Administration of the Sacraments and no other IX And the Can. 27. saith No Minister when he celebrates the Communion shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel under pain of suspension Can the Church more plainly speak the sense of her Liturgy You say It is against Schismaticks Yes 1. That is the end and the words express the means 2. And it is expository calling those Schismaticks that scruple and refuse to kneel X. Those that say the Liturgy hath any thing contrary to the Scripture or that the Ceremonies are such as he may not use approve c. are excommunicate ipso facto And therefore as Schismaticks not to be admitted to the Sacrament till they repent of that their wicked Errour Can. 4 5 6 7. XI Can. 14. All Ministers shall observe the Orders Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer as well in reading the holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers as in administration of the Sacraments without either diminishing in regard of Preaching or in any other respect note that or adding any thing in the matter or form thereof XII Can. 29. No Parent shall be urged to be present nor be admitted to answer as God-father for his own Child nor any God-father or God-mother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech than by the Book of Common-Prayer is prescribed in that behalf If yet the Church have not declared her sense of the Liturgy but that I may Baptize without Cross or God-fathers and give the Sacrament to them that sit rather than refuse them I can understand no mans words And what can constrain an unwilling person to understand XIII Yet I say again If I practice on any pretence of mercy according to your Rule the Judges will condemn me the Justices will send me to the common Gaol among Rogues to lie six months and will fine me twenty pound and forty pound a Sermon as I have tryed and the Bishops or their Courts will excommunicate me and prosecute me to lay me in Gaol as you have tryed who fly to escape it And are not these made Judges of the sense of the Law and will not all this convince us what it meaneth Because you have put three of the chief matters of my Non-conformity here together I have answered all together If you will prefer the judgment of the Bishops before all this I pray you do not pretend that some honest Bishop that had no hand in our Changes and Silencing saith to you in private but get it us under the hands of many of them if you can that because mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice we may Baptize without the Cross and God-fathers and may give the Sacrament to them that kneel not if they dissent through consciencious fear of living CHAP. XVII § 1. IN your sixteenth Section you profess your liking of sitting at the Lord's Supper rather than kneeling How then can you declare Assent Consent and Approbation to the Liturgy expounded by the Canons which in plain words and by sharp penalties on Dissenters so much preferreth kneeling before sitting § 2. Your preferring the preaching and hearing of the Word and Prayer and Praise as more excellent than the carnal you mean the outward part in the Lord's Supper is very far from Conformity to the common sense of the Bishops who ordered the Altaring of the Communion Tables and commended bowing towards them and suspended so many Ministers on such accounts even far from the sense of Arch-Bishop Laud expressed in his life by Dr. Heylin and of the whole Church of England expressed in the Canons of 1640. § 3. I answered before your conceit that the Liturgy alloweth you to give the Sacrament to them that kneel not and your distorting the Canon because the Title is against Schismaticks when they mean that those that kneel not shall be taken and excluded as Schismaticks and so excommunicated as I have proved and not that the word is distinguishing and limiting allowing you to admit those to sit that are not Schimaticks The Bishops will deride that Exposition They that heard us at the Savoy can tell you who that Dr. now a Dean was who craved leave to have disputed the Case against me and to have proved That it is an Act of mercy to those that scruple and refuse to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny them the Communion of the Church therein CHAP. XVIII § 1. YOur seventeenth Section is for the Cross in Baptism I distinctly proved that the Church imposeth it As a Symbol of our Christian Profession and as a consecrating dedicating sign by which 1. God's part of the Covenant is signified even the Grace by him given and the duty by him imposed on us 2. And the Receiver's part is signified and by solemn Engagement there professed even his Faith in Christ crucified and his resolution and self-obliging Consent or Covenant to be the Lords as dedicated to him and to perform all the future duties of the Covenant And that this is the true description of a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace The word Sacrament larglier taken may signifie no more than man may institute But a Sacrament strictly taken as thus described I suppose man may not institute 1. Because Christ hath instituted two as an act of his Royal Prerogative And if any Institution be proper to his Kingly and Priestly Power it must be such No other can be named excluding this And if none be proper what is it for him to be Great and One Law-giver to his Church If Legislation the chief part of Supreme Government be common to him and Bishops why is not that Royally Common 2. And if Christ would have had any more Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace he would have somewhere expressed his Commands and Directions to his Ministers to make them But he that hath given them full Commands and Directions for Preaching Prayer Baptizing and his Supper and for their other duties for the Flocks hath not said a word to them of this either biding them make new Sacraments or telling them how many or directing them what or how to do it nor how to use them when made nor promising to bless them 3. To make more seemeth to accuse Christ's Law or Institution of Imperfection Subordinate actions do not so But to make Ordinances ejusdem generis with those which he made not as a meer man nor as a meer Minister but as Mediator or King of the Church doth seem to say That Christ left half his work undone Did he institute Baptism and his Supper as a meer Man or a meer Minister then à quatenus ad omne any Man or any Minister may do the like and make more Sacraments But if as King of the Church and as Saviour then none but our King of the Chuch and Saviour may do the like Christ hath instituted one day of each week to commemorate his Resurrection as God the Creator instituted a weekly
and will trusting another with it discharge him 4. We fear being guilty of the Lay-man's Usurpation and the Church-Confusion 5. But worst of all it is people fearing God that the Canon excommunicateth ipso facto and that the Chancellor is to excommunicate Had it been my duty to pronounce you excommunicate because the Chancellor decreed it 6. Where you say If I know the sentence to be void unjust and illegal I am not to publish it Ans. Well set together But if you know it to be unjust and yet legal according to the Canon you must publish it or be a Non-Conformist and may be suspended And are all the Canons Decrees just CHAP. XXII YOU speak next of the Surplice of which I gave you no occasion But we that know that the true meaning of the Liturgy is that all must use it that shall be suffered to officiate 1. Will not believe you if you tell us the contrary hereafter and lay it only on the Canon and think it nothing that you are obliged to consent to and aprove 2. Nor will I yet believe that you will undertake to justifie the ejecting and silencing of all that dare not use the Surplice Or if you will you cannot The 14th and 15th of the Romans cannot be confuted nor the many proofs that I have given that it reacheth our case in my late Book for the Church's Concord And why talk you of the Surplice and omit the main Question Whether we may consent to the Liturgy Preface and Rubrick which impose it as they do You durst not consent to silence two thousand or one that dare not use it CHAP. XXIII § 1. YOur next Section is of the false Rule for finding Easter-Day To this you say If really there be an Error I assent not to it Ans. Nor I Nor will I say I do when I do not And to what purpose then do you write for Conformity when one Lye must not be told to save our Liberty § 2. But you say It is not an Error in Divinity Ans. What then May I Lye about any other things § 3. But you say Some yet continue to affirm it is no Error Ans. And what will not some Men affirm You see how hard it is for a Non-conformist to be justified with some Men when all the Almanacks in England cannot do it in such a point I am too weak to deal with Men that will not take such evidence as this You say That it is questionable whether this be any part of the Book to be assented to Ans. You had some fair pretence to deny the act of Uniformity to be a part though the Contents say it is but if this be questionable you may question as the School-Men so long till you leave us little unquestionable This would increase my Resolution against Conformity when we cannot be sure what it is that we must Assent and Consent to and what not How can you tell us which is or not of the Book if this be not § 4. You say For the time past none will lay it to the charge of the Conformists and for the time to come it will be abated those that shall Subscribe and Conform Ans. How oft have I told you that I am laying nothing to the Charge of others but excusing our selves But I cannot justifie them that will do they know not what Especially it is sad that when such a Convocation which is the Representative Church of England shall all consent to draw up such things to be imposed on a Kingdom and so great a Parliament require assent to it on the Penalties enacted and executed on so many they should have no more honourable a defence than you make for them § 5. And who it is that hath the power to abate us that which the Law so severely requireth we do not yet know unless it be the King whose Mind you know not It is the Bishop that you mean But I doubt the Lawyers that have so lately questioned the Kings Power of Dispensation will contradict you that give that to the Bishop which they deny the King CHAP. XXIV § 1. THe next Section is about our Assenting to Consenting to and approving the many Disorders and Defects in the Liturgy You confess there are such and name many of them And the sum of your Answer is That you Assent and Consent to use the formes though disordered and defective and the Assent and Consent is no otherwise to be understood Ans. Soon said but where 's the proof 1. The words are All things contained in and prescribed by the Book Is the mode and disorder none of the All If I should say I Approve Assent and Consent to something but not all or the Matter but not the Order and Manner doth this answer the common sense of the universal words What if the Book did say the Lord's Prayer or Ten Commandments backward or Baptized in the Name of the Holy Ghost the Son and the Father or began as it ends c. may I declare that I Consent to and approve all things contained in it and prescribed by it § 2. As to your limitation of the sense to the word Use I have told you that the Parliament rejected it and that it is a groundless Fiction and that it makes your Cause no whit the better were it granted CHAP. XXV § 1. THe next is Whether we may assent to the Preface for justifying all that was in the Book before You say that It was not the intent of the Book to bind any Man to approve the Errors of Translators and Printers nor to use the Forms in the Liturgy so as to contradict one another Ans. 1. Printers Errors indeed are not the Convocations nor the Books as made by them Did I instance in any of them But if Translators Errors also be excepted our difficulty of understanding the Imposition still increaseth Then it seems as to the Psalms Epistles and Gospels we Assent and Consent only to the Original Text and so much as we judge well Translated I thought it the Book by ill Translation had grosly contradicted or depraved the Scripture it had been one of the worst sort of Errors I told you where it directly contradicteth the Text. What Heresie may not be brought in by a false Translation We thank God for the worst as a great Mercy to the Church and by them that will not receive a better in the Psalms we are thus commanded to justifie even that which was worst lest they should be thought to have needed any amendment And you make your self their Expositor without their Authority and tell us that the intent of the Book is not to bind us to approve the Errors of Translators And I believe you as the Book is distinguished from the Authors and so hath no intent at all But if the Translaton hath done as Heylin saith the King's Printer did that put Thou shalt commit Adultery for Thou shalt not and I were commanded
you feign them to speak Nonsense or to Tautologize You say You Assent to all but not that All is true Which is a Contradiction or Equivocation § 4. Prove say you that there is any one thing in the Book which may not in the course of Conformity be godly used Ans. To some Men I will undertake to prove nothing If there be no proof in the Book which you write against when you have got leave to Print it you are likely to have more Till then to call for proof when you have it and speak not sense against it is too easie a way to satisfie the Just. § 5. III. I told you by word of Mouth that your Catholicon of trusting to the Bishops Exposition of the Book yea to his silence so gentle and tractable are you become is no relief to you for expounding the Assent Consent Subscription against the obligation of the Vow and about Arms c. because these are part of the Act of Uniformity and you say that Act is no part of the Book To this you Print your Answer that you Have another string to your Bow viz. That the Bishop is by Law the Ordinary to Ordain and take Subscriptions and may admit Ministers to subscribe these Tests with such Explications Meanings and Allowances as will well stand with the words justly and fairly construed Ans. 1. The Bishop is not made the Expounder of the Law but the Receiver of your Subscription according to the Law 2. If you will confound Indulgent Connivance and Conformity must we do so too This is Mr. Humphrey's project And I freely confess to you That if you can meet with an Indulgent Bishop it 's a fairer way to intromit a Dissenter than any that you have named in your Book All words are ambiguous The sense is the Soul of them If e.g. I were commanded to say that The Scripture is not God's Word and I had leave to expound it 1. All Scripture or Writing is not God's Word but the sacred Bible is Or It is not God's Eternal Coessential Word which is Christ were it not for Scandal this might be said as true And some think the Scandal is sufficiently avoided if you give in your sense in Writing and make it as publick as is your Subscription But I think that the very subscribing such scandalous Words will scandalously harden others and encourage Tyrannical Imposers more than your Exposition can Cure and therefore I would not use them And if I would I could cast in such an Expository Writing whether the Bishop will or not And if he accept it I pray better understand that This is not Conformity but Indulgence Connivance Toleration or Prevarication You might as well say He Conformed that by the King's Indulgence was excused from Subscribing and Declaring You put a Supposition that you had gone to Bishop Sanderson and askt his sense according to his Rules de Juramento Ans. I doubt your Party will think you betray their Cause by Prevarication 1. I told you how publickly in a meeting of Bishops Bishop Sanderson gave his judgment about Baptism against you 2. I cited the words of his Rules de Iuramento in the Book which you answer as being plainly against Conformity And you give no answer to it and yet suppose them to be for you This is too supine neglect to satisfie us § 5. You come over your foresaid sense of the Declaration again and pag. 160. You have better bethought you and will take the Debate of the Lords and Commons as useful to know the meaning of the Law Ans. What shall we do then by your Useful Error Why you now say You know nothing in the Book but what may be assented to as true Ans. And why was this so much disclaimed before When you put us to the trouble of Confuting you you Confute your self by changing your Cause and so we labour in vain Your Repetitions of the same things with saying and unsaying and bare saying without proof are so many that I will not wrong the Reader with Confuting any more of them save only to give you some account why I am sorry 1. That you retract your saying that Oaths are stricti juris 2. And that while you pretend to own Bishop Sanderson's Rules de Iuramento you renounce this which is one of the chief of them And I will tell you the reasons of my dissent from that and most of your Book IV. By stricti juris is not meant the meer Literal Sense as different from the less Proper which is more notified but strict is contradistinguished from loose and stretcht I told you the Rule that we go by in this and it pleased you not to Confute it Thus much I repeat 1. We must take Oaths Covenants and Professions imposed by Authority in the sense of the Imposers as near as we can know it 2. But if they discover their Sense in words so unmeet as that in the Vulgar Sense they seem false or wicked we must number such with unlawful words unless we can by the publick notifying the Exposition avoid the Scandal 3. We are to take the Laws and imposed words of Rules especially in Oaths Covenants and Professions in that sense as those words are commonly used and understood in that time and place by Men of that Profession Unless the said Rulers make known that they use them in a different unusual sense 4. We must not presume that they mean not as they speak by an unusual sense upon dark and uncertain Conjectures especially dictated by our Interest but only by Cogent Evidence These are our Rules The reasons why we cannot Swear or Covenant or profess in your Laxe and stretched sense nor call that sense honest as you do especially on pretence of a Bishop's Exposition contrary to what I have reason to be fully satisfied our Law-makers meant are those which I gave you in the thirty Aggravations Sect. 16. which it did not please you to contradict These few I repeat I. The words of the Third Command are dreadful God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain or falsly II. Such licentious stretching of Oaths and Professions overthrow that mutual trust which is necessary to Humane Converse III. It depriveth the King of his due security of his Subjects Loyalty and of his Peace and Life I much fear lest relaxing and stretching the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy but as much as you relax and stretch the words of the Subscription Declaration Liturgie c. may untie the Consciences of Rebels and King-killers so far as to make way for and consist with Rebellion and killing the King IV. It seemeth to me most dangerously to expose the Lives of all the Subjects of the Kingdom to the will of their Enemies and to be a Vertual Murdering of many or any if not all Persons that have Enemies For while two false Swearers may take away a Mans Life if Men are taught to stretch Oaths and