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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45122	An answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's book of The unreasonableness of separation so far as it concerns The peaceable designe : with some animadversions upon the debate between him and Mr. Baxter concerning the national church and the head of it.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.; Humfrey, John, 1621-1719. Peaceable design.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Of national churches.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Unreasonableness of separation.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3667; ESTC R28713	17,588	40

perfectly assign to us such a Head as Mr. Baxter seeks But forasmuch as there is no Authority in the Convocation when they have Composed their Canons to Impose any of them upon the Church or to oblige the Conscience of any by them until they are ratifyed by the Authority of the King it is manifest both that this Hierarchy of the Nation is but of Human Right and that the King alone the Power of Legislation which proves it lying only in him is and must be the Head of the Church in this Kingdom And that this certainly is so it is declared in the Statute of Henry the Eighth That the King shall be taken for the only Supream Head of the Church called Ecclesia Anglicana To understand this The Church may be consid●red we are to know as Universal and so is Christ the Head of it and can only give Laws to it Or as Particular and so the Pastors are Heads and Rule it Or as National to wit as it is according to the Statute Ecclesia Anglicana and so the Magistrate is Head and makes Laws for it I will add There is something Essential to the Church of Christ and something Accidental That there should be Persons who Meet to Worship God and Christ and be put in Order for it is of Christ's Appointment and Necessary to his Church Of these Particular Persons and Churches the Catholick Church consists To be Particular then or Universal is of Essential Consideration to Christ's Church But to be National is of Accidental Consideration That all the People of a Land should be Christian and the Magistrate also is I say an Accidental thing to the Church which may Exist where that is not Upon which account though the Magistrate be none of Christ's proper Officers yet may he be Head of his Church and Constitutive Head of it as undet his Dominions because he is Head not in any Essential but in this Accidental Consideration of it I will now set down the Doctor 's own Words Pag. 301. We deny any Necessity of any such Constitutive Regent Part or one Formal Ecclesiastical Head as Essential to a National-Church For a National Consent is as sufficient to make a National-Church as an Universal-Consent to make a Catholick-Church In this Determination of the Point when the Doctor denyes any Necessity of such a Head I hope he is not so frivolous as to believe One in this Nation and not to tell it So long as the Church of England is a Political Church and hath a Government establish't it must have its Regent Part as well as the Part Ruled and to deny the Necessity of One is all one as to say there is None I press the Doctor Is it a Political-Church or no If it be he must find it a Head If it be not then it is only a Community of Christians amongst whom it must be supposed there is no Government as yet introduced and then shall our Ecclesiastical Laws Canons and Constitutions our Bishops and Arch-Bishops with the whole Constitution we have already be hurled in the Dust. The Doctor will be a fine Champion for the Church if he persists to say this We deny any Necessity of any such Constitutive Regent Part or one Formal Ecclesiastical Head as Essential to a National-Church The Doctor here who is posed with the Question is confounded with the Terms He should distinguish between a He●d and a Formal Ecclesiastical Head a Regent Part and an Ecclesiastical Regent Part a Constitutive Regent Part and a Formal Ecclesiastical Head of the Church of England Though a National Church hath no Ecclesiastical Head it hath a Head a Regent Part a Constitutive Regent Part under this Accidental Consideration of the Church as National though not under the Essential Consideration of it as the Church of Christ. If the Doctor had light upon it in some of his Books that the King of England represents Two Persons an Ecclesiastical Person while He presides by His Authority in the Convocation and so is Head of the Church and a Civil Person while He sits with the Parliament and so is Head of the State and upon the account of both the Fountain of all Obligation upon the Subject both from the Canons of the Church and Statutes of the Realm I cannot tell how he might have put Mr. Baxter to it But so long as the King is not indeed both Supream Magistrate and High-Priest as the Maccabees were and neither of them think otherwise of the King than Magistrate only that is Supream Coercive Governour it is this which is here said must be the Expedient to remove the Bone from between them It is said in Scripture That Kings and Queens shall be Nursing-Fathers and Nursing-Mothers to the Church As they are Fathers they are Heads As Nursing-Fathers it shews their Power is not Internal to the Church but External as Divines speak that is of another kind than that which is proper to Spiritual Fathers the Pastors or Christ's own Officers The Authority of Kings over the Church is Objective they say Circa Sacra not Formal That is it is Objectively Ecclesiastical and Formally Civil And as this is so I apprehend in like manner that the Society of Christians in a Nation as the whole Nation are such is Objectively a Church and Formally a Kingdom or Common-Wealth of Christians and so may the Christian Magistrate be the Constitutive Regent Part of it Well! But what Argument hath the Doctor to prove that there is no necessity for a National Church to have a Constitutive Head essential to it that is essential to it not as the Church of Christ but under a National Consideration He hath no Argument but brings another Instance and that is of the Catholick Church visible which he saith hath no Head neither The Doctor is miserably driven to the Wall when he is driven hither There was never any Protestant doubted but that Iesus Christ is the Head of the Catholick Church and if he be the Head of it as Universal he must be the Head of it whether Visible or Invisible But Christ is not sayes he a Visible Head Poor If this were true it is enough that he is the Head of those who are Visible but yet he is out even in this for though Christ be not Caput Visum he is Caput Visibile He is not seen on Earth but he is seen in Heaven Nay he was seen on Earth by Paul and Stephen and will Appear as he is at the Great Day And what thinks the Doctor of Christ before his Ascension was he Head then Nay did not Christ while upon Earth give Laws for his Church appoint Officers and Commission his Apostles to gather Christian Societies in the World And is not his Government over them a Visible Ecclesiastical Government where the Officers are Visible and the Members Visible and is not he the Head then of the Church Visible Are not making Laws and Appointing Officers the Rights of a

AN ANSWER TO Dr. Stillingfleet's Book OF THE Unreasonableness OF SEPARATION So far as it Concerns the Peaceable Designe With Some Animadversions upon the Debate between Him and Mr. Baxter concerning the national-National-Church and the Head of it Against whom hast thou Exalted thy Voice and Lifted up thine Eyes on High LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Three Bibles in Cheap side near Mercers-Chappel AN ANSWER TO Dr. Stillingfleet c. IN Dr. Stillingfleet's Book there is one thing I meet with that I perhaps can better tell how than another to Answer It is in his Preface where he is going about to make the Nonconformists a kind of Parties with the Papists as if they were joyning with them for the bringing in of Popery and for the proof of this he produces one Evidence I will set down his own words and Answer the Allegation In Ann. Dom. 1675. there was a Book printed Entituled The Peaceable designe or an Account of the Nonconformists Meetings by some Ministers of London In it an Objection is thus put But what shall we say then to the Papists His Answer is The Papist in our Account is but one sort of Recusants the Conscientious Peaceable among them must be held in the same Predicament with those among ourselves that likewise refuse to come to Common-Prayer What is this but Joyning for a Toleration of Popery If this be not plain enough these words follow But as for the Common-Papist who lives Innocently in his way he is to Us as other Separatists and so he comes under the like Toleration This notable Book with some few Additions Alterations hath been since Printed with great sincerity called An Answer to my Sermon And the Times being Changed since the former passage is thus Altered The Papists is one whose Worship to Us is Idolatry and we cannot therefore allow them the Liberty of Publick Assembling themselves as others of the Separation Is it Idolatry and not to be Tolerated in 1680 And was it Idolatry to be Tolerated in 1675 Or Was it no Idolatry then but is become so now and intolerable Idolatry too The latter passage hath these Alterations Instead of He is to Us as other Separatists and so comes under the like Toleration These are put in He is to Us in regard of what he doth in private in the matter of his God as other who refuse to come to Common-Prayer Now we see Toleration struck out for the Papists but it was not only visible enough before but that very book was Printed with a design to present it to the Parliament which was the highest way of owning their Concurrence with the Papists for a general Toleration And the true Reason of this Alteration is that Then was Then and Now is Now. For the Answering this Evidence In the first place this Book the Doctor mentions was drawn up by One man though put out by Others and the first Mistake of the Doctor is to lay a Charge on the Party of the Nonconformists for a passage which indeed concerns but One person only In the next place the Reason of bringing that passage into the Book was because the Objection is so Obvious it could not be Baulkt and the Consequence appearing to the Author Undeniable he thought it but Honest to yeild it The Doctor then is mistaken next that believes or pretends the Reason of the bringing in that passage was on purpose only to Favour or fall In with the Papists That which is said in Right to All ought not to be interpreted in Favour to Any In the Third place for the Alteration mentioned it is to be known that when the Author had drew up this Book he left it with a Non-conformist Doctor to shew it to his Brethren who return'd it after a while telling him That they Disliked some passages in it which made him put it into some other hands who afterwards while he was Absent printed it They altered nothing but when it came out the Author indeed found his Brethren Offended at some things and that passage most obnoxious to Exception so that he presenrly made his Emendations and seeing the Book ill Printed intended in time to have another Impression Upon this it appears the Doctor is again Mistaken in regard to this Alteration which he Quotes who judges the Reason of the Change to be only because of the Times The True Reason sayes he is because Then was Then and Now is Now. The True Reason as if he knew it when you see how perfectly he is out in his Confidence as well as his Conjectures The making the Emendations which he did at the present Season is a Demonstration The Nonconformists are here Suspected or Impeached by this Doctor for Favouring Ioyning with the Papists because of a passage in that Book when the very Reason of Altering that passage was because of their presumed Finding Fault with it In the Last place we have here not only a Mistake in the Doctor which might be born but an open Wrong or Injury if it be not want of Consideration The Doctor Thinks or Speaks as if the Author in Re-printing the Book had Changed his Opinion wherein I count he most of all is Out and most to Blame He who drew up the Book is not one of that Humour as to Turn with the Times but rather against them The Opinion he offered in the Year 75 is the same with what he holds now in the Year 80. Here is an Alteration indeed as to more Words or some other words but the same Opinion or Solution with the Difference only of a farther Explication of it and nothing else therein besides avoiding offence entended The Author had been wary in declaring the Toleration he proposed to be a Limited one and provided against the Iesuite upon reason of State and shewed his dread of Popery in Dominion but had omitted the distinction of a toleration in regard to Publick Assemblies and the Private exercise of a Man 's own Religion He explains himself therefore by way of supply signifying that what he said at first should be taken in regard to the tolerating the Papist only privately as his meaning really was then and is now but fullier expressed This is the Opinion he recedes not from whether peculiar to himself or not that No Man should be persecuted meerly for his Conscience if there be no other Reason Whether a Man be a Dissenter of one kind or of another The Common Rule of Christianty must be remembred he sayes still that we do to all Men as we would be done by and that with what Measure we mete to others it shall be met to us again These Words remain in all the Impressions And now for the Title I have this also to Answer The Book as it came out An. 75. was then gone and now Re-printed against the Parliament Sate but they not Sitting was laid by till the Doctor 's Sermon comming out it was thought