that you will quarrel at it you are known to be of a polemical humour and temper of a hot Brain and hasty Pen the Hector of the Old Cause the Non-conformists Pope I wrong you not in the Appellation You have more than proved it in Acting the Pope Yours are the two Swords and you have with mighty valour drawn them both The temporal Sword you have drawn against the King in the late Rebellion and you glory that you drew in with you many thousands And in cold bloud near twenty years after you tell the World you cannot see you were mistaken nor dare you repent of it nor forbear the same if it were to doe again in the same state of things And Sir may I be so bold as to ask you Are you not this day of the same mind and wish the state of things were now the same that you might be Doing again Blessed be God who hath by Miracle taken from you the temporal Sword and restored it to the King whose it is But the spiritual Sword cannot be wrested from you and this you are so daring as to draw still against the Church upon which you are ever and anon making new Assaults and here too you muster your holy Army Two thousand Ministers and by the number of those Centurions we may guess how many are your Legions Shall demonstrate to you further how you take upon you the Pope in both his claims of highest Power One over Kings in your Holy Common-wealth bounding them all by your Laws for Government or rather binding them in your long and heavy Chain of 380 Links The other claim of highest Power over the whole Church you do in effect make of being its universal infallible Head and Guide where you say you have written a Treatise of The onely true terms of Concord of all Christian Churches and of the false Terms which they will never unite in but are the causes of Schism Here speaks an Oracle The onely terms of true and false Concord and Schism are in your Breast and given out from your infallible Chair a rare and happy Catholicon O that it may work the Cure Sorry I am it comes forth a little too late had you published it in the vacancy of the See of Canterbury you had infallibly been made Papa alterius orbis When you penned the Petition for Peace you proclaim to the World you onely had the Spirit of fortitude telling us how stoutly you stood up against the Bishops for the Old Cause when deserted by all your brethren in the Conflict But I hope you had not then attained the Spirit of infallibility if so I am upon a vain attempt and your Petition as you suggest is unanswerable and I have some ground to hope it since the pious old Gentleman who wrote Doctour Sanderson's Life assures us that the present Bishop of Chester told him very lately that one of the Dissenters whom he forbears to name but you intimately know him appeared to Dr. Sanderson to be so bold so troublesome and so illogical in the Dispute at the Savoy as forced the patient Bishop then Moderatour to say with an unusual earnestness that he never met with a man of more pertinacious Confidence and less Abilities in all his conversation Sir you talk much of Peace and Love Concord and Vnion and the Cure of Divisions and they are the Title of divers of your Books yet abundance of judicious and peaceable person do think and say that you have more opposed the Peace of the church and State too and contributed to its Divisions than any or all the party of your profession Nay that you are not at peace with your own party and where they express their dissent from you though never so modestly you treat them rudely and insolently as anon I may give you an Instance At present I shall take the liberty to consider and offer you some of my Sentiments upon two of those Discourses I now named your Holy Commonwealth and your Plea for Peace For the first truly I was seised with wonder and grief at the sight of your Commonwealth that seventeen years after our late Troubles began and they yet continuing you having in prospect our lamentable Confusions and leisure to reflect upon the Ruins of the Church and State and seeing the Kingdom overturned by Rebellion Sedition Murther and Plunder the Violation of all the Laws and of all mens Rights and the seising sequestring and selling the Estates of the King the Bishops and the most eminently loyal Subjects and after the horrid Assassination of the King himself turned into several monstrous forms as the several powers and ambitious of several parties prevailed and seeing also the Church rent all into sects and factions its holy Doctrine polluted with monstrous heresies its apostolical Government pluckt up root and branch its most religious Form of publick worship abolished and every gifted Brother left to his private mode you could have so little sense and pitty that I say not piety as not in the least to deplore the Calamities of our Zion that God in the indignation of his anger had despised the King and the Priest cast off his Altar abhorred his Sanctuary his Enemies roaring in the midst of his Congregations and setting up their Banners for tokens That in all your tedious Book you not once lament our Josiah the Lord 's Anointed taken in the snares of wicked men Though in the beginning of it you resent the ill useage of the usurping Protector to whom you give flattering Titles Nay that you could cry up those who had contrived and acted all these Mischiefs and Miseries to be the Godly party and theirs the Good cause and as if there had been never such a thing as a Kingdom in England you should form as Utopian Common-wealth by Centuries of wild and seditious Maxims I may hereafter make some Animadversions upon your Common-wealth I will now onely recall to your second thoughts a few of your Theses which speak it not very holy In your Preface Romans the 13th being objected unto you you avow resistence of the King with an offer of your Head to Justice as a Rebel if any can prove that the King was the Highest Power in the time of Division and had Power to make that War That is If any can prove the King was in Authortiy above those who even when opposing him acknowledged themselves his Subjects and turning Rebels he had Right by War to defend himself and reduce them to obedience Sir you may bless God that the King's Son and Successour was like him a most mercifull Prince else your Offer might by his Justice have been taken All Writers think Saint Paul means by the Higher Powers the Emperour or which is all one the King and name him and your self name him elsewhere If a heathen persecuting Nero must be obeyed and Saint Peter calls the King Supreme and yet you miserably shuffie off both with
Laying on of the hands of the Presbytery whether the Lawn be de essentia to the Ceremony and the Hands avail nothing without the Sleeves on Sir St. Paul appealed to Caesar you cannot but appeal to the Higher Powers It seems with you there are Higher Powers than Caesar And as you mistake the Object so you do the Subject matter or Case of your Appeal which should be Whether Timothy who was ordained by the Laying on of the hands of the Prebytery was not again ordained by the Laying on of the hands of St. Paul and the Higher Powers may put you to prove your selves ordained as was Timothy which will be a little difficult and your Quoeries will be to them as hard Whether the hands of the Presbytery were without Sleeves Whether Saint Paul had Lawn Sleeves Whether Ordination be a Ceremony Whether a Ceremony hath any thing belonging to it de essentia Important Quoeries all these verily and fit to be revised and judged by the Higher Powers if you knew who they were but alas you do not as you complain in your Sermon to the House of Commons If then you would take my counsel refer it Brother Cheny One thing I am mighty sorry to see and say This wise case is ushered in with a gross leasing when just before you affirm the case was such That there was no other than Presbyterian Ordination to be had here in the late times Truly if your good will might be taken for the deed there was no other to be had But in the late times my self and hundreds more had Episcopal Ordination But quoere whether it were valid you having taken away their Lawn Sleeves and Rochets and Rochets to which might be de essentia to the Ceremony One thing more I must observe and then I shall end your Trouble and 't is my own great trouble that I must observe it and rebuke you for it you say in your Preface Ans to Dr. Stillingfleet I am past doubt that Richard Hooker Bishop Bilson and BishopVsher where they now alive would be Non-conformists And you said it before as I remember elsewhere Sir Your being past doubt puts us past our faith in your assertions no body will believe what you say while you talk at this rate and blemish the precious memory of such venerable Persons two of them having been the highest Assertors of Conformity since the Reformation and have left us for it their Monuments in writing incomparable and unanswerable Pray Sir How came you by this Plerophy Have their Ghosts appeared unto you and informed you that they have been convinced in another world that they erred in thinking there ought to be Church Order and Vniformity in this And Have they told you for no body else could what sort of Non-conformists they would be Those of the first Edition in Forty two or those of the second in Sixty two Would they when Non-conformity was rampant have risen up against the King and Church and with you cryed up the good Cause and pluckt up the perpetual Government of Christ's Church and the Ecclesiastical Polity root and branch and in order to a thorough Beformation taken the Solemn League and Covenant and with you taken up Arms for the Parliament Or Would they now having answered onely the old Objections when alive be so stagger'd with your new ones that that one alone of the erroneous Kalendar would be a flaming Sword to keep them from entring Sir Hereafter talk things crediible such Romances become you not What would your Censure be should we affirm we are past doubt that Mr. Cartwright Traverse and Brown were they now alive would turn Conformists One thing in the Epistle to your Plea I omitted is fit here to be remarked your Complaint that you have been called on to tell what it is that you would have as if you had told it and we well knew it But truly Sir 't is a very hard Question which we think you neither have nor can tell One thing you would have to day another to morrow a little will content you when you are under but nothing will content you when you are uppermost When you writ your Petition for Peace you would have Bishop Usher's model and could yield to Bishops and Archbishops When you writ your Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet you would have your Grievances proposed to the Higher Powers and would have the Higher Powers strip the Bishops of their Lawn Sleeves We know by what measures you proceeded in Forty one from Petitioning to Protestation thence to Covenanting to Arming to Sequestring till you had levelled all before you and overturned the Government of both Church and State I am very unwilling to mention your past Actings but that you give us great cause to think you would be acting the same things again and do in effect tell us What you would have But What you would not have you can better tell us No Bishops no Liturgy no Canons for decency and order in the publick Worship no King but upon such terms if you be the Casuists who resolved upon the prospect of the King's Restoration That in that state of things the King could not justifie the resuming of his Government nor his people the submitting to it But your Non-conforming Brethren best know your minde Let them tell you and us what you would have had when you had all You complain of your Misery Bondage and Slavery of Oppressions Sorrows and Troubles of the Church that is doubtless of the Church Presbyterian and no other What doth all you What troubles you who doth oppress you have you not Authority on your side have you not all the Church livings in the Kingdom have you not Declaration upon Declaration Ordinance upon Ordinance Order upon Order to back you Is there the least shew of Oppression Sorrow or Cause of complaint administred unto you except it be because you are not suffered to oppress vex and gall your Brethren that joyn not with you Can you feed upon nothing but Bloud yea the Bloud of your Brethren that though you have every thing else that onely prohibited you complain of Sorrow Slavery and Oppression that you cannot enslave and lead into Captivity Is this to kill you with the Sword that you cannot kill your Brethren with the Sword THE NON-CONFORMISTS CHAMPION HIS CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 1. WHEN God had in mercy and faithfulness unto David delivered him from the Sword of Saul and set him upon the Throne of Israel the first thing he esteemed himself obliged unto in duty and gratitude was to set up God's Kingdom and settle his true Worship in Israel who had set up and settled him in that Kingdom To this end he brings the Ark of God in a Religious State and Triumph to Jerusalem which had been taken by the Philistines and remained some time with them in Captivity and after lodged in obscurity in the houses of Aminadab and Obededom His gracious Majesty our David
formerly I am to learn they know his late Majesty made to them moderate Proposals but was refused and they confess the Lord Primate of Ireland made moderate Proposals but by them never accepted As to their bold Appeal to all Protestant Churches presuming they will give their Judgments for them and against the Church of England's established Constitutions which they have the huge Confidence to prophesie even of the Judgment of all succeeding ages They might without a Revelation by their Jugdment past and present have foreseen their Judgment for the future The past age hath cryed Grace Grace to our happy orderly and moderate Reformation in Doctrine Government and Worship the Protestant Churches have given us the Right-hand of Fellowship have maintained sweet Communion with us have in Marian Persecution received our Exiles their most eminent Lights have sent us high Congratulations their ablest Ministers have divers of them come over and with Joy beheld our Order and some have lived and died amongst us What Judgment did Mr. Beza give Let himself speak Quod si nunc If now the Reformed Churches of England being underprop'd with the Authority of Bishops and Archbishops do continue as this hath hapened to that Church in our memory That she hath had Men of that Calling not onely most notable Martyrs but also excellent Pastors and Doctors let them truly enjoy that singular Blessing of God which I wish may be perpetual unto her What Judgment did Peter Martyr pass in the Case of Bishop Hooper about the Ceremonies Did he not answer his Arguments vindicate the lawfulness of them exhort him to submit unto them The Judgment of Doctor Moulin you have heard and much more might be told you of the high Honour he had for the Church of England And to come nearer what Judgment the Protestant Churches passed upon your Covenant your Reforming the Church by the Sword and in the Bloud of the Nursing Father and the Prime Pastour of it with many Thousands more you have surely heard Were they not ashamed confounded and astonished at our Schisms and Seditions and Violations of all Authority Sacred and Civil And Have not your Actions in the late lamentable times cast a Blemish upon the Honour of our Nation never to be washed off An English-man daring scarce to look another man in the face in a foreign Countrey being under the Objection and Reproach of Rebellion Murthering their King Changing the best tempered Monarchy in the World into a puny Common-wealth and that swallowed up soon into a Barbarous Protectourship and Abasing the most primitive and venerable Episcopacy into a novel and contemptible Parity and Linsy-woolsey Presbytery made up of Preachers and Lay-elders and that too straight undermined and baffled by a Mushrome Independency Pudet haec Opprobria vobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli This is the past Judgment of the Protestant Churches abroad concerning our Church established and you who ruined it till God in mercy restored it For the Churches of succeeding ages I think they will hardly believe the History of ours That such men as you professing highest Godliness should in a pretended zeal for it preach up Sedition and Schism and embroil the Church and Nation wherein you were born and baptized in Bloud and Confusion and which seems more incredible Appeal to all Protestant Churches in your own Justification nay Supplicate the King whose Royal Father was martyred and himself long banished for standing up in defence of the Church which you opposed and by Force destroyed to screen you from the Churche's Power to grant you the chief Benefices in the Church and give you Liberty to be of another Church to enjoy a Worship and Government of your own Mode and Model But my Brethren how come you to make this lowd Challenge Why enquire you or rather Why presume you what Judgment the Protestant Churches will make of our Churches proceedings Sure your mighty Zeal and ardent Affection to your Cause hath clouded your own Judgment and quite bereaved you of your Memory You mention often and with seeming regard his Majestie 's gracious Declaration touching Ecclesiastical Affairs he therein tells you the present Judgment of the Reformed Churches abroad and had you Faith to believe his Royal word you might have spared this Argument and Out-cry which you may blush for and wish you had suppressed Hear his Majesty speaking their Judgment We do think Our self the more competent to propose and with God's Assistence to determine many things now in Difference from the time We have spent and the experience We have had in most of the Reformed Churches abroad in France the Low-countries and Germany where We have had frequent Conference with the most Learned men who have unanimously lamented the great Reproach the Protestant Religion undergoes from the Distempers and too notorious Schisms in Matters of Religion in England And as the most Learned among them have alwaies with great Submission and Reverence acknowledged and magnified the established Government of the Church of England and the great Countenance and Shelter the Protestant Religion received from it before these unhappy times So many of the have with great Ingenuity and Sorrow confessed that they were too easily mis-led by mis-information and prejudice into some disesteem of it as if it had too much complyed with the Church of Rome whereas they now acknowledg it to be the best Fence God hath yet raised against Popery in the World and We are persuaded they do with great Zeal wish it restored to its old Dignity and Veneration You see what Judgment the Protestant Churches have passed upon the Church of England and her former Proceedings and thereby may take an Estimate what Judgment they will pass on her present Proceedings and how the Churche's Cause and yours will be represented to them They will acknowledg and magnifie with great Submission and Reverence the established Government of the Church of England if you dare believe his Majesty and consequently will censure you as Schismatical and Disobedient to refuse to submit unto it But I must not misrepresent you your Submission you profess If after our Submission to his Majesty's Declaration and after our own Proposals of the primitive Episcopacy and of such a Liturgy as we here tender we may not be permitted to exercise our Ministry the Pens of those moderate Bishops will bear witness against you that were once employed as the Chief Defenders of that Cause we mean such as Reverend Bishop Hall and Usher who have published to the World that much less than this might have served to our fraternal Vnity and Peace Ans You before appealed to the Protestant Churches abroad now unto two Bishops of our own and with like Success 1. You say you have submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration you should have instanced wherein His Majesty there declares That having seen all the Liturgies that are extant and used in this part of the World he esteems that of
and might learn that the Church in prescribing Indifferent things takes away no man's Liberty The things prescribed are in their own nature and in the Judgment both of the Imposer and the intelligent Observer of them the same they were before Indifferent I obey the Church yet preserve my Liberty still judging the thing Indifferent which it commands and I obey not the Command as any necessary part of Religion but as the Church commands it which I am bound to obey for Decency and Order They that make Laws concerning Indifferent things have no intention at all to meddle with the nature of them they leave that in medio as they found it but onely for some reasons of conveniency order the use of them the Indifferency of their nature still being where it was They are very unhappy in alledging that Scripture Acts 15.28 which concludes directly for the Church against them we may tell them in their own words the Holy Ghost hath there so plainly decided the Point in controversie that it seems strange to us that yet it should remain a controversie they have here thrown down all they have built all their 20 Reasons fall and are broken in pieces as Dagon before the Ark. This Chapter acquaints us that some Jews though converted to the Christian Faith and embracing the Gospel yet thought themselves bound to the Observation of the whole Mosaical Law and they thought the converted Gentiles so bound also and told them that except they were circumcized and kept the Law of Moses they could not be saved Hereupon arises Dissention and Disputation and an Appeal is made to a Council at Jerusalem which upon the hearing and debating the Question determines That the converted Gentiles should not be obliged to Circumcision nor to the Ceremonial Law but in yieldance to the converted Jews who were zealous of the Law and to keep Peace with them they should abstain from some few things in their nature indifferent but necessary in order to Peace and Charity from Meats offered to Idols from Bloud and from things strangled Behold here the First and Greatest Council that ever was in the Christian Church to compose a Difference meets and makes a Law of Abstinence from some things indifferent and otherwise in themselves lawfull This is plainly the Case the Act of the Council and Decision of the Question and yet these men alledge the Act of the Council to prove the quite contrary I am amazed to see how they change and clip the words and pervert the sense of the Scripture they cite for their ends and I fear against their Conscience They say the Apostles and Elders Act. 15.28 declare unto the Churches that it seemed good unto the Holy Ghost and them to lay upon them no greater Burthen than necessary things Do the Apostles and Elders so declare then we yield the Cause Do they not then ought they with Sin and Shame to yield it They leave out the word These because they know it made against them limiting the Churche's Order to some few particular things there presently named Things offered to Idols Bloud c. Now whereas the Church makes a temporary Order for some particular things and declares thus It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater Burthen necessary besides these things or these necessary things They leave out that word these of main importance and hugely against them and would make a standing Canon of their own and father it upon the Apostles That the Church ought to impose no other then necessary things and yet too by their own confession these things imposed were not simply in their own nature unchangeably necessary but by accident pro tempore loco and whereas they say the Council imposed them because antecedently necessary The contrary is most true These things were not antecedently necessary but onely as themselves say pro tempore for the time There being at this time a difference risen about the Jewish Ceremonies it was not necessary before the Council now so determined That the converted Gentiles should abstain from things offered to Idols strangled and Bloud that Law belonging onely to the Jews never to the Gentiles Behold how rarely well these men argue To prove Church-Governours may not determine in things indifferent for Order and Unity but all ought to be left to their own Liberty They produce a Scripture which proves most plainly That Church-Governours have and may determine and restrain those under them from the use of things indifferent All the things touching which the Council they produce do give order being indifferent except one Fornication which is of another nature but with these prohibited for that the Gentiles allowed themselves in it and scarce looked on it as a Sin This of their 20 th and last Reason which I have thus at large considered for that they lay so much weight upon it though it prove as the rest light in the Balance I shall for a Conclusion of all clearly evidence the Churche's Power to prescribe external Rites and Ceremonies for Order and Decency and our Obligation to conform unto them from the Judgment of two ancient Fathers for whom I suppose our Brethren have some Reverence and if those cannot move them from the Judgment of a modern Father for whom I am sure they have a high Veneration 'T is St. Augustine's Rule Prudenti Christiano eo modo agendum esse quo agit Ecclesia ad quam devenerit and his Mother having used when she was in Africk to fast on the Saturday and coming to Millan where that Fast was not observed was doubtfull what to doe hereupon her Son consulted Saint Ambrose who thus answered When I am here at Millan I do not fast on the Saturday when I am at Rome I do fast on the Saturday and unto what Church soever ye come keep the custom of it if you be willing neither to give nor take Scandal From which Rule of St. Augustine and Advice of St. Ambrose a Learned person maketh these Remarks 1. That divers Countries professing the same Religion may have divers Ceremonies 2. That in Churches Independent one is not bound of necessity to follow another 3. That 't is the Duty of every private person to conform himself to the laudable Customs and Constitutions of the Church wherein he liveth or wherever he cometh You have heard the Judgment of these ancient Fathers Will you hear your modern Father Mr. Calvin and he delivers his Judgment so fully and with so much strength and clearness asserts the Churche's Power to ordain external Rites and Ceremonies that Master Hooker himself could not say more or better Whereas many unskilfull men when they hear that Consciences are wickedly bound and God Worshipped in vain by the Traditions of men do at once blot out altogether all Laws whereby the Order of the Church is set in frame Therefore it is convenient also to meet with their Errour Verily in this point it
saying The Romans hated the name of a King as the Party you sided with did and that it was neither the intent of Paul or Peter to determine whether the Emperour or Senate was supreme But where the King is supreme it is the will of God that the people should obey him May I remind you that St. Paul did determine it when he appealead not to the Senate but to Caesar and St. Peter did determine it when he calls the King supreme and other Governours those who are sent by him You challenge any man to let you know now one Nation upon all the Earth that hath better Governours in Sovereign Power as to Wisedom and Holiness conjunct than the Powers last laid by that have been resisted and deposed in England and you tell us who you mean when you say The Lord Protector prudently piously faithfully to his immortal Honour did exercise the Government But how he came in you say not Blessed be God he went out soon his Goverment was not immortal and thanks to the King not mortal to himself against his Piousness I have nothing to object but that he was Protectour his Prudence I readily with you acknowledge and his Honesty too in acknowledging the King his father's Land-lord and his own and being ready to remove when the Land-lord demanded possession which saved him his head he being wiser than you not to offer it so rashly As for your Challenge of the Wisedom and Holiness of your Governours above all upon Earth please you to send it into Holland or Geneva it will doubtless be accepted but though it displease you I must tell you the Earth never saw more wicked and cruel Vsurpers than they nor a more vain and idle Challenge than yours shall leave you and Mr. Harrington to argue whether the Army or Richard and his Senate were the wiser or holier Governours and passing by Centuries shall onely remind you of a few of your Theses which speak your Loyalty If Providence statedly disable him that was the Sovereign from executing the Laws protecting the Just it maketh him an uncapable subject of the Power and so deposeth him for a Governour so impotent is none and if the People disable him sinfully by deserting him yet he is dismissed and disobliged from the Charge of Government and Innocent members are disobliged from being governed by him though through the Sin of others When Providence thus maketh any uncapable or indisposed it destroyeth the Power as in such 'T is the duty of a very weak though tolerable Governour for the Common Good to resign his Place to one that is every way more fit and liker to obtain the ends of Government in a more excellent degree If the person dispossest though it were unjustly do after become uncapable of Government 't is not the duty of his Subjects to seek his Restoration If an Army of Neighbours or Inhabitants or whoever Turk or Pope do though injuriously expell the Sovereign and resolve to ruine the Common-wealth rather than he shall be restored and if the Common-wealth may prosper without his Restoration 't is the duty of such an injured Prince for the Common Good to resign his Government and if he will not the People ought to judge him as made uncapable by Providence and not to seek his Restoration To the apparent Ruin of the Common-wealth a Prince must give up his Government rather than fight for his Right to the spilling of Bloud A rare Encouragement to Rebellion 'T is Mr. B's Divinity the longest Sword must carry it right or wrong and Rebels may spill Bloud to destroy their King but a lawfull King may not to preserve himself and his Kingdom It seems David was to blame to fight with Absalom for the recovery of his Crown and Kingdom What horrid Theses are these Onely the Common-wealth and Common-good of which the Common people are Judges comes in ever as a Salvo Name me a Jesuite that ever wrote at a higher rate When a People are without a Governour it may be the duty of such as have most strength ex charitate to protect the rest from injury Just Protectour Oliver's case he found out a way that the People should be without a Governour and then his most strength was a mighty impulse to this great Charity to protect the People Providence by Conquest and other means doth use so to qualifie some persons above others for the Government when the place is void that no other persons shall be capable Competitours and the persons shall be as good as named by Providence whom the people are bound by God to choose or consent to Examples Massianello The Rump Oliver Richard Multitudes of wicked criminous persons how rich soever should much rather be excluded from choosing Governours than honest Beggars This this this is the great Point that the welfare of most Common-wealths doth depend upon This this this will set Kingdoms and Common-wealths all on fire he who is wicked to one Party is godly to another and to be rich when your Party reigned was to be criminous and malignant if loyal But to prevent contention and injustice your high wisdom hath found out an excellent Law Let all Pastours in England that are approved or tolerated have an Instrument of approbation or toleration and let no man be a Chuser or Ruler who is not signified under the Pastour's hand to be a Member of his Church or that shall be cast out Let every Parish have one or two of the wisest men by the superiour Rulers made Church-Justices or Censours to meet with the Church-Officers and to take cognizance of the Cause and let all that are cast out by the Church-Justices and Churches consent be registred and disabled to vote If a People that by oath and duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants choose and covenant with another they may be obliged by their later Covenants notwithstanding the former and particular Subjects that consented not with them in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their later choice to the person whom they choose when men by contrary Covenants have cast themselves into a necessity of sinning it may be a duty to choose the lesser Sin Though a Nation wrong their King yet may he not lawfully war against the Publick good on that account nor any help him in such a War Princes if their Injuries by their Subjects are too great to be born they may lay down their Crowns at their pleasure If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves But if it be necessary to their welfare it is no injury to him Was ever any thing more seditious wild and contradictious to it self Horresco referens 'T is no Injury saith Mr. Baxter to a Prince to deprive him though worthy 'T is no Sin
who hath been a parallel to King David both in his Persecution and Restoration is as truly his parallel in Piety and holy Zeal for the true Religion and hath made it his first Care as soon as God brought him back to his Kingdom to bring back the Ark of God to Jerusalem to restore the holy Doctrin Worship and Government of our Church which had with himself been long banished and having in the happy Examples of his most Royal and Religious Predecessors observed how exceedingly this Church hath florished under the established Order for many years how eminently her Faith hath been spread abroad in every place how all her Sisters of the reformed Church rejoiced to behold her order and stedfastness towards Christ The Daughters all calling her blessed as also finding by sad experience that in these times of Trouble and Confusion of which we may truly wish with Job That they were blotted out of times and might not come into the number of years the plucking up of the established Order hath been the loss at once of Truth and Peace in the Church and the cause of all the bitter Dissentions and lamentable Divisions wherewith it hath been wounded and dilacerated and which never could be cured or closed by any the Balms and healing Medicins applied by Presbyterians Independents or any other who pretended to be our Physicians this I say his Majesty in his Princely and Pious Wisedom observing hath restored to God's glory and his own great honour that Religion which had before this Rupture obtained and long flourished 2. But there is nothing can be so well devised so warily composed so innocently established as to satisfie all Judgments and anticipate all Objections That Manna wherewith God himself fed his people from Heaven that Angels food was soon loathed and despised As it was at King James his coming to this Crown so at his present Majestie 's there are Dissenters and Complainers who with great and loud Importunities vehement Accusations and a mighty specious Zeal cry out against the publick Worship and Order to be restored His Majesty imitating in the like case the example of that our English Solomon was pleased to give Commission for a Conference or Treaty between some select persons of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Judgment to consider of the Form of publick Worship the Common Prayers of this Church and if occasion be to make such reasonable Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as should be jointly agreed upon to be needfull and expedient and doubtless for the same reason with that of King James Not but that any thing in the Common Prayer contained might very well have been born with by men who would have made a reasonable construction of things But for that in a matter concerning the Service of God we were nice or rather jealous that the publick Form thereof should be free not onely from blame but from suspicion so as neither the common Adversary should have advantage to wrest ought therein contained to other sense than the Church of England intendeth nor any troublesome or ignorant person of this Church be able to take the least occasion against it The Treaty wanting that Issue his Majesty and all good men desired and no Accommodation thereby effected it is enquired and diversly censured where the blame lies 3. The Presbyterians charge the Episcopal Commissioners to be wholly in the fault and say They have petitioned the Bishops proposed their Alterations made their Objections against the Liturgy replied upon the Bishops Answers finally have cleared themselves and given account to his Majesty of the whole Transaction But the Bishops have answered nothing to their Petition have not considered their Alterations have said little to their Objections and granted as little by way of Concession Therefore they profess the Disappointment hath not been on their part and that they have quiet in their minds having discharged their duty and been Seekers and Followers of Peace But for all this fair flourish it will appear to any Judgment that is not forestalled that 't is on the score of the Presbyterians and for the fault of their undue managing thereof that the Treaty hath proved ineffectual and this I shall manifest by first answering their pretensions and then considering their Petition 1. That the Bishops answered not their Petition it was for good causes what they ask was not in the power of the Bishops to grant the matter was unreasonable the motives weak and not worthy an Answer being in number many but light in weight as when they come to be examined will appear and however directed to the Bishops the Petition was intended to gratifie the people of their own party the design of it being popular and the aim of it apparent to keep up their Interest 2. That they answer nothing to their new Form which they call their Alterations a perfect Abolition of the Churches Form was not their fault but their favour They were obliged to the Bishops for their silence who might justly have convented them instead of answering them the very publishing of that Form being a high Attempt against the Laws and a plain Violation of his Majestie 's Directions in his Commission 3. That they say little to their Objections is for that many of them had little in them were trivial and stramineous and little or nothing have they said in their Objections but what had been said before by Cartwright and others and by Archbishop Whitgift and Mr. Hooker abundantly answered 4. That they granted little by way of Concession they had great Reason and great Precedents Great Reason for 1. The Compilers of the Common Prayer Book were holy able zealous and orthodox Persons and such an Alteration as they desired as I said in effect an Abolition had been to question their Piety and Ability and to cast Dirt in the Faces of those venerable Fathers Confessors and Martyrs 2. The Common Prayer Book was revised approved and confirmed by divers Acts of Parliament and Proclamations in several Princes Reigns to alter it after their Model had been also to cast Dirt in the Face of Supream Authority and to question the Wisedom and Piety of the wisest and most pious Kings and Parliaments 3. It would have opened a gap to the Papists who cry out against us for Novelty and Inconstancy 4. It was his Majestie 's Order That there should be as little Alteration as might be for that the people were acquainted with and accustomed to the Form established 2. They had great Precedents for 1. In Queen Elizabeth's time it being revised very few alterations or additions were made and 2. In King James his time also who judged the Form so compleat that he would have some small things rather explained than changed nay more admonisheth all men That hereafter they shall not expect nor attempt any farther Alteration 5. For that the Bishops have said little and the Presbyterians much it makes nothing for the one nor against
Hath Christ given such Laws Open our eyes shew us and let us see them Hath he not then not the Governours of the Church but you who judge he ought do accuse Christ's Laws as insufficient In their fifth Reason they say Suppose they be mistaken in thinking the things to be so displeasing to God yet it is commendable in them to be fearfull in displeasing him and carefull to obey him Ans We see be they right or wrong whatever they opine and act is commendable Suppose they mistook in preaching us into Rebellion in pulling down Bishops in taking away the Liturgy in overturning the Foundations of Church and State yet their Zeal is commendable May not all Zealots plead thus Suppose the Papists were mistaken in their Fiery Zeal to blow up the King and Parliament and in the Irish Massacre yet their Zeal was commendable in designing to destroy those they judged the Enemies of their Church Suppose they be mistaken in worshipping the Saints and their Images and Reliques yet since they think they please God 't is commendable Suppose the Quakers mistaken in denying Magistrates and Ministers and all Authority in Church and State yet in that they think they should displease God in owning those Powers 't is in them commendable to disown them Is this the Counsel you would give to one who doubts and seeks your Resolution Will this satisfie and deliver him from doubting to tell him Suppose you were mistaken yet if you think you are in the right pursue your opion 't is commendable Saint Paul is a better Casuist and gives other Counsel Prove all things hold fast that which is good abstain from all appearance of evil 7. That because men are forbidden to preach unless they conform they are tempted to infer that Preaching being necessary to Salvation and those things called Indifferent being made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it therefore they are made necessary to Salvation and preferred before that which God hath made necessary Ans The Accusation is most untrue those Indifferent things are not made necessary to Preaching much less preferred before it and those who are tempted thus to infer because men are forbidden to preach unless they dare subscribe and use those things therefore those things called Indifferent are made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it are very weak Logicians Every thing that is required is not required as necessary as you have been often told Many things are required as expedient as decent as comely as orderly so are our Ceremonies Ministers are forbidden to reade Prayers without the Surplice to preach without a Gown The Judges are forbidden to sit in Judgment till they reade their Commission and are required to sit in their Scarlet will any hence be tempted to infer that the Surplice and Gown are made necessary to and preferred before Prayer and Preaching and reading a Commission and wearing Scarlet Robes are made necessary to and preferred before doing Justice 2. Every thing that is made necessary to any End or Action is not thereby preferred before it Methinks so many Learned Divines should know that though these Indifferent things should be made necessary by the Command of the Church to Preaching yet it no way follows they are preffered before it The Means sure is made necessary to the obtaining the End yet is not preffered before it 'T is you will confess justly forbidden that Ordination should be given to any without Examination and Imposition of hands or that any should preached without Ordination yet I think you are not tempted to infer that Examination Imposition of hands and Ordination it self though necessary are to be preffered before Preaching Follows their 8. R. which implies we lay our Religion upon our particular Liturgy and so teach the Papists to insult Where was our Religion 200 years ago the Common-prayer-book as differing from the Mass-book being not so old 1. We thank you for your ingenuous Acknowledgment that our Common-prayer-book differs from the Mass-book A Mass-priest now yours turning from Popery to Presbyterianism most impudently affirms them to be the same 2. Religion is made up of Doctrine Worship and Government our Liturgy is our Form of Publick Worship and so a part of our Religion and being agreeable to God's Word nor Papists nor your selves can justly except against it For their Question Where was our Religion 200 years ago You might know they make it not so much upon the change of our Liturgy themselves in Queen Elizabeth's time for many years joining in it as upon pretence we have changed our Doctrine and the Question as it hath been oft ad ravim usque by them asked it hath been by us as oft and satisfactorily answered and if we should as we do not lay our Religion upon our Liturgy 't is most agreeable to the Scriptures where our Religion is and contains all the Fundamentals of Religion and your Mr. Calvin doth witness it for us That the Common-prayer-book doth excellently contain the chief heads of our Religion The 9. is A Request for Liberty upon on an Insinuation That no Liturgical Forms were imposed on any Church in the primitive times Ans 1. Then sure the now named your much Reverend Mr. Calvin was either ignorant of the Constitutions of the primitive times or had other Sentiments of them then you who declares his Judgment contrary to you Quoad formulam Precum Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valde probo ut certa illa exstet à qua Pastoribus discedere in functione sua non liceat As to the Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Rights I greatly approve that it be settled from which it may not be lawfull for the Pastors in their Function to vary or depart 2. You have surely heard of the Liturgies of S. Peter S. James and S. Mark and that of S. Mark S. Cyril owns and comments upon in his Catechism and S. Cyril was a Bishop in the primitive times living about the year of Christ 350. and S. Basil a famous and primitive Bishop too was deeply censured and put to make painfull Apologies for a little Change he made in the usual Church-liturgy It was thought in him saith our Authour an unpardonable Offence to alter any thing in us as intolerable that we suffer any thing unaltered in the Liturgy R. 10. And if you should reject which God forbid the moderate Proposals which now and formerly we have made we humbly crave leave to offer it to your consideration what Judgment all the Protestant Churches are likely to pass on your Proceedings and how your Cause and ours will stand represented to them and to all succeeding ages Answ Their moderate Proposals we have heard which they now make that they may be free from the established Government and Liturgy of the Church and they as Able and Godly continued in the choicest Livings they had invaded and the Episcopal kept out as Scandalous Negligent and Insufficient What moderate Proposals they made
taught you You cast off the Reins of Church Government you set your selves at Liberty Did this Cure your Divisions and create among you Peace and Unity No after you had divided from the Church and cast off its Rule and Orders you subdivided among your selves and broke all into pieces and parties never did any Age see such lamentable Divisions in this Church and Nation But you accuse the Bishops as if they will not give you leave to serve God as his Apostles did God forgive you this as false as foul an Accusation Do not the Bishops maintain and the Church stedfastly continue in the Apostles Doctrine Do they not against the Romanists who would obtrude upon us their Traditions in conjunction with the Scriptures assert the Scripture alone to be a most perfect Rule of Faith and Manners Do they not serve God as the Apostles have taught and so many you in Communion with our Church Truly if your meaning be that they give you not leave to serve God as Apostles and no less or lower will serve you than to be as they to give Laws to all the Churches and to be under the Laws of none you must prove your selves to be such before you crave that leave But though you are not Apostles yet you are Prophets you foresee and foretell the Sufferings of your Innocent Party Strange What a Noise they make in almost every Paragraph lamenting and repeating their Sufferings We are against our wills enforced as often to let them know and I wish they would rightly resent and lay it to heart that the Bishops and Conformable Clergy have been really Sufferers for many years and in the Loss of all they had and they the Causes of their Sufferings and for all those years enjoyed all Ease and Plenty and at this time of their present loud Complaint they have yet suffered nothing and are certain they shall not doe if they will return to their Duty all their former Miscarriages being by his Majestie 's Mercy buried in oblivion and if they will doe so they may be received into Favour and are as capable of all Preferments as any the truest Sons of the Church I am unwilling to remark the other part of their Prophecie ripping up our Divisions by their Party raised and continued ever since the Reformation they in effect threaten they will be their Sons and Heirs and that we must not expect Peace but look for Misery and Division unless they may have their Demands to be as free and high as the Apostles and here as their manner is they heap up a multitude of Scriptures you may judge how pertinently by the first they alledge 1 Philippians 14. There St. Paul saith Many of the Brethren in the Lord waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to speak the Word without fear This Text they cite to prove that the Bonds and Burthens and Displeasure which is upon them from their Superiours hinders them from serving the Lord without fear Saint Paul's bonds made these Brethren confident and set them above fear But our Brethren upon their meer fancy of Bonds and Burthens are faint-hearted and with fear even distracted The other Scriptures make as little for them or against the Bishops and so I shall pass them over The 18 th and 19 th Reasons are of the same Bran yet again and again they cry up their Abilities and their Godliness and cry out of their Sufferings and Persecutions and the Ungodliness of all who are not of their way I cannot conceive the Reason why this one Topick of their Sufferings makes up more than Ten of their Twenty Reasons and they bring it in over and over so very often but that they think no body knows or will believe they have suffered any thing and therefore they say it so often or else by the loud and repeated Cry of their own they would drown the loud Cry of the Bishops Sufferings by them and their Party which yet the Bishops themselves pass by in Silence but the World cannot but take notice of with much concernment Let us yet hear them again In the 18 th they call themselves the Holy Seed and so many able Ministers laid aside and that many of them suffer and that the Ungodly add Affliction to their Affliction And in the 19 th So many truly fearing God being cast or trodden down are tempted to think ill of that which themselves and the Church thus suffer by and when so many of the worst befriend this way because it gratifieth them it tendeth to make your Cause judged of according to the qualities of its friends or adversaries Of their Sufferings enough and too much of their Godliness and the Ungodliness of all who are not of their Party We have heard often too 't is their strain and way with the Pharisee to stand on their Tiptoes and say God I thank thee I am not thus and thus I am not such as this Publican The worst they say befriend that way 1. That 's no proof of the evil of that way rather of the goodness which shines forth so apparently that it convinces and even enforces the worst of men to approve it Video meliora probóque 2. Who are those worst The King the Parliament and all the obedient Sons of the Church of all Estates and Qualities This is usually their great proof that themselves truly fear God their dislike of established Order this their evidence that others have not the fear of God their Obedience to those whom God hath set over them in Church and State By the one they commend themselves by the other they condemn all but themselves and that this is no untrue Accusation they have made appear in that they made no difference between the best and the worst but cast out all of the Episcopal way Nay as one of them pleading before them the Sobriety and Unblameableness of his Life and Conversation they told him to his effect He should fare the worse for that they liked not so well a sober as a scandalous Malignant who gave their Proceedings against him some colour of Justice 2. They tell us they are tempted to think ill of that they suffer by Ans 'T is easie to guess whence that Temptation is a Criminal is tempted to think ill of the Law because he suffers by it Ungodly men are tempted to think ill of God and murmur at him because they suffer by his just Judgments for their Wickedness You are taught otherwise Matt. 5.44 20. We repeat what formerly we have said That the Holy Ghost hath already so plainly decided the point in controversie in the Instance of Meats and Days Rom. 14.15 that it seemeth strange to us that yet it should remain a Controversie A weak Brother that maketh an unnecessary difference of Meats and Days is not to be cast out but so to be received and not to be troubled with such doubtfull Disputations despising and judging the Servants of the Lord
is easie to be deceived because at first sight it doth not by and by appear what difference there is between the one sort and the other But I will so plainly in few words set out the whole matter that the Likeness may deceive no man First let us hold this That if we see in every Society of men some Policy to be necessary which may serve to nourish common Peace and to retain Concord if we see that in the doing of things there is alwaies some orderly Form which is behoofefull for publick Honesty and for very Humanity not to be refused the same ought chiefly to be observed in Churches which are both best maintained by a well framed disposition of all things and without Agreement are no Churches at all Therefore if we will have the Safety of the Church well provided for we must altogether diligently procure that which St. Paul commandeth That all things be done comely and according to order But forasmuch as there is so great diversity in the Manners of men so great variety in Minds so great disagreements in Judgments and Witts neither is there any Policy stedfast enough unless it be stablished by certain Laws nor any orderly Usage can be observed without a certain appointed Form therefore we are so far off from condemning the Laws that are profitable to this purpose that we affirm that when these be taken away Churches are dissolved from their Sinewes and utterly deformed and scattered abroad for this which St. Paul requireth That all things be done decently and in order cannot be had unless the Order it self and Comeliness be established with Observations adjoyned as with certain Bonds But this onely thing is alway to be excepted in those Observations That they be not either believed to be necessary to Salvation and so bind Consciences with Religion or be applied to the worshipping of God and so Godliness be reposed in them We have therefore a very good and most faithfull mark which putteth difference between those wicked Ordinances by which we have said That the True Religion is darkned and Consciences subverted and the lawfull Observations of the Church if we remember that the lawfull Observations tend alway to one of these two things or to both together that in the Holy Assembly of the Faithfull all things be done comely and with such dignity as beseemeth and that the very common Fellowship of men should be kept in Order as it were by certain Bonds of Humanity and Moderation for when it is once understood that the Law is made for publick Honesty's sake the Superstition is now taken away into which they fall that measure the Worshiping of God by the Inventions of men Again when it is known that it pertaineth to Common uses then that false opinion of Bond and Necessity is overthrown which did strike a great Terror into Consciences when Traditions were thought necessary to Salvation for herein is nothing required but that Charity should with common dutifull doing be nourished amongst us But it is good yet to define more plainly what is comprehended under that Comeliness which Paul commendeth and also what under Order The end of Comeliness is partly that when such Ceremonies are used as may procure a Reverence to Holy things we may by such Helps be stirred up to Godliness partly also that the Modesty and Gravity which ought to be seen in all Honest Doings may therein principally appear In Order this is the first Point That they which govern may know the Rule and Law to govern well and the People which are governed may be accustomed to obeying of God and to right Discipline Then that the state of the Church being well framed Peace and Quietness may be provided for Verily because the Lord hath in his Holy Oracles both faithfully contained and clearly set forth both the whole Sum of true Righteousness and all the parts of the Worshipping of his Divine Majesty and whatsoever was necessary to Salvation therefore in these things he is onely to be heard as our Schoolmaster But because in outward Discipline and Ceremonies his Will was not to prescribe each thing particularly what we ought to follow because he foresaw this to hang upon the state of Times and did not think one Form to be fit for all Ages herein we must flee to those general Rules which he hath given that thereby all those things should be tried which the necessity of the Church shall require to be commanded for Order and Comeliness finally forasmuch as he hath therefore taught nothing expresly because these things are not necessary to Salvation and according to the manners of every Nation and Age ought diversly to be applied to the edifying of the Church Therefore as the Profit of the Church shall require it shall be convenient as well to change and abrogate those that be used as to institute new I grant indeed that we ought not rashly nor oft nor for light causes to run to Innovation but what may hurt or edifie Charity shall best judge which if we suffer to be the Governess all shall be safe Now it is the Duty of Christian People to keep such things as have been ordained according to this Rule with a free Conscience and without any Superstition but yet with a godly and easie readiness to obey not to despise them nor to pass them over with careless Negligence so far is it off that they ought by Pride and Obstinacy openly to break them What manner of Liberty of Conscience wilt thou say may there be in so great observation and wariness Yes it shall stand excellently well when we shall consider that they are not stedfast and perpetual stayed Laws whereunto we are bound but outward Rudiments for the weakness of Men which though we do not all need yet we do all use them because we are mutually bound to one another to nourish Charity among us Thus Mr. Calvin delivers his Judgment directly contrary to yours perfectly consentient to the Church of England and we find his Practice according with his Judgment he put the Yoke of Discipline upon the Neck of the Senate and People of Geneva and bound them to it with an Oath and he declares for a Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Rites and greatly approves that it be fixed from which it may not be lawfull for the Pastors to depart in their Function you may now go and accuse Mr. Calvin with our Church as judging and acting contrary to Romans 14. and to the Decree of the Apostolical Council laying both upon Pastors and People a great Burthen of things not necessary and if you please to take a view of the Scotish Discipline you will find there also a huge and heavy Burthen abundance of things which you dare not say are necessary And to come home The Solemn League and Covenant imposed by the long Parliament upon the whole Kingdom and taken I doubt not by your selves is a most heavy Burthen of things so far