which are incident to any one man also to avoid tyranny which becomes no Christian least of all Church men besides it will be a means to take away that odium and burden of affairs that may lye too heavy on one mans shoulders as he thought it did formerly on the Bishops here VVe judge the Episcopal or Pastoral Office to be a personal trust not to be discharged by delegation to others and especially that it cannot be deputed to them that are not Bishops or Pastors and that secular persons cannot administer that power which intrinsecally belongs to Spiritual Officers And we cannot justifie any Ecclesiastical Government in a stated bereaving of the Pastors of particular Churches of that power that is essential to their office and in a stated hindering of the effectual exercise of Church Discipline 8. We detest all manner of Sacriledge and we think we are as willing as any others that it should be noted and reproved and that one kind thereof the unjust alienation of Lands and Goods devoted to the Church's use for the support of Gods service we utterly condemn But there are those that think they can never enough inveigh against this kind yet fear not to commit the same sin in other instances which are not less abominable as the Sacriledge of Pluralists Non-residents and all negligent and insufficient Ministers who devour that which is Holy taking the Ministerial benefice and not performing the service And to alienate persons and gifts that have beensolemnly consecrated to God we take to be real Sacriledge 9. We are as willing as any others to take notice of the heinous sin of Schism But we earnestly desire many that cry out against Schismaticks more impartially to consider the nature of this sin and to hate it in its full extent We know the necessity and excellency of Christian Unity and Concord and the deformity and misery of division and earnestly pray that Christian Charity might be so conspicuous that all may know that we are Christ's Disciples by our loving one another We are for building the Church's Unity upon its only adequate Foundation which is Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever and in vain do any hope to build it upon a narrower Foundation We are against the devising of new Articles of Faith and new parts of Religion and the inforcing of Oaths and Subscriptions to the same We require subscription or ingagement to no more than the Holy Bible and if any swerve from the truth in wicked error or practice let them be tryed and judged by that unalterable Law which themselves have assented to And we think this the surest way to preserve the Christian Church in soundness of Doctrine integrity of Life and Holy Peace But if the setting forth of a publick confession of Faith or Articles of Religion be insisted on we allow it as a rule to Preachers who may be punishable if they preach contrary Doctrine though they be not inforced to subscribe to every Tittle Moreover we hold not our selves obliged to forsake a true Church as no Church for the corruptions and disorders found therein or to separate from its worship for the tolerable faults thereof while our personal profession of some error or practice of some evil is not required as the terms of our Communion How be it we are not so indifferent in this matter as to make no difference between Churches and Pastors The more pure and powerfull administration of God's Ordinances is to be preferred before that which is more faulty and less effectual And here again we acknowledge that in this preferrence due caution must be used VVe must not respect our own particular benefit before publick peace and order and the general good 10. VVe believe that the power of civil Magistrates is God's Ordinance necessary for the Government of the world that their whole authority is derived from him and subordinate to him the only universal and unlimited Sovereign Lord That God's Glory and the Eternal Salvation of men are higher and nobler ends of their authority than temporal prosperity and peace that all their decrees and executions should chiefly refer to these ends and that in their way they are charged with the Souls of men under their jurisdiction VVe acknowledge that Supreme Magistrates have a civil supremacy in all ecclesiastical matters and a political Episcopacy over the Pastors of the Church in their sacred administrations and may compell them to the performance of their duty and punish them for their negligence or mal-administration that they may call Synods and make Canons and warrantably thus reform the Church when it stands in need of Reformation Accordingly we acknowledge the Kings Supremacy in all causes and over all persons Civil and Ecclesiastical in these his Majesties Realms and Dominions Moreover we believe that the higher powers are not to be mere Executioners of the judgments of Ecclesiasticks but that they may and must be Judges thereof themselves in order to their own execution That their great and proper work about Religion is to incourage and inforce obedience to the Divine Laws and in subserviency thereunto to determine such things circa sacra as are requisite in general but in the particulars are left undetermined of God Likewise that by moderate penalties they may restrain persons of impious Principles as Atheists Infidels Hereticks from venting their wicked errors and from any open impious practice and that they may constrain men to use such means as God hath made Universally necessary to bring the ignorant to knowledge but not to profess either in word or deed what they believe not or to take that which God hath made the special priviledge of believers Lastly Their imperial Government in Religion should be mixed with a paternal clemency and tenderness according to the meekness of Christ whose Servants they are not only as Christians but as Magistrates 13. It is our Principle that Humane Laws bind the Conscience or to speak more properly the subjects in point of Conscience not by a primary obligation as the laws of God do but by a secundary and subordinate as from a power derived from God As it is an evident and important truth that Inferiors ought to obey their Superiors for Conscience sake so it is as evident and important that when Mens commands contradict the commands of God it is God and not man that must have the preeminence in our obedience VVith us it is no controversie whether the King or Conscience be the Supreme Governour It is the Magistrate only that enacts publike laws and hath the publike decisive judgment whether according to his Laws we are justifiable or condemnable As for Conscience it is no Governour at all but only a discerner of our duty and an internal witness for us or against us according to our practice and consequently it is concerned to know the will of God and whether the commands of men be consentaneous or contrary thereunto which men call
An Account given of the Principles Practises Of Several NONCONFORMISTS Wherein it Appears that their Religion is no other than what is Profest in the Church of England In Vindication of themselves and others of their perswasion against the misrepresentation made of them And in hearty desire of Unity in the Church and of peace and concord among all true Protestants for the strengthening of their Common Interest in this time of their common Danger Written by Mr. John Corbet late of Chichester and approved by many other Nonconformists LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and 3 Crowns near Mercers Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside 1682. To the Reader REaders Least you should think that the agreement of all here written in sense and very much in words with what I have Published doth signifie that it is not wholly the Authors work but any of it mine I do truly acquaint you that he never so much as acquainted me with his writing it nor did I read it all before I gave it to the Printer nor did I alter adde or diminish one word in all the book But as we were of one Mind and Heart our agreement is no wonder And his widow the daughter of the famous Dr. Twisse assureth me that several eminent Nonconforming Divines saw it and approved it as I doubt not but most others will do when they have seriously perused it But alas I that have known these twenty years what other designes have been in some mens heads inconsistent with all such indeavours for our Concord and how powerful those men have been who profess that there is no way of Concord and avoiding Schisme but by obeying the Governing Universal Church which hath the power of Universal Legislation and Judgement which is a Forreign Jurisdiction I say I that know this must needs know how little more than the satisfying of our Consciences such pacificatory endeavours as these do signifie But as my dear Brother dyed in the comfort of Christs judgment Blessed are the Peacemakers the rest of us wait in hope so to dye Richard Baxter Feb. 10. 1681. Several Tracts not yet Printed prepared for the Press and left under Mr. John Corbett's own handting intended shortly to be Published are as follows 1. THE true State of the Ancient Episcopacy 2. The present Ecclesiastical Government compared with the Ancient Episcopacy 3. A Consideration of the present State of Conformity in the Church of England 4. A Discourse of the Church and of the Ministry thereof 5. A Tract of Certainty and Infallibility 6. Of Divine Worship in three parts 1. Of the Nature Kinds Parts and Adjuncts of Divine Worship 2. Of Idolatry 3. Of Superstition less than Idolatry 7. His Humble Representation of his Case touching the Exercise of his Ministry 8. Discourses between Dr. Gunning late Bishop of Chichester and himself wherein are several Humble Defences made both as to his Principles and Practice 9. An humble endeavour of some plain and brief Explication of the Decrees and Operations of God about the free Actions of Men. More especially of the Operations of Divine Grace 10. Matrimonial Purity An Account given by some deprived Ministers of their judgement and practice c. THE manifold reproaches heaped upon the Nonconformists among whom it is our lot to be numbred have filled the whole Nation Our Religion hath been represented as a mixture of folly and villany our principles and tempers as turbulent seditious and utterly inconsistent with the peace of Church or State and our pretences as frivolous and often baffled Our Governours have been admonished to beware of us as their worst and most dangerous enemies and excited to use the utmost severities against us Hereupon it behoves us to humble our selves in the sight of the Lord and to implore his mercy and to bear his just rebukes in the unjust reproaches cast upon us by men also to suffer these indignities with Christian patience and to shew our selves reconcilable to those who have been so adverse to us and to endeavour peace and concord with them if it be possible many of whom we suppose to have been acted in this matter with an undissembled zeal though not regulated by sound knowledge or due charity but hurried with unreasonable prejudice and passion We hold it also our duty not to neglect our own necessary vindication but in honest simplicity to make known to all what principals and practices we own and stand to Though we are taught and encouraged to labour and suffer reproach and to reckon it a very small thing to be judged by man's judgment yet we are bound to vindicate our innocence for the truths sake and out of charity towards all men to provide what in us lies that none may take an occasion of stumbling in us And here it shall suffice us only to make a true representation of our selves having this confidence that the bare stating of our case will be our sufficient defence 1. In the first place we declare that with us the kingdom of God is not Conformity or Nonconformity as such but Christianity or real Godliness which is most summarily comprized in the baptismal Covenant of Grace and more explicitely yet briefly in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decaloge and at large and most perfectly in the Holy Bible A religiousness made up of little opinions and modes and phrases and sidings with this or the other party is none of ours though we are injuriously personated in some late writings to act such a part Faith hope and love is the essence of our Religion and with us differences in things not essential do not make different Religions VVe disdain our being of a party as such And though the godly be a peculiar people we confine not godliness to any peculiar way narrower than mere Christianity We make no Humane additions in Sacred things nor any mutable circumstances to be the terms of Christian Fellowship 2. Accordingly we seek not the advancement of any Sect or Party to the injury or neglect of the Universal Church or Christian cause or the common good And as we are no faction we know that Factiousness is not our Interest but turns to our greatest loss Our aims being Christian and Catholick we seek the increase of the visible Catholick Church or the whole Society of men professing true Christianity in order to the increase of the Church invisible or the Society of Regenerate Christians And to these ends we desire and most approve the primitive simplicity in Doctrine Worship and Discipline And herein we boast not as if we were the only men of the Primitive Christian Spirit but we answer them who have trampled upon us as an impertinent trifling Sect. 3. We heartily own the Protestant Reformation in Doctrine and particularly that of the Church of England contained in the Nine and Thirty Articles except those Two or Three that relate only to some of our present differences and not at all to the Doctrine of
the judgment of discretion If the Magistrates command be just the Subjects pretending against its lawfulness cannot justifie his disobedience and if the command be sinfull his judging it to be lawfull cannot excuse his doing of it from being sin It is the Subject's duty in these cases first to lay by his error and then to act according to truth and right and for that end to use the best means for his own true information Whereas some teach that when we doubt of the lawfulness of the thing enjoyned and are certain that obedience to authority is a duty we must do the thing VVe conceive that we cannot be certain of our obligation to obey in a case wherein we are not sure of the lawfulness of the thing commanded because we are sure we must not obey the Magistrates command in things unlawfull and our ignorance or error cannot alter our obligation to Gods Law Here is therefore an uncertainty on either side and perhaps the danger may be greater on the side of obeying than refusing For possibly the injunction of a heinous sin may be the matter of the uncertainty and in this streight we apprehend it more unsafe and less excusable to choose the greater before the lesser sin though indeed it be lawfull to choose neither VVe hold not that an indifferent thing becomes unlawfull by being commanded but on the contrary that a thing indifferent before the Magistrate's command doth after the command become a duty it being such as he hath authority to command Indeed we cannot receive the Dictates of some men who have written too daringly about Conscience in reference to Humane Powers VVe boast not of such Principles as make men of ductile Consciences obsequious to all designs and interests but we embrace such as will keep the Church and VVorld in order 14. VVhen the higher powers command what God forbids though we are bound not to perform it yet we must be subject and not resist but patiently submit to suffering The cause of Religion doth not warrant Subjects to take arms against their Lawfull Prince nor may they by armed violence against authority attempt the publique reformation thereof We hold that it is unlawfull by the constitution and laws of this Kingdom for any Subjects to take arms against the King his Office Authority or Person or by force of arms to resist any Magistrate or Officer legally Commissionated or Authorized by him yea Subjects are bound not only not to resist but to assist and defend their Sovereign with their Estates and Lives and the Preachers of the Gospel ought to teach the people obedience and loyalty and to indeavour to root out all Principles of Sedition Rebellion and Disobedience VVe believe that we are under no Bond or Obligation to act any thing contrary to these our avowed Principles And we further make known our detestation of all the indignity and violence offered to the person of our late Sovereign and especially that most horrid execrable fact of taking away his life as also the usurpations and violent change of the Government that did accompany the same against which crimes while they were carryed on the brethren of our perswasion openly protested even to the faces of the actors Touching Government and Obedience we know no controversie between us and the Conforming Clergy that is purely Moral or Theological Indeed there hath been political and law controversies respecting the different constitutions of States and Kingdoms Now some men to serve their own designs have made these to be taken for differences in Religion when as they are agitated among States-men and Lawyers without respect to any difference in Religion and with much variety and uncertainty of opinion And as for us we publiquely profess to ascribe as much to Princes and Sovereign powers as is ascribed to them by the ancient Christian Church in any general Councell or by any Protestant Church in any Synod or publike Confession thereof And in the political Questions about royal prerogatives and the priviledges of Parliaments and the peoples immunities we interpose not at all for they are out of our Sphere but in reference thereunto we acquiesce in the determinations of the laws of this Kingdom 15. VVe doubt not but this free and open dealing will be our defence against those licentious Tongues and Pens that have proclaimed the Religion of the Non-Conformists to be a Foolish Religion when indeed it is no other than the Religion professed by the Church of England and that our Principles of Government have a palpable inconsistence with the wellfare of Governours when we offer an appeal concerning it to the whole Christian Church both of the present and former ages As for our state of Nonconformity it is our grievance and distress and it is not in the power of our own wills to help us VVe affect not singularity disunity or dissent from others and so far as we are constrained to it we take it for our infelicity We grudg not at the liberty of others but are so far glad on the behalf of able and faithfull men as they are in a capacity of more publike service for God and his Church and though we are dissatisfied in the way wherein they have gained it yet we retain Charity and Peace towards them and are willing to concurr with them in the common interest of true Religion 16. They are much mistaken in our case who think it is the mere inexpedience of the things injoyned that we stick at VVe question the truth of some assertions and the lawfullness of some ordinances of worship and fear the dangerous tendency of some forms and rules of Ministration of which and of other matters in difference we are ready to render a particular account when authority shall require it VVe acknowledge that some parts of the matter of our dissent are comparatively small things and in no wise to be valued more than Unity and Peace VVe lay the main stress on the main truths and duties of Christianity and for these lesser things we would bear with others in the belief and practice of them but others will not bear with us in forbearing to own or use them while we think them erroneous and forbidden or at least do rationally doubt of their truth and lawfullness Now this presseth upon us that we may not do lesser evils that greater good may come and therefore we cannot do these comparatively little things For it is not a little thing to sin deliberately in the least matter and the willfull breach of the least of God's Commandments is a contempt of his authority in the whole Law And whereas we are commonly said to strain at Gnats and swallow Camels if we be indeed convicted of such partiality let us bear this brand of Hypocrites In the mean while let our accusers know and dread the guilt of rash judgment Moreover if some of the things themselves be small yet it is not a small thing that is required of us about them
namely a declaration and subscription of our unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in large Humane Volumes imposed by our Superiors who acknowledge they are not infallible VVe have not so much as our internal judgment and choice left to us about a multitude of humane ordinances and determinations Our peaceable bearing and holding Communion with them that practice these things yea our quiet submission to the use thereof as tolerable sufficeth not as we apprehend it but there must be also an hearty and intire approbation thereof as laudable Had we sufficient authoritative warrant to believe that these recognitions import no more than our peaceable behaviour toward the Church as some have intimated we would as readily subscribe the same as they But we do not think it safe to proceed upon the presumption of such a meaning as hath no better warrant and we dread to profess the approbation of the things we disallow Furthermore though in some regard we are more concerned about the controverted opinions forms and ceremonies to wit as they are bound upon all Conformists to be personally owned and used by them to which we may add the inforcing of Reordination which is a bar set to many of our number yet there are other things wherein the state of Religion is as much or more concerned It is hard for us so to bind our selves under all the present orders and customs in the Ecclesiastical Polity and its management as to ingage against all necessary reformation VVe are sensible how much the good of the Church that is the increase of true Godliness lyes in the due exercise of Discipline and we are very tender of setting any bar against it by our own act 17. But least by this intimation we may be thought to intend what indeed we do not we declare that we will not indeavour any alteration of the Government in Church or State as it is in the King whose Civil and Ecclesiastical Supremacy we have before acknowledged nor the alteration of the true Episcopal Office which Christ hath setled in his Church nor will we indeavour any alteration in the Church by any seditious or unlawfull means but only by Prayer to God by humbly Petitioning our Superiors or obeying the King if he command it or such like lawfull means as belong to us in our places and callings 18. We affect not Church-domination howsoever we have been reported to grasp at power in our own way as much as others do in theirs we only desire a liberty of discharging our duty to the Congregations to which we are sent VVe would exercise Discipline toward such only as voluntarily submit thereunto VVe would have no coercive power annexed unto it nor temporal penalties immediately consequent to any Spiritual sentence VVe utterly disclaim this opinion that when the Clergy hath Excommunicated any man the Magistrate is bound in Conscience to confiscate banish or otherwise punish meerly upon their sentence without hearing or trying the cause by his laws at his own bar We look upon Church Tyranny as the great calamity of Christendom and would by no means have a hand in its advancement under any form of Government whatsoever Having read in History by what steps the Roman Clergy overtop'd Princes and Emperors we can in no wise promote the twisting of Clergy domination by oaths and other publique ingagements into the frames of secular Kingdoms and that in precedency to the civil power 19. All the reasons of our Non-conformity cannot be here expected by any that know upon what terms we stand We make it our humble and earnest supplication to our Superiors that by their favourable permission we might have leave to write and publish more largely and particularly both touching our dissents and in answer to the accusations made against us For such a defence as we now ask leave to make hath hitherto been for born to avoid the displeasure of our Governors 20. It is easie for that side which is uppermost to speak for their own way that as much hath been written as may satisfie any that have a mind to be satisfied But they should remember the common infirmity of Mankind and what strange disparity there is in Mens understandings and what diversity of apprehensions especially in matters of doubtfull disputation VVe profess in his sight who knows our hearts that we have a mind to be satisfied if we knew how And there is rational evidence for the truth of what we speak for that our dissatisfaction must needs be against our interest if it were remediable Any conscientious Principles narrower than the truth entangle those that are governed by them and our Principles of Non-conformity if erroneous are a great snare unto us and keep us under such confinement as is no way desireable by us And therefore if we might be free we would use it rather and willingly retract that error that puts us to so much trouble And surely they judge too hardly of us that think the supposed shame of a retractation would keep us from embracing our own liberty and safety and promoting the Churches Peace and Unity If our Consciences were well secured we would trust God with our reputation To those that speak of our baffled cause and charge us with invincible obstinacy after shamefull overthrows we shall not now mention such Books of special note and not tediously voluminous as were written on our side in former times by men of reputation that were never answered we shall only mind them to consider what answer hath been made to some later Published writings on our part as the Petition for Peace with the Reformation of the Liturgy and the last reply made to the Bishops by the Divines Commissioned together with them for the review of the Common Prayer though the matter and season earnestly called for it For they were presented to the Bishops before the act of Uniformity came forth while the things for which we suffer were under publike consultation 21. Our dissents can be no just provocation to any Our equals that differ from us are upon this account no more reproached in us than we in them and we can no more be thought to reflect an imputation of evil on them than they on us Towards our Superiors our dissent carryes in it no more indignity than a supposition that they may err And we agree with them in so much as the wisdom of God hath made necessary to Christian concord 22. His Majesty expressed his resolution to become the effectual moderator of our differences and graciously accepted the proposals made by some of us with acknowledgment of their moderation This he hath largely made known in his declaration concerning Ecclesiastical affairs wherein he gives this Testimony to the Ministers of the Presbyterian perswasion that attended on him in Holland To our great satisfaction and comfort we found them persons full of affection to us and of zeal to the Peace of Church and State and neither