the Church of England hath given any direct Precept for reading that part of the Communion Service at the Lord's Table which is to end without Actual Consecration This I am to make good by two Ways First by probable Circumstances begetting this Persuasion Secondly by Examining the Pregnancy and Validity supposed in the Reasons to the contrary mentioned and urged by Mr. H. My first Part I shall endeavour to make good by fetching somewhat farther my Conjectures For I suppose 1. that the constant profession of our Church in following the Scripture as a true Rule of Doctrine and Worship and that as interpreted by the most Ancient Sound and Holy Church of Christ met here with no Obstruction or Exception little or no cause being given her to swerve from her professed Rule of Charity and Conformity Now as I have if my memory fail me not intimated unto you in Personal Discourse I do not find that any where in Ancient Churches nor at this day out of England in Reformed or Unreformed in Eastern or Western Churches that the Office of the Church was so divided as that one part of it should be said in one Part or Quarter of the Church and another in another Part but where it began there it ended It may seem therefore a more necessary than curious Inquiry to learn whence our Church took up that Custome so strange every where else For tho after greater Concourses of Christians for their greater benefit drew down the Office of the Church from the Eastern Part and Quire into the Body of the Church for better Distribution of the Service among the Multitude yet still the Office designed for the day was entirely compleated in one Place Neither can it be said that our Desk-Service or common daily Service is a distinct Service from that of the Communion Service which some alledge others making a threefold Service by vertue of the Litany added to the rest upon Special days which I think can scarce be made good yet if all this were true which I shall rather yield than here dispute still we shall want an ancient Precedent to warrant this division of our Service into sundry Places For as for that Ancient Distinction of the Missa into that of the Fideles and the Catechumeni whereof that consisted in the Celebration of the Lords Supper and the Communicating therein This was called Sicca because there were only certain Prayers preliminary and common to all designed for Baptisme as well as Baptized without Consecration and therefore was also sometimes call'd Nautica because it might be used at Sea on Ship-board where they judged it not safe to consecrate yet as I was saying in one and the same Place when joyntly used they were performed This Distinction mentioned coming nearest to the Resembling and Justification of our stop of the Communion Service where there is no Consecration at the end of the Prayer for the Holy Catholick Church is much asserted by Bartholomaeus Nervius in his defence of Cassander page 890 891 of Cassanders works And is acknowledged by Chemnitius Exam. Trident. pag. 363. Part. And more largely by Cassander himself out of Waldensis Socrates and Durantus in the 34 Ch. of his Liturgies Which I chuse to speak of here as well to justifie the like Practice in our Church as also to shew that such Distinction in the Office can be no sufficient ground to just ifie distinct Places of Worship And therefore we are to fetch the causes from some other ground than this And I am of opinion that such search will be lost Labour out of our own Church And that in our own Church will be found a Singular Oeconomia as St. Chrysost would call it and Condescension to gain in the Spring of our Reformation by all means some For in truth I am not so well read in or so well remember the Antiquities of our Church as to be able to say when the Desk or Reading Pew in the Body of the Church came first to be appointed tho I remember some no modern Articles of Bishops Visitations enquiring after them as appointed But when ever they were first appointed I presume to say That they were intended not for Prayers at all but for Reading the Scriptures and Homilies to the people in the English Tongue which they had not the happiness a little before at all to enjoy But the whole Service of the Church was as in Ancient Churches all at the Altar as they call it the People then having not forgotten to gather together before the Priest and humble themselves as formerly in times of Popery For they had not drunk in the Popular Superstition of following Teachers scaring them as Children with Bugbears of Superstition in places And when the ordinary daily Service was brought into the Desk as most commodious at the time of celebrating the Lords Supper which was adjudged then requisite to be continued all Holydays and Sundays the Communion Service was continued as formerly at the Altars as at first or the Table in the stead and place of the Altar And I do really believe but cannot demonstrate that until the first Book of Edward 6. enjoyned all the Reformed Service was as formerly at the Altar But in that first Book I find no Rubrick directing the Service in the Body of the Church or Chancel But in the 2 Book of Edward 6. this Rubrick is premised The Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in such places of the Church Chappel or Chancel and the Minister shall so turn him as the People may best hear c. Here is mention made of the most commodious Posture at one Place for the People to hear But no mention at all of divers places either in the first Service or in the second where is order taken more especially for proper Habits at the time of celebration of the Communion but nothing else implying but one Place as yet Now when the Places become distinct by erecting a Reading Pew I am of opinion that it was then and after permitted to Officiate then in the Second Service as we call it in the Desk till the Canon of Consecration which the Ancients would call the Canon of the Mass began For in such Junctures and Cases I believe it was the command of the Church there only to minister And from hence I gather a Solution of the Riddle and of the Objections made for the Direct Precept of our Church for Ministring the whole Office of the Communion at the Lords Table The Difficulties and Arguments for the Indispensable Obligation to it are founded upon the certain Command which I grant ought Religiously to be obeyed that command certainly appearing Command Direct none is pretended but Indirect and Implicite is endeavoured to be proved by Mr. H. and others from a two-fold Rubrick the one requiring that the Minister stand at the North end of the Table which he cannot do unless he be there This is very true But can he not be there
knew not before I learnt so much from his Title Page And might have well doubted whether this lover of Moderation that is he knows not what be Resident upon his Cure as he there also professes to avoid the Suspition of the Leader of a Conventicle But in truth he doth not attain this end there being so many ways of Equivocation invented now adaies to seem what men are not and not to seem what they are that 't is not incredible that his Cure may be a gathered Church tho I knowing nothing of that affirm no more than I know But now I apply my self more particularly to O. V. and his Letter to his Friend N. D. both true Sons of the Church of England as they Write themselves But I think they should have added to that Character this Supplement For ought they know For there is great Suspicion that O. V. hath taken some of his Instructions from the Conference of Worcester-House as Printed and Published by the Dissenters where this Sentence of Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History Lib. 5. 23. is made great use of to the same end that is as little purpose as here viz. Those of the same Faith differ as to Custom from one another Can this reach Mr. Hart's Case think we Or so much as prove any such Moderation of Rites and Ceremonies our Church requires This the Conferrers and surely this our Present Vindicator imagined deceived by them in all Probability But they are all much mistaken For Socrates meant nothing less than to countenance or so much as to say that any Church in the Christian World in those or Ancienter Days did ever allow any of their Subordinate Members to differ from the Rules of their Respective Churches or to differ from them in Rites and Ceremonies and least of all in such things which were prescribed them in the Service of God But this is the plain and certain Case between the Church of England and the Dissenters and their Advocates pleading for Moderation and Liberty in things standing determined by their Superiours But Socrates tells us how several Churches of several Nations and Provinces under Coordinate Governours did use their known Liberty in forming the external part of Gods Publick Worship somewhat diversly And doth the Church of England or any of it's Defenders speak write or act otherwise This were indeed blame-worthy but no such thing appears and therefore Mr. Hales of Eaton famous for his Learning might have shewn his Judgement as well as his Reading if he had made no such use of such Instances as these and taught others so to do To this stumble in the very Threshold I might add another Errour charged upon Mr. Hart in the Title Page which pretends Mr. Hart defames the Church of England contrary to the 11th Canon of those 1603. But I find no such Defamation chargeable upon Mr. Hart nor proved by him as is attempted Page 3. The Canon even as quoted by him speaks thus To affirm and maintain that there are within this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the Kings born Subjects than such as by the Laws of this Land are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the Name of true and Lawful Churches This is all with him but scarce sense without that which follows in the Canon Let him be Excommunicated c. Now the matter is how to bring to this any thing that Mr. Hart says in any place of his Book The most and worst that he hath in all his Book is the Title Parish Churches turned into Conventicles c. Does this at all contradict the Canon mentioned which flatly denies all Assemblies in opposition to our Church to be any true Churches The Canon does not so much as say that the Church of England is the true Church therefore he that should say it is no true Church doth not defame it upon the account of that Canon tho upon others he doth But I cannot think it was ever in Mr. Hart's mind to deny the Church of England to be a true Church but to affirm that such Parish Churches as did deviate from such Prescriptions as he conceived all were obliged to in that particular did Symbolize with Conventicles in which acceptation his meaning is more just and sincere than to be confuted either by your or my Labours And this probably you found by Experience and therefore you more wisely than justly relinquish the true State of the Case and all along fall upon his Person and Qualifications with greatest Scurrilities and Reproaches becoming rather the Son of a Conventicle than a Son of the Church of England which manner of Confutation I have chosen chiefly to except against First you acknowledge him to be a Gentleman you had in my opinion done much more advisedly and peradventure more successfully if you had shewn your self to have been such too by Civil Usage and especially if you be of the Clergy which I neither know nor have enquired after to your Civility you should have added a Degree of Modesty more It may be remembred how above Forty Years ago a Bishop's unadvisedly casting out a word which was drawn to imply a Contempt of Gentlemen it gave such Alarm to many Gentlemen and so Incensed them against that Order if not the Clergy in General that it contributed not a little to their Sufferings It had been Prudence therefore to have been more sparing of your Spittle in that respect And so Secondly as a Barister and Lawyer a Friend and Well-willer to the Church would have omitted the many Taunts and Revilings you have cast upon him as such Do you not consider how much it becomes the Clergy to mitigate the Prejudices that Order are too Subject to against the Church and how powerful they are to strengthen or weaken the Interest of the Church and it's Prosperity Another man not inferiour to you would have found occasion of Gratitude and Praise from whence you raise your reproaches viz. that with honest and sincere mind and good Ingenuity he zealously undertook the Asserting of the Rights and Rites of the Church Wherein if he failed as I my self am of opinion he did tho I cannot say that either I or you have Demonstrated so much it was a laudable intention tending to it's Vindication from private Interpreters of it's Laws and Corrupters too as he judged His severity in drawing such Conclusions from such a supposed Sense gave me occasion to imagine he might be a Lawyer whose property it is to condemn a whole Deed for a Rasure committed in it he conceiving that this omission of the due Performance of the second Service was of that nature But do you think it requisite or tolerable that every ordinary Minister should so modifie his Worship as the Presbyterians in their Books speak or so use their Discretion as in truth rather to follow the Discretion of the Multitude and Common People than their own or the Churches There is not any thing
more unworthy a wise or humble Minister than this knowing that to be true which Seneca saith de Vita Beata Cap. 2. Vulgus veritatis pessimus Interpres The Common sort are the worst Interpreters of truth of all Men yea taking in what there presently followeth Vulgus autem tam Chlamydatum quam Coronam voco I mean saith he by the Vulgar some Robed or Gowned Persons as well as the Rabble and so we Ministers may be in danger to be of the Number and so we are indeed compared with our Governours Once more Seneca in the same Place against Courters of the Common People Argumentum Pessimi Turba est 'T is an Argument the thing is very bad which the Rout approves very much Did you never hear of the Expert Master of Musick who gave his Scholar a Box of the Ear when he took him playing to the Admiration of the Vulgar Presuming he must needs be out and play amiss or the Common Sort would never have liked him so well Which it were to be wished were not too often to be found in Popular Preachers who the worse they Preach the more they are applauded by such People whom Chaucer in his Squires Tale thus describes but too truely As People deemeth commonly Of things that been more Subtilly Then they can in their leudness Comprehend They deemen gladly to the badder end And such are the Judges we commonly choose to be directed by But I pass that and come to a worse reproach than the former by far an Argument of a very mean Understanding and low Spirit in the Accuser viz. That he was once a Papist and tho Converted still looking towards Rome an Imprudent and Unchristian Aspersion 'T is true as I am informed in his greener and younger Days he fell into the Snares of Rome And 't is no less true and more to the honour of our Religion that in his Maturer Judgment and Years returning to himself he returned to the Church of England also and preferring it above all other Faiths or Factions desires nothing more than an exact Observation of her Rules and Manner of divine Worship And this Last it seems so troubles you as it does a great many more such true Protestants which the selate times have produced or rather brought to light to the disgrace of all Reformation that you take Liberty to mock and rail him out of that Conscientious design suspecting the Invalidity of your Argumentations to that end For as we see it to be the crafty Practice of Pilferers and Thieves having stole any thing from their Neighbours the first thing they do is to pull off or deface the Mark that it may not be known to whom it belongs so Phanatically disposed Persons make it their business to tear away the Rites and Ceremonies belonging to and Characterizing the Worship of the Church of England from the Will-Worship of Sectaries that it may become their own without Controul But are such reproaches as you give to one converted to our Religion the best Entertainment and welcome you can afford out of the Penury of your Civility or true Piety Have you a mind to drive him back again and turn him out of Doors by your ill usage Or is this the Encouragement you can give to others to return to us I will here tell you a true story to this purpose which some Seamen with whom some Years since I was embarked told me upon their own knowledge which may suffice to advertize you of your absurdity in reviling Converts for having been in Errour A Moor or Turk was of the Ships Company who had renounced Mahometanisme and became a Christian An ill nurtur'd and malicious Fellow among them bearing him a spite would often be reviling him for his Religion calling him Mahometan and worse To whom the Man answered Ingenuously and Soberly What means this Man to check and reproach me so for having been a Mahometan I was so indeed but now I am as good a Christian as himself It happened about the same time that these things thus passed that there was an occasion for the English Railer to go up to the main top whence he was suddenly hurried away by a Blast of Wind as was supposed being never seen or heard of more Which they told me as an Instance of Gods Judgment upon a Reviler of a Penitent and I tell you But you say He looks towards Rome again How know you that Have you turned his Face that way in Abhorrence of your base Treatment I might so judge but that I am perswaded neither your Evil nor your good Word is of any account with him you should seem rather to be one of the Modernest true Protestants or as the late expression of a dying Man is Sincere Protestant who make all Popishly affected not approving their Prophanations of Gods Service and Seditious Zeal But I suppose you ground your Suspitions from what you here charge him with Irreverence at the Ministers Prayer and Sermon which in one of our Statutes say you whether he knows it or no is called Divine Service by Reading some Book of his own c. And I also am one of those that know not any Statute or Canon where the Sermon is called Divine Service And whatever may be said in large acceptation of Words I am sure it is not so in it's nature and proper use of Divine Worship And I am sure also the Prayer of the Minister in his Pulpit before Sermon is no part of the Service enjoyned but a Will-worship of Mens Private Invention more like to that of Nadab and Abihu than that of the established Worship which Sectaries have been wont so to traduce And if the Gentleman so carried himself at Church at such Private Exercises he offends less against the Constitutions of the Church than they who shew their Gifts rather than their Grace in using them whose Original and Design was to bring the Worship of God appointed by the Church into disgrace and contempt which accordingly Succeeded in late Years And if you plead a Custom as my self do against the Obligation of ministring constantly at the Communion-Table I may answer First this Custom hath not the like Grounds or Reason which it seemeth to me the forbearance of that hath Again Custom may make it Tolerable to do so but not Intolerable or Criminal to let it alone So that if any tender Conscience shall be offended at such strange Fire offer'd to God such a one may notwithstanding Custom modestly declare it's dislike by doing somewhat else not Scandalous in it self And therefore tho the Prayer be beholden to him that shall joyn with him in that Superstitious if as Mr. Cawdry and others of his Strain suppose Superstitio be Supra Statutum and incommanded Worship yet no man can Legally censure him that refuses to hear such Exorbitances And the same may be said of the Psalms Sung in Meeter and Tunes of Private Inventions I confess I have Read lately in the Writings of two Reverend and Learned Divines that it is a Vulgar Errour to say that those Singing Psalms want Lawful Authority But very desirous to know where and what that Authority is I found my self Frustrated and am so small an Antiquary in such abstruse things that I cannot help my self herein But have been sometimes of opinion that if any such Authority there be as those Reverend Persons intimate but instance not in that it must rather belong to another Ancienter and in my Judgment more Pious and Elaborate as to Art and Sense tho no less uncouth in Language Translation in Verse which I have by me and seems to be the Work either of one Man or divers concurring to the same thing and not Patch'd up by several Authors as the Common Singing Psalms are possibly that Ancienter I speak of may be the same which the Author of the Troubles of Eranckford Speaks of who tells us After the Death of Queen Mary the Exiled prepare themselves to depart for England from Geneva save such as stayed to finish the Translation of the Bible and Psalms both in Meeter and Prose Which yet whether they were ever allowed by Authority Istill remain Ignorant And thus I have passed some General Animadversions on the Censurers of Mr. Hart's Book Not intending to call in Question their particular Examinations from which I might have drawn somewhat pertinent to mine own Method of the same Subject But I choose rather to let it pass rudely according to the first and only Draught by me Whereby I suppose that if Mediocrity or Moderation be such a Vertue as it is cryed up for I may in this particular claim that Praise and obstain the Approbation of these Commenders of it Submitting what I say not altogether to them but most of all to such as are over me in the Lord from whose Determination I shall hardly swerve FINIS