Worship contra-distinct to the Parochial Congregations Leaving the Adviser to his own Vindication I will only take occasion here to note out some of the passionate Exclamations and scornful Vilifications of the Answerer that we may see at one view how able he is at this sort of Rhetorick ' O the Confidence of this Adviser in his own Vnderstanding This is one of the modester Sort. Such silly and confident Reasonings as this Author useth That we had before Alas poor England whose Teachers talk confidently at this rate Alas for the People that cannot try Sence from Nonsence with what Stuff will such Men carry them away Some Men can triumph in such Reasonings for themselves as would make another sick to read them ' He will bring us into Vtopia Morus invented it And again If we must follow you into Vtopia or Moria Here is a childish Clench and somewhat else 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 5.22 Such Confidence upon such insignificant Reasonings is a great dishonour to the Wit and Humility of the Author His next Section is as meer delusion as any of the rest ' What doth this Man but talk confusedly Look up Man without Blushing Sir villify not the Wits of those Clergy-Men that chiefly contributed to our Honour their Vnderstandings more His pitiful Objection is but a contemptible sporting of himself at the Game he is best skill'd at objecting nothing that he may seem to answer it with something ' O for Modesty With full Sail of Self-conceitedness he next comes upon us His next hath no bounds and grieveth me to read it O Posterity how will you know what to believe He addeth old Speeches against Toleration wherein we lament his want of common Sence or Modesty c. What a Fountain of Virulency is there within which sends forth so many Streams of contemptuous and provoking Language against a learned charitable moderate meek and ingenuous Writer Is the exercising of a Worship and Discipline more agreeable to God's Word than yours we are ready to give you the Proof when we have leave no reason Had we had leave to have confuted the silly Reasonings of Mr. Fulwood and some other such Pamphleteers produced against the N.C. we had long ago shew'd you Cause to repress such Self-esteem He knoweth that we must not give him our Reasons against Conformity He cannot but know that many that conform not in all the Matters of Subscriptions Declarations Oaths Discipline c. not meddling with other Mens Consciences do think it would be in them a Compositiâ—n of such hainous Crimes as they forbear to name them for fear of seeming to be accusers of others and to be unpeaceable And if he think that such Toyes as Mr Fulwood Mr Stilemans and Mr Hinkleys c. should satisfy them he thinks Contemptibly of their understandings And he that upon such poor Temptations as these will yield to what their Consciences fear can scarse tell what he may yield to before he dyeth Let him procure us Leave but to publish our Reasons against Conformity and then let him tell us that we were better Conform when he hath Answer'd them It is easy to talk when none must Confute him and to brave it out against one whose Tongue is tyed Again The Love of Peace and the fear of frighting any further from Parish-Communion than I desire do oblige me to forbear so much as to describe or name the additional Conformity and that Sin which N. C. fear and flie from which maketh it harder for us that desire it to draw many good People to Communion with Conformists than it was of Old But when both Law and Love of Peace and Concord forbid us so much as to name the causes it is disingenuous for the Culpable to take that advantage against us and to force us to do that which they themselves cannot bear Good man How scrupulous and carefull he is to do nothing without Leave Not to Print a Book without a Licence or Imprimatur from Authority How he fears and trembles to be an accuser of the Conformists or frighten others from their Communion or seem unpeaceable How powerful is the sence of the Law and the love of Concord in him so that he dare not so much as name the Composition of those hainous Crimes which the N. C. Conscience dreads in the point of Conformity And yet notwithstanding this profession of Tenderness and Conscience and civility in the case we have them over and over named and pointed to It is no less as we heard before than 1 Horrid Sacriledge 2 Perfidious Covenant-breaking 3 Disobedience to God 4 Cruelty to Souls and 5 Vnthankfulness for great Mercies if any of us shall desert our undertaken offices And again elss where What if a tolerated Presbyterian should read the Common Prayer in his Church and use all your Ceremonies though he fear Perjury and Lying and Violating his Baptismal Vow Have we not here enough of that Composition of Crimes which you N. C. fear But if there be not you suppose us in another place to know well enough without your telling We confess that we do not actually obey the Civil unquestionable Power in every particular about God's Worship which hath been commanded us I need not tell you why O but the Additional Conformity that you dread so much as to point at What then is the meaning of ' Doctrinal Corruptions p. 15. and ' The New Doctrine about Infants brought into the New Rubrick p 45. I appeal to the Masters of Ingenuity whether this be not the worst and most emphatical way of hinting and exposing to the People when you pretend a thing so Enormous that you fear the very naming of it But then what must we say of this after you have named it over and over after your Reasons publiquely given in your Due Account as you call it to the Kings most Excellent Majesty 1661. After the Survey of the Grand Case of the present Ministry 1663 After many Other unlicensed Pamphlets and Sermons This Sir is Vnpardonable Yet we cannot blame your Policy who would be thought still to have somewhat more to say for your selves than hath hitherto been offered This we are sufficiently assured of that No man heartily reconciled to the Antient Establishments of the Church of England since the Reformation would boggle as you do at the present Conformity there being Nothing new required but what was wholly occasion'd by the insincerity of some in their former Conformities and the villany of others in Covenanting against and casting down the former Establishments And let me freely tell you Sir what you have said your self sometime to other Separatists Read but the writings against the Separatists of those times and you may learn that our Light is not greater but less than theirs and that we see not farther into that cause than they did and the
no more bound to their opinion than yours He differs from many of them as well as us ' In several Doctrines of moment as himself hath told the World He is for a Church in the Idea and Notion like to Plato's famed Common-wealth and can hardly subscribe to any form of Ecclesiastical polity which obtains actually in Christendom In a word He is as Dr. Abraham Clifford sometimes said in Discourse of him being press'd with his judgment Suae potestatis Litera So that others deal by him just as he by them accounting themselves no more bound to his opinion than he to theirs And yet none so ready to speak in the Name of N. C. as he When you say that a Toleration may reduce the common sort to an indifferency in Religion I Answer get your friends together then that have brought it to that pass that it must be thus or worse and bring them to weep over their Sins before God that if a miserable Nation may not be saved from the Fire that you have kindled your Souls yet if possible may be saved That clause ' it must be so or worse Sounds like a threatning and takes so much from the Grace and Clemencie of the Rings Toleration as it adds to the necessity of it with reflection upon which it may be he before phrased it so warily ' When his Majesty's Prudence and Clemencie giveth us liberty to Preach But I observe here the Necessity of a Toleration or somewhat worse is charg'd wholly upon the Establishments and those Establishments are made the Sins of the Conforming party who he saith have kindled the Fire in this miserable Nation and the possibility of whose salvation is to be questioned O the meek and humble Mr. Baxter It is our Divisions that will let in Popery No doubt of it if it ever be done Come and speedily debate the case with us who have been the great causes of Protestants division Conformists or Non-Conformists But I am asham'd to say that it needeth a debate That is 'T is as clear as the Sun shines that the Conformists and not the N. C. have been the great causes of Protestants Divisions Those who obediently kept Close to the Laws of Order and Vniformity and not they who first opposed those Laws and then divided from their Brethren and among themselves He would say as much 't is like were he to determin the Case of our Civil Wars on whose side the Rebellion and Injustice lay The Cavaliers and Conformists must bear the blame of all And yet it is worth our while to note how he else-where seems to contradict himself or afford at least ground enough to evince that he needed not to have blush'd for saying ' that it needeth a debate Nothing saith he hath more plagued the Church than the Pride and arrogancy of some of the Pastors that think they are wrong'd if they may not rule Think not that this Spirit is only in Papists or Diocesans Pride is the heart of the Old man and born in all and doleful experience telleth how it surviveth in too many Anti-prelatical Ministers of humbling Principles and unhumbled Souls Do we not know that the Pride of some among our selves N.C. sure enough that must be all and do all till they have undone all is the very thing that hath silenced so many Ministers and brought us to the state that we are now in Magna est veritas et praevalebit They are Non-Conformists again of whom he saith in another place The Ministers that have bred and cherished these Principles viz the unlawfulness of prescribed Forms of Prayer of Repetitions of Responses of standing up at the Creed and all the Hymns of Praise c. ' Have been our subverters and are our shame To Them again he speaks yet farther after This fashion Wo to those few Teachers that make up their designs by cherishing these Distempers One would think that their warning had been fair But si nati sint ad bis perdendum Angliam The Lord have mercy on us 'T is easie Latin Yet I will English it here for the People's sake ' If they are born to destroy England twice And then the supposition is plain that they have destroy'd it once allready I prescribe to no man and Toleration so far taketh off publique impositions as that none can now say this Form is imposed on me and therefore unlawful But though I will not bind my self pray have a care of that I here tell the World that if my strength and Toleration and a call should ever more give me opportunity for the freer exercise of mine Office I would sometimes pray freely without Forms and sometimes use some part of the Common Liturgie and sometimes use the Reformed Liturgie which in 1660 was agreed on by the commissioned Non Confirmists who yet had no Commission to make a new Liturgie though being done in extreme haste it should be renewed and perfected a Liturgie and no Liturgie Reform'd and needing Reformation I would ordinarily pronounce the Creed as the Faith which the Church assembleth in the Profession of And ordinarily recite the Lords Prayer and Decalogue and read two Chapters and the Psalms And they that would not joyn in This way of Worship should freely go chuse them a Teacher more agreeable to their opinions for I would not serve the humours of any in their dividing Errors 'T is enough for him that he hath his own Let every one else do what is good in their own Eyes also Here we have at large the Lively Portraiture of the most conformable Non-Conformist drawn by himself as to his Worshipping postures The View of whom notwithstanding the powerful bias of his phantastic and affected singularity may satisfie our people how well they are provided already in the substantials of their publique Devotion We have seen the Man Now see his address by way of Humble Petition as he calls it to the Conformist Fathers and Brethren though I presume to Counsel the N. C. as my Equals I will will presume no higher with you than to lay my self at your feet and humbly a second time to become your Petitioner for the Souls of men for the Gospel the Church and the Interest of Christ And a man might hope that one that should become a Petitioner to you that your selves would not destroy that Church might find acceptance and prevail Truly to deny so just and reasonable a Petition as this is That the Fathers of the Church would not themselves destroy the Church and that to a man humbly prostrating himself at their Feet and earnestly begging of it at their hands for Godâ—s sake for the Gospel's sake in meer Compassion to the Souls of men and for the pure interest of Christ without any self ends at all in it must needs reflect upon them as persons of whom the worst that can be imagined is too good
Change of times doth not change the Truth nor will warrant us to change our Religion He that saith our Preaching is Evil may tempt men to think that the Gospel which we Preach is Evil or that Infidelity Atheism Sensuality and Wickedness which we preach against is good or harmless If you turn to them that Calumniate us of Preaching Error or Sedition the Law is open Our Writings and Doctrine are easily tryed If we say Evil bear Witness of the Evil. Blame us not then for using upon occasion this Liberty and Freedom which you invite us to and stand in some need of whilst you remain so securely Confident of your own Innocencies Too much Evil hath been said and Printed And some Witness hath been born of it too in the Rebels Plea the Evangelium Armatum the Bishop of Worcesters Letter c. And somewhat is added farther for the satisfaction of your desires here in these Reflections which I have not yet done with The Presbyterians distinguish between a Parish-Church that imposeth nothing on the Ministers or people that God forbids and one that doth And between a Parish-Church that is reformable in that which notoriously needeth Reformation and one that Solemnly covenanteth against Reformation The intimation here is that our Parish-Churches impose on the Ministers or People what God forbids and do solemnly Covenant against Reformation even in that which notoriously needeth it And this he often glanceth at For my self I have long been of Opinion which one day you will pardon that Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution Proud contending who shall be greatest and Covenanting never in certain points to obey Christ against the World and the Flesh is not the way of God And again speaking to some of the Conformists whom he calls Godly and sober Plain dealing is not the Sign of Enmity but Love I must tell you that we cannot but think that you need Repentance Great Repentance for Sinning more and that by Publique Deliberate chosen Covenanted ministerial Sin Protesting against Repentance This is plain enough and the Charge high and home Covenanting Solemnly Covenanting against Reformation and that not for a time only but for ever nor in some one thing but several ' Never in certain points to obey Christ against the World and Flesh and this Ministerially Publiquely Deliberately upon Choice and this besides other horrid Sins of Perjury Perfideousness Persecution and Proud contending who shall be greatest adding that unto all which makes them most unpardonable ' Protesting against Repentance There had need be good proof giv'n of this Accusation whereof yet none is offered or we must record the Accuser for a shameless Slanderer and admonish him in his own words to ' Repent of such Calumnies and not study to aggravate his fault by Excuses And after all this we must still believe that he loves us and spares us and is extremly loth to say what evil he knows by us unwilling to frighten others from our Parish-communions and loth to provoke us more then needs or to meddle with our Consciences Is not here a Compositian of hainous crimes sufficient enough to scare men from our Communion Is not here enough to brand us for a sort of the most flagitiously wicked wretches under Heaven For who can lay on greater loads of aggravation And that Preaching which can reconcile such Immoralities as these with the attributes of Godly and Sober dishonours Christianity and debauches the World He that is fallen under such Drunken Readers as I was bred under in my youth that were Drunk many times ofter then they Preached I am ready to prove it for they never Preached but were Drunk-oft This poor man and his Family must venture their Souls on this sottish Drunkards conduct because it is a True Church What a trick hath the Devil found to bind men to constancie in his service so it be done in a True Church Bating the spitefulness of the Reflection and subtilty of the Demonstration ' Many times oftner Drunk than they Preached for they never Preached The Church of England Sir hath better provided for all her Children in the necessaries to Salvation than to leave them barely to the private Discretion or conduct of the Best much less of sottish Drunkards And if any such there be it were a greater charity to the Publick to complain of them to those unto whom it belongs to admonish suspend and remove them than propagate idle stories as the manner is from hand to hand to the prejudice even of the innocent But as there are more ways of Preaching in a true sense than that which is vulgarly cried up for such so there are more ways also of being drunk than those two common ones by Wine and strong Drink Isa 29.9 We could easily tell you of Men drunk with Passion and Self-conceit and Error and a Spirit of Giddiness Mr. B. can tell you at another time That certainly Pride is a greater Sin than Whoredom or Drunkenness c. And Dr. Pierce hath formerly recommended this useful Remark to your Consideration Many are no Drunkards who are yet more scandalous than if they were The Devil himself is no Drunkard but he is proud and envious and hypocritical rebellious sacrilegious and many other ways worse than a common Drunkard His frequenting the Church and transforming himself into an Angel of Light appearing like a Saint and putting on Godliness for a Disguise doth make him much more scandalous in the true importance of the word than he could possibly be if he could be drunk And altho a Drunkard is so detestable a thing as not to deserve a Toleration in the meanest of the People much less Impunity or Connivance in any Priest yet I would not have him punished more for his Judgment than his Life as I can prove many have been because a Drunkard may be Orthodox and a dry Man may be an Heretick a Drunkard may be loyal to God's Anointed whilst one who never was drunk may be a Rebel Nor can I think it praise-worthy Ad Rempublicam perdendam aut Ecclesiam sobrium accedere Tho we differ not at all from the Doctrine of the Church of England till the new Doctrine about Infants was brought into the new Rubrick yet it is not in minutioribus that we differ from the Conformists Gather from it what you can God knoweth we think the Matters in difference very far from things indifferent We differ not at all from the Doctrine of the Church of England What not at all from Artic. XX where it is declared That the Church hath Power to decree Rites and Ceremonies Not at all from Artic. XXXIII where it is declared That that Person who by open Denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the Vnity of the Church and excommunicated ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the Faithful as an Heathen and Publican until he be openly reconciled by Penance