obliged to them for their Separation But 3. I am well assured that you will never be able to make good this charge or any part of it against any number of the Divines of our Church For I who know I am confident as many of them as most men in England can truly declare as followeth That I cannot name any one Divine of our Church who teacheth your First contradictory Doctrine to the 39 Articles viz. That although we may not terminate our worship in an Image yet we may bow down and worship the true God before an Image Nor your Second viz. That departed Saints know our states here upon Earth and are praying to God for us and therefore we may pray to them Nor know I any one of our Church who teacheth your Third viz. That any Priest may absolve by commission from God more than declaratively I mean I know no one that maketh the Priest's Absolution to be other in Effect than declarative though it signifies more than if pronounced by a Layman Nor your Fourth That the Natural Body and Bloud of Christ is in the Elements of Bread and Wine really Our Church-Catechism saith that The Body and Bloud of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithfull in the Lord's Supper And I know no Divine of ours that explaineth this otherwise than thus That Believers feed on the Body and Bloud of Christ in the Lord's Supper as truly and really as they do on the Elements but not after a corporal and carnal manner but after a spiritual viz. by applying to themselves the Benefits of Christ's death by faith And I presume you will neither assert this to be Popish Doctrine nor deny that 't is true Doctrine Nor do I know any one of our Divines that holds your Fifth Proposition for it may not be called a Doctrine viz. That our Conformable Congregations are no better than Conventicles where the Minister reads not the Communion Service at the Altar Which you assert to be tantamount to the allowing of Prayers in an Vnknown Tongue because in multitudes of Congregations the People cannot hear a line from him I say I know of no Divine of our Church that ever asserted that such Congregations as the forementioned are no better than Conventicles There was indeed lately a foolish Book published to Prove them Conventicles but it is strongly conjectured that this Book was written by a certain Layman And what Church he is of I cannot say nor is it a pins matter to know But I may as much suspect him to be a Protestant Dissenter as a Popish upon the score of that his Position it being nothing of kin to the allowing of Prayers in an Vnknown tongue For as there is not One of your Multitudes of Congregations wherein the People cannot hear a line from him that reads at the Communion Table except you mean wherein every one of the People cannot for I doubt not the Major part can in all where the Minister hath a voice to be well heard from the Pulpit so all that is read is known before to those who are not Strangers to our Prayers or at least they may have Books to enable them to go along with the Minister whether they can or cannot hear distinctly one sentence from him Nor do I know any one of our Divines that hath ever taught your 6th Doctrine That whole Christ is under each Element which you intimate is the onely foundation on which the Sacrilegious Romish Practice stands But if I could believe that Doctrine to be true I should notwithstanding judge it an intolerable thing to refuse the Cup to the Laity against the express Institution of our Lord. Nor know I any Divine of our Church guilty of the 7th particular of your Charge viz. That there are those who interpret the Ten Commandments so as that he who will ever be saved must do a great many works of supererogation And if I did know any one that so interpreted the Commandments as to make any one such work necessary to Salvation I would not call him a Papist for it but an Ignoramus who understands not the word Supererogation Nor know I any one that teacheth Original Sin thereby understanding Corruption of Nature to be rather our Misfortune than our Fault which is your 8th Doctrine Nor consequently that Concupiscence is no sin which is your 9th Nor your 10th That man hath a power in his own will to chuse and doe what is spiritually good i. e. without the Assistence of Divine Grace And with this Assistence I hope you Dissenters do all hold it Nor know I any one of our Divines who teacheth That we are not accounted righteous before God or Justified onely for the Merits of Christ that is that there is any other Meritorious cause of our Justification besides the Active and Passive obedience of Christ Nor your 11th That we are not Justified by Faith alone Understanding by Faith not a dead but a living Faith that purefies the heart and works by love Nor your 12th That good works must go before justification and are not the fruits of Faith but Faith it self For I know no one of our Church that asserts more than this that a sincere Resolution to obey all God's Commandments must in order of nature go before Justification Nor your 13th That there is no Eternal Predestination of persons to life and the means tending thereunto I know of none of our Church that have ever taught this Doctrine as you have expressed it nor any worse than this That Eternal Predestination to life is not Irrespective or Absolute which no Article of our Church saith it is And Abundance of you Dissenters hold this Doctrine as well as Church of England men And thus have I gone over all the Doctrines contradictory to the 39 Articles taught by your Ecclesia Loquens yours I say for she is not ours and I declare again that I know of no Divine of our Church that teacheth or holdeth such Doctrines If you know any as one would think you do very many I pray name them You say we spare any names in these cases but be you entreated not to spare them But if you won't be prevailed with we shall very shrewdly guess at the reason Sir to deal freely with you I cannot but wonder at your adventuring into the World this other Celeusma since the Author of the former had so ill success and must needs have repented him heartily of that Undertaking All that have consideratively read his Answerer I am confident are convinced that after a Great Cry Little Wooll appeared or rather none at all Nor can such be ignorant what foul play was used to make our Divines of the Church of England broach Heresie And I doubt not but you your self have blushed at it if you have ever read the Parallela imparia five Specimen fidei Celeusmaticae Could you catch us thus dealing with the Books of your Authors as ours have been
A DEFENCE OF THE RESOLUTION OF THIS CASE VIZ. Whether the Church of England's Symbolizing so far as it doth with the Church of Rome makes it Unlawfull to hold Communion with the Church of England In Answer to a Book Intituled A Modest Examination OF THAT RESOLUTION LONDON Printed by J. H. for B. Aylmer at the Three Pigeons against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1684. A DEFENCE OF THE Resolution c. SIR I who know the Author of the Book which hath given you this trouble better than any man do conclude that you are not more a stranger to him than he is to you from the Epithets you so frequently bestow upon him throughout your Papers except you do it which I would not be so uncharitable as to think by way of Irony In your First Paragraph you express a Liking of the Complexion of his Book and I perceive you mean that it pleaseth you to find it not written in a heat and that there is nothing of a Censorious or Peevish humour or of a haughty contempt of those he deals with therein exprest And he hopes that upon the same accounts you are no less pleased with the other Resolutions of Cases which bear this company But he thinks it no mighty Attainment to be able in writing to manage a Controversie Coolly and Sedately without bitter or provoking Reflexions or contemptuous Expressions Though men of warm Tempers may find it somewhat difficult to govern their Spirits and Passions as it becomes them in the heat of disputing by word of mouth one would think that a small measure of Humility or Good nature or of Discretion and Prudence should make it no hard matter to acquire that other Attainment And much more that no one who is a Christian in Spirit and Temper as well as in Notion and Profession can find it a difficult thing to arrive at it But enough of this In your Second Paragraph you seem to intimate that our Author might have spared his pains in dwelling so long upon the Distance between our Church and the Church of Rome in points of Doctrine But he is not satisfied with the reasons you give for the needlesness of so doing Your reasons are two First because he argued chiefly for Communion in Worship And Secondly you never met with the Doctrinal part of the 39 Articles charged as Popish nor our Church reflected on as symbolizing with that Idolatrous Church in Points of Doctrine But these reasons have not convinced our Author that he is over long upon this Argument for it was not his design to shew that our Church doth not symbolize in Points of Doctrine with that of Rome but that She stands at greatest defyance with that Church Not that She doth not teach her Corrupt Doctrine in her Articles but that she designedly confutes them and exposeth the falsity and corruption of them And this surely was worth the shewing in so many instances for their sakes who never read or considered those Articles as I fear very few of the Dissenters have done And whereas you say you never met with the Doctrinal part of the 39 Articles charged as Popish and it would be strange if you had I say there is too great cause to suspect that very few of our Dissenting Brethren do understand how Anti-popish they are though they do not charge them as Popish And I doubt you have met with many I am sure very many are to be met with who have reflected upon our Church as an Idolatrous Church though you never heard her accused as symbolizing with the Idolatrous Church of Rome in Points of Doctrine But they will find it somewhat hard to understand how a Church can be Idolatrous in matters of Practice and yet be pure in her Doctrine from any tang of Idolatry Surely her Practices must be grounded upon her Doctrines or they would be strange Practices indeed And it would be wonderfull if she should Practise Idolatry and yet Believe nothing that tends to the encouragement of that soul Sin nay believe and teach all those Doctrines that are as Opposite to Idolatry as Light to Darkness So that I conceive nothing could be more to our Author's purpose than to endeavour to remove that prejudice of many against the Constitution of our Church which is grounded upon an Opinion of its being near of kin to Popery And what could signifie more to their Conviction that there is not any ground for such an Opinion than the shewing how abhorrent to Popery our Church is in her Doctrine and what a testimony she beareth in her Articles against the Idolatrous and Superstitious Doctrines of the Romish Church and the Practices which she foundeth upon those Doctrines As to the several Additions you say may be made to the Anti-popish Doctrines contained in the 39 Articles our Author conceives he was not guilty of any Oversight in not preventing you because some of them are not properly Anti-popish but contrary to the Doctrine of other Sects which are to be found among Abhorrers of Popery as well as Papists and others of them our Author hath not omitted but if you 'll look again you may find them in their proper places Viz. those Doctrines contained in Artic. VI. and Artic. XI This under the head of Doctrines flatly contradicting the Holy Scriptures pag. 9. That under the head of the Authority on which each of the two Churches founds its whole Religion pag. 18. Now I hope by this time you understand very well what our Author would have you conclude from this first part of his Performance which you say you do not well understand And whereas you ask whether it be that the 39 Articles have in them nothing of kin to Popery as to matters of Faith And add that you dare say there is not a judicious Dissenter in England will say they have I answer if there be any injudicious Dissenters in England that will say they have I hope these poor people ought not to be so despised as that we should use no means for the undeceiving of them But our Author would have you conclude that he hath done what he designed which is as hath been already said not to shew that the 39 Articles have nothing of kin to Popery but that they are most abhorrent from it and that our Church is at the widest and vastest distance from Popery in her Doctrinals and consequently one would think too in matters of Practice But our Author does not satisfie himself to prove this by this consequence but goes on to shew it in the particular instances of matters of Practice after he had done it in Points of Doctrine To return now to your Second Page You say that it is mightily Satisfactory to you to hear our Author assuring you that our Church alloweth her Members the judgment of Discretion c. But Sir you needed no Authors to assure you of this since our Church hath done it as fully as it can be
gave a Demonstration hereof by their Excellent Lives and Heroick Behaviour under the greatest Torments they not onely patiently but also joyfully enduring them for the sake of Christ Nor do we find any more than they did that we are debarred by our Church of any Helps for the building of us up in our most holy faith And whereas you express such mighty zeal for Purer Ordinances we think that zeal would be much better employed in endeavouring after Purer Hearts And that this contending with your Superiours and your Brethren about some things enjoined hath been infinitely more prejudicial to mens Souls and contributed unspeakably more to the impurity both of mens hearts and lives than the impure Ordinances you so complain of And therefore all good and pious Church of England men cannot but say How happy should we not onely think our selves but indeed be would our Brethren but leave disputing with such mighty concern about little things and things that are perfectly harmless and innocent Would make no more Sins than God and their Blessed Saviour have made Would be as fearfull of culpably Disobeying Authority as of culpably Obeying it Would be as thankfull that they are in no worse Circumstances as they are full of Complaints that they are in no better Would take as much pains to satisfie themselves how far they may lawfully hold Communion with our Church as how far they may lawfully Separate from it Would be as willing to read those Books that are written in the defence of the things enjoined by our Church as to read those which are written in opposition to them Would as impartially consider the vast distance between our Church and that of Rome as thus dwell upon the most inconsiderable Agreement that is between them which our Author hath convincingly to any unprejudiced person proved to be no justifiable pretence for Separation And if we would well digest those excellent words of the Apostle Rom. 14. 17 18. The Kingdom of God is not meat or drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men And if we would follow after the things that make for peace and things wherein one may edifie another And lastly if we would at length be perswaded to Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking against one another be put away from us with all malice And to be Kind and affectionate one to another notwithstanding the Difference of Apprehensions tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us I say if we could once be brought to this temper we should be unspeakably more happy than those things you express so passionate a desire of could possibly make us And without this blessed temper we shall be miserable wretches though there were no Agreement in any one Rite between Rome and us and though our Ordinances were as pure as 't is your wish to have them Nor will our bidding the greatest defiance to the Antichrist in the Roman Chair one whit avail us while the Spiritual Antichrist which is the worse of the two continues possessed of his Seat in our Hearts And so Sir I heartily bid you Farewell ERRATA Page 19. Lin. 12. read in their greatest p. 27. l. 30. dele p. 32. l. 1. read is so contrived FINIS * pag. 4. * pag. 4. * p. 7. †p. 9. * p. 10. * p. 11. * p. 12. * p. 12. * p. 13. Eccl. pol. Book 5th p. 228. Last Edit v. 19. Eph. 4. 31 32.
would speak to the purpose you should have said and proved that so are Church of England-men either universally or generally 4. Our Author saith that there was little hope of reclaiming the Jews any other way You say there is as little hope of reclaiming the Papists from their Idolatry of the Cross But I will not a third time repeat the same Answer Onely I will ask whether there be any hope of reclaiming the Papists from their Idolatry by our laying aside our Ceremonies 5. Our Author saith that although the Brazen Serpent had been a thing onely defiled in Idolatrous Services yet we freely grant that it ought to have been destroyed or removed out of the peoples sight if the continuance of it in their view were like to be a snare to them and a temptatâ—â—â— to Idolatry You reply may not the like be said of what Dissenters plead against But you have been already told that the like may not be said with any colour or shew of reason 6. Our Author saith That if Hezekiah had let it stand private persons might have made use of it to put them in mind of the wonderfull mercy of God expressed by it to their Fore-fathers This you acknowledge but say that the Question at present under our debate is whether Hezekiah might lawfully have let it stand and removed it into the Temple whether his setting it up by the Ark or Mercy Seat would have purged it But for shame Sir do not say that this is the Question in debate between us In your 16th Page you express very great offence at those next words of our Author pag. 36. And much more might they have lawfully continued in the Communion of the Church so long as there was no constraint laid upon them to join with them in their Idolatry But you leave out what follows viz. as we do not reade of any that separated from the Church while the Brazen Serpent was permitted to stand as wofully abused as it was by the Generality And do you find that the pious Jews did separate upon this account Or if they did not will you say that they were guilty of Sin For my part I dare not say so nor that it would be a sin now not to separate from our Church though our Governours were so remiss as not to Excommunicate Idolaters if such were sound therein any more than it is so upon the account of Promiscuous Congregations and Mixt Communions As the Worthy person that published the Resolution of that case hath clearly proved and proved too that it is Vnlawfull to separate upon that pretence But you say you can never believe this till some can prove to you that a Wife may lawfully contrary to the command of her Husband stay in a Family of Whoremongers provided that she be not compelled to play the Whore I answer that a Wife may not lawfully though her Husband hath not expresly forbidden it stay in a Family consisting wholly of Whoremongers except to bear her Husband company and in that case it is her duty to stay But where hath Christ forbidden us to Communicate with a Church out of which Idolaters are not ejected though Idolatry be not enjoined You say he hath done it in those words Rev. 18. 4. Come out of her my people but I pray read on and you have an answer that ye be not partaker of her sins and that ye receive not viz. by partaking of her sins of her plagues And moreover I presume you will acknowledge that the Babylon which the Christians were commanded to come out of is the Idolatrous Church of Rome But I need not acquaint you that you cannot continue in this Church except you will your self also be an Idolater But I will not stand to dispute this point with you it being nothing to the business of our Author's Book and all he asserts as to this matter doth amount to no more than this That we are not obliged to renounce Communion in pure Ordinances with such as we know to be guilty of Idolatry when it lies not in our power to keep them away And now you have brought me to our Author's Third Head of Discourse viz. That the Agreement which is between the Church of England and the Church of Rome is in no wise such as will make Communion with the Church of England unlawfull You say Page 17th That if our Author had said all Communion viz. with the Church of England is not unlawfull you had fully concurred with him believing that this Church cannot be justly charged with Idolatry and that some Communion may and ought to be held with any Church that is not so charged If you mean by some Communion a not being divided in heart as you before express it I say again we thank you for nothing the Communion which our Author pleads for being as your self observes in your first Page chiefly Communion in Worship But you proceed saying but as he hath laid it I cannot agree with it I am sure Christ had Communion with the Jewish Church and I believe he had so in all acts of worship of his Father's Institution and I am as sure he had no Communion with them in the Traditional part of their worship as I am that he would not himself practise what he condemned so severely But are you not as sure that our Blessed Lord had Communion with the Jewish Church in all acts of worship instituted by his Father as you are that he had no Communion with them in the Traditional part of their Worship I am sure that in the former part of that saying you are too too cautious and in the latter not so cautious as you ought to have been For you may be sure of the contrary to what you affirm so positively when you have considered that our Lord could not have so freely been admitted into the Temple had he not observed divers Traditions or Canons of the Elders without complying with which none might come thither I shall not stand to instance in particulars but refer you to Dr. Leightfoot's Temple Service pag. 115. to 120. And again you may yet be more sure of the contrary when you have considered how our Lord complied with Jewish Traditions in the celebration of the Passover and such too as altered certain circumstances prescribed in its First Institution Particularly his ordering the Preparation of the Lamb on the 14th day when Moses ordained the taking of it up upon the 10th day His eating the Passover lying along being the posture in which they ate their ordinary Meals according to a Jewish Tradition as you may see in Dr. Leightfoot's foresaid Book pag. 143 144. whereas according to Moses his Institution it was to be eaten with their Loins girded c. and in haste or standing His complying with the Jewish customs of drinking Wine at the Passover and concluding with the Hallel or a Hymn And not these onely but more Traditions than these Dr. Leightfoot will
Separation in these three Cases is Lawfull if not Necessary Your First case is When such errours are in the Constitution of a Church as if they had been known before ought to have hindered Vnion with it But you do not tell us what Errours those are Would you have your Readers take it for granted that there are such Errours in the Constitution of the Church of England But we may guess at one of those Errours in our Constitution from that which you say pag. 30. viz. That Governing Churches must have proper Officers which cannot be unless elected by the Governed who could never part with their Right in chusing Officers c. But what Right they have you will soon learn from the Reverend Dean Stilling fleet in his Vnreasonableness of Separation pag. 307 c. There you will find they have no Right at all or I am much mistaken From what you say in these two Pages and that which follows in which your discourse is such that 't is hard to say certainly what you would be at I shrewdly conjecture that you believe it Lawfull to separate from the Church of England although she had neither Ceremonies nor Liturgy to score men away Your Second case is When a Church is turned Idolatrous that then it is necessary to depart from it And here we have no Controversie Your Third is When a Church will not admit a man's abiding in it unless he will doe something which his Conscience tells him is sinfull But Sir will you not acknowledge that it cannot justifie our Separation that something is required which we judge sinfull whilst we will not impartially use all means for the duly informing of our judgments whilst we call it a running into Temptation to read what is offered us in Defence of the Lawfulness of that we have a prejudice against Whilst we so confide in our own judgments or in the judgments of our Party as not to bear to hear that 't is possible we should be mistaken Surely all truly good men will acknowledge this You say in all these Cases Separating is Lawfull if not Necessary For in the two first Cases we ought to Separate And then I hope in those cases it is Necessary and not onely Lawfull to Separate in the last we may prudently and warily depart c. And why do you so mince the matter by changing your phrase when your meaning is that you may Separate And why do you so mince is too in saying in the two first Cases we ought to Separate which supposeth that in this Case you are at your Liberty and that though you may lawfully Separate yet it is not a necessary duty so to doe And why again do you say we judge this no sinfull Separation Why don't you speak out and say 't is a Necessary one Except you think that a man may lawfully act against his Conscience But you have given me sufficient assurance in your Book that this you do not think You say pag. 33. If any others in former Ages or in our own have had any other apprehensions of the significancy you would have said signification of the Terms Church Schism and Separation whom we own to have been Holy and Excellent men till we see their Notions justified from Holy Writ which alone can determine these things we must crave leave to dissent from them and believe that had they lived in our times they would have dissented from their own Apprehensions under a more perfect light c. But 1. What would you have said to us if we had given this Answer to your citing Holy and Excellent men such as Calvin whom our Author hath so often appealed to in his Book and others against our Notions I am sure you would have severely upbraided us with having a wonderfull opinion of our own judgments Especially if our Notions ran counter to all Antiquity and the Judgments of all Holy Excellent men in former Ages and to the generality of such in our own Age and Time But this I dare say may be asserted of your Notions concerning the Terms Schism and Separation and much of your talk concerning the Term Church too 2. How came you to have more light than the Holy and Excellent men in former Ages and in our own Age too which you plainly suppose your selves to have Nay you suppose this as to multitudes of such persons also as are your Contemporaries For you say pag. 7. We are far from thinking that there are not multitudes of Holy and Learned men in our Ecclesia Loquens c. that is Among Conformable Divines of the Church of England 3. This Answer would far better become the Quakers than you they pretending to inspiration which you do not I will now conclude with a Remarque or two on those words with which you begin the concluding part of your Book You say pag. 29. And now how happy should we not onely think our selves but indeed be would our Brethren but leave disputing how far it is lawfull for the Spouse of Christ to have Communion with the Great Whore and onely argue how far we come short of symbolizing with the First and Purest Gospel Churches of which we have Records in Holy Writ To this I say 1. How Unaccountable is this Charge you lay against your Brethren when you know that they are in as perfect a Separation as your selves from the Communion of that Apostate Church which you mean by the Great WHORE 2. It lieth not in your power to shew us a Church which more symbolizeth with the First and Purest Gospel Churches than the Church of England And as for those Churches which you believe do come nearer to the First and Purest it hath often enough been demonstrated with invincible strength that the main thing viz. the point of Government in which you conceive they more agree with these Churches doth speak them far less to agree with them than the Church of England does And speaks them to be therein unlike to the whole Catholique Church of Christ for fifteen hundred years together from the time of the Apostles We do not pretend that the Constitution of our Church is absolutely perfect we do believe that such a Constitution is the peculiar privilege of the Church Triumphant but we bless God that 't is no more imperfect and we who live in complete Communion with this Church are well assured that there is nothing either in the Constitution thereof or in what is required thereby that hindereth us from being as good Christians as ever were in the world We cannot find after all the pains that you and others have taken to prove the contrary that there is imposed upon us any one condition of Communion that does contradict any Law of God that tends in the least to the depraving of our Souls to the gratifying of any one corrupt Affection or the making us unmeet for the Heavenly Happiness And this our Holy Martyrs thought as well as we And