of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Humbly proposed to the Present Convocation c. THat An English-man never knows when he is well is a Proverb which we use at home and wherewith we are reproach'd abroad and that too justly to be denyed applicable both to single Persons and conjunct Societies the tendency of Affairs in this Nation since the Year 1640. beyond all possibility of contradiction doth evince The Subjects of this Kingdom through the Grants of former Kings and by virtue of the good Laws by them enacted and made were better secured in their Rights Properties and Persons than any other Nation of the Universe Nor were they less happy as Christians living in the bosom of a Church whose Faith was Catholick Government Apostolical whose Publick Liturgy Constitutions and Canons in perfection excell'd those of any of the Reformed or any other then Visible Church whose Clergy were esteem'd the wonder of the World Hence the envy of the Roman and the admiration of the Reformed Churches Such was then the condition of the English Church and State that it was hard to imagine what could be thought wanting to compleat their happiness unless perhaps you will say their being sensible of it But not knowing when they were well they by God's just permission actuated by the Romish Emissaries who took advantage of the ambition and covetous Inclinations of some and of the discontented and restless Spirits of others involv'd the Nation in a most odious and unnatural Rebellion the Violences Cruelties and Murthers which accompany'd and the Oppressions Usurpations Tyrannies Plunderings and Miseries which follow'd it are too many to be numbred too woful to be rehearsed and such as any Man in his right Wits would for ever be caution'd by to avoid as the worst of evils any actions means or methods whereby the like may again be brought upon us And yet as if Men were led by destiny or guided by those ludicrous Spirits which our Author supposes play little tricks in disturb'd houses and others learned in those matters think set Men together by the ears as they do Cocks and Dogs for their own diversion they seem industriously to lay the Foundations of future troubles to return to 1640. and to be willing to react the same Tragedy and that before the Epilogue is ended and the Actors all gone off the Stage Hither tend most of our new Scriblers and their Pamphlets some devesting the King of all Inherent Sovereign Authority Supremacy and Prerogative c. Others representing our Monarchs of the last Race as the most Monstrous and Wicked Villains that ever liv'd and under the pretence of Secrets relating things not only incredible in themselves but if supposed yet impossible to be known to any but Pimps and Persons if any such there be of a more odious Character thereby endeavouring to possess the People with an ill opinion of the Persons of Kings in order to prepare them for the dissolution of the Monarchy Essays tending to the same purpose have been also made against the Church designing Men having unjustly slander'd her Divines as inclined to Popery and popishly affected till in King James's time to their no less glory than hazard they appeared the greatest if not the only Champions in the Cause of our Religion and the Laws and thereby made all future calumnies of that sort appear too unjust and malicious to be used How is it to be wished that our Enemies malice could have had an end But alass though they thus were forc'd to change the Object yet they have retained the Vice Nothing will please them they will never be quiet now our Rites and Ceremonies must be illegitimated our Liturgy circumcised our Subscriptions Constitutions and Canons all abolished to gratifie those who if all these things were done would be as little satisfy'd as now they are Our Author their Adversary betrays too much Passion before the things themselves and their consequences are well considered he is all upon the fret and out of all patience to be pulling down the whole Ancient and therefore venerable the well compact and firm Fabrick of the Church of England which having been of full proof against all the assaults of our Foreign Roman Foes must now be undermined by her domestick Enemies and what is yet more intolerable her own pretended Friends by an easie surrender of her outworks make her main strength less tenable and precipitate her ruin Our Author like a Man full of design or big with some conceit of his own or News heard from others breaks out and with abundance of concern and passion thus vents himself It is the wonder and grief of all good English Protestants Pag◠〈…〉 that such an unaccountable frenzie should possess and hurry some hot Clergy Men amongst us with a blind zeal against the good proposals of Peace prepared by the Kings Commissioners in the Jerusalem Chamber If by all good English Protestants he means the Men of the Church of England as by Law Established to whom that Name borrowed from the Lutherans who at Spire in the Year 1529. protested against the Corruptions and Usurpations of the Church of Rome whose Communion they then forsook more properly than to any other People in England belongs both because they are an Establish'd and Visible Church and because all Sectaries whatsoever among us hold more in common with the Papists than they do then his assertion is too general to be true Many and perhaps the most and wisest admire what an unaccountable frenzie should hurry some hot Church-Men amongst us with a blind Zeal against that Pious Good and above all extant the most Perfect Liturgy to which and all things therein contained and prescribed they have all once at the least declared as they then pretended their unfeigned assent and consent or against that Government in Church which as far as we can understand by the Scriptures was Instituted by our Saviour which the Ancients assure us was propagated together with the Christian Faith by the Apostles and their Successors and which the continual Succession of the Catholick Church of Christ for now more than 1600 Years hath delivered to us and those wholsome Constitutions which the Wisdom and Experience of the Learned and Grave Fathers of our own Church relation being had to those of elder times also have produced and the Civil Laws of the Land confirmed unto us As for His Majesties design in giving a Commission to some of our Reverend Fathers and Divines to prepare things for Peace and calling of a Convocation c. Who ever blamed it though as to the Method it must be supposed that the unseasonable precipitancy and preposterous Zeal of some in the Late House of Commons to gratifie their dissenting Friends by an Act of Toleration hath prevented even those few good Fruits which they who are acquainted with that sort of People expected from it but of this afterwards I shall here only add that this would be too
THE CHURCH of ENGLAND AND THE Continuation of the Ceremonies THEREOF Vindicated from the Calumnies of several late PAMPHLETS More particularly that Entitled The Vanity Mischief and Danger of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Subscribed By P. M. a Minister of the Church of England To which are added Some farther Considerations of a Re-union of the Dissenters with the Church of England Wherein the true Causes of the Schism its Continuance and the means to put an end to it c. are proposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 D. Paul 1 Cor. 14.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Conc. Nicaen 1. Can. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. Ignat. Epist ad Antioch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ad Philadelph London Printed for S. Cook and are to be Sold by the Booksellers of London 1680. To the READER AMongst those many Factious and Schismatical Pamphlets which in these licentious times have passed the Press I chose after a considerable time's neglect at vacant hours to bestow some considerations on our Author 's because subscrib'd as is pretended by a Minister of the Church of England thinking thereby both to have had an opportunity of vindicating some innocent Ceremony against his ignorant or malicious Misrepresentation of it and that the appearing in our Holy Mother the Church of England's quarrel when beset with Domestick as well as Foreign Enemies forsaken by many of her formerly pretended Friends and risen up against by her undutiful and unnatural Sons howsoever weakly her Cause should be managed would yet be an argument of my sincere and constant duty and affection The Title of his Pamphlet is harsh bitter and malicious and intimates its Author to be either some ill designing Schismatick or blind Zealot bigotted to opposition and actuated as a Tool by a more intriguing Head however it might well be expected that such a bold Front should be followed with great attempts to demonstrate what that so largely intimates viz. That vain mischievous and dangerous Ceremonies are continued prescribed and used in the Divine Worship of the Church of England But upon a perusal his Pamphlet appeared to be a malicious and railing Invective an heap of undecent passionate and virulent expressions a fardle of spightful suggestions founded upon false and precarious Principles He hath taken leave with a supercilious pride to censure and Pythagorically to condemn and that in unbecoming terms all our Ceremonies without ever telling us either what he means by them and in which acceptation of that equivocal Word he desires to be understood or proving all or any of them to be unlawful or undecent And tho he hath no where asserted yet he hath every where presupposed that nothing may be lawfully used in the Worship of God or imposed on the Clergy or Congregation by Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions as matter of decency and order which is not positively and expresly commanded in the Text of the Scriptures which Position is altogether unsound and precarious and sufficiently without other arguments overthrown by that one Maxim That which is not prohibited is conceived to be allowed I always both lik'd and lov'd the Constitution of our English Monarchy as being such a middle betwixt a Despotick and Titular Government as seems to have laid the most probable and stable Foundations of a mutual and lasting happiness of both Prince and People It gives to the King a Prerogative and Supremacy large enough to make him the Father of his Country and to the Subject more liberties privileges and security than any other Monarchy much more inferior Government known to me always enough and unless more loyal in many instances too much and therefore I have with not a little admiration and regret often beheld some in the highest Station whose Interest as well as Duty it hath been to support it connive at encourage nay concur with its Enemies in the pulling of it down And others who live more happily and securely under it than they can under any Aristocracy much more Democracy imagining that they make not figure great enough in the Government of this Monarchy conspire the translation of it into a Common-wealth hoping to be more conspicuous when set at an higher Post as the reward of their intrigues and merits And I think the Church of England as already by Law Establish'd to be the best constituted of any now Visible the like excellent moderation between two extremes may be observed in her Publick Worship avoiding the multitude of needless Observancies and Ceremonies used in the Church of Rome inclining to Superstition and the rustical undecencies and clownish disorders introduced by some pretended Reformers tending no less to confusions and profaneness And tho I will not assert that our present Liturgy cannot admit of a greater accuracy in some Collects and Offices yet I believe it to be now the most perfect extant that there is nothing in it but what any Man how pious and conscientious soever if humble peaceable and duly inform'd without scruple may comply with and joyn in and that the making any considerable alterations in it would lay a new Stumbling-block before the Papists and make them more averse from coming over to our Church and scandalize many of our own Communion by our levity needless and frequent changing and modelling even our Religious Worship and Divine Offices to the humour of designing Persons and a State-Cabal and that all the alterations that may or can be made in it and our Constitutions both will never answer their purpose viz. effect a Comprehension and Re-union of the Dissenters with our Church for they as long as any thing remains will never want a pretence for their Separation And to an unconcern'd Spectator it cannot but appear strange and unaccomptable to see some Persons of the highest Orders and Degrees in the Church so zealous and impatient to make such alterations in its Liturgy Customs and Legal Establishments as must in all reason precipitate the subversion of it and to sacrifice its Honour Rites and Constitutions to the Pride of a few designing Persons so divided among themselves that they could never agree in any thing but in a joint enmity and opposition to the Government of the Church and State who herein aim not so much at an Union of themselves with us as at the destruction of our Ancient Hierarchy to make way to establish their novel Discipline this experience might have taught us But if the Persons concern'd will not be caution'd neither by the avowed Principles of their Adversaries nor by their Practices especially for this last half Century it will be easie without the trouble of erecting a Scheme to predict that when the Supreme Order of our Church-men shall be acknowledged useless by a publick concession of an equality of degrees and an identity of that Order with the hitherto and that truly supposed inferior then their Superiorities Privileges and Revenues will in a very little time expose them so prevalent a temptation to the Pride
greatest prejudices they labour under in that Church upon that account is the abolishing of Confession to the Priest and of Publick and Catholick Church fasts However what our Author adds viz. Ibiâ— The Quarrels occasioned by them hinder the Progress of the Reformed Religion must be granted if it be understood that the many Divisions and variety of Sects amongst us is an Objection the Papists make against the translation of the Bible into the vulgar Tongue and their pretence for their not coming over into that Church which is already so full of subdivisions caused as they think by the forsaking of the visible Head of the Church here on Earth under whose conduct they therefore continue as the only means to preserve Unity and avoid confusion But this must not be charged upon the Church whose Moderation is designed as a preservative of Union but on those perverse and humoursom Persons whom nothing will satisfie there is nothing in use in our Church but he who condemns it must condemn with it the Catholick Church of Christ and he who dare do that is a man no ways fit to be gratified by the condescension of a Nation and the alteration of the most perfect Liturgy and the best Ecclesiastical Constitutions that any visible Church now known to us enjoys Pag◠〈…〉 All wise and good Men amongst the Clergy and People desire the taking away the Instruments of our Confusions The execution of this would extend farther than our Author intends it or for fear of his own Copy-hold would assent to Many Pharisaical Zealots by an opposite Superstition in whose number I place him injuriously accuse our innocent Ceremonies as the instruments of our confusions when indeed they are not as we shall shortly consider but Men which if they should be taken away or brought within the compass of the Apostle's wish 〈◊〉 5.12 the Conventicle-doors would be shut up and our Author himself dismiss'd Ceremonies have been Cloaks of Impiety and Maliciousness â—â—id if these are continued it will be exceeding difficult to purge out Vice which will shelter it self under them This Expression like the greatest part of his Pamphlet hath an abundance of prejudice and malice but no truth or shew of Reason for how is it possible that Ceremonies should be the Cloak of Impiety whenas if the Ceremonies be supposed to be numerous vain or not agreeable to the simplicity and spiritual sincerity of the Christian Religion for then only they become noxious they indeed become the parents of Superstition but can never as such be the Cloaks of Impiety because it is the opposite extreme Why may not that Man who kneels at his Prayers and stands at the repetition of the Creeds and Gospels as easily have his Vice purged out as he who sits at his Prayers and frequents a schismatical Meeting where they use no Creeds nor Gospels Or what strange Vice is it which can shelter it self more about a Man kneeling or standing in our Church than about one who sits in a Conventicle These are such gross absurd malicious and false insinuations and assertions of our Author's that I wonder he is not ashamed to propose them to a Convocation or even to undervalue himself by writing them or can in Conscience thus abuse the credulous Vulgar whose unaccountable prejudices are by such Artifices very easily improved into Malice and Schism Debauchery came in with Ceremonies 〈◊〉 28. we shall be happy if they fall together To make this good if we pass by the Brittish Churches our Author must grant that Debauchery came into England with Augustine commonly called St. Augustine sent hither by Gregory the Great Bishop of Rome in the seventh Century for he brought more Ceremonies in with Christianity 〈◊〉 Testâ—â—y to 〈◊〉 Truth â—â—esus â—â—st and â—â—ur â—â—mn â—â—gue than are now in use in our Church but this I suppose he never thought of However that Debauchery hath no dependence on Ceremonies appears even from hence that in the late times of Rebellion wherein the Government both of Church and State being dissolved and there was no King every one did that which was right in his own Eyes all sorts of Vice Wickedness and Debauchery grew up to that strength and vigour that they have never since been rooted out of this Kingdom and though now we should part with all our Ceremonies which we would very gladly do upon condition we could banish all Debaucheries with them yet there are no hopes to effect it as long as Schisms are no Crimes and the pretended Puritans are indulged in the sins of the godly and that God sees no sin in his Elect c. is allowed for Orthodox Divinity 2. They hinder love among the People and between the People and their Ministers 1. Love amongst the People is mightily hindred by the divisions and animosities caused by human Impositions That human Impositions are the causes of our Divisions and Animosities is presupposed by our Author since he asserts it without proof but this is but begging of the Question we must not grant him that as a Postulatum I leave what I design to say on the true causes of the Schism till the last In the mean time that love amongst the People is hindred by our Divisions and Animosities is too apparent to be denied tho that ought in truth and justice to be charged upon the Dissenters as the evil effects of their unnecessary and wilful separation for Ours being supposed which they also grant a true Christian Church their Schism becomes unnecessary and therefore sinful and these Animosities are the fruits of that Schism and the pride of their Spirits heightened by their Teacher's industrious railings against our Church and her Constitutions thereby to gain Proselytes to themselves and retain them to their own advantage Soon after the Restauration the Enemies of Piety and Virtue resolved to continue the division between the two most potent Interests of the Protestants in England to further this a Sham-plot was cast upon the Presbyterians in several Counties this was so improved in Parliament that Penal Laws were easily obtained to inslave and destroy the Dissenters By the Enemies of Piety and Virtue whosoever our Author means if we will reconcile it to Truth can be understood none but the Dissenters because it lay only in their power either to renew and continue a Division which they did or to reunite themselves with the Church of England as they ought to have done and so to have prevented the Evils which it hath since produced It is no wonder our Author takes such Liberty to make undecent if true reflections upon some single Persons when he ventures to cast such a severe tho oblique one upon the whole Parliament as to insinuate them all to be imposed upon by a Sham-plot yet I would gladly know how he came by such skill in discerning of Spirits as to discover that to be a Sham-plot which was cast upon the Presbyterians
of our Modern Presbyterians seeing themselves supplanted by the Independents have degenerated as the Episcopacy by Law Established and therefore would be little satisfactory to the Dissenters or available to the effecting a re-union I might add that their insisting only upon Power of Orders and Jurisdiction the two chief Prerogatives and distinguishing Characters of Bishops no otherways necessary to the discharge of the Ministerial Function in a Parochial Congregation than as by our Church prescribed and by our Laws allowed and commanded is an evidence that it is not conscience which troubles them but the old contention which shall be greatest that their desire of the multiplication of Bishops or rather the Consecration of Chorepiscopi to the number of the quondam Rural Deans must be supposed to proceed from hopes of their advancement at least to some of those many small Sees or from some worse design As for the words of the Disciplinarian we may see by them how far the Presbyterian Principles when asserted in their proper Latitude will extend and that the Prosecution of them would abolish not only Canonical Ordination that Spiritual and Paternal Oversight of both Pastors and Flock which would tend to the Peace Unity and Good of the whole but also the Episcopal Order it self which immediately succeeded to the Administration of the Apostles and hath continued in the Government of the Primitive and Universal Church of Christ in all Ages from their Deaths till the last Century As it would be a very bold attempt to presume to abolish remove or weaken the Primitive and Catholick Government of the Church by Episcopacy which was evidently at least Jure Apostolico Established in the first Ages of it to introduce the novel humane invention of Presbytery So it would not be a little imprudent and unsafe in regard of State Government since it would undermine the Monarchy by the very same means and methods as Popery viz. by depriving the King of his Supremacy in all Causes and over all Persons by elevating the Presbytery above him by exalting every little Mas John to be a Popeling and investing him with the same absolute Authority in his Parish as the Pope of Rome challenges over the World by an exemption of the Presbyterian Teachers from the Civil Jurisdiction making their assembling of Synods to depend upon their own and not the Prince's pleasure and by the Preaching their Doctrins of the lawfulness and their obligations to propagate and defend their Religion and Kirk-Government by Arms will certainly by a gradual diminution of the King's Prerogative and Authority lessen his Power to that degree that whensoever they please to exert their democratical Principles and animate the Populace easily influenced under pretence of Conscience with the hopes of plunder into such an Insurrection as may reduce this Kingdom if not the three to the same or a worse condition than they were in in 1641. c. And thereby the Government of both Church and State be swallowed up in Anarchy and Confusion out of which if they become not a prey to some Puissant Foreign Enemy the vast expences of Blood and Treasure the Nation will be put to the many divisions and separate interests will be in it the contentions of the Schismaticks which shall be uppermost c. will hinder a re-establishment of Monarchy or a settlement of any form of Government more perfect than that which is most agreeable to the Presbyterian and Independent Discipline of a Democracy which amongst so fickle and unconstant People must needs be short-liv'd and during its continuance by reason of its own proper inconveniencies and inherent defects is but a degree above confusion III. The Schism which the Dissenters have made from the Church of England whatsoever may be pretended was not really made upon the account of any thing contained in our Liturgy any Ceremonies in use in our Publick Worship or any subscriptions enjoyn'd by our Laws as in themselves contrary to their Judgments in case of Conscience as appears because 1st None of the Dissenters have hitherto with any cogent Arguments proved any of them unlawful and therefore can have no reasonable cause or lawful Warrant to either make or continue a Schism if it be said They doubt of the lawfulness of some of them I answer That is not enough to excuse the Schism which unless it be to avoid the doing of that which is evidently sinful is always unlawful and criminal The Obligations to Order Peace Unity Charity and Communion with the Church of Christ to obedience to our Ecclesiastical Superiours their Constitutions and Canons and to our Civil Governors and their legal establishments in indifferent things and the circumstantials of Religion are derived from Divine Authority of an Eternal Nature and so far binding as not to admit of a Relaxation unless plain and notorious sin be positively commanded for otherwise to separate would be both to omit a certain duty for fear of being guilty of a possible mistake and to commit an evident and aggravated sin of many pernicious consequences to avoid the transgression of a single Precept either not existent or at least not evident Doubts under pretence of Conscience are usually made to shroud a perverse disobedient humour or some sinister design not willing to appear above-board Thus a Man being called to give an evidence which he knows will endanger his Friends Interest Liberty or Life not willing either to damnifie him or perjure himself as a mean expedient to prevent both he pretends that he did not hear the words or that he doth not remember them So here the Dissenter not being able to prove any thing contained in our Liturgy or the innocent and decent gestures of standing and kneeling observed in the use of it for nothing else is enjoyned the Congregation in our Publick Worship unlawful nor willing to own the true causes of his Schism pretends he doubts but the unhappiness of it is that in the former case the answer doth not avoid the perjury nor in the latter the doubts take away the Hypocrisie and guilt of Schism and are no more than mere evasions for there is nothing but hath or may be doubted or at least be pretended so to be and if every such pretence should be allowed nothing can be commanded nor no order decency or uniformity observed 2. The greatest part by far of the Dissenters are such as never examined or seriously considered our Liturgy Articles Rites Ceremonies Constitutions or Customs or any other of their Teachers pretences for their separation a considerable number of them are such as never saw nor heard them and are not qualified either to read or understand them and scarce any of them can say in their own defence that they have sought any satisfaction at home by reading impartially such Treatises as the Divines of our Church have written to explain defend and vindicate them or abroad from the several Pastors under whose care and charge Providence and the