particulars As That the Church hath no declarative Power in matters of Faith or supposing any Article obscure to us or inverted and involved by Hereticks so that the matter of it hath not been explicitly acknowledged in all Ages of the Church anteceeding when the present Church gives the true meaning of it according to the tradition of Faith evidencing thereby the Sense of the Article or which is the same the sense of Scripture on which the Article is founded and engages the assent of all Christians thereunto That hereby she creates a new Article of Faith pag. 75 945. as if there were no mean betwixt the Power of the single Church of Rome who resolves all her actings into her own immediate Authority and the true Power of the Catholick Church of God which determines antecedent truths that were tho' less known or misinterpreted from the beginning and when the reason of her decree is not from her own Authority but the Tradition of Faith delivering the sense of the Holy Ghost down unto us That the Church representing and the Church diffusive are all one nothing can make the Church teaching and representative but the belief of what is necessary to Salvation Pag. 86 87. I thought a distant Power by Ordination had constituted the Pastors of the Church You go on at the same confused rate Pag. 251 252. I 'll only write out your words at large and let the Reader judge of them That which being supposed a Church is and being distroyed it ceaseth to be is the formal constitution of it but thus it is as to the Church The belief of Fundamentals makes it a Church and the not believing them makes it cease to be a Christian Church I speak of an essential not an organical Church And I know not who those persons are who out of those places Luk. 10.16 Matth. 28.19 20. Joh. 14.16 do infer the perpetuity of an organical Church nor if they did doth it thence follow they must suppose an infallible assistance beyond an essential 't is strange that nothing should be found betwixt these two in your own sense of them to constitute Pastors of Christ's own sending to make it an organical Church for I cannot imagine what necessity can be supposed of infallibility in order to that which may be sufficiently constituted without it The perpetuity of the Church doth rather argue the infallibility of the promise than of the Church Supposing then that the promises by you insisted on should be so far extended as to imply a perpetuity of a Christian Church what doth that argue but only this that to make it appear that promise is infallibly true there shall always be a Succession of Christians in the World Suppose I grant that the being of a Christian Church doth suppose the assistance of God's Spirit is there no assistance but what is infallible If not no one can be a Christian without infallibility for we speak of no other assistance but what is necessary to make Men Christians for what makes them such severally take them conjunctly makes them a Church But if you besides what assistance is requisite to make Men Christians do suppose somewhat more to make them a Church I pray name what it is And whatever it be it will not be own'd by such who infer a Perpetuity But if in order to that no more be meant as no more can be meant than what is necessary to make Men Christians then infallibility will grow so cheap and common I add and Church-Power and Offices together with it it will not be worth challenging by you for your Church neither will a Ministry be worth challenging by us either But this is agreeable enough with the Title you still give the Archbishop in this Treatise and as if he had no other Prelation but what is derived from his Majesty and is purely Secular you call him his Lordship only I much question Whether it might not have discomposed the Calm that most exemplary Prelate died in upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill if he could then have been aware that he should have had such a Vindicator I cannot here but repeat it again tho' it be so very Offensive How gladly I should see the Church of Rome opposed and our common Christianity not struck at with the same blow and hand Surely the due Power of God's Church might have been vindicated and Rome's Usurpations rejected without this intermingling all as one both Priest and People as you have done here most Scandalously And at the same rate you dispute also against the Monarchical Government of the Church and an infallible judge Pag. 464. because Christ no where that we read of took care that we should be freed from all kind of Controversies and we no where find such a State of Christian Church described or promised where Men shall be of one mind only that peace and brotherly love continue is all that Christians are bound to and that every Man have the same Vnderstanding Which Arguments conclude as forcibly against any other Government even that of our Saviour himself and his Apostles were they upon Earth again and in the same circumstances as when here before Nay you have used these very Arguments against all manner of Government in your Irenicum And farther Pag. 172. you infer Because it is not in the Power of the Church of Rome judicially and authoritatively to determine what Books belong to the Canon of Scripture and what not Therefore the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest to search into matters of Fact and not a Judge upon the Bench to determine in point of Law And thereby take away all judicial Power from the Church to oblige her Members or Subjects by for their assent and submission to her Acts and Decrees upon a due search of matter of Fact and full evidence of the Truth and Certainty of those Articles Rules and Canons enjoin'd and commanded And thus you particularly affront the Practice of our own Church she having made it Law that only such a certain number of Books of the Old and New Testament be accounted and received as Canonical and withal requiring Subscription thereunto as a judge upon a Bench to be sure by all that are admitted by her into holy Orders And as you have before concluded That whatever Power can be supposed by Christ to be promised and derived to his Church from Matt. 28.19 20. c. is that which each private Christian partakes of So again Pag. 516. you say That whatever Power can be supposed in a General Council must be first in the Church diffusive and from thence be derived to the Council Which in effect is thus That the Bishops of Christendom who by right are only to sit in Council and such Presbyters as have sat and acted there did it only as their Substitutes and by virtue of their deputation receive their Power either from the Presbyters and Deacons or which is worse from the Laity
I there said of them appearingly capable of an exception was That in laying their Argument they did not consider that so ill-natured a Man as Parker might at some time or other have advantage against them And I am so far from acknowledging it a fault that I accuse them of more inconsiderateness of the same nature you may make it their fault if you can in that they did not foresee also That such a Book as the Irenicum would come into the world taking occasion from their writings and by their authority to degrade and depose them expresly making them a party against themselves and the institution of their Episcopal Order and with as much perverseness and ill nature as ever Robert Parker acted against them And now you see my crime it is well if the offence does not lye the other way in that I made Parker appear a defamer the familiarities one that I know once had with his writings taking them for his own gives a shrewd suspicion of it Yes but I lay to their charge the bringing in a new sort of Henrician Heresie which is as new to me as the name it goes under Henrician Heresie I am at a loss to find who this Henricius or Henricianus the Author of an old Heresie is I have consulted all my Books as Epiphanius St. Austin with others of the Ancients that wrote of Hereticks as Irenaeus Tertullian and particularly the Notes of Pamelius upon Tertullian's Prescriptions against Hereticks where the Catalogue of them is explained and am still as ignorant as when I first set out Who can this Haeresiarcha be I consider'd a little farther and the word appearing Novel I consulted my modern Authors down to Edward's Gangraena but neither fell nor fall appear'd here either At last reading Dr. Stillingfleet's Answer to Mr. Cressey's Epistle Apologetical pag. 406. I found the Man but in great obscurity among the mouldy Papers in the Cottonian Library And truly Sir tho' I will not presume to offer to you any advice of my own yet I will venture to recommend the advice which an excellent Friend of yours gave to me as he supposed in the like case and because I appear'd to him unintelligible it is your Advocate Dr. Burnet's in his Letter that he was pleased once to write to me pag. 7. You had best to do as another Emperor did write of your self and illustrate your Epistle with Annotations That which comes next is a flight of your wit upon the Vicar of Cosmus Blene and the Vicar at Rome but falls as much short of it as Cosmus Blene and Rome are distant from one another But more ill nature accompanies it without which some have no wit at all and you insinuate that to attack you is to be a Papist or at least to be their Friend as certainly as the Devil is known by his cloven foot for so Dr. Burnet speaks out in his last Letter and farther adds That we equally degrade Kings from their Ecclesiastical Supremacy and at length will make them Reign at the mercy of the Church and at the Pope's courtesie The Doctor was in a heat during the whole time of his Epistolizing and did not consider immediate consequences for he brings Mr. Dean of St. Paul's as evidently into the praemunire as he does me and accuses him of the same Popery who has declared himself to be of my judgment and that the Church is a distinct Society And further That I have not produced one considerable Argument which he had not made use of to that purpose in a Discourse published above Twenty years since But if the Doctor and the Dean have no better Arguments to prove us Papists as we are very well assured they have not we may better bear the charge I 'll add Or than these which are farther produced in the following part of the Paragraph tho' once thought to be very good ones 'till my great humility in writing my self Vicar of Cosmus Blene better inform'd you As Because I proceed so like a judge in Controversies and after an imperious manner summon by a kind of Citation c. It seems then that every judge of Controversies is a Pope and each Citation is a Bull from Rome or else that my private Letter begging a more full information from your own hand for that was all which I desired of you in my Letter is of the same nature as a Summons or Citation from the Courts Ecclesiastical and you suspected lest an Answer to it had been a declining your Diocesan's Authority and Jurisdiction One of these or all you must be interpreted to mean if you mean any thing and choose whether you please it is pure Irenicum all over or the very Weapon-salve Doctrine and Argumentation Thus Men usually run into the contrary extream thinking thereby to atone for the first Error And you who have before asserted your Bishop to be really void of Power or a mere name without Authority now enlarge his Power as much too far and make it a breach of Canonical Obedience to Write or Answer a Private Letter without his knowledge and Licence However notwithstanding the danger of Popery for you will certainly say again That I proceed like a judge of Controversies and summon you after an imperious manner by a kind of Citation and you may as well say so now as before I 'll venture to ask you Two Questions more 1. Where the crime really lyes in proceeding like a judge of Controversies does not every one that writes of Controversies become a judge of them he ought to be so or else he ought not to write about them And if you had laid your calumny here That I am not fit to write Controversies but undertake to be a judge when I am not qualified for one and proved it you had done something more than every Traducer can do Your Objection seems co-incident with Dr. Burnet's in his rude Letter which he sent me December 20. 1684. Because I published my Book after a course of studies upon full thoughts and a thorow consideration or that I did not Print it as he does Manuscripts without fear or wit or as he did his Letters in their defence with such rash heady precipitancie that he is forced to retract in one what he wrote in another and each contradicts the other as will appear in due place 2. Admit that I had sent you a summons by citation to Answer such Questions as I should demand of you supposing you in great Errors and the Church of God had received great damages by your publication of them you of all Men ought to have taken the least exceptions against me for it who in your Irenicum have enstated me as a Presbyter and by virtue of my Orders in full power for the doing of it as to superintend inspect preside over and govern the Churches and from the best authority and precedents Ecclesiastical So that if I had transgressed since Dr. Stillingfleet led me
Keys delivered unto them and thereby were invested in their Persons with the Ministerial Authority yet upon the same terms it must be farther proved That it was Christ's Intention that the same power should continue in their Successors or it makes no more to the purpose for a settled Ministery than it does for a fixed Episcopacy and this same Argument which overthrows a Superiority of Church-men over one another for want of an Express of Christs intention to continue it always overthrows also the Ministry it self both having the same bottom and alike promises This the Independant and Socinian saw and consider'd full well and upon your own grounds reject them both together with the two Sacraments because there are no express Texts declaring their Perpetuity But this is agreeable enough with the Rector of Sutton who as he makes all Gospel-Laws for Church-Government an Escheat to Westminster-Hall so is he to be supposed to receive none as perpetually obliging except those that are made and conveyed in the Hall-Phrase and by its Precedents with an express Declaration Entailing them upon the Heirs and Successors for ever But because Apostolical practice still presses you hard whose force apart from the Act and Donation of our Saviour seems to infer a divine Right the matter of Fact being apparent and beyond contradiction That the Apostles were invested with a Superiority beyond Bishops and Presbyters and did accordingly execute it Hereupon with a deep design but very Superficial Policy that is easily seen through and baffled you place their juridical consistorial Acts and Practices amongst those other Acts and Practices of theirs that were purely occasional and with regard to the present times and circumstances such as abstaining from Blood and things strangled eating or not eating the order of Widows the Love-Kiss Celibacy St. Paul's working with his own Hands Preaching the Gospel freely Circumcising Timothy c. all which are confessedly mutable and did alter in a very little time both in their Practice and Obligation But your Error is not only in ranging these quite different Practices under the same head and order whose distant natures are so plain and obvious but in that you do not consider that the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism will for the same reason come under that head of Indifferencies and Practices mutable and therein besides the ill consequences in Religion you plainly contradict your self who tell us at the same time and in the same Section and in doing of it dart your self through with your own Weapon That tho' there be no particular express Revelation for the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism yet Practice Apostolical or of Persons guided by an Infallible Spirit is sufficient to enact and declare them perpetually obliging For surely Apostolical practice guided by an infallible Spirit is equally manifest son a Superiority in the Ministry as for those two It is far more notorious and frequent but your Plot that was laid against the Immutability of Episcopacy engaged you to take no notice of it vid. Part I. Sect. 3. Part. II. § 20. Farther yet That you may be every ways secure in your design and wholly baffle and defeat all Plea for a divine and immutable Right from Apostolical Practice in the point of Episcopacy you go on in a sure way treading Antiquity under your Foot and impleading the most holy Primitive Bishops and Confessors of Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy that hereby you may root out their Order and destroy it from the Face of the Earth and you say in so many words That we cannot have that certainty of Apostolical Practice as to constitute a Divine Right It is not my business to argue points but to collect your particular Opinions or rather to write the History of your Theology otherwise I might here reply by demanding How and by what hands it is that we have any certainty of the Apostolical Writings or know their minds and intentions there The Church hath all along received the Canon and Sense of the Scriptures from the Faith and certainty of Antiquity and the repute and integrity of these holy Bishops Martyrs and Confessors Our Church of England certainly does so and they are her Rule in Reforming as to both and when the Authority of some Books of the New Testament were called in question the Tradition of Faith alone declared them Canonical and they remain such upon that Testimony in the account of the whole Christian World to this day And why then is the same evidence defective and less authoritative concerning their practice and sense in the point of Government But thus you expose the Scriptures their Authority their Sense to every Atheist and Enthusiust to uncertainties and conjectures or at the best to the intemperance of each violent heady and sceptical undertaker And thus it comes to pass that so much work is made for a Nicephorus Calisthus a Simeon Metaphrastes the very Jacobus de Voragine of the Greek Church those Tinkers that think to mend a hole and make three instead of it you taking away hereby the great evidence and muniments of our Christianity both as to the matter of Fact and the intent of it that which is next to the Foundation is cast down and what can the Righteous do Hence so many Whimsies and Forgeries of Mens Brains and monstrous Opinions fill up our Bodies of Divinity and your many forms of Government as by Divine Right are no less portentous than any of them as Geographers do Maps with some fabulous Creatures of their own Inventions Our Church of England I say in her Reformation supposes certainty and sufficiency in the Records of the Primitive Church and that matter of Fact is faithfully transmitted down unto us with the true sense of the Scriptures and Apostolical Practice both in matter of Doctrine and Government and her Reformation is receiv'd by the Civil Power and made Law in the Kingdom upon these terms alone viz. As bottom'd on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and what the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have thence collected particularly in the Four first General Councils or any other Council X. Elizabethae Cap. I. Sect. xxxvi And yet upon a Scandalous Interpretation of Eusebius Hist Eccles Lib. 3. Cap. 4. perverting his Sense quite contrary to his plain words and design which is to set forth the Succession of Bishops immediately from the Apostles over the known Parts of Christendom you blast the credit of all Antiquity and that with as much show of rancor and contempt as the scornfullest manner of expressing your self can declare What becomes then with our Rector of Sutton of our unquestionable Line of Succession of Bishops of several Churches and the large Diagram made of Apostolical Churches with every ones name set down in his order as if the Writer had been Clarenceaux to the Apostles themselves Is it come to this at last that we have nothing certain but what we have in the Scriptures And must then
your account of it being only this That by the hand of Providence it happily came to your hands which account is very scandalous Providence being the Sanctuary for every Impostor is placed in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England with the time and year when the Conference was held and hath the Character as well it may upon your terms of an Authentique Writing and hereby Dr. Burnet is equally dishonoured as an Historian with your self as a Divine of the Church of England And first that your own reputation as a Divine of the Church of England must be shrewdly called in question hereby is most manifest because this Manuscript upon your alone authority and with the Character of stupendae eruditionis theologum is made use of by the most rigid and rude of the Presbyterian Party to prove That our first Reformers did not believe a Bishop and a Presbyter to be two distinct Orders but that it is in the power and at the pleasure of the Prince to Govern by Bishops and Presbyters or by Presbyters without them And they farther hereupon assert That our own Divines were generally of the same Opinion during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth tho' Bancroft and Laud have since maintained the contrary and asserted Bishops to be by Divine Right and a distinct Order This is to be seen in Mr. Hickman's Apologia pro ejectis in Anglia ministris vulgò Non-conformistis but a particular of this passage in it is given by the Reverend Dean of Windsor Dr. Durell in his Ecclesiae Anglicanae Vindiciae cap. 28. I might add because the Erastian Party is hereby much confirmed and strengthned Now can any Man think that a true Son of the Church of England who by his relation to her alone must be supposed to believe that the Power of the Prince is quite another thing from the Power of the Church as also the Power of a Bishop from the Power of a Presbyter would willingly and under such circumstances as these have given this great advantage to the Adversary that you so manifestly have done by reprinting this Manuscript and with the approbation of the two Houses of Parliament and not add one Note in the Margent disowning the evil consequents have been drawn from it Is it not rather a yielding to them and complying with the objection giving new Strength and Sinews unto it Or is it not a thankful acceptance of the honour that was done you by the Presbyterians in the Quotation And I fear you were over-tickled with that higher Eulogy and wonderful commendation they bestow'd upon you Sure I am you could not have served them and their design more advantageously I must confess I was startled at the first reading of it Again the reputation of Dr. Burnet is equally at the Stake also as an Historian The grounds and reasons produced by the Dean of Windsor in his forementioned Vindiciae cap. 28. upon which he suspects the Manuscript to be a fraud and not the writings and determinations of Cranmer and those others whose names it bears seems to me very considerable they amount indeed to a demonstration his words are these Nam quifactum c. For how comes it to pass that these things in that Manuscript were altogether unknown to John Fox that most diligent compiler of the Acts and Monuments of Cranmer and the other Martyrs a Man over much addicted to the Faction of the Puritans and the other most diligent writers of the Church of England Whence is it that Cartwright and other ancienter Puritans heard nothing of them And they are to be believed to have heard nothing since they have made no mention of them How happens it that no one Historiographer of that time hath remembred so memorable a thing as was that Conference of so many illustrious Men concerning the affairs of so great moment For if we may believe the Manuscript there was enquiry of many and the principal heads of Religion as of the Rights of the higher Powers about holy things and those most eminent Men and learned Prelates did there dispute of them all I 'll add how came Mr. Hobbs not to find it out He was a Man well acquainted with English Story and the concurrence of Arch-Bishop Cranmer and so many of our first Reformers in his Scheme of Government which I have shew'd to be the same with this in the Manuscript would have been very pleasing unto him He did not hate our Church and Divines so much but that he was glad on each occasion to serve himself of them and did so Surely a wise Man would have consider'd these things some way or other the Doctor wanted full thoughts and a thorough consideration here to be sure and it shall go for part of his punishment for that he hath so much despised them in others Surely no one would have gone to the Press without laying these things together and their consequences but he who looks upon himself as the very Pillar of Truth which will bear out any inscription it is entituled withal and his own Authority as sufficient to make credible whatever he shall think fit to recommend to Mankind And this his Arbitrary Precarious Self-authoritative way of writing History and Record-making is so much the more culpable in the Doctor because he hath particularly blamed Peter Heylin a Man much better and honester than himself upon the like as he supposed occasion His words in his Preface after many severer Animadversions upon him are these In one thing he is not to be excused that he never vouched any Authority for what he writ which is not to be forgiven any who write of Transactions beyond their own time and deliver new things not known before so that upon what grounds he wrote the greatest part of his Book we can only conjecture For surely it is much safer and a great deal less disingenuous to produce no Authority but leave Men to their own conjectures than to produce and vouch that Authority which is false and hath no bottom at all except that of one single Doctor or in his own Language a Sceptical injudicious Youth who vouches Providence for it by which he can only mean that the Manuscript came to his hands immediately from Heaven for no humane hand reacht it unto him All Historians all Men of what sort soever that can be conceived to have been concerned in things relating that way being altogether silent about it And I shall hereafter no more believe him in whatever it is that he delivers unless I see the originals with mine own Eyes or have them vouched by a better Authority than his own than I believed the late Dialogue between him and the Groaning-Board The old malicious Fable of the Nag's-Head-Ordination by which the Emissaries of Rome defamed our Church one way as you have by your Manuscript another carries much more likelihood of truth and credibility in it For our Bishops and Divines had a meeting at the
the agreement of it in making the Foundations of its being that is Believing in Christ and walking in him to be the grounds of its Communion From whence it necessarily follows that whatsoever Church imposeth the belief of other things as necessary Articles of Faith and not only agreements for the Churches Peace which were not so antecedently necessary to the being of the Catholick Church doth as much as in it lies break the Vnity of it and those Churches who desire to preserve its Vnity are bound thereby not to have Communion with it so long as it doth so To which you add That nothing ought to be imposed as a necessary Article of Faith to be believed by all but what may be evidently propounded to all persons as a thing which God did require the explicite belief of As also That nothing ought to be required as a necessary Article of Faith but what hath been believed and received for such by the Catholick Church of all Ages All which whoso please may read more at large from Page 48. to Page 57. I having only digested it and put in as narrow a room and with as much perspecuity as I could For since the rule is He that gives must take I venture to be so bold as to tell you It is there all along very roughly and incoherently both as to matter and form even contradictorily put together by you tho' not altogether so unintelligibly but that it is plain and evident that you have quite overthrown the Jesuite For as I said before If all Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation be antecedent to the being of the Church and its Governors the Pastors of it they cannot then how great soever that Power is wherewith they are enstated by Christ be conceived to have created any one of them But the main doubt is How you will answer for those many and palpable injuries our common Christianity suffers thereby and rescue your self from the perverser conclusions which are the immediate result of your Arguing As 1. That a Man may be a Christian and not a Church Member 2. That true Faith and Obedience may be attained out of the Church 3. That the being of the Church is not necessary to Salvation 4. That the Church is a subsequent Combination for Acts of Worship 5. That Church Officers are not of the essence of the Church 6. That the exercise of the Communion of the Catholick Church adds only to her perfection And by consequence 7. That the Church doth not cease to be a Church without it any other ways than a Man ceaseth to be a Man without a Hand or a Foot. 8. That the Union of the Catholick Church depends upon its agreement in the Foundation or in that assent and belief which is antecedaneous unto it Or thus 9. That Schism which is a breach of the Churches Union does not relate to Church Officers in their Church Laws and Canons 10. That all necessary Articles of Faith are antecedent to the Catholick Church and consequently that Article of the Holy Catholick Church in our Creed 11. That the being of a Ministry is not the object of a Christian Man's Faith so as necessarily to be believed by him 12. That that Church which imposeth it as such as much as in it lies breaks the Unity of the Church And other Churches are not bound to have Communion with it so long as it does so 13. That the Church Explanations of Faith are not a necessary object of Faith. 14. That the Church ought not to explicate any one Article of Faith or deliver and recommend it in any other words for the assent of Faith than those we find in Scripture 15. That when any such Explication of Faith is made it must be made evident to all persons that God did command that Explication and require the explicite belief of it 16. That the determinations of Faith made by any Council but more particularly by the Four first General Councils are an Usurpation and Imposition upon Christendom because there is no Declaration of God's will that those higher Articles should be so explained and imposed on Christians as in those Councils they are determined 17. That Athanasius and the Homoousians were the imposers upon the Church of God in that great Controversie betwixt them and the Arians 18. That Universality as to persons time and place is not that which makes a necessary Article of Faith because all necessary Articles of Faith are supposed by you to have been antecedent to the Catholick Church as to persons time and place and consequently you must either say That the Article of the Catholick Church is no necessary Article or object of Faith or those conditions are not necessary to the making such 19. That the placing some Books of the New Testament in the Canon which were not once there for some time of the Church is an imposition 20. That all the Laws and Definitions of the Church concerning the highest Articles of Faith oblige no otherwise than when concerning an ordinary Ceremony 21. That there is no more guilt in denying the Doctrine of one Substance than in not standing up when the Nicene Creed is said supposing that a Rubrick hath injoyned it 22. That the Church of England hath put the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds into her Church service and enjoined them for an instance of her Confession of Faith when she does not require that we believe them or if she do she goes beyond her Authority 23. That she greatly erres not only in imposing the Athanasian Creed for our Confession of Faith which either she does not require us to believe or if she does we ought not to believe but turns out the Apostles Creed upon certain days to bring that in its room 24. That her breach of trust together with the affront is much more unpardonable because the Athanasian Creed is commanded to be said in the room of the Apostles on the highest days and in the highest Offices of our Christian Service and Worship viz. The great Festivals of the Year as Christmas-day Easter-day Ascension-day Whitsunday Trinity-Sunday when a more particular signal Confession of our Faith with the greatest Zeal and Ardency Courage and Resolution is implied to be a Christian Man's Duty And lastly That herein and hereby you give support and countenance to the many Sectaries that are among us as Anabaptists Socinians Independents Quakers who upon these very grounds that you have laid down to oppose the Church of Rome quite fling off the Ministry or Church of God as altogether useless as to its publick Acts of Worship or Decrees and Declarations Or else they to be sure look upon it as that which cannot be supposed absolutely necessary to Salvation And indeed the consequence comes unavoidable upon you for if that which is necessary to the Salvation of all Men be antecedent to Church Society or Ecclesiastical Communion and attainable without it you will find very little left whereby to