Conscience should be pretended when the question is whether to turn Christian or not Is it possible that there should be such a doubt in that point that a man to whom the Reason why he ought to be a Christian is sufficiently proposed can be said to be under a light that convinceth him not Which if it be true then is there nothing in Christianity which there is not a sufficient light to convict that man of to whose Office it belongs Otherwise it could not being to his Office not being able to discern the Obligation of it It is therefore a horrible reproach to Christianity to say that any doubting Conscience is not under a light sufficient to resolve it Scruples of Conscience there may be which may eternally have recourse and that no disparagement to the Faith Because the Faith provides a Resolution that they who have scruples in Conscience are bound in Conscience to lay them aside Nay to act positively against them But he that says that being a Christian he is not under a light sufficient to clear him in any doubt of Conscience says that the Faith obligeth him to sin Whereas it is not the Faith but the want of it which obligeth not the erring Conscience to sin but intangleth him so that he must sin if the obligation of acting fall out before the errour be removed Suppose the Jews convict by the Epistle to the Romans that Salvation comes only by Faith and not by the Law also And you suppose them under a light that neither the Law nor any Ordinance then standing by virtue of the Law could oblige But suppose them in love with themselves and with their Ancestors and to have such an Opinion of Salvation intailed upon them and their issue by the Law as to think that they could not have it by God that gave the Law if the Gentiles might have it as well as themselves and they might very well for consequence of Reason though very ill for their own account oversee the light they were under Suppose we now those that make this Plea not to believe one Catholick Church and one Baptism for the remission of sins But had rather gratifie the Socinians and deny that any Christian can be obliged to any thing that appears not to his own Reason out of Canonical Scripture Then imagine he should gratifie the Papist if he should grant that Catholick Communion always made the Catholick Church Suppose them not to believe that the Faith which only saveth includeth Baptism in the Catholick Church And that this Church is not Reformed unless it be restored to the same form I say supposing them possest with such prejudices as these and marvel not to see them eternally doubting whether or no it be lawful for them to obey the Laws which this Church and Kingdom is able to make Nay to see them break out into Schism as all Parties now seem to do rather then obey them when they shall be out of hope to give their own Law to the Kingdom Never forecasting how it may appear to continue a Church when they have given such Laws to it CHAP. XIV That it is not Forbearance to allow their Orders I Suppose they who make this Plea will not grant that they are in any errour so near the Foundation as these which I name Nor do I think that those Christian Jews at Rome that doubted of transgressing the Law when they knew that Salvation comes only by Faith did deny the Foundation of Faith For as long as they lived in the Church they were in the way to learn and understand how both were true Neither will I say that any of those who desire Forbearance for the weak are in any errour destructive to the Foundation of Faith and the hope of Salvation till they break out into Conventicles When that is done I am thenceforth bound to charge them with all the Error which the Title of their Schism can signifie And therefore I charge them with Hypocrisie when they pretend to Forbearance because they are weak and yet break out into Conventieles when they do so then they can be counted no more the weak among Christians then those Jews which S. Paul will have to be forborn as the weak among Christians supposing them to have renounced the Faith afterwards rather then continue in the Church And therefore the Plea of weak Consciences cannot be allowed those that ingage in Conventicles They have cut themselves off from it by leaving the Church Let them return and then make the best of it As to them the Church is under a new Precept of S. Paul which says A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Knowing that such a one is out of the way and sinneth being condemned by himself Titus III. 10 11. Because saith S. Hierom after S. Cyprian Whereas other sinners are put out of the Church by those that manage the Keys of the Church Hereticks and Schismaticks put themselves out of the Church Therefore Titus that is all Titus his flock are to avoid them for Excommunicate persons who do Excommunicate themselves As for those that continue in the Church though with a pretense of giving such Laws to the Church as no man knows how soon they may unchurch it let them make their best of it But being grounded at least upon a pretense of weakness there can be no question made but some errour must be granted for the ground of this weakness Let themselves at their leisure assign what errour they will acknowledge if they like not that which I have assigned Only let them shew the world that is the Legislative Power of this Kingdom what errour it is that they have hitherto had which being avoided for the future all those difficulties will cease which this Discourse pretendeth cannot be met with but by bounding the Reformation within the Faith and the Laws of the Catholick Church In the mean time let me go on to shew that those who were Ordained in and for the late Schism composed by the Laws at his Majesties Return by Presbyters against their Bishops cannot claim by virtue of it to be owned for Presbyters Or in the terms of the Ancient Church to be received in their own Orders A thing which there can no question be made in by any body that understands what the Church or what a Schism signifies And it is marvel how they that would be thought to allow Episcopacy should question it To acknowledge the Authority of giving Orders in the Bishops according to the Laws by which we both maintain this Church to be Reformed and yet to allow those that are made Presbyters by those Bishops not to Ordain others but to Minister the Office of their Order according to the Reformation setled in this Church I say to allow them to Ordain others to Minister their Office by other Laws not only without but against the consent of the Bishops from whom they have their
blemish to the Church to receive them as they departed in company of their Leaders For their Salvation is provided for when the Bar is removed The experience of our Case makes this considerable At His Majesties Return it was inacted that such Usurpers as were possessed of dead Places should hold without inquiring whether Ordained or not Whereby it might seem to them that found no fault with their own Title that the Law of the Kingdom owned their Ordinations to be good But without cause For the Kingdom being then under that Force which was not as yet removed a thing manifest enough The Church not being yet restored the retaining of them which I am neither to justifie nor to blame was nothing but the induring of that Force upon Part rather then call in question the Whole But hereupon they that had got this colour for their Possession were not like to disowne that Ordination which the Law of the Land had seemed thus far to owne So the way was paved for the Schism on foot by refusing the Act of Uniformity when they were imployed without reconciling themselves to the Church by foregoing their Schism Some may think that I abate more then this for their sakes when I allow them Satisfaction by Conference yea and Laws to be changed for their satisfaction if just cause may appear But it is no more then I would allow Popish Recusants to justifie the Penalties that will be always necessary because they prefer the Authority of the See of Rome forbidding all Treaty of Religion without it before the common Christianity requiring Reformation in the Christianity of the Kingdom For do not they deserve those Penalties who refuse to assist their Country in a work so concerning the common Salvation upon just terms This I am sure supposing satisfaction there can be no difficulty in departing from Vsurped Ordinations and from the Schism grounded upon the same And therefore it is only the solemnity of Renouncing that is abated and the Irregularity that is pardoned And that by the example of the first Great Council in the Case of the Meletians And that because they renounce not the Catholick Church but acknowledge a National Church Which they cannot acknowledge upon due grounds but they must acknowledge the Catholick Church And therefore I say not the same of the Independents Who are Banded into a Profession destructive to it upon a Covenant For that Covenant is it that must be expresly and formally renounced before they can be capable of Communion with the Church And much more of Orders To grant them Communion otherwise is to make the Church guilty of their Schism which it alloweth And so to give Popish Recusants a just cause to refuse Communion with it As for other Sects of Antinomians Anabaptists and the like When any man knows upon what Grounds they Excommunicate themselves and how far they are Banded into Sects it will then be no difficult thing to say how they are to be Reconciled so as their Schisms and Heresies may be duely Renounced A thing which must be considered in those that were Presbyterians before they broke into Conventicles For since that came to pass who shall warrant that they have been guided by none but such as have Presbyterian Orders Or that they stand now to that Religion which the Rebellion once made Law to the Kingdom Which if they do not who shall warrant or how shall the Church be satisfied that they do depart from their Schisms with their Leaders And indeed the Independents though they be Banded into a Sect by a Covenant yet if once they be disbanded who shall answer for them that they will follow their Leaders And all this by virtue of the Sacriledge whereby they all betray the Authority of the Church and with it the Christian Faith to the Will of their People to debauch them into the same Schism with themselves Which if it be considered perhaps it will appear that the Forbearance which I have granted can for this reason extend no further then to the Persons of those that deserted their Churches rather then submit to the Act of Uniformity Nor shall it trouble me if my Opinion be found to come to no more For the Opinions of private persons are to content themselves with declaring what may be Leaving them that are concerned to judge what is But as for the way of Reconciling those which shall be converted to the Church in that the Apostolical Wisdom of the Primitive Catholick Church is of necessity to take place For Schism or Heresie being the Bar to the effect of Baptism which is the Gift of the Holy Ghost And the renouncing of it being the removing of that Bar It follows that all that shall return are to be reconciled by Confirmation as always they were reconciled to the Primitive Catholick Church This were easier done could it be presumed that all would follow their Leaders But if that cannot be presumed if they must be reconciled one by one yet is that no more than the work of an Episcopal Visitation from Parish to Parish A thing practised and usual in the Church after the building of Parish-Churches in the worst of those times in which the Canons which I have commended took place But now as for Quakers we are no more to reckon them among Christians then the Gnosticks and Manichees of Old then the Mahumetans at present For they do openly owne the Dictate of their own Spirits to be as much the Word of God as the Scriptures And that is as much as serves to create all such new Sects as acknowledging the Scriptures so far as they please introduce the pretenses of their own Revelations where they think fit For when the private Spirit is equalled with Gods Word the last Dictate as in mens last Wills must of necessity take place Only this difference That whereas Gnosticks Manichees Mahumetans followed or do follow their Leaders Spirit Quakers follow every one their own And therefore are the more contemptible and the more reducible whensoever a course shall be established Certainly did they see that they cannot be reconciled but as so many Renegades they would bethink themselves before they went on in their madness Especially did the Law set before them that this their Position is not reconcileable to Civil Trust Always obliging them to the most desperate Acts of Treason and violence to their Country that they can imagine their own Spirit to dictate Upon which account it cannot be beyond the merit of their madness that they are made servi poenae by Law as the Roman Laws call it That is that they are transported to work in the Plantations For they that take upon them to impose upon their Country that the Offices of common Civility are Acts of Idolatry What is not to be expected from their madness who as the Case is dare pretend that it ought to be Law to all Christians But since the Law is to provide for such People it is manifest that it is to provide that they may not fail of the trust which the Church and Kingdom enters into with those whom they receive to Communion but that they must fail of the Civil Trust of Subjects That is that their Testimonies be not receivable in Law that they be disabled to sue at Law that they be disabled to make Wills or to get by Wills or any thing else within the effect of Civil Trust And this must also be the Penalty of the Leviathan and all that have or may follow him either into Apostasie or Atheism For they who declare themselves at freedom to forswear the Christian Faith can never be held by any bond of Civil Trust It must also be the Penalty of all Sects that may relapse after they may have been reconciled At least in that Proportion which that part of the Faith which their respective Sect denieth holds to the whole Profession of Christianity which Apostacy and Atheism destroy at once For it may be a Question why the Kingdom should be counted a Christian Kingdom if the Laws of it set not some mark of Infamy or Disgrace upon the enemies of Christianity according to the Rate of their Enmity Which only the inforcing of Excommunication by the Laws can do FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by James Collins at the Kings-Head in Westminster-Hall A Blow at Modern Sadducism in some Philosophical Considerations about Witchcraft To which is added The Relation of the Famed Disturbance by the Drummer in the House of M. Mompesson With some Reflections on Drollery and Atheism Plus ultra or the Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the days of Aristotle Octavo A Loyal Tear drop'd on the Vault of our late Martyr'd Soveraign in an Anniversary Sermon on the day of his Murther Quarto All three by Jos Glanvill A. M. and Rector of Bath The Triumphs of Rome over Despised Protestancy Written by Bishop Hall Octavo A Sermon preached before the Peers Octob. 10. 1666. being the Fast-day for the late Fire By Seth Lord Bishop of Oxon. Quarto The Practice of Serious Godliness Affectionately recommended and directed in some Religious Counsels of a Pious Mother to her dear Daughters 12º A Discourse of Subterranean Treasure By a Member of the Royal Society 12º The General Assembly A Sermon by Francis Fullwood D. D. Quarto Forty Sermons by Anthony Farindon B. B. Fol. Rea's Flora Ceres Pomona Fol. Episcopacy Apostolical or a Consent of the Forreign Churches to the Discipline of the Church of England Written by Bishop Moreton and published with a long Preface by Henry Yelverton Baronet Octavo A Discourse of the Use of Reason in the Assairs of Religion against the present Opinions of the Sects of this Age. Quarto A Private Conference between a RICH ALDERMAN and a poor Country Vicar made publick wherein is discoursed the Obligation of Oaths which have been imposed on the Subjects of England with other matters relating to the present State of Affairs
the Church is no further Visible then it is Catholick ANd thus shall the Church become Visible according to the Will and Ordinance of God which being in decay by the malice of man though not Invisible yet must needs become hard to be seen at least to the purpose of Gods goodness For by the discourse premised it appears why it pleased God to provide that the true Church should be Catholick That is to say that when it was so easie to discern the True Church from all that pretended being indeed Hereticks or Schismaticks the simplest were left without excuse if they made a wrong choice Which if it be true how can it be in the Power of any Church or of the secular Powers that maintain it being bound to continue a Member of the whole Church to introduce that for Reformation which cannot appear to be restored but may seem to be innovated Which how should it be done without owning that ground of Reformation which I have delivered and by consequence those bounds which the said ground inferreth And I do very well believe that none of those who decline Conformity with the Church would have the Face to deny this had they to do with the now Missionaries of the Church of Rome For it would not serve their turn in answer to them to plead that the Pope is Antichrist and the Papists Idolaters having Reason to challenge that God hath founded a Visible Church It would be absolutely necessary to plead though the goodness of God hath instituted a Visible Church yet that by the malice of man it might be and is become Invisible for the difficulty of finding Salvation by it though absolutely Visible because Salvation might always be had in it It is easie for him that would answer them with a good Conscience for Truth and not for Victory to maintain the Church to be Visible so far as the Faith and the Laws thereof continue Visible But that so far as the Faith and Laws thereof may be disguised from that which was from the beginning so far it may and is to be said that the Church which by Gods Ordinance is and ought to be Visible by humane disorder is become Invisible Which being said it follows immediately that as all estates in the Church are obliged in their several qualities to do their utmost that the Church may be Visible the Salvation of all Christians requiring them to Resort to the Communion of the Church which they believe to be Catholick so there is no other way to make it Visible but to restore the Faith and the Laws of the Church that from the beginning made it Visible And therefore no Christian Church or State can have Power to Reform the Church any otherwise then by restoring that Faith and those Laws which the Church may appear to have had from the beginning It would be Sacriledge and Vsurpation upon the Faith which God hath built his Church upon and upon the Laws which either the Apostles have delivered to the Church or inabled the Church to deliver to posterity to introduce any thing else for the Reformation of the Church Which seeing it must needs bind over the Church and Kingdom to the wrath of God as either destructive or at least prejudicial to the Salvation of the People must needs bind over him that hath this opinion to the same if upon so just an occasion he should forbear to publish and to plead it as he may without offense And therefore I take leave to blame all those who declare in behalf of this Church that it departeth and separateth it self from the Church of Rome For seeing it hath been granted in and by this Church ever since the Reformation that there is and always was Salvation to be had in the Church of Rome as a true Church though corrupted I am very confident that no Church can separate from the Church of Rome but they must make themselves thereby Schismaticks before God though before the Church they cannot be condemned for such because the Church of Rome the Authority whereof must needs be ingredient into the Sentence cannot oblige any Body to stand to the Authority which it so abuseth For if God have tied all Churches to Communion with all Churches how should it not be Schism to profess Separation from a true Church And it is every whit as easie to say that we intend only to Reform our selves and that the Separation hath come to pass by the rigour of the Church of Rome Excommunicating those that Reform themselves without her leave CHAP. V. How far this Rule is owned by this Church HEre it will perhaps be demanded whether or no the Law of this Land make this the Rule of the Reformation which we Profess And my Answer is that in effect and by consequence it doth For by maintaining the three Creeds to be part of the Service wherewith we glorifie God by Professing the Catholick Faith and by maintaining the four Councils whereby both the Faith and the then Canons of the whole Church are established it doth in effect maintain the Primitive Church not only till that time but beyond it For seeing it is evident that the fifth and sixth Councils are but appendances of the Fourth tending only to maintain and inforce the decree of it how can it be doubted that the Article of this Church receiving all Councils that have decreed according to the Word of God receiveth and inacteth those which tend only to inforce the Fourth which it owneth for decreeing that Faith which the Word of God teacheth Besides the prayers for the prosperity of the Catholick Church whereby we prove our selves no Schismaticks to the See of Rome when we repay the Curses of it with our prayers Besides that Injunction of Edward the VI which obligeth all Preachers to expound the Scripture according to the Consent of the Ancient Fathers Which as no man can say why it should not be in force So had it been in force we need not have come to the question now on foot And indeed it is in effect that which I demand For it will be found that the Consent of the Fathers is not to be had but in the common Faith and in those Laws which the whole Church either enjoyned or allowed particular Churches So that to expound the Scriptures according to the Consent of the Fathers is to expound them within those bounds and to trouble the heads of Christian people with nothing that is without the same As if their Salvation could be concerned all being safe within those bounds Here I must take notice that the reason why the Church Catholick is to be held may be miskenned if it be extended to all that is called Christians and not limited to that which maintaining the Faith violateth not the Vnity of the Primitive Church If the profession of Christ and Christianity were enough to make men members of the Catholick Church why should not Socinians and Anabaptists belong
Jurisdiction of Ecclesiastical Courts under the Jurisdiction of the Laws of the Land and those Courts that minister the same This Interest espouseth the Opinion which voids the Article of our Creed that professes One Catholick Church making Excommunication and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction founded by our Lord Christ a meer Imposture declareth it uncapable of any Sacriledge to be committed in the using of it In the mean time the Clergy whose Interest is no ways concerned in the Scandals which the Ecclesiastical Courts may give Further then as they are hindred by the said Courts to cure their Scandals by the due Use of their own Office do suffer not only the Scandals which are done under colour of their Patents But even the affronts of the Ecclesiastical Courts themselves Receiving Appeals from the Censure of their Bishops upon the Clergy For a few examples serving the Bishops not to imploy that Jurisdiction which is so easily affronted it must be acknowledged that the debauches of the Clergy are come to that height that till they be Reformed Reformation is not duely pretended against the See of Rome CHAP. XXII The ground of the proper Interest of the Church BUt perhaps there be those that are perswaded by the Leviathan that a Church is nothing else but a Christian Common-wealth And that the Civil Power thereof which is Soveraign hath full Right to injoyn whatsoever it please for the Christian Religion exacting what Penalties it please of Recusants There be others besides the Leviathan that have maintained some branches of the same Opinion but he is the only man that hath looked the whole Question in the Face with this Answer I will but relate the Issue which his own Resolution hath driven him to and leave him to Judgment For having objected to himself in his Latine Book de Cive that which is obvious to all Understandings That then a Christian may be justly punished for his Christianity He answers that it is no inconvenience that he should Because by suffering he purchases an abundant reward I know not whether any man told him or whether himself took notice that this was the answer of Julian the Apostate making himself sport with the complaints of the Christians That they were beholding to him for the Kingdom of Heaven which they gained by suffering his Persecutions But that it was not for the credit of his doctrine to bring Christian Princes into the predicament of Julian the Apostate And therefore upon second thoughts his Leviathan answers That a Subject is bound to obey all that his Soveraign commands in Religion whether he be Christian or not Insomuch that if he command him to renounce Christ he is bound to do it with his mouth and shall be saved believing in him with his heart nevertheless This answer shews the necessary issue of this Opinion That he who holds it if he be as bad as his word is as necessarily an Apostate as Julian the Apostate The hope of Salvation and the Right of Communion with the Church lyes not only in the heart which believes to righteousness but in the mouth which professeth to Salvation The Profession which is made at our Baptism is a Condition without which it cannot be had It is the taking up of Christs Cross which the Gospel requireth He that declares himself free in any Case whatsoever to renounce Christs though he hath not done it hath declared himself free of the Bond which he entred into at his Baptism And as he is no more a Christian to God no more should he be to the Church If further he say As the Propositions first maintained and afterwards recanted by his late Disciple at Cambridge do import That there is no difference between good and bad before Civil Power that is Soveraign inact it Then must it be said further that he is properly an Atheist For if God govern not the World if he reward not the good if he punish not the bad though man do not pardon me God and all good Christians if I repeat Blasphemy that it may never more be repeated then is he not God Particularly if Civil Power can oblige a man to say or swear that which he means not there remains not that Ground for Civil Society which the Heathen themselves whom nevertheless S. Paul truly calls Atheists maintained For what Ground for Civil trust if there be no Law before Civil trust to punish the falsifying of it Let him that considers this Consequence necessary upon all Opinions that distinguish not the matter of Ecclesiastical Law consequent to the State and Constitution of the Church from the Force it hath to be a Law of the Kingdom by the Act of the Kingdom I say let him answer in Conscience whether those Laws by which the Rights of the Crown Usurped by the See of Rome are Resumed into it did proceed upon this Opinion or not For my part I remember very well a solemn Protestation which one of them makes that the intent was not to innovate any thing in Religion by vindicating the Rights of the Crown And therefore do infer that none of them can be understood to extinguish the Rights of Religion concurrent with the Rights of the Crown in Church-matters which it doth not distinguish Knowing how difficult it is to distinguish between them As not knowing that ever the ground upon which they are to be distinguished was delivered till now But there is an Act of the V. of Q. Elizabeth by which that abatement in the sense of the Supremacy of the Crown in Church-matters which had been declared by her Injunctions from the beginning of her Raign to prevent misconstructions was made a Law of the Land This Act because it undertaketh not to limit the Supremacy by distinguishing the Interest of the Crown from the Interest of the Church for the difficulty of satisfying all Consciences gives the Subject leave to declare the sense in which he takes that Oath reserving to himself that which Religion requires a Christian to reserve for the Church Which was not the sense of them that believed no Catholick Church no Visible Right of it And by vertue of this Declaration it is that my self have undertaken to declare that limitation which the Catholick Church requireth For how many Prelates and Divines of this Church King James of excellent Memory in particular have done the same But it is no other then that which the Canons of K. James declare when they describe this Supremacy to be the same which the Godly Kings of Gods Ancient People which the Roman Emperors of the Primitive times before that corruption came in which we Protest against did exercise Here have you the due bounds of this Supremacy setled by Law upon the true ground of it For it is manifest that it cannot be derived from the Rights of the Kings of Gods Ancient People alone Because there could be no Catholick Church before the calling of the Gentiles But the Empire imbracing the Faith when the Church