Four or Five and then say Vnanimously and this because they offer to Subscribe the Doctrine of the Thirty Nine Articles And yet I suppose you know that they more Unanimously dissent from the Doctrinal Article in the Liturgy of Baptized Infants certain undoubted Salvation without Exception and some of them to the Doctrinal Damnation of all Condemned in Athanasius Creed And some of your selves as well as Mr. Humphrey could wish the Article against Free-will and that which Damneth all the Heathens and some others had been otherwise than they are § 40. They generally yield that our Parochial Churches are true Churches and it is with these that Communion is required Say you so 1. The Diocesans are little beholden to you if this be all Do you require no Communion with them 2. I think I shall shew you anon that you take your Parishes for no true Churches your self At least your chief Brethren do not who make them but Parts of a Church the Diocesan being the lowest proper Church 3. Are you sure that the Independents take your Parishes for true Churches I cannot tell But I know John Goodwin and Mr. Brown have Writ to the Contrary 4. And for my self how oft have I told you that I distinguish and take those for true Churches that have true Pastors but that is because I judge of their office by Gods Word and not by the Rule which depriveth them of an essential part of the Office of a Pastor of a true Church But I take those for no true Churches that have 1. Men uncapable of the Pastoral office 2. Or not truly called to it 3. Or that deny themselves to have the power essential to a Pastor Such Congregations I can joyn with as Chappels or Oratories But they are not Churches of the political organized from which we speak of as wanting an essential part § 41. Next you tell men what I said in print of our Conclusion that communion with you was lawful Ans This is true and when said we otherwise Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Dr. Jacomb Mr. Poole and others were there I told you before how far lawful § 42. Serm. p. 22. Who could have Imagined but they should have all joyned with us in what themselves judged to be lawful and in many Cases a duty But instead of this we have rather since that time found them more inclinable to courses of separation c. Ans If this be not true I take it not for sinless Since that time 1. Mr. Pool Mr. Humphery my self and others that took our selves to be no Paâ—â—ors to any particular Church have usually joyned in your assemblies and I usually keep to my Parish-Church 2. Since that time in a Treaty set on foot by the Lord-keeper Bridgman we agreed in terminis with Bishop Wilkins and Dr. Burton and Judge Hale drew up our Agreement into the form of an Act. 3. Since that time at your own motion we treated with honest Dr. Tillotson and you and the same men and more consented to the form and words of an agreeing Act and you both seemed to consent 4. Where you read my words you might have read the Reason why no more Communicated with you And it is not like a lover of Truth to dissemble them 1. I told you that even at the present new heats arising against Dissenters we thought it our duty till they were over to forbear a lawful thing which was like to occasion the sufferings of such as in that were not satisfied as we were Marriage is lawful But if it be not necessary one may forbear it if it would ruine another though the Bishop command it him 2. I told you that the Oxford Act of confinement came out when we were intending to come to your Churches and then had we been seen there in the City or Corporations we had been sent to Jayle but many in the Countries came to your Churches This is your Cathedrall Justice The Law is come to Church in London c. and you shall go to Jayle six Months And if we do not such as you tell the World that we are Separatists 3. I told you men cannot preach to others and hear you both at once Must we repeat these things as oft as you accuse us § 43. In the charge are joyned Dr. Owen and my self my error is p. 24. Serm. that to devise new Species of Churches beyond Parochial or Congregational without Gods authority and to impose them on the world yea in his name and call all dissenters Schismaticks is a far worse usurpation than to make or impose new Ceremonies or Liturgies Ans A man would think that this doctrine should justifie it self and confute the Accuser 1. Will you own your Churches de Specie to be new and yet appeal to antiquity 2. Will you own them to be devised without Gods authority and yet to be preferred to those that he instituted 3. Will you own that yet they may in his name be imposed on the World 4. And will you own that for these dissenters may be called Schismaticks 5. And is not this a worse usurpation than to make new Ceremonies If you will plead for so much presumption profanation of Gods Name usurpation uncharitableness and Schism I will leave you to fight against the Light and not labour in vain in a needless confutation 2. But Sir you should have told your Reader the full truth 1. That I never denied but largely asserted the Magistrates power of the Sword over all persons and causes Ecclesiastical much less Christian Kingdoms or Cities de re 2. And that I maintained that Magistrates make officers to judge of the Circa sacra or undetermined accidents of Religion 3. And if you will equivocally call these Churches I quarrel not de nomine 4. Nor yet at the thing or name of the Association of many Churches for Concord 5. But I say in the Page cited by you that as humane forms should not be pretended falsly to be Divine so neither have they authority against those that are Divine to change them and destroy their priviledges Unless you will fight for man against God you must reverse this Accusation § 44. As to your case of the extent of the first Churches I have so much to say of it elsewhere if God will that I shall not here stay on so short a touch Only you put me to repeat If God make families and men make Cities do but confess the different efficients and usurp not a power to destroy the power instituted by God and we shall not much differ § 45. You greatly strengthen my Cause by the testimony of so well Read a man Serm. p. 27. Though when the Churches increased the occasional meetings were frequent in several places yet still there was but one Church and one Altar and one Baptism and one Bishop with many Presbyters assisting him And this is so very plain in Antiquity as to the Churches planted by the Apostles themselves in
no mention of lawful in your Definitions 4. But though you will not tell us whether you mean Divine or Humane Laws and Rules yet I may confidently conjecture that it is Humane you mean for else 1. I am of the same National Church that you are yea if I prove that I am more conformable to God's Laws than you and such as you I shall prove that it will be a harder question whether you are of the Church of Eng. than whether I am 2. And you might know that such a Church we no more deny than you do at least 3. But then it can be but sincere not perfect Obedience to God's Laws and Rules which must prove one to be of this Church or else no Man is of it And then you must shew us whether a mistake in as small a matter as Meat and Drink or a Ceremony or Liturgick Form or Diocesan order do cut one off from that Church If yea than how much more would such Conformity to sin do it which we fear But supposing that you mean Humane Laws 5. Why may not Divine Laws make a Church If Humane Laws were necessary ad bene esse the Christians that I have read and converst with think that they are not necessary to the Being of a Church in sensu famosiore why then should they be in the Definition and only they 6. But the difficulty recurreth as to Humane Laws which of them are necessary to the Being of the Church For your Definition distinguished not The King hath great and excellent Laws which we all conform to Doth not our Conformity to these seem to prove us of the National Church though we conform not to your Formalities and Oaths and Ceremonies Imperfect Obedience serveth to continue men Subjects to the King It is not every Drunkeness or Oath or Fornication much less the miss of a Complement or Ceremony that makes a Man a Rebel or an Outlaw Why then should the refusal of a Prelates Subscription or Formality unchurch a sound and honest Christian 7. And if the humane Laws and Rules which you mention what ever you mean by them be subordinate to God's Laws and so be honest good and obligatory why should they cut off those from the Church which Christ's Laws cut not off yea which Christ receiveth and commandeth us to receive Receive him for God receiveth him and receive him as Christ receiveth us notwithstanding our Infirmities were good reasonings in St. Paul's Judgment which I prefer before any Bishops that I know 8. And a Man of less Acquaintance or Wit than you cannot be ignorant what abundance of Differences there are among your selves I have named you no small number in my â—d Plea some of you are hot against that which is called Arminianism and some hot for it some are for Bishops and Presbyters being of one Order and some of divers all are not of the mind of the Bishop of Hereford that wrote Naked Truth some even Bishops think that the damnatory part of Athanasius's Creed is not approved by Conformity others think that it is all to be approved A multitude such differences there are among your selves And why should not this as much unchurch some of you if it be being under the same Laws that maketh you one Church as the forbearing of a Declaration of Assent and Consent or of a Surplice c. 9. Especially tell us whether the Conformist's difference about the Constitutive Regent Part of the Church of England some being for one species and some for another do not plainly make them to be of two distinct Churches of England and further different from each other than we are from any part We justly say the Papists who are for two species of Soveraigns some for the Pope and some â—â—r a general Council are plainly of two Churches for the regent part is essential And I am sure that one part of the most Eminent Disputers for the Church of England and Conformity say that the King is the Extraneous Civil Governour but the Bishops are the Constitutive Essential Internal Governours of the Church as a Church and that if the Bishops command the use of one Translation Version Metre Liturgie and the King another we are to obey the Bishops and not the King And that the efficient cause of a National Church is the Bishops Agreement among themselves to associate into such a Church And others say that it is the King and his Laws that are the efficient of such a Church and are to be obeyed in matter of the Circumstances of Worship c. before the Bishops Can you prove that this difference between the Conformists about the very Constitutive Regent Power is not greater than Mens differences about a Ceremony or Form and doth not more to make them to be of two Churches 10. If all this confused stir be but about a Christian Kingdom be it known to you that we take such to be of Divine Command And if you know it not or dissemble it after I have said so much of it in the first Plea and elsewhere I cannot help that viz. if you will talk publickly against what you know or know not when told because you will not know But I have there largly told you what the Power of Princes about Church matters is which if you will not read I will not repeat 11. Your Words Laws and Rules would induce one to think that you joyned the Kings Laws and the Bishop's Canons together in your meaning as the bond of Uâ—ity If so is it two sorts of Governours by the Swoâ—d and by the Word Magistrates and Pastors which you take for the constitutive regent parts of the Church If so then either in Cooâ—dination and Coalâ—tion or in Subordination The first cannot be that the two Species in Coalition should make one Head unless both were in the Kings as Persona Mixta both Lay and Clergie as some affirm him to be like Melchizâ—deck But this both King and Clergie disown Nor can the second be because a subordinate Power is not essential to the whole body politick but only the supreme And the Magistracy Ministry are coordinate Species both depending immediately on God and Subordinate Mutually only Secundum quid Nor is the Legislative Power in England any other than one which is in the King and Parliament conjunct The Bishops Canons are not Laws Ejusdem Speciei till the King and Parliament make them such If this be your Judgment there are I think but few Conformists of your mind 12. I must Conjecture therefore by your words That the Laws and Rules which you define the Church by are the Laws of the King and Parliament and that it is the Civil Christian Sovereign that you take for the Constitutive Head of that National Church which you plead for or else I know not what to Conjecture And if this be your Meaning I add to what is said 1. Erastians have hitherto been distasted by the Bishops and I
their own only meerly for their singular Opinions And yet it will be hard for you to prove that all the Preachers on Earth must give over Preaching to any such as these What shame Blood and odious Schisines followed this Schismatical Principle while in doubtful Disputations or tolerable differences each party Condemned and Cursed the other I have fully manifested in my Abridgment of Church History VVhile by one Emperour and Council all the Orthodox were Deposed and by another all the Nestorians and by another all the Eutichians and by another all the Monothelites and by another the Corrupticolae and by another the Iconoclasts and so on How few were there un-Cursed and un-Cordemned in the Roman World And this keepeth the Churches in Schism to this day 8. Do not you thus teach the Nonconfâ—rmists to require you with the like and by your own Rule to judg it unlawful for you to Preach They judg indeed that it is lawful to hear you 1. When better 〈◊〉 without greater hurt than benefit 2. To sâ—ew their 〈◊〉 by their Practise viz. that they separate not from you as 〈◊〉 Church nor â—â—ke it for simply unlawful to have 〈…〉 you But they that think Conformity as great a 〈…〉 have told you they fear it would be to them must needs think that it is a fault in those that choose your Assemblies when câ—teris paribus and without greater hurt than good they might have better And must we therefore conclude that it is unlawful for you to Preach Suppose it were â—ut when we had the Kings Licence Or if in the times of Usurpation and thought to leave the Parish Churches tended Culpably to Division It followeth not that it was unlawful for a Bishop to preach in private though when you under the Usurpers kept the Parish Church he had preacht to some of your Flock But here you shew what your Labour tendeth to viz. To prove it Unlawful for us to Preach that you may perswade Us to give over If God will I shall elsewhere give you an Account of the Reasons of our Preaching and Answer what You and Others say against it And therefore shall say but little of it here But I am heartily sorry that you are come to such a Desire That you had rather so many Hundred such Ministers were Silenced than suffered to Preach without your Covenants and Ceremonies That you no more regard the Needs of the People that abound in Ignorance Carelesness and Vice nor observe no more the Power of Sin nor the great Want of Help to such Parishes as your own and too many in the Land that have need on other Accounts O! How dreadful and unsearchable are the Judgments of God That when so many Hundreds were Forbidden to Preach the Gospel the Plague must first give them some Degree of Liberty and the Flames continue it the next Year and the Kings Clemency after and Horrid Popish Treason next divert their Prosecutors while the Laws and Bishops all the while forbad them Even when the Parish-Preachers fled from the Plague and it was dying Men that the Nonconformists Preach't to And when the Churches were Burnt down and the People had no Priest or Place to go to for their own way of Worship yet neither Laws nor Bishops consented to our Preaching And such Men as Dr. Stillingfleet also come in to engage their Wit Reputation Industry and Conscience in the Silencing Design O! What Cause have we all to VVatch and Pray That We enter not into Temptation and to dread the Spiritual Judgments of God Remember Lot ' s Wife was a needful Warning A Solomon that is Numbred with the Wisest Men may be seâ— up as a Frightful Monument to bid us Take heed lest we Revolt And I take it for a greater Injury to us to perswade us to Silence our selves than to perswade the Magistrate only to Silence Banish or Imprison us For so to Suffer from another is not our Sin But Sacrilegiously to break our Ministerial Vow and forsake the Calling which we were Solemnly Voweâ— to and this while the Necessity of Souls cry for Help is a Sin which few Men are so bad as to perswade us to with open Face without some pious fraudulent Pretence § 38. Serm. p. 20. I do not confound bare Suspending Communion in some particular Rites which Persons do modestly Scruple and using it in what they judge to be Lawful with either total or ordinary Forbearance of Communion in what they judge to be Lawful and proceeding to the Forming of Separate Congregations i. e. under other Teachers and by other Rules than what the Established Religion alloweth And this is the present Case of Separation which I intend to consider and to make the Sinfulness and the Mischievousness appear Answ I am sure I am one that you expresly Charge as of this Number and I can best speak for my self and those of my Acquaintance 1. Is it true that I totally or ordinarily forbear 2. What mean you by Forming a Congregation If their Presence be my Forming them it is but because I speak to them For I neither Perswade nor Drive them to be there But if you mean Forming them into a Distinct Church and becoming their Pastor I was never Related as a Pastor to any Church but Kiderminster nor have these Twenty Years been a Pastor to any but borrowed other Mens Pulpits to Preach a Lecture â—o such as say they need it 3. Your word Separate I have Examined before You Separate from My Auditory and more than Separate and I Separate not from Yours Who then is the Separatist 4. All the Parishes about you and the Bishop of Ely in your Parish that judge it Lawful to Hear you yet are Absent from you and so are some Nonconformists that think they must Preach themselves and cannot be in Two Places at once Is that Separating 5. The French and Dutch Churches do all that which you here describe as Sinful and Mischievous only they have more Leave than we 6. Is all the Matter that We are Teachers which the Law alloweth not So were the Orthodox under the Nestorian Eutychian Monothelite c. Princes And so I have proved That the Christian Religion hath been much propagated in the VVorld 7. VVhat are the Rules which we go by which the Established Religion alloweth not Doth it not allow the Sacred Scriptures Or Have you proved That I go by any other Rule If the Act of Vniformity or the Canons be your Religion Do not they allow God's Word Or if they be your Rules omitting that Is not Vsing another Yet those that do joyn in Churches under Chosen Pastors when I do not I shall not Condemn till I hear their Reasons They may have more Cause than I have § 39. Serm. p. 21. They Vnanimously confess they find no fault with the Doctrine of our Church Answ 1. And yet are you one that would have them all Silenced 2. But this is not true You name
several parts that none but a great stranger to the History of the Church can ever call in question Ans Bishop Gunning will give you no thanks for this It seems after all the anger we are much agreed I never denied Chappelâ— to a Church nor thought they must all meet at once If they all meet per vices at one Altar they are associated for presential Communion and not distant only and this is that I am for Make it but such a Church that meet at one Altar and that can know one another and are associated for such personal Communion in presence and though I could wish it neither too small nor too great it is of the Species which I plead for as of God There is certainly a Specifique difference between a Church that hath a Constitutive formal Governour who hath the whole Pastoral power and is associated for presential mutual help in faith worship and holy living and one that either hath but a half Pastor without the power of the Keyes or that is associated only for distant Communion and never see each other even for another sort of Communion Conformists hold that Bishops and Presbyters are distinct orders Therefore Churches differing in the very Order or Species of the Constitutive Governours and in the Triminus or end and the nature of the Communions are certainly of distinct Species and not only of distinct degrees in the same Species But such are our Parochial and Diocesan Churches Just such a Church as you here describe is it that I would have and yet if the Chappels also have Altars and there be more than one to the Church as long as they are under the same Bishop and Presbyters associate for Communion in presence it alters not the Species § 46. I thank you also for adding p. 28. And yet this distribution even in Creet was so uncommon in those Elder times that Epiphanius takes notice of it as an extraordinary thing at Alexandria and therfore it is probably supposed that there was no suâ—h thing in all the Cities in his time Ans 1. It s true of Creet which had an hundred Cities But your therefore makes me think you put Creet for Cyprus For there it was that Epiphanius was a Bishop 2. But you grant me the foundation of all my cause Let the Diocess or Parish or Church call it what you will be no bigger than that the same Bishop may performe the true Pastoral office to them in present Communion and not only by writs and delegates rule men that have no personal present Communion nor ever intend it as the end of their relation and I have my desire as to the Species of the lowest sort of Churches 1 Thes 5. 12. 13. Know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you But such are not those whom we never saw nor heard and never laboured among or admonished the twentieth or fortieth or hundredth Congregation in their Diocess and whom the people cannot know Heb. 13. 7. Remember then which have rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation 17. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls as those that must give account But such are not they that the people never heard the word of God from nor knew their conversation nor the men And Bishop Taylor saith No man can give account of those that he knoweth not that is Pastors account Make Parishes true Churches and restore them Church discipline and we are satisfied § 47. Serm. p. 29. If we look over the ancient Cannons of the Church we shall find two things very plain in them 1. That the notion of a Church was the same with that of a Diocess or such a number of Christians as were under the inspection of a Bishop Ans 1. Very true and the Bishop was their ordinary Preacher and only pronounced the blessing c. Therefore till the Species was altered it was like a School whose Schollars lived in City and Country but were under a Bishop that Governed them personally in presence But after they were like many score or hundred Schools that had Teaching Ushers and one absent Governour to the most To Govern as a Schoolmaster in presence specifically differs from Governing as Princes or visitors by Laws or extraordinary inspection 2. I pray you forget not that by this measure if you hold to it you unchurch all our Parish Churches Every Church then had a Bishop no Parish now hath a Bishop proper to it self or at least not many Therefore no Parish by this rule is a Church Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata You make no Church below a Diocess § 48. Serm. 2. That those Presbyters who rejected the authority of their Bishop or affected Seperate meetings where no fault could be found with the Doctrine of a Cburch were condemned of Schism Ans Good still They were not to set up altare contra altare but joyn with the Bishop in Governing the same Church in present Communion at least per vices But if a Bishop than had put down a hundred or a thousand Bishops and Churches about him and said you shall be all but one Church in another sort of Communion and I will be your only Bishop Christians then would have abhorred him Now we have hundreds of Altars locally separated from the Bishop 2. But yet if then the Doctrine of faith had been never so sound Christians would have separated 1. From unlawful worship specially Idolatry 2. And from wicked Bishops as the forementioned Epistle of Cyprian and the Carthage Council sheweth § 49. You Confess Martin and Theognostus separation from the Synods and Communion of the neighbour Bishops And if it were not lawful for neighbours to communicate with them I shall believe as Cyprian that the same reason would at least warrant the people to forsake them till you shew reason to the contrary And you confess the Joannites separation and only say that after they returned It s true But did they do well or ill before they returned not till gentleness and honouring Chrysostome reduced them and though Cyril Alex. called them Schismaticks and said it was fitter the Church Canons should be kept than such refractory Nonconformists gratified by restoring the honour of their ejected Pastor yet Atticus had more wit and honesty then to follow his Council or be moved by his threatning Our case hath ten times more to be said for it than the Joannites had who were not cast out but departed nor had any Impositions forced on them which they took to be many hainous sins Had you been impartial you had easily seen this But as Cyril and others accusation of the Joannites as separatists and schismaticks did not finally attain his ends against the Joannites no more shall yours against the more excusable In an Ale-house or Crowd of the debauched or ignorant
left men as much power to make new Species of Churches as to diversifie the Forms of Common-wealth 8. And as to our disturbing your peace if you had built your frame on Christs foundation and laid your peace on the unity of the Spirit and the seven particulars named Eph. 4. 45. 6. and had not built it on uncharitableness on imperious usurpation nor that love of the world which Paul Servita saith brought in the Church corruptions you would not have been so tender nor your peace like an aspen leaf in the wind as that your Brethren who you say agree in Doctrine and the substance of worship with you cannot quietly joyn near you in the worship of God without your imposed words and ceremonies but they become disturbers of your peace It s a sickly peace that is so easily disturbed by so small dissent As Rome thinketh that all wrong her that do not obey her and pleadeth for Empire under the name of Communion so do some others and will enter a suite against them as Schismatiks that will not let them ride and lash them without complaint If you have the humility and Charity of a Christian without envy c. What harm doth it do you that I and such others worship God in another room without your book while your Church is as full as it can well hold Do you not differ much more among your selves as I before shewed And the Papists yet more among themselves and yet are in one Church and tollerated But so their Power and Wills may be obeyed some men can bear with much more against God Who heareth such out cries against ten thousand or twenty thousand in a Parish that come not to any Church at all as against a few Christians that pray and preach without your book what Informers what indictments what prosecutions what invectives are equally against all these aforesaid § 51. Serm. p 31. It is very uncertain whether the Primitive form were such as they fancy c but it s certainly our duty to preserve peace and unity amongst Christians Ans 1. Then it is certainly a sin to make racks to tear them and make concord impossible and say none shall have Communion with us that will not say and Swear what we bid them and that think any thing sin which we impose and to shut men out by Cannonical Excommunication and then call them Schismaticks in Presse and Pulpit for not coming in 2. If it be uncertain whether that which we desire be the Primitive form it is uncertain then whether you oppose not and fight not against the Primitive form 3. What you say is uncertain I shall God willing prove certain elsewhere and have done All is not uncertain to others which is so to you 4. Mark this you that are for the Divine right of Episcopacy as the Primitive forme instituted by Christ As he taketh it for uncertain as beyond Congregational formes so were it so if the Church should cast it out he seemeth to hold your endeavours to reduce it to be a sinful breaking of the Churches peace You are disturbers if in Holland Geneva Helvetia you would reduce them to that which you suppose to be the Primitive form It may be it was but from the circumstances of the times And so the head of the Church hath made no particular Church Species but left all to the better wit of men who knowes to whom § 52 Serm. It is impossible so to do if men break all orders in pieces for the fancy they have taken up of a Primitive Platform Ans Anglice It is impossible to preserve Peace and unity among Christians if men will not suppose that Christ never instituted his own Church formes or will not forsake his Institutions but fancy that they must be conformable thereto and will not preferre the wills and commands of Bishops to whom they never consented and take it to be a breaking of all orders in pieces not to do all that they enjoyn us though we take it to be heynous sin and will not give over Gods worship and our Ministry when they forbid us Dan. 6. We shall find no fault against this Daniel except it be concerning the Law of his God but if he pray openly when forbidden away with him to the Lyons for the Laws of the Medes and Persians are more inflexible than Gods § 53. As to what you say of preferring Morals and the ends it is more truly than prudently mentioned as to your cause For the very naming of it will make the Readers think whether your subscription and declaration and oaths and imposed practices which the Nonconformists judge unlawful be greater matters than their preaching the Gospel avoiding great sins the concord and strength of the Protestant Churches and the avoding temptations to wrath and persecution and divisions which will be bitter in the latter end Go learn what this meaneth I will have mercy and not Sacrifice or needless Ceremony § 54. Serm. p. 32 Men may please themselves in talking of preserving peace and Love under separate Communions But our own sad experience shews the contrary For as nothing tends more to unite mens hearrs than joyning together in the same Prayer and Sacraments so nothing doth more alienate mens affections than withdrawing from each other into separate Congregations Ans 1. But do all separate from you that are in other Parish Churche◠than yours if not do all separate that differ as Cathedrals from Parish Churches or as conforming Preachers do from one another If not do they separate that omit a form or ceremony of yours 2. I am sorry if you have experience of the alienating of your affections from your neighbours that quietly worship God by you but it s like you know what you say For my part many of them have said and written more against me them against you and I thank God I love them heartily yea and that your own party from whom I have suffered far more It is mens diseases that make them impatient of a cross opinion or word or censure and then they cry out of mens unpeaceableness As Seneca saith They that are sore complainif they but think their sore is touched 3. Let the Magistrates keep Peace and punish all that abuse their brethren 4. But we easily grant to you that when men do not only differ but fly from each others Communion as unlawful it hath a great tendency to the alienations and evils which you mention Had we not thought so we had never stoopt and pleaded and begg'd of the Bishops to prevent or heal it as we did 1660 and 1661. And wo to the impenitent that are the cause of all and to this day will not be perswaded by all the sad experience that they complain of Sir instead of all your accusations and reasonings it would have better dispatched all the business would you but consider who it is that must cure the distance which you complain of I have fully proved
contrary Translations Versions Times Places Liturgies and modes of worship the Bishops are to be obeyed before the King and the other saith the King is to be obeyed before the Bishops To omit abundance of greater differences than some would perswade men is between us and them § 62. Serm. And I must needs say I never saw any Cause more weakly defended no not that of Polygamy and Anabaptisme than that of those who allow it to be Lawful to joyn in Communion with us and yet go about to vindicate the separate Meetings among us from the guilt of a sinful Separation Ans 1. I have long observed when some men pass a sentence on others and call them by reproachful names it ordinarily more â—ruly sheweth what the speaker is than what the Person or Cause is that he speaks of For it is so natural for the streams to be like the Spring and the fruit like the Tree and the mouth to speak from the abundance of the heart that one may much conjecture what the Speaker is by his words But what the Cause and Man is that he speaketh of you can little know while the speaker oft little knoweth it himself or would not have another know it Neither your confidence nor mine will determine a wise Reader § 63. To pag. 36. I Answer 1. Your Text is so clear and full a Confutation of your Sermon that it 's hard to know how a mind not strongly prejudiced could have preached such a Sermon or pleaded for the silencing of so many such Ministers from such a text Yea or can need any more to confute you than to read your Text 1. It is supposed that it was All that had attained to the truth of Christianity that must walk by the same rule 2. It was a Divine Rule then known 3. They were to bear with each other in loving Communion while they grew up to more If this condemn not making and imposing new humane unnecessary Rules containing that which multitudes of impartial Conscionable men as wise as their Reproachers cannot excuse from much heynous sin and silencing and excommunicating all that obey them not and when they forbid them Communion call them Separatists I do despair of understanding sence And to pag. 37. We come as near you as we can in Conscience and we know our own Conseiences better than you do But whether you condemn not your selves as Separatists in denying communion where we preach as if you only were the Church and any that want but your Liturgy were none Yea when we had the License of the King unbyassed men will be able to discern § 64. Serm pag. 37. But why then is this kept as such a mighty secret in the Breasts of their Teachers Why do they not Preach it to them in their Congregations Is it for fear they should have none left to Preach to That is not to be imagined of Mortified and Conscientious men Is it lest they should seem to condemn themselves while they Preach against Separation in a Separate Congregation This I confess looks odly and the tenderness of a mans mind in such a Case may out of meer shamefacedness keep him from declaring a truth which flies in his face while he speaks it Ans 1. Alas you shew us that some men perceive not when it flyeth in their faces Reader hence take heed of Believing words of Reproach against Adversaries when Interest and Sideing hath made men partial Would you think that all this intimated silence were an untruth against publick Testimony 1. I have many and many times declared in print what he intimateth that we dare not Preach And is not Printing a far more Publick declaration than speaking it in one Room 2. When I began to Preach at St. James's I read a Profession to the Congregation openly that I preacht not there as to a separate Church but as in concord with all Christs Church on Earth for the necessity of the People that had not many of them heard a Sermon many a year the Parish having 40000 if not 60000 Souls more than could hear in the Parish Church 3. I built a Chapel by money partly begg'd and partly to my greater loss than I will mention that I might but have helpt those needy Souls for nothing For the second Sermon one that Preacht for me that had suffered imprisonment for the Kings Cause was sent to Gaol to my great Trouble and Charge And when I might not use it said One in Power Though you would use the Common-Prayer there I gave it up to the use of the Parish and take it thankfully of Dr. Lloyd that he will there teach his People 4. I have many and many a time in the Pulpit openly Preacht against Separation even what he now desireth 5. Not past a Fortnight before his Sermon I Preacht near him at the Verge of his Parish in my Lecture two whole Sermons of it on Luk. 15. the Case of the two Sons shewing that there are three notable sorts of Separation 1. The Persecutors that forcibly scatter the Flock as the Papists by dividing sinful impositions 2. The Prophane Separatist like the Prodigal who had rather be at the Tavern the Play-house the Whore-house c. than at Church 3. The passionate peevish honest Christian as in the Text He was angry and would not come in Here I shewed by many reasons how faulty and hurtful this mistaking passionate Separation is And I took that occasion to give them many Reasons why I communicate with the Parish Church my self and Separate not from them and I told them my judgment that they that suffer meerly for not-hearing or not-communicating thrice a year as the Law requireth cannot justifie their Cause without some extraordinary reason if they live in a Parish that hath a Minister capable of that Office But I did not malignantly equal the Son that had long served his Father and not transgressed his Commandment with his Brother in his Prodigal desertion of his Father But on the next words His Father went out to him and intreated him to come in I shewed that Gods Condescention and Method in satisfying his mistaken passionate Children should direct Ministers and others how they also should deal with such And that violence instead of loving Condescension reasoning and necessary forbearance of such Infirmities sheweth 1. That such consider not the corruption of Humane Nature and how bad all mâ—n are 2. They know not what need of Forbearance they have themselves nor how liable they are to Error and to Sin 3. They imitate not God our Father and Saviour and know not what manner of Spirit they are of 4. They have not due acquaintance with the preciousness of Gods Grace and Image that cannot perceive it if there be but such an Errour or Passion to obscure it 5. They consider not that they also may be Tempted and what Temptation may do even with upright Souls 6. They are strangers to the Pastoral office They should
do consent But 1. Did our 18 or 19 years Silencing them do that 2. Do not you do it that make men believe that we are Intolerable and to be Silenced and that Separate from our Congregations as if it were a sin to join with us 3. We desire only a true stating of the Case The honest dealing which you demand I and many others constantly perform and it 's ill to intimate that we do not But you add § 77. It 's hard to understand if occasional Communion be lawful that constant Communion should not be a Duty Ans Some Truths are hard to men of great Wit It 's lawful to have communion in our Assemblies as I am ready to prove and yet you think not any much less constant Communion to be a Duty It 's lawful to have Communion with the French Dutch or Greek Church must constant Communion be therefore a Duty It 's lawful to have Communion with an ignorant Reader or a drunken Priest at least in your Judgment Is it therefore a duty to seek no better § 78. Serm. All understanding men will conclude that they pâ—efer some little interests of their own before the Honour of Christ and the Peace of the Church Ans 1. The word Little came well in as to your sense Truly Poverty and Ruin are little interests I cannot imagine what you mean 〈◊〉 it be Reputation But is not your Reputation with the Highest Persons and the multitude a more tempting Interest than our Reputation with such as you much Contemn 2. But do you understanding men know our hearts better than we And are you sure that none are understanding that be not as partially Censorious as you If we prefer our Little interest why do we not Conform If you take us all for Mad men dispute not with us if not can we be ignorant that Carnal Interest is on your side and are none of us Capable of it 3. I should have taken it as too sharp an intimation to say that Your Greater Interest swayeth you No man that is a Christian taketh this vain vexatious World for his great Interest And to make the Little Interest of Prosecuted Beggared Ruined Non-conformists to be that which beareth down both all the interest of Wealth Ease and Worldly honours and the interest of the Churches Peace and the interest of their own Salvation and all this by no other proof than a Supposition that your Sagacity knoweth their hearts and that all understanding men are of your mind the naughtiness of this is so great that it will not suffer you to see it Sir as wise as you are I know my own heart better than you do and so do my Brethren know theirs If you would swear the contrary I will not believe you And I tell you it is no Little Interest that moveth me it is greater than a Deanery or a Bishoprick I were worse than mad if 1. I consumed my small estate 2. And my Health 3. And denied my Ease 4. And all worldly Wealth and Pleasure 5. And exposed my self to be called a Schismatick and a Rogue by the Conformists 6. And lay my self under the ruining dangers of the Law And 7. to be written against as doing all this by sin 8. And all this under the languishings and pains of sickness expecting when I am called to my account I say I were worse than mad if I chose all this for that which you call Little interest 9. And if Reputation with my poor despised party be that Little interest you confute your self before where you say how much I have undergone of their impatient Censures Have I flattered them Have I not said more against their faults than you have done though not against their Duty 10. Some of my heart-judges say it is a semel 〈◊〉 to avoid the imputation of mutability But their Companions confute them who charge me with my retractations and who see by my writings that I left room for second thoughts and have not silenced them to escape the Censure of any whomsoever I have left my Reputation to God and never was so thin Skin'd as to be unable to bear a Cholerick breath I livâ— not upon Air or the thoughts of men who will shortly with me be silent in the dâ—st They that know how many Books perhaps scores have been written against me by Sectaries of many sorts and some by good and sober men Presbyterians Independents and Prelatical and how little they have broke my peace will not think applause is my Little interest Had I bâ—en as you I woâ—ld have left cut this Charge of Little interest lest it should teâ—pt men to compare your Case and ours § 79. Your 5th Advice is just I hate Charging you or any with unjust suspicions of inclinations to Popery I know some sew men whom I have reason to say Defend Grotius as one of their Religion who thought that the Protestants can never unite among themselves till they unite with Rome as the Mistress Church and that the Councils even that of Trent are sound in the Faith and that securing the rights of Kings and Bishops and disowning the Schoolmens abuses and the Clergies evil lives and reducing the Pope to rule us not Arbitrarily but by the Canons are enough to satisfie and reconcile us But to charge this on all or most is unjust We know what Bishop Barlow Bishop Crosts and divers others have done to signifie their Faithfulness to the Protestant Cause And if Câ—ntzen's way prevail not to drill men they know nâ—t whither by degrees I hope of the 9000 or 10000 Clergie men in England one thousand will not turn to Popery But I must say that when some Prelates made it their great business to Silence Shame and Ruin us and drive us far enough from Persons of Power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after all cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of Causes by Effects § 80. Your Counsel is good Not to run the hazard of all for a show of greater Liberty to our selves Should I tell you three stories of our hazarding our own Liberties because we would not do what you disswade us from one in 1660 and another 1662 and another about 1667 it would be a pair of Spectacles to some 2. But will not all that have eyes see who doth more for Toleration of Popery they that say Popery and you shall stand and fall together except you will say subscribe and do all that is prescribed you or they that say We cannot do that which we take to be hainous sin Do you think the Papists had not rather with you that we were Silenced than that we Preach who have been their greatest Adversaries If you will rather let in Toleration of Popery than you will Tolerate Protestants that fear the guilt of Lying Perjury and many other Evils should they do that which you Confess indifferent let God be judge between you and us FINIS §. 1. §. 2. §. 3. §. 4. §. 6. §. 7. §. 8. §. 9. §. 10. §. 11. §. 12. §. 13. §. 14. §. 25. §. 16. §. 17. §. 18.