Equivocate it will embolden the Consciences of Men so far as that few Mens Lives shall have any security but be at the mercy of any Rogues It is a wonder of God's Merciful Providence that false Swearers murder no more than they do But such a Laxity would make our Case far more dangerous V. I that greatly fear lest God's late dreadful Corporation Iudgments Plague Flames Poverty and Divisions are inflicted for Corporation Sins and among those Sins eminently for Perjury am more inclined to call them in Bradford's words at the Stake Repent O England than to encourage them in such Sin and by Printing to persuade them not to repent VI. When we cry out of the Jesuits for stretching Oaths and Testimonies and all words by Equivocations and Mental Reservations to the endangering of Kings and Kingdoms and Mens Lives and Souls it ill beseemeth us to imitate or encourage them or to enable them to say that they stretch words no more than we VII It would be an unexcusable Sin in such a one as I who live not in another Age Land or Place where the Imposers sense could not be known but in the same Age and Place and have had so many Personal Treaties with the Bishops and the Lord Chancellor Hide who were the chief promoters of the Impositions and who know so many of the Parliament and Convocation that made these Forms and have had so great and satisfactory testimony of their Minds and Meanings and their Speeches and Reasons in Parliament upon these subjects and am fully satisfied in my Conscience that you satisfie their meaning It is not the sense of any Bishops that came in since that Act was made nor of any odd Person that is to pass for the Law-makers sense VIII People commonly think that Preachers should be so much more holy than they that if they come but near us they are safe And therefore if we stretch Oaths and Covenants they may do that and such as they count lesser Sins than Perjury and so we may harden them to Damnation IX It is a heinous aggravation of Sin to do it as for God and that we may serve him in the Ministry X. It is a dreadful thing to undertake to justifie thousands whom we never knew as well as the old Parliament Men whom we know and to prove that they ought not to Repent nor to endeavour Church Reformation if it should prove that by a Vow they are bound to such endeavour by lawful means XI I dare not provoke God to desert me in my Ministry yea and in my secret Comforts nor tempt Men to think basely of the Ministers as a Perjured sort of Men who cry down other Mens Sins while they have greater of their own XII It is a dreadful aggravation to do all this not by sudden Surprize but upon Deliberation and to make a Covenant against Duty and for Sin and to say I ought to do it and never to Repent yea and by justifying it to harden multitudes against Repentance Especially if it tend to corrupt the publick state of the Church and Worship For these Reasons I cannot use Violence with imposed Oaths Covenants or Professions but must expound them in the common sense of Men of that Profession till the Law-makers themselves shall declare that they mean otherwise And all this I speak but as the Reasons of our own Practice and not at all to accuse any Conformists Yea I so far excuse them against the Non-conforming Conformist that I do take the chief Men of them whom I have known to mean plainly as they speak I suppose they really Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed in the Books and really mean contrary to your stretching Expositions of Infants Salvation of Baptism Communion Burial and the rest And by Dr. Smith's Books and such others I believe they take such Conforming Non-conformists to be as the late Westminster Assembly proved the most dangerous underminers of their Church And when we have Confuted such as you our Work is all to begin again with the serious Conformists who deal plainly and go on other Principles The Second Part. Mr. Cheney's Five Undertakings Considered § 1. DEar Brother you and I have exposed our selves as Publick Warnings to Mankind to take heed of an overvaluing of their own Understandings and of a hasty confidence in their Erroneous Conceptions and of rash obtruding that upon the World as necessary Truth for want of Judgment and Time to digest things which will prove very dangerous Error and if received and practised alas what Mischief may it do Erring Men know not that they Err If I think it is you and you think it is I and a third think it is both the Reader greatly profiteth by us who learneth by our Harms to have a due suspicion of his own Understanding and so it be without unnecessary Scepticism to have humble thoughts of his Conceptions which have not had time and helps convenient to ripen them Especially if your Friend or you be Conscious that you have formerly or lately been as confident in that which you now see was your Error you should think that the same Mind is still in danger of Deceit and it 's as easie to reel into the other Extreme § 2. Oh what cause have we to pray Lead us not into temptation we little know what is in our Hearts or others till just Trial call it up Nor what great hurt even good Men may live to do And if one Error get in to how many worse it may open the Door And if we begin to roul down the Hill how little know we where to stop But though Satan desire to have us that he may sift us I hope Christ's Intercession will keep our Faith from failing But wo and alas that we must one or both which ever is in the wrong be instruments of Mischief against the Interest of our dear Lord and his Truth and Church and Mens Souls whilst both our desires are to live in the World for no other end but to build up that which by Ignorance Self-conceitedness Error and Rashness we are laboriously pulling down § 3. And if it be I that have by Error wronged the Church my Case is made worse by your strengthening my Temptation when instead of convincing Argument you give me little but naked Assertions and saying I conceive and run into such Singularities as all sober Men are bound to suspect and some condemn almost all Christ's Churches without one word of Convincing Proof § 4. That you Answer only in Print to the World the private Talk that I had with you whilst you gave me no Vocal Answer I take but for a small and modal Irregulatity Some Men have Humours and Ways of their own which they will follow Had you done it as judiciously and truly with fear of Erring and Seducing as you did it publickly the rest might be well interpreted But we must take it as it is QUESTION I.
THE DEFENCE OF THE Nonconformists Plea for Peace OR An Account of the Matter of their NONCONFORMITY Against Mr. Cheney's Answer Called The Conforming Nonconformist And The Nonconforming Conformist To which is added the Second Part In Answer to Mr. Cheney's Five Undertakings By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Benjamin Alsop at the Angel over against the Stocks-Market 1680. THE PREFACE Reader TOo many of the contentions of this age do tell the world how much the several parties differ in Piety and Malignity Humility and Pride Love and Malice Meekness and Cruelty But I think verily the controversie here managed between this brother and me doth but tell you how weak and fumbling a thing mans understanding is here in the flesh and what great diversity of apprehensions all men have in many things who agree in the main and how diversity of Lights or appearances may cause great and confident contrariety of judgments yea and changes in the same person The difference between Paul and Barnabas and Peter and Paul Gal. 2. tell us how far the best of mortals are from perfection Our difference I think is not caused by contrariety of worldly Interests which yet divided even Abraham's family and Lot's and much worse Joseph's brethren from him For as neither of us have any great matters of worldly wealth but our daily bread which is enough so I am perswaded that he seeketh no such thing and I am sure I cannot if I would who daily expect to give up my account and carry about me a thorn in the flesh enough to cure at least the expectation of fleshly and worldly pleasure and prosperity Read not therefore these books as the conflict of enemies but as the consultation of unfeigned loving friends who fain would understand the truth You see he abhorreth the silencing or persecuting the ministers of England for Nonconformity Yea and all disaffection on such accounts And though I shew the great mistakes in his writing impute them not to the habitual weakness of his judgment But 1 to the badness of his cause 2 To the newness and crudity of his thoughts about it For though he hath been long a publick conforming Minister yet it is but lately that he hath received the satisfaction which he here expressed being before purposed no more to declare or subscribe what he here defendeth And new thoughts are seldom well digested I speak this the rather because some say that he is an honest weak man that hath shewed his good will to defend their cause but was not able to do it as it will shortly be done by some greater men that are about it But my opinion is that his concessions and coming so near the truth doth give him so much advantage against us that the ablest of them that stand at a greater distance are like the more to marr their matter and assault us with less success than he And I advise his Reader to pardon such slips in the book which I confute as concern not much the cause in hand but are only the oversights of the well meaning Author As when pag. 8. he distributeth the Learned Ministry into several degrees of which one is such as have no Learning and another such as have a little c. It 's easie to know that this was a meer oversight And in his supplement pag. 145. when he saith God himself doth assent and consent to the use of all the lyes and wickednesses of men and devils It 's like the Reader will think that he meaneth by the use that men and devils use to lye and do wickedness or act these sins If so it were odious blasphemy indeed But by conference I have cause to believe that the Author's judgment is sound in those points and therefore that it is but an heedless speech and that he meaneth no more but that God consenteth when lyes and wickednesses are committed that men make good use of them in esse cognito as to repent of them or hate them or take warning to avoid the like and that God himself will use them as occasions of some accidental good as sickness is used to honour the skill of the Physician And that the word Assent slipt in because his cause was in his thoughts If you say This is a ridiculous equivocation To make such use of the Liturgie in esse cognito as to hate it or perswade from it no enemy will deny but what is that to using it To use the Liturgie is to read and practise it and so to use lying and wickedness is to lye and do wickedly that which you call sin objective in esse cognito is not sin indeed but the idea of it but it is the real Liturgie which we must make a Covenant to use Ans. And who can manage an ill cause without somewhat that is too like it And who doth any thing which needeth no repentance or amendment And who is so wise as to speak wisely at all times Let us pity one another and pray for a teachable mind and long for the world of Concord in perfection O how much harder is it to justifie proud Schismatical silenccers and persecutors of the just than to excuse the failings of the weak and with how great a difference shall they be shortly judged as sure as there is a day of judgment to be expected Yea how much easier will it be for Sodom and Gomorrah for Indians and Americans at that day than for those that malignantly oppressed men of most serious piety and fought against Christ as by his own pretended authority and in his name THE CONTENTS OF THE following Book CHAP. I. THe occasions and reasons of answering Mr. Ch's Book CHAP. II. Of Reordination Equally Sinfull with Rebaptization in the judgment of Greg. M. § 1. The ordination required supposed the persons were not ordained before § 3. Mr. Chey's exceptions glosses c. removed § 4 5. CHAP. III. Of the several orders of ministers Mr. Ch's trifling in the ambiguity of the word Order noted § 2. 3. CHAP. IV. Of the Bishop's Oath to the Arch-Bishop CHAP. V. Of the Oath of Canonical Obedience CHAP. VI. Of the words Receive ye the Holy Ghost 5 sorts of mission or commission given by Christ to his Ministers CHAP. VII Mr. C ' s 6. section answered i. e. with pity concerning those words to the People To come forth and make their exceptions to the person ordained CHAP. VIII Of the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed CHAP. IX About the certainty of baptized Infants salvation made an Article of faith Mr. C. gives no answer to Mr. B's objections § 1. Bishop of Ely ' s judgment § 3. A case put at the conference at the Savoy with Bishop Sanderson ' s answer ibid. Reply to that answer with Bishop Morley's return to it and the removal of that return ibid. CHAP. X. About coming to the Sacrament of the Lords supper without a full trust in Gods mercy and a quiet conscience CHAP. XI
dare or if his saying he repenteth satisfie the Judge that knoweth him not while the Minister that is his neighbour heareth no sign of it but contrarily of his malice against him for accusing him he must still give him the Sacrament if the Chancellor acquits him VII Nay if he be excommunicated first and by friends fees or saying I repent get the Chancellor's Absolution he must be received to Communion though the Minister see not the least sign of his repentance but the contrary VIII If Ignorance be so common in the Parish that we have reason to judge that of twenty or thirty thousand Parishioners more or fewer one half of them understand not the very Essentials of Christianity and of the Sacrament yet the Minister must refuse none I that have but three servants can seldom have all three such as with my plain teaching will be brought while they are with me to understand all the Essentials and be capable of the Sacrament And though in general experience telleth us of the great numbers of such yet the Minister cannot know them He that knoweth not their faces much less ever catechized half And commonly children and ignorant people will say the words of the Creed and Lord's Prayer when they are grosly ignorant of the sense 2. And if the Minister know such an one to be so grosly ignorant the Law giveth him not power to deny him the Sacrament IX How should the Minister have power to excommunicate one out of a particular Church when his Parish is not a particular Church but a part of a Diocesan Church only It 's known now it is maintained by Bishops That the Diocesan is the particular Church That it is no Church that hath not a Bishop of its own That Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata and therefore the name of Pastor is usually appropriated to the Bishop and in most places of the Liturgy where Bishops Pastors and Curates were joyntly named one of the two first is put out of the New Book and only Bishops and Curates or Pastors and Curates mentioned And who can cast out of a Church that is no Church in the Rulers sense X. I have had many Parishioners that have made me know that they take me for none of their Pastor nor will do nor themselves for any of my Flock and yet to satisfie the Law or fame or humour they will demand the Sacrament A Minister cannot refuse such a one but must do the one part of a Pastor's Office to them that disclaim the relation XI If I upon strong suspicion of gross Ignorance would desire my neighbours aged or young to come and speak with me and would try them and instruct them or if I desire to confer with them on a just private suspicion of Heresie or Atheism or accusation or fame of wicked living and if they refuse to speak with me or give me any answer or account but shut their doors against me and bid me meddle with my own business I have no power to refuse them the Sacrament XII I have known many persons that for fear of being guilty of the body and blood of Christ would be in danger of desperation or distraction should they receive it Yet if for fear of an Excommunication such unwilling ones come I must give it them And I know too many that let me know that though they will have the Sacrament they do not consent to the Essentials of the Sacramental Covenant but think Christ's terms too hard till they have sinned longer yet these must I admit to the Sacrament XIII On the other side I must give it none that dare not take it kneeling nor any that think Conformity unlawful nor that the Canon calleth Schismaticks XIV I must give it to none of the most worthy of my Flock whom the Bishop or Lay-Chancellor will excommunicate if it be but for not paying fees or not appearing at his Court. XV. The Priest must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Excommunication if against the most conscionable of his Flock XVI And he must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Absolution though he know the party to be most unworthy XVII He hath no power to judge whom to take into the Church by Baptism but must Baptize any Child of Atheists Brutists Heathens Infidels or Hereticks that have but God-fathers who never take them for their own though his conscience be against it as is aforesaid XVIII He hath no power to forbear pronouncing Absolution from all sin in absolute terms to any sick man that will say he repenteth and desire it though by never so much evidence the Priest judge it to be either counterfeit or from meer attrition or fear without love XIX I have proved that he hath no power to forbear pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Brutists Adulterers Drunkards worldlings c. saved at their Burial except the unbaptized excommunicate and self-murderers XX. In a word the Priest is so far from having the power of excommunicating out of a particular Church that he hath no power to do the necessary previous acts 1. If he would tell him his fault privately the sinner may refuse to speak with him as is said 2. If he would take two or three witnesses he may refuse yet to speak with him or hear him 3. If he would tell the Church where he hath Communion and would publickly admonish him before them all and pray for him by name that he may repent he doth more than he can answer and the man may have his Action against him accordingly at Law XXI If a Minister will prosecute at the Bishops Court all that he hath cause to keep from the Sacrament as he must do within fourteen daies 1. It will take him off all his Ministerial studies almost in many great and wicked Parishes It will be work enough to travel long journeys as an Informer 2. It will spend all his Benefice in the charge of journeys Proctors and bringing witnesses so far 3. He shall but get the hatred of sinners and never be like more to do them good Whereas had he power to use true Pastoral Discipline with them his love and tenderness might possibly melt them into repentance which a Chancellor's Court so like a Civil Judicature and putting them to great expences and danger is unlike to do Nor did I ever in my whole life know one sinner brought to Repentance seemingly serious by their Courts XXII To conclude If the Minister have power to keep any from the Sacrament for fourteen daies till he prosecute them they will as members have all other Communion with that Church even in Prayer Praise and Thanksgiving and the Baptizing of his Child c. Albaspineus that great and notable describer of the Churches Customs tells us that the Old Excommunication did shut them out of all other Church-Communion as well as the Sacrament even their oblations were not accepted If I understand the Case of the Parish-Priests and their Power of Discipline this