from conformity heretofore conscience being now much more forced and violated by them in the Chair which is said to vindicate themselves for dissenting so much from many ancient Puritans who though they disliked many things yet conformed and peaceably submitted to publick Constitutions But this Person is either a great stranger to the Constitutions of the Church of England since the Reformation or cannot but know that if there were no such publick declaration yet there were publick subscriptions required of the conforming Clergy which is equivalent to a declaration for he must be a man of a mighty squeamish conscience who will not declare that which he can and does subscribe For what he asserts that there was no more required formerly of the Clergy but barely to use and submit to the Common-prayer and the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church is notoriously false In the Articles published by the Authority of King Edw. VI. this is one The Book which of late time was given to the Church of England by the Kings B. L. Authority and the Parliament containing the manner and form of praying and ministring the Sacraments in the Church of England likewise also the Book of ordering Ministers of the Church set forth by the same Authority are godly and in no point repugnant to the wholesome Doctrine of the Gospel but agreeable thereunto furthering and beautifying the same not a little and therefore of all faithful members of the Church of England and chiefly of the Ministers of the Word they ought to be received and allowed with all readiness of mind and thanksgiving and to be commended to the People of God which as you shall hear more presently is not inferiour to an unfeigned assent and consent This Article indeed is left out of those which were set forth by the Authority of Queen Elizabeth but instead of it the Clergy were required to subscribe this promise or declaration I shall read the B. L. Advertisements by the Queen Service appointed plainly distinctly and audibly that all the People may hear and understand In the Reign and by the Authority of King James were published the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical which are of force in the Church of England to this day and it is sufficiently known that by the 36 Canon every Person to be ordained or promoted to any Ecclesiastical Benefice or Function is required to subscribe the Three Articles the second of which concerns the Book of Common-prayer and of ordaining and consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons that it contains nothing in it contrary to the Word of God and may be lawfully used and that he himself will use that same form and no other from whence it appears that there was something more required of conforming Ministers in those days than only to read the Book of common-Common-prayer and to observe the Rites and Ceremonies of it as this Author ignorantly asserts for they were also required by subscription to declare their approbation of it as fit to be used and their promise that they would use it But still they were not so strictly injoyned to declare their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book Right not in these very words but to the same sense for to own that there is nothing in the Common prayer Book which is contrary to the Word of God and that it may be lawfully used and that we will use it is equivalent to an unfeigned assent and consent No says our Author for Assent with reference to the party assenting relates to his understanding and with reference to the thing assented to it relates to the truth and rightfulness of it So again Consent with reference to the party consenting relates to his will and with reference to the thing consented to it relates to that goodness expediency behovefulness of it A very wise and grave observation as if I could not assent to the doing of what is to be done as well as to the truth of a proposition or could not assent to the lawfulness of a thing without assenting to it as every way fittest and best and most expedient as if I could not consent to submit to the use of what is lawful and legally imposed without chusing every thing mentioned and prescribed in the same Book as most eligible and behoveful to be done practised and observed as this Author is pleased to paraphrase an unseigned Consent But to satisfie this Gentleman in the signification of these words Assent and Consent it may be convenient to give him Qu. Elizabeth's interpretation of them in the Preface to the Articles An. 1504. Whereupon by diligent conference and communication and at last Bishop Sparrow's Collection by Assent and Consent of the Persons before-said these orders and rules ensuing have been thought meet and convenient to be used and followed not yet prescribing these rules as laws equivalent with the eternal Word of God and as of necessity to bind the consciences of her subjects in the nature of them considered in themselves but as temporal orders meer Ecclesiastical without any vain superstition and as rules in some part of Discipline concerning decency distinction and order for the time So that the Queen and the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops in commission with him who drew up those Articles thought we might give our assent and consent to orders and rules and by the same reason to a Book of Common-prayer as only meet and convenient to be used and followed and that we may give such an assent and consent to temporary rules which are alterable at pleasure and therefore not supposed to be every way perfect or not to have the least error or defect in them And in this sense the Act of Uniformity requires our unfeigned assent and consent to the Book of common-Common-prayer c. that is to the use of it as is expresly mentioned immediately before this declaration that every Minister shall openly and publickly before the Congregation declare his unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the said Book contained and prescribed in these words and no other I A. B. do here declare c. Now when the Act it self limits the signification of these words Assent and Consent only to the use it evidently betrays a perverse and malicious design to affix such a large signification on them without the least appearance of reason as to render that declaration very absurd and impious or at best very suspicious to honest men As for what he urges that the Act it self expounds consent by approve where it is said of a Lecturer that he shall give his assent to and approbation of the said Book and to the use of all the prayers c. I would fain know how it can be otherwise for he who assents and consents must approve as far as he assents and consents but why cannot we approve of the use of a Book or approve of
palpably false for the Church of England has expresly ordered her Ministers as is plain in the form of private Baptism to baptize Children without God-fathers and God-mothers or the sign of the cross where there is any apparent danger of death and therefore it must be the Parents fault how scrupulous soever he be not the Ministers if his Child die unbaptized I know not what remark to make on this but shall leave it to himself and every impartial Reader to think on it But yet I must farther observe that to assert the salvation of baptized Infants does not deny salvation to all that are unbaptized though we are not so certain from the Word of God of the salvation of the one as of the other the salvation of baptized Infants depends on an express Covenant but we have the goodness and clemency of the divine nature as a reason to hope well of others especially of the Children of Christian Parents who were born within the Pale of the Church and were designed by their Parents to be made the visible members of it Nor is the denial of Christian burial to such Infants as die unbaptized any argument as he suggests that our Church doubts of their salvation but only that she does not own them as actual members of the Church as no Persons are who are not actually admitted into the Christian Church by Baptism and possibly this may be designed as an act of Discipline to correct the neglect of Parents and to beget in them a greater veneration for the Christian Sacraments His last objection is against the office for the burial of the Dead in which we find these words for asmuch as it hath pleased God of his great mercy to take unto himself the Soul of our dear Brother here departed c. where taking them to himself he says must signifie taking them into Heaven if we believe the Lords Prayer Our Father which art in Heaven but is God no where else then but in Heaven because he is there in an eminent manner does not the wise man tell us that the spirits of men departed return unto God who gave them Eccl. 12. 7. Does that signifie going into heaven then we have Scripture for it that all men are saved for the Spirits of all Men after death return to God To return to God and to be taken to him signifies Falkners libertas Eccl. ch 5. s 9. to be put into the immediate disposal of God which as a Learned man well observes Our Church acknowledgeth to be an act of mercy in God through the grace of Christ who hath the Keys of Hell and Death that dying persons do not forthwith go into the power of the Devil who had the power of Death Heb. 2. 14. but do immediately go into the hands of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ to be disposed of by him according to the promises and conditions of the Gospel-Covenant agreeable to the sense of the ancient Church which in the Offices of Burial magnified the divine power whereby the unjust and Tyrannous power of the Devil was overcome and our Lord receiveth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to his peculiar and most righteous judgment But still he urges that other expression that we commit his body to the ground in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life which words he tells us must necessarily be spoken with reference to the person then interred inasmuch as they are the continuation of the foregoing declaration viz. God's taking his Soul to himself Committing his Body to the ground must indeed necessarily refer to the person interred but there is no necessity every thing that follows should for it is not his but the Resurrection to life we declare our hope of our Church thinking it fit on such a sad occasion as this to declare their hope of a future Resurrection and since God's taking his Soul to himself does not necessarily infer the salvation of such a person as I have already shewed we cannot thence infer that the Resurrection to life refers to the interred person neither But he has found one passage which he says puts it out of all doubt that when we bury a known Adulterer Fornicator Drunkard we declare and avouch that his soul is assuredly gone to Heaven viz. that in the prayer after burial that when we shall depart this life we may rest in him viz. in Christ as our hope is this our Brother doth this I grant refers to the interred person but is no argument that the former expressions do for this is only a judgment of charity which differs much from a sure and certain hope There are various degrees of hope and some of them so little that we can hardly deny them to any person though never so wicked for where we are not absolutely sure that they died wholly impenitent we have some degree of hope and though we have reason to fear this of too too many yet we are seldom so certain of it as to exclude all hopes of the contrary But as a fuller justification of our Church in this matter we may consider that this Office of Burial supposes that the Person interred died in the Communion of the Church and were Church-censures duly administred as this Office presumes them to be and as certainly they would be were not the Church weakned by powerful Schisms and Factions no Man could die in the Communion of the Church but such as we should have very good reason in the judgment of charity to hope well of and since through the decay of Discipline many die in the Communion of the Church who deserved excommunication I doubt not but who-ever shall leave out that sentence as our hope is this our Brother doth at the Burial of some notorious profligate sinners complies with the intention of the Church and may justifie himself to his Superiours for doing so Having thus examined and as I think answered this Minister's objections against Conformity I must now look back and take notice of the only piece of ingenuity he has been guilty of throughout this Pamphlet and that is where he owns the lawful use of an established Liturgy or prescribed form of publick prayers nay that as he says nothing against a Liturgy or prescribed form of publick prayers in the general so neither against the main doctrine contained in the prayers of this Book of common-Common-prayers in particular and in requital of this I shall as readily acknowledge what he adds that it is quite another thing to be bound up to declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the Book but he ought also to have added and prescribed by the Book together with those prayers that is that there is a real difference between that conformity which is required of a Clergy-man and that which is required of a Lay-man
THE REASONS FOR Non-conformity EXAMINED and REFUTED IN ANSWER To a Late LETTER from a MINISTER TO A PERSON of QVALITY SHEWING Some Reasons for his Non-conformity LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1679. AN ANSWER TO A LETTER from a MINISTER TO A PERSON of QVALITY SHEWING Some Reasons for his Non-conformity BEING lately in a Bookseller's Shop with a design to gratifie my curiosity in perusing some of those many Pamphlets which either a mistaken or factious zeal crowds into the World I met with a Letter pretended to be writ from a Minister to a Person of Quality shewing some Reasons of his Non-conformity I have often observed this humour in some mean but vain people who dare not look upon Persons of Quality when they are present to talk of them with great familiarity as their peculiar Intimates and Confidents an Art whereby both Papists and Fanaticks think to conciliate great reverence to themselves However I was very glad to see this Pamphlet which being a single sheet was quickly read and if it were thought requisite as quickly answered and indeed I expected either some new reasons of Non-conformity or some new strength given to their old reasons but upon a perusal of it soon discovered my mistake and presently concluded that such stuff as this could not be designed to satisfie a Person of Quality but to impose upon the Injudicious Rabble and that we must expect a new Letter of Reasons for Non conformity every week or fortnight like the Domestick Intelligence or Poor Robin a way which has been found very effectual to corrupt the minds of weak and unstable People For which reason though my other occasions would sufficiently have pleaded my excuse I resolved in great charity to undertake this Gentleman either to satisfie him if he be an honest and Impartial Inquirer or to use as great diligence to undeceive People as he does to deceive them To let pass his Introduction which I confess I can neither make Grammar nor Sense of he tells us that three grand Declarations are required to be made by all those who will conform The First concerning the Book of Common-Prayer the second concerning taking up Arms against the King the third concerning the Solemn League and Covenant Now with reference to all these especially the first and last I have had hitherto insuperable objections against the making any such Declaration I am heartily sorry that any Men retain these Principles and more that they dare to own them and yet there were no great hurt in this would but our Governours take the alarm and consider what Indulgence is fit to be allowed those Men who profess that they have insuperable objections against declaring Treason and Rebellion to be a sin and that they dare not renounce that Covenant which involved this Nation in a Bloudy War which pull'd down Church and State and ended in the Barbarous Murder of the best of Kings for those who believe they are still under the obligation of that Covenant must necessarily believe that they are still bound to act over the same Villanies when they shall have power to do it But of this more when our Author shall think fit to give us his objections against the two last Declarations at present we are only concerned to vindicate the First the Declaration concerning the Book of common-Common-Prayer And his great objection against this is a great mistake or a disingenuous perverting the sense and meaning of the Declaration The words are these I A. B. do declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book entituled B. L. The Book of Common-Prayer c. Upon which words he thus comments Surely words could not be devised by all the wit of man more comprehensive and more significant to testifie our highest justification and commendation of every point and syllable of every rite and ceremony of every matter and thing contained in the whole Book and in every page and line of it This he descants on at large and greatly triumphs in the unreasonableness and absurdity of such a declaration and I confess I am perfectly of his mind and would be a Non-conformist to any Church in the World that should require such a declaration from me but then those very Arguments whereby he proves the unreasonableness of such a declaration do abundantly convince me that this is not the sense and meaning of the declaration And every man must be of my mind who will but think so charitably of his Prince and Parliament and the Convocation as not to believe them to be all mad For would any men in their wits who deny the Infallibility of Pope and Councils as he well observes the Church of England does require such an assent to any book of humane composition as shall suppose it to be infallible for so this declaration according to that latitude of sense he bestows on it supposes that there is not the least possible mistake in the whole Book of Common-prayer but that it is as infallible as the Bible nay more infallible than any Copy of the Bible now extant in the World in any Language in which there may be some possible mistakes through the fault of the Translators or Transcribers as he observes and as was before observed in the very Preface to the Common-Prayer-Book that in common equity there must be allowed a just and favourable construction to all humane Writings especially such as are set forth by Authority and even to the very best Translations of the Holy Scripture it self which is a plain Argument that they never designed such a declaration of Assent to the Book of Common-Prayer as excludes all possible mistakes and gives us a general rule not to expound Acts of Parliament or Publick Declarations which are humane writings set forth by Authority to an absurd or impossible sense In like manner Queen Elizabeth in her Injunctions brands those for malicious Persons who put such perverse constructions on the Oaths of Allegiance as could not by any equity of words or good sense be thereof gathered And yet upon this mistake our Author proceeds to show the difference between old and new Conformity and asserts that ever since our happy reformation the Ministers were not so strictly enjoyned to declare their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book but it was only appointed to be read and used and the Rites and Ceremonies of it duly to be observed which he calls their moderation and piety very good words and indeed too good not to be qualified and recalled and therefore adds at least their prudence and policy for he supposes that a great many hundreds who conformed in those days would not have conformed had any such declaration been required of them and upon this account doubts not to declare that present conformity is foreign and quite of another nature
baptized again The sum then of his argument is this that he dares not approve the sign of the Cross because the use of it after Baptism may by a perverse interpretation seem to be what it is not and what he dares not affirm it to be It is some comfort that this Writer acknowledges in the next Paragraph that the Primitive Christians did use the sign of the Cross as indeed they did both in administring Baptism and upon divers other occasions which one would think might justifie the Church of England in conforming to a Primitive practice but what he adds that they did it to distinguish themselves from the Pagans who scorned the Cross together with every sign and token of it is never alledged as the reason of this practice by the ancient Christians who did not use this sign to distinguish themselves from Jews and Pagans though every peculiar usage for what reason soever it be taken up will necessarily prove a note of distinction but to declare that as much as a crucified Christ was scorned both by Jews and Heathens they were not ashamed of the cross but did put their whole trust and confidence in their crucified Lord and were ready when ever God pleased to call them to it to be conformed to their suffering Head and this is a perpetual reason for this use while the Church has any enemies and it is never like to be without while there are either Atheists or Fanaticks or Papists That the sign of the cross has been abused by Papists to idolatrous purposes is no better argument against using the sign of the cross than it is against owning the cross it self for in using the sign of the cross we only own the cross that is we profess to own a crucified Lord and the Doctrine and Religion of the Cross But this Person is much mistaken in the temper of the Church of England which neither does any thing nor leaves any thing undone meerly for a note of distinction and separation that is a piece of vanity and affectation which is peculiar to Pharisees and some other People who are very like them He has one objection more against the order of baptism which refers to the Rubrick at the end of that Office Viz. It is certain by Gods word that Children which are baptized dying before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved Now had I a mind to wave this dispute I might tell him that we do not give our assent and consent to this Rubrick because though it be contained in yet it is not prescribed by the Book of Common prayer that is it is never to be used and we assent and consent only to the use of those things which are both contained in and prescribed by that Book but since this is evidently the doctrine of our Church as appears both from the Homilies and several passages in the Office of Baptism it self I shall briefly consider his objections against it And first he wishes they had quoted the place where this is affirmed in Scripture for he knows not where to find it and I would desire him to tell me whether nothing be undoubtedly certain by Scripture but what we have an express Text for if not we must reject the Baptism of Infants too which will put an end to the dispute concerning their salvation when baptized If those who are regularly admitted into the Church of Christ have a right to the blessings of the Covenant then they have a title to salvation if they have not then Baptism is an insignificant ceremony and not the Seal of a Covenant which I suppose our Author will not easily affirm no not to oppose the Church of England I say those who are regularly admitted by baptism for so our Church supposes which answers most of his captious and impertinent queries If the Children of very bad Parents be regularly admitted by baptism or to speak plainer may be lawfully baptized as in some cases no doubt they may we must acknowledge they receive the benefit of baptism too but if any are baptized who have no right to baptism we are not bound to prove that baptism shall be of any advantage to them no more than that a Child shall inherit an Estate by vertue of an illegal or fraudulent conveyance Thus the supposition of a Christian King baptizing the Children of Pagans Turks Jews by the same force by which he conquered their Parents concerns more the legality of the Act than the vertue of the Sacrament for where-ever the Sacrament is lawfully administred it will have its due effect It is a very pretty objection against the vertue of baptism that it supposes it to be in the power of a man to make Infants sure and certain of salvation viz. by murdering of them as soon as they are baptized and accordingly he teaches Whores a more charitable way of murdering their Infants to baptize them first that so their Souls may be saved which is true Fanatick talk and proves the objector to have more need of good Physick than a serious answer for let him put the case as odly as he pleases Children that are lawfully baptized are in Covenant with God and have a good title to salvation and those who murder them send them to Heaven as other Murderers do all the good men they kill He asks just such another raving question May a Minister since baptizing gives such an unquestionable title to Heaven deny or suspend the ordinance to any Infant whatsoever if he might be permitted to administer it if by permission he means a legal permission according to the terms and conditions of the Gospel the answer is plain that he ought not to deny it that is a Gospel Minister ought not to deny Baptism to any Infant who has a just right to it if he means any other permission than this the Man is mad and needs no other answer for we don't suppose that Baptism works like a spell or charm to whomsoever it be applied but its vertue depends upon a Divine institution and therefore requires persons duly qualified to receive it But he strangely aggravates the cruelty of those Ministers who refuse to baptize Children and consequently keep them under a suspicion of damnation because their Parents scruple God-fathers and God-mothers and the sign of the Cross such an one he says deserves if possible to be unchristened himself again and turned among Canibals as one more deeply dipt and baptized in their barbarous inhumanities and adds and yet if he be a true Son of the Church and punctually observe his prescribed rule he must not baptize any Infant without God fathers and God-mothers without signing it with the sign of the Cross whether it be saved or damned ought not this Man of conscience nay of a tender conscience to have been very sure this charge had been just before he had condemned the whole Clergy of the Church of England to be turned among Canibals and yet nothing can be more