and Heresies Perswasions to mildness and moderation 307. DEFENCE SECT XVII They misrepresent their Church-way Whether the Queries of the Diatribe were doubts of Friends or Enemies What are properly scruples 318. SECT XVIII Rom. 14.1 10. discussed Whether they judge or despise their Brethren Psal 15.4 vindicated No other Qualifications required in order to communicating in a Church-member having a dogmatical Faith but to be without scandal whether they reject onely the wicked whether their way render them not guilty of temerarious judgment of judging the heart of bearing infirmities of moral men 320 SECT XIX 1 Cor. 13.7 considered whether they suspect not much evil believe or hope little good of their people of examining the knowing to be exemplar to the ignorant or to nanifest their humility whether it be their duty to submit to such a passive examination whether to call them to it be not directly to detract from them or interpretatively to diffame them small matters are often great in the consequence 2 Cor. 11.2 examined the properties of charity in hoping and believing all the ignorance charged is not to know it to be duty to submtt to their commands whether conversion may be sudden whether the Church have loss or gain by these ways of pretended Reformation 332 SECT XX. Whether the Apologists are charitably suspected or can be justly charged with Pharisaism whether their actings proceed out of tenderness of conscience A paralel between the Apologists and Pharisees in some things 369 169 SECT XXI What was Diotrephes what his ambition whether the Apologists exceed not the bounds of Ministerial power by bringing all under triall excluding and not for scandal and that so many and by common continual practice whether this check not with 1 Peter 5.3 whether those they reject are scandalous themselves separated and left the Church behinde them Of Ecclesiastical power what it is and how far extensive The duty of Stewards It is Christ's honour to have an universal Church Their actings 1. Not commanded or warranted by Gods VVord 2. They act solely Of their Elders of ruling Elders in general not by divine right yet a prudent constitution requisite to be continued in some way the interest of the whole Church in censures the Elders Representatives of the Church whether the ancient Church knew any such 3. They act arbitrarily of the former Bishops the Flowers of the Apologists Canina facundia which they cast on the Opposites of their way the aspersions wiped off and some of them reflected of small things and whether their Injunctions are such what may be the consequences thereof viz. their own power and greatness in the intention which yet in effect may be thereby lessened whether their promiscuous examination be to prevent respect of persons of examining persons known to be knowing of the Shekel of the Sanctuary of their aviling of their people and thereby giving advantage to the Papists to upbraid us of the former Bishops the lack of light in some places through want of some to hold it forth whether the Diatribe aspersed Presbytery to be modelled like Popery the Apologists no friends to Presbytery their way hath some analogy with Popery and accidental tendency thereunto 378 178 SECT XXII Of Independents their godliness their Schism the confessed imperfection of the way of the Apologists their desire of an union with the Independents an admonition to the Presbyterians the confounding of Churches and Parishes by the Apologists their gathering of Churches whether they are guilty of disorder against Law whether Magick were laid to their charge whether they are culpable of Schism and Sedition or injury to other Ministers of the hatching others Eggs like the Partridge 414 214 SECT XXIII VVhy they have not the Sacrament in their own Churches why onely at Pyworthy whether it be no great matter to be called or drawn thither Of their return to their own Churches How they stigmatize the People and judge their hearts Of serving the times they confess the Word and Sacraments to be the same thing what thereupon followes 426. 226 SECT XXIV VVhether they are Butchers or Surgeons VVhether guilty of Schisme Of negative and positive Schisme VVhat are just causes of separation VVhether our Saviour separated from the Jewish Church for instance in eating the Passover They condemn what they practise by confounding Churches and by separation They grant Professors to be visible Saints which destroys their Platform Their Reasons why all sorts are to be admitted to the Word and Prayer VVhether there are not better Reasons to warrant a like admission to the Sacrament VVhether the same conclude it not VVhether the Churches of England are all true Churches Sacraments Notes of the Church and therefore communicable to all Church-Members they grant Discipline enters not the definition of a Church yet they separate for want thereof VVhether they may not aswell deny Baptisme to the Children as the Eucharist to the Parents 434. 234. SECT XXV Their great abuse and distortion of Scripture with what a train of Consequences their Arguments are far-fetch'd they are borrowed from the Donatists Papists Brownists Independents none of them conclude the question as themselves have stated it the Argument raised from 1 Cor. 14.40 examined Whether it be a glorious and comfortable practice that none approach the Lords Table save holy persons Whether their way be warranted by the Laws The moderating of Censures Whether their way have like ground with the antient Discipline in receiving in Penitents Whether there be order and decency in mix'd Communions The lesser good to be omitted to acquire the greater the confusion and disorder of their wayes 250. 450. SECT XXVI Jeremy 15.19 Discussed and vindicated 264. 464. SECT XXVII 2 Thes 3.2 6. Opened and redeemed from their misapplications Whether antiently the Commerce with any not excommunicate were avoided VVhat society Excommunication cuts off from How Suspension might be used and is abused 267. 467. SECT XXVIII 1 Cor. 5.11 Ventilated and the Chaff of their Interpretation dispersed Whether we may have communion in sacred things with such as we may not have society with in civil 274. 474. SECT XXIX Matth. 7.6 The sense thereof enucleated and shewed not to be subservient to their purpose but odiously abused VVhether Ministers may act in Censures alone and upon their own knowledge 281. 481. SECT XXX 1 Cor. 11.27 sequent Discussed of eating and drinking unworthily VVhether there be a necessity of examining all because some cannot examine themselves Whether any irregenerate man can examine himself VVhether this tends not to introduce Auricular Confession Jude 3. opened 288. 488. SECT XXXI 1 Tim. 5.22 Interpreted and answered Of Principals and Accessories 1 Tim. 3.10 considered Not like Reasons to examine those that are to communicate and those that are to be ordained 293. 493. SECT XXXII 1 Pet. 3.15 Heb. 13.17 Discussed VVhat obedience is due to Ministers and what power they have 497. 297. SECT XXXIII Levit. 13.5 2 Chron. 23.19
the Church-Governors and yet without the Churches fault If they then gather a Church apart they shal be guilty of Schism He speaks here of a secession where a man is passive and cast out not where he goes off when there is Anathematismus excommunicatio injusta iniqua certè qui excoetu aliquo ejecti secedunt se subducunt secesserunt quidem illi attamen non fecerunt schisma as he speaks in the former page but a negative secession wherein a man is active he saith is Schisme being not onely a Decession but a Discission if the cause be either temerarious or unjust and it is temerarious if it be upon a light occasion and the occasion is light unlesse there happen first an intolerable persecution for if it be tolerable the secession is unjust Or secondly Communion is not to be broken but for Fundamentals Mead. p. 622. tom 3. that congregation be infected with heresie for if it be a tolerable error if the rite though superstitious be sufferable there ought to be no separation Or thirdly be addicted to idolatry Now then seeing they confess they make a negative separation as Camero defines it if they can prove and convict their Congregations to be guilty of such persecution heresie or idolatry they may acquit themselves but if they cannot as they doe not attempt or pretend to accuse them thereof they are then culpable of schisme in the judgement of Camero to whom they referre and their separation is not onely temerarious but also unjust separatio injusta veluti extrema schismatis linea Camero ibid. à pag. 322. ad 327. saith he having not so much as a light occasion by any tolerable persecution or error or separation and the scandals being few or none which were they more or greater might perchance make the separation more just but could not excuse it from being temerarious Besides also their separation is rather positive then negative having gathered and constituted a new Church whereof there can be no just cause saith Camero but malum insanabile lethale contagiosum reigning in that Congregation which they desert or res gravis momentosa quae si negligatur tanta est ut de salute gloria Dei actum sit néque enim quicquid verum est id ipsum continuò necessarium est ut qui salubres cibi sunt non sunt continuò necessarii And it is also a separatiâ—n from their Churches though in them not of notorious evill members from the body of the Church but of a Church in and yet from a remaining Church which separation in a Church from those who remain Church-members and of the Church is a principle onely of independent Divinity and hath no dependance upon Scripture Reason or Camero's or any good authority And theirs is likewise a separation not onely by secession in place but from persons who were never duly cast out by any judiciall processe for notorious crimes and therefore is not heterogeniarum partium discessio sed homogeniarum and therefore a Schisme as Camero sentenceth and they are besides very few that separate so as though the cause had some weight L. 3. contra Crescon c. 36. Idem contra Parmen l. 3. c. 21. tom 7. p 11. yet si pauci sunt videtur nihil esse moliendum sed expectandum patienter tempus Domini saith he And whereas they say they separate not from their Churches but from some corruptions First they might separate from their corruptions by keeping themselves pure Non enim qui se castam servat communicat peccatis alienis saith Augustine and elsewhere Mixtus reis obnoxiis nisi per conscientiae maculatam consensionem nullus recte dici potest They may and must separate from the corruptions but they do which they ought not farther separate from the Assemblies with whom they will have no communion in the Sacraments which are Gods Ordinances and not corruptions And corruption of manners also is no just cause of separation for saith Camero wheresoever purity of doctrine flourisheth God in that assembly must needs have a Church though overwhelmed with multitude of scandals and therfore they that separate from such a Congregation doubtlesse depart from thence where God gathereth a Church and therefore saith Augustine Vbi mihi licet in melius commutari Contra Crescon l. 3. c. 36. Eiren. part 1. p. 706. tom 1. non mihi opus est indeseparari And Junius resolveth Non posso quenquam Christianum bona fide renunciare communioni alterius quem Christus aut adjunxit sibi aut se adjuncturum spem facit nam qui fratrem suum servum Dei membrum Christi protervè abdicat is eo ipso facto Christum authorem communionis salutaris nestrae abdicat And with these or like arguments have their Pulpits sounded a retreat to those of their Town which have separated from them to associate with such as have gone farther in their separation as if their sight were in this respect also extra mittendo that they can see the faults of others not their own nor discern how the same weapons wherewith they fight against others may be turned back upon themselves And if they shall say that the very communion in Sacraments with such congregations is a corruption besides that this is petitio principii a begging of the question it is Donatisme without question And whereas Augustine after the precedent words Non enim qui se castum ser vat communicat peccatis alienis adds quamvis non eorum peccata sed illa quibus ad judicium sibi sumunt Dei sacrament acommunicet cum iis à quibus se castum servando fecit alienum might not Cresconius with as much truth and reason as they doe have replied That the very communicating with such was the contracting of their corruption and sin Our Saviour say they lived in unity with the Jewish Church in necessary ordinances yet separated in regard of cerruptions Let them then be followers of Christ and we shall no farther pursue them for the sacrament is a necessary ordinance and not a corruption and there may be a non-conformity in a corruption unto them with whom there may yet be a communion in worship The Lord Jesus lived and died in communion with that corrupt Church saith Mr. Ball and was so indulgent and graciously applicable to sinners that the Pharisees called him a companion of sinners Ipse Dominus Jesus Aug. contra Epist Parmen l. 1. c. 17 Dub. Evang. part 3. Dub. 41. p. 153. nullâ cogitatione malignitatis in Judaeorum gente pollutus est neque cùm illa prima sacramenta secundum perfectam humilitatis viam factus sub lege susâ—epit néque cùm postea discipulis electis cum suo traditoâ—e usque ad extremum osculum vixit And it hath been elswhere mentioned that one reason why Christ would be baptized among the common sort is rendred by Spanheïm to be this Sic etiam
then all Christians may come in under that notion but that he admitted onely his choice Disciples he had the 70. and others but those as more infirm were not admitted What proficiency the Apostles had then attained to we have elsewhere discussed Infirmi erant Advers Anna. bapt l. 6. c. 9. p. 233. meticulosi infirmi etiam in Charitate aliis virtutibus in hac ipsa caena inter se contenderunt quisnam maximus inter ipsos foret saith Bullinger but turdus sibi malum ejicit Golias his sword shall cut off his head for may we not reminde them of what they have so soon forgotten and in their own words answer How know you that viz. that none of the 70. were admitted The Evangelists tell you that all that Christ did was not written c. they might be present for ought they can prove Except while they have the abomination of divers weights one weight to take in another to put out by a Negative Argument be of force when it will make for them and invalid when it will be against them or be more conclusive in things meerly historical which having no direct concernment with faith or manners are not so materious to be recorded of which kinde is this then in such things where the fact should help to constitute the rule and therefore ought to have been registred if they had been done If Chemnitius think the 70. or any other beside the 12. were not admitted I have elsewhere shewed that men as learned as he though he was eminently such doe suppose that some of them might have partaken Tom. 5. l. 8. c. 3. Sect. 29. p. 202. And of this judgment also is Dr. Fulk Rhem. test in Mat. 26.20 though it be not expressed Of this judgment among the ancient is not onely Euthymius but Chamier tells us that the Liturgies of Peter Clemens James Mark Basil Chrysostom expresly mention that the Disciples communicated as well as the Apostles at the first institution of the Sacrament and though it be said Iesus sate down with the 12. yet there is no exclusive particle nor is it added and none else But if Chemnicius suppose the 70. were not admitted let them consult him whether Iudas were not one of those that had admission and then casting up the reckoning by his Counters tell me what they shall gain by not casting in the 70. But I cannot divine what authority or reason the Apologists had to affirm that the 70. were excluded because more infirm so not capable it seems I had thought that if none but the 12. or 11. as they would have it did communicate it was because they onely were Christs constant Family as it were and the Passover was to be eaten by one Family together if they made up 10. persons and Christ passing from the Passover and translating it to his Supper admitted no more at the latter then he took to the former and seeing that it was a Jewish Canon that not above 20. should eate together of one Paschal Lamb our Saviour could not perhaps admit of many more than the 12 for that reason if as it is likely he conformed to that observation But it seems then by the Apologists that those whom they admit are as it were in the notion and capacity of the choice Disciples those whom they reject of the infirm 70. Yet to accommodate it more aptly to what they have said that Christ thereby teacheth us to exclude the Ignorant and Wicked they should say not blanchingly the infirme but the ignorant or wicked 70 for such they imply them to be by being excluded and therefore those whom they reject may comfort themselves with that Martyr to be stock'd in the same hole with Philpot and to be in the same condition with the 70 whom Christ chose notwithstanding and to be no otherwise Dogs or Swine then they were but if Christ called not those that were infirm § 17 they profess not to follow his pattern for they say they exclude not the weak this strengthning appointment as they call it being proper for them They assure us they examine none that are taken to be Disciples that is then none that be Christians for Christian and Disciple in Scripture idiom are synonimous or perchance none that be their Disciples though many that be Christs but how do they know them to be Disciples before they have examined them if that be true which often they inculcate That they cannot judge of mens fitness without examination Real Disciples will not refuse to satisfie the Church and encourage weak brethren by a voluntary profession of their Faith True if the Church doe need and shall have just cause to require such satisfaction but as the Church can receive no satisfaction by a kinde of auricular examination taken in privare oftentimes by themselves unless like the Pope themselves are the Church virtually or the Church must be satisfied because they are so so why should the Church need farther to be satisfied from such of whose knowledge they cannot doubt this were to render the Church like those remindless persons whom we sometimes see to go about to seek that which they carry in their hands and if they are already taken for Disciples how can it be doubted that they are not knowing 2. Real Disciples will not refuse to make such profession of their Faith when those that are weak want encouragement in the Faith but such an encouragement is not to be given by a submission to examination G. de Valentia 2.2 disp 1. q. 3. puur 2. p. 328. 321. Valentia and Sylvius determine it generally Oportet instare casum aliquem necessitatis confitendi fidem aut ex divino praecepto aut humano obligante regulariter quando non subest justa rationabilis causa omittendi illius observationem Aquinas limits it more specially Ubi fides periclitatur quilibet tenetur fidem suam aliis propalare vel ad instructionem aliorum fidelium sive confirmationem Sylvius 22. q. 3. art 2. p. 31 32. Aquin. 22. q. 3. art 2. Filiuc castract 22. c. 3. S. 74. vel ad reprimendam infidelium insultationem and when by his silence ex hoc crederetur vel quòd non haberet fidem vel quòd fides non esset vera vel alii ejus taciturnitate everterentur à fide or as Filiucius more abstractly Quando proximus per confessionem fidei quae ab aliquo fieret facilè traheretur ad fidem item quando aliquis versaretur in periculo negandi fidem alius posset propriâ confessione id damnum impedire And when they have defined in general that confession is necessary when by omission thereof subtrahitur honor Deo debitus vel utilitas proximo impendenda yet they adde Quocirca illud verbum Subtrahendi accipiendum est hoc loco vel contrariè vel privativè i. e. vel deum affici ignominiis c. vel quando aliquis à fide
c. 18. sect 21. p. 194. Such as were under penance aswell as Catechumens for licuit discedere in missa catechumenorum sed qui intraverit Scripturas audiverit id est non fuerit egressus cum catechumenis hunc jubent canones excommunicari vel expectare missam fidelium ac proinde communicare such are still presupposed to be seposited from our discourse aswell as they were known to be sequestred from the Sacrament they know we onelyspeak of the rest and that of those all that hear the Word should participate of the Sacrament agrees well enough with the way of the ancient Church and the way of righteousness too but indeed agrees not with their course where an hundred of those that are neither Catechumens nor Penitents partake of the Word and but one of them of the Sacrament These then were dark times unless they were holier than ours that is they were dark unless they had more light they were holier doubtless because more humble and more meek and more charitable but some men are like the Hermit who thought the Sun shined onely into his Cell and resemble Seneca's Harpaste who thought the rooms to be dark when her self was become blinde They tell us a saying of a godly man That all to the Sacrament is the great Golias of those days with whom the little Davids of this age are encountring and I shall requite them with an Apothegm of a man that perchance can be no godly man because not of their judgment That none to the Sacrament but whom they please is the great Diana of the Ephesians for which all the Silver-smiths of the times are making Shrines as if the Image fell down from Jupiter when it was made by the Crafts-men The testimony that allows no cause of separation from the communion but such sins as deserve excommunication they say bears no weight yet it is alleged out of St. Augustine but Augustinus tecum erravit as Corvicius The truth is St. Ep. 118. c. 3. Augustine reciting and allowing therein the sense and judgment of some pious men in his age speaks this of an active separation of a mans self upon conscience of his sinfulness and not of a passive as it is commonly understood by Gratian and others but the argument holds with more nerves and energy against a passive separation since a greater cause is requisite to exclude those that do come than to deterr them from coming and many may not perchance lawfully approach which yet cannot but unlawfully be repelled as I have said before And if the ancient Church excluded none but such as were or had been excommunicate we may be indulged to think no sins a cause of separation from the Eucharist but such as merit excommunication I confess my Horizon is very narrow as men that are of no heighth have no large prospect and mine eyes are weak and do not discern all that I might and my memory as frail to retain all those species and notions which sometime perchance I have received but sure I did never meet with or have forgotten any clear evidence in antiquity that warranted the distinction between Excommunication and Suspension as now it is apprehended and practised or that any were excluded from the Communion antonomastically but such as had been first separate from all Communion or to speak properly from simple Communion The Apologist tells us indeed that Antiquity hath distinguished between Excommunication and Suspension but they verifie it by no evidence or testimony save their own and we should advise them rather to imitate Pythagoras his Scholars in their silence than to emulate their Master in his Ipse dixit Their Margin seems to quote Ames as asserting what they affirm but though that learned man distinguish in the place cited between the greater and the lesser Excommunication Cas consci l. 4. c. 29. sect 29. yet he produceth neither Scripture nor authority to back that distinction who elsewhere plainly confesseth that Suspension is not ex singulari Christi instituto They say the Paper it self makes the Excommunicate but one sort of the excluded True but doth it say or doth it follow from what it said that the suspended were another sort The others suffered exclusion for natural disabilities we are speaking now of those that were separate for sins which are moral defects and among those though the Paper distinguish Penitents from Excommunicate it was not because all those under penance had not also been excommunicated but because all excommunicate were not Penitents these later being as I said before communionis ecclesiasticae candidati it was conceded them as a favour to do penance in order to their redintegration which to the others was not as yet vouchsafed But however the Apologists like the Ostrich leave their Eggs in the dust that any foot may crush them and so have deserted all incubation upon suspension yet I am not ignorant that some others have engaged in a vindication of the practice and exercise thereof in the primitive times but however their sheets like that of Parrhasius may seem real to other Painters yet they are but painted They shew us 1. That divers sorts of men were not admitted to the Eucharist which were not under excommunication And we grant it but we ask if it necessarily follow that they must be persons suspended that is Ab excommunicatis solis poenitentia peti poterit Albaspinus not in c. 2. ep 3. Innocent ad Exup p. 143. Multi reperiebantur excommunicati qui circum fores ecclesiae poenitentiam flagitabant Idem de vet eccles ritib. l. 2. obser 4. p. 240. Per poenitentiam ab excommunicatione sive à peccato excommunicationis ut loquuntur antiqui canones liberabantur Ibid. obs 3. p. 227. Cum excommunâ—cato poenitentia concederetur ante poenitentiam meminerimus poenitentem excommunicatum fuisse poenitentiae benedictione eum ab excommunicatione liberatum fuisse Ib. p. 242. obs 4. Aug. ep 108. tom 2. p. 98. 3. concil Tolet. can 12. 6. concil Tolet. can 7 8. item Albas not in can p. 92 104 Idem de vet eccl rit l. 2. obs 4 p. 241. such as were onely debarred the Lords Table and that immediately without having been first excommunicated or cut off from the body of Christ his Church before they were kept off from his body in the Sacrament or without being first separated from a Communion in all Ordinances aswell as that of the Eucharist for this is that which they call Suspension and this is that which they must assert out of antiquity unless they will give us a Cloud in stead of Juno And this we deny and gainsay that there were any such persons or any such ecclesiastick censure Those censured persons that were kept off from the Lords Table and yet lay not under Excommunication were Penitents who indeed were not excommunicate but had been and were in the way of redintegration with the Church from whose Communion they had
by receiving what was evil but by evil receiving from that wickedness God may reclaim and convert the Receiver in the very act of receiving and the reception is a meanes subservient to such Conversion so as what Augustine saith of love may be applyed to admission to the Communion Aut ama me quia sum Dei aut ut sim Dei he that hath a wound seekes a medicine saith St. Augustine it is a wound that we are under sinne the celestial and venerable Sacrament is the Medicine De verbis Dom. c. Serm. 28. tom 10. p. 24. and of that wickedness or continuance therein the Pastor and Elders can have no morral certainty need not make any curious inquiry nor ought temerariously to judge Gratissimum veniae genus nescire quod quique peccasset plurimum mali credulitas facit in quibusdam rebus satius est decipi quà m diffidere What place saith Angustine shall be left for innocency if it shall be one mans proper fault not to know anothers And the remote probability even possibility of producing good effects thereby is a sufficient Ground and Warrant for the administration for in doubtful things the safest part is to be chosen and it seemes safer to doe our duty whereof good may also ensue than to neglect it upon a doubt lest evil may happen Fourthly it is not the receiving condemns but the receiving with that wicked disposition which remaining unrepented would condemn though they received not the act of receiving in the unworthy is not evil ex genere objecto but onely ex fine circumstantiis as hath been said and the evil effect is alone in the evil manner of doing and as a co-operation by another in such acts or a permission thereof doth not contract a satiety in the evil which is not caused or consented to so neither will the possibility or hazard of an evil accidentally consequent thereunto palliate or excuse a Ministers intermission of Divine Ordinances for else he might be secure from any woe for not preaching the Gospel since the Word being a savour of death unto death when it is not received with Faith which all have not it might be more safe and more charitable not to preach it lest it aggravate some mens condemnation and for ought I know upon such principles he might forbear to hold sorth the Lord Jesus as the true way of Life because he is also set for the fall of many Luke 2.34 and to be a stone of stumbling and a Rock of offence Esa 8.14 I recognize another similitude for in the agitation of this controversie similitudes doe often supply the place of arguments that as if a man bestow a Legacy to be issued and distributed to Scholars of such a capacity and parts in a College the Trustees cannot exhibite it to any others and they must necessarily make probation of the parties to get an assurance of their capacities so c. But for answer First here is Petitio Principii a begging of the question by a presupposing that the Sacraments were entrusted by Christ with the Ministers to be distributed to such select persons onely as in their way of probation they shall judge capable of them But we cannot so inclose that which St. Jude calls the common salvation nor make the Rose of the Field as Christ is called to be a Flower of private Gardens Allow to God saith Oecumenius that his Garden be diffused farre and neer longè latéque in plain terms we say that every actual and not duly separated member of the visible Church having an Historical Faith hath a right unto that which is one of the Notes of the Church the Sacrament and since eadem est ratio partium totius as that cannot be a visible Church to which the Notes agree not so he is no actual external member of the visible Church that is excluded from that which denotes it Secondly by retorsion as in a College all that are as we use to say of the Foundation doe partake of the Donatives of the Founder until upon expulsion or sequestration upon just cause they forfeit them and that miscarriage is discovered not by private scrutiny but by publick observation and judgment nor upon surmises but proof and sentence thereupon given so have all intelligent persons actually within the visible Church the College of the faithful by Title of their common Historical Faith onely a right to the Ordinances and external common privileges bequeathed by our Lord Christ until by obstinacy in notorious sins they merit to be expelled and put from the Communion and are accordingly sentenced judicially not arbitrarily or upon private surmises and suspicions and in very deed there is no one false species hath more imposed upon them than this that if none ought to be admitted but such as are worthy that therefore special probation must be made of the worthiness of every one which hath a palpable fallacy in the consequent and is just as if I should argue the Law allowes no Ideot to be admitted to the managery of his estate therefore every man must come under examination whether he be an Ideot or not as if a generall observation and converse could not suffice to make discovery and give judgment I am conscious also of that Rule that a man is guilty of every sinne he labours not to hinder but notwithstanding it thereupon follows not that the Pastor and Elders engage and enfeoffe themselves in other mens unworthy receiving unless they make probation of them thereby to discover and impede their sinne of receiving unworthily For first no man is guilty in not hindering that sinne which he knowes not nullius crimen maculat nescientem saith Augustine nor hath any command nor any authority to make particular search and enquiry after the Church is onely to judge of open crimes and scandals not of things secret and occult Secondly it must be an imminent an apparent evil and evil in it self and in its own nature for I am not obliged to snatch away a mans meat left he surfeit nor take his purse lest he squander his money in debauches no nor at all times to seize his sword lest he doe mischief with it unless it be evident to me that he intends so to abuse it and into his intention if secret am not bound to make any solicitous scrutiny nor to disarm him upon the warrant of my proper suspicion much less may I hinder him of doing that which is good in it self for fear lest it become evil to him by accident else I must keep him from hearing the Word lest he receive it not with faith and so it condemn him the possibility that he may doe well and receive good with or by the thing especially when that thing is intrinsically good and the hope which Charity should prompt me to that it shall become good to him is sufficient to disoblige me from impeding him in it Lastly if the matter be necessary
Church in the daies of Moses and the Prophets was one and the same with the Church in our daies saith a learned Divine the house of God the body of Christ the elect and redeemed people the holy Nation the peculiar treasure and spouse of the Lamb and from thence he argues what was not a sufficient cause to separate in that time is no sufficient cause of separation in our daies Thirdly In the old Testament prophane people were not distinctly in themselves called Gods people August de doct Christil 3. c. 32. but the Church and society wherein they were permix was so called quando Scriptura cum ad alios loquatur tanquam ad eospsâ—â— ad quos leque batâ—r videtur loqui vel de ipsis cum de aliis jam loquatur tanquam 〈…〉 propter temporalem commixtionem communionem sacramentorum and in the same respect and notion wicked men under the new Testament are also called the people of God as the Church of Corinth is called the Church of God they that were incorporate thereunto are said to be sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be Saints which are attributes equivalent to the people of God and yet that body had many rotten ulcers and odious excrements They with some complacency or confidence in their undertakings conclude who knows what all these lights will do being set up together But we must tell them that their arguments have no other light than such as putrified wood hath which only shines in darkness and being brought into a clear light nothing appears but rottenness but if any take them for lights and will be guided by them they are like to do but what was done by the lights which Nauplius hung out at Euboea for the Greeks in their return from Troy which served onely to draw them among the rocks thereby to suffer Shipwrak SECT XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII Their repeated Fallacies The complacency of their close which is destructive to their main discourse CRebrescunt optatae aurae portusque patescit Jam proprior I may now strike saile and cast anchor not onely because I may justly fear lest the Reader will no longer fill my sails with a favourable breath being like to have been tired with so tedious a voyage and even bonum longum minus bonum therefore much more longum malum duo mala but also because what occurres of concernment in the remaining Sections are but the same forces which we have proffigated in another field and here they rally them together again either like some politick captains who to set out the multitude of their Armies when they are to march through a City cause them to enter at one gate and go out at another and then to pass round and come in again at the first port or as Francis the first thought that the stile of King of France alone being often repeated would ballance all the numerous titles of Charles the Emperour so they think the same arguments reiterated may be instead of any other or more that might be expected and that if they pierce not by their force yet they may by their continual dropping non vi sed saepe cadendo or that if in one place or time they take not they may in another as Astrologers say some things work not their effects unless they be applied under such a constellation and in such a juncture of time and as the Iesuits tell us that the same moral perswasion that at sometimes is not yet anothers is efficacious in respect of â—â—s annext congrulty and due application but upon what account soever they bring the Arguments they have been elsewhere broken and come here as Gonsalvo said of a Captain shewing himself after the battel That it was St. Elmo that appeared after the storm was past But however the Apologists may suppose the things very fair that therefore by the allowance of Plato they may be twice or thrice repeated or to be as the works of Aristotle were to Alpharabius which he had read forty times and could as often read again without fastidiousness yet we rather suppose with Plutarch Ubique unius tenoris cantilena satietatem affert offendit and are very sensible sunt talis quoque taedia vitae Magna Voluptates commendat rarior usus In the 34. Section are their arguments which they call Convincing but sure if the convincing signes they require of holiness in men need to be no more forcible than their convincing arguments we shall not much complain of their rigor in trying or their strictness in admitting as that this Sacrament belongs onely to godly ones That they which partake it without true grace have the seal set to a blank The inference from Christs first administring onely to his peculiar disciples That an unregenerate person cannot examine himself The similitude of the Legacy bequeathed to the persons of such a condition That because the ignorant and scandalous are to be repelled therefore examination is requisite as a means in order to that end And in the 35. Section their motives drawn from the eating and drinking of their own damnation by the unworthy from the abuse of Christs blood by being too prodigal thereof from obstructing the reformation crossing the desires of the godly and the actings of the State from the degenerating from the primative times and all true antiquity And in the 36. Section what they answer to the objections of Schisme which constitutes and troubles that sollow their way And in the 37. Section among their Quaeries whether Ministers contradict not themselves in giving the seales of Salvation to those in the Sacrament whom hey have damned in the Word Whether ary other way than theirs or like it can be walked in to answer the holy courses of the ancients But if any like it may serve the turn it seems they have no such faith in their way but that another may be as good and therefore their 's not absolutely necessary and another in most things different may in somewhat be like theirs seeing as Synesius In omnibus iis quae in se differunt convenientia est similitudo and what Ministers should do while government is unsetled All this and much more of this sowr and swelling leaven is onely like the trunks which Cardinal Campeius his Mules carried being stufft with old clothes shooes and raggs for all hath been formerly worn out cast off and torn to pieces as we met with it heretofore very frequently in their discourse And if any rational and ingenious man shall prompt me to any thing among this frippery to which I cannot prompt him to find a sufficient answer in what I have delivered I shall soon hoyse those sails I have stricken and weight that anchor I have cast out and set to Sea again seeing it is like to be no difficult voyage nor to be imperilled by any acute solid rocks or very quick-sands most of it I think could be onely in their intention
Joel 3.17 Nahum 1.15 Zach. 19.21 Brought off from the Rack whereon they have set them The difference between Legal and Moral Uncleanness what the former typed 501. 301. SECT XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII Their repeated fallacies The complacency of their close which is destructive to their main Discourse 509. c. 309 The Preface BEing engaged in the publick Service of my Countrey I have been alwayes most forward to employ the power intrusted with me for recovery of Tythes to the Ministery whose honor and maintenance I have ever sensed to be very much of the interest of Religion for as Heraclitus once said Were it not for the Sun it would be night for all the Stars so were there not such greater lights whose Office and Ministerie is to enlighten the world the frye of twinkling Stars could not prevent or supersede a general Darkness especially being Stellae prosilientes Falling stars which have no Celestial origen nor are fixt in the proper sphere but carried upward by their innate levity and kindled by an irregular zeal Among such as were occasionally convented for Non-payment there were some that pleaded in their excuse that they would willingly pay their Tythes if their Pastors would administer the Lords-Supper which some of them did altogether intermit others did onely exhibit it to a Church which they had new gathered and therefore they prayed they might not be compelled to pay their Tythes to those which had interpretatively renounced and disclaimed to be their Pastors by having appropriated another flock This being no irrational answer nor easie to be gain-said for as Crassus said to Lucius Philippus If thou wilt not owne me for a Senator neither will I acknowledge thee to be a Consul and as the Canons say there is Matrimonium inter Episcopum Ecclesiam so in Divorces when for espousing a new Love the former Wife was repudiated there was still Tibique res tuas habeto I knew no expedient apter to evade it then by a gentle suppling and inflecting them to pay their Tythes upon promise that I would engage the forces I had to perswade their several Ministers to revive and reduce the Sacrament in their proper Churches and to admit them thereunto if there were no just and manifest obstacle In complyance with this promise and because the cure as with the Leper under the Law begins with the Ear I privately entred into an amicable altercation upon this Subject with some of these Ministers For even the Lights of the Sanctuary may need Snuffers though such ought to be of pure gold and however the School tels us that an Angel of an inferior Order doth not illuminate another of a superior yet in the Elementary world Naturalists say that the Jackal is conducter to the Lyon and the little Musculus goes before the Whale as a guide and to direct him from shelves and flats yet nevertheless I was not herein without the modest sense of Tertullian Non tantus sum ut ego vos alloquar verumtamen gladiatores perfectissimos non tantum magistri praepositi sed etiam idiotae supervacui quique adhortantur de longinquo As they have taught us to distinguish of Conversion wrought at the Sacrament but not by it so some one or other perhaps occasionally if not causally was at such colloquies and transactions if not by them induced to return to his Duty and redintegrate the Communion in his Church Others I found according to that character of St. Hierom Facilius vinci posse quam persuaderi but having sundry times by some interveniencies and avocations been frustrated of the opportunity of a full carrying through of the conference which I had entred upon with one among the rest who seemed to me to have sollicited with and engaged others by his influence and inspirations and who had new gathered a Church if not in that notion yet much of that nature I thereupon concluded to give him my sense and the reasons thereof in writing which accordingly I lapt up in one sheet and transmitted to him by a private and no vulgar hand And because I had no thought it should be seen abroad I was not carefull to give it any handsomer dress but onely put it in an homely attire and having as little ambition as skill to paint to eternity with Zeuxis I took no long time to draw this picture of my mind which was onely two dayes in forming so that I might plead with Hierom Qui non ignoscit ingenio ignoscat tempori indeed I rather touched then handled things and like Ladas I passed very lightly over the sands intending to leave no impression or footsteps of any traverses betwixt us but nevertheless as contrariant to my complacencies as cross to my expectation what I intended to speak in the ear was preached on the house tops for no sooner was this private Rescript received but the Church as according to the idiom of the Donatists they speak was congregated and at their tribunal was my bashful sheet brought forth which I rather wished had been sentenced to perpetual imprisonment to be publickly arraigned To justifie or excuse the publishing hereof it hath been pleaded that it was not wedded to him under any caution not to communicate or impart it and that 2. it was expedient to publish it to the Church because they were concerned in it and they heard but their owne Cause pleaded But for answer to the first I should have thought that though I had been silent yet Morality would have dictated that without my consent first had nothing of mine should have been made common to any besides those to whom I allowed it and the publishing needed my express assent to warrant it not my direct prohibition to restrain it To the 2. Though the Church were concerned in the subject and matter controverted yet that can no more evince an expedience to communicate to them the traverses betwixt us then because every one of the Nation is interessed in the conduct of State-affairs that therefore it is necessary or fit that the people should be acquainted with the counsels and agitations thereof I had no altercation with them my address was not to the Orbs but the Intelligence that set them on their motions and with Diogenes I struck at the Master for what I thought more culpable in him then in the Scholars I never was of Lucilius his minde who professed he wrote onely to the unlearned Tarentines I should rather invert the speech and say Perseum curo legere Laelium Decimum nolo let him that I strike at be such an one as may totum telum recipere and let the learneder smite me whose reproof shall be an excellent oyl so it be cold oyl for oyl set a fire is most raging and mischievous that shall not break but heal the wounds I may chance to have in my head I am somewhat of Aristippus his minde the bite of a Weazel would trouble me more then the tooth of a
therefore I cannot but conclude with Augustine Non est à consuetudine recedendum nisi rationi adversetur and with Ulpian De Musica l. 2. c. 8. In rebus novis constituendis evidens esse debet utilitas ut recedatur ab eo jure quod diu aequum visum est If this new way and I think I may without hazard of a quarrel take the liberty to stile it so of gathering Churches and making a kind of Monopoly of the Sacrament had ground and warrant from Gods Word the Practice of the Primitive Church the demonstration of Reason or did manifestly conduce and tend to the advance of godlinesse and pure Religion I should not check with it for the novelty relatively to our age Jesus Christ is antiquity enough and I should say with Galba Hoc age feri siquidem ita est è re populi Romani seu potius Dei But when many good and moderate and rational men are much unsatisfied that it carryes any of these Stamps or Characters and it is doubted not altogether irrationally that it tends to quench the smoaking flax not to enflame it to break the bruised reeds more than to strengthen them to blast the Seeds of devotion which a gentler influence would cherish and foment and to make the most of men profane and careless of the Ordinances who by partaking thereof might feel the power and be charmed with the sweetness and comforts of them and possibly to make one part of the people seem as Pharisees and the other as Heathens and Publicanes and in effect to turn Aarons Rod into a Serpent and make men fly from it and for my own part unless I am blind through ignorance and infirmity whose own heart witnesseth to me that I am not wilfully or maliciously so I can see nothing really to support this new frame but Rhetorical Amplifications not Rational Arguments Popular not Logical Discourses and Similitudes and Allegories rather than Reasons Ad populum phaleras which is handsomly to paint an house that hath no solid foundations I cannot therefore upon these reflections but excuse those that at the sound of such Musick cannot fall down and worship the Image that Nebuchadnezzar hath set up 1. The liberty and profitable use of private conference in order to preparatory Instruction is not controverted it is an apt and elegant comparison of Quintilian that men are as bottles which are sooner and better filled by taking them in hand one by one and pouring water into them than by setting them together and sprinkling water upon them 2. That where as the Casuists speak there is violenta suspicio quae moraliter facit rem certam for if it be onely probabilis suspicio they will tell you that melior est conditio possidentis bonam famam but in case of violent suspition and perchance also if it might be but morally probable that any persons are through ignorance unable and incompetent to discern the Lords Body that such may and are meet to be examined or that such of whom is like suspition that they have lapsed into any crimes that are scandalous may be publiquely questioned and sifted and where Ecclesiastical Discipline is setled that Witnesses may be examined concerning them is not denied In such cases the same may be spoken of neglect of Probation as is said of the omission of private admonition and reproof a man may be called to an account for an idle silence as well as for an idle word for as evil talk leads men to evil so an evil silence leaves them in it Faciens Consentiens eâdem lege tenentur 3. That notorious sinners and the Casuists who have St. Augustine to prompte them say Quando adest evidentia juris quia juridicè convictus c. vel evidentia facti c. as Filiucius and Suarez express it that they can be notorious onely upon this account Cum crimen est manifestum aut per sententiam in judicio Civili aut Ecclesiastico aut per publicam in eo confessionem aut per evidentiam talem ut nulla tergiversatione potest caelari And they farther tell us that every crime that can be proved is not therefore manifest but is rather manifestabile than manifestum but that such notorious sinners being contumacious may and in a well-constituted Church must be excommunicated in a juridical and ordinate way with the greater yea and if that would content them or lesser Excommunication and respectively to the merit of the cause and disposition of the persons is granted Yet not so much for prevention of any pollution that any may contract by communion with them for nec causa causae nec persona personae praejudicat as saith St. Augustine concerning Peter and Judas their communicating together quisquis ab hac Ecclesia Catholica fuerit separatus Contra Donat post Collat tom 7. p. 122. quantumlibet laudabiliter se vivere existimet hoc solo scelere quòd à Christi unitate disjunctus est non habebit vitam sed ira Dei manet super eum quisquis autem in hac Ecclesia bene vixerit nihil ei praejudicant aliena peccata quia unusquisque in ea proprium onus portabit saith the same Father But first to humble and by shame to reclaim the offender And secondly to keep the example from having any spreading contagious influence by impunity As also thirdly Epist 152. to remove the Scandal which the Discipline of the Church may contract by remission and indulgence lest the City of God as the Fathers call the Church should be as Philip stiled one in Greece that fostered all scelerous persons the City of the wicked And fourthly that also as Valerius Maximus in another case Quantum ruboris civitati turpiter se gerendo incusserunt tantum laudis graviter puniti adferant Wherefore I oppose not a probation negative so as to see that there be no manifest exception against men for unworthinesse I deny the necessity of a positive trial to make a scrutiny and search into them for some real worthinesse I conceive him visibly worthy that is an intelligent and no apparently ulcerous member of the visible Church I do not judge that they are to admit none that are not otherwise visibly worthy but ought not to exclude any that are not visibly unworthy I think it not necessary that all that are admitted should have demonstrative signs of holiness but suppose it enough that they are not signally wicked I conceive it not ground sufficient to exclude them that their lives are suspitious unlesse their crimes be notorious persons scandalous and openly flagitious we may separate from us from others that fall not under that notion we may not separate our selves And a power to act in such cases the Ministery need not complain wholly to want even in Churches unpresbyterated much lesse upon pretence of such want suspend the Celebration and administring of the Sacrament altogether for they may
upon whose intercession alone we can rely with faith therefore 't is vain and fruitless to seek or regard the help and assistance of the prayers of the godly To the antient Church I think most authority to be ascribed and greatest reverence to be attributed since streams run purest neer the Fountain and if that which is first be truest what is next to the first is next to truth and â—herefore SaÌ„nctorum Patrum constitutiones qui proximiores fuerant Christo â—â—â—â—scames said Nazianzen and those Orders be most pure that come most neer to the example of the Primitive Church said the holy Martyr Sanders Fox Act. â—â—on p. â—494 yet the at restation of that Church I grant is but an humane testimony nor perfectly â—â—vine but in part as it faithfully testifieth what the Apostles did and said Divine in regard of the matter and thing testified Human in regard of the quality of the Witnesses and manner of testification and therefore formally as such being but an humane testimony can beget but an acquisite faith for no conclusion can be of higher nature than the premises as no water can be made to rise higher than the Spring Picus Mirandula Canus and I grant that Fidei acquisitae quae fulcitur homine proponente non Deo revelante subesse potest falsum and therefore Nunquam hominem quemvis per fidem acquisitam ità existimamus esse veracem quin formidemus cum vel falli posse vel fallere Yet notwithstanding fides acquisitaâ—se habet ad fidem gratuitam sicut praeambula dispositio ad formam disponit animam ad receptionem luminis Alexander Hales all as cited by Dr. F. White 's answer to Fish p. 14. 22. quo assentitur primae veritati propter se dicitur ipsam introducere sicut seta filum and though divine revelation in Scripture be therefore the sole principle immediate motive and formal reason and object of beleeving and last resolution of Faith yet the authority and external testimony of the Church may produce the same as an adjuvant instrumental administring moral cause and subordinate help Prae omnibus si aperta fuerit Scriptura eam ipsam amplector saith St. Augustine and therefore he that will not beleeve Moses and the Prophets it will be in vain to raise any of the dead to perswade him when the Scripture shines out in full brightness omnes Perstringit stellas exortus ut aethereus Sol But when that Sun shines not so clearly as to convince and satisfie contenders who have bad eyes the Fathers as Stars that receive their light from that Sun may reflect some illumination upon us as the Stars are to be seen by day in dark pits and obscure places and though I consent to Augustine Epist. 19. ad Hieron that let the Learning and Holiness of other Writers be never so eminent I will not think it true because they have thought so but because they are able to perswade me either by other Canonical Writers or probable Reason yet I add that I am more confirmed in my perswasion that I rightly hit the sense of Canonical Writers and apprehend the Dictates of true Reason when I conceive the same which I finde that they thought though they are not principles of infallible verity to command beleef yet they are grounds of credibility to sacilitate assent Non domini sed duces to use Seneca's words And I shall more easily embrace that which hath their witness and be more apt to doubt of that which wants their testimony Sola argumenta ex Scripturis esse necessaria Cathol Orthedox Tract 1. q. 10. p. 121. è Patribus autem probabilia saith learned Rivet Their consent I esteem not ut fidei mensuram sed ut testem temporis argumentum historicum which makes certain the matter of fact that such was the doctrine and practice of the first and purer times being registred to us by those that cannot be imagined not to know being so neer nor be suspected to combine falsly to impose upon us being so pious They are not moved to hear men count and call good ways new and the Adversaries of true Doctrine have always loaded it with this Title which confirms them to see the ways of their government have the same lot and therefore this principle of Antiquity yeelds but a popular and fallacious Argument But few I suppose will be moved with this argumentation as not fallacious enough to impose upon popular judgements For First implicitly and interpretatively those good ways are their ways wherein is involved Petitio Principii Secondly if so small a matter confirm their judgement it is suspitious that as small a weight of reason might first settle it Talia sunt alimenta qualia sunt Elementa Thirdly If that be a popular and fallacious argument which is derived from a principle made use of commonly by Hereticks or others thereby to give a specious lustre to their own Opinions and cast an odium on their opposites then Scripture it self may be sentenced to be a principle yeelding onely popular and fallacious arguments for who knows not that most Hereticks have sought to fortifie their Opinions with pretence of Scripture and have upbraided their adversaries with want thereof Fourthly when any pretend antiquity to give countenance to novel and unwarrantable Opinions or Institutions by turning the wrong end of the Prospective to make things at hand seem to be far off the fallacy is not in the principle but the men that abuse and falsly apply it nor lies it in the proposition but the assumption Fifthly seeing as Hierom tells us Mendacium semper imitatur veritatem the argument is the more specious and like to carry more force because subtil falsifiers have assumed it for they being wiser in their Generations would not lay on those colours that had no beauty or lustre nor would they set that stamp on their counterfeit Coyn did they not know it would make it pass more currant Hierom say they is condemned for desiring leave of Augustine to erre with seven Fathers but they dare not nor are willing to give this liberty but yet they take as much when in the question whether Judas communicated of the Lords Supper they mention twelve late Writers and not all of them aut magni aut bonì nominis asserting the negative and ask who would not erre with such as those are But we say though we would not erre with the Fathers yet we less distrust our selves to erre with them or when they are on our side and probably suppose our selves farthest from erring when neerest to them As the Scripture bids us to remember Lots wife so they say to the Pretenders of Antiquity Remember the Gibeonites Had this Memento been limited to false Pretenders of Antiquity it might have been plausible but if themselves had not forgotten to take some of the salt of that Pillar whereinto she was turned to have seasoned their discretions they
Ministery This abridgment of their Church-History will set this whole Discourse in more light and put us right in the true state of the question agitated between me and the Apologists which had its rise and result from their proceedings Nonnulla pars est inventionis nosse quod quaeras saith Augustine They say the Author is unacquainted with their way and it had been happy if none had ever been acquainted therewith It is probable they have their Cabala's for at their Assemblies they have sought to set Harpocrates at the door that some of the mysteries of their way might be as secret as the Holyes of Ceres but the thingnow in question Opinor Omnibus Lippis notum Tonsoribus esse But we erre in saying they examine all which they deny that they do such as are more knowing and are willing do onely make profession of their Faith and knowledge some publickly some more privately which is in effect to say that they do not examine them in one point but in all there is no more difference between examination upon interrogatories and a large continued profession than between a Pedlars laying open his whole Pack and his shewing forth some few parcels that some may enquire for or than when a person is suspected to have filched some commodity between his ripping up and shewing out all the laps and receptacles of his garments and the Officers making a particular re-search into them By compelling men to make profession they make in effect an examination of more particulars and put them under a more difficult tryal as to give a brief answer to a question is more easie than to make a long continued Oration And if this profession be not an examination let them examine themselves how can they reconcile these two assertions That they do not examine all and that in the reformation of a corrupt Church which they say is the work they are about it is necessary to examine all without convicting themselves to omit to do that which they say is necessary And if profession therefore be a kind of examination how can that also cohere with truth or with it self that they examine none but those which may well be suspected of incompetent knowledge and yet they bring under this profession such as are knowing And if none he examined but such as may be well suspected of incompetent knowledge which we not suspect but know in some particulars to be otherwise unless they are of the humour of Dionysius of Sicily who admitted all to have recourse to him save those he expected treacherous but yet suspected all for such that he might admit none then such as are not of competent knowledge being uncapable of admission to the Sacrament and they admitting not the rest of their Parishes because they should be and will not be examined how can it consist with what they tell us else-where That it is enviously surmised that they think all those uncapable whom they admit not And if they will examine all and yet do examine none but such as may well be suspected to be of incompetent knowledge it is as little to the honour of their Ministery as to the credit of their peoples proficiency since Diogenes thought the Master was to be stricken when the Scholar play'd the Truant The omitting of the use of Sacrament they say concerns them not but sure it doth because they omit it in their own Parishes and charges where it is their special and proper call to administer it and they omit to distribute it to all that come not under their examination That about convening from divers Parishes will but confound the discourse if mixed with it and indeed it is like to confound all the specious discourses they make in defence of their way as I shall endevour to manifest anon most of those admitted were taken in not without their proper Pastour I will not divide the house upon that tryal but whether these that were admitted with their Pastour were culpable of Schisme we shall hereafter examine in the mean time St. Cyprian imputes Schisme to those that were admitted without their Pastour Ecclesia est plebs sacerdoti adunita Cyprian Epist 68. p. 209. that is as Junius explains him Respectu unionis externae materialis non internae formalis cum Christo ex illa formali seu essentiali sunt Catholici ex externa secundaria adventitia noscuntur censentur in corpore Junius in Controvers 4. Bell. 1104 1105. Citat Vasquez in 3. Disp. 219. c. 2. p. 499. Tom. 3. grex Pastori suo adhaerens unde scire debes Episcopum in ecclesia esse ecclesiam in Episcopo si qui cum Episcopo non sint in ecclesia non esse and farther Frustrà sibi blandiuntur ii qui pacem cum sacerdotibus Dei non habentes obrepunt latenter apud quosdam communicare se credunt cùm ecclesia quae Catholica una est scissa non est neque divisa sed sit utique connexa cohaerentium sibi invicem sacerdotum glutino copulata and if it were not Schisme it is a fault forbidden by the first Councel of Carthage Ut nullus Clericus vel Laicus in aliena parochia sine literis sui Episcopi communicaret and a fault which the Councel of Milevi censured with deprivation of the Communion 2. Such as were admitted of other Congregations are persons justly which term is unjustly assumed or begged offended with the grossness of their administrations at home where no separation at all is made nor cherishing of desires that way It gave the pretended rise to Donatus his Schisme that Caecilian supposed a traditor was retained in Communion with the Church First this is to condemn themselves for chaffe by separating themselves from those whom they suppose to be chasse Vos nihil inter perfidum fidelem discernitis Cresconius Augustino Separarunt caus â quòd in Communione Sacramentorum mali maculant bonos ideóque se corporali disjunct one à malorum contagione recessisse ne omnes pariter perâ—râ—â— Aug. de unitat baptism c. 14. for saith St. Augustine De area vix excutieris si triticum es eo ipso quòd discedis volas paleam te esse indicas And secondly to confess that all Augustins learned and ardent propositions strong armature against the Donatists could not beat down and dash in peeces that Schisme but that it would in part rise and spring up again in these men For if to refuse to have Communion of Sacraments with evil men and to separate because discipline is not exercised in casting out of evil men be not a main part of the Schisme of the Donarists I am too dull to understand the sense of St. Augustine and if I mistake him and their Heresie I erre with Plato and many learned men share with me in the same misprision If they shall say That they separate not from all Churches but onely from those
they must come at Pyworthy where he that tells them so is Pastor of no Church there those that are so told are not the flock of any Pastor there they might as justly call them to Exceter and would they come there they must notwithstanding come under this probation and wait upon their good pleasure and gracious opinion which is the thing questioned and sets the business in the same posture as before after all these palliations So that in the conclusion when they tell us elsewhere he that puts them to prove that persons knowing and not scandalous may be excluded shall hear of their refusal we must say to them we do indeed hear of their refusal but it is onely to prove this not to do it whiles they exclude these whom they dare not say and if they did we should knowingly gainsay that they are ignorant or scandalous To the second that my Concessions look one way my Arguments another as if like the Parthians I turn my face from that mark I shoot at or like Faustus that pretended to write against Pelagius yet half justified him it had been a just debt if not to me that I might see my error yet to themselves that we might see their truth and ingenuity to have instanced in any one argument of mine that pleads against the power and duty of Excommunication No when the Civil Magistrate is become both the Sonne and Father of the Church I doe not think that the opening of his Praetorium should shut up the Ecclesiastical forum exterius nor the exercising of his sword lay the keys aside to rust Let them not be tryed to open other Locks than they were made for that Moses may have no cause to say the Sons of Levi take too much upon them we shall no more repine at Aarons keys or rod than at Moses sword I am sensible these are different Administrations and have several reasons and ways and ends There are some Crimes which need Censure and sometime the Civil Laws take no hold thereof nor can the Civil Courts take cognizance of them and the Magistrate punisheth though the Offender repent and is satisfied when the pain is suffered or mulct is paid whether he be penitent or not The Church hath a contrary method in her punishments and which are not properly punishments but castigations the holy and prudential ends thereof I have elsewhere displayed I do not therefore hold it fit to excommunicate Excommunication though I judge the undue conduct and culpable exercise thereof to be suspended Let it not be 1. too frequently inflicted it being Medicine not Food and Physicians tell us that Medicines lose their efficacy by ordinary use and though Cacochymie give indication yet continual Purgings brings the habitude of the body to a cachexy and in the Timpany to let out all the water without stops and intermissions destroys the Patient 2. Nor too precipitate Nulla unquam de hac morte hominis cunctatio longa est And Avenzoar they say trembled three days before ever he administred a Purge 3. Nor ordinarily until after frequent admonitions afflatur omne priusquà m percutitur let all other good means be used Cuncta priùs tentanda Let it be as Physicians say of Antimony that it must be like a cowardly Captain to come up to the charge last of all and after all others let it be onely upon obstinate impenitence and when it is immedicabile vnlnus then quaecunque medicamenta non sanant ea sanat ferrum as saith Hypocrates 4. Let it not be for any thing but scelus or affine sceleri that which is interpretativa negatio fidei gross abominable iniquities whereby the Church may be defamed and the enemies have cause to blaspheme and such as may be stumbling blocks to other mens Consciences such sinnes as appear omnibus execrabilia as Augustine and are excessus peccatorum as Estius speaks let it be not inflicted for smaller faults which else would be as Parisiensis tells us as if to kill a Fly on the fore-head we should knock a man in the head with a beetle and let not such purity be required from men in order to their safeguard and immunity from this Censure as Anabaptists exact who as Marlorat tells us Marlorat in 1 Cor. 51. Ball tryal of the grounds of Separat c. 10. p. 187. Ante Communionem protestantur se tantam habere Charitatem quantam Christus in cruce pendens 5. Let it be for such Crimes as are notorious by publike notice not if one or other though perhaps the Minister be one of them do know thereof but let them be such as are scandalous in their course commonly defamed by evidence of fact or confession or proof of witnesses and if not by innumeris documentis testibusque as Augustine pleads yet by more than one for uni testi ne Catoni quidem credendum est even when the great cry of Sodom came up yet God went down to see whether they had done altogether according to the cry Si regnas jube si judicas cognosce 6. Let it be done humili charitate benignâ severitate sine typho elationis in hominem cum luctu deprecationis ad Deum Aug. cont Parmen l. 3. c. 2. Tom. 7. p. 13. and as it is said of Augustus Priùs suas lachrymas quà m alienum sanguinem effudit for otherwise hujus enim summi rarÃque voluptas Nulla boni quoties animo corrupta superbo Plus aloës quà m mellis habet Let it be thus regulated without humane wrong in hypothesi and let it in thesâ— pass as of divine right The greater Excommunication I mean for as concerning Suspension which they call the lesser Excommunication I am deceived if it may not be called the least in the Kingdome of Heaven the Tree from which that Wood was gathered was of a later rise and spring in the Paradise of God not of the first planting and hath no divine ground to fix its root in if there be any Characters in Scripture asserting expresly or by plain and easie consequence the divine right thereof See this amply discussed or any footsteps thereof in the tract and course of all the ancient Church so as that any were suspended from the Sacrament that were not separate from the body of the Church by Excommunication those characters and footsteps are too small to be discerned by my dimme eyes § 15 without the help of spectacles to be lent me or my Horizon too narrow to reach them unless their hand like that in a margin pointing to the places shall lead me neerer to them Tertullian I am sure defines Excommunication of what kind soever it be à Communicatione Orationis conventûs omnis sancti commercii relegatio I am not ignorant there is frequent mention in the Casuists and Schoolmen of excommunicatio minor but these bear no weight where these men hold the beam yet notwithstanding it may have place and be of
dico nisi de eo tantùm qui in se quod dico esse agnoscit si enim extra conscientiam suam sunt quaecunque dico nequicquam ad injuriam ejus spectant cuncta quaedico si autem in se esse novit quae loquor non à mea sibi hoc lingua dici aestimet sed à conscientia sua but I not onely hope but am assured of better things of them however they are faulty so to suspect my meaning I am not culpable to insinuate any such suspicion but perhaps they would in this also be like the Donatists those among them called Circumcellions of whom St. Augustine tells us Cogunt eos quos in viis invenerint laethalia iis vulnera inferre so they will enforce me to would them whether I will or no and though I have as little cause as will to doe it in this particular They acknowledge repentance to be as necessary a disposition and qualification to receiving acknowledge and a part of examination to be that of repentance but when they should have answered our inference That then it carrieth equall reason to urge and practise a tryal of mens repentance antecedently to the Communion and that this must introduce as great a necessity of bringing men under confession as under their examination they keeping close to their familiar ignorantia elenchi which runs thorough all their discourse as the string of poyson doth thorough a Lamprey instead of answering whether it be universally and absolutely necessary doe onely tell us that Confession in a right and rectified manner and we fore-stalled them in these qualifications hath been and is practised in some difficult cases and they dislike it not And truly so much we shall say and grant them of their examination if they would require no more and let it be moderated and regulated as our Divines prescribe for Confession whereof Luther saith it is Utilis non necessaria Instit l. 3. c. 9. S. 12. debet esse libera nemo cogi wherein Calvin is Symphonous saying Si ita privatim angitur as flictatur peccatorum sensu ut se explicare nisi alieno adjutorio nequeat and adding iis tantùm modò commendetur Exam. conc Tri dent part 2. c. 5. qui eâ se opus habere intelligunt because as Chemnicius rationally asserts non est mandatum ut corda scrutentur so let their examination be proposed as profitable not imposed as necessary let it be somewhat of their prudence nothing of our bondage let it be exercised toward such as may justly be suspected of gross ignorance or exitious crimes for such a just suspicion onely is principium inquirendi as Vasquez speakes and others left free that are elevated above such suspicion and we shall be as perfectly reconciled to their examination as they or our Divines seem to be pacified toward confession But in the interim the Argument remains unshaken If repentance be as necessary a qualification to receiving and as essential a part of examination as knowledge then there is in order to communicating no less reason to introduce the discipline of confession than of examination if the one be set up the other must also be imposed if the one may be omitted the other may be laid aside if the one be but profitable to some the other is not necessary to all these two being like the subcelestial Gemini which appear ominously and unluckily the one without the other They assert their Principles in their separation and examination not to be Romish and we suppose by former instances we have demonstrated the contrary They profess to abhor the Church of Rome her ways and friends and to be able to maintain their cause without the Philistines forge however the Apologists may have a file for sharpning some of their Weapons yet in several subjects their main Armature was forged hammered out by the Popâ—sh Philistines for there was no Smith in Israel wont to own it Nevertheless they are no farther off from Popery than we are from any suspicion that they are thereunto affected one either practice or opinion gives not rise to a denomination But secondly we know though Saul had put away those that had familiar Spirits and Wizards out of the Land yet being in a strait and exigence he had recourse to one of them for counsel and I might say did I not doubt it might irritate that two Foxes though looking several ways may be conjoyned in a Fire-brand Thirdly besides that which is opposed directly may be farthered obliquely and by accident and some men may suppose they are in the way to Dothan when they are going to Samaria and suffer like delusion with those in Athenaeus who supposed themselves to be at Sea in a Tempest and casting out the Utensils of the house thought they had eased the ship of her luggage and were plying hard their Oars to attain their Port whereas all was but the effect of their cups and such Impostures may be occasioned by the golden Cup in the hand of the woman full of abominations though insensibly and unawares sip'd off as to make men dream they are doing one thing when they are acting another And as the Rabbins though vainly expounding Exod. 32.24 say that Aaron intended not to make a Calf but cast the golden Earings into the fire to consume them but by the operation of Sathan working by some Aegyptian Magitians in the Camp the form of a Calf came forth so it is neither impossible nor unusual for some proling men by over-witting and under-acting them to make their enemies unwittingly to drive on their designs and unwillingly advance their Interests as it was said of Pompey the Great Miscriâ nostrâ Magnus est so what sage man fears not that our divisions do more occasion and facilitate an union with that Kingdome which is not so much divided within it self and that not onely because the Trumpets must be of one peece that can call to the Assemblies but we see that water which is in an entire body is not so subject to the impressions of Air yet being scattered into drops is easily preyed upon and absorp'd by it and when a besieged City is set on fire the enemy who upon this account helps to blow and foment the flame may more easily enter and surprise it amidst our confusions And verely the unchurching of so many may make them more malleable to temptations to step aside into the Roman Church which is ready to spread her skirt over them in which respect he that put away his Church from this ordinance the Canon of the Nicene Councel saying Matrimonium inter Episcopum Ecclesiam esse contractum saving for the cause of fornication that is some noto rious sin causeth them to commit adultery or lastly in so little freedome to partake of the Ordinance and so great liberty to take up any wild and extravagant opinions truth and godliness may finally fall under such
upon one side as that of the Papists is on the other who thinke she deserves them now because then she did It is no Argument because Jordan falls into the dead Sea that it never had fresher streams neither is Rome like the Birds of Phineus that whatsoever she hath touch'd must be afterward polluted It was enough for my purpose that I proved the thing de facto and I am no more obliged to prove it de jure than our Divines are to justifie the deferring of Baptisme by some in the ancient Church and particularly by Constantine untill toward their death because from thence they collect an Argument Tertullian Haymo Aquinas Erasmus Glossae aliique that Baptisme was not then beleeved to be of such necessity nor more than those many and great names of Tertullian Haymo Aquinas Erasmus c. that conceive St. Paul 1 Cor. 15.29 did draw an Argument to prove the Resurrection from a practice either of the Cerinthians or the Marcionites could suppose he intended to legitimate that custome But of this usage which we discourse of however these austeri Aristarchi may lash it yet the modest sweetness of famous Chamier as Ut quisque est major magis est placabilis will take with more complacency than their harsh censoriousness Ubi supra S. 18. S. 28. p. 127. who having said that consultissimum ut Sacramenti actio sit continua addes of this practice quia olim factum à piis viris non sumus adeò praefracti in nostra sententia ut damnemus And indeed though Protestant Divines condemn the reposition of the Sacrament in order to circumgestation and adoration c. yet Sacramental actions being defined by their ends and this transmission of the Elements being onely a continuance of their first Ordination to a Sacramental use and so the Sacrament being a Relative and being not extra usum had still rationem Sacramenti and the conservation thereof elsewhere being signified unto and ratified by him that was to receive since the words work not of themselves but by the understanding of him that communicated may seem sufficient Therefore under these Aspects this Custome which partly arose in times of Persecution l. 1. obser 8. p. 60. and partly was grounded on this reason as Albaspinus tells us out of Innocent that they to whom it was sent se à nostra communione non judicent separatos and perchance upon other reasons of which as of other usages though our great distance may render us ignorant yet it seems they were so weighty and considerable that no Christian then living interposed any Objections against them I say this Custome is not therefore condemned though not altogether approved by our gravest Theologues as Morton Chemnicius Gerhard c. But for my part since the Apologists Contra ibunt animis vel magnum praestet Achillem I shall not hazard the Charge nor abide the Shock of such bold Assailants but quit the ground having already served my turn of it They had the confidence in the fromer Section to proclaim the Fathers were for them but now Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo being but a little galled they wince and say that Antichrist hath been long working in the Church and the Fathers it seems were his Chaplains and his Work was carryed on by them and not onely by the Gnosticks and other Hereticks and might be too prodigal of Christs blood I wish they could vindicate themselves from being worse than Prodigals that are so covetous thereof avarus est deterior prodigo But neither could the one lavish nor can the other with-hold from others his blood but only that which properly is but the sign thereof and to become his blood to those alone that beleeve and to be effectual in sealing of Salvation by it upon condition of Faith yet that signe without prodigality to be exhibited to all that profess Faith and can discern what is thereby signified and the Salvation to be offered in signo to whom it was never intended in beneplacito Salvation upon condition of Faith in Christ being but the tenor of the Gospel which is held forth in the Sacraments as well as in the Word onely with a different manner of propounding and therefore anciently the Catechumeni as soon as they were baptized and till then they were not held faithful were at once admitted to publick hearing of the Gospel and participating of the Eucharist Which Custome as it is witnessed de facto by our Divines formerly quoted and by many of the Fathers mentioned by Lorinus so the same Author thinks In Acta c. 2. v. 42. p. 109. it had its ground and rise from Act. 2.41 42. where it being said that four thousand were baptized in one day of whose conversation sure there could be no tryal had neither could they make any special confession of their Faith whereof their coming to be baptized onely was a reall profession which though it was usual in the baptizing of such as came over from Paganisme that they might testifie they were Christians yet there is neither the like Rule nor Exercise nor Reason for a Confession to be made at the Eucharist by those who have been bred in the Profession of the Faith and where their approach and desire to participate is a special profession as I have shewed I say as soon as it is said they were baptized it is added in the next immediate verse They all continued stedfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship and breaking of bread that is in breaking of the Eucharist as the Syriack reades and the general sense interprets it and prayers From discrediting the Witnesses they speak to enervate the Testimony viz. That Strangers by place may upon knowledge of some members or Certificate from the Church be admitted but I briefly demand Whether without farther probation upon such Knowledge or Certificate onely they shall finde admission or not If yea they give up the cause Tam Scythae lasso meditantur arcu Cedere campis for this might alwayes supersede all farther tryal and closeth with what we have asserted That the knowledge of men collected by ordinary converse with them might frustrate and prevent all farther examination If not they given us words that signifie nothing and which onely Sunt apina tricaeaue aut si quid vilius istis Indeed it is obvious in Antiquity that strangers were not regularly admitted to the Sacraments without Certificates from their proper Pastor which were called Literae communicatoriae formatae But their way is as dissonant from this Rule as the observing thereof would be destructive to their ends Ne quis sine literis Episcopi sui in aliena Ecclesia communicet 1. Concil Carthag Can. 6. Apud Centur. Magdeburg 7. Apud Caranzam for such Literae formatae would altogether frustrate their new Formatae Ecclesiae gathered and made up of such as have no such Communicatory Letters SECT XV. Of daily communicating
have been examined such as they are not ignorant of to be knowing to smooth and levigate the way by their example to the examination of those that are ignorant by some proportion of like reason why may they not excommunicate innocent persons to perswade and induce such as are flagitious patiently and humbly to submit to those censures 2. The more pliant such men are the more they think their humility will commend their knowledge As it was answered of old to him that perswaded a Democraticall government That he should first begin to set it up in his own house so we shall desire they would rather manifest their own humility in not exacting this subjection than to perswade others to demonstrate theirs by undergoing it But it seems as Brennus when the full weight of money was made up for the ransome of Rome put his sword inâ—o the Scales and would have that weighed out also so though men have their knowledge to the full weight yet they must also acknowledge the power and authority that these mâ—n have to impose upon them a farther load But certainly to lay needlesse burdens upon men and then perswade them that it becomes their humility to undergoe them comes somewhat too neer that of Julian when he struck the Christians upon one cheek and told them they were commanded to turn the other 3. The tryâ—ll of such may be necessary but if it onely may be it is not certaine that it is so relatively to the Church and the work of reformation but I have elswhere examined this reason for examination and I hope have shewed cause sufficient to suspend and cast it out but hâ—ving already perchance too long troubled the Reader about it I will not here seeth Kid in his mothers milk that is as Philo moralizeth it adde trouble to trouble 4. They do in the 21 Section bring forth another Reason Because such as are able and godly so know not their abilities as to oppose them against their duty But he must have very poor abilities whom they can without better Arguments impose upon that it is the duty of any knowing man to degrade himself from one of the Fideles to be one of the Catechumeni and to make so low a stoop to that which hath an appearance of evil viz. of ignorance and to be accessory to the stealing from himself the reputation of a man of knowledge and suffer himself to be practically taken for an ignorant person As it hath been said of Women That their comportment is a better fence to their Chastity then their negative which denies without denial and secures even from tempting and that she hath forfeited somewhat of modesty that hath not forestalled all sollicitatioÌ„ as that he comes too neer that comes to fetch a denial so here in this case he is somewhat garbled that is only questioned and though he pass the tryal yet it is a diminution to be put to it and a disparagement that as Socrates said to one that excited him to defend himself against the calumnies of Aristophanes his Conversation had not made his Defence before-hand It cannot unlesse per antiphrasin be their duty subiici humanis praesumptionibus when as religionem quam paucissimis manifestissimis Sacramentorum celebrationum sacramentis misericordia Dei liberam voluit Epist 120. c. 19. servilibus oneribus premunt as Augustine speaks nor so cheaply to give up their liberty in a kind of blind obedience for we cannot see any reason in the commands and it is an obedience that befits only the blind and ignorant and to let them build high to dam up other lights and as the Papists at one part of Summer Masses though for another mystery do put out all the Candles save one so to permit them interpretatively to conclude at the celebration of the Sacrament that only the Pastor hath light and the rest of the people have none nor are they engaged in duty to bow down that these may go over and as was said of Pompey the great to let them become great by their diminution like Valerian to Sapores to become their footstoole to mount on horse-back and when they are in the saddle and hold the reins who knows how far or how fiercely they may use their spurs to ride For though the things at first aspect seem but small yet like some seeds they are great in the virtue and consequence A Deed of Gift of all is executed and perfected only by the delivery and giving up of one parcel of the Goods and there may be livery and seisin had and taken of a great Lordship only by the giving and receiving of one turfe of Earth if we give way to remove the old Land-marks who can either fore-see or undertake where they will fix their bounds As long as none may be shut out from the Sacrament but for palpable ignorance or notorious wickedness we know what gives us a good and indefeasible estate of Free hold and what can forfeit it but if we must all be sequestred before we have pleaded and proved our title in their Courts and at their Bars and until our fitness and worthiness have been weighed in their beams without any certain standard set down and determined but the Laws are only in scrinio pectoris sure we are all but Tenants at will or hold only by the copy of their countenance and if we so far resign our liberty and subject our selves to such a power as Philip the 2. said of his Father Charles the Emperour the second day of our resignation will be the first day of our repentance and if this people will be so deceived I will not say with Cardinal Caraffa let them be deceived but only if when the Priests will bear rule the people will love to have it so what will they do in the end thereof And whatever moderation they may pretend or for a while practise although sufficient for the day is the evil thereof yet who can bind the influences to be sweet or lose the bands if they should be cruel of those stars that shall arise to morrow Quenquam posse putas mores narrare futuros Hic mihi si fueris tu Leo qualis eris Neither are we apt to believe that their government which begins so roughly will commence more sleek and smooth or be like that Viper in Chiaca which is poyson in the morning but not at night It is a most impolitick and unstable security which is not rooted in the limitation of the power more than in the tempers of those that manage it cui plus licet quam par est plus velit quam licet for men are too apt to be like those little Crabs Carinades which first get into little shells and prospering there to more growth remove still from lesse into greater and are too often found like the Indian Taddy which is sweet in the morning but being shined upon and warmed by the Sun turns sowre What
so much for they could not then be galled though Diotrephes were clapt on their backs if he were onely a Presbyter and not proud rigid or imperious for here is no St. Iohn that they can despise or exalt themselves above they must needs be clear of all suspicion of that now But Whitaker expresly saith he exercised tyranny the Centurists impute to him an abuse of the power of the keyes and we need fetch no reflected beams Contro 4. q. 5. tom 2. p. 685. Centur. 1. l. 2. c. 4. p. 116. the text directly yeilds this light that he was inhospitable he receaves not the brethren Imperious forbidding them that would using the keyes to open a way to his own designes and shutting out those that oppose them casting them out of the Church Exemplum excommunicationis injustae saith Aquinas But the glâ—sse explains the manner Ejicit non de consortio fidelium sed de loco in quo conveniunt but Tirinus supposeth tum de loco et coetu Neque suscipit vel in hospitium vel ad Euchâ—ristiâ— distributtonem and such also as would in that way receave them and permit them to receave the Sacrament he did eject also De coetu et congregatione fidelium saith he Diotrephes would not admit such into association all which look with an ugly aspect upon some paralel courses And Aretius hence gravely observes Proprium est primatûs alios aspernari nec aliud quà m sui pectoris judica admirari et magnifacere reliquos facilè damnare et ut ineptos exsibilare meminerint igitur ornamenta quoque ecclesiae qualis est disciplina et ipsa sacramenta etiam ab impiis saepe rapi ad suerâ—m affectuum patrocinium et muniendam tyrannidem This was the dirâ— wherâ—â—ith the Apostle shewes the face of Diotrephes to be defiled whereof if the Apologists can no better clear themselves than they have purged him they will haerere hec luto To lord it over Gods heritage is in their sence to go beyond ministerial power and infringo the liberties and priviledges of the Sairts And if we shall receave this description it will serve as a weapon though as they have pointed it it is somewhat a blunt one wherewith to sight against them and wounds made by a blunt weapon are worse than those which are caused by an acute one Not to controvert here whether there be any such ministerial power to keep off from the Sacrament these who are not cast out of the Church but continue members thereof nevertheless that which falls within ministerial power for the kind may be an excess in respect of the number condition of the objects whereupon and the manner how and the meritorious and finall causes for which it is exercised First they constrain to come under examination not onely such as might justly be suspected to be ignorant but all indiseretely even those which are in every mans and in their own judgement elevated above any such suspition which therefore cannot be intended to prepare them for the Sacrament but rather for subjection and onely to render them as Tiberius said of the Senate Homines ad servitu em paratos and to make a tryall and take an essay and earnest of their obedience and to receave their homage and fealty for the Sacrament which they must hold of this Seigniory or Lordâ—â—ip of theirs and cannot be allowed to sue forth their livery or Oâ—â—stre le mane till they have acknowledged upon examination what they hold in Capite Secâ—ndly they exclude not those onely which have first shut out themselves as Augustine speaks by the scandall of nefarious crimes evident in the fact or confessed or judicially evicted hitherto they should come and no further and here ought their waves to be staid we might then know with what banks to bound their power and where to keep a secure station that the water floods might not overflow us quid potest esse foelicius quà m homines de solis legibus confidere et casus reliquos non timere saith Cassiodore The saying is good if Shimei dwell in Jerusalem and go not forth any whither let him live but if he will be straying to Gath among the Philistines let him surely die If as it well appears and is legible in the draught and copy of Presbytery the Communion be as Chatter Land and Boock Land which we hold as granted for a certain estate under express covenants and conditions we know our term and interest we cannot lose or forfeit our Tenement if wilfully we break not our covenant nor fail of the condition When men are cast out for scandall they are convinced of all they are judged of all every one even the parties themselves being left without excuse sense the cause to be just while the merit is manifest but they reject in a general notion of being unfit and unworthy and that unfitness and unworthiness is determined or limitted by no Canon but their will or opinion and the Lawes as Wat. Tyler said those of England should do come out of their mouth that not onely horned beasts must be driuen from the wood but every one which the Lyon shall say hath an horn and when there is no Law for what they do yet in analogy to what the Persian Magi told Cambyses concerning their Kings they have a Law that they may do what they list and that Themis must sit as near and as constantly by them as Anâ—xarchus told Alexander that it did by Iupiter the pattern of Kings to shew that whatsoever they decree is just so as this can tend onely to make all men Villanos sockâ—nannos as Bracton speaks or as it was of old in Ireland one Freeholder in a Country and the rest his vassalls and to make all fall prostrate before their rods and axes for every one that will not loose the fruit of the Sacrament must comply with the Dragon that watcheth guards the Hesperides and he that will not forfeit his reputation must sell his liberty to purchase their favour whereon his credit dependeth not only espouse all their opinions but by all manner of compliances strive to merit their good opinion which is his title to the Sacrament and therefore he may not dare do any thing but by their conduct lest offending these Censors he be motus tribu and put in Ceritum tabulas ignominiae causâ and he made aerarius pendere aera sit to pay tithes or duties not to partake of the priviledges and therefore must surrender up his will and intellects to adopt theirs and have no affections or actions but such as are borrowed with like superstition to that of Zene his Schollers who as Athenaeus tells us thought that the broth could not be good that was not made after Zeno's direction whose use also was to prescribe to the twelfth part of a Coriander seed Thirdly they shut out not some few onely that may be peccant but in a manner all which cannot
a bad servant mihi accusatio etiam vera contra fratrem displicet as Hierom and though Noah were drunken yet Cham was accursed for discovering his nakedness and however perchance illi quod meruere sed quid tu ut adesses and Lactantius tells us that we murder him in whose death we take complacency though executed by a righteous sentence But though in the natural body the blood and spirits run to cherish any wounded part yet in politick bodies we find it is rather as in an Arch where if a stone be loose the whole frame sets upon it with all its weight and most men are too ready to seeth a kid in his mothers milk that is as Philo interprets to add affliction to the afflicted turpes instant morientibus ursi Et quaecunque minor nobilitate fera est We wisht it were the worst thereof that some men like the unspunne silk of Chies would draw and suck up all moisture we more fear lest this he some of the teeth of that worm that lies at the root of Ministery and that this pretended sweeping and garnishing of the house is onely to make way for seven more wicked spirits and that some men are so blind like Sampson unawares to grind for the Philistines and are deceived by the wooife in sheeps cloathing to seek to hang up the doggs upon pretence they are dumb or mangy and are so fascinated like him at Constantinople whom Nicetas mentions that supposed he had been pushing upon a Serpent when he broke in pieces his own earthen vessels so some may think they are strising at the old Serpent when they are breaking vessels of the Sanctuary Certainly the Jesuites will not be decieved or discouraged from attempting upon this Church by a supposall that because we cast out so many we had Ministers enough to defend the truth against their machinations as the Gaules were disanimated to pursue the seige of the Capitol as not reducible by famine because the Romans cast out over the walles all their provision of bread Lastly They bear false witness against us by mis-interpreting our words and then spiâ—in our face and buffet us they accuse us to say that they shape Presbytery to Popery and this they say is the dreggs of this bitter Cup. And this had been dreggs indeed yea crassi gutta veneni had it dropt from our pen and had made it a cup of abomination if this had lain in the bottome thereof but sure it is the dreggs of the cup of their fancy and like to Alexander the sixth the cup they have mixed for us will envenome themselves Nihil est Antipho quin male narrando possit depravarier tu id quod boni est excerpis dicis quod mali est The Apologists carry some analogy with the Samaritaus when the Jewes prespered then they were brethren but if they were under water the Samaritan would drench himself in water if he had but toucht a Jew so if the Presbyterians be about the Zenith they are calculated also for the same Meridian so as in their own words to be neerer to them than to Independents but if in the Nadir they are Antipodes to them having fitted their Church way in such a latitude as to suit with every elevation formed it like the Giraffa made up of a Libbard Hart Buff Camel that none can well know what to call it of late though intruth they are onely dow-baked Independents and like the froggs generated of dust after it is fermented with certain showers are but half made up part earth and part conformed yet most often they take the livery of Presbytery and the paper upon that supposition inferred that their way being obtruded under that notion gave occasion to some that took that for the face which was but a vizor to suspect that Presbytery was modelled and cast into the like mould as Popery Sands Europae speculum p. 3. where the Prelates made their greatness wealth and honor the very rules whereby to souare out the Canons of faith and then set Clerks on work to devise arguments to uphold them and this odious suspition in others was a spring of grief to the friends of Presbytery who could not without indignation hear some say of Presbytery as that Cardinal did at the bustling and factions Elections in the Conclave Ad hunc modum fiunt Romani pontifices Of this pinch of the inference they will not be sensible nor do seek to clear their way of this stumbling block viz. that it is a way which leads onely to their own ends of power and greatness but turning out of the way extravagantly tells us that men that like not the restraint of their lusts and we must needs be those men or whosoever else they be perchance they cannot think fit that their lusts be restrained by giving liberty to others lusts and letting them do what they list as Vives saith Philostratus corrected Homers lies by greater lies by any Church government for if they like not theirs of necessity they will not abide any cry out of Popery Covetousness Ambition Praelacy c. which are but fig leaves to cover their nakedness But their paper leaves are not worth a figg to vail that cause which they have left naked of defence for si hac Pergama dextra if this plea may defend a government then all una hac defensa fuissent this might be pleaded in defence of any the most tyrannous governours they might also inferre that because some like not the restraint of their lusts by any government therefore themselves do not govern according to their lusts and Bellarmine might with as much reason conclude that whereas Cyprian saith Heresies and Schismes have no other spring but onely because the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Iudge for the time in the Church is reminded to be In the stead of Christ therefore the Bishop of Rome usurps no unjust authority nor is a tyrant in the title or exercise of his power A man that is not fond of Presbytery that is such a man as themselves so coldly and disaffectionately they speak it may say this for Presbytery what ever it be else a suspitious Aposiâ—pesis as if it were somewhat else which I lle quidem caelare cupit turpÃque pudore Tempora purpureis cogit velare tiaris is the strongest barre that ever was set against Popery We shall plead nothing in bar to that supposition being farre from going about to lessen their good opinion of Presbytery which we would rather cherish and do wish they did like and love it better and were more Presbyters but we cannot illis dare nominis hâ—jus honorem and may rather expostulate quid pulchra vocabula pigris Obtendis vitiis or complaine with Cato in Salust I am pridem equidem nos vera rerum vocabula amifimus so as Aristippus said of precious ointments malè sit Cynaedis qui diffamarum beshrew them that by incrusting
digladiations of Sects are sometime as eager among themselves as against the truth the Maximinianists did virulently contest with the Primianists yet both were under the denomination of Donatists they may be all in the same way which yet run faster and go further one than another As the Schooles say that every Angel is a several species so if some difference or singularity might constitute a several form we should have among Independents almost as many Religions as men It is like enough they render no complacency to the rigid Independents and do yet find no pleasing reception among the right Presbyterians such a Catastrophe is the result of a midling indifference and it fares with men of that temperament as with the hypocrite the world hates him because he seemes good and God abhors him because he is not truly such They leave the rigid Independents to answer that charge of confounding Churches and then it seemes they depend upon them to be Advocates for them also aswell as to plead their own cause For however self love may transfer the guilt and censure that in others what it will not see in it self as Demosthenes said nothing was so hard as to know or so easie as to deceave ones self yet this charge hath a thou art the man for them also for he is somewhat confounded in his judgement that cannot discern or will not confesse that to constitute as they do Polydor. Virgil de inventoribus rerum l. 4. c. 9. p. 268. Quo quisque suis finibus limitibusque contentus esset Platina in vita Dionys Selder Histor of tythes c. 6. p. 8. one Church of persons gathered and extracted out of twenty or thereabout is to introduce a confusion of Churches and what is that else but to defeat that ancient and laudable constitution of dividing parishes into several Presbyteries as proper cures and making them definite and appropriate which if not instituted by Dionysius about the year 260. in the Roman Patriarchate and soon after in other Diocesses by his example or rather the institution by him revived after the disturbances of persecution as having been first setled by Euaristus at Rome within little of the first Century yet profound Antiquaries acknowledge that in the very first times Parishes were divided to several Ministers according to the conveniences of Country Towns and Villages which division and distribution hath been constantly ratified and supported by our municipal Lawes as necessary to order and subservient to many expediences And also the violation of this order and such appropriation was forbidden by the Canons of ancient Councils neque confundito Ecclesias decreed the first Council of Constantinople Constant can 2. neparochiam cujustibet Episcopi alterius civitatis Episcopus Canonum temerator invadat Avern 9. was the determination of the Synod of Averne And this is also to remove those ancient land-marks bounds which was not onely piacular among the Romans Si quis transerre ausus fuisset aut aâ—tollere Rosin Antiq. Rom l. 2. c. 19. lege terminali caput ejus his diis devovit interfectori ipsius tanquam sacrilegi impunitate promissâ puritate à scelere but obnoxious to a curse by the Law of God Deut 27. 17. In Prov. 22.28 and coming under frequent prohibitions Deut. 19.14 Prov. 22.28 23.10 Sub hoc autem literali sensu parabolicè intelligendum est ne quis rectae vitae praescripta à patribus laudabiliter constituta pro concordia ordine ac politia inter homines conservanda violare immutare novâ doctrinâ impio contemptu praesumat saith Jansenius And if it hath not much of confusion yet not little of irregularity to communicate with one Church in the Word and Prayer and onely with another in the Sacrament to be common hearers of the Word among those with whom they deny to have communion in the Sacrament and to partake of the Sacrament with them amongst whom they do not constantly hear the word to pay their Tythes to them who serve not at the Altar whereof they partake and to yeeld no Tythes whatsoever offerings they bring to those that officiate at those Altars where they participate And yet Ignatius tells of the ancient Christians Omnes ad orandum in idem loci convenere quemadmodum ad unum Altare they had not then severall Altars that had one common place of prayer and a Bishop and an Altar were made correlatives Mead hCurches in and since the Apost p. 50. so that every Bishop had an Altar and but one and not one Altar among many Bishops which interfeers with their practice Those aspersions wherewith they complain to be bespattered were not the most of them cast by the paper neither were they so blotted by any drops shed there yet let us try whether it fall not out with them as we have not onely read in story but seen by experience to have happened to some who commenced suits and brought actions of slander and upon the traversing thereof have been convicted of those crimes which they sought to clear and to get recompence for being accused of and have contracted those penalties whereas they might have been quit if they could have been quiet They say they are falsly impeached First For disorder against Law And we suppose indeed this confounding of these Parish Churches whereof Law hath determined the limits and made the appropriation comes under that denomination Our lawes have forbid and do inflict penalties for using any artifice to intice and withdraw Pigeons out of anothers Dove-house and Bees out of others Buts and therefore doublesse cannot allow the tolling and seducing other mens naturall sheep from their folds Secondly For Magick I think it will rather prove to be for sillinesse or uncharitablenesse the paper onely said that their tempting and withdrawing the fruits of other mens labours and those committed to their culture to make up their Churches did carry some analogy with that magicall transferring of other mens corn into their fields wherof some Romans were falsly accused A man might suspect that they were indeed passive in Magick and thereby fascinated hereupon to think that this Allegory layes Magick to their charge and therefore while they suppose that we question them properly for that crime they cannot but leave not onely their wit and temper but their charity and innocence under greater question Vlcera ad levem tactum etiam ad suspitionem tactûs condolescunt nunquid sine querela aegratanguntur Thirdly For Schisme Though their way be not schisme in the achme yet it is more then in the Embryo and though it be not ripe in all the fruit yet it is more than in the seed and if not schisme yet somewhat schismaticall They separate from a communion in part of the ordinances and so it is in part schismaticall but the part is of the same nature with the whole They refuse to communicate or associate as they speak with
the cup the blood may be some way administred but they must not drink it SECT XXIV Whether they are Butchers or Surgeons Whether guilty of Schism Of negative and positive Schisme What are just causes of separation Whether our Saviour separated from the Jewish Church for instance in eating the Passover They condemne what they practise by confounding Churches and by separation They grant Professors to be visible Saints which destroyes their Platforme Their reasons why all sorts are to be admitted to the word and prayer Whether there are not better reasons to warrant a like admission to the Sacrament whether the same conclude it not Whether the Churches of England are all true Churches Sacraments notes of the Church and therefore communicable to all Church members They grant discipline enters not the definition of a Church yet they separate for want thereof Whether they may not aswell deny Baptisme to the Children as the Eucharist to the Parents VVHy they separate not in all Ordinances is an head that looks not directly toward us but respects their brethren of the separation who have outrun and gone beyond them and stand at a distance as much further from them as they from us For as when Apolles had drawn a fine small line Protogenes cut that in 〈…〉 another and the former halfed that again so when one sort have cut 〈…〉 from communion with the rest of the Church they divide themselves again and some of them think themselves not refined enough and as the Chymists say of sublimation sapius repetenda est operatio neque enim prima sublimotione res mox satis depuratur so one separation grows out of another like the tunal which Nieremberge speaks of mira frondium facunditas solium supernasâ—itur solio si decidâ—t aliquod radices rursus agit surgitque altera arbos And so though as sand conteined in a vessel hath one general figure in the whole Masse conformable to the continent yet every grain is inechaerent with other so though they all come under one common notion of Separatists yet they are as much separate from 〈◊〉 other as from us and as little agree among themselves as with us though when they come against us like Themistocles and Aristides going on Embassie they lay down their enmities to be afterward reassumed And as Aristides said It will never be well with Athens till both the one and the other be shut up in the dungeon so they intimate in the close of this Section that in such a condition they were most likely to close in a mutual agreement but their present quarrels with the other occasion here the diverting of their armes which offers us a little truce who might now stand a loofe and behold the fight among themselves whom that happily may befall which Tacitus relates of Apronjus souldiers dum singuli pugnant universi vincuntur and when they fall out good men may come by the truth Discordia in malis tam bona quà m concordia in bonis onely we shall gather up some of those arrowes which they let fly at others to shoot back upon themselves and if any of those shot at randome seem to fall neer us we shall endeavour to repell or avoid such as we have not already broken They separate not in other Ordinances because they are for Surgery not Butchery It seems then they now somewhat odiously set their brethren in the rank of cut-throats who will shrewdly resent to be degraded into the company of Butchers Secondly How little conformity or resemblance their practise hath with the rules of Chirurgery hath been frequently instanced Thirdly Chirurgeons neither use nor are able to cut off any one member from an union with the rest in the influence and benefit of one vitall faculty onely but exscind altogether from the whole body whereas they make exscision of men onely from a Communion in one Ordinance alone not all Fourthly Let this reason have the most favourable passe yet it onely can argue absolutely why they should separate not in all Ordinances but in some alone not comparatively why in this Sacrament rather than in other Fiftly It is a strange method of Physick or Chirurgery to seek to preserve life by witholding the means of life and the medicine of life and immortality as the Fathers call the Sacrament and if all meanes must be sought to cure before they cut down a Church we think they have deserted their own Aphorismes for they have not sought to cure it by this medicine yet they have cut down their Church not onely by gathering another but by a practical judging of them to have no present interest in the body and blood of Christ nor worthy to have the truth of Gods promises in him to be sealed unto them The learned and they quote Camero distinguish of a twofold separation positive and negative the first they condemne unlesse upon just and weighty grounds the second they are acting in making a separation in their Congregations not separating from their Churches but some corruptions in them in order to reformation De Eccles p. 325. Camero in that place disputes of Schisme whereof secession or separation may be the genus and Schisme he distinguisheth into negative and positive the first Schisma quod non exit in coetum societatem aliquam religiosam quae simpliciter secessio subductio cùm non instituitur ecclesia facto Schismate Schisma positivum tum fit cum instituitur ecclesia hoc est cum fit consociatio quaedam quae legibus ecclesiasticis Dei verbo atque sacramentorum administratione utitur separatim quod quadam formula desumpta ex Scriptura dicitur strâ—ere altare contra altare But as the men of Bengala are so afraid of a Tiger that they dare not name him through fear if they should do so they should be torn in pieces by him so it seems the Apologists are so conscious of Schisme or fearfull to be blasted with it that they decline the mention of this and passing over the description he makes of Schisme they only barely and without any distinct explication tell us of a negative and positive separation Abstine epistolis quae sunt instar Edicti saith Symmachus facessat omne studium ex quo nascitur cura compendii Me thinks they should have been able to have understood Camero had they looked into him themselves but whencesoever it results there is an ignorant and wilfull mistake in alleaging him for they seem to quote him as if he determined that a negative separation were absolutely and universally lawfull whereas he affirming that a positive Schisme is that which Antonomasticè and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is called Schisme he renders this reason because often he saith not alwayes a negative secession is lawfull that justly and piously it may be free to depart from some Churches but it will not be so if it grow into a positive As for example some may be cast out by the fault of
circumstance but the action it self and which properly comes not within the list or rank of things of order decency unless perhaps in a general acception as whatsoever is agreeable to rule is orderly what is contrary thereunto is out of order Ordini contrariatur quicquid inordinatè agitur as Tully long since said Et quicquid peccatur perturbatione ordinis peccatur accordingly Quod decet honestum est et quod honestuÌ„ est decet justa omnja decora sunt injusta contra but taking order and decency in this notion the Church hath no power to make Lawes in things of such concernment but Order in this place of the Apostle comprehendeth the circumstances of season time and place and comliness includes that gravity and modesty in the performance of the works of Gods service which beseems actions of that nature Field Vbi supra and such Rites as may cause respect unto the things performed and thereby excite men to greater devotion or express such spiritual affections and motions as are or should be in them but the pretended order and course of the Apologists is of a far different kind and nature 3. The ancient church held not forth that manner and degrees of pennance as a Divine Institution nor necessarily implicating the conscience but as an act of Discipline of a medious and indifferent nature when abstracted from their positive Constitution and therefore it was transitory in respect of time and ambulatory in regard of place not alwayes nor every where observed But as their Discipline hath no Ecclesiastical Constitution like a great sum to obtain its freedom in the Church so they pretend it was free born and is of divine not humane Establishment and therefore they prevaricate and betray their Cause when they compare it to that Model of Discipline for the Paeniten's and do interpretatively and virtually acknowledge it hath only a like foundation with that which also they confess had no particular warrant from the Scripture save this general rule of doing things in order and decency which was no special or immediate command for the same but only a Praecept That the Church should do what seemed orderly and decent and in this very particular what seemed so in one age and place did not in another 4. There is yet a greater difference between their Discipline and that of the old Paenitents this being only in a thing not specially determined by Scripture and theirs is against what the Scripture hath determined as we conceave we have sufficiently evidenced They have now distilled the Spirits of this Argument into a Syllogisme and we must tast the strength thereof Where is no due order in Sacramental Administrations there Gods Will is not observed but where all are admitted there is no Order Ergo. If we grant the whole we part with nothing nor get they any thing we shall only make them a Magicians Feast which costs noâ—hing to prepare nor will any way strengthen them to take for where are all admitted de facto infants madmen excommunicate c. or who saith all are to be so de jurâ— It is only Church-members who have a Dogmatical Faith which have neither torn the Evidence of their Title by being cut off nor bloted it by any such scandal as merits cutting off whose admission we plead for The Minor and their Arguments are all minors they prove Where there is mixture and confusion of good and bad fit and unfit there is no Order but where all are admitted is this mixture They do not well see what can be denied here and least we should disparage their eye-sight we shall deny nothing thereof but they may put all their gain in their eyes according to the proverb but least as bad eyes infect one the other so some others also be like Tychonius of whom Augustine speaks Statim quippe amore sententiae suae contra veritatem oculum claufit and may seem to see this Argument to be unanswerable also as it looks with an opposite aspect and adverse influence upon our Thesis and that to admit all in that qualified and restrained sense is in consistent also with order and comliness therefore to undeceive them advertant ea quae oculos etiam caecos seriant intueantur â— Let them borrow the same Proposition and advance it to a Major Where there is mixture and confusion of good bad there is no order and then yoak it with a Minor where the subject onely is changed and render it thus Where all are admitted to Church-membership to the Word and Prayer there is such mixture c. And then see what a conclusion it wil draw after it and if they be not now as mute as a Fish but have any piece of answer found in their mouthes let them give it for me and them Let them remind what we have often mentioned out of Augustine Mixtus reis obnoxiis nifi per conscientiae maculatam consensionem nullus recte dici potest and that bonus malis nullo modo misceripotest so as then first here can be no mixture of good and bad Thirdly men may be said to be bad and unfit simply and absolutely or respectively according to their sense and construction if simply and absolutely such as are guilty of grosse palpable ignorance of the very principles of the faith or of notorious crimes scandals obstinately persisted in though we should grant them their conclusion we yeeld nothing of the cause but if they understand all those to be bad and unfit who though Church-members and Dogmaticall believers have not approved by tryall their sound knowledge and sincere holinesse unto them we shall deny what they have not proved and we have now had proof that they cannot prove hat such are bad or unfit or that where all in this accommodate sense are admitted there is no order all such are relatively though not really holy and fit and many of those to whom they give admission are not really worthy If they are worthy to partake of the prayers Quoted before they are not unworthy to communicate of the Sâ—crament in the judgment of Chrysostom And if they are not unworthy saith Chamier of the peace of the Church they are not unworthy of the Sacrament and if worthy to be reckoned to be of the body of Christ â—hat is members of his Church thâ—y are not unworthy to feed on him Besides although simply the casting out or non-admission of persons criminous may be consonant to order yet respâ—ctively to the procuring or conserving a greater good or avoiding a more mischievous evill it may not be orderly Although we may not doe evill that good may ensue yet we may and must passe over or omit a lâ—sser good to acquire a greater And since malus bonum vehementiùs excitat movet impellit voluntatem therefore regularly non potest voluntas inserius bonum eligere quia electio non est nisi ex consultatione rationis consultatio vero non fit