thought otherwise Yea when you neither answer our Reasons nor give us the tenth part so much for your Cause as we answered yet we must not think that it is on slight grounds that you have taken up your Opinion pag. 16. when what you say is so slight that as I will not write over again what you vouchsafe not to answer so if your Reader have read my Book cited by you I will not so reproach his judgment as to think that he needeth any farther answer to this of yours But if he have not read mine nor will read it he is in no danger of being seduced by it and so your labour is in vain § 2. But Reader lest so small a word as his oft I conceive should prove to the unwary Synonimal to I deceive I shall advertise thee briefly I. That my way was to distinguish of Conversion 1. As from Heathenism or Infidelity Mahometanism or Heresie 2. From gross Hypocrisie manifested by a notorious wicked Life 3. From close Hypocrisie not proved 4. From a particular fall of a sincere Christian to his integrity or from some tolerable Error and Mistake II. I use to distinguish between Being sincere in the Christian Faith and knowing that we are Sincere III. I use to define what the Conversion is that I speak of in such Controversie IV. And I never confound the Case Whether it may be demanded with the Case whether it may be delivered V. And I still distinguish between A means which an Unconverted self-knowing Man is commanded by God to use for his Conversion and a means which God can use or consequently the Sinner should in the review make use of hereunto supposing that he hath unlawfully intruded As if a Man unlawfully invade the sacred Ministerial Office when he is in it there is somewhat that may become a means of his Conversion Or if one that hath vowed Celibate Marry a godly Person unlawfully it may become a means of their Conversion Now to make this Controversie intelligible to the unstudied I would here perform all these parts and distinctly by Propositions open the Matter But it is done in the Disputations of Right to Sacraments which he opposeth And if every Nibbling of one that refuseth the rational task of a sober Confuter shall call a Man to write new Books there will be no end of tiring Readers I doubt I have Erred already in not letting some talk on and shew their Mistakes and false Accusations without any Confutation § 3. He doth indeed limit the Case to the Unconverted within the Church and you would think that by this he excluded Heathens Mahometans Infidels and Hereticks But remember 1. That the Baptized not Excommunicate are in the Universal Church 2. And that a particular Church with him seems to be nothing but a worshipping Assembly and all that are there are in the Church and when the Meeting breaks up the Church is no Church 3. And yet sometimes you would that think he took a Parish of such Assemblers for a Church 4. And it is matter of Fact past all dispute that not only all the Papists the first ten Years of Queen Elizabeth came to our Churches and some do so still but that abundance such as aforesaid come to the Parish Churches who in Coffee-Houses talk against Christianity or the immortality of the Soul or the Scriptures and such as write Books to the same purposes and these are not converted from Sadducism Beastiality or Infidelity 5. And then mark whether any of this Brother's Arguments do prove that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was ordained for such Men to use for their Conversion § 4. Remember that the full Conversion to Saâ—â—ing-Sincerity is nothing else but sincere Consent to the Baptismal Covenant And every such Consenter and only such Adult are savingly converted And that it is not that Covenant when any essential part is omitted To believe in the Father and not the Son or not in the Holy Ghost is not that Covenant Now the Person in question To receive the Sacrament as the Sacrament Baptism or the Eucharist and not to profess Consent to the Covenant is a contradiction no Man can do it Covenanting is essential to it And it is essential to it to be by God's Commission a Solemn actual investing Delivery with application to the just receiver of a saving Right to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and actual present pardon of Sin and right to Life § 5. And the Person in question is either 1. One that Consenteth not and knoweth that he consenteth not 2. Or that Consenteth not and thinks he doth because he consenteth to some part 3. Or one that consenteth not and knoweth not whether he do or not 4. For as for all true Consenters that know not that they do it sincerely they are Converted Persons and not those in Question And a true Consenter that doubteth of his truth but upon his best self-trial thinks that he truly consenteth to have God for his God and Christ for his Saviour and the Holy Ghost for his Sanctifier must go without certainty upon the best judgment that he make of himself I. Now for the Person that consenteth not and knoweth it to come and demand the Sacrament for his Conversion is all one as to say that It is God's Ordinance that he is not willing after all persuasions to give up himself to God as his Father Saviour and Sanctifier and therefore hath no right to Pardon and Life shall solemnly profess that he doth consent to the Covenant when he doth not and that he doth presently by Vow give up himselfe to God as his God and Father Saviour and Sanctifier when he doth not that this may convert them to do that which lyingly he saith he doth And he shall take the investing pardoning Sign and Act when he hath no right to Pardon Deceive not your self or others Giving and Taking Eating and Drinking are as Speaking significant Actions essentially to the Sacrament And he never received the Sacrament essentially as that Sacrament that did not thereby interpretatively solemnly profess q. d. I now consent to the Covenant of Christ and take God in Christ for my Father Saviour and Sanctifier and here give up my self to him in these Relations And therefore all the Ancients taught that the Baptized were all certainly presently pardoned supposing that they really consented to the Baptismal Covenant as every adult Baptized Person did and must profess And can you believe that this was Christ's Institution q. d. Come and solemnly be Perjured and Lye and say Thou consentest to the Covenant when thou dost not that this may convert thee to Consent All your mistaken row of words will never make this soul Cause fair 2. But what if it be a Man that consenteth not but thinketh he doth or yet doth not know Ans. It is his Sin not to know that he consenteth not and that will not make it lawful for him to Lye and
cohabit or dwell near The confutation is I conceive he is out Ans. What is he against Parish Churches after all this No He only denieth it of a transient Member pro tempore as a Traveller and granteth it as to a stated Member And yet I am out Many and many a time have I written of Churches and use to distinguish first of the Equivocal Name saying That an occasional meeting of Christians for Worship may be called a Church and a transient Christian pro tempore a Member I have written more this way than ever he did But declared that it is a settled Political Society that I defined when I speak of what he now accuseth And why should a wise and good Man thus hastily trouble the World and make discord by pretending because he cannot have leisure to know what he speaks against § 3. My third Error is That to the being of a particular Church there is necessary a mutual Covenant or exprest consent between Pastor and People even every Member and the more express the better And I define a Church to be a Society of Christians consisting of Pastor and People associated by consent The force of the Confutation is I conceive he is out But wherein is it We have here such work as I never met with before 1. He granteth that none are to each other Pastor and People against their Wills Good still And yet do I err But saith he as Christ is Christ and a Saviour by Office whether Sinners will or not So faithful Ministers are Pastors by Office whether the People accept them or no. Reader it is not the least blemish of my Writings that on divers occasions I oft repeat the same things And many a time have I distinctly said 1. That the Ordainers judge who shall be a Minister of Christ in general 2. The Magistrate is judge whom he will Countenance Maintain or Tolerate 3. And the People must be consenting judges to whom they will trust the conduct of their Souls As it 's one thing to be a Licensed Physician and another to be Physician to this Hospital or Person If this Brother mean otherwise what meant he by saying that No Man can be a Pastor to a People against their will Doth he say and unsay in the next Lines Is Christ any Man's actual Saviour whether they believe in him and accept him or not I have oft said that in divers Cases the People may be bound in duty to Consent as all are bound to be Christians But they are no Christians or Church-members till they do Consent What then is it that he meaneth as our Difference § 4. Yes He saith No more is necessary to the being or well-being of a particular Church than this A company of Christians met together in publick for the Solemn Worship of God by Iesus Christ having a Pastor or Minister with them to guide and govern the Congregation and edifie himself and them by the Word and Sacraments where there is no Assembly of Pastor and People there is no Church and no longer than the Assembly lasteth are they a Church Ans. Did the World ever here this Doctrine before When the Church at Ierusalem Corinth Cenchrea Colosse Laodicea c. and the Churches in Iudea Galatia c. are mentioned when the Apostles ordained them Elders in every Church Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 3 5. c. Is the word Church here taken for no Christians longer than they are Assembled Doth not Scripture Canons Fathers and all Writers speak of Churches as Associated Christians remaining Churches all the Day and Year and not only while Assembled If the word Church may be taken for a Transient Assembly doth it follow that there is no other Have we so many Books of Ecclesiastical Policie if there be no Political Society that is a particular Church What an unpleasing talk is it to be put on a defence against such an Opponent § 5. Saith he I would but ask Mr. Baxter what is it that you mean by Associated by consent Ans. Have I in the Books cited by you so largely told you what I mean and must you print the Question before you will take an Answer Saith he Either you mean bare Assembling or some other thing Ans. Will you better understand me if I write it again than you did before When I told you at large in what Cases express consent by words or other signs is meet and that where the Laws settle Parish Churches ordinary attendance and submission to the Pastor's Office must be taken for express Consent But then I do hold that there is such a Church as I describe and that the Parish is not Unchurcht when the Assembly is dismist § 6. He saith When the Assembly breaks up the Church for that time ceaseth till the Meeting be renewed till which time they remain Christian Inhabitants Neighbours Families Parishioners or Sojourners the Pastor of the place dwelling among them Ans. In your Equivocal sense of a Church this is true In the Political sense they are a Church still as the Parliament Citizens Souldiers are a Parliament City Army when they Assemble not If your wrangle be de re do you deny their continued Relation If it be de nomine let the Scripture and all Nations judge whether the name Church belong to them no longer than they are Assembled 1. Then all that stay at Home or are Sick are no Church-members 2. Then the Bishop or Pastor hath no Church but while Assembled And he hath no Duty to perform for his Church but while Assembled 3. This is quite contrary to our Diocesans who say as honest Mr. Cawdry himself that a Diocess is the first particular Church and that it is no matter how many Assemblies it consist of and that there is no Church without a Bishop and so that we have no more Churches than Bishops 4. If a Bishop build a Temple on London Road where Travellers shall be his ordinary Hearers whom he shall never see again this is a Temporary Transient Church but verily it is another sort Church that is described in Scripture and by Ignatius Cyprian and all Church-writers And when the Bishop was to visit the Sick and take care of the Poor and to exhort from House to House it was as for a Church and not meerly as for Christian Neighbours And do you think no more consent was necessary to his special Duty to these more than to others and theirs to him than bare Assembling Atheists Infidels Hereticks may Assemble with the rest and Catechumens ordinarily did so and were never made themselves the judges whether and when they should be Baptized and admitted to Communion but the Pastors were the judges § 7. As to your oft mentioning the words Covenants and Oaths for such Church Associations as if I had written for Oaths or had not written against all needless Covenants which though you say not your words would make the Reader believe whilst over and over it is
you feign them to speak Nonsense or to Tautologize You say You Assent to all but not that All is true Which is a Contradiction or Equivocation § 4. Prove say you that there is any one thing in the Book which may not in the course of Conformity be godly used Ans. To some Men I will undertake to prove nothing If there be no proof in the Book which you write against when you have got leave to Print it you are likely to have more Till then to call for proof when you have it and speak not sense against it is too easie a way to satisfie the Just. § 5. III. I told you by word of Mouth that your Catholicon of trusting to the Bishops Exposition of the Book yea to his silence so gentle and tractable are you become is no relief to you for expounding the Assent Consent Subscription against the obligation of the Vow and about Arms c. because these are part of the Act of Uniformity and you say that Act is no part of the Book To this you Print your Answer that you Have another string to your Bow viz. That the Bishop is by Law the Ordinary to Ordain and take Subscriptions and may admit Ministers to subscribe these Tests with such Explications Meanings and Allowances as will well stand with the words justly and fairly construed Ans. 1. The Bishop is not made the Expounder of the Law but the Receiver of your Subscription according to the Law 2. If you will confound Indulgent Connivance and Conformity must we do so too This is Mr. Humphrey's project And I freely confess to you That if you can meet with an Indulgent Bishop it 's a fairer way to intromit a Dissenter than any that you have named in your Book All words are ambiguous The sense is the Soul of them If e.g. I were commanded to say that The Scripture is not God's Word and I had leave to expound it 1. All Scripture or Writing is not God's Word but the sacred Bible is Or It is not God's Eternal Coessential Word which is Christ were it not for Scandal this might be said as true And some think the Scandal is sufficiently avoided if you give in your sense in Writing and make it as publick as is your Subscription But I think that the very subscribing such scandalous Words will scandalously harden others and encourage Tyrannical Imposers more than your Exposition can Cure and therefore I would not use them And if I would I could cast in such an Expository Writing whether the Bishop will or not And if he accept it I pray better understand that This is not Conformity but Indulgence Connivance Toleration or Prevarication You might as well say He Conformed that by the King's Indulgence was excused from Subscribing and Declaring You put a Supposition that you had gone to Bishop Sanderson and askt his sense according to his Rules de Juramento Ans. I doubt your Party will think you betray their Cause by Prevarication 1. I told you how publickly in a meeting of Bishops Bishop Sanderson gave his judgment about Baptism against you 2. I cited the words of his Rules de Iuramento in the Book which you answer as being plainly against Conformity And you give no answer to it and yet suppose them to be for you This is too supine neglect to satisfie us § 5. You come over your foresaid sense of the Declaration again and pag. 160. You have better bethought you and will take the Debate of the Lords and Commons as useful to know the meaning of the Law Ans. What shall we do then by your Useful Error Why you now say You know nothing in the Book but what may be assented to as true Ans. And why was this so much disclaimed before When you put us to the trouble of Confuting you you Confute your self by changing your Cause and so we labour in vain Your Repetitions of the same things with saying and unsaying and bare saying without proof are so many that I will not wrong the Reader with Confuting any more of them save only to give you some account why I am sorry 1. That you retract your saying that Oaths are stricti juris 2. And that while you pretend to own Bishop Sanderson's Rules de Iuramento you renounce this which is one of the chief of them And I will tell you the reasons of my dissent from that and most of your Book IV. By stricti juris is not meant the meer Literal Sense as different from the less Proper which is more notified but strict is contradistinguished from loose and stretcht I told you the Rule that we go by in this and it pleased you not to Confute it Thus much I repeat 1. We must take Oaths Covenants and Professions imposed by Authority in the sense of the Imposers as near as we can know it 2. But if they discover their Sense in words so unmeet as that in the Vulgar Sense they seem false or wicked we must number such with unlawful words unless we can by the publick notifying the Exposition avoid the Scandal 3. We are to take the Laws and imposed words of Rules especially in Oaths Covenants and Professions in that sense as those words are commonly used and understood in that time and place by Men of that Profession Unless the said Rulers make known that they use them in a different unusual sense 4. We must not presume that they mean not as they speak by an unusual sense upon dark and uncertain Conjectures especially dictated by our Interest but only by Cogent Evidence These are our Rules The reasons why we cannot Swear or Covenant or profess in your Laxe and stretched sense nor call that sense honest as you do especially on pretence of a Bishop's Exposition contrary to what I have reason to be fully satisfied our Law-makers meant are those which I gave you in the thirty Aggravations Sect. 16. which it did not please you to contradict These few I repeat I. The words of the Third Command are dreadful God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain or falsly II. Such licentious stretching of Oaths and Professions overthrow that mutual trust which is necessary to Humane Converse III. It depriveth the King of his due security of his Subjects Loyalty and of his Peace and Life I much fear lest relaxing and stretching the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy but as much as you relax and stretch the words of the Subscription Declaration Liturgie c. may untie the Consciences of Rebels and King-killers so far as to make way for and consist with Rebellion and killing the King IV. It seemeth to me most dangerously to expose the Lives of all the Subjects of the Kingdom to the will of their Enemies and to be a Vertual Murdering of many or any if not all Persons that have Enemies For while two false Swearers may take away a Mans Life if Men are taught to stretch Oaths and
Of the use of the Apocryphal writings as they are imposed by the Calendar and Rubrick to be approved of and consented to CHAP. XII Concerning consenting to the Imposition of Reading the Liturgy every day CHAP. XIII About denying Christian burial to unbaptized Infants and persons excommunicated CHAP. XIV Touching Confirmation CHAP. XV. Whether we may declare our Consent that none should be admitted to the Communion till he be confirmed or desirous and ready to be confirmed CHAP. XVI Concerning the sole sponsion of God-Fathers in the Liturgie CHAP. XVII Concerning the imposing of kneeling at the Lords supper CHAP. XVIII Of the Cross in baptism as a Consecrating dedicating sign § 1. Reasons against it ibid. The silence of Christ in this matter 2. It seemeth to accuse Christ's Law of imperfection 3. Christ commissioned not his Apostles to institute any new Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace Whether it be made a Sacrament § 2. Of Gods prohibition 12 Deut. of adding or diminishing § 3. Mr. C's Argumentum ad hominem considered § 4. The antient Christians practise § 5. Mr. C's objection removed § 6. The meaning of the second commandment in forbidding Images § 7. Mr Cheney's concession § 8. A full explication of the nature of that sign § 9. Answer to the great Bishops notions § 10. Of the efficacy of Sacraments from Aquinas c. § 11. More objections answered and cavils removed § 12. c. CHAP. XIX About giving the Sacrament to all parishioners thrice a year CHAP. XX. Of accusing those that are refused the communion within 14 dayes The true case of the parish minister's power to suspend his own act and not give the Sacrament against his conscience in 22 particulars § 2. CHAP. XXI Of the Chancellor's office Of Mr. C. thirteen parts of discipline § 2. Proved to be defective § 3. Objection answered § 4. What power the parish minister hath in publishing an excommunication § 5. CHAP. XXII Of the Surplice CHAP. XXIII Of the Rule for finding Easter day CHAP. XXIV Concerning our Assenting Consenting to and approving of the many disorders and defects in the Liturgy CHAP. XXV Whether we may assent to the Preface for justifying all that was in the Book before CHAP. XXVI Whether the Act of Uniformity be any part of the book to which we are required to give our consent CHAP. XXVII About declaring it unlawful to take arms by the Kings authority against any commissionated by him CHAP. XXVIII Of the Obligation of the Covenant handled at large per tot CHAP. XXIX About the exposition of Oaths and Laws CHAP. XXX Several false devices of Mr. Ch. for stretching of Subscriptions Covenants and Professions The vanity of which is discovered CHAP. XXXI Mr. Cheney ' s conclusion evidenced to be a bundle of mistakes and impertinencies CHAP. XXXII A full and clear answer to Mr. Ch's supplement The second part Mr. Cheney's Five undertakings considered 1 Quest. Whether it be certain by Gods word that Infants baptized dying before actual sin be undoubtedly saved 2 Quest. Whether may unconverted ones within the Church demand and receive the Lords supper 3 Quest. Whether a minister may put from the Sacrament those of his parish who be Christned People and come to Church and joyn in the publick worship and tender themselves to receive being under no sentence of Excommunication 4 Quest. Whether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by penal excommunication and used as excommunicate ones 5 Quest. Whether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good A DEFENCE OF THE NON-CONFORMIST'S Plea for Peace AGAINST Mr. J. CHENY THE Non-conforming Conformist CHAP. I. § 1. DEar Brother I have diligently read and considered your Book and think it my duty to give a short Account of the Effect I have reproved many that blame you for not telling me first of it and knowing what I could say to it before you ventured to publish it 1. Because of our true Love and Acquaintance 2. Because a man should be willing to try and hear the utmost before he engage too deep 3. Because if you mistake it is many and heinous sins that you may be guilty of by hardening multitudes in impenitency To which I answer then 1. I consulted not you before I wrote and why then must you needs consult me 2. A wise man can conjecture what may be said against him without asking 3. You might suspect some hinderance to that which you judged a necessary duty 4. You have heard and read what the Non-Conformists say as I did what the Conformists say without any further consultation But I am most impatient with them that suspect your intention and design and do hereby profess to them that know you not so well as I do that I do from my heart believe you to be a better man than my self of good judgment in other things of greater meekness patience humility and self-denyal and do verily believe that your End was to promote Christian Love and Concord which was mine And as I wrote to cure mens uncharitable thoughts of the Non-Conformists so did you to cure or prevent mens thinking worse of the Conformists than they do deserve an End that 's good and necessary § 2. But our measures of understanding are so various that it is no wonder that we differ about the means And therefore lest I should be guilty 1. Of deserting the Truth and Cause of Righteousness 2. And of the loss of the Plaister which I made to heal the ulcerated minds of the haters and reproachers and silencers of them that deserve it not 3. And of the sin of such as be drawn by your Book to that which hath the aggravations which I named and fear my self I shall take the freedom of telling you and others my thoughts of your performance in your Book § 3. I. I perceive it is not your design to draw any man into so much Conformity as will procure him allowance in the Publick approved Ministry And then what the better will the Church be for his change in all the rest while one point of Non-conformity will keep him out as well as a hundred For 1. You profess that you cannot justifie all though you fain would 2. You over-pass some in your defence 3. You call your self a Non-conforming Conformist 4. You are fain to fly from your Country being an excommunicate man and to live in a poor condition among strangers to keep out of the Goal to avoid the Writ de excommunicato capiendo and yet you lived under the Worthy and Learned Bishop Pearson accounted one of the most moderate and best in England And what good would so much Conformity do the Church Can we serve them in a Prison any better than Non-Conformists may But let us consider of your Defence it self § 4. II. You would have your Reader have my Book before him and you profess to answer it and yet you profess
King and Parliament left to the judgment of the Convocation the present Settlement proveth what was the Convocations judgment who are the present Church of England's representative They that are against Reordaining and yet call men to be ordained certainly judge them unordained before And you are to take your Ordination and speak the words in the known sense of the Imposers or else you equivocate And what Reasons have you to deceive them At least it is notorious scandal to seem to do it in an ill sense And when you pretend that your Ministry else must be forsaken we say No It is but to save you from suffering for your Ministration as long as you can use it on suffering terms And you have not escaped suffering nor saved your Ministry by Conforming If you would rather suffer than not Preach to Non-Conformists when you had an allowed Church of Conformists should not we rather suffer than by our Reordination submit to that which is the Churches or Laws publick professing that we were no Ordained Ministers of Christ before when after that we have never the more liberty for our Ministry unless we conform to all the rest I remember three Worthy men re-ordained one fourteen and two seventeen years ago that had never the more liberty to Preach § 5. You say that Ordination by eminent and Senior Presbyters is Episcopal Ordination though not in the vulgar sense For a Bishop and Presbyter in the sense of Scripture are the same Ans. Remember this when you subscribe to the distinction of Order And I believe you cannot name two Bishops in England if one that had a Vote in Parliament and Convocation for making the imposing Laws that were of your mind Nor two that will now say that it is lawful to be twice ordained Presbyter And remember 1. That it is the Act of Uniformity that requireth this last Ordination 2. That the Bishop of London of Lincoln of Hereford came into their places since and were none of the Legislators § 6. You say If the Presbyters excel those Bishops Ordination by them is more excellent than by these Ans. And yet can you assert that they are distinct Orders when the Power of Ordaining is made the chief part of the Bishops Order I that am against you stick at this somewhat more than you when the Law and Canon make the Bishop of the Quorum And as I was ordained by a Bishop so I never joyned with Presbyters in ordaining any man nor did venture to lay hands on any in an Ordination CHAP. III. § 1. YOur second Section is of our Assent to the words in the Book of Ordination of the Notoreity of the Antiquity of the three distinct Orders And 1. You justifie it by telling us that difference of Holiness Wisdom Usefulness may be said to make different Orders But this is too lusory in a serious business Words of Art or Science are to be understood according to the use of the men of that Art or Science And the many old School Disputes and Controversal Writers tell us long ago how they understood the word Orders as Offices in Specie differing from Degrees in the same Species In your equivocal sense you say true that there are more than three Orders or threescore Yea in the usual sense of old they had seven Orders and yet they held Bishops and Presbyters to be but one of the seven as I shewed you out of Spelman in Aelfrick's Canons of this Church of England in the very times of Popery § 2. You say you make it not an Article of your Faith that this sense of Episcopacy is evident to all men that diligently read Scripture and Antient Writers But the question is Whether you Assent to it or more If not how can you say you do The Bishop of Hereford in Naked Truth hath given you some reasons of dissent and Bishop Usher and many such have done so before him § 3. Whether you hit their sense or not gather by what I said to your former Point of Re-ordaining CHAP. IV. § 1. YOu next choose to speak of our Assent and Consent to the Bishop's Oath to subject himself in obedience to the Arch-Bishop and to his Seat or Metropolitan Church and to his Successors And you tell us that all men are bound to subject themselves one to another This again is too gross equivocating Do you believe that this is the Species of subjection which is meant in the Book and Oath § 2. You better tell us that being Episcopus primae sedis he may be reverenced as the Fore-man of a Iury. But is this obeying him and his Church and Successors Is not this also Equivocation Do they swear Obedience to the Fore-man and his Successors § 3. Your best answer is It is enjoyned by Authority And if it were but obeying them in Civils or circa sacra in matters determinable by the King this answer had much in it Bâ—â— when it is intended to be in the exercise of the Word and Keys and Matters which Christ hath predetermined those Non-Conformists that are not for the Divine Right of Arch-Bishops cannot assent and consent to it And those of them that are for it do with you hold that there should be Parochial Bishops or to every Church and that those that you call Diocesans are indeed Arch-Bishops And they are not for Arch-Bishops over Arch-Bishops lest it lead you to a Pope as he was in the Empire at least § 4. And Successions so often prove unhappy that we like not setting up one Church over another to the end of the world when we cannot justifie it at all They that are contrary to the Carthage Fathers for a Bishop of Bishops would yet have him their Ruler but as an Arch-Bishop as General Officers in an Army over the Colonels but not that our Church shall be set over many others much less to swear to unknown Successors § 5. And I told you divers old Councils condemned Bishops swearing inferiours to them as the cause of many mischiefs and sad experience taught them to make that Canon CHAP. V. § 1. NExt you speak of the Oath or Covenant of Canonical Obedience And you 1. Doubt whether it be an Oath In the Act of Ordination it is but a Covenant But what they do now I know not but heretofore it was also imposed as an Oath You tell me of my Concessions I grant that â—o far as they exercise but such power as belongeth to Officers of the King we may obey him in covenanting to obey them But it is in the exercise of the Keys proper to Christ's special Officers that the Book meaneth which you assent to even in matters of sacred Guidance Excommunication and Absolution And you say nothing to satisfie 1. Those that are under obtruded and unlawful Bishops that come in so contrary to Christ's and the Old Churches Order as that the Old Canons decree them to be no Bishops 2. Nor to satisfie those that think
Chancellors use of the Keys to be unlawful 3. Nor those that think that Officials Surrogates Commissaries Arch-Deacons being no Bishops have no just power but what the King may give them and not a superior Power of the Keys see Dr. Hammond's Explication of it § 2. But after you think that none but the Bishop is the Ordinary but the Church-Laws and common use contradict you and call all these when Judges of the Court your Ordinaries § 3. And I told you which you pass over that this is condemned by the Decrees of Antient Councils as a mischievous thing § 4. You say It binds us not to obey the Canons else the Oath of Allegiance would bind us to it and all the Statute-Laws Answ. This hath more seeming strength than the rest But 1. If it did hold it removeth but one branch of the difficulty 2. And indeed he that sweareth Obedience to the King doth swear to obey him according to the Law And so he that sweareth Obedience to the Bishop may mean more and include Mandates but he cannot reasonably mean less and exclude the Governing Laws But yet as we never meant that the King's Laws are all blameless or that we will obey them if they command us to sin against God but only will shew our submission by suffering So I confess our Oath to Bishops as such can mean no more But then were I under a King whose very frame of Laws were unlawful as tending to extirpate Piety I should doubt whether I might simply swear to obey him as my Governor How far the Canons are more unmeet instruments for true Church-Government than our Laws are for Civil Government I will not here enquire CHAP. VI. § 1. YOur fifth Section is about the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. in Ordination 1. Two things you include in the sense 1. Inward Qualifications 2. Investiture But I told you 1. Inward Qualifications are presupposed and the person examined accordingly 2. I never heard or knew of any that received them by Ordination 3. By Investiture it is the Ministerial Office that is given them To none of this do you answer But you say Christ used the words and no extraordinary thing then conferred c. Ans. 1. If Christ intended their after-reception of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost it followeth not that we must use such words that can promise or give no such spirit 2. There were five several sorts of Mission or Commission then given to Christ's Ministers 1. Christ sent out the twelve and seventy temporarily to Preach do Miracles and return and gifted and blessed them accordingly 2. He chose twelve as related to the number of the Tribes and ordained them stated Apostles to the Jews or Circumcision and he qualified them accordingly by his Spirit 3. He ordained them Apostles to all the world indefinitely and accordingly renewed their Commission For this he qualified them with ordinary gifts of his Spirit initially now at his resurrection together with their new Commission and more fully and miraculously at Pentecost You know how ignorant the Apostles were of Christ's Death Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. till he was risen And then Christ opened their understandings in these Articles and gave more Faith and answerably we must conceive other grace was given than they had before This cannot be denyed And is not this giving of the Holy Ghost more than man must now pretend to imitate 4. Besides these there were after-missions of particular Apostles as Paul and Barnabas or particular messages in particular Provinces 5. And there was the Ordaining of Bishops or Elders as fixed Guides of particular Churches And these being ordinary Officers were ordinarily to be qualified before they were ordained and not to receive their Abilities by their Ordination And this is the Ordination that we have to do with CHAP. VII § 1. YOur sixth Section requireth pity rather than reply The Church that a Bishop is ordained to is many hundred Parishes the Bishop of Lincoln hath many Counties You know by whom the Bishops are Chosen and where Consecrated The words were originally used to the Church over which the Bishop was placed And is it serious dealing to send word to none of them of your Time or Place and then call to Men in a Church in London or a private Chappel to come forth and speak their Exceptions If you can prove that this may be Assented and Consented to you have a stronger proving Faculty than I have CHAP VIII § 1. I See nothing satisfactory to the Objections which I made about the Damnatory Passages in Athanasius's Creed And I had reference much to a Manuscript in which Mr. Dodwel is the Objector and the Bishop of Lincoln supposed the Answerer which he doth with great Learning and Impartiality But to his Argument That we are not to Assent to the truth of the Passages excepted against because we read the Apocrypha and yet the Church intendeth not to bind us to believe some Untruths in it which he nameth I Answered that Athanasius's Creed is part of the Book which we must assent to but the Apocrypha is not I make less my self of this Scruple than the rest because I have reason to believe Athanasius meant it well when I have not the same assurance of the meaning of the Authors of some late Impositions CHAP. IX § 1. YOur Sect. 8 about the certainty of Baptized Infants Salvation being made here an Article of Faith I have much more to say against But you answer not to any of the strength of my Objections 1. And how strange is it that you saw a Manuscript of Bishop Usher's telling us of this Clause coming surreptitiously into the Book whereas he was Dead two Years before the Book was altered or that Clause put in Indeed there was another in that sounded almost like it which meant no more than that A Baptized Child hath all that is necessary to Salvation supposing his right ex parte Ecclesiae though he die without Confirmation or the Eucharist which were formerly given to Infants But this never said what the new Article saith § 2. You say many Conformists say It is no part of Assent and Consent because it is not used as part of the Church Service and they subscribe to no more Answ. Name not those Conformists lest you Dishonour them Do they declare their Assent to all things contained in the Book and mean only the Service which they must say Or do they Consent to the use of all and take an Article of Faith to be put in for no use Intreat them not to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy with that Latitude and Exceptiousness § 3. You say you can Assent to it in a sound sense And it's more than you can prove that all Infants are saved but all that have right before God are saved but not those that have no right before God Answ. 1. But you were told that the Church signifies her sense by
also the excepting of the Excommunicable or Notorious wicked Men. But by such stretches what words may not Protestant or Papist take by an Exposition of his own making If three sorts excepted limit you not from excepting more What can do it I have tried the sense of the most Leading Man in these Liturgick Changes that I know whether he would consent that the words should be further extended to except the Excommunicable or Notoriously Flagitious and he most contemptuously rejected it as if it would leave power to every Presbyter to Damn whom he would and to Excommunicate Men after Death without a Bishop 3. But you will prove your feigned Sense to be right because the Canon 68. saith If the party Deceased were denounced Excommunicate Majore Excommunicatione for some grievous and notorious Crime and no Man able to testifie of his Repentance the Prayers are not to be said at his Burial Ans. Could you have more evidently confuted your self The Church alloweth you yea requireth you to forbear the said Prayers 1. If it be a notorious Sinner 2. Excommunicated 3. And that Majore Excommunicatione 4. And there be no proof of his Repentance And hence you can infer That the Church meant it also of Notorious Sinners not Excommunicate What Alchimy is this Whereas the Church is herein specially careful that the Priest may not be the Judge What need the Major Excommunication be put in if it were not meant The Canon here declareth the Churches Sense more obligingly than any Bishop can do CHAP. XIV § 1. WHat you say of the whole substance of Confirmation referred to the Parish Pastor the Ceremony only reserved to the Bishop is all without Book and a meer mistake as the Bishops will soon tell you and common experience Had you heard what the Bishops at Worcester House before the King and Lords said against inserting into the King's Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs that one word Consent viz. the Minister's Consent to the confirming of those of his Flock and how it after came in you would not have talkt at this rate of our Consent CHAP. XV. § 1. YOur fourteenth Section is of the doubt Whether we may Declare our Consent that none should be admitted to the Communion till he be confirmed or desirous and ready to be confirmed To this 1. You say of your own head That Confirmation is not intended for them that have been already admitted to the Lord's Table without any proof though clean contrary to your Covenant of Conformity The words are That None are to be admitted till c. And you say That by None is meant None except all that have been so already admitted that is most of the Communicants by far in England and all that come out of France Holland Scotland c. What a great limitation hath this None None except almost all or most Boccaline tells us of a device at Rome to make a man's throat swallow a Pompion and then no doubt any Physician may procure the swallowing of a Pill § 2. But you are perswaded you shall not meet with one person that will not desire it rather than be put from the Sacrament Ans. 1. But it is not your own practice only that you must profess consent to but to the Use of the Rubrick as it is a Law to all others Do you think no other shall meet with such because you may not 2. Remember that the Confirmation in question is little kin to that which I and Mr. Hanmer have written for A very Learned Bishop told me lately that it is for the giving of the Holy Ghost by Imposition of hands And whatever you feign it is confined to the Order of Bishops Do you know what Dallaeus de Confirmat hath said against it And that all are against it as with us that are against Diocesan Prelacy I know few Non-Conformists in England that are for it or desire it When I pleaded for it in 1660. hoping to have reduced the English Confirmation to that which I described in my Treatise of Confirmation had you but heard how much the truly Learned judicious honest Dr. Wallis said against it who is a publick Professor in Oxford a Conformist and the King's Chaplain you would not think that you shall never meet with any that will not desire it c. 3. I think most of England are unconfirmed if they desire it what keepeth them from it 4. They may not desire it and yet not be kept from the Sacrament For he that receiveth it not of you or any Conformists may receive it of others And all the Conformists that ever I saw deliver the Sacrament give it to the unconfirmed and never ask them whether they desire it And yet you must covenant not to give it to any such as desire not Confirmation and Consent that this be imposed on all others § 3. But you say Such a remote possibility shall not keep you from Conformity That is You will Consent to the Use of this Rubrick which requireth that none in England give the Sacrament to any that desire not our Episcopal Confirmation which almost all the Non-Conformists desire not and most of England shew by their practice that they desire not because you conceit that you shall meet with none such your self who perhaps may never administer the Sacrament at least till you are absolved from your Excommunication And yet you are so honestly against Division that you will not separate from the Non-Conformists and their Assemblies though you suffer for it These things hang not well together CHAP. XVI § 1. YOur 15th Section is against my greatest Objection the manner of baptizing by God-fathers sole sponsion in the Liturgy Where you take your own Order and not mine to satisfie your self and put four questions and overlook the main or say as good as nothing to it My first question is Which way the Child cometh to have right to Baptism any more than all the Infidels Children in the world That is Whether the meer Sponsion of God-fathers who adopt not the Child nor take him for their own nor are at all required to do so do give or prove a Right to Baptism and consequently to undoubted Salvation or pardon in all the Infants of Apostates Sadduces Infidels Brutists Arrians Socinians Wicked men Atheists yea or of any other I told you how Conformists and other Divines here differ but you easily pass by the difficulty 2. And the next question is Whether the Church of England require any ground of title in the Infant besides the Sponsion of the fore-described God-fathers and God's general Promise And I have proved that they do not It is not the Parents Christianity or Faith that they require nor the Grandfathers nor any Pro-parents or Adopters or Proprietors Nor do they ask Whose Child it is but forbid us to refuse any that have God-fathers nor do they suffer the Parent to be one of the God-fathers but forbid him so much as to
Ministers may break them by admitting such Persons to the Sacrament as it excludeth For 1. You Covenant to Administer only according to the Liturgy 2. The Canon punisheth all Ministers that give it against the Prohibition 3. And the Rubrick excludeth your supposed power of Dispensation Can you believe your self that the meaning of the Liturgy and Canon is None shall be admitted that desire not God-Fathers except such as will not out of an Erring Conscience Are those then admitted that through Prophaneness desire not God-Fathers If so then you make the sense to be Those that have not God-Fathers shall not be admitted to that Sacrament except all that will not viz. Conscienciously or Prophanely If not then the sense must be You shall admit none to that Sacrament that have no God-Fathers through Parents Prophaneness but all that have none through scruple of Conscience And who cannot pretend such scruple And who will not pretend it when that will justifie them And how would the Bishops reproach such an Exposition which either maketh every Priest a judge of Mens Hearts whether their pretence be true or not or else admitteth all that will not have God-Fathers while the admission of any of them is expresly forbidden It is a stretching Exposition indeed which is against the whole form of the Office and the express words of the Churches Canon No Parent shall be God-Father to his own Child Try whether any two Bishops in England will allow you any such Exposition If such be allowed in this Case why not in all other like it And so the meaning of Law Canons and Rubrick be You shall do thus except when you have Moral Reason against it such as is Mercy which must be preferred Do you know how many have been Fined and sent to Goal for Preaching though they pleaded for it Mercy to Mens Souls Do you believe that it was the meaning of the Parliament and Bishops You shall keep no Conventicles nor omit the Liturgy or Ceremonies or Subscription c. unless when Mercy is to be preferred They that have Auditors that cannot bear the Liturgy when they omit it in mercy to the Flock I pray you get us an authentick signification of this Sense The words cited by you in the Preface to the Articles of 1604 are impertinent to our business It followeth not that you have leave to break the Laws when you think mercy requireth it because they are not equivalent to the Eternal Word of God nor bind conscience as of necessity in the nature of them considered in themselves and not in the Authority of the Commander Again I ask Shall any man escape punishement by such a plea of mercy Are not two thousand Ministers silenced and more that pleaded Mercy to themselves and others for the reason of their Non-conformity Did your Learned Pious Moderate Bishop excuse you for that plea Doth not the express words of the Law and Canon and Rubrick and the sentence and execution of all Judges to this day confute your exposition and exception You truly say It is a sin to make a false construction of the Law But if against the express words and scope and common judgment and execution you will presume to put your sense which is merciful because Charity thinketh no evil Any thing almost may be so said consented to and sworn I have spoken with a Papist that hath taken the Oath of Supremacy and wrote for it because it is to be supposed that it is only the spiritual power called Pastoral which the Pope claimeth over England or such give him and only the Power of the Sword which the King claimeth and denyeth to him and Foreigners And he citeth a fairer pretence for his exposition than you do here for yours And thus all may take up the Oath of Supremacy that hold but the Popes Spiritual Supremacy over us and all the world What words can be so bad that a man may not feign in Charity a good sense of § 9. You say the Liturgy alloweth private Baptism without the Cross and God-fathers Ans. 1. Thence I must gather that it doth not so allow publick Baptism no not on pretence of necessity and mercy else why had they not exprest their allowance of one as well as of the other 2. And even there it must be repeated after in the Congregation with God-fathers that believe and promise in the Name of the Child And in the house there is nothing named or required of the Parent but some one whoever is only to name the child § 10. In the Margin you say There is no express prohibition in all the Liturgy tying Ministers in no case to baptize without the Cross and to give the Sacrament to kneelers only and to baptize none without Sureties Ans. I am glad that your whole writing favoureth of that spirit of Love and Christian Peace and Forbearance as your dislike of these things signifieth And while we agree about the sense of God's Law we shall not break Charity for our differing of the sense of the Laws of man But seeing you put these great points of my Non-conformity here together I shall briefly repeat the reasons of my exposition against yours Words are to signifie the mind and the matter If the Book speak intelligibly so as to oblige us to one sense it 's nothing to our case whether the prohibition be express I. The Liturgy-Rubrick saith There shall be for every male-child to be baptized two God-fathers and one God-mother and for every female one God-father and two God-mothers II. The whole transaction beside prayer to God and the act of Baptizing is mainly speech to the God-fathers and demands of them and their answer by professing Abrenunciation Faith desire to be Baptized resolved Obedience They must name the Child They are exhorted to see that the Child be taught what a solemn Vow Promise and Profession he made by them c. and to be brought up to the Bishop to be confirmed III. In the Baptism of the Adult the God-fathers are called but Witnesses as not giving the person Title to Baptism But in the Baptism of Infants they do profess and covenant in the Child's name and he doth it by them as his very Title IV. The Catechism saith That Repentance and Faith are required of persons to be Baptized and as the old Book said They perform them by their Sureties so the new one saith They promise them by their Sureties and therefore are Baptized V. For the Cross the Liturgy saith Here the Priest shall make a Cross on the Child's fore-head And it referreth us to the Canon for the sense and reasons VI. The Communion-Rubrick saith He shall deliver it into their hands All meekly kneeling VII The last Rubrick saith It is ordained in this Office that the Communicants shall receive the same kneeling VIII The same Church by Can. 36. requireth every Minister to subscribe that he will use the Form in that Book prescribed in Publick Prayer and
39 Articles and the Liturgy for they contradict not themselves Ans. There is no shew of contradiction If the Church in three Books express her sense must I not set all together and take them in all And when the Liturgy purposely referreth the unsatisfied to the Canon for her sense and reason it 's an odd way of expounding it to forsake the Canons Exposition and say I reduce it to the Liturgy Doubtless all three together express their sense § 7. The second Commandment forbad not all private use of Images either a Civil or meer Memorative or Monitory private yea or publick use As it forbad not Iacob to pitch a stone of remembrance or the Israelites to make a Memorative and Monitory Altar and yet forbad such an Altar for Worship to be erected without God's Order But it was external symbolizing with Idolaters by Images which the second Commandment forbad that is either worshiping them or God by them or by setting them up in the place of Worship seeming so to do So it is not all use of a Cross that breaketh the second Commandment When you have proved lifting up the hand or laying it on the Book c. to be Sacraments I shall further answer you Or if the second Commandment oblige us not to use Christ's Sacraments as it is now one of Christ's Commandments then I shall confess that it forbiddeth not us to devise the like § 8. You say If it be a Sacrament it would be universally unlawful If Baptism had not been ordained by Christ it would have been traiterous and sinful to use it as a Sacrament Ans. You grant us enough I durst not have used the word traiterous so boldly lest I should anger the Conformists But when did you prove that every professing sign is used to the same use in specie as the covenanting dedicating Symbol of the Cross is This was a supposition not so easily to have been begged § 9. As to my Simile That Baptism is Christ's Badge or Colours it illustrates in the point of similitude And so it doth that the King would take it ill to have a publick badge of the Order of the Garter to be added to his Star by a private Subject much more for any to make a Law for all his Subjects to be known by a badge of private invention You say That it 's lawful to wear those Colours in the Troop which he may wear out Ans. Yes if he may wear them out in specie to the same use and ends But if you at a Funeral wear a black Ribbon and your General 's Colours be white and some Souldiers will make a Law That the badge of all the Souldiers shall be black Ribbons joyned to the white it would not then be lawful for you in or out of the Troop to wear that black as the badge of a Souldier much less to declare that you approved of and consented to the imposition And when you tell me I allow the use of it I tell you I allow not your use prescribed by the Church You say I can never prove that Christ forbad it And yet you say before that It 's traiterous to have made a Sacrament without Christ. But you affirm That it 's made but for the same use in Baptism which I allow out But why did you not give some answer to my express proof of the contrary Or why put you me so oft to repeat it It is an outward visible sign by which in the solemnizing of the Covenant between Christ and us the person is dedicated to God by receiving the said sign of the Grace of the Covenant and the obligation of the Covenant and of the persons professed consent and engagement to the duties of it 1. That it is a Badge of Christianity the thirtieth Canon saith twice 2. That it is an honourable Badge by which the Infant is dedicated to the service of God the same Canon saith 3. That it is a Covenanting sign both the celebrating words and these of the Canon shew 4. That it is a sign of professed Consent to the Covenant-duties there named Not to be ashamed to confess the Faith of Christ crucified and manfully to fight under his banner against the World Flesh and Devil and to continue Christ's faithful Servant and Souldier to his lives end The words shew and none denyeth 5. That it is an Obliging sign both as imposed by God's Minister and as self-obliging by the said professed Consent is also exprest in the same words And this is it which is called The Covenant-Vow The person is Vowed or Devoted to God by two Sacramental signs Baptism and the Cross. 6. That it signifieth also God's Grace given by that Covenant the words of the expository Canon 30 shew To dedicate them by that badge to his service whose benefits bestowed on them in Baptism the name of the Cross did represent To the service of him that dyed on the Cross. 7. Yea that it is an Investing sign delivering the Church-priviledges appeareth in the words We receive this Child into the Congregation of Christ's Flock and do sign him with the sign of the Cross. 8. And that it is to operate Grace morally on the Intelligent is exprest in the foresaid words of instructing and obliging signification with the preface of the Liturgy To stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God by a notable and special signification whereby he might be edified § 10. Anno 1660. endeavouring to prevent what followed I used these same reasons with the great Bishop who I think hath had the first and and chief hand in the matter as it standeth and he denyed but two things of the Sacramental Cross 1. That it is of God's institution which he thought essential to a Church-Sacrament To which I say It is a humane unlawful Sacrament but that it is not Divine we easily grant 2. That the Cross giveth Grace I answered that effectually it doth not because God will not bless unlawful means But it is appointed by man to give or work Grace This I proved 1. Because as it is a Receiving sign into the Church it delivereth by Investiture the Relative Grace of Church-priviledges 2. As the Water of Baptism worketh morally by signifying the washing of Christ's Blood so the Cross is to operate morally by signifying Christ's Crucifixion the benefits of the Cross and our duty But he laid the stress of his Cause on this assertion That Sacraments as such are to give grace otherwise than by such moral operation and it is no Sacrament that is not instituted to give God's grace otherwise than morally I told him how commonly Protestants maintain that they are not instituted to give grace physically but only morally and by investiture in relations And here we broke And because I must expect that from others that are driven to it this will be the last refuge I will add that even the wisest Papists themselves do maintain only
or Sadduces that believe no Life to come Many are conscious of secret Fornication Drunkenness Stealing Deceiving c. rhe Minister or Magistrate is no judge of these Yet if they Communicate not they break the Rubrick and Law and are to be punished Many hundreds are conscious of secret unpreparedness and many timorous honest People so afraid of eating and drinking Judgment c. that they dare not come And many on many accounts are unwilling and yet all these are commanded to come In a word No unwilling Person hath right to the Sacramental Benefits and yet all such are commanded on great Penalties to Communicate thrice a Year 2. And I hinted how many were forced to admit to our wrong and theirs which you answer not CHAP. XX. § 1. YOur 19th Section is for our accusing those that we refuse to the Ordinance within fourteen days that he may proceed against them according to the Canon And first you tell us a strange thing which were it true would half reconcile me to the English sort of Prelacy viz. That the lesser Excommunication out of a particular Congregation seems to be allowed to all the Parish Ministers Say you so What a sleep have I been in these 50 Years since I have been Ordained it's 41 Years that never could hear or read of any such thing I have indeed read some honest Passages like it in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast published by Iohn Fox which died before it was born and only shewed the good purposes of King Edward and his Divines But in our Articles Canons Liturgies or Book of Ordination I can find no such thing nor imagine what could thus deceive you Nor can I see any such thing in Cosms's Tables nor in any Conformist's Writings which describe our Church Government What was in Doctor Mocket's Book that was burnt I know not By the Execution done on it and their hatred of Arch-Bishop Abbot I should think it was as likely to be there as any where But if it were it is no proof The Laws and Authorized Church-Canons and Forms must decide the Case Were there but any tolerable Parish Discipline I would never quarrel against Diocesans Nay could I but have been a Pastor and not a meer Slave or Executioner of the will of others against my Conscience § 2. I cannot imagine what you mean unless it be that the Canon and Rubrick say That we shall not admit to the Communion such As be openly known to live in Sin notorious without Repentance nor any who have maliciously and openly contended with their Neighbours till they be Reconciled nor any that desire not Confirmation But 1. Do you take this temporary suspension of my act of delivering this Man the Sacrament to be the Minor Excommunication viz. our of that particular Congregation You are much mistaken as any Bishop or Chancellor can tell you He is Member of that Congregation still You only suspend your own Act and his Reception till his Case be tried and judged by the Chancellor or Diocesan whether he shall be cast out or not 2. Nay could all our importunity with the Bishops have prevailed but for a Power in the Parish Minister for Pastor they would not have been called to suspend his own Act and not give or deny the Sacrament against his knowledg and Conscience I should not have said much against Diocesans nor any reasonable Appeals to them But I will tell you what I take our Case to be after my long enquiry I. The great Parishes that have many score thousand Souls are such as the Priest or Incumbent I may call him knoweth not one of a multitude of his Parishioners And Bishop Taylor of Repentance Pref. saith A man cannot take charge of or answer for the Souls that he knoweth not And though fame say That in such a Parish there are multitudes of Atheists Infidels Hobbists Brutists Socinians Drunkards Whoremongers Perjured c. while they are almost all strangers to the Minister he can deny the Sacrament to none of them pro tempore And how can the Incumbent know in such Parishes what they are II. If he know a man to be a Papist if he be a Church-Papist or have a dispensation he cannot on that account deny him the Sacrament Yea Dr. Heylin in the Life of Arch-Bishop Laud maketh it his commendable design to have drawn the Papists into our Churches as they were say some others in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and this say they is to be a Queen Elizabeth Protestant to be one that will communicate with the Papists in our Liturgy But many good Ministers dare not give the Sacrament to a Papist till he repent and renounce the Papal Universal Government and their grossest corruptions III. If the Minister know any man to be an Adulterer Fornicator Drunkard or Heretick or Infidel by private conference confession or other notice and cannot prove it he must give him the Sacrament IV. If he that converseth not with one of an hundred himself and can know them but by hear-say shall hear a neighbour or two or ten report that such a one is taken by those that converse with him to be an Heretick Atheist Infidel Scorner at Christ and Scripture a Fornicator Drunkard c. he cannot deny him the Sacrament unless the reporters will stand to it as witnesses And it 's known 1. That few that can prove it will tell it the Minister 2. Good people that hear it cannot prove it 3. Those that can prove it and privately tell it will not trouble themselves and offend their neighbours by witnessing it openly What need we more than experience Do not your Books and Complaints tell us that not only Coffee-houses and Taverns but other places are witnesses of abounding Atheism Infidelity or Sadduceism and that our Parishes have great numbers of them And how many such have you known in London excommunicated or openly suspended And are not the London Ministers able good men that would do it if they could Ask them why it 's never done If you say that such come not but excommunicate themselves I answer 1. Are they not still members of the Parish-Church 2. How doth the Minister know that they come not who knoweth very few of his Parishoners 3. It 's known by their acquaintance that such ordinarily communicate so far as to satisfie the Law For what should hinder them when it is their interest V. If the Minister should have private proof against one Atheist of forty or one Drunkard or Fornicator of many if he cannot get his witnesses to travel far and for nothing become odious to the accused to attest it before the Chancellor or Bishop the Minister must give him the Sacrament after he is acquit by the Court for want of proof VI. If proof be brought and the Proctors fail managing it or the Chancellor favour the accused or the man resolve before he goeth I will say I repent and then deny me the Sacrament if you
and will trusting another with it discharge him 4. We fear being guilty of the Lay-man's Usurpation and the Church-Confusion 5. But worst of all it is people fearing God that the Canon excommunicateth ipso facto and that the Chancellor is to excommunicate Had it been my duty to pronounce you excommunicate because the Chancellor decreed it 6. Where you say If I know the sentence to be void unjust and illegal I am not to publish it Ans. Well set together But if you know it to be unjust and yet legal according to the Canon you must publish it or be a Non-Conformist and may be suspended And are all the Canons Decrees just CHAP. XXII YOU speak next of the Surplice of which I gave you no occasion But we that know that the true meaning of the Liturgy is that all must use it that shall be suffered to officiate 1. Will not believe you if you tell us the contrary hereafter and lay it only on the Canon and think it nothing that you are obliged to consent to and aprove 2. Nor will I yet believe that you will undertake to justifie the ejecting and silencing of all that dare not use the Surplice Or if you will you cannot The 14th and 15th of the Romans cannot be confuted nor the many proofs that I have given that it reacheth our case in my late Book for the Church's Concord And why talk you of the Surplice and omit the main Question Whether we may consent to the Liturgy Preface and Rubrick which impose it as they do You durst not consent to silence two thousand or one that dare not use it CHAP. XXIII § 1. YOur next Section is of the false Rule for finding Easter-Day To this you say If really there be an Error I assent not to it Ans. Nor I Nor will I say I do when I do not And to what purpose then do you write for Conformity when one Lye must not be told to save our Liberty § 2. But you say It is not an Error in Divinity Ans. What then May I Lye about any other things § 3. But you say Some yet continue to affirm it is no Error Ans. And what will not some Men affirm You see how hard it is for a Non-conformist to be justified with some Men when all the Almanacks in England cannot do it in such a point I am too weak to deal with Men that will not take such evidence as this You say That it is questionable whether this be any part of the Book to be assented to Ans. You had some fair pretence to deny the act of Uniformity to be a part though the Contents say it is but if this be questionable you may question as the School-Men so long till you leave us little unquestionable This would increase my Resolution against Conformity when we cannot be sure what it is that we must Assent and Consent to and what not How can you tell us which is or not of the Book if this be not § 4. You say For the time past none will lay it to the charge of the Conformists and for the time to come it will be abated those that shall Subscribe and Conform Ans. How oft have I told you that I am laying nothing to the Charge of others but excusing our selves But I cannot justifie them that will do they know not what Especially it is sad that when such a Convocation which is the Representative Church of England shall all consent to draw up such things to be imposed on a Kingdom and so great a Parliament require assent to it on the Penalties enacted and executed on so many they should have no more honourable a defence than you make for them § 5. And who it is that hath the power to abate us that which the Law so severely requireth we do not yet know unless it be the King whose Mind you know not It is the Bishop that you mean But I doubt the Lawyers that have so lately questioned the Kings Power of Dispensation will contradict you that give that to the Bishop which they deny the King CHAP. XXIV § 1. THe next Section is about our Assenting to Consenting to and approving the many Disorders and Defects in the Liturgy You confess there are such and name many of them And the sum of your Answer is That you Assent and Consent to use the formes though disordered and defective and the Assent and Consent is no otherwise to be understood Ans. Soon said but where 's the proof 1. The words are All things contained in and prescribed by the Book Is the mode and disorder none of the All If I should say I Approve Assent and Consent to something but not all or the Matter but not the Order and Manner doth this answer the common sense of the universal words What if the Book did say the Lord's Prayer or Ten Commandments backward or Baptized in the Name of the Holy Ghost the Son and the Father or began as it ends c. may I declare that I Consent to and approve all things contained in it and prescribed by it § 2. As to your limitation of the sense to the word Use I have told you that the Parliament rejected it and that it is a groundless Fiction and that it makes your Cause no whit the better were it granted CHAP. XXV § 1. THe next is Whether we may assent to the Preface for justifying all that was in the Book before You say that It was not the intent of the Book to bind any Man to approve the Errors of Translators and Printers nor to use the Forms in the Liturgy so as to contradict one another Ans. 1. Printers Errors indeed are not the Convocations nor the Books as made by them Did I instance in any of them But if Translators Errors also be excepted our difficulty of understanding the Imposition still increaseth Then it seems as to the Psalms Epistles and Gospels we Assent and Consent only to the Original Text and so much as we judge well Translated I thought it the Book by ill Translation had grosly contradicted or depraved the Scripture it had been one of the worst sort of Errors I told you where it directly contradicteth the Text. What Heresie may not be brought in by a false Translation We thank God for the worst as a great Mercy to the Church and by them that will not receive a better in the Psalms we are thus commanded to justifie even that which was worst lest they should be thought to have needed any amendment And you make your self their Expositor without their Authority and tell us that the intent of the Book is not to bind us to approve the Errors of Translators And I believe you as the Book is distinguished from the Authors and so hath no intent at all But if the Translaton hath done as Heylin saith the King's Printer did that put Thou shalt commit Adultery for Thou shalt not and I were commanded
and extirpate all the Forms because Godliness is the same in all Are not Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy three Forms contrary to unity of Form though Humanity Piety and Regiment be the same in all Do they that extirpate Presbytery or Democracy extirpate all But why should I trouble the Reader or you by any further opening of your mistakes in a Case that I am not concerned in and is none of our Controversy When you say that The generality of the Non-conformists are for a well tempered Prelacy you infer an odious guilt on those Prelatists who write vehemently for our Ruine as intolerable because we are against Episcopacy I could name you many such besides Dr. Saywel You say The Presbyterians and Independants were as bitter against one another as the Prelates were against them both saving Violences and Coercive Restraints Ans. I refer it to your second thoughts 1. Whether this be sober Consistency 2. Whether it be true 1. To be as bitter except Violence and Coercive Restraint is in English to be as bitter except being far more bitter q. d. The differing Protestants in Ireland were as bitter against each other as the Papists against both saving Cruelties and Murders Bradford's School-master was as hurtful to him as Bonner except Imprisonment and Burning him He that chides me is as hurtful to me as he that maimeth me except hurting me more When you have excepted Silencing Imprisoning and taking away all our Maintenance you except much 2. But yet is it true Remember it was but Presbyterians and Independants that you speak of Read the Book of their Assembly Debates Read all their Writings against each other I will not except Mr. Edward's Gangraena and see whether they do not acknowledg more of God's Grace in one another and own more of the duty of Loving and Forbearing own another than the Prelatists do by either Read the Canons that Excommunicate them ipso facto as for wicked Error and read Doctor Heylin Fowlis the Book against Mr. Calamy's Farwel Sermon the Counterminer L'Estrange the Friendly Debate Mr. Parker and a multitude more such and of old Bishop Bancroft and in a word the Ordinary Visitation Articles or Peter Studley and a multitude such that Preacht and Wrote against them as Hypocrites Pharisees Schismaticks and such like and then consider how far you have here swerved from known truth I may say that I knew all those Times and the sorts of Persons mentioned much better than you Many Sectaries were very bitter and some too bitter against them The Presbyterians and Independants contended with too much intemperance and unskilfulness But sure if they had thought as ill of one another as the Prelates did of both when they had power they would as much have Silenced and Ejected one another which they did not I remember not ever to have known any meer Presbyterian or Independant especially Ministers but openly declared that they looked on both parties as the Servants of Christ whom they should love and honour But this is nothing to our Cause You say truly An Oath is a sacred thing and it is dangerous to use Shifts and Stretches And if so it is not without danger to persuade thousands so to do or to justifie many hundred thousand if they will be down-right perjured You say If one may judge of those Times by these now present a great many swore Pell-mell they knew not what because they knew not what Presbytery Independancy and Episcopacy was 1. No doubt many did so 2. But they partly knew what the English Prelacy was by long Experience and they swore not for Presbytery or Independancy nor against all Episcopacy 3. But if you think that they do so in these Times you and I should lament it For God will not hold them Guiltless whether they be Pastors and Churches or Cities and Corporations that take his Name by Perjury in vain It 's better call them to Repentance than justifie them in it To contract the guilt of the Perjury of many thousands is an expeditious way to Misery and doth a great deal in a little time § 2. Having thus proved that which I denied not you proceed to add Nineteen Propositions about the Case in question in all which it is not easie to be sure which side you conclude for You grant most of my premises which make against Perjury You confess that If any one Person be bound by that Oath to endeavour an alteration of Church Government no Man may with a safe Conscience subscribe this And If there be evil in the Government of the Church which may well and conveniently be reformed you do not see but that all that have taken that Oath stand bound in their Places and Calling to endeavour it There can be no just Reformation without some Alteration A great deal more than this you grant how Rulers are bound to yield in things confest indifferent which others account Sin were it but to heal our Breaches And what a Sin it is to cast out of the Church multitudes of holy Conscientious Men for a small and tolerable Error when all have some c. But yet instead of a Conclusion if you are intelligible you induce Men to subscribe though that which they fear be not accusing any lest they should be guilty of many hundred thousand Perjuries You say 1. We must in expounding Laws regard the meaning of our Governours Ans. True But is it their meaning de genere or de specie or individuo Our Governour 's meaning is not to approve Perjury But suppose yet they had commanded me to swear that no man is bound by the Oath of Supremacy is it no Perjury so to swear Then we might swear any thing commanded while the Commander saith He is not for Perjury If Rulers command men to marry their own Sisters and yet say That they abhor Incest may one justifie this because they are against Incest If Rebels rise in Arms against their Rulers but yet renounce Rebellion how are they to be expounded But you say If there be any thing in the Government contrary to the Word of God The Laws Canons Liturgy Offices of Iudges and Ministers do bind all men against it as null and void though not abolished by Parliament Ans. And what then Do you infer Therefore we may subscribe or therefore we must interpret nothing in the Law to be against God's Word or therefore we must not subscribe it The last is the true Conclusion If Socinians renounce all that is against God's Word and yet command you to renounce Christ's Godhead may you do it 2. But I would fain see the words which you here suppose in the Law Canons and Liturgy and whether they leave us all to be Judges what is against God's Word And 3. I would have you expound to me 1. The Canon that requireth us to subscribe that There is nothing in the Liturgy against God's Word 2. And that which excommunicateth all that say there is
that if the same were done here we may enter into a solemn Covenant never to endeavour to reform it No were it but the high places in Iudaea 2. Submitting is either by Obedience or meer Patience Under Papists and Turks Men must submit by Patience But if you say We hold that we must obey all that they command our practice tells you It is not true But the question is Whether there be no one thing but what we may covenant never to endeavour to alter and subscribe that no Parliament Man or any other in England is bound by that Oath which they took to endeavour it The Law forbids me to say They are and therefore I say it not But if you say They are not Dare you undertake to answer for them You say Their Office binds them to no evil That is None of the things fore-mentioned are evil Which you said were so Again you say All the while Excommunications and Church Censures are soundly done it 's the the less matter by whom they are done Ans. 1. Do not say so to the King about Kingly Government Nor to the Judges if an intruder invade the Tribunal 2. Make the Bishops believe this if you can of any that should usurp their Office 3. Make the Parish Priests believe it if you can who are so angry with us for helping them at a distance though we invade not Places 4. Make any sober Ministers believe if you can that if the Word be well Preacht and Sacraments soundly Administred it is no matter who doth it 5. Make any Master of a Family or Husband believe it as to their Offices that it 's no matter who doth it so it be soundly done If the Wife do believe it 's two to one the Husband will not § 4. Again you say By the Government of Church and State whatsoever is absolutely sinful is forbidden the Laws declare it Null c. Ans. This is before answered You say Silencing and Excommunicating the Non-conformists here are sinful Instead of this impertinent talk go try your Oratory on the Judges and Bishops if you can persuade them that the Law forbids them all to fine Imprison or Silence us or Excommunicate us Why did you not use this pretty Argument for your self 2. And do not Papists and Turks say that No Law against God is in force And doth their Government therefore contain no evil Or will you tell them that swear to amend it that it 's well enough already You tell us what to say to the Bishops and Judges for our selves But if by this Medium I would prove that I am conformable to the Law and they are the Non-conformists that punish me because they break the Law of God I doubt they would Laugh at me first and send me to Gaol next § 5. But in answer to Where read we in Scripture of the Chancellor's Office You repeat again If soundly done no Man may reprove them I will not repeat my Answer But I add If so No Man may reprove the Boys if they soundly Whip their Master when he deserveth it nor a Cobler that will send Offenders to Prison as the Lord Mayor doth Nor a Justice yea or a Tinker that will step up in the Chancery or King's-Bench to do Justice § 6. But though I will not Laugh at your Writing I should hardly forbear if I heard you do what page 95 you say you would do viz. If a Bishop or Arch-Bishop or Chancellor live where you are Pastor and be a Member of your Congregation you must needs look on your self as obliged by the Laws and Canons of the Church and State by the Word of God and by the Rules of the common-prayer-Common-prayer-Book publickly to admonish him if he grosly misdemean himself and do a scandalous crime and if he shall not by open confession give satisfaction to the Church bar him from the Sacrament and declare him Disorderly and Contumacious and that if he do not repent he shall perish and warn the People to beware of such evil Courses and to have no more to do with him than they needs must And this I maintain to be part of the Discipline and Government of the Church of England Ans. I would I could see this bout I doubt he will have something to do with you Your Chancellor had the wit to begin with you first I pray you forget not this Case when you go to the Bishop for his sense of the Liturgy and tell us his answer when you come Home I must profess this is an edifying Passage As when I read in Saltmarsh that Christ repented and believed for us it let in more Light against Libertinism than I had before So doth this Passage raise up some useful doubts in me about our Churches which I thought not on till now Q. 1. Whether are the Bishops that dwell in the London Parishes or others Members of the Parish Church where they dwell Q. 2. If they are not Whether dwelling in the Parish make a Christian a Member of the Parish Church Q. 3. If not what is it that makes a Member and how are the Pastors special Flock truly known to him from others Q. 4. If they be Members to whom shall we present the Bishop for not coming to Church or for his Crimes Is it to himself Q. 5. Whether is the Bishop or the Parish Priest there the higher Power or Governor and which must obey Q. 6. Doth the Canon that forbids Men to go from their own Parish Churches extend to the Bishop Q. 7. How is the Bishop one of the Parson's Flock and the Parson one of the Bishop's Flock both at once Q. 8. Whether the Bishop that is Excommunicated by the Parson out of the Parish Church be cast out of the Universal or other Churches may have Communion with him or not Q. 9. What if the Parson Excommunicate the Bishop and the Bishop the Parson both at once what a Case are they in And which shall stand one or both and how far Q. 10. How will the Parson practice his Conformity who consenteth when he putteth any one from the Sacrament to certifie the Ordinary within fourteen Days will he prosecute the Bishop to himself or to his Chancellor Q. 11. Doth not this Instance prove Mr. Cheyney to be a mistaking Expositor of the Church-Government the Bishops themselves being Judges and would not one days practice of any such thing convince him by Experience that the Church of England now take not Parish Parsons for Parish Bishops Q. 12. Is he in the right page 96. that this Course would make Bishops and Arch-Bishops and Chancellors stand in awe of the Priests why then did you not thus awe your Bishop and Chancellor CHAP. XXIX YOur 28th Section hath nothing in it that requireth many words for Answer That Oaths and Laws must be charitably expounded no one denieth so they be truly expounded In this we stand to Bishop Sanderson's Rules which are far better stated than any
thing here said by you And your citing my limited and conditional approbation of the Assemblies Catechisms and the Synod of Dort's is certainly no Reason for my absolute and unlimited professing to Assent and Consent to all things in Books which have so much more which I dissent from CHAP. XXX § 1. YOur 29th Section containeth your unproved Opinions and false Devices for stretching Subscriptions Covenants and Professions And first you tell us of the difficulty of using any words that may not seem doubtful But yet if there be not a satisfactory intelligibleness in words Humane Converse is overthrown and Oaths of Allegiance and all Contracts are of little use unto their ends § 2. You say Though there be in this Volume which we call the Common-prayer-Book many Matters Sentences and Words bound all together yet do we Assent and Consent to no more but that which goes under the name of the Service of the Church and the Rules and Orders touching the same and the Rites and Ceremonies thereof Ans. If you say All things contained in it means not all things indeed tell us what difference there is between the Equivocations of the Jesuits and this of yours So one tells me that when we profess to Assent to all in the Bible the meaning is To all the Precepts Promises and Words of God in it but not that there is no Humane Errors in Numbers and Chronologie Genealogie History or Citations And so you may say I will swear not to endeavour any alteration of the Government of the State but I mean not to alter Monarchy And what may not one thus say and swear 2. But yet I think it is no great number of Matters Sentences and Words which are neither Service Rules Orders or Rites Rubricks and Calendars and some Prefaces belong to these But it is a strange Interpretation which would exclude Doctrinals such as the Article of Faith of the certain Salvation of all Infants baptized and dying before actual Sin Your Citations signifie nothing for your purpose but tell us what you would have them signifie § 3. But now I come to Sampson's Hair the very strength of all your Book page 115. The Preface saith When Doubts arise in the Use and Practice of the same to appease all such diversity if any arise and for the resolution of all Doubts concerning the manner how to understand do and execute the things contained in this Book the Parties that so doubt or diversly take any thing shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocess who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same so that the same Order be not contrary to any thing contained in this Book Whence you gather that the Law makes the Bishop the common Expositor and if he gives a good Exposition or by silence shew consent all is safe and you may Conform I confess this Reed is the strongest support of your Cause that I have met with And I am not censuring others that lean upon it I doubt not but they may be better Men than I But I will tell you why I cannot 1. It is a help to those that be in doubt But I am out of doubt in many of the Reasons of my Non-conformity and therefore it is no help to me 2. The words expresly limit the Bishops Exposition so that his order be not contrary to any thing in the Book If it be not contrary to the Book it will give me no satisfaction If it be contrary it is of no force 3. It is only about the things contained in the Book that the Bishop must resolve us Now either the Acts of Uniformity are part of those things or not If yea then it is the Acts also that I must Assent and Consent to which you as well as I are far from And you maintain that the Act is no part of the Book If not then the Bishop hath no power to expound the Act And the forms of Assent and Consent and Subscription imposed are parts of the Act. 4. The words make not the Bishop the publick or common Expositor of the Law or Book as Judge but only as a Teacher who bindeth but so far as he tells the truth The Bishop must teach his ignorant or divided Clergy how to understand what they understand not And this is not about their Subscriptions but matters of Use and Practice as where the Table shall stand and such like That it maketh not the Bishop the obliging Judge of the Law appeareth 1. Because here is no such word 2. The foresaid limitation speaketh the contrary 3. Else there might be as many Religions Doctrines or Practices as Bishops or many at least I will give you all the little Money in my Purse if you will get me under the hand of Bishop Morley Bishop Gunning Bishop Sparrow and Arch-Bishop Stern their approbation of your Expositions of the parts of Conformity written in your Book And I suppose you know how zealously many write as well as Doctor Saywel against tolerating diversity of Forms and Rites and Orders of Worship And this would be to set up as many Sects or Ways as differing Bishops pleased This Case was notably tried between Arch-Bishop Laud and the Church that followed him and Williams Bishop of Lincoln about the Table or Altar 4. Else Bishops would have the Legislative Power For the sense of the Law is the Law And if the Parliament form but the Letter or Body of it and the Bishop may give it what Sense or Soul he pleaseth it is he that will be the chief Law-maker 5. Else Bishops might corrupt and change our Religion and Church under pretence of Exposition Bishop Godfrey Goodman of Glocester who was a Papist might have set up Popery in his Diocess by putting a Popish sense upon Subscription Words and Practices And the Bishops by agreement might set up Popery in the Land by the same means Or a Bishop might set up Non-conformists by gratifying them by his Expositions The thing meant in those words is no such dangerous power but only an Instructing and a Pacifying informing of the Clergy when they ignorantly differ about some dark Word or Circumstance or Practice the Bishop must teach them the true sense of the Book but do nothing against any thing therein 6. Is it not called An Act for Uniformity and imposeth all the heavy Penalties on purpose to procure Uniformity Would they have Silenced and Ruined two thousand Ministers for Non-conformity if Uniformity had not been thought of more worth than their Ministerial Labours And can you think that after all this they meant to leave it to the particular Bishops whether there should be any Uniformity or not You think one Bishop will say You are Parish Bishops and may publickly admonish and reprove the Scandalous and Excommunicate them Excommunicatione minore You may give them the Sacrament that conscienciously scruple Kneeling you may Baptize them that conscienciously scruple the dedicating Cross
sincerely Penitent thy Sin is pardoned and thou hast right to Salvation and mayst come to the Lord's Table Ans. And doth not this imply that else he should not come And is such a Man Unconverted It is too irksome to rake up the rest of your Contradictions and examine your slight words of the Parable of the Tares But that rooting up the Tares forbidden is Excommunicating or denying Sacramental Communion to any Parishioner of your Description who will believe that knoweth 1. What Christ saith Mat. 18. 15. c. and Paul 1 Cor. 5. and 2 Thess. 3. Tit. 3. 10 11 c. 2. Or he that knoweth that the Universal Church of Christ in all Ages hath been of another mind and indeed went at last too far against it having no punishment for Christians but Suspension and Excommunication 3. And that the Christian World at this day is of another mind though the Helvetians are too remiss in the Principles and most in the Practice 4. And that the Canons of this Church requireth the Minister to deny the Sacrament to some such as you describe And in your former Book you pleaded this as for Conformity And are you changed already And shall any Wise Man follow such quick Changes 5. The Church of England forbids us to give the Sacrament to any that are not Confirmed and desire it not or are not ready But such are many of your Description 6. If the power of Excommunicating over a thousand or many hundred Churches be confined to the Bishop and the Chancellor or Officials and so all the Parish Ministers denied it and disabled all these Churches must be Prophaned and Confounded at the will of one Man or because he cannot do an Impossibility And the reasons why Christ would have his Church to be visibly Holy and a Communion of Saints and openly differenced from the notoriously ungodly are so many and so great that I will not here attempt the opening of them having often elsewhere done it QUEST IV. WHether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by Penal Excommunications and used as Excommunicate ones You say I conceive not Ans. Would any one that pretended to confute our Errors no better open the case in question 1. In your sense they are Christians that never professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant but only took the Water in order to Conversion hereafter These are no visible Christians And I suppose by parity of Reason the Council of Nice which decreed the Rebaptizing of the Paulmists would have been for Rebaptizing these 2. Is the Ordinariness the satisfying Character who is not to be Excommunicated In one Country those are ordinary that are extraordinary in others In some places Arrians are ordinary in some Socinians in some Papists in some open Scorners of the Scripture Christianity and Religion In some ignorant Persons that know not the Essentials of Christianity nor will learn or let the Minister instruct them any where but in the Pulpit in many Parishes here not one of many their Neighbours say go to Church about once or twice a Year 1 Cor. 5. 13. Put away from among you that wicked Person ver 11. If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or on Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat Do not ye judg them that are within 2 Thess. 3. It is the idle and disorderly And these are ordinary in some places But we easily grant that Excommunications are not to be used Tyranically or when they do more hurt than good And if the Body of a Church turn e. g. Socinians or professedly ungodly and will not be Reformed the Excommunication which we plead for is but withdrawing from them and renouncing their Communion declaredly § 2. I have oft said that Perfidious Covenant-breakers who live in gross Sin and still tell the Minister they repent and will not be persuaded to leave their Sin e. g. Whoredom Drunkenness Stealing Perjury Blasphemy have so far forfeited the credit of their bare word that the Pastor should see their actual amendment before he Absolve them And now your Hand is in the World must be saved from this Doctrine too But because it is a common principle in Nature and in all Church Canons and the common judgment of Divines I will not stay to dispute it with you But when you are a Master of a Family if you think Family Discipline a Duty Experience will cure your credulity If your Servant or Son beat you or spit in your Face or Rob you once a Day or Week but for one Year together and say still after it I repent But what will not Men talk for QUEST V. WHether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and Principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good And you confute them Ans. 1. Those that read them are in no danger by them And those that do may be confirmed by so slight a confutation as I said 2. As for my Book of Universal Concord of all Christian Churches I know that the Devil hateth it so much that I expect some far more subtile Assault than yours or else I shall think that the Devil wanteth wit or power more than is commonly believed But I am sorry that he hath drawn so good a Man to be his instrument § 1. My first mentioned Error is That a particular Church is a regular part of the Universal Church as a City is of a Kingdom The confutation is In this I conceive he is out A particular Church is to the Church Universal with a single Town consisting of a Magistrate Governing and People governed according to the general Rules and Principles of Society is to all the World Ans. The proof is I conceive he is out and an Assertion in other words of the same that is denied and so we are out both or neither 1. I used the Name and he the Definition It may be he thought that by City I had meant only such Towns as are so called in England But methinks he should know that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth all such Towns as he defineth and that it is the common definition of Civitas which he giveth us as all Politicks speak de Civitate It is therefore the same subject in the Similitude which we both speak of 2. The difference then must be between the words Kingdom and World I say A Church is such a part of the Universal as a City is of a Kingdom He saith no but as a City is of the World What a dangerous Error hath he detected But All the World is God's Kingdom And as it hath but one King so I thought I might liken it to a Kingdom that hath one King but a multitude of Corporations without stretching the Similitude to intend that This Kingdom is not a part of the World § 2. My second Error is He that will be a Member of a particular Church must
set a faithful Minister in the Parish he becomes as to Office and Right a Pastor a Guide a Minister and Teacher to their Souls If they receive him not they are Rebels and Traytors against Christ and are no longer Christian People save as an Adulterous Wife c. Ans. Alas where can we say a Man will stop when he is once tumbling down the Hill 1. Why did you think your bare word should serve for this That it is Jesus Christ that made this the Office of the Magistrate 2. Is it all Magistrates or some only that have this Power and Jesus Christ chooseth us Pastors by If but some what the better are we for your Discourse if you tell us not how to know them And 3. Will you not then put the People upon a harder and more perilous Task to judge of all Magistrates fitness for this Trust than it would be to judge of their Pastor 4. If it be all then Heathens and Turks must choose Christians their Pastors If you say It is all Christian Magistrates then the Protestants in France are Rebels and not Christians for refusing Papists Priests If it be not Papists who are they Must all receive Lutherans or Socinians or Anabaptists or such like Pastors that live under Imposing Princes of those minds 5. Why do you limit it to faithful Ministers who must judge of their Faithfulness and Qualifications If the Magistrate Papists Socinians Prophane Magistrates or Heretical will judge as they are If the People we are wheeled about to that which is resisted And then When is it that they must judge before they receive him or after If before then must they have trial of him or take all for Faithful that are ordained by a Bishop or that Being Strangers they know no harm by him or all the Patrons present If so we come to the forementioned Misery If they must receive them first and try them after and depart from them when they shew themselves unfaithful then the People must either depose their Pastors or separate And most that separate from the Parish Churches do it as thinking the Ministers unfaithful And is this your Cure of Church-divisions And if never Preaching be a proof of the Unqualified the Canon forbids us to go from such And in some Countrys there are none within reach to go to from them And if there be the Canon suspendeth them if they receive one to their Communion that goeth from a Non-preaching Minister 6. Did any one Church on Earth receive a Pastor by the Magistrates imposition for the first 300 Years Or had not the Churches then rightly called Pastors 7. Did not the Orthodox Churches commonly refuse Bishops which Valens and such Erroneous Emperors set over them 8. Were not Parish Ministers chosen by the Bishops and People and not by Magistrates for 1400 Years in all known Churches in the World It was but the Patriarchs at first that were imposed on the People by the Emperors and afterwards when the Henrys contended with the Pope it was not for choice of Priests but for the Investiture of Bishops and Abhots only and in this they left the choice to the People and Clergie and pleaded but for Investiture per baculum annulum so that for ought I know Magistrates never imposed Priests on Parish Churches till the Reformation And since then besides Helvetia and Belgia it is but few that do it And even in England it is not done by Magistracy but by Patrons presenting and Diocesan Prelates Instituting So that if this be Christ's Way of making Pastors to particular Churches there were no true Pastors or Churches for 300 Years and perhaps none or next none for 1400 Years in Parishes And if this Doctrine be true the Catholick Christians in many Princes Reigns that rejected imposed Bishops if that were as bad as rejecting Parish Priests were Rebels and Traytors against Christ and no Christians And whether he so Stigmatize not the Universal Church for want of such Reception of Priests in almost all Ages I wish him to consider And whether that be like to be a better way of Concord which he and few such in the end of the World devise to the condemning of the Churches of all the former Ages that never had any such Concord 9. Hereby also he leaveth the Tolerated Churches in France Germany and all the Greek Churches and Copties and Syrians c. that are under adverse Princes to be without Pastors sent in the way of Christ's Appointment And yet vouchsafeth not to name one Text where Christ ever Appointed it 10. And when he maketh all in a Parish to be the Pastors Flock or Charge that are Christians he condemneth those Canons that ordained that if Any Bishop convert not the Hereticks in his City they shall be his Flock who doth convert them and all that have had two Churches in one Parish Or else he maketh Parish Priests to be Pluralists and if there be many Chappels and Churches in his Parish he is the Pastor to them all And yet he never tells us whether the Chappel Priest be also Pastor of the rest of the Parish And if so whether each be to Govern distinctly or one subordinately as Governed by the other Or whether both must agree each being but part of the Governing power 11. The same Man saith That multitudes of Parishioners are Rebels Traytors and no Christians c. and yet that we must give them all the Sacrament if demanded For multitudes demand the Sacrament to satisfie Law and Custom who declare that they take not the Priest for their Pastor nor as Authorized by Christ and multitudes that know not what Christianity or a Sacrament is and will not speak with the Minister about it 12. Did not he say before that the Man cannot be their Pastor without his own and the Peoples consent And yet the Magistrate may make me a Pastor to the Parish What Whether I will or not Am I also a Rebel Traytor and no Christian if I refuse What if the Parish have 60000 or 40000 Souls and I am not able to do a Pastor's Office for 500 What if I think it is a Sin to be obtruded on dissenting unwilling People And if my Dissent do not Unchristen me why doth the People's Unchristen them The Lord pity us we need no Enemies but our selves to seduce us and destroy nor any to make the most odious Schisms than the decryers of Schism What Schismatick doth condemn so many Christians and Churches as this Censure I can scarce except Mr. Dodwel whom in his last Book he called an odd disowned Man § 13. He tells us after of the Pastor's Duty to teach Publickly and from House to House And yet it 's no Church but when Assembled and he hath equal charge of all Christians though Papists in the Parish § 14. He saith No thing cuts off from a Church particular but what cuts off from Christ Christianity and the Church Universal Ans. 1. What if
a Man disown only the Pastor of that Church 2. What if he will not joyn with them in the Liturgy or Mode of Worship there used 3. What if that Church be Nestorians or Eutychians or Papists and he separates from them or they cast him out 4. What if he remove his Dwelling § 15. Next I am censured for demanding the People of Kederminster ' s consent to my Ministry and their Church Relation And he will now be distinct and maketh Answers to `distinct Questions for them But never tells us whether such Answers had been true or false if they had given them His first Question is Do we take you to have the just qualifications of a Pastor And the Answer is Learning is one qualification of which the Ignorant are incompetent Iudges And for Wisdom Holiness and Ministerial skill of Fidelity you are to make proof of them This is to be answered some Years after and not ask before-hand And so under Papists Socinians prophane Imposers you are to take all as Wise Holy Faithful till some Years after you find them otherwise Here he expoundeth his former words for rejecting the unqualified and unfaithful But who shall be judge at some Years after His second Question is Do we take you to be duly ordained And the Answer is We are bound to judge those to be justly Ordained which are so reputed and we have no reason to suspect Ans. 1. But whose reputation is it that you rest on Half the Parish say you are not justly ordained but by a Bishop The other half say you are justly ordained by Presbyters You falsifie if you feign them all of a mind 2. And who knows how to define and bound your Reasons of Suspicion 3. The Canons and Bishops say you have sorfeited your License if you conform not and without a License you may not Preach 4. And if you will question no mens orders you will have many Lay-Pastors To his 3d Quest. he answereth We question not your presentation Ans. And yet it is the Magistrate that must impose Ministers and in times of Usurpation he feigneth them to be unquestioned The sum hitherto is We must take any Man for our Pastor that is Ordained and presented But what if I knew that multitudes do not so doth it make them of that Church because they should consent and do not Of 1800 or 2000 only 600 would come to the Sacrament though they usually heard unless all the rest would receive it kneeling and administred by the Liturgy though they were left free to use that Gesture themselves and withal they were told that we had not a Bishops license The 4th Quest. is If we take you alone for our Pastor And it 's answered We know of no other in view but you Ans. All these are Fictions 1. I never desired nor consented to be their Pastor but to be one of three 2. I agreed with them in the Town-Hall publickly in writing to undertake only a Lecture which I had before the War in conjunction with another that should have the Presentation or Sequestration And yet honest Mr. Durel tells the World that it was a rich Benefice given me for my Service under Cromwel who would never endure me to speak to him 3. There were three Competitors One an old Vicar that somehow preacht once a Quarter that had the Presentation and was Sequestred 1. I will not tell you here for what 2. His Curate sequestred and removed 3. An old Chappel Curate grosly ignorant and vicious that lived by unlawful Marrying 4. And by all this you determine that of three of us none was Pastor but only that one that had the Presentation and so you depose all other Curates not presented And yet the Chappels that have such Curates put in only by the Parsons are true Churches such are your frequent Contradictions Sect. 16. Next as a meek Questioner he askt me Why I will not baptize their Infants if I take them for Christians and Parishioners He saith after If they make not a tolerable profession of Christianity in the publick Assembly they produce no valid claim we are not to admit them Ans. I suppose there are in the three next Parishes here 80000 Persons whom the Pastors never had any other account of as to their knowledg but by their coming to Church and half of them that rarely come And those of us that have talkt with almost all our Parishioners find that multitudes know not what Christianity or a Sacrament is A man about 80 years old in Kederminster said Christ was the Sun and the Holy Ghost the Moon Is standing up at the Creed then or sitting in the Church a tolerable profession Hobbes and his followers would do the same 2. But what obligation is on me to baptize all the Children of those that take me for none of their Pastor The Parish may have 20000 more than I am able to do the Pastoral Office for I cannot tell whether they come to Church or not If they do they are strangers to me some come into the Parish and others go out and many are Lodgers And he that as a Pastor is to Baptize is also to do abundance more to Catechize visit the Sick the Poor c. Am I bound to impossibilities for every stranger that I never knew Nor can I know so much as whether he be Christened or be indeed a Parishioner Yea a Church with you is only a present Assembly What if these persons assemble not or but twice or thrice a Year What if Travellers be that day of the Church Bishop Taylor saith Pref. of Repen No one can give account of those that he knoweth not Sect. 17. His talk of the Tares again deserveth no answer but read Expositors His repeated insinuation by the word Oaths and Covenants tell us that a good man may become un insinuater of Calumnies His two Conclusions pag. 55. from my words are 1. That they are no Churches that want this cementing Covenant Ans. They are none that are not so related by consent expressed by one way or other If you turn this into cementing Covenant when you had newly cited my express denial that express Covenanting was necessary ad esse it 's worse than Ceremony which you are already come to think lawful The 2d Concl. is The Churches that have it not in the most plain obliging way are defective spotted and ill-favoured because I said that the more express way is laudable ad bene esse As if all were called spotted and ill-favoured that want any thing laudable ad bene esse And will Christ take away his Churches spots and wrinkles Ephes. 6. when there were none And he saith This he calls the true and only way of the Churches Concord As if every word in the Book were called the true and onely Way It rather tendeth saith he to Discord and to make every single Minister a Pope or Church-tyrant and to make Churches Schismatical and traiterous Combinations dividing themselves from all other Churches and Christians c. Ans. 1. And yet he before said himself that the unwilling cannot be Pastor and Flock And is not this the same 2. Thus all Christ's Churches that ever I read of for 300 yea a 1000 Years are Stigmatized who still made expressed consent necessary 3. A Pope is one that claimeth Soveraignty over all the Church on Earth Doth he do so that taketh none for his Flock but Consenters 4. Which is liker Tyranny not to pretend to Government over any but Volunteers or to say I will Govern you whether you will or not 5. Is it Dividing and Schism to know my Flock as Consenters and not to take other Mens Flocks Sine literis Communicatâ—riis as oft as they will dwell or lodg in my Parish The words Oaths and Covenants are oft again so mentioned by him and his profession that he hath the Episcopal and Presbyterian on his side and other untruths so rashly uttered that I am heartily grieved for the success of his Temptation And whether he or I be Schismatical and differ from the Ancient Churches I refer the Reader to my Abridg. of Church History and to my Citations in my Book of Right to Sacraments My Preface to Mr. Rawlet's Book of the Sacrament confutes some of his Intimations I thank God that I am going to a more peaceable World FINIS