without breach of Charity May not friendly debates beat out the truth to our mutual edification No truths are so clear to us before they are controverted usually as after Reproach not the Nonconformists as if they could not bear contradiction Obj. 8. Your Cure of Church-Divisions did increase Divisions Ans. The Disease then is very far gone if the Remedy increase it But I have cause to believe that it healed many But I confess as the Books by which I drew off many Anabaptists did increase Division from their Party by ceasing the Divisions from the Church so it may be here Obj. 9. But if men believe it lawful to go to the Parish-Churches they will come to your Assemblies no more Ans. 1. Experience confuteth this I think most who hear me do think it lawful and oft go thither 2. I have oft told them publickly That I desire none of them to hear me who do not need my help If they have room and sufficient helps in the Parish-Churches I had rather they would not take up with us the room which others should have who truly need our help If nothing bring them to me but an Opinion that it's sin to joyn with the Common-Prayer I will do my best to drive them from me But if any cannot have room elsewhere or cannot overcome the foresaid mistake of the sin of hearing the Parish-Miâ—ister I will give them the best help I can And if any live where publick hearing is but lawful and they truly need more suitable help the bare lawfulness of hearing elsewhere will never keep away those persons who feel their need of better and the benefit no more than it will make them forsake better Cloathing good Physick or Estate because a worse is sometime lawful Obj. 10. But why do not you conform if you can communicate with them Ans. 1. Why cannot I be carnal contentious drink too much at the Sacrament if I could have communicated with the Church of Corinth that had such Why did not Christ commit the Synagogue-sins if he could communicate in the Synagogues The persons who put this question disgrace themselves by judging of things which they understand not If they know not what more is in Ministers Conformity than in joyning as private persons in the Parish-Worship let them read my first Plea for Peace and they may know I will joyfully conform I. If they will impose on us no sinful Oaths Covenants Promises Subscriptions Declarations or Practices II. I would rejoice in the Reformation if while some essentiate a Church by a Bishop they would restore the Parishes to be Churches which they make but Parts of the lowest Churches as Chappels are and make the Parish-Ministers Pastors again whom they have degraded to be but Half-Pastors or Curates to the lowest Pastors III. I would hope that we might yet escape back-sliding into Popery if that part of the Clergy never govern the Ship who are not content with a National Government but make it our necessary duty as against Schism that all come under a Forreign Iurisdiction And if the true Protestant Clergy will ioyn in the renunciation of that Jurisdiction but not of Communion with Forreign Churches § 11. IV. Why I publish my Reasons at this time Ans. 1. Because I think I have an urgent cause to endeavour to save some from the guilt of Persecution And if I note the mistakes of One side only I shall be justly charged with partiality 2. Because mens censure of my practice as sinful doth continue And I owe them an account of the Reasons of it 3. Dr. Stillingfleet and such others would make the World believe that we defend that Separation which by word and practice we have long opposed And we owe fuller satisfaction to them and to such as they misinform 4. I am much obliged to rectifie mens mistake of the Reason why many Nonconforming Ministers here come not to the Parish Churches Many were agreed to come when the Oxford Act of Confinement coming out prevented it For to have appeared in the Churches would have exposed them to Six months imprisonment for being in the City And since then the same Reason hindereth many which keepeth Conformists from communicating with each other even their own labours at home But many do go to the Churches in publick and I conjecture others hereafter will get their Places sometime supplied by others that they may go For most of my acquaintance hold it lawful as far as I can judg 5. I would stop them that censure as sinners unjustly the late Parliaments the Common-Council Iurors and all the good Christians thrâ—ugh all the Kingdom who differ from them and that have no Ministers but Conformists 6. I remember why Mr. Io. Ball wrote against Separation just when Reformation was intended Many thought it unseasonable but it proved otherwise by the sad effects which he would have prevented 7. I cannot forget what this mistake hath wrought in England from 1641. to 1660. which I will not further recite but only say That when there was neither Bishops nor their Courts nor Liturgy nor Ceremonies imposed on them separate Assemblies were as numerous and as much and more pleaded for than now and managed with too much strife and reconciling and Unity was much resisted by that side 8. I am bound to have real compassion on the multitudes who suffer as for Recusancy and not by silence wrong their Consciences and their Purses If I shut up the bowels of my compassion where is the love of God 9. I am bound to do my best to keep out Popery which must be by keeping up as much of Religion as is possible in the Parish-Churches that it be not first thrust into corners and then out of the Land and by concord with the Parish-Ministers who are honest And many such through God's mercy there are
would meet about it when they were desired to come to Sion Colledge and after they Printed a Thanksgiving to the King for his Declaration so that then they were not against all imposed Liturgies so that the Imposition had no unmercifulness in it 20. The forreign Churches in Holland France Germany c. are so much used to pray in the same form of words that if they were put to do all ex tempore it would be lamentably done by most even far worse than it is 21. I have formerly told the world That many of the most noted Nonconformists in London met and concluded for communicating in the parish-Parish-Churches about 1664. And two things done by the Conformists stopt them One was a storm then arising against those that could not do it which they feared to seem to countenance by their compliance And Plague and Fâ—re interrupting the purposes of some The Oxford Act of Confinement made it unpracticable because to be seen in a Church would have cast them six Months in the Goal with Malefactors 22. Being thus hindered and delayed the King's Declaration after giving them liberty to have Assemblies otherwise they were then kept from the Parish-Churches by their labours with their own â—locks as the Parish-Ministers be from hearing one another 23. Some in the City and more in the Countries all this while went constantly to the Parish Churches before this liberty and as oft as they could after lest they should by their practice draw the people to thâ—nk that they took it for unlawful 24 Others that thought it lawful judg it not necessary when they might do that which they judged better And finding many Hearers offended at it were loath to displease them and bear their censures till at last by long disuse the people thought their judgment was against it And when necessity driveth them to declare their judgments and change their practice their Hearers and their Adversaries call them unconscionable Temporizers 25. Tho Mr. Tombs wrote for Parish-Communion few Anabaptists followed him and tho Mr. Nye wrote for hearing the Parish-Ministers few Indâ—pendents consented But some of their Ministers took the advantage of the foresaid forbearance of others and so brought Separation to pass for a common duty with many And renewed sufferings made it easier to draw men from the Communion of those that they so much suffered by following the eâ—ample of St. Martin and saying That persecutors obtruded without their conâ—ent were none of their Pastors and that it 's no Schism not to communicate with the Church which causelesly hath ipso facto excommunicated them in Can. 6 7 8 c. This is the true premised History D. O. Some things must be promised to the confirmation of this Position 1. The whole 〈◊〉 of Liturgical Worship with all its inseparable dependences are intendâ—â— For as such it is established by Law and not in any part of it only as 〈…〉 is required that we receive it and attend unto it It is not in our powâ—â— it is not left to our judgment or liberty to close with or make use of any pâ—rt of it as we shall think fit There are in the Mass-book many Prayers directed to God only by Iesus Christ yet it is not lawful for us thereon to go to Mass under a pretence only of joyning in such lawful Prayers As we must not affect their Drink-Offerings of Blood so we must not tâ—ke up their names in our lips Psal. 16.4 Have no communion with them § 2. I Shall now examine the Doctor 's Premises To the first I answer 1. If he will include all that is in the Liturgy the Nonconformists confess that there is somewhat in it which they dissent from as unjuâ—tifiable And so there is in all mens Worship of God 2. He intimateth That it is not in our power to close with some I. Error and not withall This is his First Error Tho Man give us no such power God doth As it is in my power 〈◊〉 believe all that one speaketh truly and well and not that which he speaketh amiss I am not bound to own all that any Preacher or Priest shall say in the Church God put it in the Disciples power to beware of the Leven of the Pharisees and yet to hear them Proving all things is not approving all things 2. Tho the Mass have many good Prayers the corruption by twisted Idolatry and Heresie maketh Communion there unlawful Heathent and Turks have good Prayers Prove any such Heresie or Idolatry in the Church-Worship by the Liturgy and we will avoid it But if I may joyn with your own good Prayers and Preaching notwithstanding your many Failings and such Errors as are here pleaded for why not with others 3. Psal. 16.4 is too sadly abused which speaketh only of sacrificing to and worshipping false Gods D. O. 2. It is to be considered as armed with Laws 1. Such as declare and enjoyn it as the only true Worship of the Church 2. Such as prohibit condemn and punish all other ways of the Worship of God in Church-Assemblies By our communion and conjunction in it we justifie those Laws § 3. THat our Communion justifieth all the Laws that impose the Liturgy yea the penal severeties is too gross an Error to be written with any shew of proof What if the Creed or Lord's Prayer were too rigorously imposed II. Error or Presbytery or Indepency must we forbear them or justifie the Law I can prove Episcopacy excluded too severely by the Covenant But every one that is against it justifieth not the imposition of that Covenant in that rigor What if rigorous Laws should make it imprisonment or death not to use our Translation of the Scriptures our approved Catechisms our Metre and Tunes of the Psalms not to put off the Hat at Prayer not to meet at the appointed Place and Hour c. Doth every man justifie the rigor of the imposition who obeyeth the Law Then a rigorous Law-maker may take away our Christian Liberty by commanding us to use such things too strictly yea he may turn Duty by too strict commanding it into Sin These are your unproved Premises D. O. 3. This conjunction in Communion by the Worship of the Liturgy is the Symbol Pledg and Token of an Ecclesiastical Incorporation with the Church of England in its present Constitution It is so in the Law of the Land It is so in the Canons of the Church It is so in the common Understanding of all men And by these Rules must our Profession and Practice be judged and not by any reserves of our own which neither God nor good men will allow of Wherefore § 4. TO the Third Premise I answer 1. The Church of England is an ambiguous word 1. As it signifieth a part of the Universal Church agreeing in Faith one God one Christ and all essential to the Church so we desire the honour of being parts of it 2. And also as it is a Christian
Kingdom under one King 3. And as it is a Confederacy of many Churches to keep Concord in lawful Circumstantials as well as Integrals In all these sences it is a lawful Association 4. But if any Church go beyond these bounds and on good pretences shall agree upon any error or evil it is a mistake to hold That all that incorporate with them in the Three foresaid lawful respects do therefore confederate with them in their error IV. Error This is your Fourth Error I will give you a general Instance and a particular one 1. You cannot name me one combined company of Churches from the Apostles days till now that had no error You take Episcopacy to be an error in the very constitution Name one Church from the 3 d or 4 th Century for a thousand years that was without it either Catholicks or Hereticks that were indeed a Church And must Christians have forborn associating with any of them Or might not own the good in their Associations without owning the evil 2. The Independents gathered a Synod at the Savoy and there among their Doctrinals or Articles of Faith laid down Two Points expresly contrary to Scripture 1. That it is not Faith but Christ's Righteousness that we are justified by when as it is both and the Scripture often saith the contrary 2. That Christ's Righteousness imputed is our sâ—le Righteousness Whereas the Scripture doth many hundred times name also our inherent and practical Righteousness I asked some yet living why they consented to these and did not rather expound the Scripture than deny it And they said That it was Dr O's doing Now doth it follow that every one that there conâ—ederated with you owned these errors The Churches of Helvetia are a very honourable part of the Reformed Churches They are commonly such as we call Erastian for no Discipline but the Magistrates Are ail that confederate with them as Churches guilty of this error 2. But I further distinguish between the many Parish-Churches and the Diocesan and the Church of England as constituted of such Diocesan Churches The Old Nonconformists commonly owned the Parish-Churches and the Church of England as made up of such but not the Diocesan This they openly professed It is therefore another of your Mistakes that owning the Parish-Churches and Worship is an owning of the present Diocesan Constitution Also it is your Mistake to say That Communion by the Liturgy is the Symbol and Pledg of the foresaid Incorporation in the Church of England in its present constitution V. Error It is only a part of the Communion commanded but no such Symbol VI. Error For 1. The Rulers openly declare that they take multitudes to be none of their Church who joyn in the Liturgy And it is subscribing declaring and swearing Obedience which is the Symbol yea they excommunicate many that come to the Liturgy-Service 2. And many come to it who openly disown the Diocesan present constitution So did as I said the Old Nonconformists and many Forreigners French Dutch c. that come over hither 3. If one may joyn in Communion of Worship with a Presbyterian Independent or Anabaptist-Church without owning the Errors of their constitution then so one may with a Parish-Church But c. You mistake when you say It is so by the Law of the Land You mistake again when you say it is so by the Canon You mistake again when you say It is so in the common understanding of all I formerly instanced in one of the sharpest Nonconformists Old Mr. Humphrey Fen of Coventry who would say aloud Amen to all the Common-Prayer save that for the Bishops by which all there knew his mind Whether it were right or wrong VII VIII IX Error I now determine not So here are Three more of your Mistakes 4. You make all other reserves of our own to be allowed neither by God or good men Here are two more mistakes 1. God maketh it our great duty to hold Communion with most X.XI. Error or almost all Churches on Earth with such reserves that is to own them in all that is good and disown all their evil tho their Laws command the owning of them without this reserve I would not joyn with yours or any Church on Earth that is If my Communion were an owning of all their faultiness 2. And it 's an immodest Error to say That none are good men that in this are not of your mind Is there any spotless Church on Earth or must we renounce the Communion with them all or reserve exception against their faults and misperformances D. O. 4. He that joyns in the Worship of the Common-Prayer doth by his practice make Profession That it is the true Worship of God accepted with him approved of him and wholly agreeable to his Mind and Will To do it with other reserves is hypocrisie and worse than the thing it self without them Happy is he that condemneth not himself in the thing which he alloweth Rom. 14 12. § 5. THis is your twelfth mistake and one that hath dreadful consequents 1. It contradicteth the express Profession of the Communicants who openly tell the World That they take not all in the Liturgy XII Error to be wholly agreeable to Gods Mind and Will And you are not to feign a Profession of men contrary to their open Protestation 2. It is most direful to your own separating followers who by this are supposed to profess all your Worship to be wholly agreeable to Gods Mind and Will And so the honest well-meaning people are made guilty of all the Errors which you put into your Worship 3. It is contrary to your own former Profession That you could in charity communicate with Presbyterians or Anabaptists c. And so you approved of all the Errors of their Worship 4. It maketh it a down right Sin to communicate with any Church on Earth For all have their faults and errors even in Worship which you feign all that Communicate with them to justifie as wholly agreeable to Gods Will And to justifie Sin and teach men so to do and to father it on God are sad Aggravations such shall be called least in the Kingdom of God By this rule you would have separated from every Church on Earth that we have notice of for a thousand years yea and to this day and is not that near separating from Christ And when no man knoweth before you speak in prayer what you will say How shall any man that joyneth with you koow but he may be guilty of your Sin at the next Sentence 5. It is a breach of the ninth Commandment thus to charge all the Ancient Churches and Reformers and the Noncoformists with hypocrisie and worse than open sinning who have all communicated on the contrary Supposition 6. It is no friendly act to the Church to lay down such a Principle of perpetual Separation and condemning each others Communion and so to make the Communion and