all their Exceptions against the New Common Prayer Book in the Points wherein it is much worse than the old § 405. And for the Latitudinarians and Unwilling Conformists their Plea is That the use of the Forms and Ceremonies is lawful and that is all that they are required to subscribe to because the Act saith they shall declare their Assent and Consent to the use of all things c. They do not subscribe their Consent to the thing in it self but to so much as is to be used by them and so far only as that they will use it But this is so gross that the Non-conformists cannot stretch so far For 1. What Man can doubt whether all things in the Book were intended for some use or other though not each part to the same use Did the Convocation and Parliament contrive and impose things which they themselves did judge to be of no use Is not the Kalendar and Direction for reading Scripture of use to tell you what Days to keep and what Chapters to read Is not the Rubrick of use to direct you in the several Offices Is not the Doctrinal Determination about the Saving of Baptized Infants and other such like of use to tell us its Doctrine is taken to be true Doubtless every part hath its intended usefulness 2. The words are as express to exclude such stretching as could well be devised For 1. It is Assent as well as Consent which is declared 2. It is to all and every thing which includeth every word 3. It is to every thing contained in it as well as to every thing prescribed by it And the Doctrinals as of three Orders Iure Divino c. are contained in it 3. To put all out of doubt since this Act the Parliament made another Act to which while Proviso's were offered the whole House of Lords sent it back to the Commons with this Proviso That those that declared Assent and Consent to all and every thing c. should be obliged to understand it only as to the use of what was required of them and not as to the things in themselves considered The Commons refused this Proviso and the Houses had a meeting about it in which the Commons delivered their Reasons against that Exposition of the Declaration And in the end the Lords did acquiesce in their Reasons and consented to cast out the Proviso so that now the Parliament hath expounded their own words and there is no more pretence left for the Latitudinarian Equivocation § 406. But if it were otherwise is the use of all things contained there lawful 1. To what they say about the Apocrypha it is answered That it is not lawful to read publickly in the Church on any days so many above One hundred in two Months of the Apocryphal Chapters in the same manner time and title of Lessons with the holy Scripture with no fuller distinction When 1. Experience telleth us That many of the People who understand not the Greek word Apocrypha are thereby drawn to take them for Canonical Scripture being also bound up with it in the Books 2. And when Tobit Susanna Bell and the Dragon Iudith are ordinarily by Protestants taken for Fables or Untruths and therefore not so much as pious Instructions § 407. 2. And for the disorder and defects of the Common Prayer before proved they seem but ill matter for such an unfeigned Assent and Consent § 408. 3. And for the new Clause of the Salvation of Baptized Infants as certain by the Word of God the Scruple were the less if it were confined to the Infants of true Believers But our Church admitteth of all Infants even of Infidels and Heathens without distinction if they have but Godfathers and Godmothers and the Canon enforceth Ministers to Baptize them all without exception And when in our Publick Debate with the Bishops I instanced in one of my Parishioners that was a professed Infidel and yet said he would come and make the common Profession for his Child for Custom sake even Dr. Sanderson the Bishop of Lincoln answered me That if there were Godfathers it had a sufficient Title which Bishop Morley and others of them confirmed Now these Godfathers being not Adopters nor Owners we cannot see it certain in God's Word That all those are saved whom they present to Baptism no nor whom ungodly and hypocritical Christians present for how can the Convenant save the Child as the Child of a Believer which saveth not the Parent as a Believer himself So that while unmeet Subjects are Baptized we cannot Subscribe to this Assertion § 409. And it is strange that when Infant-Baptism it self and commonly said by these Men to be a Tradition and not commanded or found in Scripture that yet they find it certain by the Word of God that Baptized Infants are saved § 410. But some say That it is certain that all Infants so dying are saved and therefore all Baptized Infants But 1. They never shewed us any Word of God from whence that certainty may appear to us nor have they answered what is said against it 2. And what jesting with holy Things is this to speak that of the Baptized only which they mean of all As if they would perswade People that it is some effect of Baptism and priviledge of the Children of the Church which they think belongeth to all the Children of Heathens § 411. Some say that the word All Children is not in and of some its true Answ. The Indefinite here according to common Speech is equivalent to an Universal Children baptized dying before actual sin is equal to all children baptized your Consciences must tell you that if you limit it to some only you cross the sence of the Compilers of the Liturgy I am sure Dr. Gunning who brought it in hath publickly exprest his sence for the Salvation of all such Infants § 412. 4. As to the Practice of Baptizing all Children that can have Godfathers and of Confirming Administring the Lord's Supper Absolving Burying c. with unjust Application to Persons unfit for the Sacraments or Titles given them we know not how to Assent and Consent to the Imposition or Form of as long as we know that the same Church which commandeth us to use those words doth command us to apply them to unworthy Persons And how it may harden the Wicked to Perdition is easily conjectured § 413. 5. And for the Ceremonies they are so largely written about on both sides that I need not stay here to recite the Arguments For my own part as I would receive the Lord's Supper kneeling rather then not at all so I have no Censure for those that wear the Surplice though I never wore it But that Man may adjoyn such a Human Sacrament as the Cross in Baptism to God's Sacrament I am not satisfied in And cannot Assent or Consent to it that such a solemn dedicating Sign should be stated in God's Publick Worship by Man 1.
dare not desert it lest we shortly appear before our Judge in the guilt of sacriledge perfidiousness against Christ and the people's Souls But we are forbiden to exercise it unless we will do that which we profess as Men that are passing to our final Doom we would readily do were it not for fear of God's displeasure and our Damnation Deprivation of all Ministerial maintenance with heavy Mulcts on such as have not money to pay and long Imprisonments in the Common Goals with Malefactors and banishment to those that shall survive them and that into remote parts of the World were the penalties appointed for us by your Laws Voluminous reproaches are published against us in which our Superiours and the World are told that we hold that things indifferent are made unlawful by the Commands of lawful Governours and that we are guilty of Doctrines inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of Societies and that we are moved by Pride and Covetousness as if we were proud of Men's Scorn and covetous of sordid Want and Beggery and ambitious of a Gaol and that we are Unpeaceable Disloyal Odious and Intolerable Persons Lest we should seem over-querulous and our Petitions themselves should prove offensive we have been silent under Twelve years sufferings by which divers Learned and holy Divines have been hastened home to Glory hoping that Experience would have effectually spoken for us when we may not Speak for our selves And did we believe that our own pressures were the greatest consequent Evil and that the People's knowledge and piety and the allowed Ministers Number sufficiency and Diligence were such as made our Labours needless and that the History of our Silence and Sufferings would be the future Honour of this Age and the future Comfort of your Souls and theirs that instigate you against us before our Common Judge we would joyfully be silent and accept of a Dismission But being certain of the contrary we do this once adventure humbly to tender to Your Majesty and Your Parliament these following Requests 1. Because God saith That he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not Eternal Life We humbly crave leave once to Print and Publish the true State and Reasons of our Nonconformity to the World to save Mens Souls from the guilt of unjust Hatred and Calumny And if we err we may be helped to Repentance by a Confutation and the Notoriety of our shame 2. That in the mean time this Honourable House will appoint a Committee to consider of the best means for the Healing our Calamitous Divisions before whom we may have leave at last to speak for our selves 3. That these annexed Professions of our Religion and Loyalty may be received as from Men that better know their own Minds than their Accusers do and who if they durst deliberately Lie should be no Nonconformists 4. That if yet we must suffer as Malefactors we may be punished but as Drunkards and Fornicators are with some Penalty which will consist with our Preaching Christ's Gospel and that shall not reach to the hurt or danger of many Thousand Innocent People's Souls till the Re-building of the Burnt-Churches the lessening of great Parishes where one of very many cannot hear and worship God and till the quality and number of the Conformable Ministers and the knowledge piety and sobriety of the people have truly made our Labours needless and then we shall gladly obey your Silencing Commands And whereas there are commonly reckoned to be in the Parishes without the Walls above Two hundred thousand persons more than can come within the Parish Churches they may not be compelled in a Christian Land to live as Atheists and worse than Infidels and Heathens who in their manner publickly worship God The Profession of our Religion I A. B. Do willingly profess my continued resolved consent to the Covenant of Christianity which I made in my Baptism with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost forsaking the Devil the World and the sinful Lusts of the Flesh And I profess my Belief of the Ancient Christian Creeds called The Apostles The Nicene and The Constantinopolitane and the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity fullier opened in that ascribed to Athanasius And my Consent to The Lord's Prayer as the Summary of Holy Desires and to The Decalogue with Christ's Institutions as the Summary Rule of Christian Practice And to all the Holy Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God And to the Doctrine of the Church of England professed in the 39 Articles of Religion as in sence agreeable to the Word of God And I renounce all Heresies or Errours contrary to any of these And I do hold that the Book of Common Prayer and of Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing so disagreeable to the Word of God as maketh it unlawful to live in the Peaceable Communion of the Church that useth it The Profession of our Loyalty and Obedience I do willingly and without Equivocation and Deceit take the Oaths of Allegiance and the King's Supremacy and hold my self obliged to perform them I detest all Doctrines and Practices of Rebellion and Sedition I hold it unlawful for any of His Majesty's Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King His Person Authority Dignity or Rights or against any Authorized by his Laws or Commissions And that there is no Obligation on me or any other of his Subjects from the Oath Commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any change of the present Government of these His Majesty's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any Reformation of the Church by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means The Overplus as a remedy against Suspicion We believe and willingly embrace all that is written in the Holy Scriptures for the power of Kings and the Obedience of their Subjects and the sinfulness of Rebellion and Resistance And concerning the same we consent to as much as is found in any General Council or in the Confession of any Christian Church on Earth not respecting Obedience to the Pope which ever yet came to our knowledg or as is owned by the Consent of the Greater part of Divines Politicians Lawyers or Historians in the Christain World as far as our Reading hath acquainted us therewith II. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of some Citizens of London on the behalf of this City and the Adjoyning Parishes Sheweth THat the Calamitous Fire 1666 with our Houses and Goods Burnt down near 90 Churches few of which are yet Re-edifyed And divers Parishes whose Churches yet stand are so great that it is but a small part of the Inhabitants that can there hear whereby great Numbers are left in ignorance and as a prey to Papists and other Seducers and which is worse to Atheism Infidelity and Irreligiousness And if many of their ancient ejected silenced Pastors who for refusing certain Subscriptions Declarations Promises Oaths and Practices are called Nonconformists had not through
of the nearer Ends The Holy Ghost as Illuminating and so Revealing by the Instrumentality of the Word is in Efficiency and Dignity above the Word 3. The Apostles themselves were in order of Efficiency above the Writing or Letter of the Word though in order of Dignity the Scripture is above them 4. The Ministry and Teaching of Parents is as to the Original both subordinate to Scripture as commanded by it and co-ordiante as instituted and enjoyned before it by verbal Precept and doth still acknowledge this double obligation But it is subordinate to Scripture in Dignity and as to the nearer End 5. The same is true of Baptism and other Ordinances mentioned already 6. The delivery of the Scriptures down to our hands 1. As to acquaint us with the Canonical Books 2. And that these are all 3. And that they are uncorrupted in Matters of moment is in efficiency a co-ordinate Means of Revelation for it is not out of Scripture only that it receiveth its force but as to the End and the Dignity it is subordinate to the Scripture These things seeming thus to my apprehension I cannot yet acknowledge it a Truth that no Means of Revealing Christ is co-ordinate with the Scriptures I need to say no more to the Necessity and Fundamentality than I said in my last Paper I earnestly crave that the offering of these Reasons as my Diffent may not be offensive to you seeing I apprehend the Case to impose on me a Necessity there being no Means in the World that I remember more like to be an Engine to tear in pieces the Church than an unfound composure of Fundamentals I mean an Imposing of those Things as Fundamental which are not found whereby the most deserving may be ejected from the Ministry and censured to Damnation We are framing a Means of Union and not of Division And though it grieves me to be offensive to my Brethren yet had I rather suffer any thing in the World than be guilty of putting among our Fundamentals one word that is not true The Christian Faith hath been ever the same since the Apostles days and I find not that ever the Churches Fundamentals contained such an Article as this The Scripture nor the Assembly's Confession have none such that I know of The word Co-ordinate is so ambiguous that it is unfit to lay so great a stress upon it and the use of it here yet more perswades me that it had been better for us to adhere to Scripture Terms R. B. § 56. At last Twenty of their Propositions were printed for the Parliament But the Parliament was dissolved and all came to nothing and that Labour was lost § 57. At this time the Lord Broghill and the Earl of Warwick brought me to Preach before Cromwell the Protector which was the only time that ever I preached to him save once long before when he was an inferiour Man among other Auditors I knew not which way to provoke him better to his Duty than by Preaching on 1 Cor. 1. 10. against the Divisions and Distractions of the Church and shewing how mischievous a thing it was for Politicians to maintain such Divisions for their own Ends that they might fish in troubled waters and keep the Church by its Divisions in a state of Weakness lest it should be able to offend them and to shew the Necessity and Means of Union But the plainness and nearness I heard was displeasing to him and his Courtiers but they put it up § 58. A while after Cromwell sent to speak with me and when I came in the presence only of three of his chief Men he began a long and tedious Speech to me of God's Providence in the Change of the Government and how God had owned it and what great things had been done at home and abroad in the Peace with Spain and Holland c. When he had wearied us all with speaking thus slowly about an hour I told him It was too great Condescension to acquaint me so fully with all these Matters which were above me but I told him that we took our Ancient Monarchy to be a Blessing and not an Evil to the Land and humbly craved his Patience that I might ask him How England had ever forfeited that Blessing and unto whom the Forfeiture was made I was fain to speak of the Species of Government only for they had lately made it Treason by a Law to speak for the Person of the King Upon that Question he was awakened into some Passion and told me it was no Forfeiture but God had Changed it as pleased him and then he let fly at the Parliament which thwarted him and especially by name at four or five of those Members which were my chief Acquaintance and I presumed to defend them against his Passion and thus four or five hours were spent § 59. A few days after he sent for me again to hear my Judgment about Liberberty of Conscience which he pretended to be most zealous for before almost all his Privy Council where after another slow tedious Speech of his I told him a little of my Judgment And when two of his Company had spun out a great deal more of the time in such like tedious but meer ignorant Speeches some four or five hours being spent I told him that if he would be at the labour to read it I could tell him more of my mind in Writing in two Sheets than in that way of Speaking in many days and that I had a Paper on that Subject by me written for a Friend which if he would peruse and allow for the change of the Person he would know my Sense He received the Paper after but I scarce believe that he ever read it for I saw that what he learned must be from himself being more disposed to speak many hours than to hear one and little heeding what another said when he had spoken himself § 60. While I lodged at the Lord Broghill's a certain Person was importunate to speak with me Dr. Niâ—â— Gibbon who shutting the Doors on us that there might be no Witnesses drew forth a Scheme of Theology and told me how long a Journey he had once taken towards me and engaged me patiently to hear him open to me his Scheme which he said was the very thing that I had been long groping after and contained the only Terms and Method to resolve all Doubts whatever in Divinity and unite all Christians through the World And there was none of them printed but what he kept himself and he communicated them only to such as were prepared which he thought I was because I was 1. Searching 2. Impartial and 3. A Lover of Method I thank him and heard him above an hour in silence and after two or three days talk with him I found all his Frame the Contrivance of a very strong Head-piece was secretly and cunningly fitted to usher in a Socinian Popery or a mixture of Popery and half Socinianism
that it is unlike the primitive Episcopacy But if that which must convince you must be brought nearer your Eyes by God's help we 〈◊〉 to do that fully whenever we are called to it 8. The Words which you here except against with Admiration of the Corruptions Partialities Tyranny which Church-Government by a single Person is lyable to was taken by us out of the Book commonly ascribed to King Charles himself called Icon. Basil. but we purposely supprest his Name to try whether you would not be as bitter against his Words as against ours and did not esteem Fidem per personas non personas per fidem And further we reply it is one thing for a Bishop to rule alone when there are no Presbyters or to rule the Presbyters themselves alone and another thing when he hath Presbyters yet to rule all the Flock alone for by this means he quoad Exercitium at least degradeth all the rest or changeth their Office which is to guide as well as to teach As if the General of an Army or the Collonel of a Regiment should rule all the Souldiers alone doth he not then depose all his Captains Lieutenants Cornets Corporals Serjeants c. But especially it is one thing for Ignatius his Bishop of one Church that had but one Altar to rule it alone though yet he commandeth the People to obey their Presbyters and another thing for an English Diocesan to rule a Thousand such Churches alone And when all is done do they rule alone indeed Or doth not a Lay-Chancellor exercise the Keys so far as is necessary to suppress private Meetings for Fasting and Prayer c. and to force all to the Sacrament and enforce the Ceremonies and some such things and for the great Discipline it is almost altogether left undone We are sorry that you should be able to be ignorant of this or if you know it that such Camels stick not with you but go down so easily Instances of things amiss § 9. 1. That which you cannot grant that the Diocesses are to great you would quickly grant if you had ever conscionably tryed the task which Dr. Hammond describeth as the Bishops Work yea but for one Parish or had ever believed Ignatius and other ancient Descriptions of a Bishop's Church But is it faithful dealing with your Brethren or your Consciences pardon our Freedom in so weighty a Case to dispute as though you made a Bishop but an Archbishop to see by a general Inspection of the Parish-Pastors that they do their Office and as if they only ruled the Rulers of the particular Flocks which you know we never strove against when as no knowing English Man can be ignorant that our Bishops have the sole Government of Pastors and People having taken all Jurisdiction or proper Government or next all from the particular Pastors of the Parishes to themselves alone Is not the Question rather as whether the King can rule all the Kingdom by the Chancellor or a few such Officers without all the Justices and Mayors or whether one Schoolmaster shall only rule a thousand Schools and all the other Schoolmasters only teach them You know that the depriving of all the Parish Pastors of the Keys of Government is the matter of our greatest Controversies Not as it is any hurt to them but to the Church and a certain Exclusion of all true Discipline And whether the Office of the Bishops of particular Churches infimi Ordinis velâ— gradus be not for Personal Inspection and Ministration as well as the Office of a Shoolmaster or Physician you will better know when you come to try it faithfully or answer fearfully for Unfaithfulness We know that the knowing Lord Bacon in his Considerations saith so as well as we And for what you say of Suffragâ—â—s you know there are none such § 10. 2. We are glad that in so great a matter as Lay-Chancellors Exercise of the Keys in Excommunications and Absolutions you are forced plainly and without any Excuse to confess the Errors of the way of Government And let this stand on Record before the World to Justify us when we shall be silenced and reproached as Schismaticks for desiring the Reformation of such Abuses and for not swearing Canonical Obedience to such a Government § 11. 3. And you have almost as little to say in this Case Mark Reader that we must all be silenced and cast out of our Offices if we subscribe not to the Book of Ordination ex Animo as having nothing contrary to the Word of God And the very Preface of that beginneth with the Affirmation of this Distinction of Orders Offices Functions from the Apostles Days and one of the Prayers ascribeth it to the Spirit of God and yet now it is here said that whether a Bishop be a distinct Order from a Presbyter or not is none of the Question That must be none of the Question when the King calleth them to treat for a Reconciliation or Unity which will be out of Question against us when we are called to subscribe or are to be forbidden to preach the Gospel And let what is here confessed for Presbyters Assistance in Ordination stand on Record against them when it is neglected or made an insignificant Ceremony § 12. 4. In the last also you give up your Cause and yet it 's well if you will amend it Whether the Canons be Laws let the Lawyers judge And whether all the Bishops Books of Articles as against making Scripture our Table-talk and many such others be either Laws or according to Law let the World judge The Remedies offered for reforming these Evils § 13. 1. Whereas to avoid all Exception or frustrating Contentions or Delays we offered only Bishop Usher's Platform subscribed also by Dr. Holdsworth that the World might see that it is Episcopacy it self that we plead for you tell us that it was formed many Years before his Death and is not consistent with two other of his Discourses In which either you would intimate that he contradicteth himself and could not speak consistently or that he afterward retracted this Reduction For the first We must believe that many Men can reconcile their own Writings when some Readers cannot as better understanding themselves than others do And that this reverend Bishop was no such raw Novice as not to know when he contradicted himself in so publick and practical a Case as a Frame of Church-Government Nor was he such an Hypocrite as to play fast and loose in the things of God But upon Debate we undertake to vindicate his Writings from this Aspersion of Inconsistency only you must not take him to mean that all was well done which as an Historian he saith was done And as to any Retraction one of us my self is ready to witness that he owned it not long before his Death as a Collection of fit Terms to reconcile the Moderate in these Points and told him that he offered it the late King And
Worship And further considering the great Age of some Ministers and Infirmities of others and the variety of several Services oft-times concurring upon the same day whereby it may be inexpedient to require every Minister at all times to read the whole It may be left to the discretion of the Minister to omit part of it as occasion shall require which liberty we find to be allowed even in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward 6. 8. That in regard of the many Defects which have been observed in that Version of the Scriptures which is used throughout the Liturgy manifold Instances whereof may be produced as in the Epistle for the first Sunday after Epiphany taken out of Romans 12. 1. Be ye changed in your shape And the Epistle for the Sunday next before Easter taken out of Philippians 2. 5. Found in his apparel as a man as also the Epistle for the fourth Sunday in Lent taken out of the fourth of the Galatians Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City which is now called Ierusalem The Epistle for St. Matthew's Day taken out of the second Epistle of Corinth and the 4th We go not out of Kind The Gospel for the second Sunday after Epiphany taken out of the second of Iohn When Men be drunk The Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent taken out of the 11th of Luke One House doth fall upon another The Gospel for the Annunciation taken out of the first of Luke This is the sixth Month which was called barren and many other places we therefore desire instead thereof the New Translation allowed by Authority may alone be used 9. That inasmuch as the holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation to furnish us throughly unto all good Works and contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in Duty to be practised whereas divers Chapters of the Apocryphal Books appointed to be read are Charged to be in both respects of dubious and uncertain credit It is therefore desired that nothing be read in the Church for Lessons but the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament 10. That the Minister be not required to rehearse any part of the Liturgy at the Communion-Table save only those parts which properly belong to the Lord's Supper and that at such times only when the said holy Supper is administred 11. That as the Word Minister and not Priest or Curate is used in the Absolution and in divers other places it may throughout the whole Book be so used instead of those two Words and that instead of the Word Sunday the Word Lord's-day may be every where used 12. Because singing of Psalms is a considerable part of publick Worship we desire that the Version set forth and allowed to be sung in Churches may be amended or that we may have leave to make use of a purer Version 13. That all obsolete Words in the Common-Prayer and such whose use is changed from their first significancy as Aread used in the Gospel for the Monday and Wednesday before Easter Then opened he their Wits used in the Gospel for Easter Tuesday c. may be altered unto other Words generally received and better understood 14. That no Portions of the Old Testament or of the Acts of the Apostles be called Epistles and read as such 15. That whereas throughout the several Offices the Phrase is such as presumes all Persons within the Communion of the Church to be regenerated converted and in an actual state of Grace which had Ecclesiastical Discipline been truly and vigorously executed in the Exclusion of Scandalous and obstinate Sinners might be better supposed But there having been and still being a confessed want of that as in the Liturgy is acknowledged it cannot be rationally admitted in the utmost Latitude of Charity We desire that this may be reformed 16. That whereas orderly Connection of Prayers and of particular Petitions and Expressions together with a competent length of the Forms used are tending much to Edification and to gain the reverence of People to them There appears to us too great a neglect of both of this Order and of other just Laws of Method Particularly 1. The Collects are generally short many of them consisting but of one or at most two Sentences of Petition and these generally ushered in with a repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God and presently concluding with the Name and Merits of Christ whence are caused many unnecessary Intercisions and Abruptions which when many Petitions are to be offered at the same time are neither agreeable to Scriptural Examples nor suited to the Gravity and Seriousness of that Holy Duty 2. The Prefaces of many Collects have not any clear and special Respect to the following Petitions and particular Petitions are put together which have not any due Order nor evident Connection one with another nor suitableness with the Occasions upon which they are used but seem to have fallen in rather casually than from an orderly Contrivance It is desired that instead of those various Collects there may be one methodical and intire form of Prayer composed out of many of them 17. That whereas the publick Liturgy of a Church should in reason comprehend the Summ of all such Sins as are ordinarily to be confessed in Prayer by the Church and of such Petitions and Thanksgivings as are ordinarily by the Church to be put up to God and the publick Catechisms or Systems of Doctrine should summarily comprehend all such Doctrines as are necessary to be believed and these explicitly set down The present Liturgy as to all these seems very defective Particularly 1. There is no preparatory Prayer in our Address to God for Assistance or Acceptance yet many Collects in the midst of the Worship have little or nothing else 2. The Confession is very defective not clearly expressing original Sin nor sufficiently enumerating actual Sins with their Aggravations but consisting only of Generals Whereas confession being the Exercise of Repentance ought to be more particular 3. There is also a great Defect as to such Forms of publick Praise and Thanksgiving as are suitable to Gospel-worship 4. The whole Body of the Common-Prayer also consisteth very much of meer Generals as To have our Prayers heard to be kept from all Evil and from all Enemies and all Adversity that we might do God's Will without any mention of the Particulars in which these Generals exist 5. The Catechism is defective as to many necessary Doctrines of our Religion some even of the Essentials of Christianity not mentioned except in the Creed and there not so explicite as ought to be in a Catechism 18. Because this Liturgy containeth the Imposition of divers Ceremonies which from the first Reformation have by sundry learned and pious Men been judged unwarrantable as 1. That Publick Worship may not be celebrated by any Minister that dare not wear a Surpless 2. That none may baptise nor be
Works are concauses with faith in the act of Iustification Dr. Dove also hath given Scandal in that point 3. Some have preached the Works of Penance are satisfactory before God 4. Some have preached that private Consession by particular Enumeration of Sins is necessary to Salvation necessitate medii both those Errours have been questioned at the Consistory at Cambridge 5. Some have maintained that the Absolution which the Priest pronounceth is more than Declaratory 6. Some have published That there is a proper Sacrifice in the Lord's Supper to exhibit Christ's Death in the Postfact as there was a Sacrifice to prefigure in the Old Law in the Antefact and therefore that we have a true Altar and therefore not only metaphorically so called so Dr. Heylin and others in the last Summers Convocation where also some defended that the Oblation of the Elements might hold the Nature of the true Sacrifice others the Consumption of the Elements 7. Some have introduced Prayer for the Dead as Mr. Brown in his printed Sermon and some have coloured the use of it with Questions in Cambridge and disputed that Precespro Defunct is now supponunt Purgatoriuâ— 8. Divers have oppugned the certitude of Salvation 9. Some have maintained the lawfulness of Monastical Vows 10. Some have maintained that the Lord's Day is kept meerly by Ecclesiastical Constitution and that the Day is changeable 11. Some have taught as new and dangerous Doctrine that the Subjects are to pay any Sums of Money imposed upon them though without Law nay contrary to the Laws of the Realm as Dr. Sybthorp and Dr. Manwaring Bishop of St. Davids in their printed Sermons whom many have followed of late years 12. Some have put Scorns upon the two Books of Homilies calling them either Popular Discourses or a Doctrine useful for those Times wherein they were set forth 13. Some have defended the whole gross Substance of Arminianism that Electio eft ex fide praevisa That the Act of Conversion depends upon the Concurrence of Man's Freewill That the justified Man may fall finally and totally from Grace 14. Some have defended Universal Grace as imparted as much to Reprobates as to the Elect and have proceeded usque ad salutem Ethnicorum which the Church of England hath Anathematized 15. Some have absolutely denied Original Sin and so evacuated the Cross of Christ as in a Disputation at Oxon. 16. Some have given excessive Cause of Scandal to the Church as being suspected of Socinianism 17. Some have defended that Concupiscence is no sin either in the habit or first motion 18. Some have broacht out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate Doctrine That late Repentance that is upon the last Bed of Sickness is unfruitful at least to reconcile the Penitent to God Add unto these some dangerous and most reproveable Books 1. The Reconciliation of Sancta Clara to knit the Romish and Protestant in one Memorand That he be caused to produce Bishop Watson's Book of the like Reconciliation which he speaks of 2. A Book called Brevis Disquisitio printed as it is thought in London and vulgarly to be had which impugneth the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the verity of Christ's Body which he took of the Blessed Virgin in Heaven and the verity of our Resurrection 3. A Book called Timotheus Philalethes de Pace Ecclesiae which holds that every Religion will save a Man if he holds the Covenant Innovations in Discipline 1. The turning of the holy Table Altar-wise and most commonly calling it an Altar 2. Bowing towards it or towards the East many times with three Congees but usually in every motion access or recess in the Church 3. Advancing Candlesticks in many Churches upon the Altar so called 4. In making Canopies over the Altar so called with Traverses and Curtains on each side and before it 5. In compelling all Communicants to come up before the Rails and there to Receive 6. In advancing Crucifixes and Images upon the Parafront or Altar-cloth so called 7. In reading some part of the Morning Prayer at the Holy Table when there is no Communion celebrated 8. By the Minister's turning his back to the West and his face to the East when he pronounceth the Creed or reads Prayers 9. By reading the Litany in the midst of the Body of the Church in many of the Parochial Churches 10. By pretending for their Innovations the Injunctions and Advertisements of Queen Elizabeth which are not in force but by way of Commentary and Imposition and by putting to the Liturgy printed secundo tertio Edwardi sexti which the Parliament hath Reformed and laid aside 11. By offering of Bread and Wine by the hand of the Churchwardens or others before the Consecration of the Elements 12. By having a Credentia or Side-Table besides the Lord's Table for divers uses in the Lord's Supper 13. By introducing an Offertory before the Communion distant from the giving of Alms to the Poor 14. By prohibiting the Ministers to expound the Catechism at large to their Parishioners 15. By suppressing of Lectures partly on Sundays in the Afternoon partly on Week-days performed as well by Combination as some one Man 16. By prohibiting a direct Prayer before Sermon and bidding or Prayer 17. By singing the Te Deum in Prose after a Cathedral Church way in divers Parochial Churches where the People have no skill in such Musick 18. By introducing Latin-Service in the Communion of late in Oxford and into some Colledges in Cambridge at Morning and Evening Prayer so that some young Students and the Servants of the Colledge do not understand their Prayers 19. By standing up at the Hymns in the Church and always at Gloria Patri 20. By carrying Children from the Baptism to the Altar so called there to offer them up to God 21. By taking down Galleries in Churches or restraining the Building of such Galleries where the Parishes are very populous Memorandum 1. That in all the Cathedral and Collegiate Churches two Sermons be preached every Sunday by the Dean and Prebendaries or by their procurement and likewise every Holy-day and one Lecture at the least to be preached on Working-days every Week all the Year long 2. That the Musick used in God's Holy Service in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches be framed with less Curiosity that it may be more edifying and more intelligible and that no Hymns or Anthems be used where Ditties are framed by private Men but such as are contained in the Sacred Canonical Scriptures or in our Liturgy of Prayers or have publick allowance 3. That the Reading-Desk be placed in the Church where Divine Service may beâ—t be heard of all the People Considerations upon the Book of Common Prayer 1. Whether the Names of some departed Saints and others should not be quire expunged in the Kalender 2. Whether the reading of Psalms Sentences of Scripture concurring in divers places in the Hymns Epistles and Gospel should not be set out in the New Translation 3. Whether
Name of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Government And so by the Name they seduce Mens minds to think that this is indeed the use of the Keys which God hath put into the Churches Hands 3. Hereby they greatly encourage the Usurpation of the Pope and his Clergy who set up such Courts for probate of Wills and Causes of Matrimony and rule the Church in a Secular manner though many of them confess that directly the Church hath no forcing Power And this they call the Churches Power and Spiritual Government and Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction and say that it belongeth not to Kings and that no King can in Conscience restrain them of it but must protect them in it And so they set up Imperium in Imperio and as Bishop Bedle said of Ireland The Pope hath a Kingdom there in the Kingdom greater than the Kings Against which Ludov. Molinaeus hath written at large in two or three Treatises So that when the Papal Power in England was cast down and their Courts subjected to the King and the Oath of Supremacy formed it was under the Name of Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Power that it was acknowledged to be in the King who yet claimeth no proper Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power so greatly were these Terms abused and so are they still as applied to our Bishops Courts so that the King is said by us to be Chief Governour in all Causes Ecclesiastical because Coercive Power in Church Matters which is proper to the Magistrate was possessed and claimed by the Clergy And in all Popish Kingdoms the Kings are but half Kings through these Usurpations of the Clergy And for us to Exercise the same kind of Power mixt with the Exercise of the Keys and that by the same Name is greatly to countenance the Usurpers § 352. If it be said That the Church claimeth no Coercive Power but as granted them by the King or that it is the Magistrate that annexeth Mulcts and Penalties and not the Church I answer 1. They perswade the Magistrate that he ought to do so 2. Force is not a meer Accident but confessed by them to be the very Life of their Government It is that which bringeth People to their Courts and enforceth all their Precepts and causeth Obedience to them so that it is part of the very Constitution of their Government And as to Fees and Commutation of Penance Pecuniary Mulcts are thus imposed by themselves 3. Their very Courts and Officers are of a Secular Form 4. The Magistrate is but the Executioner of their Sentence He must grant out a Writ and imprison a Man quatenus excommunicate without sitting in Judgment upon the Cause himself and trying the Person according to his Accusation And what a dishonour do these Men put on Magistrates that make them their Executioners to imprison those whom they condemn inuudita causa at a venture be it right or wrong So much of the Nonconformists Charges against the English Prelacy § 353. By this you may see what they Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists As 1. To the willing Conformists who plead a Iur Divinum they say That if all that Gersom Bucer Didoclavius Blondell Salmasius Parker Baines c. have said against Episcopacy it self were certainly confuted yet it is quite another thing that is called Episcopacy by them that plead it Iure Divino If 1. Bishops of single Churches with a Presbytery under them 2. and General Bishops over these Bishops were both proved Iure Divine yet our Diocesans are proved to be contra jus Divinum 2. To the Latitudinarians and involuntary Conformists who plead that no Church-Government as to the form is of Divine Institution they answer 1. This is to condemn themselves and say Because no Form is of God's Institution therefore I will declare that the Episcopal Form is of Divine Institution for this is part of their Subscription or Declaration when they Profess Assent and Confent to all things in the Book of Common Prayer and Ordination And one thing in it is in these words with which the Book beginneth It is evident to all Men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church Bishops Priests and Deacons which Offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation c. So that here they declare that Bishops and Priests are not only distinct Degrees but distinct Orders and Offices and that since the Apostles time as evident by Scripture c. when yet many of the very Papists Schoolmen do deny it And the Collect in the Ordering of Priests runs thus Almighty God giver of all good things who by the holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church So that in plain English they declare That Episcopacy even as a distinct Order Office and Function for all these words are there is appointed by the Spirit of God because they believe that no Form is so appointed 2. That which Mr. Stillingfleet calleth A Form is none of the Substance of the Government it self nor the Offices in the Church He granteth that 1. Worshipping Assemblies are of Divine appointment 2. That every one of these must have one or more Pastors who have power in their Order to teach them and go before them in Worship and spiritually guide or govern them But 1. Whether a Church shall have one Pastor or more 2. Whether one of them shall be in some things subject to another 3. Whether constant Synods shall be held for concord of Associated Churches 4. Whether in these Synods one shall be Moderator and how long and with what Authority not unreasonable these he thinks are left undetermined And I am of his mind supposing General Rules to guide them by as he doth But the Matter and Manner of Church-Discipline being of God's appointment and the Nature and Ends of a particular Church and the Office of Pastors as well as the Form of the Church Universal it is past doubt that nothing which subverteth any of these is lawful And indeed if properly no Form of Government be instituted by God then no Form of a Church neither for the Form of Government is the Form of a Church considered in sensu politico and not as a meer Community And then the Church of England is not of God's making Quest. Who then made it Either another Church made this Church and then what was that Church and who made its Form and so ad Originem or no Church made it If no Church made the Church of England quo jure or what is its Authority and Honour If the King made it was he a Member of a Church or not If yea 1. There was then a Church-Form before the Church of England And who made that Church usque ad Originem If the King that made it was no Member of a Church then he that is no Member of a Church may institute a Church Form but quo jure and with what
I so far defie any Accuser who will question my Loyalty that as I have taken the Oaths of Supremacy and of Allegiance and a special Oath of Fidelity when I was Sworn I know not why as His Majesty's Servant so I am ready to give a much fulle◠signification of my Loyalty than that Oath if I had taken it would be And to own all that is said for the Power of Kings and of the Subject's Obedience and Non-resistance by any or all the Councils and Confessions of any Christian Churches upon Earth whether Greeks or Romans Reformed Episcopal Presbyterian or any that are fit to be owned as Christians that ever came to my notice besides what is contained in the Laws of our own Land And if this will not serve I shall patiently wait in my Appeal to the Un-erring Universal Judgment § 123. 2. In other manner than is allowed by the Liturgy or Practice of the Church of England At which Conventicle Meeting or Assembly there should be Five Persons or more Assembled over and above those of the Houshold Pos. 1. To Preach or Teach in a House not Consecrated for a Temple is not contrary to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England Arg. 1. That which the Scripture expresly alloweth is not contrary to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England But to Preach and Teach even Multitudes in Houses and other places not so Consecrated the Scripture expresly alloweth Ergo. The Major is proved 1. Because the Book of Ordination requireth that all that are Ordained shall promise to Instruct the People out of the Holy Scripture being persuaded that they contain sufficiently all Doctrine required of Necessity to Salvation and to teach no other And with all Faithful Diligence to banish all Doctrines contrary to God's Word And to use both publick and private Monitions and Exhortations as well to the Sick as to the whole as need shall require and occasion shall be given 2 The same Sufficiency of the Scripture is asserted in the 6th Article of the Church And Article 20. bindeth us to hold That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing contrary to God's written Word So Art 21. more 3. The said Scriptures are appointed by the Rubrick to be read as the Word of God himself 4. The Law of the Land declareth That nothing shall be taken for Law which is contrary to the Word of God 5. The First and Second Homily shew the sufficiency of it and necessity to all Men. The Minor is proved 1. from Acts 20. 20. 7 8 28. last 8. 4 25 35. 10. 34. 12. 12. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Mat. 5. 1 2. Mark 2. 13. 10. 1. Luke 5. 3. 13. 26. 2. From those Texts which command Christ's Ministers to Preach and not forbear Therefore if they be forbidden to Preach in the Temples they must do it elsewhere Iohn 21. 15 16 17. 1 Cor. 9. 16. Acts 4. 18 19 20. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Luke 9. 62. 3. From the Expository Practice of the Church in all Ages 4. From the Expository Practice of the Universal Church of England who Preached in Houses in the time of their late Restraint by Cromwel Arg. 2. The Church of England bindeth Ministers to Teach both publickly and privately in their Ordination as afore recited 2. In the Liturgy for the Visitation and Communion of the Sick it alloweth private Exhortation Prayer and Sacraments 3. The 13 Canon requireth that the Lord's Day and other Holy-Days be spent in publick and private Prayers And the very Canon 71. which most restraineth us from Preaching and Administring the Sacrament in private Houses doth expresly except Times of necessity when any is so impotent as he cannot go to Church or dangerously sick c. 4. The instructing of our Families and Praying with them is not disallowed by the Church And I my self have a Family and Persons impotent therein who cannot go to Church to Teach Arg. 3. The 76 Can. condemneth every Minister who voluntarily relinquisheth his Ministry and liveth as a Lay-Man Ergo We must forbear no more of the Ministerial Work than is forbidden us Pos. 2. The number of Persons present above Four cannot be meant by this Act as that which maketh the Religious Exercise to be in other manner than allowed by the Liturgy or Practise of the Church Arg. 1. Because the manner of the Exercise and the number of Persons are most expresly distinguished And the restraint of the number is expresly affixed only to them who shall use such unallowed manner of Religious Exercises not medling at all with others The Words at which Conventicle c. do shew the Meeting to be before described by the manner of Exercise Otherwise the Words would be worse than Non-sense 2. Because if the Words be not so interpreted then they must condemn all our Church Meetings for having above four As if they had said where Five are met it is contrary to the Liturgy of the Church which cannot be If it be said That for above Four to meet in a House is not allowed by the Church I Answer 1. That is a Matter which this Act meddleth not with as is proved by the foresaid distinguishing the manner of Exercise from the number of Persons 2. Nor doth the Act speak of private Houses or put any difference between them and Churches but equally restraineth Meetings in Churches which are for disallowed Exercises of Religion 3. Nor is it true in it self that the Church disalloweth the number of Five in private Houses as is proved before But it contrarily requireth that at private Communions there shall be Neighbours got to Communicate and not fewer than three or two And at private Baptisms and other occasions the number is not limited by the Church at all 3. Because the Act is directed only against seditious Sectaries and their Conventicles 4. Because the Words of the Act shew that the Law-makers concur with the sence of the Church of England which is no where so strict against Nonconformity as in the Canons And in these Canons viz. 73 and 11. A Conventicle is purposely and plainly descibed to be such other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations than are by the Laws held and allowed which challenge to themselves the Name of true and lawful Churches Or else secret Meetings of Priests or Ministers to consult upon any matter or course to be taken by them or upon their motion or direction by any other which may any way tend to the impeachment or depriving of the Doctrine of the Church of England or the book of Common-Prayer or of any part of the Government and Discipline of the Church So that where there is no such Consultation of Ministers nor no Assemblies that challenge to themselves the Name of true and Lawful Churches distinct from the allowed Assemblies there are no Conventicles in the sence of the Canons of the Church of England which this Act professeth to
for I consider'd that my Father's Exercise of Reading the Scripture was better than theirs and would surely be better thought on by all men at the last and I considered what it was for that he and others were thus derided When I heard them speak scornfully of others as Puritans whom I never knew I was at first apt to believe all the Lies and Slanders wherewith they loaded them But when I heard my own Father so reproached and perceived the Drunkards were the forwardest in the reproach I perceived that it was mere Malice For my Father never scrupled Common-Prayer or Ceremonies nor spake against Bishops nor ever so much as prayed but by a Book or Form being not ever acquainted then with any that did otherwise But only for reading Scripture when the rest were Dancing on the Lord's Day and for praying by a Form out of the end of the Common-Prayer Book in his House and for reproving Drunkards and Swearers and for talking sometimes a few words of Scripture and the Life to come he was reviled commonly by the Name of Puritan Precision and Hypocrite and so were the Godly Conformable Ministers that lived any where in the Country near us not only by our Neighbours but by the common talk of the Vulgar Rabble of all about us By this Experience I was fully convinc'd that Godly People were the best and those that despised them and lived in Sin and Pleasure were a malignant unhappy sort of People and this kept me out of their Company except now and then when the Love of Sports and Play enticed me § 2. The chiefest help that I had for all my Learning in the Country Schools was with Mr. Iohn Owen School-master at the Free-School at Wroxeter to whom I went next who lived in Sir Richard Newport's House afterward Lord Newport at Eyton and taught School at that ancient Uriconium where the Ruins and old Coin confirm those Histories which make it an ancient City in the Romans Times The present Lord Newport and his Brother were then my School-fellows in a lower Form and Dr. Richard Allestree now Dr. of the Chair in Oxford Canon of Christ's Church and Provost of Eaton-Colledge of whom I remember that when my Master set him up into the lower end of the highest Form where I had long been Chief I took it so ill that I talkt of leaving the School whereupon my Master gravely but very tenderly rebuked my pride and gave me for my Theme Ne sutor ultra crepidam § 3. About that time it pleased God of his wonderful Mercy to open my Eyes with a clearer insight into the Concerns and Case of my own Soul and to touch my heart with a livelier feeling of things◠Spiritual than ever I had sound before And it was by the means and in the order following stirring up my Conscience more against me by robbing an Orchard or two with rude Boys than it was before And being under some more Conviction for my Sin a poor Day-Labourer in the Town he that I before-mentioned that was wont to read in the Church for the old Parson had an old torn Book which he lent my Father which was called Bunny's Resolution being written by Parson's the Jesuit and corrected by Edm. Bunny I had before heard some Sermons and read a good Book or two which made me more love and honour Godliness in the General but I had never felt any other change by them on my heart Whether it were that till now I came not to that maturity of Nature which made me capable of discerning or whether it were that this was God's appointed time or both together I had no lively sight and sense of what I read till now And in the reading of this Book when I was about Fifteen years of Age it pleased God to awaken my Soul and shew me the folly of Sinning and the misery of the Wicked and the unexpressible weight of things Eternal and the necessity of resolving on a Holy Life more than I was ever acquainted with before The same things which I knew before came now in another manner with Light and Sense and Seriousness to my Heart This cast me first into fears of my Condition and those drove me to Sorrow and Confession and Prayer and so to some resolution for another kind of Life And many a-day I went with a throbbing Conscience and saw that I had other Matters to mind and another Work to do in the World than ever I had minded well before Yet whether sincere Conversion began now or before or after I was never able to this day to know for I had before had some Love to the Things and People which were good and a restraint from other Sins except those forementioned and so much from those that I seldom committed most of them and when I did it was with great reluctancy And both now and formerly I knew that Christ was the only Mediator by whom we must have Pardon Justification and Life But even at that time I had little lively sense of the Love of God in Christ to the World or me nor of my special need of him for Parsons and all Papists almost are too short upon this Subject And about that time it pleased God that a poor Pedlar came to the Door that had Ballads and some good Books And my Father bought of him Dr. Sibb's bruised Reed This also I read and found it suited to my state and seasonably sent me which opened more the Love of God to me and gave me a livelier apprehension of the Mystery of Redemption and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ. All this while neither my Father nor I had any Acquaintance or Familiarity with any that had any Understanding in Matters of Religion nor ever heard any pray ex tempore But my Prayers were the Confession in the Common-Prayer Book and sometime one of Mr. Bradford's Prayers in a Book called his Prayers and Meditations and sometime a Prayer out of another Prayer-Book which we had After this we had a Servant that had a little Piece of Mr. Perkins's Works of Repentance and the right Art of Living and Dying well and the Government of the Tongue And the reading of that did further inform me and confirm me And thus without any means but Books was God pleased to resolve me for himself § 4. When I was ready for the University my Master drew me into another way which kept me thence where were my vehement desires He had a Friend at Ludlow Chaplain to the Council there called Mr. Richard Wickstead whose Place having allowance from the King who maintaineth the House for one to attend him he told my Master that he was purposed to have a Scholar fit for the University and having but one would be better to him than any Tutor in the University could be whereupon my Master perswaded me to accept the offer and told me it would be better than the University to me I believed
convinced me how unfit we are to write about Christ's Government and Law and Iudgment c. while we understand not the true Nature of Government Laws and Iudgment in the general and that he that is ignorant of Politicks and of the Law of Nature will be ignorant and erroneous in Divinity and the sacred Scriptures § 157. 2. The Second Book which I wrote and the first which I began was that called The Saints everlasting Rest Whilst I was in Health I had not the least thought of writing Books or of serving God in any more publick way than Preaching But when I was weakened with great bleeding and left solitary in my Chamber at Sir Iohn Cook 's in Derbyshire without any Acquaintance but my Servant about me and was sentenced to Death by the Physician I began to contemplate more seriously on the Everlasting Rest which I apprehended my self to be just on the Borders of And that my Thoughts might not too much scatter in my Meditation I began to write something on that Subject intending but the Quantity of a Sermon or two which is the cause that the Beginning is in brevity and Style disproportionable to the rest but being continued long in Weakness where I had no Books nor no better Employment I followed it on till it was enlarged to the bulk in which it is published The first Three Weeks I spent in it was at Mr. Nowel's House at Kirkby-Mallory in Leicestershire a quarter of a Year more at the Seasons which so great Weakness would allow I bestowed on it at Sir Tho Rous's House at Rous-Lench in Worcestershire and I finished it shortly after at Kidderminster The first and last Parts were first done being all that I intended for my own use and the second and third Parts came afterwards in besides my first Intention This Book it pleased God so far to bless to the Profit of many that it encouraged me to be guilty of all those Scripts which after followed The Marginal Citations I put in after I came home to my Books but almost all the Book it self was written when I had no Book but a Bible and a Concordance And I found that the Transcript of the Heart hath the greatest force on the Hearts of others For the Good that I have heard that Multitudes have received by that Writing and the Benefit which I have again received by their Prayers I here humbly return my Thanks to him that compelled me to write it § 159. 3. The Third Book which I published was that which is entituled Plain Scripture Proof for Infants Church-Membership and Baptism being the Arguments used in the Dispute with Mr. Tombes and an Answer to a Sermon of his afterward preached c. This Book God blessed with unexpected Success to stop abundance from turning Anabaptists and reclaming many both in City and Country and some of the Officers of the Irish and English Forces and it gave a considerable Check to their Proceedings Concerning it I shall only tell the Reader 1. That there are towards the latter part of it many enigmatical Reflections upon the Anabaptists for their horried Scandals which the Reader that lived not in those times will hardly understand But the cutting off the King and rebelling against him and the Parliament and the Invading Scotland and the approving of these with the Ranters and other Sects that sprang out of them were the Crimes there intended which were not then to be more plainly spoken of when their Strength and Fury was so high 2. Note that after the writing of that Book I wrote a Postscript against that Doctrine of Dr. Burges and Mr. Tho. Bedford which I supposed to go on the other Extream and therein I answered part of a Treatise of Dr. Sam. Warks's which Mr. Bedford published and it proved to be Mr. Thomas Gataker whom I defended who is Dr. Ward 's Censor But I knew it not till Mr. Gataker after told me But after these Writings I was greatly in doubt whether it be not certain that all the Infants of true Believers are justified and saved if they dye before actual Sin My Reason was because it is the same justifying saving Covenant of Grace which their Parents and they are in And as real Faith and Repentance is that Condition on the Parents part which giveth them their right to actual Remission and Adoption So to be the Children of such is all the Condition which is required in Infants in order to the same Benefits And without asserting this the Advantage of the Anabaptists is greater than every one doth imagine But I never thought with Dr. Ward that all Baptised Children had this Benefit and Qualitative Sanctification also nor with Dr. Burgess and Mr. Bedford that all converted at Age had inherent seminal Grace in Baptism certainly given them nor with Bishop Davenant that all justly baptised had relative Grace of Justification and Adoption But only that all the Infants of true Believers who have right to the Covenant and Baptism in foro Coeli as well as in foro Ecclesiae have also thereby Right to the Pardon of Original Sin and to Adoption and to Heaven which Right is by Baptism to be sealed and delivered to them This I wrote of to Mr. Gataker who returned me a kind and candid Answer but such as did not remove my Scruple and this occasioned him to print Bishop Davenants Disputations with his Answer My Opinion which I most incline to is the same which the Synod of Dort expresseth and that which I conjecture Dr. Davenant meant or I am sure came next to Here note also that Mr. Tombes sollicited me yet after all this to write him down my Proofs of Infants Church-membership out of the circumcised Church which I did at large as from the Creation downward as far as Proof could be expected in Proportion to the other Histories of those Times Instead of sending me an Answer to my Papers he printed some of them with an insufficient Answer in his last Book These Papers with a Reply to him I have since Printed § 159. 4. The Fourth Book which I published is a small one called The right Method for Peace of Conscience and spiritual comfort in thirty two Directions The Occasion of it was this Mrs. Bridgis the Wife of Col. Iohn Bridgis being one of my Flock was often weeping out her Doubts to me about her long and great Uncertainty of her true Sanctification and Salvation I told her that a few hasty Words were not Direction enough for the satisfactory resolving of so great a Case and therefore I would write her down a few of those necessary Directions which she should read and study and get well imprinted in her Mind As soon as I had begun I found 1. that it would not be well done in the Brevity which I expected 2. And that when it was done it would be as useful to many others of my Flock as to her and therefore I bestowed more time
Prayer by all the Ministers at Worcester where they desired me to preach But Weakness and other things hindered me from that Day but to compensate that I enlarged and published the Sermon which I had prepared for them and entitled the Treatise Gildas Salvianus because I imitated Gildas and Salvianus in my Liberty of Speech to the Pastors of the Churches or The reformed Pastor I have very great Cause to be thankful to God for the Success of that Book as hoping many thousand Souls are the better for it in that it prevailed with many Ministers to set upon that Work which I there exhort them to Even from beyond the Seas I have had Letters of Request to direct them how they might bring on that Work according as that Book had convinced them that it was their Duty If God would but reform the Ministry and set them on their Duties zealously and faithfully the People would certainly be reformed All Churches either rise or fall as the Ministry doth rise or fall not in Riches and worldly Grandure but in Knowledge Zeal and Ability for their Work But since Bishops were restored this Book is useless and that Work not medled with § 178. 23. When the part of the Parliament called the Rump or Common-wealth was sitting the Anabaptists Seekers c. flew so high against Tythes and Ministry that it was much feared lest they would have prevailed at last Wherefore I drew up a Petition for the Ministry which is printed under the Name of the Worcestershire Petition which being presented by Coll. Iohn Bridges and Mr. Thomas Foley was accepted with Thanks and seemed to have a considerable tendency to some good Resolutions § 179. But the Sectaries greatly regard against that Petition and one wrote a vehement Invective against it which I answered in a Paper called The Defence of the Worcestershire Petition which by an Over-sight is mained by the want of the Answer to one of the Accusers Queries I knew not what kind of Person he was that I wrote against but it proved to be a Quaker they being just now rising and this being the first of their Books as far as I can remember that I had ever-seen § 180. 24. Presently upon this the Quakers began to make a great Stirr among us and acted the Parts of Men in Raptures and spake in the manner of Men inspired and every where railed against Tythes and Ministers They sent many Papers of Queries to divers Ministers about us And to one of the chief of them I wrote an Answer and gave them as many more Questions to answer entiâ—uling it The Quakers Catechism These Pamphlets being but one or two Days Work were no great Interruption to my better Labours and as they were of small Worth so also of small Cost The same Ministers of our Country that are now silenced are they that the Quakers most vehemently opposed medling little with the rest The marvellous concurrence of Instruments telleth us that one principal Agent doth act them all I have oft asked the Quakers lately why they chose the same Ministers to revile whom all the Drunkards and Swearers rail against And why they cryed out in our Assemblies Come down thou Deceiver thou Hireling thou Dog and now never meddle with the Pastors or Congregations And they answer 1. That these Men sin in the open Light and need none to discover them 2. That the Spirit hath his times both of Severity and of Lenity But the Truth is they knew then they might be bold without any Fear of Suffering by it And now it is time for them to save their Skins they suffer enough for their own Assemblies 181. 25. The great Advancement of the Popish Interest by their secret agency among the Sectaries Seekers Quakers Behmenists c. did make me think it necessary to do something directly against Popery and so I published three Disputations against them one to prove our Religion safe and another to prove their Religion unsafe and a third to shew that they overthrew the Faith by the ill Resolution of their Faith This Book I entituled The safe Religion § 182. 26. About the same time I fell into troublesom Acquaintance with one Clement Writer of Worcester an ancient Man that had long seemed a forward Professor of Religiousness and of a good Conversation but was now perverted to I know not what A Seeker he profest to be but I easily perceived that he was either a jugling Papist or an Infidel but I more suspected the latter He had written a scornful Book against the Ministry called Ius Divinum Presbyterii and after two more against the Scripture and against me one called Fides Divina the other 's Title I remember not His Assertion to me was that no Man is bound to believe in Christ that doth not see confirming Miracles himself with his own Eyes By the Provocations of this Apostate I wrote a Book called The unreasanableness of Infidelity consisting of four Parts The first of the extrinsick Witness of the Spirit by Miracles c. to which I annexed a Disputation against Clement Writer to prove that the Miracles wrought by Christ and his Apostles oblige us to believe that did not see them The Second part was of the intrinsick Witness of the Spirit to Christ and Scripture The Third was of the Sin or Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost And the Fourth was to repress the Arrogancy of reasoning against Divine Revelations All this was intended but as a Supplement to the Second Part of The Saints Rest where I had pleaded for the Truth of Scripture But this Subject I have since more fully handled in my Reasons of the Christian Religion At the time Mr. Gilbert a learned Minister in Shropshire wrote a Small concise Tractate in Latin as against a Book of Dr. Owen's though his intimate Friend to prove that Christ's Death was not necessary absolutely but of Divine Free Choice and in answer to that Book I wrote a brief Premonition to my Treatise against Infidelity to decide that Controversy § 183. 27. Mr. Tho. Foley being High Sheriff desired me to preach before the Judges which I did on Gal. 6. 16. and enlarged it to a Treatise entituled The Crucifying of the World by the Cross of Christ for Mortification and put an Epistle somewhat large before it to provoke rich Men to good Works § 184. 28. Some Men about this time persuaded me that if I would write a few single Sheets on several Subjects though the Style were not very moving yet it would do more good than larger Volumes because most people will buy and read them who will neither buy nor read the larger Whereupon I wrote first One Sheet against the Quakers containing those Reasons which should satisfie all Sober Men against their way § 185. 29. The Second Sheet I called A Winding Sheet for Popery containing a Summary of Moderate and Effectual Reasons against Popery which single sheet no Papist hitherto hath answered §
I do believe all the Sacred Canonical Scripture which all Christian Churches do receive and particularly I believe in God the Father Almighty c. The second Part instead of Books of unnecessary Canons containeth seven or eight Points of Practice for Church-Order which so it be practised it is no great matter whether it be subscribed or not And here it must be understood that these are written for Times of Liberty in which Agreement rather than Force doth procure Unity and Communion The third Part containeth the larger-Description of the Office of the Ministry and consequently of all the Ordinances of Worship which need not be subscribed but none should preach against it nor omit the practice except Peace require that the Point of Infant Baptism be left free This small Book is called by the Name of Universal Concord which when I wrote I thought to have published a Second Part viz. a large Volume containing the particular Terms of Concord between all Parties capable of Concord But the Change of the Times hath necessarily changed that purpose § 198. 42. The next published was a Sermon before the Parliament the day before they voted in the King being a Day of Humiliation appointed to that end It is called A Sermon of Repentance of which more afterward § 199. 43. The next published was a Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen at Pauls being on their Day of Rejoycing for General Monk's Success to bring in the King It is called A Sermon of Right Rejoycing § 200. 44. The next was a Sermon of the Life of Faith preached before the King being all that every I was called to preach before him when I had been sworn his Chaplain in Ordinary of which more afterward § 201. 45. The next was called A Believer's last Work being prepared for the Funeral of Mrs. Mary Hanmer Mother to my Wife then intended but after married Its use is to prepare for a Comfortable Death § 202. 46. Before this which I forgot in its proper place I published a Treatise of Death called The last Enemy to be overcome shewing the true Nature of the Enmity of Death and its uses Being a Funeral Sermon for Mrs. Elizabeth Baker Wife to Mr. Ioseph Baker Minister at Worcester with some Notes of her Life § 203. 47. Another was called The vain Religion of the Formal Hypocrite A Discovery of the Nature and Mischief of a Formal vain Religion preached at Westminister-Abby with a Sermon annexed of the Prosperity of Fools This being preached at Covent-Garden was unjustly accused and published by way of Vindication with the former § 204. 48. The next was a Treatise on Luke 10. 42. One thing is needful called A Saint or a Bruit shewing the Necessity Utility Safety Honour and Pleasure of a Holy Life and evincing the Truth of our Religion against Atheists and Infidels and Prophane ones § 205. 49. The next was a Treatise of Self-knowledge preached at Dunstan's West called The Mischiefs of Self-ignorance and Benefits of Self-acquaintance which was published partly to vindicate it from many false Accusations and partly at the desire of the Countess of Balcarres to whom it was directed It was fitted to the Disease of this â—urious Age in which each man is ready to devour others because they do not know themselves § 206. 50. The next was a Treatise called The Divine Life which containeth three Parts The first is of the Right Knowledge of God for the imprinting of his Image on the Soul by the knowledge of his Attributes c. The second is Of walking with God The third is Of improving Solitude to converse with God when we are forsaken by all Friends or separated from them The Occasion of the publishing of this Treatise was this The Countess of Balcarres being going into Scotland after her adobe in England being deeply sensible of the loss of the Company of those Friends which she left behind her desired me to preach the last Sermon which she was to hear from me on those words of Christ Iohn 16. 32. Behold the hour cometh yea is now come that ye shall be Scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone and yet I am not alone because the Father is with me At her request I preached on this Text and being afterward desired by her to give it her in Writing and the Publication being her design I prefixed the two other Treatises to make it more considerable and published them together The Treatise is upon the most Excellent Subject but not elaborate at all being but Popular Sermons preached in the midst of diverting Businesses Accusations and malicious Clamours When I offered it to the Press I was fain to leave out the quantity of one Sermon in the end of the second Treatise That God took Henoch wherein I shewed what a mercy it is to one that hath walked with God to be taken to him from this World because it is a dark a wicked a malicious and implacable a treacherous deceitful World c. All which the Bishop's Chaplain must have expunged because men would think it was all spoken of them And so the World hath got a Protection against the force of our Baptismal Vow § 207. Because I have said so much in the Epistles of these two Books of the Countess of Balcarres the Reader may expect some further satisfaction of her Quality and the Cause She is Daughter to the late Earl of Seaforth in Scotland towards the High-lands and was married to the Earl of Balcarres a Covenanter but an Enemy to Cromwell's perfidiousness and true to the Person and Authority of the King with the Earl of Glencarne he kept up the last War for the King against Cromwell and his Lady through dearness of Affection marched with him and lay out of doors with him on the Mountains At last Cromwell drove them out of Scotland and they went together beyond Sea to the King where they long followed the Court and he was taken for the Head of the Presbyterians with the King and by evil Instruments fell out with the Lord Chancellor who prevailing against him upon some advantage he was for a time forbidden the Court the Grief whereof added to the Distempers he had contracted by his Warfare on the cold and hungry Mountains cast him into a Consumption of which he died He was a Lord of excellent Learning Judgment and Honesty none being praised equally with him for Learning and Understanding in all Scotland When the Earl of Lauderdaile his near Kinsman and great Friend was Prisoner in Portsmouth and Windsor-Castle he fell into acquaintance with my Books and so valued them that he read them all and took Notes of them and earnestly commended them to the Earl of Balcarres with the King The Earl of Balcarres met at the first sight with some Passages where he thought I spake too favourably of the Papists and differed from many other Protestants and so cast them by and sent the
Church where he is President and where he Ordaineth if there be any left I suppose as to a Parochial or Congregational President in one Eldership you will grant this and why not to the President of the Association for Peace when he that is Ordained a Pastor of your particular Church is thereupon made an Officer in the Universal therefore others should have some care of it or else I 'le let Objections pass in silence only desire you if these two last dislike you not therefore presently to reject the rest but lay these by On these Terms in the two last Propositions Bishop Usher when I propounded them to him told me That the Episcopal Party might well agree with us and the moderate would but the rest would not To my Reverend Brother Mr. Philip Nye § 47. After this I was yet desirous to make a fuller Attempt for the reconciling of those Controversies so far as that we might hold Communion together And I drew up a larger Writing instancing in about Ten Points of Difference between the Presbyterians and Independants proving that the Differences were not such as should hinder Concord and Communion The Writing being too large to be here inserted you shall have with the rest at the end of the History Since Prelacy was restored there hath been no Opportunity to Debate these Matters for the Reasons aforesaid and many others Only I put these Papers into Mr. G. Grissith's hand who speaketh much for Reconciliation And when I call'd for them about a year after he had shewed them to none nor made any use of them which might tend to the desired Concord and so I took them away as expecting no more success § 48. About the same time the great Controversie that troubled all the Church being about the Qualification of Church Members I apprehended that the want of a due and solemn manner of Transition from the Number of Infant-Members into the Number of the Adult was the cause both of Anabaptistry and Independency and that the right performance of this as Calvin and our Rubrick in the Common Prayer would have Confirmation performed would be the most excellent Expedient both for Reformation and Reconciliation finding that the Independants themselves approved of it I meditated how to get this way of rectified Confirmation restored and introduced when in the mean time came forth a Treatise for this way of Confirmation by Mr. Ionathan Hanmer very judiciously and piously written And because it was sent me with a Request to write my Judgment of it I put an Epistle before it further to prove the desirableness of the thing The Book was very well accepted when it came abroad but some wrote to me desiring me not only to shew the usefulness of it but also to produce some fuller Scripture Proofs that it is a Duty whereupon I wrote a little Treatise that is called Confirmation the way to Reformation and Reconciliation And in my own Congregation I began so much of the Practice of it as is acknowledged to belong to Presbyters to do § 49. And about the same time while Cromwell professed to do all that he could for the equal promoting of Godliness and Peace and the Magistrates Assistance greatly facilitating the Work of the Ministers and many Ministers neglected their Duty because the Magistrate compelled not the People to submit to them and some never administred the Lord's Supper because they thought nothing but Constraint by the Magistrate would enable them to do it aright And on the other Extream Cromwell himself and such others commonly gave out that they could not understand what the Magistrate had to do in Matters of Religion and they thought that all Men should be left to their own Consciences and that the Magistrate could not interpose but he should be ensnared in the Guilt of Persecution I say while these Extreams prevailed upon the Discourses of some Independants I offered them a few Proposals suited to those Times containing those few Duties by which a willing Magistrate might easily settle the Church in a safe and holy Peace without incurring the guilt of Persecution or Profaneness or Licentiousness but having no Correspondency with Cromwell or any of his Council they were never shewed or made use of any further than for the perusal of him to whom I gave them who being one of their Faction I thought it possible he might have further improved them The Paper was this which followeth By the Establishment of what is contained in these Twelve Propositions or Articles following the Churches in these Nations may have a Holy Communion Peace and Concord without any Wrong to the Consciences or Liberties of Presbyterians Congregational Episcopal or any other Christians 1. FOrasmuch as God hath appointed Magistracy and Ministry as Functions of a different kind but both necessary to the welfare of Mankind and both for the Church and the Salvation of Men and the maintaining of due Obedience to God Therefore let not either of them invade the Function of the other Let Ministers have no Power of Violence by inflicting Corporal Penalties or Mulcts nor be the Judges though in Cases of Heresie or Impiety who is to be 〈◊〉 punished and who not but let them not be denied to be the Ministers of Christ and Guides of the Church And therefore let the Word of God be their only Rule what they must Preach and whom they must Baptize and receive into the Church and to whom they must Administer the Lord's Supper and whom they must Reprove Admonith Reject or Absolve and so for the rest of their Ministerial Work And let not Princes or Parliaments make them Rules and tell them whom to admit or reject otherwise than from the Word of God for according to this Rule we are bound to proceed whatever we suffer for it But yet as the Magistrate is by us to be instructed and guided according to the Word of God so we are by him to be commanded and punished if we offend And therefore we acknowledge it his Duty to command us to Teach and Govern the Churches according to the Word of God and to punish us if we disobey and we must submit to such commands and punishments And therefore if the Parliament see cause to make any Laws according to which their Judges and Officers shall proceed in punishing Ministers for Male-administration we shall not disobey them if agreeable to God's Word if not we shall obey God and patiently suffer from them 2. Seeing there is very much difference between an Infant state of Church-Membership and an Adult one being but imperfect Members in comparison of the other and one being admitted on the Condition they be but the Seed of the Faithful and the others Title having another Condition even a Faith or Profession of their own and one having right only to Infant Priviledges and not to the Lord's Supper and other parts of Communion proper to the Adult because they are not capable of it And seeing
Errours have divided and distracted the Christian Churches and one would think Experience should save us from them § 53. But the Brethren resolved that they would hold on the way which they had begun And though they were honest and competently judicious Men yet those that managed the Business did want the Judgment and Accurateness which such a Work required though they would think any Man supercilious that should tell them so And the tincture of Faction stuck so upon their Minds that it hindered their Judgment The great doer of all that worded the Articles was Dr. Owen Mr. Nye and Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Syd Sympson were his Assistants and Dr. Cheynell his Scribe Mr. Marshall a sober worthy Man did something the rest sober Orthodox Men said little but suffered the Heat of the rest to carry all § 54. When I saw they would not change their Method I saw also that there was nothing for me and others of my Mind to do but only to hinder them from doing harm and trusting in their own Opinions or crude Conceirs among our Fundamentals And presently Dr. Owen in extolling the Holy Scriptures put in that That no Man could know God to Salvation by any other means I told him that this was neither a Fundamental nor a Truth and that if among the Papists or any others a poor Christian should believe by the teaching of another without ever knowing that there is a Scripture he should be saved because it is promised that whoever believed should be saved He said awhile That there could be no other way of Saving Revelation of Jesus Christ I told him that he was savingly revealed by Preaching many years before the New Testament was written He told us that the Primitive Church was bound to believe no more from the Apostles but what was written before in the Old Testament and proved thence I told him that by that Assertion he subverted the Christian Church and Faith 1. By overthrowing the Material 2. and the Formal Object of our Faith or the medium necessary thereto 1. For the Matter it is not in the Old Testament That this Iesus is the Christ that he is already incarnate conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary fulfilled the Law suffered was crucified buried and rose again ascended into Heaven and is there at the right hand of God in our Nature and therein intercedeth for the Church that he hath instituted the Sacraments sent his Apostles given the Holy Ghost to them to direct them into all Truth c. with more of the like 2. That if Christ and his Apostles were not to be believed for the Image of God appearing on their Doctrine and the Divine Attestation of Miracles confirming it then Moses and the Prophets were not for those Reasons to be believed And consequently not to be believed at all for there was no reason to believe them which Christ also gave us not for the belief of him and his Apostles After a deal of wrangling about these Things because the Doctor was the hotter and better befriended in that Assembly and I was then under great Weakness and Soporous or Scotomatical Ilness of my Head I asked their leave to give them the Reasons of my Opinion in Writing which I brought in and never received any Answer to it And yet if Mr. Vines who came but seldom had not stuck to me when he was there they would have made the World believe as some of them endeavoured that I was Popish and pleaded for the Sufficiency of Tradition to Salvation without the Scripture But Bishop Usher was of the same mind with me and told me that he had said the same to the Iesuits Challenge Cap. de Tradit § 55. Many other such crude and unsound Passages like the Savoy Articles of Justification after put into the Independant Agreement had come into our New Fundamentals And all because the over-Orthodox Doctors Owen and Cheynell took it to be their Duty in all their Fundamentals to put in those words which as they said did obviate the Heresies and Errours of the Divines Whenas I told them they should make the Rule to look no way but strait forward and put in their Rejections after as the Synod of Dort doth as being the Contradictions of the Rule One merry passage I remember occasioned laughter Mr. Sympson caused them to make this a Fundamental That He that alloweth himself or others in any known sin cannot be saved I pleaded against the word allowed and told them that many a Thousand lived in wilful sin which they could not be said to allow themselves in but confessed it to be sin and went on against Conscience and yet were impenitent and in a state of Death And that there seemed a little contradiction between known sin and allowed so far as a Man knoweth that he sinneth he doth not allow that is approve it Other Exceptions there were but they would have their way and my opposition to any thing did but heighten their Resolution At last I told them As stiff as they were in their opinion and way I would force them with one word to change or blot out all that Fundamental I urged them to take my wager and they would not believe me but marvelled what I meant I told them that the Parliament took the Independant way of Separation to be a sin and when this Article came before them they would say By our Brethrens own Judgment we are all damned Men if we allow the Independants or 〈◊〉 other Sectaries in their sin They gave me no Answer but they left out all that Fundamental The Papers which I gave them in were these Without the Knowledge of whom by the Revelation of Scripture there is no Salvation The Words by the Revelation of the Scripture I desired might be either here left out or changed into the Revelation of the Gospel or the Word of God To this you will not consent because it would intimate that there may be another co-ordinate way of Revealing Christ besides the written Word by which there may be Salvation I cannot subscribe to the Article as it stands of which when I have shewed the point of our Difference I shall give you my Reasons 1. Our Difference is not de doctrina tradita but de modo tradendi For I have fully acknowledged that there is no Salvation without the Knowledge of the Essentials of the Christian Faith 2. And that the Light of Nature and Book of the Creatures is insufficient hereunto So far we are agreed as to the way of the Revelation 3. Nor do I doubt of the full Perfection of the Scripture but detest the Popish Doctrines of Traditions or unwritten Verities to supply what is supposed to be wanting in the Scripture as if it were but a part of God's Word for the revealing of these supernatural things I desired rather that you would more fully express the Scriptures Perfection and Infallability 4. Nor is it any doubt
the Quality of the Pastors 4. That no Pastors be forced upon the Flocks against their Consent the Church Governors being the Approvers and Ordainers and fit means being used to procure their Consent though meer Teachers may be forced on the Ignorant Heretical and obstinate that are unmeet for Church-Communion 5. That the Teachers of the Parishes may be urged to catechise the People and personally in due time and Place to confer with them all and instruct them in the Matters of Salvation and all the People may be urged to submit thereunto 6. That before any Person 's baptized in infancy be admitted among the adult Members of the Church to their holy Communion and Priviledges they make an open Profession of Faith and Holiness such as shall be approved by the Pastor of that particular Church who is responsible if he deny Approbation unjustly The solemnity of Confirmation we leave to the Wisdom of Church-Governors 7. That we may have Liberty in the Temples to assemble for God's Worship and may have no new Worship and Ordinances or symbolical mystical Ceremonies enforced on us against our Consciences And that such as dare not use the Cross Surplice or kneeling in the Act of Receiving may not be Penalties be forced to them nor therefore denied the Exercise of the Ministry or the Communion of the Church and those that Scruple the English Common prayer-Prayer-Book may have leave to exercise their Ministry without it at least that they may be allowed the use of a Liturgy to be drawn up in Scripture Words and approved by a Synod and besides that freely to pray according to the variety of Occasions and Subjects which they preach of they being responsible to their Governors for all that they say and do amiss 8. That the Pastors of each Parish-Church may have Liberty to hear Accusations of Hereby or Scandal and to admonish the Offenders publickly that hear not private Admonition to call them openly to Repent and confess their Sin and promise Reformation to absolve the Penitent and reject the Impenitent requiring the People to avoid them But yet if you require that no Pastor should proceed to the publick admonishing and rejecting any but upon the Judgment of the next Synod and their President we submit unless which God forbid they should defend Heresy and Wickedness and prohibit Discipline 9. That the Neighbour-Pastors associating for Union and Communion may hold monthly Synods in every Market-Town having a President stated for Life unless he prove unfit And that the Pastors of the Particular Churches be here responsible for their Doctrine and Practice if any shall accuse them And that Cases about Publick Confirmation Admonitions or Censures excepted from the Power of the Pastors of the particular Churches of that Association may be here decided But yet that the President and Synod may not be forced to undertake the special Charge of all the Souls of each Congregation as it belongeth to the several Pastors 10. That every Quarter and oftner if the President see cause there may be a Synod of all the Pastors of each County or Diocesses if that may not be granted who also shall have a stated President the Name we leave to you who shall maintain a more general Communion and without destroying the Power of the particular Pastors or lesser Synods shall receive Appeals and take Cognizance of such Cases as are proper to them And that no President of greater or lesser Synods shall ordain suspend deprive or excommunicate any Pastor or Deacon without the Consent of the Synod and the Presence of some of them nor censure the Members of any particular Church without the Consent of the Synod or of the Pastor of that Church And that all Presidents be freely chosen by the Synods where they must preside 11. That National Councils may consist of the Presidents of both the Diocesane and inferior Synods or else of the Diocesane and two out of each County freely chosen by the Major Vote of all the Pastors 12. That no Subscription be required of the Pastors to any thing about Religion but to the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds and to the necessary Articles of Faith and Practice exprest in Scripture Terms and to the Renunciation of all Heresies contrary thereto And that in the Matter of the Divine Right of Prelacy or Synodical Government or Ceremonies it may suffice that we are responsible for any Disobedience and be not forced to subscribe our Approbation they being not Articles of Faith but Points of Practice and if you see Cause to restrain Men from Preaching against any other controverted Opinions they may not be forced to approve them 13. That no Pastor be displaced unless for Insufficieney Negligence or Scandal committed within two Years before the Accusation or unless some able Godly faithful Pastor prove a better Title to the Place 14. Lastly That Persons Excommunicate may not be punished eo Nomine because Excommunicate by corporal Punishments unless it be by disfranchising that they be uncapable of Government or of choosing Governors seeing the same Men are also obnoxious to the Laws of the Land for such Crimes as the Laws condemn notwithstanding their Excommunication On these Terms we may hold a Christian Concord without any Danger of Persecution or Breach of Charity or Peace if the Magistrate should think meet to settle Episcopacy as we may on the forementioned Terms while the present Liberty continueth Iuly 1659. Dr. Hammond's Answer 1. WHAT concerns private Christians in their own Families will I suppose easily be granted care being taken that nothing contrary to known Laws be attempted under Pretence of convening for Christian Advantages 2. What concerns the Rectors of each Parish in the Discharge of the Duty by Law committed to them there can be no doubt of What is more required to be intrusted to them being now by Law in the Bishops cannot be removed without changing the Law which must be left to the Law-Makers upon due Consideration of Ancient Primitive Practice and what may probably most tend to Edification 3. What concerns the Observation of Ceremonies by Minister or People by Law established must be done by Tolleration or Exemption from Punishments allowed to tender Consciences with care had also to Uniformity 4. The Nomination of Persons to Offices in the Church must have respect to to the lawful right of Patrons unless by Law some Change be thought expedient to be introduced herein 5. If the Presidents of inferior Synods are to have Episcopal Power in Confirmation Censures Ordination then this being the multiplying of Bishops must be referred to the Supreme Power to judge whether all things considered it be best or whether some larger Diocesses being divided some lesser may not remain as they are But if inferior Presidents be not vested with Episcopal Power but be in the Nature of our rural Deans or of Archdeacons the use of them and their Synods may be good with Subordination to Bishops and regulated
Divisions or satisfying the Desires and Consciences of multitudes of Persons truly fearing God And if we may not have Discipline to promote a just Reformation of Manners we shall still have irregular Attempts of Reformation But it is not the Name that we insist on Call them Rural Deans or Arch-Deacons or what you please so be it they may be authorized to do the things â—ere desired even to exercise that Discipline which one Bishop in a County cannot exercise 6. A General Care is one thing and the Special Charge of the particular Pastor is another The former extendeth no further than to oversee the particular Pastors and to receive Appeals in extraordinary Cases from any of the People and to teach them in course while as Visitors they pass from one Parish to another and in the same manner to administer Sacraments and personally exercise Parish Discipline But the Special Charge containeth an Obligation to watch over each particular Person in an ordinary teaching them publickly and privately as they have occasion and opportunity and plucking up all Weeds of Heresie and Profaneness that shall spring up among them resolving Doubts convincing Gainsayers and ordinarily guiding them in Publick Worship calling the Offenders to Penitence and absolving the Penitent and binding over the Impenitent to the Judgment Seat of Christ and requiring the People to avoid them If you impose on every Diocesan Bishop besides the fore-described General Care this Special Charge over every Soul as every Pastor of a particular Church hath you will take an effectual Course to keep the most pious modest and thoughtful Persons out of that rank And your Phrase of Intrusting so much as is found necessary in the hands of the Rector of each Parish seemeth to intimate that you take those Rectors not only for Men of a distinct Order or Office from the Bishops but also of an Office that it is not of Divine Institution and described by God but of Humane Institution and left to the Bishop's Discretion what it shall be and how much power such shall have and that they are to be intrusted with it from the Bishops as the Italians in Concil Trident. would have had the Bishops to have theirs from the Pope If this be your meaning it will not reconcile If it be not then the Rectors of each Parish may knowâ— their Office from the Holy Scripture and receive it as from Christ who hath instituted it and entrusted them with it 7. We desire the Scripture Confession but to the Extent and Securing of our Peace and Concord If Papists would agree upon such a Confession yea on a Subscription to the whole Scripture we should rejoice But they cannot do it without ceasing to be Papists And many may rise up among our selves that may scruple some words in the 39 Articles that are not fit ergo to be persecuted and cast out of the Church as Mr. Chillingworth's Instance proves 1. As he that should scruple some one word of no great weight in Athanasius's Creed contrary to Art 8. 2. Or the absolute Exclusion of Works in the Article of Justification Art 11. 3. Or the displeasingness and sinfulness of Works before Faith and their not making Men meet to receive Grace Art 13. 4. And that voluntary Works besides or above God's Commandments cannot be taught without Aâ—â—ogancy and Impiety vide Annot. Dr. H. H. in 1 Cor. 9. 16 17. Art 14. 5. If any think that the Virgin Mary or Infants offended not in many things Art 15. We question whether it be according to the Ancient Simplicity or Charity to cast out all these from our Churches 6. And what if Dr. Taylor and many others cannot Subscribe to Art 9. and 2. 7. And if a Man believe not that by good Works a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a Tree discerned by the Fruit should he be presently cast out Art 12. 8. The 21 Art concludeth that General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes and some think it may as well besaid that we may not meet for Publick Worship without their Command and Will and that this proveth that there never was a General Council nor ever will be because the Princes Infidels and Christians in whose Dominions the Bishops live never did or will generally Consent to have their Subjects go to a General Council 9. The 31st Art concludeth that there is none other Satisfaction for Sin but Christ's alone which many beside Grotius do contradict 10. Many dare not Subscribe to the 34th Art without restrictionâ— 11. Many good Men dare not so fully approve of all the Homilies as Art 35. dothâ— 12. Many have refused Subscription because of Art 36 it being hard so far to justifie every word in such Humane Writings as the Book of Consecration is Now it seems against our Unity to make such a Test of it as all Persons tolerable cannot agree in And it seems contrary to the Ancient Simplicity which required no other Test than the Scriptures and the Creeds And it hardeneth the Papists to call on us to prove a Succession of Protestants from the first Ages that is of Men that have held all the 39 Articles But yet we highly value the 39 Articles as found and moderate and if we can procure no nearer a recourse to Scripture and Ancient Simplicity we shall cheerfully submit to the 39 Articles if the Doctrine of Bishops and Ceremonies might be left out as Matters of Practice and not of Faith as long as we are responsible for any Disobedience And it 's hard if such things must be Subscribed as of Necessity to our Church Communion or Ministry And that these have been excepted against by the Old Nonconformists I suppose you know And if you could be content with a Scripture Confession if Rome would yield to it why should you deny to your Brethren at home that which you would grant the Romanists and therefore confess you may lawfully grant Let us lay down such a Rule of Concord as is fit for all to yield to and then leave all to accept it as they please and so they cannot blame our Religion nor maintain their Alienation But if we will not be content with a Rule that 's fitted for Universal Concord we keep Men from it And seeing you now say It 's reasonable that we be clog'd with no more why might not the same have been said of some of the fore-mentioned Passages if they had been left out 8. But the Doubt is Whether you will allow the Title of the Ministers now in possession except as before excepted or whether you will rather judge all their Titles void that were not Ordained by Diocesan Bishops Lastly We desire to know whether all the rest not touched on and excepted against in these Notes have your Consent as that Bishops be chosen by the whole Clergy and Ordain not and Censure not without their Synods c. O how easie were a
lawfully do we may swear to do § 291. 5. The fifth Controversie is about Re-ordination of such as were not Ordained by Diocesans but by the Presbyteries which then were at home or abroad And here they are also of two minds among themselves The one sort say That Ordination without Diocesans is a Nullity and those that are so Ordained are no Ministers but Laymen and therefore their Churches no true Churches in sensu politico And therefore that such must needs be Re-ordained The other sort say That their Ordination was valid before in foro spirituali but not in foro cioili and that the repeating of it is but an afoertaining or a confirming Act as publick Marrying again would be after one is privately married in case the Law would bastardize or disinherit his Children else § 292. 6. The sixth Controversie is about the lawfulness of the Assent and Consent to be declared which is to all contained in the Book of Articles the Book of Ordination and the Book of Common Prayer These comprehend abundance of Particulars some Doctrinal some about the Offices and Discipline of the Church and some about the Matter the Order and Manner and Ceremonies of Worship Here they are also divided among themselves some few of them take the words plainly and properly viz. the willing Conformists and think that indeed there is nothing in these Books which is not to be assented and consented to And indeed all the Convocation must needs be of that mind or the Major part and also the Parliament because they had the Books before them to be perused and did examine the Liturgy and Book of Ordination and make great Alterations in them and therefore if they had thought there had been any thing not to be assented and consented to they would have altered it by correction before they had imposed it on the Church But for all that the other Party is now so numerous that I could yet never speak with any of them but went that way viz. with the Latitudinarians to expound the words all things contained in the Books which they assent and consent to All things which they are to use and their Assent and Consent they limit only to the use q. d. I do dissent that there is nothing in these Books which may not lawfully be used and I do consent to the use of so much as belongeth to me Though yet they think or will not deny but that there may be something that may be ill framed and ill imposed The reason of this Exposition they fetch from the word use which is found after in the Act of Uniformity though it be not in the words of the Delaration And for the Books they say It is lawful to use the Common-Prayer and the Ceremonies Cross Surplice Copes and Kneeling at the Sacrament and all that is in that or the other Books to be used and therefore to declared so much § 293. More particularly 1. Concerning the Kalendar imposing the use of so many Apocryphal Lessons they say that they are read but upon Week-days and that not as Scripture but as edifying Lessons as the Homilies are and as many Churches have long used them And that the Church sufficiently avoideth the Scandal by calling them Apocryphâ—◠§ 294. And 2. for the parcelling and ordering of the Prayers and Responses as they are some of them say that it is the best Form and Order and it 's only Fancy and 〈◊〉 which 〈◊〉 them Others say that they are disorderly indeed but that is not the Sin of the Users when they are imposed but of the Framers and 〈◊〉 § 295. And 3. as for the Doctrine of the Salvation of Baptized Infants in the Rubrick of Baptism and all the rest in that Book and in the Nine and thirty Arâ—â—â—â—â— some of them say that they are all found viz. the willing Conformists but the unwilling Conformists say that these are not things to be used by themâ— and therefore not within the Compass of the declared Assent or Consent in the Act. § 296. And 4. as to the Charitable Applications excepted against in Baptism Confirmation the Lord's Supper Absolution of the Sick and Burial they say they are but such as according to the Judgment of Charity we may use And if there be any fault it is not in the Common Prayer Book which useth but such words as are fit to be used by the Members of the Church but it is in the Canons and Discipline of the Church which suffereth unfit Persons to be Church-Members § 297. And 5. as for the Ceremonies they say 1. That Kneeling is freed from all suspicion of Idolatry by the annexing of the Rubrick out of King Edward the Sixth's Common Prayer Book which though the Convocation refused yet the Parliament annexed and they are the Imposers and it is their sence that we must stand to And as it is lawful to Kneel in accepting a sealed Pardon from the King by his Messenger so is it in accepting a sealed Pardon from God with the Investiture of our Priviledges § 298. And 2. they say that the Surplice is as lawful as a Gown it being not imposed primarily because significant but because decent and secondarily as significant say some Or as others say It is the better and fitter to be imposed because it is significant and that God hath no where forbidden such Ceremonies § 299. And 3. for the Cross in Baptism they say that it is no part of the Sacrament of Baptism but an appendant Ceremony that it is the better for being significant that it is but a transient Image and not a fixed much less a graven Image and is not adored that it is but a professing sign as words are or as standing up or holding up the hand and not any Seal of God's part of the Covenant and though it be called in the Canons a Dedicating Sign it is but as it signifieth the Action of the Person or the Church and not as it signifieth the Action of God receiving the dedicated Person And some say That it cannot be de denied but that according to the old and common use of the word Sacrament as a Military Engagement it is a Sacrament yet it is not pretended to be a Divine but a Humane Sacrament and such are lawful it being in our definition of a Church Sacrament that it is Ordained by Christ himself And though Man may not invent New Sacraments as God's sealing or investing Signs and so pretend that to be Divine which is not yet man may invent New Human Sacraments which go no further than the signifying of their own Minds and Actions And they say That if such mystical Signs as these had been unlawful it is a thing incredible that the Universal Church should use such as far as can be found from the Apostles days even the Milk and Honey and Chrysm and White Garment at Baptism and the Station on the Lord's Days and the oft use of the Cross and
that Christ should have no one Witness that would ever scruple or contradict them either among the Orthodox or the Hereticks as far as any Records of Antiquity do make known § 300. 7. The seventh Controversie is about their own practice in Administrations and Church Discipline And 1. that they must Ministerially deny the Sacrament of Baptism to all Children whose Parents will not have them use the Cross they say that it is the Church that refuseth them by Law and not they who are by the Law disabled from receiving them 2. The same they say of their refusing to give the Lord's Supper to any that will not kneel in the Reception of it They say that it is better to Administer the Sacraments to some than to none at all which they must do if they refuse not them that kneel not 3. And for the giving of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to the unworthy for all are forced to use them they say that the Infants of all in the Church have right to Baptism at least for their Ancestor's sake and for the Godfathers and Godmothers or the Churches sake And for the Lord's Supper they have power to put away all that are proved impenitent in notorious Scandal § 301. Having told you what the Conformists say for themselves as faithfully as will stand with brevity before I proceed I think it best to set down here the words 1. Of the Covenant 2. Of the Subscription and Declaration 3. Of the Oath of Canonical Obedience before your Eyes that while the Subject of the Controversie is before you the Controversie it self may be the better understood And I suppose the Reader to have all the Books before him to which we are required to Assen◠〈…〉 The Solemn League and Covenant WE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens â—â—â—gesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commous of all 〈◊〉 in the Kingdoms of Scotland â—England and Ireland by the Pâ—â—vidence of God living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our Eyes the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the King's Majesty and his Posterity and the true Publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private Condition is included And calling to mind the trâ—atherous and bloody Piots Conspiracies Attempts and Practises of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their Rage Power and Presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the distressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick Cestimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter Ruine and Destruction according to the Commendable Practice of these kingdoms in former times and the Example of God's People in other Nations after mature Deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a Mutual and Solemn League and Covenant Wherein we all Subscribe and each one of us for himself with our Hands lifted up to the most high God â—o swear 1. THat we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of God endeavour in our several Places and Callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our Common Enemies The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church Government Directory for Worship and Catechizing That we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of Persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commistaties Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierachy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several Uocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the King's Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the world may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be brought to publick Trial and receive Condign Punishment as the degree of their Offences shall require or deserve or the Supream Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall â—udge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denied in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of God granted unto us and hath been latlely concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity and that Iustice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. We shall also according to our Places and Callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination Perswasion or Terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and Conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of God the Good of the Kingdoms and Honour of the King But shall all the days of our
to put up to God in all which they are meer Executioners of other Mens Judgments as a Cryer or such other Messenger § 316. 2. The second Charge against this Diocesan Prelacy is That it introduceth a New Humane Species or Presbyters or Spiritual Officers instead of Christ's which it destroyeth that is a sort of meer Subject Presbyters that have no power of Government but meerly to Teach and Worship That this is a distinct Species is proved in that 1. It wanteth an essential part which the other Species hath 2. From the Bishop's own profession who in the beginning of the Book of Ordination Subscribed to do declare it plainly determined in Scripture viz. That Bishops Priests and Deacons are three distinct Orderâ— which word Orders is the common term to signifie a Species of Church Officers distinct from a meer degree in the same Order or Species That this Office is New is proved 1. In that Scripture or Antiquity never knew it 2. Dr. Hammond Annot. in Act. 11. and in his Latin Book against Blondell Dissertat professeth that it cannot be proved that the word Bishop Presbyter or Pastor signifieth in all the Scripture any other than a proper Bishop or that there was any such as we now all Presbyters in Scripture times And in his Answer to the London Ministers he saith That for ought he knoweth all his Brethren of the Church of England are of his mind So that Presbyters that had no Governing Power were not in Scripture times And though he says that the other sort came in before Ignatiu's time yet 1. He saith not that this sort had no Government of the Flock but that they were under the Bishop in Government so that yet they are not the sort that we are speaking of 2. And he doth not prove any more § 317. 3. A third Charge which they bring against our Prelacy is That it destroyeth the Species or Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ The Churches which Christ instituted are Holy Societies associated for Personal holy Communion under their particular Pastors But all such Societies are destroyed by the Diocesan Frame Ergo it is destructive of the Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ. The distinguish between Personal Local Communion of Saints by Pastors and their Flocks and Communion of hearts only and Communion by Delegation or Deputies 1. We have Heart-Communion with all the Catholick Church through the World 2. Particular Churches have Communion for Concord and mutual Strength in Synods by their Pastors or Deputies 3. But a holy Communion of Souls or individual Persons as Members of the same particular Church for publick Worship and a holy Life is specifically distinct from both the former as is apparent 1. By the distinct end 2. The distinct manner of Communion yea and the matter of it And that this Form of Churches or Species is overthrown by this Prelacy they prove The Churches of Christ's institution were constituted of Governing Pastors and a Flock governed by them in Personal holy Communion every Church having its proper Pastor or Pastors But such Churches as are thus constituted are destroyed by our Frame of Prelacy Ergo The Major is confessed de facto by Dr. Hammond ubi supra as to Scripture times and sufficiently cleared in my Treatise of Episcopacy Ignatius his Testimony alone might suffice who saith That to every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons his Fellow Servants A Church of one Altar and of a thousand Altars A Church that is for Personal Communion and a Church that hath no Personal Communion with her Pastor or Bishop or with one of a hundred of her Fellow-Members a Church which is a Church indeed and that which is no Church but only a part of a Church are more than specifically distinct for indeed the Name is but equivoeally applied to them as distinct Natures or Societies Every Church univocally so called in sensu politico as a governed Society hath its pars gubernaâ—s and pars gubernata to constitute it But so have not our Parish Churches as such indeed as Oratories and Schools as instructed and worshipping Societies they have their Parochial Heads but as governed Societies they have no Heads proper to themselves nor any at all as Churches but as parts of a Church For the Diocesan is Head of the Diocesan Church as such and not of a Parochial Church as such but only as a part of the Diocesan Church And as it is no Kingdom which hath no King so it is no Political Church which hath no Governour or Pastor So that Diocesans destroy particular Churches as much as in them lyeth Unless any will say that as one King as he is persona naturalis may be three or twenty Kings as persona civilis as related to several Kingdoms and so one Bishop as persona naturalis may yet be a thousand Ecclesiastical Persons as Pastor of so many Churches But this being ridiculous and yet said by none that I have heard of I shall not stand to confute it But were it so yet a Pastor that never seeth or speaketh to his People nor hath any personal Communion in Worship with them and this according to the Constitution it self is not of the same sort with a Scripture Pastor 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. Hebr. 13. 17 c. which labour among them and preach to them the Word of God and watch for their Souls c. And consequently the Churches constituted by them are not of the same Species It is one Office personally to Teach Oversee Rule and Worship with them and another to do none of these to one of a thousand but to send the Churchwardens a Book of Articles § 318. 4. A fourth Charge is That it setteth up a New Church-Form which is unlawful instead of that of Christ's institution that is a Diocesan Church consisting of many hundred Parishes which none of them are Churches according to the Diocesan Frame but parts of one Church It hath been shewed that this Diocesan Church is of another Species than the Parochial one being for personal Communion which the other is uncapable of the far greatest part of the Members never seeing their Pastor nor knowing one another any more than if they lived in several parts of the World And that this Church Form is new is proved already that is that there was no Diocesan Church having many stated Congregations and Altars much less many hundreds and all under one only Bishop or Governour either in Scripture time or two hundred years after excepting only that in Alexandria and Rome some shew of more Assemblies than one under one Bishop appeared a little sooner Here note That it is not an Archbishop's Church that we are speaking of who is but the General Pastor or Bishop having other Bishops and Churches under him but it is a Church infimae Speciei commonly called a particular Church which hath no other Churches or Bishops under it
promoting serious Godliness and the Sword or Force used only by the Magistrate Dissent will turn to Love and Concord But if they may Suspend Silence or Excommunicate Arbitrarily or according to their present Canons which Excommunicate ipso facto all Men Magistrates Ministers and People who do but affirm that the Book of Common Prayer containeth any thing repugnant to the Scriptures or that there is any thing unlawful to be Subscribed in the Thirty nine Articles or Ceremonies or that there is any thing repugnant to the Word of God in the Church Government by Archbishops Bishops Deans Arch-Deacons and THE REST THAT BEAR OFFICE IN THE SAME without excepting so much as Lay-Chancellor's use of the Keys And if Men Excommunicate must as continuing such be undone and laid in Prison we must be content with our Peace with God and Conscience and good Men and that we did our best for more and mourn under the calamitous Effects of the Publick Enemies of Peace whom the God of Peace will shortly judge To the Right Worshipful Sir E. H. SIR THE Healing of Christians endangered as we are by our own Diseases is one of the greatest Works in this World and therefore not to be marred by haste or for want of due Consultation and Advice Three ways are now pleaded for among us Of which two are Extreams and much of our Disease I. One is by the forcing Prelates who would have all forced to full Conformity to their Canons and other Impositions and none endured be they never so wise or godly or peaceable who think any thing in them to be sinful This way was long tried heretofore and these last Twenty years it hath shewed us what it will effect The Shepherds have been smitten and the Flocks scattered about Two thousand godly Ministers Silenced adjudged to lye in Jail with Rogues and to utter Ruine by paying Twenty and Forty pound a Sermon c. The People hereby imbittered against the Prelates and alienated from their Party as malignant Persecutors and as Gnelphes and Gibelines all in discontent and dangerous contention and on both sides growing worse and worse And is this the only healing way II. The other Extream is those that are too far alienated into unlawful Separations whose talk is earnest against that which is called a Comprehension that is such a Reformation of the Parish Churches as may there unite the main Body of the faithful Ministers And they had rather the things which we cannot there consent to were continued unreformed that so the best People might be still alinated from them and driven all into their Tolerated Churches Concerning this way I offer to your Consideration 1. Is it the part of good Men thus to be guilty of that which themselves account intolerable Sin and that in many Hundred thousands desiring it might not be reformed and this on pretence of promoting Godliness when once their Leaders drew it up as a Fundamental That he that alloweth others in known sin cannot be saved 2. It is certain that there is no way so orderly and advantageous to the common Interest of Christianity as Reformed Parish Churches 3. The most of the People that most need the Ministry will come to the Parish Churches and will grow worse and worse if they have not faithful Teachers and we shall please a few good People till they are worn out and for want of a serious believing converting Ministry a Generation of ignorant Malignants will succeed them And we shall come short of the main end of the Ministry 4. So many good and scrupulous People will leave the Parish Churches as will set the Nation or rather London in an even balance and increase the envy of the other part and one side will talk more contemptuously of the Parish Churches and the Parish Pulpits will daily ring with Reproach against them so that the Common People who will be in the Parish Churches will increase their hatred against the Tolerated and they will live in a mutual and wordy War 5. The violent Prelatists will by this have their ends and will triumph over them in these Confusions and say Did not we tell you what would be the Effect of Alteration and Toleration 6. When it is intended that this be but the Introduction of a better Settlement the next Attempt will by this be disabled and they will say You see that they are never satisfied but are still changing and know not where to rest 7. The next Parliament having Experience of these Confusions will recall and and abrogate all their Tolerations These things are easily foreseen And you that were One of the Eleven excluded Members know what such Hands have formerly done III. The middle true way therefore is Parochial Reformation This is necessary in it self This is consistent with the Interest of those that justly desire Toleration In a well constituted Christian Nation tolerated Churches should be but as Houses of Charity Zenodochia Hospitals for the Aged Weak Lame Blind and Sick It is consistent with the just Episcopal Interest and indeed is its most necessary support for want of which a Succession of godly Adversaries will be against it to the end Let us have Christ's true Doctrine Worship and Church-Communion and let General Bishops over us keep their Baronies Lordships Wealth and Honour And we will be responsible to them or any Rulers for our Mal-Administration But let them have no Power as Bishops but of the Church-Keys Et valeat quantumvalere perest Let them teach and reprove us and if they do injuriously pronounce us Excommunicate we will bear it But keep the Sword only in the hand of Magistrates and be not the Lictors of Anathematizers and Horners by your Writs de Excommunicato capiendo The Truth is Civil and Church Government will be well done if we knew how to get still good Men to use it And the chief Point of Political Wisdom is to secure a Succession of such Men. Give us but such Diocesans as Grindal Iewel Usher c. and let them be but Pastors and not armed with the Sword and who will expect that they should hurt us If Kings that choose Bishops and Patrons that choose Incumbents should be always certainly wise and holy Men and lovers of all such they would choose us such But if they be not and Christ tells you how hardly the Rich are saved they will mostly choose such as are of their mind or as Favourites obtrude and bad Bishops and Priests are the mortal Disease of the Church And if I tell King and Patrons that the Clergy and Communicants should have a Consenting or Dissenting Vote and so the Door should have three Locks the Consent of the Ordainers Communicants and Magistrates I cannot hope that they should regard me But I will repeat what Mr. Thorndike saith a Man as far as most from the Nonconformists Treatise of Forbearance It is to no purpose to talk of Reformation in the Church unto Regular Government without