had put the word Christians instead of the word Nonconformist and said that Christians hold all those sottish and impudent opinions but yet said It is not all Christians had this been justice to Christianity and yet it is true for if Nonconformists be Christians then Christians hold what they hold He that heareth such a word Christians or Protestants or Nonconformists have a foolish Religion doth suppose it to be locutio formalis and that the meaning is As Christians or as Protestants or as Nonconformists their Religion is foolish And for the Author to say when he hath done I meant not All Christians All Protestants All Nonconformists is to say I speak not of them as such What then Why as Antinomians or as ignorant unlearned people But why then did you not charge your fooleries only on Antinomians Sectaries and ignorant people and make them as such only the actors in your scene and not as Christians Protestants c. I know the name Christians is more venerable than Protestant or Nonconformist But the injustice is as palpable in the one as in the other And the cause or the principle is bad that can engage men in such unrighteousness and make them so strange to themselves as not to see it yea to proceed impenitently in it even when Righteousness is one of the things which they write for as neglected by them whom they endeavour to disgrace It is an ill cause that produceth such effects though a quick and hasty wit can write another Volume to defend it till love it self shall sit in judgment and condemn all the issues of uncharitable wrath The cause of Nonconformity as of old and as owned now by us was punctually expressed to you in our many Papers given in when we vainly attempted unity and the new Conformity is known by the Acts which are lately made And what is the matter of the Debaters Dialogues to any of this Doth any Act of Parliament forbid men to say I am well through mercy Or is there any Nonconformity in that speech or any unfitness either And so of abundance of such other passages 6. And is it for the interest of Justice honesty and charity to perswade the world that the Nonconformists Religion is foolish senseless and unpeaceable when they profess to own no Religion at all but naked Christianity Is Christianity so vile a thing And indeed is not your Religion the same with ours I thought we had not been of different Religions but only of different opinions about Discipline and modes of worship in the same Religion But you know your selves better than we do But if really you are of another Religion from us why were there never any attempts to reconcile us in Doctrinals when the work of reconciliation was vainly on foot Why did you never charge us with errors in Doctrine Nay why did Dr. Cornelius Burgess his Reasons for Reformation in Doctrine Discipline c. so much offend as you may see even in the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs where he takes it ill that some pretend that we differ in Doctrinals But now the Religion of one must be wise and the other foolish The King there declareth our unity in Religion after his trial of both sides And this Author maketh our Religions as different as light and darkness that is as wisdom and folly Our Religion as to its containing Rule is the holy Canonical Scripture Is that foolish and seditious we profess to have no more The Explication of the Nonconformists sense of it you have much in the Assemblies Catechisms and Confession Why wrote you not to prove them to be another Religion Our Books also are abroad Mr. Hildershams Greenhams Hierons Dods Amesius Bains Bradshaws Cartwrights Mr. Gataker Mr. Vines Mr. Anth. Burgess Mr. Shaws Mr. How 's Mr. Allens and an hundred more What false Religion do they contain I have told you my Religion oft enough especially in my Reasons for the Christian Religion and in my Confession And if it be not false and foolish then it is not the Nonconformists as such that is so for a quatenus ad omne you may justly argue Yea the Author is pleased to favour me with some Vindication and to blame others for opposing me and is not that enough to prove that such opinions as he disliketh are no part of Nonconformity as now in Controversie But he will give me occasion to tell him how much I differ from his mind and ways when as there are near thirty or forty Books written against me in whole or in part by men of several Sects and parties and yet I fall out with none of them all nor charge them with such foolish Religions unless they be downright Apostates or Hereticks Nor would I silence any one of them that is a sincere Preacher of the Christian Faith My provocations its like have been more than this Authors ever were But must I forgive enemies and not friends Do we contend for our selves or for Truth and love and unity and peace It is some honour from those adversaries both to me and to my brethren that I am called their Antisignanus who have written such abundance of Books against me For it seems that we forgive and love each other If you say that it is because we now agree in Nonconformity I answer 1. It was so before 2. And you suppose us as little agreed in that and indeed many censure me more for differing from them there than in all the rest 7. And is it not as valid arguing to say Mr. Hildersham Dr. Reignolds Amesius Bradshaw Burgess c. have written soundly and learnedly Ergo the Religion of the Nonconformists is wise and sound as to say Mr. Bridge one of the five Dissenters from the Presbyterians hath some harsh expressions and Mr. T. W. hath some little sententious jingles such as Conformists most abound with Ergo the Nonconformists Religion is foolish 8. But it may be you will say that the Nonconformists must be judged of not by an odd person as your self is but by the major part Ans. 1. It never goeth right among Divines when they judge Causes by persons contrary to signed avowed professions Do they print and publish their professed Religion to the World and will you measure and denominate the Religion of the Nonconformists by two or three mens Writings against which also you have no more to say 2. And why did you not prove that it is the major part or one of an hundred that are guilty of the real weaknesses which you mention for all that you find fault with are not weaknesses Are the two or three that you named the major part of Eighteen hundred What of all this have you to charge on those forenamed or on Mr. John Ball Mr. John Paget Mr. Langley c. or on Dr. Twisse Dr. Arrowsmith and the rest of that Assembly or on Dr. Tuckney Dr. Langley Dr. Staunton Dr. Seaman Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Mr. Bull Mr.
others will call that Solitude which you call concord uniformity and peace And our unity will be like theirs in Moldavia and VValachia And who shall compensate the Kings damage 3. And Foreign Churches and posterity will be brought by it to so great a hatred of Prelacy that they will never be reconciled to it more but prefer a poor and humble Ministry And indeed it is already so known by its fruits that I am much in doubt the experience of it will alienate the people from that Primitive lawful Episcopacy which I would have them to desire They say already Give us the old honest humble serious Puritans that lived not upon Gold and Worldly greatness and cherished not mens sins that they might cherish them Fruatur vocibus obscaenis omnique libidinis arte Qui Lacedomonium Pytismate lubricrat orbem Namque ibi fortunae veniam damus alea turpis Turpe adulterium mediocribus haec eadem illi Omnia cum faciant Hilares nitidique vocantur Juv. I suppose you know how much it alienateth men from Popery that their Religion must be fed and live by blood yea by precious blood Some of you have written your wishes that the course had been followed which was begun in the days of Whitgift and Bancroft when divers Nonconformists were hanged And some have written that it was not for Religion but for Treason As for Hacket and Coppinger it 's known they were crackt-brain'd men pretending to be sent to judge the World whom the Nonconformists condemned which Bancroft himself in part confesseth And whereas Dr. Sutliffe conjectured that Cartwright was privy to all Mr. Simeon Ash gave me a Manuscript supposed to be Mr. Cartwrights own writing fully confuting that accusation And as for the rest it 's true that the Bishops then laboured by exposition of a Law to make Treason by consequence of that which was spoken against themselves But it will be long ere the confutation of that is well answered which is written by some one learned in the Law called A Petition to her Majesty c. And what the same Author saith Pag. 25. of that Pious man Mr. Udal will by others and perhaps one day by your consciences be thought on with respect to the 2000 silenced Ministers of late and the many that have dyed in and by imprisonment and much more of so many as if you prosecute what you have begun you must destroy His words are That the Bishops should be so unnatural as to seek the life of a right godly and faithful Preacher of the Gospel I mean Mr. Udal to whom Life was offered if he would take his Oath that he did not make a book whereof he was supposed to be Author A rare example that a man should be known standing at a bar shackled in bolts but quaere quo jure and coupled with a murderer whose conscience was thought so faithful and sound by the Judg himself that he would not swear falsly to gain his life He had not learnt some mens rules for expounding Oaths Nor loved his life so well as some men do a Benefice But were no worse men suffered 8. You may have all that is truly desirable and to be expected in this world as necessary to Unity and Concord to Order and Decency and to your own honour accomplished ten thousand times easilier surer and better by obvious honest lawful means God never putteth men upon such bloody and desperate courses as some advise It is no necessity of Gods making that is pleaded for such means but of their own sinful making or false imagining God never wanteth lyes or cruelty to his service or glory They are usually wicked selfish ends whatever is pretended for which men chuse and use such means Or if the ends were never so good they will not justifie such means nay good ends will condemn them as contrary incongruous and destructive But when there are easie suitable and honest means enow at hand the choice of such as are forementioned beseemeth none but those whose design is to destroy If you say What be those means They are easily told you but your little self-interests will not give you leave to think them tolerable I shall tell you more particularly anon I will now speak but of the generals Quest. 1. What if you would learn of the Holy Ghost to impose no other than Necessary things Act. 15. What if you had the patience to endure the Apostolick Primitive way of Discipline and Worship and suffered men to go to Heaven in the same way as the Apostles and Christians of those times did What if you kept all that Wisdom to your selves in which you excel the Apostles and put no more upon the Churches than they did Would the inconveniences of this weigh down the mischiefs which are now upon the Churches throughout the world by the contrary course Let not your passion make you run away with a conceit of an intollerable conclusion and say I would reduce you to the Primitive poverty or persecution No I talk not of matters extrinsick to Discipline and Worship for faith we will yet suppose we are agreed in I suppose you think not that Poverty or Riches are parts of the instituted worship of God I am as far from expecting that you should consent to be as poor and persecuted as the Apostles as that you should be as good as the Apostles Those that you have to do with believe that the Scripture hath more exactly determined how God will be worshipped than hâ—w much a year shall be the Revenues of a Bishop We meddle not with your Lands or Lordships whatever our own opinion be of such matters Though we are ambitious of your higher and wealthier condition yet we neither envy it nor think it our duty to diminish your wealth But the question is If you let men worship God without any more yokes or burdens than Christ and his Apostles laid upon the Churches what harm would it do Did they then want any needful uniformity Did they not pray decently without a Surplice Did they not baptize decently without the Cross If you say that they had their rites of decency then though not the same that we have now I answer Impose no other than they imposed Leave those free which they left free Though you think your own to be better than theirs so do not all Christians If it be mens infirmity to think that the Scripture-rites are better than yours yet what harm will it do you to bear with that infirmity What if you required no more Oaths of obedience to the Bishops than the Apostles required to themselves or to any Pastors of the Church What if you required no Subscription to any thing as certain truth but only to the infallible Oracles of the Spirit Nay the Apostles required not any to subscribe to all the books of Sacred Scripture but only to receive them in general as the Doctrine of Christ and the Holy Ghost and they
Presbyterians as they will needs call them by me I take it to be my duty as for my self and others to answer this more Historically than otherwise I should think convenient 1. Is it justice to charge men with seditious Preaching that never were accused or convict of any such Doctrine before any competent Judg If any man preach sedition heresie or schism convict him and let him suffer for it The Law is open and the Judges are not partial for Nonconformists And you may have more witnesses against us by how much the more publickly we are allowed to Preach 2. Do you think that men cannot differ from your opinions unless we put it into their heads I know not how to consute you but by experience 1. I must needs assure you that upon my experience above thirty years the people are much proner to Separation and to think very hardly of the Liturgy and Ceremonies than the Ministers be Insomuch that it hath been my wonder many a year to observe it that when we have but awakened the Consciences of ignorant and sensual persons to repentance shortly e're we are aware they fall on scrupling Ceremonies and disliking the Liturgy when we know of none that put them on it But the openest cause that ever I could observe if you can bear publick Historical truth is this As soon as they repent of an ungodly worldly life and begin to have serious thoughts of another world they are apt in their ignorance to judg of things by persons and when they are convinced of a great difference between a life of faith and of sense and between the sober righteous godly and the intemperate unrighteous and ungodly they presently mark what way these several people go in the matters of Worship which are past their own understandings And when they have seen in most places the deboist and vicious people to be great haters of strictness and so of Puritans and of Religious Exercises in any way but by forms and see them so much for Bishops and Common-prayer and then see some severities exercised against those that have lived most strictly they presently suspect that Bishops are the suppressors of the most Religious and the encouragers of those that need reformation and that Forms and Ceremonies are but the means to quiet the ungodly in their want of the truth and life of Godliness and to make them think themselves religious These are the ways of the peoples receiving prejudice against you as far as ever I could discern which I write not in approbation But Historically And I ever found that those Bishops and Pastors that most encouraged serious Godliness such as Bishop Hall Potter Davenant Morton c. were reverenced by the people And the names of Jewel Abbot Grindal Parry Babington Pilkington and many more such are still venerable among the Puritans as you call them But I cannot speak so certainly of any ones case as my own I will give you the true Narrative of my Education and leave it to you to judg what put the Principles of Nonconformity into my head I was never bred up under any Nonconformable Minister from the age of six till ten I had four School-masters Curates of the place successively that read Common-prayer two never Preached the other two seldom but the two more learned drank themselves into beggery and left us I came then to live at the habitation of my ancestors There I fonnd one Sir William Rogers about fourscore Parson of two places twenty miles distant that never Preaehed they told me in all his life when his sight failed he said the Common-prayer by rote and he that read all the Scriptures was a poor day-labourer of the place and the next year when he gave over a Taylor read it After him a pretended Minister Grandchild to the Parson took the whole Cure but never Preached once The Son of the old Parson also was there sometimes a Minister that is a Reader and a famous debauched Stage-player At this time a Son of the next Neighbour turned Minister and exceeded them so far that he undertook to Preach and had a Benefice a great way off whence after many years scandal he fled upon a discovery that one of the forementioned had forged his Orders The next Curate that did all that there was done and my School-master was another Neighbours Son who being set to be a Lawyers Clerk drunk himself into such necessity that he was fain to turn Curate When ever he came in drunk we knew it by our smarts being sure to be whipt He never Preached in my time there but once which was the terriblest Sermon that ever I heard to hear a man drunk in the Pulpit or else he had not ventured to Preach to talk a deal of stark nonsense upon so terrible a Text as Mat. 25. Come ye blessed and go ye cursed Our next Parson was no Nonconformist neither And then I was taken into the tuition of a grave and eminent man of high esteem among great men who expected verily to have been a Bishop He loved me well but so far frustrated my expectation that in almost two years time he neither read to me nor instructed me one hour but discoursed usually of the unlearned factious Puritans In his study which was all my help I remember not one Greek Book but the Testament nor one Father but Austin de Civitate Dei nor any of the Councils but ordinary English and Neoterick Divines and he studied little all the year but Bishop Andrews Sermons Hitherto I had no Nonconformists Principles And if you suspect my own Father it is enough to say that he only read the Scriptures in his house and scarcely any other Book and I never heard any prayer out of the Pulpit but a form till I was about seventeen years of age But because my Father would not drink and swear with them and restrained us from the dancing-place on the Lords-day that we might read the Scriptures that while and sometimes would speak of God and Scriptures and the life to come he was by the drunkards and rabble of the place reviled by the names of Precisian and Puritan as bitterly as any Nonconformist now though he never scrupled any point of Conformity nor spake against it And hearing all the drunkards revile that which I knew to be good as Puritanism I liked that name no whit the worse But lest you think that the experience of such Priests did disaffect me I shall add that though there was another such an old Reader that never Preached in the same Parish at another Church and very many Parishes round about us had the like yet three neighbour-Ministers venerable for age dying two above eighty years a piece and the third near it and very worthy godly Conformists who were my most profitable acquaintance did keep me from the principles of Nonconformity Of whom though they had all much rather have been rid of it and so were before they died
themselves to no parties sidings or factions in Religion They that you call Puritans and our followers were neither Episcopal Presbyterians or Independents but for plain Christianity and Godliness as such and for the unity of all sober Christians and to do their own duty in that especially which all these parties did consent in When I was removed from them and they heard a stranger in the Pulpit crying out against them as Presbyterians and a generation of vipers c. I hear they looked somewhat strangely at such strange kind of Preaching what the man meant to pretend to know their judgments better than they knew their own When I never knew two whose judgments were for the Presbyterian Government in all the Town and Parish They were in all this so unanimous and concordant that when division shattered some other Parishes there was not that I heard of one Anabaptist one Quaker nor of any different party at all among them save that two ot three in the War fell off from Christianity and all Religion and became as a pillar of Salt unto all the rest When I called them to my house to be Catechised and instructed there were very few families refused And there were not that I could hear of in the heart of the Town above one or two families in a street side that did not call on God and daily worship him The Lords-day they spent in publick Worship and in repeating for memory what they heard and in Praying and singing Psalms of praise They lived in quietness and had no Law-suits nor known contentions None of them lived in wealth or worldly honours none in idleness few or none in begging but in daily painful labour in their Callings by which they lived from hand to mouth Those few that were common drunkards in the Town three or four that custom had made as beasts were yet convinced that their neighbours were better and happier than they As to their cutting faces I can say nothing to you but that their tone was as decent as most Preachers I now hear and their countenance as sober and well composed But God most regardeth the composure of the heart But all that seemeth serious is to some men matter of scorn and one lately telleth you That if you stop the Nonconformists mouths no wonder if they speak through the nose And men will have more care to wash their faces and compose their countenances in publick than if you drive them into corners And for their prating-phrases they are ambitious but of two excellencies of speech the one is to speak their minds in that matter which may have the fullest signification both of the matter spoken and of the speakers affections about the matter for the use of speech is to express them both the other is for ornament and that is to speak in Scripture-phrase not abused any further than weakness causeth all the weak to do even publick Preachers as well as others but as well understood as they are able And they that scorn at Scripture-phrase should not conform to the Book of Ordination or Articles where the Scripture sufficiency and perfection is confest If the phrase of the Scripture it self is not odious neither is the sober use of it where it is not perverted But to such general charges we can give no answer but nexa caput sequitur name the particular persons and words and prove your accusation and caluminate not the rest against whom no such proof is brought 5 Obj. But what excellent Preaching or Labours have you to boast of more than others that your Preaching must be thought so necessary What did you when you did preach but cast out Catechising the Lords-prayer the Creed and the Communion in the Sacrament out of the Church and bring the people to be almost Heathens and cast out all true Discipline and Government and substituted Presbyterian Examinations before the Sacrament and rigor and tyranny which the people would not endure and is this so necessary a thing Ans. These things indeed we read and hear from you very often but another Judg must pass the final sentence You make us pity the poor world in regard of the uncertainty of History You put us upon the recital of our practice which will sound like the boasting of a fool But if blessed Paul was put upon that which he calleth Speaking like a fool though they were not the words of folly we must not murmur if we have the like inconvenience put upon us 1. If the successes before described be nothing worth in your esteem yet labour must be continued still and we must in meekness instruct those that oppose if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. And I suppose few Parish-Priests of my acquaintance will either judg themselves and their labours useless or give them over if the maintenance fail not of success else how many empty Temples should we have But you shall not so easily tempt us into utter unthankfulness for so great a mercy as our success beyond our expectation was I remember Dr. Ames telleth his Father in Law Dr. Burgess in his Fresh Suit that Bishop Morton himself did silence old Mr. Midsley of Rutsdale in Lancashire after God had blessed his Ministry with the Conversion of many thousand souls and his Son after him he silenced also Whether you will think that this which he calleth conversion being but from Popery ignorance sensuality and prophaneness be to be valued or whether you will deny the publick matter of fact I know not but for my part I was glad to hear that he was not silenced till many thousands had been converted by him And O what abundance of success this way had the Ministry of Mr. Hildersham Mr. Nichols Mr. Dod Mr. Thomas Hooker Mr. John Rogers of Dedham Mr. Herring Mr. Barlow and abundance more of the old Nonconformists And what understanding excellent persons were Dr. Ames Mr. Bradshaw Mr. John Ball Mr. John Paget old John Fox Mr. Paul Bain Mr. Parker c. To say nothing of Mr. Perkins Dr. Humphrey Dr. John Reynolds c. who were more Nonconformists than I and those of my judgment are Doubtless they were as like to know how to Preach without either prating phrases or ignorant unlearned dry unedifying Sermons tending to bring Christianity into contempt as most at least of the Parish-Priests that I use to hear in any place where ever I come 2. And as to our own Preaching I confess we have little cause to boast of it For my own part God knoweth I have seldom come out of the Pulpit without some grief and self-accusation that I should stand there to speak as a Minister of Christ about so great a matter as the everlasting Salvation of the peoples souls and that to men that are almost dying and must shortly be all in an unchangeable state where there is no more time of preparation for their final doom
say that they are certain of their own Salvation I know that many excellent Protestants have made it the sense of that article of the Creed I believe that my own sins are pardoned and say that this Proposition My sins are pardoned is de fide Divina And yet I know that in propriety and strictness of speech which should be used in Controversies it is not true I know that many of the School-mens assertions are commonly rejected as erroneous because they are not commonly understood I know that Luther maketh the Doctrine of Justification to be Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae and yet I know that Ludovicus le Blank of Sedan in his Theses hath greatly narrowed the difference and understands it much better than Luther seemeth to have done Which I may say also of Bucer Conradus Bergius In Praxi Cathol Ludov. Crocius and many other such Conciliators And that Luther on the Galatians is so acceptable to the Antinomians that I conceive divers passages in it have need of as candid an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Doctrine of Scotus and many Papists on that point I am my self a Christian and that is my Religion and I own the name Protestant for no greater reason than because it is the Protestant Religion to be meer Christians and to protest against the Roman Superadditions and depravations of it And so to be a Protestant and to be a meer Christian adhering to Scripture sufficiency as the test and terms of Union and Communion are all one Yea if any one doubted of the Canonicalness of the Canticles Esther or some one or few Books and acknowledg the main body of the Scriptures and the ancient articles of faith I would not cast such a one from my Communion And these terms or none I have foretold it you oft must heal the Church if ever it be healed And till the Papists will see the equity of these terms it is our great advantage that the certain truth of all our Religion is so fully acknowledged But 2. as long as we let others alone with their additions why may they not live in peace with us and let us alone without them All men are united in the Essentials of Humanity though they are not all of one complection stature or degree of strength And if any be so peevish that he will associate with none that are not of his own complection the separation is the effect of his folly which may possibly be cured and till it be cured both the fault and the suffering is his own If a Law were made that none shall live in the Kings Dominions but men of a Sanguine complection and of a strait and comely person and of such a proportion of tallness and of strength and of flaxen hair this Law would necessitate a separation and diminution of the Kings subjects from generation to generation But if the Law be that all English men that will live after the rules of Reason Honesty and Society shall have the priviledges of subjects if an hundred thousand had got a conceit that they may not lawfully be of the same Kingdom with any but men of their own complection and stature as aforesaid this is a cureable folly and the Law-makers may say we have done our parts for universal society and it is not we that make it impossible or hinder it and men in time may come to reason We refuse not them but they refuse us If you make things necessary and of common agreement to be your terms of Union Greeks Abassines Armenians Romans may take their own way and every one without injury enjoy his own be it wisdom or folly upon these terms But if you unite upon any other terms you make Laws for schism even for the exclusion of all that are not of your mind For Hales his Doctrine is true in the judgment of all men save the guilty that the Imposer of unnecessary doubtful things is the Schismatick or cause of all the schism So that there is no true union to be expected with Rome or any others but on the terms of primitive simplicity or which all true Christians are agreed in And they are no good terms which induce the authors through the force of interest to say that none in the world are good Christians that are not of their cut and strain and wear not their livery and lace not their coats in the Imposers mode 4 And as long as we take nothing from the men of various modes and fashions by unity in the Essentials of Humanity and Christianity to imagine that it is the way to union to force all Dissenters to their modes is but to renounce union and to gratifie a distant party so far as to make them laugh at us as fools and hope ere long to get us at their mercy and thereby to lose disoblige and destroy those that are nearer to us and would indeed be our friends and strength and to become enemies to our own families rather than to displease the people of France by not wearing their fashions 5. And if you had attained a seeming union with the Papists you are not sure it will hold seven year For their Religion still thriveth and thereby changeth and is yet far short of its maturity in all likelihood For General Councils make their Religion and who knoweth how many General Councils of forty Bishops perhaps like that at Trent for a great part of the time there may yet be and what alterations of Religion they may make And are you sure you can go along with them in all as far as they will go If you must break at last unite not on such mutable terms at first But there 's no talking to men whose interest and passion and partiality is the maker of their Religion It is not my purpose to speak any of this either to one of Grotius's mind if Saraviad and the Book called Grotius Papirans be credible or if he be that man that wrote the Discussio Apolog. Rivet who would have us unite upon the acceptance of all the Councils even that of Trent nor to such as come as near them as Mr. Thorndike nor any of that degree of affinity For I suppose they are already gone out of the hearing of such a voice as mine Yet still remember that I am not setting a Law no not Christs Law to your selves for the rule of your own opinions or practices If you will please the Papists by coming yet nearer them even nearer than the learned Forbes Bishop of Edenburgh did if you will have more of their Doctrine Discipline and Worship take it if it will do you any good But why must all others needs be of your judgment or those be of your way that are not of your judgment And why cannot you unite with the Papists if you will without destroying the Protestants or renouncing them Unite in things necessary and hold and use the rest as matters of liberty and it will
culled out the few necessary Articles of the faith as the matter of a necessary particular profession I will tell you what good these things will do and do you tell me what harm they will do and let the good and hurt be well compared 1. It would either Unite all Christians or make their Union an easie thing as soon as the minds of men were prepared for it All Christians are agreed that the Holy Scriptures are infallible All Christians are not agreed that your three books are infallible Therefore all Christians may easilier unite in their subscription or belief of the Scriptures than of your three books Perhaps you will say that it will not unite us with the Papists nor with any that require more I answer We shall be so far united as that they will approve of all our Religion though we approve not of all theirs For they confess the truth of all our Canonical Scriptures and confess that all things universally necessary to salvation are contained in them and much more So Bellarmine Costerus and many others and especially the old Schoolmen freely assert And it is a great advance to Concord and to our satisfaction to have the common concession of all Christians that our Religion is all true and nothing of absolute necessity wanting But I have spoken more to this before to which I refer you 2. It would make it as easie for any Protestant to justifie all his Religion as it is to justifie the sacred Scriptures to those that confess them to be true and so to tell the Papist where our Religion hath been in all ages and what succession our Church hath had 3 It would take none of your forms or ceremonies or superadditions from any that will needs have them while you make them not the necessary terms of union and communion he that will may be without them 4. Christian love and saving unity and concord may be thus maintained by mutual forbearance while nothing is done contrary to the nature of love to mortifie it And if any would take occasion by differences to revile and villifie one another the Magistrate may have the approbation of all sober men in keeping the peace and punishing all the fruits of such uncharitableness that tend to the destruction of love or godliness 5. A thousand unhappy crimes will be prevented which will follow the death of Christian love and the exasperation of mens passions and tongues by their sufferings 6. The Pastors when they grow like to Christ in meekness gen tleness and love will be loved and honoured by the flocks and the name of a Bishop will not be odious any more and consequently the lives of faithful Pastors will be more comfortable 7. And then the doctrine and labours of Ministers will be more successul and consequently piety and justice will increase and multitudes more will be sanctified and saved 8. It will be a comfort to the King and Magistrates to be loved honoured and obeyed by an united willing people and to be excused from the unpleasing works of fining imprisoning banishing or hanging their subjects for differing from them about some cases of sin and duty when the fear of offending the God of heaven is that which bringeth them to their sufferings 9. It will be a great strength and beauty to the State and Church and fortifie us against a common Enemy and end our fears of Sedition on account of Religion at home 10. In a word it would make us liker to the primitive believers and lead the way to all Christian States and Churches for the right reconciling of all the Christian World And what now is the hurt that these Scripture primitive terms would bring Obj. It would make as many factions as there be different Opinions or Ceremonies Ans. 1. Do you judg of others by your selves Are all men so proud and void of humanity and love that they must needs be factious if they do but differ in an opinion or ceremony from others or that they cannot live in love and peace with any that differ from them in an opinion or ceremony or that they can endure to see none live at liberty out of Gaols that be not in all such things of their mind 2. If there be any such proud and uncharitable persons the Magistrate may curb the expressions of their folly that it wrong not others 3. If that were true there would be as many Factions as men if you will pardon your contradiction for all men differ in opinion from each other and in as great matters of Religion as a Ceremony 4 Doth the differences forementioned among yourselves as between Dr. Taylor Mr. Thorndike and some others from the Doctrine of the Church of England make any such Factions among you Did the difference mentioned by Heylin between Bishop Mountague and Wren about coming up to the Altar to communicate make any factions Doth the difference now between your Arminians and Calvinists which we ordinarily hear in your own Pulpits make such Factions Doth the different modes of Cathedral and Parish-worship make such Factions If not why should it make a Faction for one man to cross a child in Baptism and another not Do not the very Papists keep up their unity and strength by allowing far more and greater diversities in Doctrines and in Religious Orders Rules and Ceremonies according as every Order hath desired Obj. But if any be allowed to forbear those that use the ceremonies or subscriptions will be censured by the followers of the nonconformists Ans. And is it indeed to preserve your honour that we must undergo all these convulsions Speak it out then plainly that the world may understand you Must all that differ in a ceremony from you be silenced and hunted about the world lest the people should think worse of you than of them 2. But how notoriously do bad means overthrow the ends of them that use them It is Honours Motto Quod sequitur fugio quod fugit ipse sequor Do not the people know that we differ from you in these things as much when we are silenced as when we preach Will imprisonment or banishment make us agreed or make the people think we are agreed Or will they forget all the difference think you when we are out of sight If the bare different opinion and practice make them undervalue you will not they think worse of you when they think you do worse Will they not distast a Conformable man whom they judg an envious persecutor more than a Conformable man whom they judg a meek and loving man One would think that you should need no answer to such objections But I have answered enow before 2. Well! if the Scripture simplicity be too narrow for you my next question is What harm will it do you to unite on such terms as all the Churches did unite in in the days of Tertullian and Cyprian yea for 300. years after the birth of Christ Look whatever was then the