particulars As That the Church hath no declarative Power in matters of Faith or supposing any Article obscure to us or inverted and involved by Hereticks so that the matter of it hath not been explicitly acknowledged in all Ages of the Church anteceeding when the present Church gives the true meaning of it according to the tradition of Faith evidencing thereby the Sense of the Article or which is the same the sense of Scripture on which the Article is founded and engages the assent of all Christians thereunto That hereby she creates a new Article of Faith pag. 75 945. as if there were no mean betwixt the Power of the single Church of Rome who resolves all her actings into her own immediate Authority and the true Power of the Catholick Church of God which determines antecedent truths that were tho' less known or misinterpreted from the beginning and when the reason of her decree is not from her own Authority but the Tradition of Faith delivering the sense of the Holy Ghost down unto us That the Church representing and the Church diffusive are all one nothing can make the Church teaching and representative but the belief of what is necessary to Salvation Pag. 86 87. I thought a distant Power by Ordination had constituted the Pastors of the Church You go on at the same confused rate Pag. 251 252. I 'll only write out your words at large and let the Reader judge of them That which being supposed a Church is and being distroyed it ceaseth to be is the formal constitution of it but thus it is as to the Church The belief of Fundamentals makes it a Church and the not believing them makes it cease to be a Christian Church I speak of an essential not an organical Church And I know not who those persons are who out of those places Luk. 10.16 Matth. 28.19 20. Joh. 14.16 do infer the perpetuity of an organical Church nor if they did doth it thence follow they must suppose an infallible assistance beyond an essential 't is strange that nothing should be found betwixt these two in your own sense of them to constitute Pastors of Christ's own sending to make it an organical Church for I cannot imagine what necessity can be supposed of infallibility in order to that which may be sufficiently constituted without it The perpetuity of the Church doth rather argue the infallibility of the promise than of the Church Supposing then that the promises by you insisted on should be so far extended as to imply a perpetuity of a Christian Church what doth that argue but only this that to make it appear that promise is infallibly true there shall always be a Succession of Christians in the World Suppose I grant that the being of a Christian Church doth suppose the assistance of God's Spirit is there no assistance but what is infallible If not no one can be a Christian without infallibility for we speak of no other assistance but what is necessary to make Men Christians for what makes them such severally take them conjunctly makes them a Church But if you besides what assistance is requisite to make Men Christians do suppose somewhat more to make them a Church I pray name what it is And whatever it be it will not be own'd by such who infer a Perpetuity But if in order to that no more be meant as no more can be meant than what is necessary to make Men Christians then infallibility will grow so cheap and common I add and Church-Power and Offices together with it it will not be worth challenging by you for your Church neither will a Ministry be worth challenging by us either But this is agreeable enough with the Title you still give the Archbishop in this Treatise and as if he had no other Prelation but what is derived from his Majesty and is purely Secular you call him his Lordship only I much question Whether it might not have discomposed the Calm that most exemplary Prelate died in upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill if he could then have been aware that he should have had such a Vindicator I cannot here but repeat it again tho' it be so very Offensive How gladly I should see the Church of Rome opposed and our common Christianity not struck at with the same blow and hand Surely the due Power of God's Church might have been vindicated and Rome's Usurpations rejected without this intermingling all as one both Priest and People as you have done here most Scandalously And at the same rate you dispute also against the Monarchical Government of the Church and an infallible judge Pag. 464. because Christ no where that we read of took care that we should be freed from all kind of Controversies and we no where find such a State of Christian Church described or promised where Men shall be of one mind only that peace and brotherly love continue is all that Christians are bound to and that every Man have the same Vnderstanding Which Arguments conclude as forcibly against any other Government even that of our Saviour himself and his Apostles were they upon Earth again and in the same circumstances as when here before Nay you have used these very Arguments against all manner of Government in your Irenicum And farther Pag. 172. you infer Because it is not in the Power of the Church of Rome judicially and authoritatively to determine what Books belong to the Canon of Scripture and what not Therefore the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And thereby take away all judicial Power from the Church to oblige her Members or Subjects by for their assent and submission to her Acts and Decrees upon a due search of matter of Fact and full evidence of the Truth and Certainty of those Articles Rules and Canons enjoin'd and commanded And thus you particularly affront the Practice of our own Church she having made it Law that only such a certain number of Books of the Old and New Testament be accounted and received as Canonical and withal requiring Subscription thereunto as a judge upon a Bench to be sure by all that are admitted by her into holy Orders And as you have before concluded That whatever Power can be supposed by Christ to be promised and derived to his Church from Matt. 28.19 20. c. is that which each private Christian partakes of So again Pag. 516. you say That whatever Power can be supposed in a General Council must be first in the Church diffusive and from thence be derived to the Council Which in effect is thus That the Bishops of Christendom who by right are only to sit in Council and such Presbyters as have sat and acted there did it only as their Substitutes and by virtue of their deputation receive their Power either from the Presbyters and Deacons or which is worse from the Laity
Keys delivered unto them and thereby were invested in their Persons with the Ministerial Authority yet upon the same terms it must be farther proved That it was Christ's Intention that the same power should continue in their Successors or it makes no more to the purpose for a settled Ministery than it does for a fixed Episcopacy and this same Argument which overthrows a Superiority of Church-men over one another for want of an Express of Christs intention to continue it always overthrows also the Ministry it self both having the same bottom and alike promises This the Independant and Socinian saw and consider'd full well and upon your own grounds reject them both together with the two Sacraments because there are no express Texts declaring their Perpetuity But this is agreeable enough with the Rector of Sutton who as he makes all Gospel-Laws for Church-Government an Escheat to Westminster-Hall so is he to be supposed to receive none as perpetually obliging except those that are made and conveyed in the Hall-Phrase and by its Precedents with an express Declaration Entailing them upon the Heirs and Successors for ever But because Apostolical practice still presses you hard whose force apart from the Act and Donation of our Saviour seems to infer a divine Right the matter of Fact being apparent and beyond contradiction That the Apostles were invested with a Superiority beyond Bishops and Presbyters and did accordingly execute it Hereupon with a deep design but very Superficial Policy that is easily seen through and baffled you place their juridical consistorial Acts and Practices amongst those other Acts and Practices of theirs that were purely occasional and with regard to the present times and circumstances such as abstaining from Blood and things strangled eating or not eating the order of Widows the Love-Kiss Celibacy St. Paul's working with his own Hands Preaching the Gospel freely Circumcising Timothy c. all which are confessedly mutable and did alter in a very little time both in their Practice and Obligation But your Error is not only in ranging these quite different Practices under the same head and order whose distant natures are so plain and obvious but in that you do not consider that the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism will for the same reason come under that head of Indifferencies and Practices mutable and therein besides the ill consequences in Religion you plainly contradict your self who tell us at the same time and in the same Section and in doing of it dart your self through with your own Weapon That tho' there be no particular express Revelation for the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism yet Practice Apostolical or of Persons guided by an Infallible Spirit is sufficient to enact and declare them perpetually obliging For surely Apostolical practice guided by an infallible Spirit is equally manifest son a Superiority in the Ministry as for those two It is far more notorious and frequent but your Plot that was laid against the Immutability of Episcopacy engaged you to take no notice of it vid. Part I. Sect. 3. Part. II. § 20. Farther yet That you may be every ways secure in your design and wholly baffle and defeat all Plea for a divine and immutable Right from Apostolical Practice in the point of Episcopacy you go on in a sure way treading Antiquity under your Foot and impleading the most holy Primitive Bishops and Confessors of Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy that hereby you may root out their Order and destroy it from the Face of the Earth and you say in so many words That we cannot have that certainty of Apostolical Practice as to constitute a Divine Right It is not my business to argue points but to collect your particular Opinions or rather to write the History of your Theology otherwise I might here reply by demanding How and by what hands it is that we have any certainty of the Apostolical Writings or know their minds and intentions there The Church hath all along received the Canon and Sense of the Scriptures from the Faith and certainty of Antiquity and the repute and integrity of these holy Bishops Martyrs and Confessors Our Church of England certainly does so and they are her Rule in Reforming as to both and when the Authority of some Books of the New Testament were called in question the Tradition of Faith alone declared them Canonical and they remain such upon that Testimony in the account of the whole Christian World to this day And why then is the same evidence defective and less authoritative concerning their practice and sense in the point of Government But thus you expose the Scriptures their Authority their Sense to every Atheist and Enthusiust to uncertainties and conjectures or at the best to the intemperance of each violent heady and sceptical undertaker And thus it comes to pass that so much work is made for a Nicephorus Calisthus a Simeon Metaphrastes the very Jacobus de Voragine of the Greek Church those Tinkers that think to mend a hole and make three instead of it you taking away hereby the great evidence and muniments of our Christianity both as to the matter of Fact and the intent of it that which is next to the Foundation is cast down and what can the Righteous do Hence so many Whimsies and Forgeries of Mens Brains and monstrous Opinions fill up our Bodies of Divinity and your many forms of Government as by Divine Right are no less portentous than any of them as Geographers do Maps with some fabulous Creatures of their own Inventions Our Church of England I say in her Reformation supposes certainty and sufficiency in the Records of the Primitive Church and that matter of Fact is faithfully transmitted down unto us with the true sense of the Scriptures and Apostolical Practice both in matter of Doctrine and Government and her Reformation is receiv'd by the Civil Power and made Law in the Kingdom upon these terms alone viz. As bottom'd on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and what the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have thence collected particularly in the Four first General Councils or any other Council X. Elizabethae Cap. I. Sect. xxxvi And yet upon a Scandalous Interpretation of Eusebius Hist Eccles Lib. 3. Cap. 4. perverting his Sense quite contrary to his plain words and design which is to set forth the Succession of Bishops immediately from the Apostles over the known Parts of Christendom you blast the credit of all Antiquity and that with as much show of rancor and contempt as the scornfullest manner of expressing your self can declare What becomes then with our Rector of Sutton of our unquestionable Line of Succession of Bishops of several Churches and the large Diagram made of Apostolical Churches with every ones name set down in his order as if the Writer had been Clarenceaux to the Apostles themselves Is it come to this at last that we have nothing certain but what we have in the Scriptures And must then
the agreement of it in making the Foundations of its being that is Believing in Christ and walking in him to be the grounds of its Communion From whence it necessarily follows that whatsoever Church imposeth the belief of other things as necessary Articles of Faith and not only agreements for the Churches Peace which were not so antecedently necessary to the being of the Catholick Church doth as much as in it lies break the Vnity of it and those Churches who desire to preserve its Vnity are bound thereby not to have Communion with it so long as it doth so To which you add That nothing ought to be imposed as a necessary Article of Faith to be believed by all but what may be evidently propounded to all persons as a thing which God did require the explicite belief of As also That nothing ought to be required as a necessary Article of Faith but what hath been believed and received for such by the Catholick Church of all Ages All which whoso please may read more at large from Page 48. to Page 57. I having only digested it and put in as narrow a room and with as much perspecuity as I could For since the rule is He that gives must take I venture to be so bold as to tell you It is there all along very roughly and incoherently both as to matter and form even contradictorily put together by you tho' not altogether so unintelligibly but that it is plain and evident that you have quite overthrown the Jesuite For as I said before If all Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation be antecedent to the being of the Church and its Governors the Pastors of it they cannot then how great soever that Power is wherewith they are enstated by Christ be conceived to have created any one of them But the main doubt is How you will answer for those many and palpable injuries our common Christianity suffers thereby and rescue your self from the perverser conclusions which are the immediate result of your Arguing As 1. That a Man may be a Christian and not a Church Member 2. That true Faith and Obedience may be attained out of the Church 3. That the being of the Church is not necessary to Salvation 4. That the Church is a subsequent Combination for Acts of Worship 5. That Church Officers are not of the essence of the Church 6. That the exercise of the Communion of the Catholick Church adds only to her perfection And by consequence 7. That the Church doth not cease to be a Church without it any other ways than a Man ceaseth to be a Man without a Hand or a Foot. 8. That the Union of the Catholick Church depends upon its agreement in the Foundation or in that assent and belief which is antecedaneous unto it Or thus 9. That Schism which is a breach of the Churches Union does not relate to Church Officers in their Church Laws and Canons 10. That all necessary Articles of Faith are antecedent to the Catholick Church and consequently that Article of the Holy Catholick Church in our Creed 11. That the being of a Ministry is not the object of a Christian Man's Faith so as necessarily to be believed by him 12. That that Church which imposeth it as such as much as in it lies breaks the Unity of the Church And other Churches are not bound to have Communion with it so long as it does so 13. That the Church Explanations of Faith are not a necessary object of Faith. 14. That the Church ought not to explicate any one Article of Faith or deliver and recommend it in any other words for the assent of Faith than those we find in Scripture 15. That when any such Explication of Faith is made it must be made evident to all persons that God did command that Explication and require the explicite belief of it 16. That the determinations of Faith made by any Council but more particularly by the Four first General Councils are an Usurpation and Imposition upon Christendom because there is no Declaration of God's will that those higher Articles should be so explained and imposed on Christians as in those Councils they are determined 17. That Athanasius and the Homoousians were the imposers upon the Church of God in that great Controversie betwixt them and the Arians 18. That Universality as to persons time and place is not that which makes a necessary Article of Faith because all necessary Articles of Faith are supposed by you to have been antecedent to the Catholick Church as to persons time and place and consequently you must either say That the Article of the Catholick Church is no necessary Article or object of Faith or those conditions are not necessary to the making such 19. That the placing some Books of the New Testament in the Canon which were not once there for some time of the Church is an imposition 20. That all the Laws and Definitions of the Church concerning the highest Articles of Faith oblige no otherwise than when concerning an ordinary Ceremony 21. That there is no more guilt in denying the Doctrine of one Substance than in not standing up when the Nicene Creed is said supposing that a Rubrick hath injoyned it 22. That the Church of England hath put the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds into her Church service and enjoined them for an instance of her Confession of Faith when she does not require that we believe them or if she do she goes beyond her Authority 23. That she greatly erres not only in imposing the Athanasian Creed for our Confession of Faith which either she does not require us to believe or if she does we ought not to believe but turns out the Apostles Creed upon certain days to bring that in its room 24. That her breach of trust together with the affront is much more unpardonable because the Athanasian Creed is commanded to be said in the room of the Apostles on the highest days and in the highest Offices of our Christian Service and Worship viz. The great Festivals of the Year as Christmas-day Easter-day Ascension-day Whitsunday Trinity-Sunday when a more particular signal Confession of our Faith with the greatest Zeal and Ardency Courage and Resolution is implied to be a Christian Man's Duty And lastly That herein and hereby you give support and countenance to the many Sectaries that are among us as Anabaptists Socinians Independents Quakers who upon these very grounds that you have laid down to oppose the Church of Rome quite fling off the Ministry or Church of God as altogether useless as to its publick Acts of Worship or Decrees and Declarations Or else they to be sure look upon it as that which cannot be supposed absolutely necessary to Salvation And indeed the consequence comes unavoidable upon you for if that which is necessary to the Salvation of all Men be antecedent to Church Society or Ecclesiastical Communion and attainable without it you will find very little left whereby to
LICENSED July 19. 1686. A LETTER TO Edw. Stillingfleet D. D. c. In ANSWER to the Epistle Dedicatory before his SERMON Preached at a Publick Ordination at St. Peter's Cornhil March 15. 1684 / 5. TOGETHER WITH Some Reflections upon certain LETTERS which Dr. Burnet wrote on the same occasion By SIMON LOWTH Vicar of Cosmus Blene in the Diocess of Canterbury Sed non idcirco frater charissime relinquenda est Ecclesiastica disciplina aut sacerdotalis solvenda est censura quoniam convitiis infestamur aut erroribus quatimur B. Cyprianus Ep. 55. ad Cornelium Impp. Honorius Theodos A. A. Anthemio P. F. P. Hirenarcharum vocabula quae adsimulata provincialium tutela quietis ac pacis per singula territoria haud sinunt stare concordiam radicitùs amputanda sunt Cesset igitur genus perniciosum reipublicae Cesset rescriptorum Hirenarchas circiter inconsulta simplicitas celsitudinis tuae sedes provinciarum defendenda suscipiat pacis hujusmodi locupletioribus commissura praesidia 12. Cod. Theodos Tit. 14. LONDON Printed by J. L. and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall in Amen-Corner MDCLXXXVII A LETTER TO Dr. Stillingfleet In ANSWER to his Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to his SERMON Preached at a Publick Ordination in the Church of St. Peter's Cornhil March 15. 1684 / 5 Reverend Sir HAVING perused your angry Epistle I am now abundantly satisfied that after all the clamorous Objections and riotous Noises against my Book of Church-Power raised and kept up by Men of your Party and Complexion and all the endeavours of such Champions as your self and that renowned Hero the famous Dr. Burnett you have been able to say nothing in reply to it besides personal remarks and accusations I might add choice Epithets and embellishments of Wit that might have become a Tripas Exercise in the Sophister's Schools but by no means the Gravity of an old exercised Master of Polemicks If you can reap any satisfaction from loading me with the general Titles of a Plagiary ridiculous fool malicious unskillful maker of Controversies a barbarous and rude Disputer with his Brethren an accuser of his Brethren an implacable man uncharitable unjust slanderer proud void of prudence and common discretion the usual Complements you are pleased to bestow upon me you may be happy in the enjoyment of your humor though it hath not an Irenical Complexion But I that design nothing but the pursuit of Truth and Honesty shall only endeavour in an easie method and plain words to come to the true state of the Controversie between us and my reply you may be pleased to take in this order First I shall presume to make some return to those little Pleas and Excuses that you give in for your self and those Accusations of any weight that you are pleased to bring in against me and withal take the liberty to reflect a little upon the Treatment I have received from your Friend and Advocate Dr. Burnett upon the same occasion For I foresee that opportunity will be offer'd Secondly I shall make it appear That the account you give of your Irenicum is not fair nor true and that you conceal your Crime in the very confession of it The whole design and plot being meerly laid against the Re-establishment of the Church of England Thirdly I shall enquire more particularly how far you have recall'd and recanted the principal Errors of it and particularly the Imposture of your Manuscript not doubting to make it appear That you still owe a publick Recantation for it not to the poor Vicar of Cosmus Blene but to the Church of England First I shall consider herein the little pleas you make use of for your self and your trifling Accusations against me together with your Characters of me and also take the liberty of some Reflections upon Dr. Burnet And here your failure is so evident and notorious at the very entrance and your conclusion so inconsequential that it plainly appears you began your Epistle in a passion and without a due consideration of those things which in course follow upon one another Otherwise how could you say to your most Reverend Diocesan That as you have the satisfaction of doing your duty in obeying his Lordship's command for Printing the Sermon you Preached at his last solemn Ordination so you hope others will have so much at least in Reading of it as to be convinced how unjustly you have been not long since represented to the world as an enemy to the very being of Churches in general and to the constitution of this Church in particular Pray how does it follow because you Preached sound and orthodox Divinity at that one time that you had never Preached or Printed any thing Erroneous or Heretical before Or what connexion is there in this such a one is now a sound Divine and therefore he was so always Had you in that Sermon made it appear that my Accusation was not True or that I had said you would never retract those unsound tenents that I accused you of then you might have depended with some tolerable assurance upon the Reader 's conviction of the injustice I had done you But since so it is that you neither attempted to clear your self concerning those things I accused you of neither did I say you would never retract them to infer injustice on my part because some years after that I had accused you you Preached a Sermon which was Orthodox in those points wherein I said you were once defective is a conclusion he alone can be guilty of whose common perceptions are choaked with Choler No Man could suspect that Dr. Stillingfleet made it had not the following part of the Epistle been of his Composure also consisting mostly of the like undecencies I said you were guilty of such Doctrines at the time when I Printed my Book but I did not say you would never retract them It was part of my design in writing that Book to inform you better and that you might come to a sense of those Errors which I apprehended at that time you were not sensible of I told you I judged a retractation necessary and that you ought to make one which was my crime in that I spake so plainly and boldly to you and no Man rejoyces more or thanks you more than I do for what you have performed of that nature in your Sermon You argue on at the same rate and say That my Calumny as you are pleased to call it is groundless and ridiculous because you have since proved the Church a distinct Society and vindicated her power in general and the particular constitution of this Church Now this supposes the truth of my accusation and that you once had asserted the contrary only I am so disingenuous that I take no notice of your retractation but still urge that first Error against you and this is the full of all that you can be interpreted to plead for your self The conclusion indeed seems larger
upon the first reading by the advantage it hath from the embellishments of your stile or your artificial disposition of the whole but he that duly considers the premises will find no more And indeed it is only a sham way of arguing just as afterwards you tell the History of your Irenicum where not one word you say comes up to the point under debate The reality of the Controversie betwixt us which you say I have with so much folly and malice and unskilfulness made and the world will laugh at me for only the comfort is they must first discern it with your Eyes lying here whether you have in your latter Writings given sufficient evidence to the World of the change of your judgment as to these Points of Church Power in general and Episcopacy in particular or as in the words of your Epistle you are not still the same Enemy to the very being of Churches in general and to the constitution of this Church in particular that I own I once did represent you to be for which I gave my reasons in my Book and private Letter since Printed before it but never had any Answer unless you shall be pleased to say that this Epistle Dedicatory is an Answer and yet I hear you do say so which is indeed a Libel Besides it did not come forth until two full Years after So then the ground is laid out and the Controversie stated You affirm I deny I shall put it upon a fair Tryal your own writings shall be my Evidence and the Readers the Jury You continue on and object That I produce not one considerable Argument which I did not steal out of a Discourse of yours but this must never be taken notice of Dr. Burnet and Mr. Dean of St. Pauls have sufficiently blazon'd me abroad for a Fool and non-sensical fellow and truly with reason too if you could prove me so silly as to steal and tell When my Papers came first to London in order to the Press and you with some others had got them into your hands the artifice then used whereby to bespatter me about the Town was to tell it abroad That I was not the Author of them And there was it seems other grounds for it than we were at that time aware of because they were yours But when Men are in the Net the more they struggle the more they are entangled I confess you owed me a turn for I had peremptorily accused you for stealing out of Robert Parker and pointed you to the very time Book Chapter and Margin when and where he was transcribed by you And certainly nothing was ever more imprudent if not unpardonable than for you to take his credit and testimony against our Church and Episcopacy who professedly design'd their defamation and destruction and really was the greatest Incendiary and most malicious implacable Schismatick that appear'd in his time against us or perhaps that had appear'd since our Reformation excepting Thomas Cartwright A Man could in Conscience do no less than expose you for it And if you had but dealt as candidly with me and named the particular time Book c. your Accusation would have had greater weight and my Vindication might have been more particular and satisfactory whereas now I can only proceed upon Conjectures I remember once being assaulted by an impertinent Quaker amongst other stuff he told me That I was a thief the reason that he gave for it was because I stole all my Learning from Books Now in this sense I confess my self a thief and in particular that I stole my Book out of the Fathers Councils Church-History c. and more that I might possibly steal now and then out of your Irenicum it being such a Farce of all manner of Quotations that it is a hard matter to miss of some of them And I will say thus much That if those Quotations were as aptly apply'd as they are numerous you might at that time have been placed in the first file of Learned Men. I have been inform'd That the Regalia of France publish'd some time since by your Friend Dr. Burnet in his own name were the labours and collections of Mr. Brisbon his Country-man who delivered his Papers unto him and desired his judgment of them but the wise Doctor whose Back is of steel as his Face is of brass liked them so well that he went not to bed till he had transcribed them and immediately Printed them for his own Now this is thieving in our profession Your next Objection is level'd against my stile that it is without embellishments that I follow the Schoolmen only in Two things viz. A barbarous stile and a rude way of disputing with my Brethren And you engage that posterity will not make me their pattern And Dr. Burnet has insisted on the same subject before you with enlargements and in the close of his Letter dated Decemb. 20. 1684. this is one of the two short advices he is so kind as to give me That if you intend to write any more you will learn first to write true English and then to write good sense but I believe this will prove so very hard a task that the best and easiest advice can be given you is That you would write none at all So that in plain English you give me the character Luther once gave Carolostadius viz. That I have neither Sense nor Words Res verba Philippus res sine verbis Lutherus Verba sine re Erasmus nec res nec verba Carolostadius As to the former I have put my self upon my tryal which is God and my Country only you and Dr. Burnet are excepted out of the Jury because Men so notoriously incapacitated to be there through manifest prejudice and interest As to the latter I plead in some measure guilty acknowledging my defect and that I have been less careful and industrious therein than I ought and might have been And yet I cannot say under my present circumstances to be sure That I really repent of it for these two Reasons 1. Because you had thereby lost an opportunity of making this Objection against my Book and so much less of your Passion in opposing me must have appear'd which is really my advantage 2. If my stile had been agreeable with your embellishments and smoother polite phrases how can I tell but that you might have taken all my Book away from me especially since you have laid actual claim already to my considerable Arguments But as to the Schoolmen in particular I must confess That I am no admirer of their Terms and Niceties yet I cannot condemn all but if my little skill in them do not deceive me their rude way of disputing such as it is might become both your own and others imitation For they are seldom guilty of the embellishments of soul language very rarely name persons but when the case necessarily requires it and avoiding all personal heats and quarrels keep themselves close
and finished my first part Secondly I shall make it appear that the account you give of your Irenicum is not fair nor true and that you conceal your crime as much as in you lies in the representation the Design and Plot of it being mostly laid if not altogether against the Church of England And this I undertake to make good in these following Particulars 1. The main subject of your present debate you say is this Whether any one particular Form of Church-Government be setled upon an unalterable divine Right by Virtue whereof all Churches are bound to observe that individual Form or Whether it be left to the prudence of every particular Church to agree upon that Form of Government which it judgeth most conduceable within it self to attain the end of Government the Peace Order Tranquillity Setlement of the Church as is to be seen in the latter end of your Preface and Part 1. c. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 4. The first you determine in the Negative the second in the Affirmative the issue of both is this That God by his own Laws hath given Men a Power and Liberty to determine the particular Form of Church-Government among them you had done well if you had produced this Law of God and what the express words of it are none other being sufficient for a lasting divine institution by your own Rules but this is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That tho' one Form of Government be agreeable to the word it doth not follow that another is not or because one is lawful another is unlawful but one Form may be more agreeable to some parts places people and time than others are That the case is the same as to Church Government whether by many joyn'd together in an equality or by subordination of some persons unto others as it is to dipping or sprinkling in Baptism whether thrice or once As to attending the Lords Table whether at Supper time or in the Morning fasting or after meat You add whether kneeling or sitting or leaning and as to preaching the word you mean doubtless Whether by an Hour-glass or not Vid. Part I. Cap. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 3. § 2. p. 9 10. Part. II. Cap. 4. § 2. c. And hence it is as plain and obvious as words and consequences can make it That by the Law of God enstating Mankind with this perpetual indefectible Power the Independant Congregational Form of Government is equally to be received as the Presbyterian and Classical and either of them as the Episcopal and the Papal hath as firm a bottom as any of them all any one of them ought to be called and really is the Church of England and of God within this Dominion if the Pastors or the Magistrate or when these are knockt o' th' head the People or any one prevailing interest or faction shall appoint and setle it among us So that now you are for a Toleration of several Forms of Government by the Authority of the Church of England And it is plain whence our Sects had it when with so much confidence they said upon each occasion having obtained an indulgence from his late Majesty That they were the Church of England they meant according to Dr. Stilling fleet 's Irenicum And indeed according to this Principle of yours Richard Baxter's Conventicle in St. Martin's Parish in the Fields was once as much of the Church of England as Dr. Stilling fleet 's Church in St. Andrew's Holborn Neither is this the only Case that they use your Authority in thereby to rend in pieces this Church and I did not speak improperly nor without reason when I called that Treatise an unlucky Book This issue is plainly and clearly set down by Mr. Hobbs in his Leviathan Part III. Cap. 42. pag. 299 300. and upon your very Principles to whom you had an Ear no doubt From this consolidation of the Rights Politick and Ecclesiastick in Christian Sovereigns it is evident they have all manner of Power over their Subjects that can be given to Man for the Government of Mens external Actions both in Policy and Religion and may make such Laws as themselves shall judge fittest for the Government of their own Subjects both as they are the Common-Wealth and as they are the Church For both Church and State are the same Men which is your very notion as will appear anon If they please therefore they may as many Christian Kings now do commit the Government of their Subjects in matters of Religion to the Pope but then the Pope is in that point subordinate to them and exercises that charge in anothers Dominion jure civili in the right of the civil Sovereign not jure divino in God's right and may therefore be discharged of that office when the Sovereign for the good of his Subjects shall think it necessary They may also if they please commit the care of Religion to one supreme Pastor or to an Assembly of Pastors and give them what power over the Church or over one another they think most convenient and what Titles of Honour as of Bishops Archbishops Priests or Presbyters they will and these Rights are incident to all Severeigns whether Monarchs or Assemblies For they that are representants of a Christian People are representants of the Church for a Church and a Commonwealth of Christian People are the same thing The inconsistences and most pernicious insufferable consequents of this Principle are abundantly represented to the World by a most judicious Hand in the Case of the Church of England Part III. more particularly pag. 246 247 c. 2. You deny Episcopacy in particular or a Disparity of Power in the Ministry to be by the Laws of Christ always binding and immutable wherein you oppose to be sure the Church of England And further the overthrowing the immutable Right of Episcopacy seems to be the main thing you aim at throughout the whole Discourse tho' you pretend more for the management of which you all along mingle Fire and Water together urging any thing that will give a varnish or make a shew of Argument in order to it tho' really destructive to the common Christianity we all profess but either lightly touch or designedly pass by the most credible motives even demonstrations to the contrary even those which have been own'd for such by your self in the like cases This will appear to him that weighs these following Considerations To avoid this prelatical Power or Superiority of our Bishops you tell us That tho' it be proved that the Apostles had a Superiority of Order and Jurisdiction over the Pastors of the Church by an Act of Christ yet it must be farther proved That it was Christ's intention that Superiority should continue in their Successors or it makes nothing to the purpose Part I. Cap. 1. § 8. pag. 25. Where you do not consider That tho' it be proved that St. Peter and the other Apostles had by an Act of Christ the power of the
who stood upon the supposition That Christ had appointed a Presbyterian Government to be always continued in his Church And it is easily observable that you have omitted nothing that was pleaded by them whereby Prelacy might be rendered detestable as an unlawful Vsurpation but whether you have done the same thereby to render Presbytery as such I appeal to that very Chapter You are so far from it that the same design is managed throughout the whole Book where your Plea is against the Divine Right of any one individual Form of Government but the instance is mostly against Episcopacy Presbytery is seldom mentioned with any mark of disrespect or if it be it is accidentally I do not remember any one set discourse particularly levelled against it as there is sometimes against the Independents but all along against the Church of England both in this and several other of her most considerable Tenents and Articles Nay you expresly and in so many words give the precedency to Presbytery founding it upon one of your necessary and unalterable Divine Rights Part I. c. 1. § 7 8. pag. 23 26. and say That the Presbyterians seem more generally to own the use of General Rules and the light of Nature in order to the Form of Church-Government as in the Subordination of Courts Classical Assemblies and the more moderate sort as to Lay-Elders And to the Independents in the next place who plead the general Rules of Scripture and evidence of natural Reason Now all this you must be supposed to remove from the Episcoparians because therein you place the opposition if you do any thing And besides you say further The Episcopal Men will hardly find any evidence in Scripture or the Practice of the Apostles for Churches consisting of many Congregations for Worship under the charge of one Person in the Primitive Church for the Ordination of a Bishop without the preceeding Election of the Clergy and at least consent and approbation of the People and neither in Scripture nor Antiquity the least Footstep of a delegation of Church-Power and leave them no other Foundation but the Principles of humane Prudence and those not very well observed Pag. 416 417. So then upon the winding up of your Book the Church of England is represented without evidence of natural Reason and the Rules of the Light of Nature with little evidence from Scripture or the Practice of the Apostles in some instances of her Worship and Discipline but with none in others neither is Prudence her constant Guide And was not this a hopeful way and delicate means to bring over Dissenters to a compliance with the Church of England then likely to be established But none of it is to be wonder'd at if we consider the account you have given of the Government of our Church in the name of the Foreign Divines a little before pag. 409. and the inconveniencies it is liable unto as a step to Pride and Ambition and an occasion whereby Men might do the Church injury by the excess of their Power if they were not Men of excellent Temper and Moderation insomuch that our Bishops are begg'd rather to lay down their Power than to transmit that Power to those after them who it may be were not like to succeed them in their Meekness and Moderation and at last they are left to the Judgment of those who have the Power not only to redress but prevent abuses incroaching by an irregular Power And yet you have not left her barely to her Judges or the Civil Magistrate for such you can be interpreted only to mean to stand and fall at their discretion your self appear as Council against her prepossessing them with new fears and jealousies to which purpose you produce a ridiculous Prediction of Padre Paulo viz. That the Church of England would then find the inconveniencies of Episcopacy when an high Spirited Bishop should come once to rule the Church A Prophecy that in all likelihood was forged in the Brain of some Puritan and my reason for it is Because I find it placed in the front of a Latin Treatise writ by one of great intemperance and violence against the Church of England the Title whereof is Irenaei Philadelphi Epistola ad Renatum Virideum in qua aperitur mysterium iniquitatis novissimè in Anglia redivivum excutitur liber Josephi Hall quo asseritur Episcopatum esse Juris Divini Eleutheropoli 1641. The design of it is to inveigh against the praetorian Authority of Bishops with their Pride and Usurpation over the Clergy and he states the case just as you have done in your Irenicum viz. against their Solitary appropriated Power by Divine Right allowing a Ministry by the Law of Christ and that general Rules are given in Scripture for the great ends of Peace and Order But the particular Form depends upon the choice of the Presbyters and as they do judge it best agreeing with that Kingdom or Common-Wealth in which it is setled So then it seems the Presbyterians first instructed and brought over you not you them as you told my Lord of London And this also confirms what I said before viz. That you come up to the principles of them all excepting some of the rigider Scots who believe that no Church is duly administred where there are Bishops from whom my Worshipful Author declares his dissent tho' he is never the nearer to the Church of England for it that is purely your mistake and he notwithstanding follows on his design against our Church with all manner of indecency and dirty Language He begins with Arch-Bishop Land and takes occasion to vilifie him by reason of his Book against Fisher as worth no Man's reading and that it is unsaleable (a) Quis enim operam perdere voluerit in evolvendo hoc libro quem audio fidum esse custodem officinae bibliopolaâ—um thence he goes on to Richard Montacute Bishop of Norwich upon whom he empties his Spleen calling him a Chief Coal-blower (b) 〈◊〉 ciniflones Archiepiscopalis culinae primas tenet in the Archbishop's Kitchin reviling him as wise in his (c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 own Eyes swelled with Pride and Malice with a little learning but more of self-conceit Bishop Andrews is his next Man whom he accuses of Plagiarism and for stealing his determination against Vsury out of Rivette upbraiding him for his ill stile (d) De ferreo stilo per scabra decurrente adding that Du Moulin and Rivette are as much before him in Learning as he thinks a Bishop to be above a Presbyter and placeth him at length amongst the Men mediocris Doctrinae of mean Learning The last I shall produce tho' there be many more against whom he raves at the same rate is Bishop Hall and he impleads him for want of Prudence in that he wrote his Book of Episcopacy carried on to it with an unseasonable itch of Scribbling casting Oyl thereby on that pyle in which the
your Younger years were seasoned with such kind of Authors as they appear to have been I 'll instance only in two Irenaeus Philadelphus and Robert Parker unless Martin Mar-Prelate be adjoyned Men so unplacably seditious and revengeful against our Church especially since you are to this day of an Opinion That you served the Church of England in writing your Irenicum An Erynnicum is more likely to be an effect of such studies And I wish that Book had made less heart-burnings and contentions among us and you had less promoted them by so many Impressions In fine if such a procedure as I have in part made yours already appear to be and shall more fully declare in this Epistle be the way to re-establish the Church of England and your Zeal and Affections be thus only indicated then they were for the Succession of the Crown who still attended the Earl of Shaftsbury and dined twice a Week with the Lord Russel making the rest of that Conspiracy their daily Associates and Confidents who kept the Green-Ribbon Clubb sided all along with Ignoramus Jury-men and abhorr'd all Mankind besides That supplyed Johnson's courses that he might with more Dispatch answer Dr. Hicks and defend his Julian lest the Party complain and grow weary of their tedious carryings on or be discouraged and beat off by the Strength of the Doctors reasonings and demonstrations against it who had West for their standing Council and Rumball for their Malt-Man and bought their Tables and Wainscot of the Protestant Joiner as we know he declared at the Gallows at Oxford of whom he had some of his Doctrines Thirdly You take all Power out of the hands of the Church Officers for determining Indifferencies and making occasional Laws for the better Ruling and Governing their Body and ending Controversies as they arise and place it wholly and solely in the Magistrate or Secular Governor as the only Power and Person that can make Church-Laws binding the Conscience And this you have done deliberately upon full thoughts and after a thorow enquiry and debate in order as you tell us to the laying a Foundation for Peace and Vnion Part I. c. 2. § 6 7. and c. 6. § 7. pag. 106 127 131. I 'll recite these principal passages for the satisfaction of the Reader You place in him the external Imperative Power of Jurisdiction concerning matters of the Church or as you explain your self the Nomothetical Legislative Power as it is distinguished from that which is properly called Politicial And you say the same again in matters undetermined by the word concerning the external Polity of the Church of God the Magistrate hath Power of determining things so they be agreeable to the Word of God. That no other Persons have power to make Laws binding Men to obedience but only the Civil Magistrate with-holding nothing from him but Preaching the Gospel and Administring the Sacraments in which two things you say consists the Authoritative Exercise of the Ministerial Function derived by Christ unto his Ministers making the Magistrate his own Guide according to the Word of God in the Administration of his Function and by consequence his own Preacher not subject to the Power of the Ministers that is he is to interpret the Scriptures to himself which comes very near to that of Mr. Hobbs in his Leviathan Part III. c. 4. p. 252. No Man ought in the Interpretation of Scripture to proceed farther than the bounds that are set by their several Sovereigns As also p. 295. c. 42. That the right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace and to be taught by Subjects is in all Commonwealths inseparably annexed to the Sovereign Power Civil whether it be in one Man or in one Assembly of Men. You go on at the same rate and say The Power of declaring the Obligation of former Laws and of consulting and advising the Magistrate for setling of new Laws for the Polity of the Church belongs to the Pastors and Governors of the Church of God but they have no more Authority to make any new Laws or Constitutions binding Mens Consciences than a command from the Supreme Authority that inferior Magistrates should be obeyed doth imply in them any Power to make new Laws to bind them Power arising from mutual compact and consent of parties is most agreeable to the nature of Church-Power being not coactive but directive And such was the confederate discipline of the Primitive Church before they had any Christian Magistrate thence the decrees of Councils were called Canons and not Laws The great use of Synods and Assemblies of Pastors of Churches is to be as the Council of the Church to the King in matters belonging to the Church as the Parliament is in matters of Civil Concernment Elective Synods substituted in the place of Authoritative Power to determine Controversies are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will never be soveraign enough to cure the distemper it is brought for that is reserved for your Weapon-Salve and bind no farther than the party concern'd doth judge the Sentence equal and just So that they help us with no ways to end Controversies in the Church any farther than the Persons engaged are willing to account that just which shall be judged in their Case they having no juridical Power The Church Power as to divine Law is only directive and declarative but being confirmed by a Civil Sanction is juridical and obligatory As for that time when the Church was without Magistrates ruling in it in those things undetermined by the Word of God they acted out of principles of Christian Prudence and from the principles of the Law of Nature And the reasons that you give for all this are many I 'll instance in but two First Because Church-men have no Authority but are bound up to the commands of Christ already laid down in his Word and why may not the same be said of the Magistrates and that they are equally tied up to the Laws of Christ For a Power to bind Mens Consciences to their determinations lodged in the Officers of the Church must be derived either from a Law of God giving them this Right or else from consent of Parties For any Law of God there is none produced with probability of reason but that Obey those that are over you in the Lord. But that implies no more than submitting to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Gospel and to those whom Christ hath constituted as Pastors of his Church wherein the Law of Christ doth require Obedience to them that is looking upon them and owning them in their Relations to them as Pastors but that gives no Authority to make Laws c. Secondly He who can null and declare all other Obligations void done without his Power hath the only Power to oblige for whatsoever destroys a former Obligation must of necessity imply a Power to oblige because I am bound to obey him in the abstaining from that I was formerly obliged to But this Power belongs
to the Magistrate I might here also again demand By what Law in your Sense But it is your bare Opinion I am now to relate and the Reasons you produce not to shew the rottenness of them For suppose in some indifferent Rites and Ceremonies the Church representative that is the Governors of it pro tempore do prescribe them to be observ'd by all the Supreme Power forbids the doing those things if this doth not null the former supposed Obligation I must inevitably run upon these absurdities First That there are two Supreme Powers in a Nation at the same time Secondly That a Man may lie under two different Obligations as to the same thing he is bound to do it by one Power and not to do it by the other Thirdly The same action may be a Duty and a Sin a Duty in obeying the one Power a Sin in disobeying the other Therefore there can be but one Power to oblige which is that of the Supreme Magistrate where by the way I note that these last reasons are the very same that Mr. Hobbs urges against this very Branch of Church-Power in his Leviathan Part II. c. 29. and Part III. c. 10. pag. 248. The summ of all is this and I choose to express my self in the words of a very Learned and Judicious Writer upon the like occasion You distinguish betwixt the Sacred Function which you grant to be the proper Office of the Church and the Power over Sacred Things which you annex entirely to the Civil Power By which distinction you leave the Governors of the Church no other Power than to administer the Offices of Religion without any Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion I confess Part. I. c. 8. you own the Church to be a Society distinct from other Societies with Laws Ends and Governors of a distinct Nature and you had done the same before Cap. 2. § 3. p. 35. just almost before you enter'd upon this grand determination and with punishments distinct from the Civil and for Spiritual ends which you call Excommunication or an Exclusion of the offending Person from Communion with the Society and say That this Power is peculiar to the Church But this reacheth not to the point as to Church-Laws or to the Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion Besides you have called this Church the Magistrate all-along and invested him alone with Church-Power or a Power distinct from that properly called Political which can be no other than Ecclesiastical and you have instanced only in Preaching the Word and Administring the Sacraments as the two Offices in which the Authoritative exercise of the ministerial Function derived by Christ to his Disciples doth consist But all this I have shew'd to be contrary to the judgment and Practice of the whole Church of God both Bishops Fathers and Councils of the Emperors themselves in the best Ages of the Church and when they were her Defenders to the determinations of our own Church and the Laws of our Kingdom It is the design and subject of my whole Book and I am also mightily secured that I did not take one Argument that Doctor Stillingfleet had used before to be sure in his Irenicum Fourthly You give to the Prince and enstate on him as his right and due those very Offices and Acts which you have appropriated to the Pastors of the Church as their peculiar Authoritative Power such as to Ordain to Excommunicate Baptize c. and undertake to censure every Man exposing him as ignorant of the State of our own Church that is not of your judgment wherein you and Mr. Hobbs so exactly jump together for I consider what you produce out of the Manuscripts as your own particular Opinion that I have here placed your words in two distinct Columns desiring the Reader to compare and judge of them Irenicum pag. 391 c. All Christian Princes have committed unto them immediately of God the whole cure of all their Subjects as well concerning the Administration of God's Word for the cure of the Soul as concerning the Administration of things Political and Civil Governance And in both these ministrations they must have sundry Ministers under them to supply that which is appointed in their several Offices The Civil Ministers under the King's Majesty in this Realm of England be those whom it shall please his Highness for the time to put in Authority under him as for example the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord Great-Master Lord Privy-Seal Mayors Sheriffs c. The Ministers of God's Word under his Majesty be the Bishops Parsons Vicars and such other Priests as be appointed by his Highness to that Ministration as for example The Bishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Winchester the Parson of Winwick c. All the said Officers and Ministers as well of the one sort as the other be appointed assign'd and elected in every place by the Laws and Orders of Kings and Princes In the admission of many of these Officers be diverse comely Ceremonies and Solemnities used which be not of necessity but only for good Order and seemly Fashion For if such Offices and Ministrations were committed without such Solemnities they were nevertheless truly committed And there is no more Promise of God that Grace is given in the committing of the Ecclesiastical Office than it is in the committing of the Civil In the Apostles time when there was no Christian Princes by whose Authority Ministers of God's Word might be appointed nor Sins by the Sword corrected there was no remedy then for the correction of Vice or appointing of Ministers but only the consent of the Christian Multitude among themselves with an uniform consent to follow the Advice and Perswasion of such Persons whom God had most endued with the Spirit of Wisdom and Counsel And at that time forasmuch as Christian People had no Sword nor Governor among themselves they were constrain'd of necessity to take such Curates and Priests as either they knew themselves to be meet thereunto or else as were commended unto them by others that were so repleat with the Spirit of God with such knowledge in the Profession of Christ such Wisdom such Conversation and Counsel that they ought even of very Conscience to give credit unto them and to accept such as by them were presented And sometimes the Apostles and others unto whom God had given abundantly his Spirit sent or appointed Ministers of God's Word sometimes the People did choose such as they thought meet thereunto And when any were appointed or sent by the Apostles or other the People of their own voluntary will with thanks did accept them not for the Supremity Impery and Dominion that the Apostles had over them to command as their Princes or Masters but as good People ready to obey the voice of good Counsellors and to accept any thing that was necessary for their edification and benefit A Bishop may make a Priest by the Scriptures and
Providence of God making way concurr'd to their restauration like another Sanballat using this common high-way insinuation thereunto taken from the scandalous Rabble and worst of our Enemies And I have been credibly told That your self did neither Subscribe nor Read the Service-Book till that fatal as some call it St. Bartholomew and you had otherwise been deprived of your Rectory of Sutton And this subject you reassume in your Preface spending a great part of it with a vehement zeal and ardency in defence of Libertinism so far as That no Church Laws ought to be enjoyned as Terms of Communion but those which Christ hath himself given us or those that were immediately directed by the guidance of the Spirit of God. Those things you say are sufficient for that which are laid down as the necessary Duties of Christianity by our Lord and Saviour in his Word which are sufficient for Salvation Would there be ever the less Peace and Vnity in a Church if diversity were allow'd as to practices supposed indifferent Yea there would be so much the more as there was a mutual forbearance and condescension as to such things The Vnity of the Church is an Vnity of Love and Affection c. Doctrines that are justly called Damnable by the Vniversity of Oxford and condemned with certain pernicious Books in their Judgment and Decree past in Convocation July 21. 1683. as destructive to the sacred Persons of Princes their State and Government and of Humane Society and presented to his late Majesty of blessed Memory July 24. in the Twenty first and Twenty second Propositions and in these words viz. It is not lawful for Superiors to impose any thing in the Worship of God that is not Antecedently necessary The Duty of not offending a weak Brother is inconsistent with all humane authority of making Laws concerning indifferent things But yet you endeavour to make them good from these several Topicks 1. From the Design and Example of our Saviour whose business was to ease Men of their former Burthens and not to lay on more The Duties he required were no other but such as were necessary He that came to take away the unsupportable Yoke of the Jewish Ceremonies certainly did never intend to gall the Necks of his Disciples with another instead of it What Charter hath Christ given the Church to bind Men up to more than himself hath done Or to exclude those from his Society who may be admitted into Heaven 2. From the Example of his Apostles who do not warrant any such rigorous Impositions either We never read of the Apostles making Laws but of things supposed necessary When the Council of the Apostles met at Jerusalem for deciding a case that disturbed the Churches Peace we see they would lay on no other burthen besides the necessary things Acts xv 29. It was not enough for them that the things would be necessary when they had required them but they looked on an antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians All that the Apostles required as to these was a mutual forbearance and condescension towards each other in them 3. You parallel the Laws of our Church as to indifferencies and in limiting of them in particular practices with those Impositions of Rome as to the Rule of Faith and her other Idolatrous Superstitious Practices 4. From the Example of the Primitive Church which you say deserves greater imitation by us in nothing more than in that admirable temper moderation and condescension which was used in it towards all the members of it It was never thought by her worth the while to make any standing Laws for Rites and Customs that had no other original but Tradition much less to suspend Men her Communion for not observing them And you instance in that objected case related by Sozomen Eccl. Hist l. 7. c. 19. and the same is in Socrates Hist l. 5. c. 22. which every one rallies our Church withal that can but read the Historian in English or the Libellers of our Church who in their Pamphlets represent her to them as you do here to her disadvantage It is granted that these Churches there mentioned as Antioch Rome Aegypt Thessaly and Caesarea did differ from one another in divers Customs and Rites as in times of Fasting manner of Meats c. and therein they were not to judge or condemn one another But you must prove that Antioch Rome c. did allow different Rites in their particular Churches which you cannot do from that place the contrary is evident there For the examples you bring That there were divers Rites and Customs not only in different Churches but in different places belonging to the same Church and many Cities and Villages in Aegypt differ'd from the Mother Church of Alexandria prove nothing against us For the Diocess of Aegypt as the Notitia informs us had abundance of Provinces in it which had also their distinct Metropolitans and Laws And Alexandria however it might be the Patriarchical See or Mother Church in relation to them all was otherwise but the first Church in one of these Provinces called Provincia Aegypti primae and so a Sister Church And Socrates farther tells us That the People of Thebais which is a distinct Province also of Aegypt with its Metropolitan had this different custom from Alexandria And those whom he calls Neighbours to the Alexandrians were in all likelihood another of the Aegyptian Provinces Socrates plainly severs them one from another as distinct Provinces All this will be fully exemplified in the Diocess of Carthage in the days of St. Cyprian where there were several Provinces with their particular Bishops whose Primate he was But yet every one of those Bishops had his distinct and appropriated Power in his Province Neque quisquam nostrum se Episcopum Episcoporum constituit Quando habet omnis Episcopus libertatis suae arbitrium proprium c. Vid. Concil Carthag de haeret baptizand inter opera Cypriani But then tho' the Bishop had this Power in his own Province to establish what Rites and ways of Worship he judged most convenient yet no Man but your self or with your design ever hence asserted that each Village or Parish Church in the Province had the same Power or might erect their own mode of Worship also I remember immediately after the Conference at the Savoy which was the first Summer upon his late Majesty's happy return there came forth a large stitch'd Quarto containing the Dissenters Reasons and Argumentations against the re-establishment of our Church it was without a name but drawn up as was supposed by Richard Baxter And one of his principal heads which he much insisted on was this passage in Sozomen and Socrates I fear me you had been dabling here and so transcribed it for authentique History in their sense of it a thing in those days too usual with you And yet
St. Cyprian with St. Augustin and St. Jerom are brought for farther instances of this supposed admirable Temper in the Primitive Church and for freely allowing Liberty to Dissenters from them in matters of Liberty and Practice whom you hope our Church of England then upon its re-establishment will follow in not imposing Rites but leaving Men to be won by the observing the true order and decency of Churches whereby those that act upon a true principle of Christian ingenuity may be sooner drawn to a compliance in all lawful things than by force and rigorous Impositions notwithstanding those Testimonies of St. Austin c. speak as if they had foreseen the case of our Church and had design'd so to determine on her side as to stop the mouths of all gain-sayers For as they allow of different Rites in things not unlawful in distinct Churches so they as strictly require compliance from all the Members of a Church with the Rites of its own Church and they are so far from allowing any difference as to these matters in one and the same particular Church that in case any of their Members travel to another Church they are directed to comply with the lawful Rites of that Church although different from the Rites of that Church of which they more particularly own themselves that so no division might be made And this I take to be the Doctrine of the Church of England and the very way of arguing and the occasion and the design of those Testimonies do so palpably confirm it that nothing but a Man who had Sacrificed his Judgment either to his Passion or the humour of a Party would have set himself to pervert them thus quite contrary to their meaning 5. You tell us That those who first brake this Order in the Church were Arians Donatists and Circumcellians whilst the true Church was known by its Pristine Moderation and Sweetness of Deportment towards all its Members So that the worst of Hereticks the worst of Christians and the worst of Men and such were these three Sects are the only persons to be found in all Antiquity that restrained Men by Laws from being of what Religion they pleased and reduced them to an Vniformity in the Worship of God. Or thus That Church-Laws laying limits to Mens practice in God's Service are from the same rise as Usurpation Rebellion Murder Burglary Schism Sacrilege Church-robbing Spoiling Men of their Possessions all manner of Profanation of Holy Things and Persons forcing Mankind to Heterodoxies in Religion Immorality in Manners and Rebellion in Government Perjury Hypocrisie Deceit for these were the constant Practices of those three Sects and the Laws and Rules that they proceeded by in their pretended Reformations and attempts to reduce what they called Christianity And the Canons Rubricks and Injunctions of our Church and the whole Christian World beside take away and invade Christian Property and Liberty equally as those worst of Hereticks and Schismaticks did I do not now wonder that you have shew'd so much dislike to that part of Dr. Parker's Book of Religion and Loyalty where he makes it appear That Eusebius and his followers that Spawn of the Arian Heresie were for Comprehension and therefore opposed the Holy Athanasius and the first Council of Nice because limiting the Christian profession of Faith to Laws and Canons and denounced the Anathema's of the Church against all such as should violate them 6. And lastly You magnifie the indulgence which was granted at Breda by King Charles II. as the effect of his excellent Prudence and Moderation when it was purely his misfortune and necessity that engaged him to it occasion'd by a sort of Men in this Nation no ways behind the Arians Donatists and Circumcellians those Cut-throats of Christendom and therefore the Wisdom of the Nation to whom he at first referr'd it immediately advised him against its farther establishment and it was re-called Neither was he the first Christian Prince that complyed with the like necessity the very Gentile Worship having been indulged for some time and for the same reasons and by good Emperors by Constantine himself as is evident in Church-Story And your self would deride your own inference if another did make it viz. That therefore the Heathen Worship ought not afterward to have been silenced and that the succeeding Imperial Laws to that purpose were unwarrantable Innovations And so you have my account of this your unlucky Book I own that it was not my first design to make it thus publick and I had not done it now had I not been provoked to it in part by your indirect and unscholar-like dealings with me in that instead of an answer to matter of Fact and Argument you have only Libelled me to a principal Bishop of our Church in a Two-Penny Paper to which is tacked and therein your farther disingenuity appears one of your Four-Penny Sermons that it may with the greater dispatch and advantage be posted over the Kingdom and I be certainly condemned by Bell Book and Candle of those even your Female Admirers into whose hands the main Controversie never came nor indeed are they competent judges of it And whether my stile or your usage of me in this affair be more Barbarous I appeal to the common Reader You have out-done Dr. Burnet's rudeness who only cried me about London Streets tho' these Artifices never take long and a due discovery only breaks their Necks more surely But I was mostly prevailed with in that you have not only defamed me but vindicated this Book to that eminent Bishop your Diocesan as serviceable to the Church of England and designed to that end by you If this be to serve our Church by using and urging all sorts of Arguments whereby her Form of Government by Bishops is represented without any bottom and foundation as from Christ cheap and contemptible their Offices rendred suspicious to the Civil Magistrate and as his Supplanter their abetters and maintainers slighted and ridicul'd their manner of Worship vilified and described as set up in opposition to the Primitive Example their power wholly taken from them and a Liberty granted to all Pretenders In a word Where your chief design seems to be levelled against them then you have done it in the Irenicum and yet these are not all the Heterodoxies and dangerous Doctrines therein contained It is a Hotch-potch or mixture of all Religions in which something is to be found for the defence of each Sect that hath infested us since the Reformation and only the Church of England is constantly opposed I may safely say It has perverted many Thousands should I add Millions I did not exceed which otherwise would have been true Sons and Adherers to her Doctrine and Worship and Discipline It is the very center of Puritanism and Epitome of Fanatick madness rendring us guilty of the same Schism in respect of the Dissenters as the Church of Rome is charged with in respect of us If it be objected
Nag's-Head-Tavern but it was only to Dine there when the confirmation performed at Bow Church was over But there is no shew or semblance of so much as a meeting of these Church-men that can be produced of whom your counterfeit Manuscript gives a Relation For my part I cannot imagine which way he and you could have more effectually contrived whereby to cast dirt in the Face of our Reformation You have most certainly given two of our present and principal Adversaries those advantages their Predecessors never were aware of and the best services you can propose in the Printing of it will not countervail the certain and most notorious damage it has brought to our Church I 'll here tell what I sometime since met with in Livy l. 40. c. 30. In the ground of Petilius the Scribe were found two Chests the one had a bundle in it containing seven Books in Latin de jure Pontificio or relating to Religious matters they were perused by several and at last read to the Senators who immediately condemned them to the Fire and they were accordingly burnt before the People because in many things tending to the dissolution of their Religion The Wisdom of that Government knew full well the ill consequences of admitting such looser Papers into competition with their received Worship supposed at first to have come from Heaven and made afterwards the Law of the Kingdom And if every musty Script really moth-eaten by time or disguised by design as were the Gibeonites Shoon and Bread be received as an Authentique Manuscript reach'd forth by the hand of Providence the World will never want abuses and providential Provisions of that nature But admit the Manuscript is really such as you represent it to be and those Bishops and Doctors did actually meet at such a Conference and make those determinations yet you and Dr. Burnet are not discharged but stand accused of Vnfaithfulness and underhand Dealing in the Printing and Publishing of it and that upon these two accounts 1. For altering the general method of it 2. For leaving out Bishop Cranmer's Subscription to Dr. Leighton's Opinion concerning Church-Power by which he retracted his first Erroneous Judgment The first is granted by Dr. Burnet viz. that the method is altered in his preamble to the Manuscript the other is urged against you by Dr. Durell in his Vindiciae cap. 28. whose Narrative of the matter of Fact I only repeated accusing you but of the same Vnfaithfulness he before had told the World you were guilty of upon his own knowledge and perusal of the Manuscript in your presence Dr. Burnet takes a great deal of pains to vindicate himself and you herein in his several Letters but he does it with such an imbitter'd Spirit so great rudeness of Language and such struglings and convulsions within himself even apparent contradictions that he must be concluded upon sight to have the worser cause and withal a load of guilt upon him I thought to have left him to the due chastisement he hath already received from a judicious hand in two Letters but having a fresh provocation in the last Paragraph of your Epistle Dedicatory I look upon my self as engaged to say something more You seem to boast e're the harness is put of and to triumph before the Victory in these words following As to his accusation about Archbishop Cranmer 's Manuscript I think he hath heard enough of that already and he owes me a Publick Recantation upon his own terms for charging me with Vnfaithfulness therein for the Scandal and Offence hath been very publick Pray how comes it that I owe a Publick Recantation more than Dr. Durell Or in what have I charged you or given such Publick Scandal and Offence which he had not done before I only produced his Words and alledged his Authority It seems very strange that you should not be sensible of this heavy Charge Scandal and Offence till now or if sensible that it was not removed Dr. Durell wrote his Vindiciae at least Fourteen Years since and yet your story is told without naming him and all the Folly and Madness and rude way of Disputing with his Brethren is laid at my Door I confess I did not treat you with those most ample magnificent Titles that he did and if that omission be the instance of my rude way you might have said so But there are reasons why you did not accost him A Vicar in the Country is trod upon with more ease and acceptance than a Dean who is your equal And I find a general prejudice against me because I have not a Stall in a Cathedral And that you may not think that I speak this at random I must here tell you That there is a Dean of a Cathedral in this Kingdom and of your acquaintance that has openly and passionately exclaimed against me without any consideration of the matter of my Book as guilty of unpardonable audaciousness and farther said That all the Deans in England were concerned in it So that it is with me not altogether unlike what the Bishop of Salzbourgh said of Luther And let a Dean say what he will it is an unsufferable thing that he should be told of it by a Country Vicar But I am inclined to believe your chief reason to be that you were so Opinionated as to presume your self really to be the King in Israel and all other whether Deans or Vicars to be but as Fleas when coming out against you But after all What is this Publickly Scandalous and Offensive charge that Mr. Dean of Windsor and I have conspired against you in The thing is matter of Fact which may easily be adjusted if allowed a fair Issue Your Accusation is this That when you Printed Archbishop Cranmer's Manuscript first in your Irenicum and then in Dr. Burnet's Church-History you dealt Vnfaithfully because that notwithstanding the Archbishop had retracted his first Opinion concerning Church-Power wherein he was Erroneous and subscribed to Dr. Leighton's Opinion with his own Hand setting Th. Cantuariensis below the Doctors and blotting out his first subscription You have wholly omitted all this without giving an account of it to the World. And does not Dr. Burnet acknowledge it in his Letter to me upon that occasion and in his two other Letters For he there argues to this effect That tho' he left out Cranmer's Subscription that was under Leighton's concerning Church-Power yet he placed it with Leighton's at the end of the last question concerning Extream Vnction which was in effect the same as if he had placed it under that of Church-Power his disign in putting Th. Cantuariensis to the last Article being not that it should be interpreted as if he Subscribed only that one Article with Dr. Leighton but as his Subscription to all the questions preceeding and accordingly he set down on the Margent of the last question over against Cranmer 's Subscription These are the Subscriptions that are at the end of every Man's Paper And
it self Pag. 134. you seem at least too unwary in your Expression asserting That if the whole Nation in Parliament consent to the passing a Law for removal of Pastors and putting in of others this is sufficient for the satisfaction of that People to whom they are appointed as Pastors by virtue of that Power or for the making them true Pastors I yield that the right of Investiture is originally in the Secular hand and by consequence the right of deprivation upon the breach of those terms on which the Investiture is made Thus Abiathar was removed and Zadok put in his room But the question is supposing Zadok had not been of the Priestly Line Whether Solomon's placing him in the High-Priest's Chair did by virtue of his Kingly Power alone create him High-Priest and the People were thereupon bound to own and submit to his Ministry Or to bring an instance nearer home supposing an Act of Parliament appoint a certain Person to be Minister in such a Parish when he is really no Minister because without Ordination from a Bishop Whether by virtue of that Law he is made a true Minister and ought to be received as such by that People to whom by Act of Parliament he is sent No understanding Christian will own him as his Minister upon such terms We have a great instance of this nature in the Church of Scotland about Fourteen Years since The Secular Power commanded Dr. Burnet Archbishop of St. Andrews to admit into particular Churches and in the relation of Ministers certain Men that had no Episcopal Orders and by consequence were not of the Gospel Priesthood the most excellent and exemplary Prelate refused for this reason Because the Prince may promote to what temporal Possessions he please but he cannot promote to the Authority which is Spiritual as to the former he must be submitted to but not as to the latter And his Lordship was a great example of the last case for denying their Institution he was Suspended from his Bishoprick and sustained it with a due resignation tho' the Government upon second thoughts restored him with greater honour and estimation in which he died But as to the more immediate question and which occasioned this Section you ought to have urged That the consent of the People did not constitute a Minister neither was it any necessary qualification in order to it as Mr. Baxter and his Combination pretended But instead of doing this you reply That an Act of Parliament is sufficient to constitute him such which savours too much of the old Vessel I confess the consequents would be really evil in the Government both of Church and State if he be an Usurper in a Parish to whom the People do not consent the disorders thereby must become intolerable and the consequents would be as noxious on the other hand if the Parliament had the Power of qualifying for it For then the Ministry will be quite swallowed up in the State and every Usurper be his Religion what it will may alter the Priesthood or as in the days of Jeroboam make Priests of whom he please But thus it fares with your Arguments and it is their usual fault That they prove too much You take away Infallibility and the Ministry at once in other places and maintain here the Secular Power to the destruction of the Spiritual I 'll receive him in Seculars whom my Prince is pleased to set over me but none in Spirituals who hath not an Authority which the Secular hand cannot derive unto him 5. But that which crowns all is Pag. 300. when you scatter those mists which some pretend to have before their Eyes that they cannot clearly see what we mean by the Church of England and tell us it is so called because it was received by the common consent of the whole Nation in Parliament Surely if now we be not a Parliament Church we never were in the opinion of any nor ever shall be Should any Man ask me what the Church of England is I would tell him It is that due Succession of Authority Doctrine Worship and Discipline which are now made Law in the Kingdom of England but if that Law ceaseth to own and protest them I should not thereby think it to become less the Church of England For certain there was a Church of England when there was no Parliaments in England according to those who carry their aera or date to the highest pitch And we say There was the very Church of England that now is and neither Parliament nor Pope had appeared in our Coast Besides What if the Parliament of England pass a Bill of Abjuration against the present Church as they did the other day against the Crown of England The Rump Parliament did it Why then your definition of the Church of England is much at the same as Socrates defined a Man Homo est Animal bipes implume A Man is a living Creature with two Feet and without Feathers Diogenes's Jackdaw was as good a Man when he had pluckt his Feathers off The being of the Church of England does not depend upon any such outward advantages or upon the Votes of the People whether in Parliament or out of it We thankfully own the outward advantages she has had and now enjoys by Parliaments but we own withal her separate Being abstracted from them the Church of God here in England is antecedent to them all One while I was willing to think That this Book was wrote by you at a time when the general design was on Foot for enlarging the Privileges of Parliaments or rather of the House of Commons by the Men of Shaftsbury and you might think your self engaged to cast in something and if so you add that which is very considerable making the Being of the Church of England to depend upon their owning and acceptance of it The Kingdom must have Parliaments once a Year at least only for this for otherwise we may have no Church once a Year But then again this seems not to be the reason because I find you to have been of the same Judgment some years before and you reckon up this among the Encroachments and Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome and spoil thereby a good cause viz. That Acts of Parliament were no certain indications of the Judgment of the Church or the generality of the People in that time Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical c. pag. 448. I must therefore conclude that you were somewhat discomposed neither is this the only unwary expression you have let fall within the distance of one or two Pages For you there mix the Pastors and People together as of the same Church diffusive You say farther That to assert in every Church a constitutive regent part as essential to it is the same as the Pope's universal Pastorship And again That the Acts of the Convocation are to be allow'd and enacted by the King and the three States of the Kingdom Flatly against the King's Prerogative in making Church-Laws by the Convocation alone As also your term National Church is as incongruous as any National Congregational Classical are Relatives and give life to one another 6. It doth not appear why you Reprinted that scandalous Manuscript which so immediately opposeth all Church-Power in the utmost latitude of it and by the Authority of so many of our most eminent Reformers Nay farther with an artifice to conceal Archbishop Cranmer's Retraction unless it be to give all the seeming Authority you could to the Doctrines there asserted There is not one Note in the Margent by which it appears that you had then altered your first conceptions of it as Printed in the Irenicum Nay you have own'd and justified it in part in your Epistle to my Lord of London or if there be any alteration made it is least there might be occasion to suspect that Cranmer had deserted you 3. And in the last place you have made no satisfaction at all to the Church of God for that Irenicum Doctrine which equals the Presbyter with the Bishop There is not any thing like amends for it in all your writings that I have met with It is true you often speak of Episcopacy as the most ancient Government derivable from the Apostles But you have not any where asserted it in the number of those Institutions and Practices Apostolical which are perpetual and immutable And until you say this all you can say besides is to no purpose The Bishop is notwithstanding at the mercy of your Prince or your Presbyters when their prudence sees fit to degrade and depose him There is no more Obligation to continue the distinct order of Bishops than that order of Widows in the Epistle to Timothy And thus Sir I have shew'd that you have not made due satisfaction for those errors in your Irenicum concerning the Power of the Church in general and the constitution of our Church in particular of which I accused you in my Letter dated May 1. 1682. I have also shew'd more at large the grounds of my Accusation I beg only this Favour of you That if you think fit to return an Answer you will do it in a Scholar-like way i. e. by Argument and Matter of Fact not Raylings and Nick-names it is really below your quality in the Church to Act Andrew Marvel It was thought by J. O. to be a thing below him And therefore we know on whom he set that Buffoon when his case was much at one with yours and he wanted argument Besides tho' Dr. Burnet was pleased to assign me the Province yet I am not at leasure to catch Flies But if you keep to these terms I shall certainly make a reply and you will thereby oblige Novemb. 6. 1685. Reverend Sir Your Humble Servant SIMON LOWTH FINIS
that you have in some particular passages of this Book declared your self in a different manner than is here represented I answer My business is not to reconcile every contradiction in your Book that were imposible These Tenents which I have here given an account of are what you have deliberately determined setting your self on purpose thereunto and which is more repeated in your Preface at least the most considerable of them which tho' Printed in the head of the Volume yet is always composed last and a sure indication of the Sense of the Author I have observed your own rule in the like case by which you give your judgment of St. Jerom who had some little flights against Truth and his constant opinion as you have here for it and against yours pag. 278. I would fain know whether a Man's Judgment must be taken from occasional and incidental Passages or from designed and set Discourses which is as much as to ask Whether the lively representation of a Man by Picture may best be taken when in hast of other business he passeth by us giving only a glance of his Countenance or when he purposely and designedly sits in order to that end that his Countenance may be truly represented And I must hence conclude that you are as much for those particular points because giving a glance of your Countenance towards them as passing by as you have concluded St. Jerom to have been for the Divine Right of Episcopacy which you then certainly believed him not to be Thirdly I come now in the last place to consider what satisfaction you have made for these your Heterodox defamatory Tenents thus in opposition to the Doctrines Laws Discipline and Practice of our Church together with your vainer and ill-natur'd jealousies and fears that you have insinuated against our Bishops their Power and Office as hazardous to Kingdoms together with your defamations of our most eminent Doctors some of which first promoted our Reformation and sealed it with their Blood others zealously defended and maintained it against all manner of Dissenters The late account that you have given to my Lord of London of your Irenicum is a strong prejudice against you that you are still satisfied with that performance I am sure that acknowledgment and retractation which the reason and equity of things and the Laws of God and Man require at your hands is not to be met with there You are so far from it that you justifie what you have written concerning Episcopacy and by the greatest of humane authorities For you say If you have erred therein it was with a most excellent Prince and a true Friend to the Church of England whose sufferings could never make him warp from what his Conscience and Judgment directed King Charles the First And thus when you have slander'd all our Princes and Bishops since the Reformation to amend the matter you here make the unparallell'd King Charles the First and elsewhere all our present Bishops of your party What thanks the latter will give you I know not but scarce any good Man will forgive you the fixing so bold a Slander on the former Nor can your Friends of the Presbytery take it well at your hands that you should attempt to perswade the World they brought that Glorious Martyr to the Block for being a Presbyterian But the asserting the same thing over again you think to be proof enough against me especially if it be eek'd out with some ill Language I have had this account of Dr. Pocklington a noted Divine of our Church in the days of the blessed Martyr just now mentioned That when he was accused and censured for delivering in a Sermon probably that which he Preached before the Lord Bishop of Lincoln at his Lordship's Visitation at Ampthill in the County of Bedford Aug. 17. 1635. called Sunday no Sabbath some Tenents concerning the Lord's Day which were thought to be Heterodox or rather thought convenient that they should be declared so by a Faction which then prevailed by reason of their compliance with the Puritan Party his Penance was to make a Recantation which he began thus If Canto be to Sing Recanto is to Sing again and so went on with a defence of his Sermon If you designed your Epistle Dedicatory for the same purpose that he was enjoin'd to Preach a Second Sermon your performance is the same or a Singing the Second Part to the same Tune it being only a Self-justification And for the better seeting it off I am brought for the foil whom by the embellishments of your Wit and Oratory you abundantly represented as a Knave and a Fool Malicious and Ignorant and this is the whole subject of it But notwithstanding I have considered that the Epistle was written in a great Passion and indeed it is mostly a discharge of your Choler upon me and designing to be as favourable to you as I can I have set my self to a particular examination of your other Writings which were made publick since the date of your Irenicum to the time that my Book of Church-Power was put into the Press which was September 1683. when your thoughts may be supposed more calm and your Meditations less disturbed For if since you have made any notable retractations I am not in the least concerned in them But alas little of amends is to be found here either in some instances you have offered nothing like a satisfaction in others nothing plenary and as might be expected form a person of your Learning Dignities and Quality in the Church I do therefore thus farther charge you and produce your self for my alone evidence 1. That you have made no satisfaction for the Manuscript which you have Printed and thereby done so much injury to our Church in general in the days of King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth and to our most eminent Doctors in particular In all your works there occurs not one word that mentions it much less that either by confession sorrow or satisfaction makes any thing like an amends for it And tho' it may be disputed whether any one of these alone are sufficient yet where there is no one of them to be sure is no repentance Nay you are so far from any remorse or sense of the black guilt that is upon you for this great and groundless Scandal that you have to your utmost made it more publick and authoritative For it was by you delivered to Dr. Burnet as he owns in his Preface and Printed by your order in his Collection of Records with the Title of Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript and with the approbation of both Houses of Parliament and this was Eighteen Years after the first publication of it in your Irenicum a sufficient time for Second Thoughts and your continued fixed Judgment is thereby notoriously made known to all Men. And so this vagrant illegitimate Script without any date of its own as to time without any original to make it a Record all