true Pastors over that people without their consent and to nullifie the relation of their former-lawful Pastors 9. That it is not impossible or rare for the Usurper to have the foresaid advantages and the true Pastors to be put to meet in privater places and so thought Dr. VVild Dr. Guning Dr. Hide c. in the time of our Civil Usurpations And even under lawful Governours it was so judged by the Churches in the case of Athanasius Basil and multitudes of Bishops then cast out 10. That abundance of the Ministers now cast out were once the lawful Pastors of the flocks 11. That when the true Pastor is thrust out of the Temples and Usurpers have that place he is rather the Separatist that followeth the Usurper in that more publick place than he that adhereth in private to the lawful Pastor as Dr. VVild and the rest aforementioned then thought 12. That therefore in those places where the Relation of prohibited Ministers to the people is truly dissolved they are the faulty dividers that adhere to them But where it is not dissolved but the publick Teachers were never their true Pastors there those may be the Schismaticks that forsake their lawful Pastors though under that restraint 13. That where the Pastors that have the Temples and those that are shut out are both true Pastors caeteris paribus it is as good a proof that they are Separatists and Schismaticks who join not with them in other places as that they are so for not coming to the Temples that is neither of the inferences is good 14. Every man is not a Separatist that is not present with others in publick worship I separate not from all foreign Churches nor from all the Parish Churches in London save one though I be present but with one But he that censureth a true Church to be no Church and so separateth from it as none and he that accounteth any Church injuriously to be so corrupted as that it is unlawful to hold communion with it both these are guilty of culpable Schismatical separation but in very different degrees 15. A mans absence from you will not alone prove him a Separatist unless he be absent upon separating Principles 16. He that keepeth not local communion with a particular Church and yet honoureth them as a Church that may be communicated with and holdeth communion of Faith and Love and Obedience with them cannot be a Separatist from them simply but only extrinsically secundum quid and that is to be tried and judged of as aforesaid 17. If therefore they will admit you to communicate with them in their way and will not communicate with you in your way it sheweth that it is something in your way and not directly in your selves from which they separate 18. And no man ought to commit one sin for the communion of any Church 19. I may have more mental communion with a Church which I dare not outwardly join with because they impose some one unlawful word or action than with a more corrupted Church with which I hold more external communion because they put me not to approve their errors 20. When there are several Churches near caeteris paribus a free man should join himself with the Purest and to the most edifying Ministry ordinarily 21. Yet in times of suspicion and division it is fit to shew our judgment by our practise and to join sometimes with some less pure Churches that put no sin upon us to shew that we withdraw not from them on separating principles 22. When a Minister is not lawfully separated from his flock but another is obtruded without a just call upon his people yet if he see that the voluntary relinquishing of his relation is most for the peoples good that they may accept another that hath more secular advantages to profit them and guide them in peace he is finis gratiâ in prudence bound to do it 23. All people in England therefore are not in the same condition but to some it may be a fault which to others is a duty Were I in a place where the Minister is faithful and worthy to be owned I would draw all the people to attend his Ministry and would help him at other seasons as I were able in unity and love But if I lived where the publick Minister were intollerable I would do otherwise 24. The case of London much differeth from most other places in the Land as very many of them think that their relation to their ancient flocks is not yet dissolved so necessity putteth them out of the track of formal Parish-order 1. In the great Plague almost all the Parish-ministers deserted them and those that then stuck to the people found such success by the help of that awakening judgment that they durst not since forsake them nor will easily be forsaken by them 2. There being so many score Churches burnt down and the Inhabitants not gone and the conformable Ministers not officiating but in the standing Temples there is no reason that the people should therefore turn Atheists and give over worshipping God 3. Many Parishes being so great that the twentieth person cannot come to the Temples and many of the Preachers voices so low that half cannot hear them who might get in there is no reason that all the rest must therefore be cast off and left as the Indians without the means that God hath appointed for mens Salvation 4. And why then should not their Assemblies take the fittest time of the day as well as yours All men know that especially in the short Winter-days there is little convenient time left for the work of a Lords-day besides the time of your morning and evenings Liturgy and other Offices 5. And when you have as many as can hear you O why should you be angry that the rest or rather some few of them are hearing others that Preach as profitably as you Nay I beseech you before God judg try and judg what is the cause that when many parts perhaps of your absent Parishioners are at no Church but some in Ale houses Taverns or Gaming-houses and some idle at home that yet the few that are worshipping God with an able faithful Minister are more exclaimed on and written against and angerly accused than all the rest Obj. But many of the Parish-churches are half empty Ans. 1. It is not so with the rest and therefore you may see that the difference between your own Preachers is the cause Unedifying Teachers will not have so many voluntary intelligent hearers as others 2. As I said half the Church-full cannot hear many of your Preachers 3. When the Parishioners know beforehand that the Temple will not hold a quarter of the people they are never certain of room as not knowing when others will exclude them and therefore they seek another place where they may be certain For he that brings his family to Church every day upon such uncertainty is every day uncertain whether he
themselves to no parties sidings or factions in Religion They that you call Puritans and our followers were neither Episcopal Presbyterians or Independents but for plain Christianity and Godliness as such and for the unity of all sober Christians and to do their own duty in that especially which all these parties did consent in When I was removed from them and they heard a stranger in the Pulpit crying out against them as Presbyterians and a generation of vipers c. I hear they looked somewhat strangely at such strange kind of Preaching what the man meant to pretend to know their judgments better than they knew their own When I never knew two whose judgments were for the Presbyterian Government in all the Town and Parish They were in all this so unanimous and concordant that when division shattered some other Parishes there was not that I heard of one Anabaptist one Quaker nor of any different party at all among them save that two ot three in the War fell off from Christianity and all Religion and became as a pillar of Salt unto all the rest When I called them to my house to be Catechised and instructed there were very few families refused And there were not that I could hear of in the heart of the Town above one or two families in a street side that did not call on God and daily worship him The Lords-day they spent in publick Worship and in repeating for memory what they heard and in Praying and singing Psalms of praise They lived in quietness and had no Law-suits nor known contentions None of them lived in wealth or worldly honours none in idleness few or none in begging but in daily painful labour in their Callings by which they lived from hand to mouth Those few that were common drunkards in the Town three or four that custom had made as beasts were yet convinced that their neighbours were better and happier than they As to their cutting faces I can say nothing to you but that their tone was as decent as most Preachers I now hear and their countenance as sober and well composed But God most regardeth the composure of the heart But all that seemeth serious is to some men matter of scorn and one lately telleth you That if you stop the Nonconformists mouths no wonder if they speak through the nose And men will have more care to wash their faces and compose their countenances in publick than if you drive them into corners And for their prating-phrases they are ambitious but of two excellencies of speech the one is to speak their minds in that matter which may have the fullest signification both of the matter spoken and of the speakers affections about the matter for the use of speech is to express them both the other is for ornament and that is to speak in Scripture-phrase not abused any further than weakness causeth all the weak to do even publick Preachers as well as others but as well understood as they are able And they that scorn at Scripture-phrase should not conform to the Book of Ordination or Articles where the Scripture sufficiency and perfection is confest If the phrase of the Scripture it self is not odious neither is the sober use of it where it is not perverted But to such general charges we can give no answer but nexa caput sequitur name the particular persons and words and prove your accusation and caluminate not the rest against whom no such proof is brought 5 Obj. But what excellent Preaching or Labours have you to boast of more than others that your Preaching must be thought so necessary What did you when you did preach but cast out Catechising the Lords-prayer the Creed and the Communion in the Sacrament out of the Church and bring the people to be almost Heathens and cast out all true Discipline and Government and substituted Presbyterian Examinations before the Sacrament and rigor and tyranny which the people would not endure and is this so necessary a thing Ans. These things indeed we read and hear from you very often but another Judg must pass the final sentence You make us pity the poor world in regard of the uncertainty of History You put us upon the recital of our practice which will sound like the boasting of a fool But if blessed Paul was put upon that which he calleth Speaking like a fool though they were not the words of folly we must not murmur if we have the like inconvenience put upon us 1. If the successes before described be nothing worth in your esteem yet labour must be continued still and we must in meekness instruct those that oppose if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. And I suppose few Parish-Priests of my acquaintance will either judg themselves and their labours useless or give them over if the maintenance fail not of success else how many empty Temples should we have But you shall not so easily tempt us into utter unthankfulness for so great a mercy as our success beyond our expectation was I remember Dr. Ames telleth his Father in Law Dr. Burgess in his Fresh Suit that Bishop Morton himself did silence old Mr. Midsley of Rutsdale in Lancashire after God had blessed his Ministry with the Conversion of many thousand souls and his Son after him he silenced also Whether you will think that this which he calleth conversion being but from Popery ignorance sensuality and prophaneness be to be valued or whether you will deny the publick matter of fact I know not but for my part I was glad to hear that he was not silenced till many thousands had been converted by him And O what abundance of success this way had the Ministry of Mr. Hildersham Mr. Nichols Mr. Dod Mr. Thomas Hooker Mr. John Rogers of Dedham Mr. Herring Mr. Barlow and abundance more of the old Nonconformists And what understanding excellent persons were Dr. Ames Mr. Bradshaw Mr. John Ball Mr. John Paget old John Fox Mr. Paul Bain Mr. Parker c. To say nothing of Mr. Perkins Dr. Humphrey Dr. John Reynolds c. who were more Nonconformists than I and those of my judgment are Doubtless they were as like to know how to Preach without either prating phrases or ignorant unlearned dry unedifying Sermons tending to bring Christianity into contempt as most at least of the Parish-Priests that I use to hear in any place where ever I come 2. And as to our own Preaching I confess we have little cause to boast of it For my own part God knoweth I have seldom come out of the Pulpit without some grief and self-accusation that I should stand there to speak as a Minister of Christ about so great a matter as the everlasting Salvation of the peoples souls and that to men that are almost dying and must shortly be all in an unchangeable state where there is no more time of preparation for their final doom
restrained the people from meeting to repeat or pray did thereby occasion them to go further in their undertakings than they ought I still found that to let them do what belonged to them as private men was the means to keep them from that which belonged only to the Ministers and needful meetings in their houses in due subordination to the Pastors and Church-assemblies was the best way to keep them from schismatical meetings which were in opposition to the Pastors and Church-assemblies Yea that to drive them hard on to their proper duty in their families and for their ignorant neighbours was the best way to convince them that they had neither ability nor leisure for more which belonged not to them In a word it was a principal cause that we had no sects nor divisions among us And now if any man come with his exceptions against such meetings as dangerous to the Church or State I only answer him 1. Try it as much as we have done before you condemn you know not what 2. Will you do nothing to help the people to Heaven but that which is lyable to no abuse or inconvenience Then Christ and the Gospel and Scripture and much more Reason it self must be renounced which are all more abused than such private meetings 3. See that you be not more afraid of sects than of mens apparent ungodliness and damnation 4. And see that it be not your own want of skill and diligence that makes you oppose that means which you cannot guide and manage Obj. But this was not the common case of the Nonconformists what do you tell us a long story of your doings when it was otherwise throughout the land Ans. 1. You know that there were then many Sectaries in the land and you may as well impute to us your own misdoings as theirs We justifie not the Sectaries in their principles or practises 2. What was the Doctrine and practise of Presbyterian and Independents the writings which they all agreed to will partly tell you In the Confession of Faith you see what Doctrine they agreed to Preach In the Catechisms they shew you that the Creed Lords-Prayer and Decalogue were not only to be learned by the people but the sense and use also of them all And is this casting them out of the Church And in the Directory they advise to the use of the very words of the Lords prayer in the Churches 3. That I was not singular in this course you may soon learn if you will but enquire what was done at Bewdeley Stourbridg and other places round about me Nay when our two Agreements one for Catechising and personal Conference from house to house and the other for common concord in Discipline were subscribed by so many of all that County and some adjoining whose names are visible there in print you may imagine they endeavoured to do what they subscribed to do 4. Nor was it that County only you may see in their Printed Agreements that the Ministers of Westmorland and other Counties agreed much on the same courses And Essex Wiltshire Dorsetshire and many others had begun the same work from which the return of Diocesans hath released them And remember that the charge of casting out all Discipline and of Presbyterian examinations and severities are hardly reconcileable nor yet the not administring the Sacrament and the examining of the people before the Sacrament But for our Countrys we used not such examinations because our foresaid ordinary Catechising and conference and also our requiring a publick profession of the Christian faith and life at the transition of the youth out of their state of Infant-membership into that of the adult described by me in my Treatise of Confirmation did better answer their necessities 6 Obj. But all this while you lived in Sequestrations upon other mens estates and eat other mens bread of which you never made restitution and how then can you think your merits are such as may plead for your readmission and in particular Mr. Durel and many others have told the world and your self that as a reward for your military service you had a good Benefice out of which another only for his fidelity was cast out with what conscience this was done see you to it Ans. Reader seeing it 's the pleasure of Mr. Durel and so many more to call out the man and cull out the matter with which the world must be thus troubled I intreat thee to pardon my personal narratives for which were it not that they lay the interest of so many of my Brethren of my writings and office upon it I could not pardon my self 1. Let the world then know that these Ministers whom we succeeded were cast out by the Secular power that bore sway and not by those that succeeded them If you know of one Minister of a hundred that was the agent in that work let that one and not the innocent hear of it 2. That the people of each Parish or some of them were the accusers witnesses and sollicitors of the cause who beg'd for deliverance and a better Ministry as if it concerned the benefit of their souls 3. That it was somewhat an excusable error in the Ministers that succeeded them to think that if the Parliament or any Usurpers did turn out the former Ministers of any place the people should not therefore be left as Heathens and all Gods Worship be forsaken and the doors shut up as in the Venetian and other Interdicts by the Pope and this for ten or twelve years together yea almost twenty and that if the Parliament had cast out the overseers of the poor or the nurses of your children it 's hard that all they that after relieved them and saved their lives must be accused as so greatly injurious and that it 's hard that when the love of souls doth make them unweariedly spend themselves for the peoples good that this should be one of their unpardonable crimes How different are mens judgments of vice and virtue and they did think also that really before God and man the Salary was for the work And if they had a lawful calling to the work of the place they thought they had so to the Salary They thought that if a Pilot of a Ship were on pretence of insufficiency and utter ignorance cast out by usurpers of the power that all Shipping must not therefore stand still nor all men be proclaimed sinners that take the place and maintenance I justifie not their reasons but I may tell you my opinion that being young men mostly in the Universities that had little or nothing of their own they could not well otherwise have got bread and clothing much less Books Fire House-room c. nor long have Preached without bread and clothing And I knew few of them that when they were cast out were able to refund or restore that which bought them bread and fire and clothing unless you would sell them as slaves to work
continued But some charitable persons pitied the needy and kept them from famishing and utter distress And some few Ministers of more than ordinary Parts and Name and Acquaintance were better supplied than the rest But those that were as conscientious but of meaner parts and more obscure and small acquaintance and lived in poor Countreys were in great necessities some have long lived with many Children with almost nothing but brown-bread and water and some have been put to work for their living at very low and fordid employments as Musculus once did with a Weaver and in the Town-ditch some took Farms and for want of stock and skill run into greater poverty and debts some that had studied Physick turned Physicians and so escaped want some left the obscure Villages through meer necessity and betook them to London and other Cities and great Towns where the Numbers and Ability of the inhabitants might afford them some relief And some by this siege did yield up their Consciences and stretched them by forced interpretations of the words of the Declaration and Subscription to Conform and upon the review were cast into miserable distress of soul which was more troublesome than poverty and famine And some that thought it not their duty to be very scrupulous and because they had not taken the Covenant or medled in matters of Civil Contention or War did judge themselves more capable than others of Conforming did after upon review repent and give up the places they had taken and the practice which they had begun But all found that the Number of persons that were both able and willing to relieve so many needy families was small and that most were either unable or tenacious of their money so that the sufferings of many were very great 3. But the service that the silenced Ministers did being now in private an Act was made against Conventicles and such penalties annexed as I need not here recite And when the Act was expired it was again revived with many additions And because that these Ministers lived mostly now on Cities and Corporations or their former flocks that were acquainted with them an Act was made in the heat of all the grievous Plague at Oxford imposing on them an Oath which he that took not having kept any Conventicle and after came within five miles of any City or Corporation or place where he had lately preached was to be sent six Months to the Common Jayl and pay 40 l. This Law was harder to them than the former For 1. many men that had made some shift to settle their habitation in the cheapest or most convenient place they could get were forced to remove yea most of the Nonconformists in England were constrained to change their dwelling 2. Some lived with some friends or relations who would give them house-room or help and they were thus driven away from their friends and relations and such entertainments 3. Abundance of them had their houses for a certain time having Leases of them for years or life And they knew not how to get Tenants to take such houses which were incommodious to Farmers though fit for them And they that before wanted bread and cloathing were put to the streights of paying Rent for houses that must stand empty being driven from them 4. And they were hard put to it to find places in England to fix their dwellings in for Corporations in most Counties are so near that he that withdraweth five miles from one doth come within five miles of another or at least within five miles of some place where they had preached And some laborious men that thirsted after mens salvation had gone about preaching over a great part of the Countrey or the Land and so were almost sentenced to banishment by this Law And when they did find out a place that was five miles distant from all the prohibited places it would be strange if there they should find empty houses when Landlords use not to leave their houses untenanted and unpossessed And if a house were empty that it should be fit for a poor Minister that could not take the ground or farm would be strange And 5. when they found a capable place they had not money to take it Being poor before and poorer by their removal 6. And when they borrowed money to take it they wanted money to pay for the removing of their goods and the furnishing of their new habitations Those that have tryed such changes know how chargeable as well as troublesome they are But the thing that most eased them in all these straights was that Market-Towns were not put into the Act with Corporations and so many Market-Towns being no Corporations and there being houses to be had without farms or ground many Ministers got into those Towns which gave Dr. Fullwood occasion to reproach them as dwelling in populous places which had least need of them of which more anon And some Ministers finding their streights so great as that their imprisonment in the common Jayl was not more to be feared and finding especially that they were no more warranted by God to desert the Souls in all Cities and Corporations and all their ancient flocks and all places where they had preached and five miles round about all these than the rest of the Land yea that populous places had the greatest need and their former Hearers might claim the greatest interest in them and that Christ commanded his Apostles when they were prosecuted in one City to fly to another they resolved to follow their work where they were invited and to commit their liberties and lives to God But Gods dreadful judgments were the great cause of their freedom from these streights The terrible Plague consumed so many thousands a week in London that some Nonconformable Ministers durst not leave them in that distress but stayed and preacht to them and visited them and gathered money abroad for the poor which greatly won the peoples hearts and the face of death so prevailed with multitudes to awaken them from security that the success of the Ministers was very great and so great as fixed their resolution to hold on whatever it cost them Multitudes of young people penitently lamenting their former sins and begging of the Ministers not to forsake them in their distress And so many of the Conformable Ministers fled from the infection that the Bishop thought it best to connive at the preaching of the Nonconformists during that necessity And quickly after the lamentable fire consumed with the Houses Eighty nine Churches which made the necessity of preaching in other places more extensive and notoririous it being unmeet that so famous a Christian City should forsake all publick worshipping of God till the Houses and Churches should be all rebuilt So that by this necessity a greater number of Nonconformists were needed and entertained in London yea many Countrey-Ministers that came thither and by their example the rest throughout England were much encouraged to appear
more openly and resolutely in their work But in the mean time the Countrey Gaols were possessed by many faithful Ministers where some have dyed and some excellent men contracted those diseases of which they dyed shortly after and some have dyed by the effects of poverty by cold and ill food for want of necessaries And the complaints of Wives and hungry Children and the burden of debts for meat drink clothes fire and houses hath been a sharper trial to very many of them than their revilers seem to be acquainted with And had they felt it but one year themselves it 's like they would not have thought this a way to gratifie either covetousness or pride It 's true that we should rejoyce in all our tribulations and in every condition be content but humane frailty must be confessed that some by such distress have been cast into sad melancholies which yet seemed more tolerable too than gripes of conscience for wilful sin And indeed the minds of few ingenuous persons will account it an ease to live on alms and to be beholden to mens charity for their daily bread especially when it 's too well known how much most men do love their money and how tenacious they are of it and if they give once how hardly they are brought to it again Who that is able would not rather with Paul get their bread by some labour than fordidly live on a barren and backward sort of charity And the truth is it is the poverty of the friends of the Nonconformists that hath been the cause of these defects It 's well known that it is but few comparatively of the Gentry that have owned them but the Countrey Farmers of their several Parishes whose payments and charges were so great that they had little to spare from the maintenance of their own Families And the lamentable fire so greatly impoverished the Londoners and all the Countrey Tradesmen that depended on them together with the decay of Trade that the Streams were dryed up that should have supplied the Nonconformists wants so that if some very charitable Citizens and others had not done extraordinarily for them beyond all others they might have perished by Famine And after all the number in the City and other parts who by the peoples liberality have a tolerable maintenance which ignorance and envy call a Plenty is very small in comparison of all those through the rest of the Land who have greater wants and lesser helps And it hath not been the least of the said Ministers sufferings that the continual uncertainty of their condition hath disabled them from any commodious fixing of their habitations and put them to the trouble and charge of frequent removals one while severities drive them to retirement and afterward his Majesties gracious Licenses draw them out to more populous places and encouraged them to take houses accordingly and put off the old And shortly after the revocation of the Licenses and the sharpness of prosecution puts them on the necessity of another change which indeed to single men is less but to the far greatest part who have families to remove and care for they that have tryed it and have no money to defray the charges of such removals know what it is to be thus unsetled But all these are light afflictions compared with the delights of pleasing God and saving Souls and with the pleasures of our daily work while we are employed in studying proclaiming and trusting the certain promises of eternal life and waiting for the promised reward in glory And far be it from us to mention them as murmuring at the Providence of God but only in confutation of the hard-faced Calumnies of some men and to acquaint posterity historically with the truth God is just in all the corrections which he layeth on us we have deserved silencing mulcts and imprisonments from him yea he is exceeding merciful to us both in our sufferings for truth and conscience-sake and in our preservations and deliverances and we are far from repenting of our Masters work But whether we deserve from men the accusations and usage which these 17 years we have undergone we refer to his judgment who will shortly by his just and final sentence decide this Controversie and justifie the just 33. Mr. Hollingworth in an Assize-Sermon printed tells a story to prove his Schismaticks as cruel as the execution of the Laws against us would be that some one leading Sectary said He would have all banished that would not subscribe the Doctrine of the Church in the 36 Articles I wrote to him to know whom he meant and he would not tell me but in a very respectful Letter said It was not nor Dr. Manton c. I since understood that this is said of Dr. Owen But 1. he professeth it is false 2. He is known to be for much liberty 3. If he did say it it was but to avert the odium of an overlarge toleration from the Independents 4. And what is this to the case of the many hundred Nonconformable Ministers in England But they be rendred odious for this word of his I will end with the Charge of Henry Fowlis passing over his abusive Volumes of Collections lest I be over-tedious in his History of Popish Treasons this is his accusation he saith of those whom he calleth Puritans I think the Puritans to be the worst people of all mankind A Sect that will agree with you in the fundamentals of Religion but will take Miff and destroy all for a trifle and rather than submit to an innocent Ceremony though imposed by lawful authority will ruine Kingdoms Murder Bishops A Sect that would hate Christ but that he said he came not to bring Peace but War As for the Roman Catholick I must needs have a greater kindness for him than the former fire-brands as being an adversary more learned and so to be expected more Civil and Gentile and wherein they differ from us they look upon as fundamental and so have a greater reason for their dissent than our Phanatical Presbyterians a people not capable of a Commendation nor to be obliged by any favours their very Constitution being ingratitude At this rate the Ecclesiastical Politician and others inform the world of Puritans and Presbyterians in the Gross Those that knew this mans Morals laugh at his Railery but posterity will not know what he was I shall only desire the Reader to note 1. That Puritans and Presbyterians now do signifie what the speakers please Mr. Robert Bolton a Learned Conformist thinketh that the name Puritan as commonly used in England in the mouths of common drunkards and the prophane and impious sort is turned against true Godliness with the greatest spleen that ever word was in the world 2. Mark that we are called The worst people of all mankind even Heathens Jews Turks Cannibals not excepted and yet we agree with the Accusers in all fundamentals This is the Charity which we meet with from these men
people to their cruelties Of all beasts they love not sheep that have bloody teeth and fangs nor of all birds a Dove that liveth like the Hawks on flesh And when the Clergy are once made hateful to them I have told you that the scandal tendeth to make them think hardly of their doctrine and at least to run into some contrary extream if not to dislike Religion it self I have seldom observed any extream in Hereticks or Schismaticks which was not notably caused by the Clergies contrary extream Antinomianism rose among us from our obscure Preaching of Evangelical Grace and insisting too much on tears and terrors Arminianism rose from mens prophane abuse of the Doctrine of Election saying If I am elected I shall be saved whatever I do and when God will give me grace I shall have it and till then it is not in him that willeth or runneth The Quakers arose from the pride and vanity of Religious people from which they fled into the fordid extream And Separatists have almost always risen from the ignorance ungodliness the shameful disabilities idle negligence pride covetousness or cruelty of the Clergy This is true as the experience of all ages telleth us The insufficient and naughty Clergy make Separatists At this day the superstitious think they can scarce go too far from men that they account so ungodly malignant and cruel And the ungodly and infidel and cruel sort of men do think they can scarce go too far from the superstitious If you would read and learn of such reprovers as Gildas and Salvian and Nazianzen and Hilary and Alvarus Pelagius Planct Eccles. and Acontius and such like you need not have so many thousands flying from your Churches as from an house on fire or infected with the Plague nor reporting your Crimes as the Parliament-Centuries or the Gloucester-Cobler or your groaning Icabod have done 16. You should rather help to cure the prejudice that the world hath against the Clergy as envious selfish and cruel than encrease it The World already thinketh that the Clergy are so covetous proud and envious that they can endure no man that standeth in their light but like the great dog that hath got the carrion snarl at every little dog that looketh at them suspecting they come to take some from him It is their common opinion that the Clergy are the incendiaries and troublers of the world And that the worst Princes left to themselves are not half so cruel against the faithful Preachers and Practisers of Christianity as the proud and covetous Clergy are It is therefore your duty not to confirm the world in this opinion by seeming as envious and cruel as others have been but to cure it by love and tenderness and self-denial 17. Have you ever considered and regarded whether the Apostles ever took your course You say your selves that they had power to give men over to the Devil for Corporal punishment And yet when did they ever do so by any but desperate Infidels as Elymas or desperate Hereticks that denied fundamentals as Alexander Hymenaeus and Philetus Or whom did they so much as threaten Church-sharpness to else unless it were such a proud domineering Bishop as Diotrephes who would neither receive some brethren nor permit others to do it but cast them out of the Church prating with malicious words against the Apostle Paul blamed Mark but did not silence him He fell out with Barnabas to a parting but did not hinder him from preaching the Gospel He blameth Demas for forsaking him and loving the world and many more for forsaking him when he appeared before Nero and elsewhere They all mind their own things and not the things that are Jesus Christs And yet he silenced none of them that preached the same Gospel which he did He met with some Preachers so bad that they Preached Christ of envy and strife of contention not sincerely supposing to add affliction to his bonds What then Notwithstanding every way whether in contention or in truth Christ was preached and he therein rejoyced and resolved to rejoyce and not to silence them Phil. 1. 15 16 17 18. Some indeed that preached the Law and as it were another Gospel he saith must have their mouths stopped but none that preached the same Gospel nor they by the Sword but by the convincing Word He that wrote as he did Rom. 14. 15. was far from silencing Preachers for not using Ceremonies or things called indifferent or for not taking an Oath of obedience to himself And will you prove wiser and better than the Apostles at the last 18. Methinks as I said before even selfishness should make you have some regard to your surviving names Think not that your party shall be the Masters of fame Think but on all history whether those that suffered in their times as the Martyrs and such Bishops as Athanasius Nazianzen Chrysostom c. have not left a sweeter name to the Church than those by whom they suffered Whether the name of the Nonconformists John Rogers and his followers and Bradford Sanders Glover Hooper Latimer Ridley Cranmer c. be not sweeter now than Gardiners and Bonners And think on the nature of your cause and ours When you have done your worst against Christs faithful Ministers and sought to justifie it by calling them Schismaticks posterity will enquire into the Merits of the Cause and the Evidence of their words and yours and their Writings at least will some of them survive when you have done your worst And do you think that they who read such Works as Amesius Hildershams Hierons Baynes Balls c. of old and as Gatakers Vines Anthony Burgesses Allens c. of late will believe that they were Schismaticks or unworthy to preach repentance and faith in Christ I have written so much against Schism my self as that I defie malignity it self to make posterity believe me a Schismatick When they peruse the Declarations Subscriptions Oaths and actions which we refuse and weigh our reasons they will judge otherwise than interest and partiality and malice will do at the present The next Sulpitius will describe us liker Martin than you and the Fanaticks like the Priscillianists and too many of your selves like Ithacius and Idacius and their Synods of Bishops which you may easily foresee when your Hooker himself in his Preface doth it by some Conformists already 19. You take so notorious a way to tempt the people to their present suspicions of your over-much kindness to Popery as that charity to them obligeth you to help to cure them of that uncharitable suspicion of you And I confess if I would have liberty for any one sect my self I would counsel and perswade men to take away the liberty of Religion from as great and worthy and considerable a part of the Ministers and People as I could that the cry for changes and liberty might be so great that others may be let in with them as if it were to gratifie them But
it is our comfort that we have a King and Parliament whose aversness to Popery and their Law against all such surmises doth put them out of the peoples suspicions And I think you should do no less but more than any others to avert all unjust suspicions from your selves 20. Is it possible that any partiality interest or passion can make you think either that the people of England need not as much Teaching and Exhortation and Ministerial help to bring them to Repentance and Salvation as all the qualified Ministers in the Land together are able to afford them or that God may not bless the labours of such men as Burges Allen Norman and hundreds more that now are silenced to the conversion of many hundred or thousand sinners unto Repentance and a holy life And if you cannot or dare not deny this have you considered whether your reasons for silencing them be so weighty as will countervail the salvation of so many Souls and will comfort and excuse you at the bar of God And whether then you can justifie your selves by saying Lord though so many Souls persisted in sin and are damned that might have been saved by the Ministry of these learned grave and godly Preachers yet the good which we obtained by their silencing and all their other sufferings was greater than so many mens salvation would have amounted to And if deliberately you will venture on such a cause your selves what would you wish the silenced Ministers to do You say it is our duty to forbear preaching when we are forbidden But what if it prove otherwise and that we must be judged as sacrilegious for alienating consecrated persons from Gods work and as guilty of the blood of all those souls that have perished by our silence and neglect What say you Will you undertake to justifie us and answer for us and bear all the divine displeasure your selves which shall fall upon us for our obeying your silencing commands Are you willing to run all that danger for us But why do I ask you such a question when your undertaking would but shew your greater obdurateness and neither save us nor your selves If you say that the crime is ours for not conforming that is to be examined by it self If ever Episcopacy had two learned and judicious defenders it was Bishop Bilson and Bishop Andrews let not interest now make you differ from your chiefest champions I will add the words of one of them at large Bilson of Subjection p. 399. saith The election of bishops in these days belonged to the people and not to the Prince and though Valens by plain force placed Lucius there yet might the people lawfully reject him as no bishop and cleave to Peter the right Pastor And indeed the people so rejected Lucius that the boys in the street would not touch the ball any more which Lucius's horse feet had trod upon and to the last suffered all the Magistrates displeasure in refusing the Pastor imposed on them who yet perswaded them that he was Orthodox And the error of a Magistrate taketh not away his power as I before said but only his aptitude to use it aright And the Nonconformable people think that they lawfully adhere to their old known faithful Pastors and reject unknown obtruded persons Pag. 236 he saith Princes have no right to call or confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them liberty for their preaching and security for their persons And if Princes refuse so to do Gods labourers must go on forward with that which is commanded them from heaven not by disturbing Princes from their thrones nor invading their Realms as your holy father doth and defendeth he may do but by mildly submitting themselves to the powers on earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict How you gather out of this or any words of ours that Christ and his Apostles might not preach the Gospel without Cesar's delegations and license from others the Kings of the Countreys whither they went I see not except you take the word Supreme for superior to Christ all which standeth neither with our assertion nor intention but is a very pestilent and impudent sophistication of yours Marg. Bishops may preach without Cesars leave if they submit themselves to Cesar's sword as the Apostles did To this I pray add his two pages p. 233 234. to prove that Patriarchs were not erected by Christ but by the consent of Bishops and that Archiepiscopal and Metropolitan Dignities were the gifts of Princes and then consider how far that Office of Presbyters which is of Christs own instituting is to be forsaken in obedience to the command of a Metropolitan or any power of mans ordaining Pag. 226. The charge which the Patriarchs and Bishops of England have over their flocks proceedeth neither from Prince nor Pope nor dependeth on the will or word of any earthly creature therefore you do us the more wrong to say what you list of us By supreme Governours we do not mean Moderators Prescribers Directors Inventors or Authors of these things as you misconster us but Rulers and Magistrates bearing the sword to permit and defend that which Christ himself first appointed and ordained and with lawful force to disturb the despisers of his will and testament Now what inconvenience is this if we say that Princes as publick Magistrates may give freedom protection and assistance to the preaching of the Word Ministring of the Sacraments and right using of the Keys Doth that prove that all Ecclesiastical power and cure of Souls do proceed and depend of the Princes right See also Page 362. And p. 259. As Bishops ought to discern what is truth before they teach so must the people discern who teacheth right before they believe Pag. 261 262. Princes as well as others must yield obedience to Bishops speaking the word of God But if they pass their Commission and speak besides the word of God what they list both Prince and people may despise them See him further proving that all have a judicium discretionis Pag. 259 260 261 262. Bishop Andrews his determination against giving unfit Kings the Sacrament and in what sense the Pastors rule their Princes and consequently may not obey them in the neglect of their own office I have shewed in the decision of the Erastian Controversie and need not repeat it yea he alloweth the very Deacon to deny an unworthy King admittance to the Sacrament And Chrysostome would lose his life rather than give it to the greatest that is unworthy How far then Christs Ministers must give over Preaching Sacraments and all if men command them so to do you may hence gather by these mens judgments And in the conclusion let me again remember you that the trick of twisting your interest pretendedly with Princes and making them believe that those that you would have to be afflicted or expelled are more against Monarchy and Loyalty than