whether he be of a good repute or at least not scandalous with his Parishioners than for a Minister not onely to inform him self of those Quaere's concerning each of his flock whether they discharge their calling justly and conscienciously and what means may be used for their recovery in case of their default who are not so easily to be cast out of the Ministers care by Excommunication as scandalous Ministers are out of the Bishops by deprivation Besides his catechizings of the ignorant and his admonitions of the knowing and his resolutions of perplexed consciences and his awaiting fit opportunities and circumstances for rendering his persuasions more prevalent are most expensive of time and yet are not so absolutely necessary to be critically observed in Government where the publick Service may be promoted by other Instruments if persuasions prove unsuccesful as in private discourses where the personal advantage of the party concerned is principally intended § VIII BUT then if you would be pleased to consider further how few Parishes are so little peopled as to consist onely of 400 and how few Dioceses consist of so many Ministers that have proper and distinct Cures how that usually the most eminent men for Parts and Action are or should be chosen Bishops many of them upon personal regards able to perform the work of many ordinary Ministers and may well be presumed extraordinary considering the great advantage for choice from the disproportion of their number so few Bishops being to be chosen out of so many Ministers If you would consider further how untrue it is that the dispensation of discipline even as it is practised is managed by the Bishop alone who has his inferiour Officers for preparing things for his cognizance besides the direction of learned Lawyers for his assistance in point of counsel which is the main reason that may be pretended for proving the Government of many better than that which is Monarchical and for counsel in this kind the Clergie themselves are not qualified as Clergie-men but as Lawyers but would have much more of this assistance according to my Book where I have professed my self desirous that the Bishops would more communicate the great Affairs of Government with their Clergie which I confess I think more agreeable to the primitive Form If I say you had considered these things you would find Discipline much more practicable under a Diocesan than a Secular Monarchy And I wish you would consider whether your Arguments will not proceed with the same force I do not say onely against those numerous Parishes of 30000 or 50000 persons which is a greater number than I believe are in some of our Irish Dioceses especially if onely Protestants be accounted and yet you do not pretend a duty of separating from the communion of such Parishes as you do from our communion as Diocesan though certainly a Bishop with a multitude of Clergie more subject to him than ordinary Curates are to their principal Parsons is much more able for the Government of a Diocese than an ordinary Minister wanting such advantages is for the Government of such a Parish but against Provincial and National Classes also For it is as impossible for every particular Elder of even a Provincial Class which were often of larger extent than our Dioceses to inform himself particularly of every person and cause to be brought before him so as to be able to judge distinctly of their merit as for a Diocesan Bishop And I can perceive nothing that may with any plausibility be pretended there that may not with as much force be urged here § IX IF it be pretended that there is a multitude who have their distinct Governments in their respective precincts mutually independent on each other some of whom by advantage of their neighbourhood may have opportunity of informing themselves particularly of every cause belonging to their Jurisdiction The same may be pretended here the same number of Clergie being imployed under a Diocesan as under a Classical Government But it is withall clear that a much greater number of them will even in such Classes prove incapable of that advantage of personal information who yet would not be denied their decisive vote on the testimony of others And in all Polyarchical Governments the suffrages of the major part is as decretory as that of a single person in that which is Monarchical so that still the Government is managed without particular information If their multitude be urged for the security of their counsel that is had also here especially in the Hypothesis defended by me where Presbyters are joyned in Government with the Bishops But with this advantage in our case that the same security of counsel is here joyned with expediteness in its decision and execution and security from equal suffrages the want of which do oftentimes more prejudice polyarchical Societies than the security of their counsels do avail them And it is plainly as impossible if not more for any Class which can onely be convened occasionally to execute its own Decrees without Delegation as for the Bishop § X YOUR answers for shewing the disparity betwixt Civil and Ecclesiastical Government as many of them as are true for all are not do onely prove a disparity on other accounts which is not denied but not such a one as may hinder the governableness of the same multitude by an Ecclesiastical and that in foro exteriori which is the onely question I am concerned in at present which is acknowledged governable by a Secular Magistrate You have neither any thing of reason nor of any positive revelation of God which might make such a multitude less governable by reason of some liberties restrained in the Church but allowed in the Commonwealth Your 1. is that the standing of the Magistrates office is by the Law of Nature which therefore alloweth variety and mutations of inferiour Orders as there is cause But the standing of the Clergy is by supernatural institution our Book of Ordination telling us that there are three Orders c. Whence you conclude that men may not alter them or make more of the same kind The force of this Answer as far as I can apprehend it seems to consist in these two things 1. That the government of a Diocese cannot be administred without more than three Orders for those three you seem to allow from the Book of Ordination and 2. That it is not in the power of the Church to institute new Orders besides the three already established though it be in the power of the State to innovate as they please by reason of the disparity by you mentioned The former is so manifestly false as that if ever Discipline were observed ever since the government of the Church was Diocesan which is hard to deny since it has been Diocesan as far as Ecclesiastical History can inform us it was under these three Orders Nay the Presbyterians pretend their Classical Discipline to be maintainable by one Order
Fellow of the College of Dublin which he seems willing to asperse because I had once the honour to be a Member of it I mention not my Books against Popery in one of which I have endeavoured to prove that the Doctrines of the Church as well as the Court of Rome are treasonable which let any equal person think what service it could do them by one who must be supposed onely to dissemble himself of another Communion I mention not the Witnesses of my Life in those places where I have spent the greatest part of it § II MY present communicating with the Church of England and none other will with equal Judges who will allow any possibility for Protestants to clear themselves from the imputation of Popery when charged on them in times of ill design be a sufficient Purgation notwithstanding his Cavils to the contrary If my mind should change as at present I foresee no probability that it ever will I hope in God that greater Fears than those I have from him shall never force me to dissemble At present I intend that this shall not fright me from any reasonable Candour to Papists as well as other Adversaries And this methinks a Peace-maker and a person of that Catholick temper to which Mr. Baxter does so pretend should not be angry at who can himself when he thinks fit give a just Character of what he thinks commendable in them But I am weary of such Personal Subjects in which the Publick is so little concern'd and I am not willing to make this slander look too like a matter of real dispute by too sollicitous a defence All I shall say further for my own vindication in this matter is that I challenge the justice of them that know me and that I claim the charity of those who do not till they have better information than the Surmises rather than Arguments of this otherwise good man in his passion I dare stand by an Authority which he cannot well decline it is his own against himself in this very Book wherein he has traduced me Himself has observed how ordinary it is to charge even just moderation in Disputes wherein the Papists are concerned with Grotianism no doubt out of a consciousness of his own guilt for I believe he is himself the principal if not the onely Author of the charge of Grotianism to the Sons of the Church of England Himself has also observed how not onely the common gang but even learned men yea and zealous religious men are to be suspected in their evil Characters and Reports of those that they are speaking against as Adversaries And he says It grieveth him to think how little most Adversaries in this case are to be believed So that without disparagement to his acknowledged zeal and religiousness the impartial Reader has from himself a sufficient warning to suspect him in this matter § III FAR be it from me to recriminate or to return him evil for evil I have in truth a just Reverence for his Devotional Labours and the benefit that many Souls have received by them I have a Reverence for his publick designs of charity and particularly for that of endeavouring the Peace of Christendom and am sorry that my agreeing with him in it which I hoped might have been an endearment has in the event proved an occasion of offence I have withall a Reverence for his years and am unwilling that the defects of his Age and Controversial Writings should impair any of that Credit his former and Devotional Writings have justly gained him On these accounts I most willingly pass by his other personal Reflections on me which my Conscience will permit me to take no notice of I pass by even his disrespectful mention of our primitive Forefathers of Bishops as Bishops and Clergie as Clergie and even of those to whom in his Episcopal Ordination he must have promised Canonical Obedience antecedently to the Covenant I pass by the Imperfections of his way of reasoning used generally in his later Writings I pass by whatsoever may concern his person as far as my cause will give me leave I cannot deny but some of these may justly forfeit him that reverence which his other Performances have deserved But besides my own unwillingness to take advantage even of just Forfeitures I have other prudential reasons to forbear such a subject They administer no occasion of promoting useful Knowledge they are neither likely to be received by others nor to benefit himself as proceeding from an Adversary § IV CONCERNING the cause it self I find so little said as that I had thought to cast my self upon the candour of our disinterested Readers But remembring that a subject which was wanting here was given me formerly in these Letters which pass'd between us some years since upon the Publication of my Letters of Advice remembring that the same things which had been objected then are still objected anew in this and his other late Books without the least notice of those Answers which had been so long since returned to them considering withall that that subject was new and not that I knew of considered professedly in any modern Discourse I thought it not unseasonable to take this occasion of publishing them the rather because they may serve as an Answer to the greatest part of the Argument of his Book and because what new matter is here urged might conveniently enough be included in a Preface But because I had desired him not to publish any thing without common consent and because I wanted the Copies of his Letters which I being to keep the Originals did therefore not transcribe but yet could not now come at because they were in Ireland and are mislaid since my departure and because I was willing to take leave to correct what I thought amiss in my own Letters yet so as to do him no wrong by doing so I therefore craved his concurrence and assistance in the Publication But he lest me to dispose of my own as I thought fit I have accordingly taken the liberty to expunge some things personal and but very rarely to add what might better clear my own sense but was in both as cautious as I could be not to misrepresent him to his disadvantage and the rather because I wanted his own Originals I have always endeavoured rather to answer his sense than his expressions whenever I thought his expressions were not so much for the advantage of his cause But if any suspect otherwise of an Adversary I am content and shall be glad that what I say may pass for a Reply rather to his cause than his person that he be charged with nothing but what he owns again in this Book or will own again when there is occasion I know not what himself can desire more in order to my dealing fairly § V TO come therefore more closely to his pretended Confutation of my Book I wonder what it is that any
not been impleaded in those Disputes concerning the necessity of Succession Such a one would make a Conclusion odious where he could not disprove it as false would endeavour to raise the affections of his Readers where he despaired of prevailing on their Judgments would traduce the person of his Adversary where he had no hopes of obtaining his cause Such a one would be as confident as he is in general charges of Absurdities Contradictions and Wordiness c. but would withall be as cautious as he is of mentioning any particulars of such Charges Such a one would refer an Adversary to Books written before for Answers to Arguments not so much as treated of in those Books would with great boldness impose on Readers ignorant of those matters that all had been already answered there and that the onely reason why no more is answered now is onely to avoid Repetitions so that unless a new question be produced as well as a new argument there shall never want an excuse for want of a new Answer I wonder how Mr. Baxter can pretend to have answered what I have said concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost or the sin unto death or the Sacraments which yet I see are so displeasing to him or even the way of deriving their Succession from their first Separation what I have said concerning the opinion of the Schoolmen that Bishops and Presbyters differ onely in degree to shew how unsufficient that is for justifying their present Succession what I have said concerning this way of resolving the Dispute not into ancient Learning but more modern Histories of their Succession what concerning their derivation of Power from any valid act even of the Presbyteries themselves c. Should I say things so notoriously false with such confidence I confess I could not tell how to excuse my self from his uncivil Epithete of Audaciousness Such a one would slight the question that pinched him how momentous soever it might prove in its consequences and divert to others though of no use yet more capable of odium and of a popular talent of raising passion And has not Mr. Baxter who cannot find leisure to answer these Arguments wherein the Orders of his Brethren and their Sacraments and the whole comfort of their Communion are generally concerned shewn that he has a great deal of leisure to rake Church History to asperse the dead and blaspheme the living Rulers of his people for condemning Heresies when yet the generality of his Brethren themselves do not pretend to differ from us in any thing which even we call Heresie To what end is all this but to make a noise at a distance to divert us from the real debate Such a one would cavil as he does about words What can I think it else but cavil when he pretends himself so extremely ignorant in the meaning of the Terms of our Dispute When he who has lived all his Life in England and has received his Orders from a Bishop of the Church of England is yet to learn what we in England in our Disputes with his Party mean by the name of Bishop nay even by that of the Church of England If he thought himself in earnest as ignorant as he pretends why would he meddle in Disputes where he does not understand the Terms If he knows better things what charity can excuse him from the charge of Insincerity Though persons may yet causes cannot aequivocate There is but one sense of all Terms which causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to skill in causes Other senses I did not think my self obliged to take notice of in Terms of notorious signification till I found some occasion for it from the misunderstandings of my Adversaries But there is one thing that looks most like an Argument of Self-conviction which though it has been taken up by persons of worse design than he yet does withall run through the Reasoning of several of the later Books of Mr. Baxter that is that our Clergie must alone be responsible for all the scandals that any Clergie who never had any affinity with ours but that of their common office were ever guilty of What is this but in effect to acknowledge that ours are the onely real Clergie What is it but to acknowledge the conclusiveness of those Arguments which have been used by me to disprove the Title of their Ministers to the Office of real Clergie-men If they thought their own to be Clergie-men why will they not be as obnoxious to all the scandals they can rake of Clergie-men out of the Histories of Sixteen hundred Years as ours I wish I could by this Suggestion make them sensible of the disingenuity they shew in this way of Reasoning and of the mischief they do themselves and the common cause of Christianity It is strange if Mr. Baxter can ever expect to revive Parochial Discipline by such means as these of ruining Diocesan Can he ever expect to prevail with those irreligious Laicks who are on this occasion so ready to make use of this misguided zeal of his Brethren not as more orthodox than others but as a popular party to submit themselves to the Censures of his Parochial Ministers when he teaches them to despise an Authority so much more venerable than theirs on all the accounts which Mankind owns for just reasons of veneration Can he in earnest hope than an upstart Authority of Innovators too late to have their Scandals traced through any distant Histories can procure reverence with them who are told such vile things of those who upon the first division were found possessed of an Authority so much more received by a peaceable as well as a just prescription Can he expect that he can preserve that Authority in Inferiours which he endeavours to ruine in their Superiours Can he think to preserve it in those whom it seems himself dares not own for Clergie-men whilest he teaches them to asperse the very name as well as the authority of Clergie-men Can he think to preserve it in those who have no other but extraordinary ways of pretending to a Divine Authority or to pretend Charters expounded by themselves in their own favour when he teaches them to undervalue an Authority derived by all the ways by which it is reasonable to expect an Authority should be derived at such a distance Can he expect in the age we live in that the great ones will ever be induced to pay respect to the inferiour Clergie who are so unknown to our Laws when they are taught to deny it to those who have as good a Title even to legal honours as themselves Mr. Baxter may possibly ruine us if God should grant him the curse of a success on his present Endeavours but I cannot for my life conceive how he can settle us or really reform our lives or restore Discipline on such Principles as these True Latitudinarianism does onely
of God grew and prevailed ver 20. And it must argue a very great number considering that books were a commodity which is not to have been presumed a considerable part of the riches of each much less of that particular subject however the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be celebrated among the Ancients and the total number of the persons concerned must needs be greater by how much the particular proportions to be distributed among them are likely to have been less to the particulars and it is accordingly observable that no particular is noted to have been considerably impoverished by so great a loss THESE are the most remarkable Cities mentioned in the Acts which we have reason to believe to have abounded with numbers of Christians too great for the Cure of a single person And it is to be considered that as in their preaching you find little mention of their preaching in villages but in Cities so it is most credible that they left them to the care of the Government established in the Cities Whence it will follow that the Ecclesiastical as well as the Secular Government of Villages depended on the Cities and that therefore they were Dioceses in the modern extent and that the Government established in Cities seems to have been most agreeable to the design of the Apostles And of all Cities those are to be supposed most accurately provided for by the Apostles which were converted by their personal preaching and which in their times had numbers sufficient for Government and therefore if other places had deviated from the examples of these as those in Africa and Ireland which you cannot prove to have been converted by the Apostles you ought rather to have corrected those by these than as you preposterously do to confine the Dioceses converted and established by the Apostles to the dimensions of them which were not But besides these Scripture Arguments evincing the great number of Christians even in the times of the Apostles themselves another may be drawn from the multitudes of Heresies which must have needs drawn great numbers from the Church not onely that swarm which rose immediately after the decease of the Apostles as the Basilidians Valentinians c. but also those who were contemporary with the Apostles themselves as the Simonians Nicolaitans Ebionites Corinthians c. For though some few of these did even in the Apostles times themselves separate as is clear from 1 John 11. 19. and several other places of the Epistles where they are blamed and confuted and the multitudes of them that perished in Jerusalem in the Captivity yet most of them did then act more covertly and were followed by smaller parties in regard of what was done after the decease of the Apostles which is the reason why Hegesippus in Eusebius calls the Church a pure Virgin till the time of Trajan in whose time S. John the last of them died not long after his return from Patmos Now if the Christians were so numerous as it appears they were even after these deductions of their own members by relapse and the hinderance of the conversion of others whom we find to have been alienated at a greater distance by this scandal of the multitude of their Sects for about that time we find it objected by Celsus who wrote his Book against the Christians under Hadrian the immediate Successor of Trajan if we may believe Origen we cannot think their number so small as you conceive in the times of the Apostles when they did not labour under these disadvantages But when they had overcome these difficulties and were exercised with new persecutions it is strange how exceedingly they encreased In Severus his time about the Year of our Lord 201 according to Baronius Tertullian wrote his Apologie which was above 100 years before Constantine yet even then there were such multitudes of Christians as that he prefers them before the Moors and Marcomans and Parthians as being spread over all the Roman world His words though they be so known that I wonder that you forgot them yet are withall so very pertinent and full to my purpose as that I think it necessary to transcribe them thus therefore he is in Cap. 37. Apolog. Plures nimirum Mauri Marcomanni ipsique Parthi vel quantaecunque unius tamen loci suorum finium gentes quà m totius orbis Externi sumus vestra omnia implevimus urbes insulas castella mancipia conciliabula castra ipsa tribus decurias palatium senatum forum Sola vobis relinquimus templa Here you see Cities and throughout the whole world that is according to the language of those times the Roman Empire full of them What can be more contrary to your Assertion Yet fulness may be understood with a latitude for a great though not the greatest number But that he understood the greatest will easily appear from what he afterwards adds Potuimus inermes nec rebelles sed tantummodo discordes solius divortii invidiâ adversus vos dimicâsse Si enim tanta vis hominum in aliquem orbis remoti sinum abrupissemus à vobis suffudisset utique dominationem vestram tot qualiumcunque amissio civtum imò ipsâ destitutione punisset Proculdubio expavissetis ad sobitudinem vestram ad silentium rerum stuporem quendam quasi mortuae urbis quaesissetis quibus ves vobis remansissent nunc enim pauciores hostes habet is prae multitudine Christianorum pene omnium civium pene omnes cives Christianos habendo And again Suffecisset hoc solùm nostrae ultioni quòd vacuae exinde possessio immundis spiritibus pateret Certainly they whose very secession would leave nothing but solitude and silence and amazement and empty possessions for unclean spirits behind them they who had left their City as it were dead almost destitute of Citizens to be governed and their Enemies more numerous than their Subjects must needs have been much the greater number But when he says expresly that almost all their Citizens were Christians what can be clearer than that notwithstanding what allowances may be made for the confidence of the man and the humour of the opressed parties to advance their numbers Christians were so far from being few in comparison of the Heathens as that the contrary seems most probable that the Heathens in the Roman Empire were considerably outnumbered by them AND that in other Cities besides Rome and Alexandria which though Apostolical Sees you will not admit as 〈…〉 numbers were under the Government of Ecclesiastical Monarchs with their Presbyteries than had been governable by any single however able Presbyter Instances may be given besides the general proofs already intimated out of the good Records of those times as imperfect as we have them extant at present One is of Neocaesarea a metropolis of the Province of Pontus Polemoniacus which I take notice of that you may understand how great a City it was Here though the persons are expresly said to have
than could have been discharged by a single person even this himself acknowledges from Ignatius yet does not see how inconsistently with his own Hypothesis nor does he offer to give the least account of it I have observed that the multitude of Church-governours was proportionably as great then as now but that the allotting each Presbyter his particular Cure as it is now done by the distinction of Parishes is in truth a more convenient expedient for making the Government practicable I have shewn that his own decryed Instances of Rome and Alexandria are the onely Instances in all Antiquity of Churches fitted and confined to the management of single persons I have given an account how so great multitudes might notwithstanding communicate from the same Altar To all these things I find nothing here replied nor is it likely that he thought of them in a Book written so long before mine In short though he have indeed produced more Instances yet I see none but what are reducible to the same Topicks and are therefore already answered in generally speaking to those Topicks I find neither any new Arguments nor any further Improvements of old ones much less any satisfactory account of my Arguments or contrary Assertions So that if this be all he has to say I see no reason why I may not leave it to the Reader to judge between us These are my present thoughts on a cursory view of the design and management of his Book that part especially wherein I am more particularly concerned However I do not prejudge either the Reader or my self if upon a close perusal any thing do yet appear that may deserve a further examination more than I see yet any reason to expect I shall be thankful to him who will tell me what it is O that it would please God to awaken this good mans former zeal for solid peace and piety Those are things for which his Talents serve better than they do for Controversie How much rather would I serve him in the meanest offices that might be really subservient to these things than thus contend with him in these unedifying dividing Disputations FINIS A Catalogue of some Books sold by Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in S. Pauls Churchyard HErodoti Halicarnassaei Historiarum Libri IX Ejusdem Narratio de Vita Homeri excerpta â— Ctesiae libris Persicis Indicis Graeco-Lat Folio Francisci Suarez Tractatus de Legibus ac Deo Legistatore in X. Libros distributus utriusque fori hominibus non minus utilis quam necessarius Folio Herbert Thorndicus de Ratione as Jure finiendi controversias Ecclesiae Folio The Holy Court in five Tomes written in French by N. Caussin The fourth Edition Folio The Works of the most Reverend Father John Bramhall D. D. late Lord Archbishop of Armagh Primate and Metropolitan of all Ireland some of which were never before printed with the Life of the Author Folio The History and Vindication of the Loyal Formualry or Irish Remonstrance in several Treatises by F. Peter Walsh Folio A Collection of all the Statutes now in use in the Kingdom of Ireland with Notes in the Margin and a Continuation of the Statutes made in the Reign of the late King Charles 1. And likewise the Acts of Settlement and Explanation c. As also a necessary Table to the whole Work Folio Several Chirurgical Treatises by Richard Wiseman Serjeant Chirurgeon Folio The Primitive Origination of Mankind considered and examined according to the Light of Nature by Sir M. Hale Knight late Chief Justice of the Kings Bench. Folio Sir Richard Bakers Chronicle of England Folio Bishop Sandersons Sermons Folio Bentivolio and Vrania in six Books by N. Ingelo D. D. Folio Le Beaus Pledeur a Book of Entries containing Declarations Informations and other select and approved Pleadings with Special Verdicts and Demurrers in most Actions Real Personal and Mixt. Together with faithful References to the most authentick Law-books now extant and a more copious and useful Table than hath been printed in any Book of Entries The whole comprehending the Art and Method of good Pleading By Sir Humphry Winch sometimes one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas. Folio Skinneri Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae seu Explicatio vocum Anglicarum Etymologica ex propriis fontibus in 5 distinctas classes digesta Folio Holyoaks last Dictionary in 3 parts 1. The English before the Latin 2. The Latin before the English 3. The proper names of Persons Places c. Folio Sixty one Sermons preach'd mostly on publick occasions by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsey and Châ—plain in ordinary to His Majesty Folio Dr. Edw. Brownes Travels illustrated with Figures Quarto The Controversial Letters or the grand Controversie concerning the pretended Authority of Popes and the true Soveraignty of Kings Quarto A true Widow a Comedy acted at the Duke Theatre written by Tho. Shadwell Quarto A Vindication of the Syncerity of the Protestant Religion in the point of Obedience to Soveraigns by P. Du Moulin D. D. Canon of Christ Church Canterbury The fourth Edition in which more light is given about the horrid Popish Plot whereby our late Sovereign K. Charles 1. was murder'd Quarto Phocaena or the Anatomy of a Porpess diffected at Gresham College with a preliminary Discourse concerning Anatomy and a Natural History of Animals by E. Tyson D. D. Quarto Dodwells Separation of Churches from Episcopal Government as practised by our present Nonconformists proved Schismatical from such Principles as are least controverted and do withall most popularly explain the sinfulness and mischief of Schism Quarto Two Letters of Advice 1. For the Susception of Holy Orders 2. For Study Theological especially such as are rational with a Catalogue of the Christian Writers and genuine Works that are extant of the first three Centuries Octavo Discourse concerning Sarchoniat honis Phoenician History Octavo Considerations of present concernment how far Romanists may be trusted by Princes of another Persuasion Octavo Two short Discourses against the Romanists 1. An account of the Fundamental Principle of Popery and of the Insufficiency of their Proofs for it 2. An Answer to six Quere's proposed to a Gentlewoman of the Church of Engl. FINIS * The true and onely way of Conc. part 3. chap. 9. * This I had written before I had seen the Admonion prefixed to his Church History where he pretends to make me the amends he had promised but still leaves it as a dispute what I really am to be determined not from his Testimony but from my Book We had at his own nomination referred the form of his Purgation to the excellent Dean of Canterbury to whom I had expresly given warning of such slippery forms from some tryal I had of him both in Discourse and in a Letter but he never consulted him By this it appears how little reason I had to depend on him However I am glad he has acquainted the Reader with the true reason of
a searcher of their hearts may know to be penitent yet the Church being obliged to accommodate her demeanour to them to her own knowledge may at the same time justly and commendably prosecute them if they seem otherwise to her And I believe you will find it a general occasion of your mistakes in this kind that you look upon Superiors as obliged to act according to your own private conscience But if your self had been a Governour and had to do with a person of a reputation otherwise unblamable but yet notoriously guilty of some very remarkable offence coming under your cognizance and so far from being penitent for it as that he should defend it and preach it to others and call such Preaching a faithful Preaching of the Gospel I believe you would think your self more secure in acting according to your own conscience than that of the criminal though you might confess your self as liable to mistakes as him And believe it that it is the most equal way to clear your self from prejudices and to prevent uncharitable censures to represent their case as if it had been your own YOU answer 8. That I must remember that great Cities had long but few Christians in comparison of the Heathens till Constantine's time and mostly long after But 1. Though this had indeed been true yet it will not follow that the Government must have been proportioned onely to the necessities of those few both because Heathens as well as Christians the reducing of Infidels as well as the government of Believers belonged to their charge Which must have been by so much greater rather than less as there was much more difficulty in reducing one from his vicious practises as well as his opinions to the severe rules of Christianity than to govern many especially such good and excellent persons as Converts were generally in those times when actually reduced and because Christianity was in a growing condition and therefore the Government was to be proportioned to their future hopes as well as their present fruitions But 2. The supposition That Christians were so few till Constantine's time or afterwards is a great mistake In the Church of Jerusalem we find 3000 converted by one Sermon Acts 11. 41. besides those who had already been converted by our Saviours personal Preaching which may be supposed to have been very many by the multitude that sung Hosannahs before him which amazed the whole City and the terror of the Pharisees who durst not seize on him by force for fear of the people and their profession that all the world went after him c. and those who were afterwards daily added ver 47. besides 5000 men more expresly said to have been converted by another Sermon Acts 4. 4. and multitudes of men and women chap. 5. 14. added through all Judaea under which Jerusalem was also comprehended Acts 9. 31. And in the same place after Herod Agrippa's death the Word of God further grew and multiplied Acts 12. 24. and many thousands are mentioned though imperfectly for in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ten thousands Acts 21. 20. Yet were all these under single Bishops S. James and his Successors as far as History can inform us though in all likelyhood this number was vastly increased when most of the refractory Jews who most of all hindered the progress of the Gospel were destroyed in the Siege of Titus and generally banished when it was reedified by Adrian and by him called Aelia This is very observable because it is most likely to have been established by the Apostles as a patern for other Cities But it was not herein singular even in those times for Samaria seems generally to have been converted This appears in that all the people are said to have been deceived by Simon Magus Acts 8. 9. all from the least to the greatest ver 10. and the same number seems to have been converted by S. Philip and to have been baptized both men and women ver 12. and therefore Samaria is said to have received the word of God ver 14. Now the least that can be understood by these expressions is that much the greater part received the faith which must have very much exceeded the Government of a single solitary person In the Church of Antioch Ignatius his charge by which you in some part understand the extent of the Diocesan Government mentioned in his Epistles a great number is said to have believed Acts 11. 21. and after Barnabas his coming much people is said to have been added to the Lord ver 24. who are therefore to have been supposed distinct from the former And again ver 26. Saul and Barnabas together for a year together taught much people who there first received the name of Christians very probably from the great multitudes observable there above other places adjacent which could hardly have been so likely if they had not held some great proportion to the Inhabitants which if they did must have very much exceeded our ordinary Parochial Cures For Antioch was the third City of the Roman Empire in Secular as well as Ecclesiastical Dignity so in Antiochia Pisidiae many of the Jews and religious Proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas Acts 13. 43. And afterwards almost all the City came together to hear the word of God ver 44. and with what event may be conceived from that which follows ver 48 49. That the Gentiles were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed and that the word of the Lord was published in all regions Which besides the opposition mentioned onely by the Jews and devout and honourable women that is Proselytesses of the Gates as some understand acted by them ver 50. must imply the number of Converts to have been extremely considerable in proportion to the whole which must have included a great multitude this City being a Metropolis of a Province In Thessalonica some of the Jews believed and of the devout Greeks a great multitude and of the chief women not a few Acts 17. 4. And in Beraea another remarkable City they were more noble than those of Thessaloniea ver 11. And accordingly many of the Jews believed also of honourable women which were Greeks and of men not a few v. 12. In Ephesus S. Timothy's Diocese S. Paul himself disputeth first three moneths in the Synagogue Acts 19. 8. afterwards two years in the school of Tyrannus so that all which dwelt in Asia that is the Lydian or Proconsular whereof Ephesus was the Metropolis heard the word of the Lord Jesus both Jews and Greeks ver 9. 10. fear came upon all of them and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified ver 17. And you may guess at the great multitude of Converts by the vast summe which their conjuring books then burnt were valued at 50000 pieces of silver v. 19. which is observed by the Holy Ghost himself as an Argument how mightily the word