a testimony of the great wisdome and moderation of the Church which in points doubtfull and controverted hath propounded only that which with no sober man can be matter of doubt or subject of controversie if you mean it that they should not be so farre reformed as the Assembly of Westminster did by explication and addition to them though retaining themselves you thereby condemne the procedures of a wiser Church than your own the Church Universall in her best oecumenick Councels of Nice Chalcedone c. which thus reformed the Apostles vulgarly so cal'd Creed its self by explaining it and adding to it their own and Athanasius's Creeds to the exclusion of Arrianisme and other Heresies and therefore it is meet you be desired to explaine your selfe about Arminianisme which you so farre obliquely at least and afarre off pleade for 4. In the third sub-paragraph or sad consequence the doubtfullness of the generality and indefiniteness of the 20. Article is spoken to and of its publiqueness 1. As it is cal'd the Doctrine of the Church and yet what is meant by the Church is not in the Articles explained but left generall and doubtfull nor might it be inquired after or laboured to be explained as the Articles were stated in their publiqueness by that Declaration and Proclamation of the Kings and therefore also all the publiqueness and authority that they could have from the Church must remain doubtfull till it be known whether it came from the Church habente potestatem to give them publiqueness and authority or from the right Church having just and undouted power to make and authorize with a sufficient ecclesiastick publiqueness and authority such Articles of Religion as a Confession of her faith 2. For as much as it left doubtfull beside the former respects influencing this part also and generall only what rites she may ordain suppose the Church were distinctly explained and set forth And 3. How farre her authority extends in controversies of faith with an absurdity that follows upon adherence to or urgeing that doubtfull generality and indeterminateness of the Articles according to considerations aforesaid To all which you answer nothing but that the Doctrines of that Article as considered in themselves are undoubted truths Which is true enough but nothing to Rhombus as we have often said For the Ministers speak of the doubtfullness as proceeding from their too great generality and unfitness to exclude errors by and of their doubtfullness of publiqueness and authority and therefore though the Article take not away the liberty of right interpretation in these respects yet the publiqueness of it as flowing from that Declaration and depending on it doth and the the Article it self gives not that due sense of its self fully enough pro ratâ sùa portione for its own ratable proportion that is requisit for a present Confession of faith and sufficient obviation of errours and therefore is so farre under a necessity of reformation and being supplyed Thus also doth this Section of the Ministers stand firm against any thing that you have answered as I suppose I have here sufficiently shown But yet concerning this 20. Article I have this further to adde about the doubtfullness of it and it may make the rest also the more suspected that when Mr Burton accused it that it was interpolated and a clause added to it that the true and best Copies had not Bishop Laud in the Star-chamber when they were about to Pillory Burton in his speech as I take it June 14. 1637. could not deny that some Copies wanted it but saies that he sent to the publique Records in his Office and had returned him under his Officers hand who was a publique notary the 20. Article with the affirmative clause in it that other Copies wanted and that there also the whole body of the Articles was to be seen Then he saies it was likest that the pure faction themselves i.e. the Puritans did rather take away that clause from the Copies that want it because it is known saith he who did then ride the Church meaning Leicester as I think a great favourer of Non-conformists and a favorite of the Queens rather than that any did adde it to the Copies Recorded c. But first If the Articles will not give us a good enough description of their Church Bishop Land will give us this That she was one that might be ridden by any great favorite of the Prince and so neither so respective to God nor her King whatever she pretended as Bucephalus was to Alexander which neither of his greatest favorites could ride though the one was Philobasileus and the other Philalexander by Alexanders own Confession 2. It hath often been found that Bishops and their servants or favourers have falsified Copies and Records of that nature witness the Bishop of Rome but never was proved I think that Non-conformists and Puritans did it Moreover the Bishops reason failes him because this diversity of Printed Copies as to that clause controverted was in the very year wherein they were agreed upon that is 1562. i. e. the 4. or 5. of Eliz. long before Leicester could ride the Church or any for him so farre as I can learn in favours of the Puritans as to that time And is it a thing likely that so soon after the Convocation Puritans durst or would do such a thing and pass so quietly away with it and without noise made by the Bishops as that diversity of Copies was past over if the Bishops had not made the diversity themselves to their own advantage or some of theirs for them by their privity and allowance 3. Since the Act 13. Eliz. or of Anno. 1571 referres only to a Printed Book of Articles 1562 the same year wherein they were agreed upon but specifies not what Printed Copy of that year the Act leaves it therefore doubtfull whether it hath confirmed that affirmative clause which the Bishops said that his Records had seeing in that very year there were two printed Editions of the Articles one in English and another in Latine whereof the one had the clause and the other wanted it and by this not specifying the Impression that it follows as undoubtedly uncorrupt it leaves some doubt upon the rest that they might be corrupt as well as this before that Act confirmed them Yea it leaves a great doubt whether there were any better Copy to be followed than that they refer'd to since it is not like the Parliament would referre to a printed Copy if they had known of any Autograph And what if both the Bishop and his Officer egregiously imposed upon the Star-chamber and neither his Office nor he had any thing to show but that printed Copy which Burton complained of subscribed with the hands of the Bishops and lower house of Convocation at diverse times I have heard as much and I believe some honest Puritans can and will make it good that during the long Parliament and sitting of the Assembly
according as you consider Doctrine to wit abstractedly from the publicknesse of it and from being the Confession of the Church of England that is considering the Doctrine in its self which I humbly conceive you should not have done For though for my part I think you deserve great praise and thanks for being so distinct candid and cleer in the way that you have taken yet I doubt whether that was the way fully to oppose and contradict the Ministers meaning you considering the Doctrine in its self and thereto applying a scholastical Dispute and examination of their reasons as if they were brought against that and they sufficiently disowning both if I understand them rightly Therefore partly your distinguishing where they intended no distinction and partly your not distinguishing where they would most have had distinction have been so farre from removing misconception between you that in my humble opinion this hath fixed a continued misconceiving almost through the whole dispute That this may appear I shall humbly propose my judgement to you and them and leave it to both to be considered of as either or both shall think it deserves in relation to truth and right which I only seek 1. Then I conceive that they speak of the publick Doctrine of the Church of England not as in its self but as aggregated with the due qualifications of it publicknesse and the Church of Englands propriety in it but not of the Doctrine considered in its self and abstractedly from these as you do because they held the Articles of Religion as the publick and national confession of the Religion of the Church of England according to the Stat. 13. Eliz. speaking of the Articles of Religion as they concern the confession of the true Christian faith and the Dactrine of the Sacraments i.e. as they hold forth the publick and national confession of the Church of England and her Doctrine of the Sacraments And as thus considered they held the Articles rather to stand in need of a Reformation for their too much generalnesse wherein alwayes is included doubtfulnesse as to determining of controversies which the Ministers meant according to that Dolus est in generalibus and defectivenesse to make a good and perfect enough confession of Faith for so famous a reformed Church as England was than for any unsoundnesse of them in themselves which they intended not to impugne Secondly they doubted of the establishment of the Articles as a sufficient enough confession of the Church of England and in what notion the Church was to be taken when they are so call'd and accounted her confession which distinction of Church that they desired they have not yet obtained and so the doubtfulnesse of the Articles or at least the defectivenesse of them as the confession of the Church of England in the best and rightest notion of it is not yet removed For a publick confession of a National Church is much concerned in the undoubted establishment it hath from a right and sufficient authority and as much concerned in the right and best notion of the Church whose confession it is said to be and as long as the establishment is doubtfull or defective and insufficient or the authority doubtfull or defective and insufficient so long must the publicknesse of that confession and so farre will it be doubtfull and defective or insufficient And as long as the Church is doubtful or defective and not taken in a right enough notion whose confession it is said to be so long will the confession be subject to much imperfection and but an individuum vagum a vulgivagous thing that can lay no certain claim either to right father or mother here below For these therefore and more particular considerations the Ministers thought it necessary to be reformed or in a state of necessity to be reformed By this time Sir I believe you perceive how I think they have stated the Question in their mind and meaning Their stating of the Question appears to me by their Conclusion which they laid down to be proved and by their manner of proving of it and setting down their main scope and work that they intended Their conclusion which we have set down before we take in their meaning to be equivalent to his It is needfull that the Church of England have and hold forth a more distinct and perfect forme of her truely and rightly so called Nationall confession of faith and of her Doctrine of the Sacraments than the thirty nine Articles amount to Their manner of proving it will appear when we answer your particulars from which for brevities sake and avoiding repetitions we will abstaine here and deferre to set down untill then Their main scope and work that they intended they show not to have been an opposing the Doctrine of the thirty nine Articles as considered in it self seeing 1. They told you That the assembly at Westminer approved that as so considered and thought it fit to be retained but with all to be more fully cleared and explained for exclusion of Arminianisme and other like errors and to have more added to it which it should have had for bearing the reputation of a sufficient Nationall confession with pertinent Scripture-proofs to manifest that the very Articles themselves and all the rest are all evidently grounded upon the Word of God whereas the Articles wanted these there being no Text of Scripture produced in them to make out any one of them This is clear enough evidence that the Ministers intended not to impugne the Doctrine of the thirty nine Articles as in it self considered See pag. 17. of their Book last Impres and 1 2. at the end of each 2. In their Epistle to the Parliament They sufficiently told any that they intended no such opposition to the thirty nine Articles while they professed their work chiefly was out of the Laws which they as Ministers were bound to take speciall notice of and out of the Books said to be by those Laws setled to make good these two things 1. That so farre as they could apprehend nether the Articles of Religion the Books of Common Prayer or Ordination the Jurisdiction of Bishops claimed before 17o Car. 1. nor so much as their being as Bishops sithence nor the Canons so much contended for are indeed established by Law 2. That none of these as they now stand meaning of the Articles in particular as they are commonly held of themselves to be a sufficient summe or Confession publick of the Doctrine of the Church of England ought to be confirmed and setled But all with submission say they And before immediately they seem sufficiently to insinuate that they intended no impugnation of the Doctrine in the Articles as in its self considered because say they We offer no polemicall discourse or theologicall debates proper for a Divinity-Schoole or Synod but only what we humbly conceive more suitable to a Parliament But had that been their drift theologically to impugne the Doctrine of the
thirty nine Articles as in it self considered and as you take them to oppose it and accordingly answer them as if they had this could not have been true which they here say Wherefore I conclude that you state not the Question as they intended nor answer them according to their meaning and therefore your resolved treating of No necessity of Reformation as a Divine to whom it properly appertains to speak of Theologicall Doctrines and your earnest contending for the faith of the Church in that Scripturall sense not ecclesiastick as you speak it which you profess pag. 4. 1. and which takes up the most part of your Book might wholly have been spared as not contradicting the Ministers as you may see by their plain and open profession to the Parliament Yet I confess if you lookt only to the first Impression which wanted the Epistle to the Parliament as I take it for I certainly remember not nor have it now by me their scope and way that they held being thereby less clear you were the more excusable if you mistooke their meaning they being nothing so clear and accurate therein if I have taken them right as they might have been for which ingenuous and harmless freedome I hope both of you will pardon me who truly love and honour you both as I think you well deserve Their conclusion then to be proved was this There is a necessity of Reformation of the publick Doctrine of the Church of England The appendage as you call it which they thereto added I take to be an explication only of the publickness of the Doctrine of the Church of England as they conceived it doubtfull and defective for the establishment and Authority establisher and the property and proprieter or whose publick Doctrine and confession it was and for the too great generality of it and want of much that it should have to sustaine the name and nature of a sufficient publick Confession of faith or publick Doctrine of so eminent a Church as England is and therefore in these respects and so farre to be reformed I thus therefore according to the former stating of the question forme their argument What is commonly received for the publick Doctrine or Confession of faith of the Church of England ought not to be too generall and doubtfull whether for exclusion of errours or for publick establishment and authority establisher or for the owners or those whose Confession it is cald or defective and imperfect for want of ought that it should have for a sufficient and creditable Confession of so eminent a Church whether in points or heads of matter or distinctness definitness specialty and clearness both of matter and manner or expression or Scripturall proofs and evidences but if it be doubtfull or defective in any or all of these respects in so farre it ought to be reformed But the Doctrine contained in the thirty nine Articles is commonly received for the publick Doctrine or Confession of the Church of England and yet is doubtfull and defective in all or most of the foresaid respects Therefore the Doctrine of the thirty nine Articles commonly held to be the publick Doctrine or Confession of the Church of England ought to be reformed in all the respects aforesaid The major proposition neither is nor needed to be formally exprest not needed any thing to the probation of it it is so clear in its self But if any part of it must needs be proved it will be the last clause to wit but if it be doubtfull or defective in any or all these respects in so farre it ought to be reformed for probation whereof the next Section will suffice The minor or assumption is fully enough exprest though not formally but sparsedly and the first part needs no probation to wit That the Doctrine contained in the thirty nine Articles is commonly received for the publick Doctrine or Confession of Faith of the Church of England not do you any way question it But if it needed proof the Stature of 13. Eliz. joyned to common estimation proves it enough The second part of the assumption is also exprest and as it only needed proof so it is proved and to it only all the proofs directed Yet before I show in particular how the proofs are pertinent and concludent I think needfull to avoid repetition to premise some generals once for all The difference being such as it is between you in stating the question there must needs be difference also in sundry others notions and things between the Ministers and you For they have a farre other notion of reformation of doubtfullness of defectiveness of necessity of reformation than you have or use and therefore in these also you do not truely oppose one another They mean but a reformation of the Doctrine in as farre as doubtfull and defective or of the doubtfullness and defectiveness of it as they understand them and go about to prove them not as you take them Again A necessity of reforming but not so great and internall to the Doctrine its self as you would put upon the Ministers and make common to them with Papists somewhat invidiously I confess but to be excused as unavoidably arising from your mistaking of their meaning but a necessity of precept or duty only which binds us to reforme the least things that we know or ought to know to be amiss to reforme the doubtfullness and defectiveness of it in generall and in particulars as by them proved which you might well know and understand to have been the opinion of many unconforme Ministers of sundry Counties of England still professing themselves Ministers of the Church of England and not separating from it as Brownists and Barrowists did or semi-separating from her as semi-brownists and semi-barrowists the Independents did and do at least some of them before now as well at this time had you looked into their doings as it seems you did not by what you profess pag. 3. 1. of your Book Again For defectiveness they are farre from the notexson of it that you would put upon them and so arguing as you present them Defective to them is not that to which something may be added but to which something should be added for the dignity office and end or ends that it sustains or that which wants something that it ought to have for the foresaid respects or the like which is indeed the true notion of it For it is an undeniable maxime or axiom shining by its own light That whatsoever is defective ought to be or is necessary to be reformed And by these notions thus explained and rescued from misprision the last part of the major proposition is made undeniably clear Therefore the major as we said needed no proof but a right taking and understanding of these termes Here now I might stay and needed not to answer any more where there is so wide a mistake that runs through most of your Book and hinders it to meet with their meaning
at Westminster when that Office was searched That Mr Selden imployed therein could find no other 5. In the fourth Sub-Paragraph or sad consequence is spoken to the doubtfullness of the 34. Article both in respect of the undefinite generallness of traditions and what is meant thereby and what by Church as before and what by common authority as also in respect of the uncertainty of traditions in reference to the publiqueness or authority of the Articles laid upon them by the Declaration which the Convocation and Clergy by the power granted to them might absurdly abuse c. To this you answer nothing according to the Ministers mind saving that to me you vindicate that Article sufficiently frow the strangenesse of the expression which they glanced at 6. In the fifth Sub-paragraph is spoken to the doubtfull and too generall and indefinite allowance and admitting of both Books of Homilies to contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine necessary for the times by Article 35. whereby as the Homilies and all that is in them is approved for godly and wholesome Doctrine so it is manifest that hereby men must subscribe to false Doctrines as by two instances is proved at large Here although you have made a long and learned defence of the two Books of Homilies yet as it is clear that the Ministers understand that clause of the 35. Article far otherwayes than you do so I am not fully satisfied by you that they understand it amiss For with them To contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine necessary for the times is all one as to contain nothing but godly and wholesome Doctrine that is necessary for the times c. Wherein because I am not fully enough resolved on either side I shall but Quaere from you as followeth When the Article saies the Books of Homilies contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine c. means it one particular and definite Doctrine only or more One can not be said because it is acknowledged by your self that one part only of some of them contain two and every Homily must at least contain one Besides if one should be said amongst so many contained there it could not be determined which is it But if more than one whether all or not if not all what and how many are excepted but if all how shall we know how many Doctrines are contained in them yea how many Doctrines every Homily contains and why not all and every part of each of them that is assertive and uttered by affirmation or negation is not to be thought such a Doctrine in the sense that the Article speaks in and the Ministers understand it seeing if it had not spoken in this sense but in that whereby you interpret it it would seem that it would not have then spoken in the singular but plurally godly and wholesome Doctrines c. your self also makes a false Doctrine and a false Assertion equivalent terms And if thus understood doth not the Article call something a godly and wholesome Doctrine which is false Doctrines and doth it not bind Ministers to subscribe false Doctrines But if you will not understand the Article thus but to speak of the theames or chief Subject or Subjects only of Homilies how do you prove this to be the Articles meaning the Act affirming the Articles and by them the Homilies expounds not the Doctrine nor distinguishes it thus ubi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum Doth not the Law therefore leave this doubtfull Yea do not you your self prove de facto in your differing thus from the Ministers and in understanding so queintly by a godly wholesome Doctrine many godly wholesome Doctrines but not all that are in the Homilies to be such that the Article in so farre is doubtfull in its self and needs an Explication or Reformation since those words though few are of great consequence and bind to the subscription of the whole two Books of Homilies But thiswith submission to such as shall shew me more light 7. In the sixt subparagrap or sad consequence they prove more than doubtfulnesse or a bare defectivenesse of the 37. Article not as in its self considered but as influenc'd upon by the Declaration printed with the Articles that were only to be used as the publick and authoriz'd ones to wit an absurd impertinency and unsuitablenesse to the time of his then Majesty reigning with as absurd consequences of it so powerfull were some then to abuse his Majesties goodnesse while by the Declaration as that Article was thus printed The Queens Majesty hath the chief power in the Realm of England so it must still be read in the time of Car. 1. her Successour and not altered by substituting the Kings Majesty in place of the Queens Majesty or else the Minister reading the Kings Majesty must be deprived yea if in reading it the Queens Majesty he take it not in the sense of the very letter of it than which what could be more absurd Since every Minister was thus to read it after his induction and well too if he escap'd an Oath whether he had in all points read it so or no and whether he kept not to all the very words of the Articles in reading of them Now what you answer to this though it be elaborate and learned as considering the Articles and the Doctrine therein contained in themselves onely and not as influenc'd on by the Declaration aforesaid yet because the Ministers consider them only here as so influenc'd in their publicknesse and authority by the Declaration afore-mentioned therefore you may easily perceive how little you contradict them or refute their proofs of what they intended namely that the Articles and Doctrine thereof as to the publicknesse of their authority and as to their authorization were not only in a necessity to be reformed from some doubtfulnesse and defectivenesse that became not a Confession of Faith of so eminent a Reformed Church as England but also from impertinency and unsuitablenesse to the times that follow'd the Queens death In the end therefore of your Answer to this consequence your desire That all the Ministers of England would acknowledge That it is the undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England That to the Kings of England their heirs c. doth appertain as the 37. Article expresseth it might have been spared and was no wayes needfull seeing this was by the Ministers no way questioned nor intended to be questioned as your desire insinuates 8. In the 7th and last subparagraph more is also proved than the doubtfulnesse of the Articles or of the Doctrine in them Yet not as in themselves but as influenc'd by that Declaration and the power in it given to the Bishops and Clergy in Convocation to put what sense they should see meet upon the Articles so they could but perswade his Majesty thereto by abusing his goodnesse as they did to the countenancing of Arminianisme directly contrary to his Father King Jameses mind and the Churches