terms of the Churches union and communion and we shall not be unthankful to you if you will make that and only that to be so now I do not say that you should make all that necessary which was then used on terms of liberty and indifferency they had then their necessaries for uâ—ion and their unnecessaries which were used at liberty as every Church saw good Impose no more than they imposed no more of Liturgy no more of Ceremony no more Subscriptions Promises or Oaths and it will heal us all Impose Liturgy no further than they then did which at the most was but every Bishop on a particular Church that was united for personal not representative communion and was no bigger than one of our Parishes for number of souls If these terms will not serve you neither you shall not with us have the reputation of the best friends of Antiquity Unity Love or Peace Q. 3. What harm would it do if the Churches were healed by such means as all the most grave experienced Conciliators have pitched upon as the only way at least in all the Protestant Churches We are contented with Lerinensis terms Quâ—d ab omnibus ubique semper receptunest All the famous reconcilers of the last age and this Acontius Melancthon Pelargus Duraeus Calixtus Lud. Crocius Joh. Bergius Conradus Bergius Junius Paraeus Hottonus Amyâ—aldus Usher Morton Hall Davenant Chillingworth Hales Bucer Burroughs Stillingfleet and every man that ever wrote a rational Irenicon conspire in this one necessary means the forbearing all imposition of doubtful unnecessary things as necessary to actual unity and communion and the centering and cementing all on the terms of the few certain greâ—t and necessary things which we are commonly agreed in or as Rupertus Meldenius his oft-cited words are In necessariis unitas in non-necessariis libertas in utrisque charitas Do you think verily that all these were mistaken and that you are wiser than they who have studied the art of peace as much as you have done the arts of victory and getting down those whom you first make and then call your adversaries I know you will still say These are good terms for our union with neighbour churches but not for our church within it self To which I have answered you already and now add 1. Every company of Christians associated for personal communion in Gods publick Worship as distinct from distant communion in Spirit only and from communion by Delegates or Representatives is a true particular church taking Pastors and people to be the parts thus associated Every such Church had a Bishop in Scripture-times as Dr. Hammond in his Annot. will tell you over and over and in Ignatius his time too For he saith That to every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop with his fellow Presbyters and Deacons And this one Altar which shewed only one place of meeting for ordinary publick Communion and one Bishop were the notes of Unity to every one Church as Mr. Mede also fully openeth it And Dr. Hammond will further bear witness what every Bishop with his Church is in 1 Tim. 3. And such all the particular Churches of the whole world considered together under the Supreme Head Christ Jesus dispensing them all by himself and administring them severally not by one Oeconomus but by the several Bishops as inferior Heads of Unity to the several bodies so constituted by the several Apostles in their plantations each of them having an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a several distinct commission from Christ immediately and subordinate to none but the supreme Donor or Plenipotentiary And before so was every such regular Assembly of Christians under a Bishop an Oeconomus set over by Christ the house of God Mark all this then and let your Impositions be measured by this Rule so that either you will have the many Churches in one Kingdom to be united on terms of Regiment or only on terms of Concord On the terms of the extrinsick accidental Regiment we grant that all the Kings Subjects are united and that he hath power circa sacra But so you might have said of all the Roman Empire And so if the Christian part of the World had all one Monarchy your own Concession must be overthrown that neighbour Churches must unite on necessary terms leaving indifferent ones to liberty or else you will see that the case of the Catholick Church under such an Empire would be the same with a National Church under one King And our Churches are as much to be accounted Neighbour-Churches as those in such an Empire would be But if you speak of one Essential Constitutive Ecclesiastical Head and Governour we know none such any more than one Pope Therefore it must be an Union of Concord by which you call many Churches in a Nation one or an extrinsick accidental Union And consequently it is an improper speech because it is not locutio formalis sed accidentalis for the form denominateth We being therefore One Church but Accidentally by one King and by Concord as several agreeing Churches may be called it followeth that we must hold our Concord accordingly with those at home as well as with those abroad upon terms of equal charity and liberty except what the King will take away For as for Councils even General ones much more Provincial it is not Bishop Ushers opinion only but ordinary with Protestants that they are to the particular Bishops not directly Regimental but means of Agreement Mark your Bishop Bilsons words of Christ. Subject pag. 229. To Councils such as the Church of Christ was wont by her Religious Princes to call we owe communion and brotherly concord so long as they make no breach in faith nor in Christian charity Subjection and servitude we owe them none The blessed Angels profess themselves to be fellow-servants of the Saints on earth Rev. 22. What are you then that with your tribunals and jurisdictions would be Lords and Rulers over Christs inheritance 2. The same Reasons which require you to agree only on necessary terms with foreign Churches will oblige you to the like course at home The judgments of Natives are of the same temper and their differences will be as certain and constant and your charity to them should be no less than to strangers Only this we all confess 1. That all the Churches must agree in their subjection to the same King 2. And every particular Church must agree with their particular Pastors in the exercises of Communion 3. And that Concord in one Translation one Meeter and such like is desirable not so much because we are under one King as because we are neighbours and of one language and would be desirable if we were of several Kingdoms in the same propinquity But it is not to be procured at a price which is above its worth 3. When you profess Concord with the foreign Churches upon Catholick terms and deny the same to the Churches that are under one King you
AN APOLOGY FOR THE Nonconformists Ministry CONTAINING I. The REASONS of their PREACHING II. An Answer to the Accusations urged as Reasons for the Silencing of about 2000 by Bishop Morley Bishop Gunings Chaplain Dr. Saywell Mr. Durel the nameless Ecclesiastical Politician and Debate-maker the Counterminer H. Fowlis Dr. Good and many others III. Reasons proving it the duty and interest of the Bishops and Conformists to endeavour earnestly their Restoration With a POSTSCRIPT upon Oral Debates with Mr. H. Dodwell against his Reasons for their Silence And a Scheme of INTERESTS Written in 1668 and 1669 for the most of it and now Published as an Addition to the Defence against Dr. Stillingfleet and as an Account to the Silencers of the Reasons of our Practice By RICHARD BAXTER 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom Preach the Word Be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine London Printed for T. Parkhurst and D. Newman at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside and at the Kings Arms in the Poultry 1681. To the Right Reverend Dr. Compton Lord Bishop of London Dr. Barlow Lord Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Crofts Lord Bishop of Hereford Dr. Rainbow Lord Bishop of Carlisle Dr. Thomas Lord Bishop of St. Davids Dr. Lloyd Lord Bishop of Peterborough and as many more as are of their Moderation and love of our Common Peace and Concord Right Reverend Fathers and Honourable Lords YOU are not the men that resisted and frustrated our earnest endeavours and hopes of Concord at his Majesties return 1660 and 1661 nor made the Act of Uniformity or the rest by which we suffer nor have you been the makers of any Engines to wrack and tear in pieces the Church and Kingdom at such a time when they groan'd and beg'd and hoped for healing I therefore direct this Apology to you and all others of your moderation in some hope though evil men and deceivers grow worse and worse You are reputed among us Nonconformists not only true to the Protestant Cause but lovers of good men and no lovers of cruel silencings violence or blood Though I know but few of you I have reason to believe this fame and some of you have publickly declared your moderation to the world If then the ancient Christians might present their Apologies in hope to Heathen Emperors may I not do so much more to Christian Bishops to moderate Bishops and lovers of peace If yow are wiser and better than we you are as much more merciful and peaceable than we and as much more against all hindering the Gospel and weakening or dividing the Churches of Christ by unjust silencing restraining or persecuting any faithful Ministers or Christians and you are more sensible than we with what deep sense men will shortly hear In as much as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it to me You have then more of the wisdom from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle c. Jam. 3. 17. and you have a deeper Impress of that holy LOVE by which all Christs disciples must be known Interest is supposed to Rule the World And the grand design of Satan is to set up some fleshly sinful interest in Rulers and Teachers and People which is contrary to the Laws and interest of Christ and then he hath made a Virtual War Carnal Interest will not yield and Christ will not yield nor change his Laws Carnal interest will expound them for it self and so secretly and powerfully byas the judgment that even Learned men when they warp and err shall not perceive it but verily think that it 's all for God We are commonly supposed to be against your interest and that this will make us continue unreconciled to the gratifying of them that have no low game to play by the contrived means of our divisions If your chosen Interest be the furthering of holiness and everlasting happiness by sound and serious preaching of Christs Gospel worshipping God that is a Spirit in spirit and truth and yet with all reverent decency and order and living according to the Laws of our Universal Head in soberness righteousness godliness and in love and peace with one another God forbid that we should be against your interest And this is your interest indeed He that is most for it we account the best and wisest man And if your Dignity Wealth and Honour be your Interest subordinate to the greater as it is highest in the ungodly I beseech you think not we are more even against that than we are indeed I had rather be ruled than rule but God must be first obeyed God knows I envy not your dignity or wealth I have proved in the end of this book that our Restoration is greatly for your interest and that none have done more against you than those of your own tribe that have had the greatest hand in our silencing and suffering Give me but a sober understanding man to deal with and I undertake to shew him that by a meer Reforming of the parish-Parish-Churches so far as your selves confess to be desirable and just with such a limited Toleration of peaceable sound Christians as Christian Reason must acknowledge necessary We may be brought yet to an happy Concord and a better Reformation than England yet ever saw without doing the least wrong or hurt to the Diocesans It is usually said that England had more respect to the principles of Augustine in Doctrine and of Melancthon and Bucer in the points of Reformation than of Calvin Luther or any other And as to Cranmer Ridley Cox and the other Reforming Bishops I verily believe it I know no Divines whose judgment I more consent to than Bucers and Melancthons O that all our Clergy would read and weigh what Bucer saith copiously and vehemently for Parish-Discipline and pure Communion de Regno Dei de Animarum Cura in censura Liturg. specially de Confirmatione and what he saith of Pastoral Government Ordination and Order and of imposing such Ceremonies as ours It was written in England and for England And that they would read what Melancthon saith in his Epistles of the Pestilent design of the Papists that would lay the validity of our Ministry and Sacraments on an uninterrupted succession of Canonical Episcopal Ordination that they may make the judgment of their Councils more effectual than of Christ and his Spirit in the Scriptures and what he saith against these cheats And verily we have little worldly interest to draw us to be enemies to yours And I still profess that in all my experience those called Nonconformists did heartily love honour praise and hear a Bishop or Conformist that preached and lived seriously spiritually and in Christian Love such as through Gods mercy we have had many yea if he preached and lived better than Nonconformists they
loved and honoured him more though with some weak partial persons it was otherwise If then we have any Interest opposite to yours it is not Riches it is not Power we wisht no more than to be Pastors to the Volunteers of a Parish-Church And what more do the Independents wish than that persons have the same liberty to chuse to whom the Pastoral care of their Souls shall be entrusted as they have to chuse Physicians or Schoolmasters and Tutors for their Children and Wives or Servants Husbands or Masters in the family living under Laws of sobriety and peace And if you think that our cross interest is the praise of a few that follow us in a reproached suffering state you think we have a very low mind and game Why then do we so much desire to be out of this state and to take up with reformed Parish-interest And why doth not a far stronger worldly interest more prevail with us But such accusations are answered in this book As for that party of men among us Archbishops Bishops and Doctors that have made it their office and interest to set up as for Christ 1. A Catholick Church formed by a vicarious Universal Government viz. A General Council or a feigned Universal Colledge of Bishops 2. And the Patriarchal power which was in the Roman Empire 3. And the Pope as the President or Principium unitatis Catholicae 4. And the same Pope as our Western-Patriarch and the six or eight first General Councels as the Laws or Rule of Government and so would bring us under a foreign Jurisdiction and turn the orders of a Catholiok Empire into those of the Catholick Church through the World 6. And that pretend that the Papists Churches have an uninterrupted valid succession and therefore are true Churches and that the Protestant Churches that have no uninterrupted Canonical Episcopal succession are no true Churches nor have valid Sacraments or any ordinary title to salvation I say as for this party of men whose Writings and Names I need not tell you of we profess that we have no hope that ever they will be reconciled to us because it will not stand with their desired reconciliation described by themselves with a more powerful and numerous party which they prefer before us And though as much as in us lyeth we must live peaceably with all men we can never receive their unpeaceable principles and terms And it much more alienateth us against the Church of Rome to find that the nearer any are to them the more they are for uncharitableness and cruelty and trust not to the Church-Keys but to the Sword as if blood banishment or destroying conscionable Christians that are not of their minds were the strength of their Religion and Church and still cry Strike home and execute the Laws Abate nothing Tolerate none of them Let them make their task and have no straw Away with them as pestilent fellows and movers of seditions just contrary to the Christian Nature and Interest and Law And if he that dwells in Love dwells in God and God in him who dwells in them that dwell in wrath and imitate Cain and bear thorns and thistles and devour the flocks which they should gather and feed and shew that they love their brethren by destroying them Right Reverend Fathers and Lords we have far better thoughts and hopes of you and though I have beg'd in vain these Twenty years for Peace and Concord of others of your Order I address my self to you beseeching you patiently to read this Apology and pardon the earnestness of it for it is for a weighty cause It was most written 1668 or 1669 before most of you were Bishops Dr. Stillingfleet hath newly told us that If we will but allow that by virtue of the Rule Phil. 3. Men are bound to do all things lawful for preserving the peace of the Church we have no further difference about this matter pag. 176. We have still allowed it we have solemnly protested it Were it lawful to us to conform and cease our Ministry which we were vowed to we would do it I beg of you as on my knees for your own sakes for Englands for the Churches for Christs that you will agree with us on these terms I ask nothing of you for my self I need nothing that you can give me My time of service is near an end But England will be England and Souls and the Churches peace will be precious and the Cause will be the same when all the present Nonconformists are dead And Bishops must dye as well as we Our Lord delayeth not his coming to encourage any to smite their fellow-servants If it be not a Lawful thing for the peace of the Church to forbear the dividing Impositions and Prosecutions I need not name them then let us all suffer still But if it be do not only privately wish but zealously as Lovers of the Church endeavour and that with speed and all your might for Peace to abate what may lawfully be abated It is not in our power to procure Union For sin and self-condemning will not do it How much is in yours the Lord cause you to know and practice I rest Your Servant R. B. AN APOLOGY FOR THE SILENCED MINISTERS Especially for their not ceasing to Preach Christs Gospel Being the Third Part of their Plea for Peace Humbly directed to those of the Lord Bishops and to the rest of the Conformable Clergy of their mind who have procured our Silence and Sufferings or the continuance thereof Most Reverend and Right Reverend Lords and Fathers and Reverend Brethren HAVING once tryed in vain though by the favour of His Majesties Gracious Encouragement and Commission what speaking might do and since that tryed as much in vain what silence in this kind will do I have resolved once more before the expiring of my gasping hopes to resist despair and to try whether so many years experience hath opened your ears and hearts to the Reasons and humble Requests of those who not so much for their Sufferings as for the Souls of men do daily eat the bread of sorrow At least before I resign this Skeleton to the dust to leave one more testimony of my zeal for Unity and Peace and make one more attempt for the Gospel and the Church of Christ that I may not appear before my Judg in the guilt of negligence cowardize or unprofitableness Not to be your Accuser nor a Justifier of any of the weaknesses or miscarriages of the present Nonconformists nor yet of those of former times but humbly to re-mind you of the things that concern the interest of Christ the people and your selves When it pleased the most Gracious Soveraign of the World to restore his Majesty by the concurrence of the desires of his Subjects and the wonderful dissolution of that Army and Government which resisted his returns as we knew that our divisions had been our sin and ruine and our enemies strength and that
baptizing them c. teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always to the end of the world And Eph. 4. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16. it is ordinary Pastors as well as extraordinary that are the gift of Christ for that work which is to be done unto the end for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledg of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ c. It is true we be not called as Apostles were but several modes of Vocation make not several Originals of power We are under the same Master and have our Office from Christ and hold it under him as well as they and have his command as well as his gifts to exercise it to the end Therefore if Apostles must obey him by constancy so must we As Apostles are separated to the Gospel of God so are we by our consecration Rom. 1. 1. and therefore are commanded to give up our selves wholly to this work and to continue in Doctrine that we may save our selves and them that hear us 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. It is not only Apostles who yet call themselves fellow Presbyters 1 Pet. 5. 1. that are Stewards of the mysteries of God and must be so accounted of and therefore must be faithful to the trust that Christ their Master placeth in them 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. For ordinary Pastors are so called Tit. 1. 7. And surely it is not only Apostles that are meant Mat. 24. 45 46 48. VVho then is a faithful and wise servant whom his Lord hath made Ruler over his houshold to give them meat in due season Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing Verily I say unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his goods But if that evil servant shall say in his heart my Lord delayeth his coming and shall begin to smite his fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken c. Here observe 1. That those have a Charge and Law immediately from Christs mouth who are his Ministers or Stewards to feed his flock and not Apostles only 2. That they are the Rulers of his house and Judges of the season of feeding his houshold 3. That they must be found so doing at the coming of Christ who liveth till then 4. That this is that coming when he will make the faithful Rulers over all his goods 5. That smiting fellow-servants and glutting the flesh with fulness are the marks of wicked Ministers that Christ will damn 2. Those Texts also must be considered that plainly plead for the necessity of Preaching when forbidden by Magistrates Act. 4. 19. 5. 28. Whether it be better to obey God or men judg ye Ordinary as well as extraordinary Ministers are intrusted with the Word and Sacraments and commanded by Christ himself in his Law to constancy and faithfulness And ordinary Ministers as well as Apostles must obey God rather than men The Sanhedrin had not the face to deny it as Dr. Hammond noteth and therefore the Apostles lest it to their Consciences to judg 1 Cor. 9. 14 16. Necessity is laid upon me yea wo is unto me if I preach not the Gospel To talk now of impertinent disparities is but the shift of those that have very gross wits to work upon that will be abused by any thing Paul spake this of himself but was it of himself only as extraordinarily called If you so put off all that is spoken to and of Apostles you will lose your strongest argument for Episcopacy which is fetcht from the Apostles power And you will cast by most Texts that all Ministers and Christians are obliged by to a great part of their duty Is there a necessity laid on ordinary Pastors also or not If you say not speak out that you may be understood If yea then wo be to them also if they preach not the Gospel though Rulers be against it as they were against the Preaching of Paul Necessity was laid on Paul by a voice from heaven and necessity is laid on us by the word of God in Scripture when Ordination hath consecrated us to the office and wo to them that feel not the obligation of Necessity Act. 4. 29. And now Lord behold their threatnings and grant to thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word Mens threatnings will not dispense with us as to the duty of Preaching boldly Obj. Men did not give the Apostles their power and therefore men could not take it away Ans. 1. Men give not any Pastors their office or power but only 1. Design the person that shall receive it from Christ as is aforesaid 2. And Ministerially invest them with it as a servant delivereth possession by a Key or twig or turf who yet is none of the Giver of the Right as from himself 3. And Magistrates give Liberty of Exercise and so they might do to the Apostles 2. Men gave the office to other Ministers in those times in the same improper sense as they may be said to give it now Almost all the Princes and Rulers in the world where the Gospel came were against the Preaching of it and many of them forbad the Preachers And yet the universal consent of all the Churches and chief Martyrs hath still been that their Prohibitions would not warrant the Pastors to give over Preaching And hear the Holy Ghost also in this case 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judg the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom O dreadful charge preach the word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine Sure the Spirit of God foresaw what would be said against Preaching in our times was not Timothy ordained by man Did he not preach against the Rulers will and yet must he do it in season and out of season on so severe a charge O Lord forgive all our omissions and negligence which hath been occasioned by the will of man against the will and interest of Christ So 1 Tim. 6. 13 14. I give thee charge in the sight of God who quickeneth all things and before Christ Jesus who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession that thou keep this commandment without spot unrebukeable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ c. What Commandment why the Laws for the Ministry before laid down But what if the Rulers be against it That was undoubtedly expected and yet you see the terrible charge till the appearing of Christ. Therefore as one that was to be judged as an offender for his Ministry at the Bar of man he exhorteth him 2 Tim. 1. 8. Be not thou ashamed of the testimony
ever it be the question only VVhether this man or that man be fittest to have his countenance and maintenance and to be by him allowed to preach when only one of the two is needful we shall never speak against him for chusing according to his judgment as long as meer hereticks impious or intollerably unable ones are not chosen But if many hundred worthy Ministers shall be forbidden to Preach at a time and in a Land where many hundred thousand souls do wofully cry out for help as lying in damnable ignorance and sensuality and ungodliness in this case we say that no Rulers may forbid such Preaching 3. The Objectors seem to intimate dangerous Doctrine that if a King should not be a Christian or of the right Religion he lost his power over the Church which is false however maintained by the Papists The Heathen and Infidel Rulers had the Government of all their Subjects Christians and Apostles as well as others They wanted aptitude to do it well and therefore some of them persecuted But they wanted not Authority a King loseth not his Authority when ever he loseth his aptitude to use it rightly Christian Kings only can rule the Church well but others also are its authorized Rulers and there is no external coactive power at all but in the Kings or Magistrates be they Christian or Infidel 4. Christ himself did not set up a Kingdom of this world or worldly nor exempt himself from the Government of the Rulers Nor did his Apostles exempt themselves or the Church Paul Rom. 13 c. and Peter call on all Christians to honour the King and to be subject to the higher powers for conscience sake Mark then in this how little our case doth differ from the Apostles when they were forbidden to preach not by Usurpers only but by lawful Rulers to whom they professed conscientious subjection and yet must obey God rather than those very Rulers 5. Christian Rulers are the Churches nursing Fathers and have more obligation than others to build it up but no more power to pull it down They have all their power as Paul had his For edification and not for destruction It was never referred to them to judg as I have before said whether there shall be a Church or a Christ or a Ministry or whether souls shall be saved or damned or the Gospel Preached where it is necessary to Salvation or not But only by whom and in what order which best furthereth mens Salvation it shall be Preached If a Magistrate as a Magistrate may not forbid necessary Preaching much less may a Christian Magistrate as Christian who is more obliged to promote it This therefore altereth not the case 6. The Sanhedrin and Herod and other Jewish Rulers had such real Authority as Christ did not disown of the same nature with Jehoshaphats and Hezekiahs If therefore these were not to be obeyed when they forbad necessary Preaching then lawful Rulers in that case are not to be obeyed 7. The Arrian Emperours had lawful Power of coactive Government over the Church and yet the Orthodox Bishops never thought it their duty to cease Preaching in Conscience of obeying their commands Though they were forced oft to quit their present Stations Let not any Cainite here say that I compare our Rulers to Arrians For I only argue that if an Arrian Emperour had true Authority and yet when he thus abused it was not to be obeyed by forbearing to Preach the same must be said of others that have authority in case of the like Prohibitions 8. Christ setled Pastors over his Churches 300 years before there were any Christian Princes or States By which he shewed that though Princes are the true Rulers of Pastors yet Pastors are more necessary to the Being of the Church and to Salvation of the people than Princes are and that Pastors hold not their office from Princes nor at their will unless you think they had no true power till Constantines reign 9. Magistrates may not hinder a sufficient number from entering into the Ministry else the meaning of Christ must be Pray the Lord of the harvest to perswade Kings and Rulers to give leave to men to become labourers Therefore they may not hinder a sufficient number from labouring when they are entered 10. Magistrates cannot dispense with absolute lawful Vows to God at least about necessary duty This all Protestant Divines maintain in their Writings against the Papists who plead for the Popes power to dispense with Vows But our enterance into the Ministry had the nature of an absolute lawful Vow and was done by the Magistrates encouragement For in it we did solemnly devote our selves to the Sacred office and work 11. Magistrates are Christs Officers and Servants and have no power but from him and for him as the Justice and Constable are under the King Therefore they have no power against him Therefore they have no power to forbid the necessary Preaching of the Gospel and where it is not necessary we confess their power 12. If the Magistrate might degrade Ministers or absolutely forbid their work then it would follow that one Prince hath the Government of all other Princes Dominions or else that all Princes on earth must agree to the degrading of a Minister For it is fully proved by Divines of all parties except some of the Independents that Ministers at their Ordination are as Christians at their Baptism entered into a Relation to the Universal Church and not only to one particular Church And therefore he that is removed from one Church or Kingdom is not removed from the Ministerial office which continueth as towards an indefinite object Yea we are first in order of nature related to the unconverted world as we have capacity Go teach all Nations baptizing them will be Christs Law to the end of the world And if they cannot degrade they cannot take away the power of exercising the office statedly but only suspend it for a time or limit the exercise or regulate it by their governing power on just occasions and governing an office is not nullifying or destroying it Obj But if the Magistrate may suspend them and deny them liberty in his dominions then it is he and not every Minister that is to judg who deserveth such restraint 1. If you speak of publick judgment which is the publick decision of a controverted cause no doubt it is only the Magistrate that is Judg in foro civili No Pastor may enter into the Judgment seat and judg his own cause But if you speak of a private judgment of discerning every mans reason is the discerner of his own duty for he cannot do it without discerning it 2. The Magistrate is to judg publickly but not as he list as left to his own will but as an officer of Christ under the regulation of his Laws as our Judges are regulated by the Kings Laws The King may judg between an Infidel and a Christian whether Christ be the
Son of God but not indifferently as he please but only in the affirmative He may judg if it become a publick Controversie whether God shall be worshipped whether he may be blasphemed whether there be a life to come whether the Scripture be Gods word and so whether there shall be a Ministry whether Ministers shall preach in his Dominions or so many as is necessary to mens Salvation But he is bound before hand to judg only one way and hath no power to judg on the other side at all Else he might judg that men shall not be saved and that Christ shall have no Ministers or Church and consequently be no Christ. 3. Yet if Rulers do judg amiss in any such cases they are not by force of arms to be resisted though they are not to be obeyed Obj. By this pretence of a private judgment of discerning you will set up two Soveraigns or make every mans conscience his King and so the King having lost his power over conscience a zealous conscience will be the unruliest beast in the world Answ. 1. In good sadness would you have men have a judgment of private discerning or not If you would all this concerneth you as well as us If not then no man must discern that it is his duty to obey the King rather than an Usurper or rather than to rebel against him Such excellent assistance would brutish principles give to Government then men must not discern whether to preach or be silent or what to preach on Nor whether to be drunk or sober chaste or unchaste To think and speak well or ill whether God should be honoured or blasphemed or what Religion we should be of Christians or Infidels Then only the King must be a man and his subjects bruits that must use no reason and so the King be made a herdsman to govern beasts instead of men And then what Councellors Judges and Justices shall he have and O then what excellent Preaching shall the people hear Absolute obedience is due only unto God 2. And as to what you say of Conscience to bind conscience that is science is an improper expression but as to that which is commonly meant by it it is one thing to bind a mans soul to make conscience of his duty and another thing to bind his soul to go against the conscience of his duty Binding conscience is an ambiguous word We flatly affirm as well as you That the Kings Laws do bind the mind or soul or Conscience if you will so call it to a conscionable performance of all his lawful commands for nothing but cords and irons bind the body without the soul and he that obligeth not the soul obligeth not the man and he that obligeth not ruleth not As God bindeth by a primary obligation as God so Kings bind the mind by a secondary obligation by the power which they derive from God as men I say not only that God bindeth us in conscience to obey the King but that the Kings derived power enableth him to oblige the soul in subordination to God which is no more than to say that he may make Laws and rule by them But whether this shall be called a binding of conscience is only lis de nomine Conscience is sometime taken as largely as conscire and so we are conscious of our duty to the King But in Theology it is usually taken more strictly for a mans judgment of himself as he stands related to the judgment of God And so when the very definition appropriateth Conscience to our relation to God it cannot so be subject to man 3. Conscience is no King no Competitor with the King no Ruler of any man at all in a true proper sense It is but only a discerner of our duty and not a maker of it a knower and applier of the Law and not a Law-giver And is it not fine reasoning to say If a man must be the discerner of his duty to God and the King he can be no good subject 4. And Conscience discerning duty to God is it that is here to be orderly distinguished from Conscience discerning duty to man God and man are our Governours if we are not agreed which of them is the greater stay a while and we shall be agreed Conscience is but a discerner of our respective duty to each of them or taken strictly and Theologically of our duty to God only so that this is the question Whether when a man is conscious of his duty to God he may omit it because that man forbiddeth it Or when a man is conscious what God forbiddeth he may do it if man command it so that for man to bind Conscience if you will speak ineptly to duty is one thing and for man to bind us to go against conscience is another thing For that 's all one as to bind us to do that which as far as we can discern is against Gods Law and so the issue of all is whether conscience of Gods command or conscience of mans command is to be preferred And this being the plain English of the case is it not a blessed time and land think you when confident raw confused wits shall by such questions as VVhether the King or Conscience be supream deceive and mislead poor people in a maze and confound them as to all Religion when an ordinary wit that had been but preserved by Humility and Catholicism or freedom from faction might easily have distinguished and set them in the open light 13. It went for current in the Catholick Church not only for the first 300 years but long after there were Christian Emperors that the people were to chuse their Pastors Cyprians Epistle that earnestly pleadeth for the peoples power and duty in this kind and chargeth the guilt upon them if they forsake not seducing and schismatical Pastors is well known The common practise of the Churches also is known as well And long after there were Christian Emperours though some Dignitaries as Patriarchs and a few great Bishops were obtruded on the people by the Emperours choice when they could not agree among themselves yet the people constantly kept their former custom and priviledg and chose all the ordinary Bishops and Pastors in conjunction with the Presbyters The Bishops sometimes chose alone who should be a Minister in general as the Colledg of Physicians licenseth general Physicians But who should be their own Pastors was always or usually at the peoples choice with the Ordainers as every man chuseth his own Physician See Blondels copious Testimony de jure plebis in regimine Ecclesiastico adjoined to Grotius his Excellent Treatise de Imperio sumar potestat circa sacra Now this being so the old Christians never believed that the Emperour could justly so frustrate their choices as to make it unlawful by his prohibition for their Pastors to preach to them when their Preaching was necessary to the Churches good nor that the Emperours were the only Judges of
silencing to lose our friends to gratifie them that thus abuse us and to take pains to exchange kindness for cruelty and to strive hard to leap out of the ashes into the fire But I will tell the truth to the world and you we do what you desire of us or reasonably can desire I constantly Preached till the Goal restrained me against Separation and much more against sedition and rebellion We do it openly and plainly I am the man that am reproached in Print for want of this And the same hand so far justified me as before the Kings Majesty and Lords and before the Right Reverend Bishops to say of me and my Disputes of Church-Government about the Ceremonies c. No man hath written better of these things And can we speak louder than by the Press Or can they prove that we preach not as we write O wonderful that ever the world can degenerate to so much unrighteousness as to condemn men upon such defamations as these Besides that Book many a year before and since I have still written to the same purpose I have Preached to the same purpose But thinking it more seasonable in private Conference I have an hundred and an hundred times more pleaded for the like in private And my Disputes before mentioned are accused by many offended persons as having made a hundred Ministers at least conformable And had they not been written in the very height of Usurpation before the Kings return I should have been taken for the vilest temporizer This is our course and yet if wrath and partiality and ill will do but dream that we do infect the people and cherish them in Separation and do not contradict but flatter them in their extreams against our own judgments the world must ring of all these dreams and they think it fit that we be used as if all were certain truth We have need to bless our selves against dreaming neighbours if we must be estimated and used and described to the world according to their dreams Nay I will tell the world here the certain truth of our success and usage I preach I write and I frequently and openly talk against Separation and for the lawfulness of joining with the Church in the use of the Liturgy and to rebuke mens extreams and censures of the Episcopal Clergy and for an impartial love of all true Christians I sharply reprove the weak reasonings of those that are otherwise minded and by this I occasion the true Sectarians every where to speak against me and yet even these Sectaries wish me well and would do me no harm and the generality of my hearers bear all this well and seem to be of the same mind And yet when I am loved by those that I plead against I am reviled and abused by those that I plead for Yea more I must profess it before the world that I plead your cause as far as conscionably I can and its you that hinder me and none like you You would have us do your work with the people and you would not let us do it You use us as I saw a man lately do by a Colt who tyed him fast to a great tree and lashed him most cruelly to make him draw You make our work difficult if not impossible and then think us worthy of your smarting wrath for not performing it Were it not for two things we could do much to reconcile the people to you 1. If you would not impose those Oaths Subscriptions and such like burdens which we are our selves unable without fraud and falshood to defend 2. If you would not silence their faithful Teachers but would encourage Godliness and good men impartially and would exercise LOVE as openly and largely as you exercise WRATH But we must tell the world and you that we are unable utterly unable to justifie the Corporation-Oath and Declaration and to bring the people to like those Bishops whom they think are the chief cause of depriving of them of their long tried painful faithful Pastors and setting over them such as in too many places are set When our people are in Goals for meeting as they have done these twenty yea thirty or forty years only to repeat their Teachers Sermon and pray and sing a Psalm together between the publick Exercises on the Lords-day where they have reverently attended It is a hard task that you put on them to like you but a harder that you put on us that we must Preach them to it even when we must not Preach at all That we must go to the Gaols to them or after they come out to their houses to teach them to like the Bishops and their Impositions They will tell us VVe love them with a love of Benevolence as we must our enemies we wish them no harm but the greatest good but we cannot love them as such complacentially nor think approvingly of their ways Whether you do well or ill in promoting their sufferings I am not now judging I only tell you that it is the greatest hinderance to our reconciling them to you and your ways that you could easily have devised I never saw that wooing speed well that said Love me or I will send thee to Gaol When I was a child I never thought any correction more unreasonable than whipping children to make them give over crying when whipping was an unresistible means to make them cry if they had not cried before While I am Voluminously reproached for not reproving the spirit of Separation or Nonconformty as afore limited when I did it last I was sent to Prison and when I would do it by Preaching I have not leave And if your meaning be Speak when we have shut thy mouth and teach men to like us when they suffer our wrath you increase our task when you have taken away our straw I conclude therefore with repeating it you will not suffer us to serve you as we can but are our greatest hinderers while you blame us And lastly as to their scrupling the Corporation Declaration and Oath I can speak best for my self The Bayliff Justice and all the twelve Capital Burgesses besides inferior Burgesses did refuse it and were every one displaced save one now dead that had been a Soldier in the Kings Army what men were put in their stead I am not now to tell you And they were so far from being perswaded to this by me at almost an hundred miles distance that I never once spake to them nor wrote to them one Letter or word about it And it being no part of the old Conformity how could this be put into their heads by me especially when they know that I had kept the Covenant from ever being put upon that Town and Country 4 Obj But the issue sheweth how little good your Teaching doth where are any more against Bishops and Conformity than your hearers You make men hypocrites and teach them to prate phrases and cut faces and rail at carnal
tell you of Abbot and Laud c. and when yet the Conformists preach against one another about it yet did we never speak a word to the King or them of any such matter Because if all men will subscribe the same wholsome Doctrine of the Articles we cannot hinder any from dissembling and destroying what they do subscribe Obj. 24. Agreement with the Church of Rome is more desirable on the terms described by Dr. Heylin in A. B. Lauds life and you would make it impossible Ans. We are for a just concord with all Christians but true Popery we cannot agree with and as to Papists they are but a part a third or fourth part saith your Primate Bishop Bramhall of the Catholick Church We must unite with the whole Church or else we are Schismaticks To embody in the faction of the Papists is as Schismatical as to do it with a smaller faction And if you will unite with all Christians I still say you must unite on Vinc. Lirinensis terms on that which all Christians are agreed in that indeed deserve the name of Christians Now if you establish your concord on the Scripture and on universal terms all Christians in the world will confess that your Religion yea all your Religion is certain truth and that it hath also all things universally necessary to Salvation and this is a fair degree of unity though they say that yet you want their Traditions And then you can tell a Papist quickly where your Religion was before Luther Even where ever the Scripture was received And you do not wilfully and resolvedly cut off your selves from Communion with all the Protestant Churches who do not hold the Traditions and Decrees of Rome But you are united with all the Christians in the world in Christianity and so far as they have any union among themselves And then all those that will needs go further do run the hazard of their own additions We will live in peace with them if they will live in peace with us But if the Papists be such men that they will hold no communion with any that hold not all their Religion that is all the Decrees of their Councils than neither Abassines Armenians Greeks nor Protestants can be received into their Communion And do you think it desirable to comply and embody with them in such a schism and factious combination against all the rest of the Churches of God If you will deal like Christians Catholicks and wise men let us first be as moderate as may be in our Doctrinals and not pretend that we are further disagreed with Papists or any other Christians than indeed we are I am one of those who believe that in many Doctrines quarrelsome ignorant men have made differences where there are none and have made those that be seem wider than they are cut off these superfluities and spare not and then reduce your terms of Union and Communion to the Primitive simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Discipline and if any will have more let it be a matter of liberty and not of necessity or if they will not be limited as we are let them take their scope Or if you your selves will needs have more yet hold it with liberty as matter of conveniency and not of necessity to the union or communion of the Church If you will take this course we shall deny Papists no love no peace no communion with us on our terms which they justifie for the truth of them in our Churches And if they will fly from us and refuse our Communion or will put unlawful terms on us and drive us from them we shall have no accusation for this by our consciences or any wise man He is the Schismatick that maketh communion impossible by his Additions or Impositions or runs away from those that will not receive all his Supernumeraries Usurpation is the peace breaker in the Church of God Christs sheep know his voice and follow him but they will not be so obedient to an unknown voice Why cannot a man be content to be a Lord Bishop and to have many hundred or thousand pound a year for promoting the preaching and practice of Christianity and for punishing Hereticks rebels drunkards sensualists c. and serve God himself with what garb or forms or ceremonies he please as well as to have the same wealth and honour to prosecute much wiser and better men than himself with a burning zeal for not swearing obedience to him or for not subscribing that his Books are faultless or for not wearing a Surplice or signing Children with the transient Image of the Cross. But we must suppose that we cannot make Papists to be Protestants If they will not turn Protestants and we will not turn Papists the contrivance or supposition of a turn or half-turn is but a vain imagination not the way to unity and peace We must take them as they are and they must take us as we are and we must take all the Christian Churches as they are in our design for concord if we will do any good in it The question is not how or how far we shall change one anothers minds or be changed but how we shall maintain so much love and peace as is due to one another in the capacity that we are in and how far we shall endure the different opinions and practices of another to such an end And such a Conciliator with Rome I would be my self and magnifie the design as much as Heylin doth and be as zealous in it as Grotius Laud or Forbes were in theirs For it is but the service of Love and Peace and that is certainly the service of God I would treat with any Papists on such a design If peevish or suspious Protestants should try out on me and defame me for such a design as some have done I would no more regard it than the crying of a child If Christian Princes would make such a Treaty their business by their Embassadors that Love and Liberty might be regulated by the just rules of Equality and not be pretended only by a faction for their own ends even by them that will seek Liberty but will not give it I would bless God for such Princes and for so good a work And I would be and am ready to manifest to all wise impartial men whose Religion is Love and not Malice under the name of Zeal that in many Doctrines that we are by some supposed to differ in Fundamentals ignorance hath feigned the difference to be doubly greater than it is And I think many of Forbes and Spalato's Arguments in his very Learned Books de Republ. Eccles. to be worthy the serious study of every Learned man I know Luther took the Doctrine of uncertainty of Salvation alone to be cause enough of our unreconcileableness with Rome and yet I know as well that it is not one godly person of many yea very many of them that are farthest from the Papists who do
Those of their own Religion not charged with one doctrinal difference if they obey not their Wills in every Ceremony are the worst of all mankind Reader is this the Religion taught by St. Paul Rom. 14. 15. and Phil. 3. where mutual forbearances and Receiving dissenters is commanded against both Censurers and Despisers Will ever Church on Earth have Concord on these terms Are such mouths fit to call others Fire-brands Is not this a disgrace to the Christian Protestant Religion that all its fundamentals will not keep a man that differeth but in a Ceremony from being the worst of mankind 3. Look back but on the Instances of our Nonconformity before laid down and then tell thy self what to judge of such men and such pens as proclaim to the world that it is but an innocent Ceremony that we submit not to See the Nonconformists Plea for Peace 4. Bethink you what our Nonsubmission or Nonconformity doth to ruine Kingdoms in comparison of the course of such accusers If poor men desire to serve Christ though in poverty with diligence and peace and Lordbishops shall say Either subscribe say and swear all this or be silenced and cast out of all your Ministry and Maintenance Doth he now that patiently beareth all their penalties loseth all and goeth quietly to the Common Jayl among Rogues for Preaching Christs Gospel to more than four without Swearing and Conforming become hereby a Ruiner of Kingdoms while they are innocent that do all this against them Do they not toto nudato pectore taelum recipire tantum non with great Cameron unbutton them and cry Feri miser Is there any one word of Rebellious Doctrine proved by this man when he hath done his worst out of any one Church-Confession of those whom he revileth And if he can find any thing which is not found in the books of any particular men in the late Wars is that their fault that never owned it and were then scarce born Doth he or any of all the malicious tribe charge those whom they reproach with drunkenness gluttony luxury fornication ambition fraud lying or any such immorality 5. Are those that suffer and do so much for that which they think to be the truth of Christ well charged with hating Christ and is not the exception a prophane scorn of Christ but that he said he came not to bring peace It is easie to say with Tertullus of Paul that he is a Ring-leader of a Sect and a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people but where 's the proof 6. And mark why he professeth himself kinder to the Papists 1. Because they are more Learned Civil and Gentile 2. Because they differ in supposed fundamentals But 1. did he not know our advantage in Learning then was a great cause of the success of the Reformation in Luthers days And who that knoweth the pitiful Priests in France Spain and Italy and what a generation Erasmus Stephanus Vives Hutten and others describe and what men the Reformation found in the Priesthood in England and all other Countries will believe this man that the Papists are more learned And though we truly honour the later Leared men that have been bred among them their Suarez their Petavius and many more yet he might know that our John Reignolds our Chamier Sadcel Bochart Capellus Rivet with multitudes of their like were learned men as well as they and so were Rob. Parker Amesius Bradshaw Paget and many other Nonconformists here and Twisse Gataker and many more of the Westminster-Assembly And all the Learning of the Papists in the world is not enough to make them know Bread and Wine when they see and touch and taste it which without Learning may be easily known 2. But that differing in supposed fundamentals should prove the Papists so much better than us doth tell us with what sort of men we have to do By that rule the Mahometans are much better than the Papists and the Heathens yet better than the Mahometans for they differ from us and them in greater things I perceive why the Jews were crueller than the Heathens and the Papal than the Pagan Rome against the Ministers of Christ because they differed not from them in so many and weighty points Note Reader that this mans book of 20s Price is written to prove that Treason Rebellion and King-killing is the very Religion and the ancient and later practice of the Papists Their Councils are cited for it and their chiefest and most learned Writers cited as maintaining the excommunicating and deposing Kings to be in the power of the Pope and that in so great a number in their own words the very Pages accurately and fully cited that after a multitude that have written on that subject he hath quite over-done them all and brought whole loads of Testimonies to prove it to be the common doctrine of the Roman Church so that no man that ever wrote hath in this done so much to render them unreconcilably odious to all Kings and Magistrates as this man hath done and he hath given them the deepest wound in point of Policy and History that was ever given them with as bitter and odious terms of aggravation And yet we that agree with him in all fundamentals and refuse as he dreameth but a Ceremony are worse far worse than they Had he only done by us as he did by them recited the words of our Synoâ—s and Professors we would contentedly have left all to judge of our Confessions and of each particular Author as they deserve and those that are proved culpable to bear the blame But his sentence and inferences only tell us how desirable the coming of Christ is to his Servants and how earnestly we should pray to the Judg of the World to come and to come quickly Reasons why the Conformable Clergy should be desirous of their Brethrens Ministerial liberty that cannot Conform as is now required 1. YOU ought to be better acquainted with the Common state of peoples Souls and the great necessity of Teaching in the Land than Parliaments or Magistrates can be expected to be who converse not with the people about their everlasting hopes as your calling bndeth you to do And you are obliged also to a double zeal for the Kingdom of Christ and mens Salvation As you still profess a zeal for the Church when Revenues Power or Ceremonies are the things in question And men that have acquaintance with the Common state of Souls cannot chuse but know how insufficient they are of themselves without help for so great a work among such multitudes and what need most Parishes have of more than one much more of one If the Shepherds themselves should either be so ignorant as to think that their ignorant Parishes need no more help than one man is able to afford to many thousands or hundreds of Souls and that the labours of others may be spared because that which they do themselves is enough or
others will call that Solitude which you call concord uniformity and peace And our unity will be like theirs in Moldavia and VValachia And who shall compensate the Kings damage 3. And Foreign Churches and posterity will be brought by it to so great a hatred of Prelacy that they will never be reconciled to it more but prefer a poor and humble Ministry And indeed it is already so known by its fruits that I am much in doubt the experience of it will alienate the people from that Primitive lawful Episcopacy which I would have them to desire They say already Give us the old honest humble serious Puritans that lived not upon Gold and Worldly greatness and cherished not mens sins that they might cherish them Fruatur vocibus obscaenis omnique libidinis arte Qui Lacedomonium Pytismate lubricrat orbem Namque ibi fortunae veniam damus alea turpis Turpe adulterium mediocribus haec eadem illi Omnia cum faciant Hilares nitidique vocantur Juv. I suppose you know how much it alienateth men from Popery that their Religion must be fed and live by blood yea by precious blood Some of you have written your wishes that the course had been followed which was begun in the days of Whitgift and Bancroft when divers Nonconformists were hanged And some have written that it was not for Religion but for Treason As for Hacket and Coppinger it 's known they were crackt-brain'd men pretending to be sent to judge the World whom the Nonconformists condemned which Bancroft himself in part confesseth And whereas Dr. Sutliffe conjectured that Cartwright was privy to all Mr. Simeon Ash gave me a Manuscript supposed to be Mr. Cartwrights own writing fully confuting that accusation And as for the rest it 's true that the Bishops then laboured by exposition of a Law to make Treason by consequence of that which was spoken against themselves But it will be long ere the confutation of that is well answered which is written by some one learned in the Law called A Petition to her Majesty c. And what the same Author saith Pag. 25. of that Pious man Mr. Udal will by others and perhaps one day by your consciences be thought on with respect to the 2000 silenced Ministers of late and the many that have dyed in and by imprisonment and much more of so many as if you prosecute what you have begun you must destroy His words are That the Bishops should be so unnatural as to seek the life of a right godly and faithful Preacher of the Gospel I mean Mr. Udal to whom Life was offered if he would take his Oath that he did not make a book whereof he was supposed to be Author A rare example that a man should be known standing at a bar shackled in bolts but quaere quo jure and coupled with a murderer whose conscience was thought so faithful and sound by the Judg himself that he would not swear falsly to gain his life He had not learnt some mens rules for expounding Oaths Nor loved his life so well as some men do a Benefice But were no worse men suffered 8. You may have all that is truly desirable and to be expected in this world as necessary to Unity and Concord to Order and Decency and to your own honour accomplished ten thousand times easilier surer and better by obvious honest lawful means God never putteth men upon such bloody and desperate courses as some advise It is no necessity of Gods making that is pleaded for such means but of their own sinful making or false imagining God never wanteth lyes or cruelty to his service or glory They are usually wicked selfish ends whatever is pretended for which men chuse and use such means Or if the ends were never so good they will not justifie such means nay good ends will condemn them as contrary incongruous and destructive But when there are easie suitable and honest means enow at hand the choice of such as are forementioned beseemeth none but those whose design is to destroy If you say What be those means They are easily told you but your little self-interests will not give you leave to think them tolerable I shall tell you more particularly anon I will now speak but of the generals Quest. 1. What if you would learn of the Holy Ghost to impose no other than Necessary things Act. 15. What if you had the patience to endure the Apostolick Primitive way of Discipline and Worship and suffered men to go to Heaven in the same way as the Apostles and Christians of those times did What if you kept all that Wisdom to your selves in which you excel the Apostles and put no more upon the Churches than they did Would the inconveniences of this weigh down the mischiefs which are now upon the Churches throughout the world by the contrary course Let not your passion make you run away with a conceit of an intollerable conclusion and say I would reduce you to the Primitive poverty or persecution No I talk not of matters extrinsick to Discipline and Worship for faith we will yet suppose we are agreed in I suppose you think not that Poverty or Riches are parts of the instituted worship of God I am as far from expecting that you should consent to be as poor and persecuted as the Apostles as that you should be as good as the Apostles Those that you have to do with believe that the Scripture hath more exactly determined how God will be worshipped than hâ—w much a year shall be the Revenues of a Bishop We meddle not with your Lands or Lordships whatever our own opinion be of such matters Though we are ambitious of your higher and wealthier condition yet we neither envy it nor think it our duty to diminish your wealth But the question is If you let men worship God without any more yokes or burdens than Christ and his Apostles laid upon the Churches what harm would it do Did they then want any needful uniformity Did they not pray decently without a Surplice Did they not baptize decently without the Cross If you say that they had their rites of decency then though not the same that we have now I answer Impose no other than they imposed Leave those free which they left free Though you think your own to be better than theirs so do not all Christians If it be mens infirmity to think that the Scripture-rites are better than yours yet what harm will it do you to bear with that infirmity What if you required no more Oaths of obedience to the Bishops than the Apostles required to themselves or to any Pastors of the Church What if you required no Subscription to any thing as certain truth but only to the infallible Oracles of the Spirit Nay the Apostles required not any to subscribe to all the books of Sacred Scripture but only to receive them in general as the Doctrine of Christ and the Holy Ghost and they
culled out the few necessary Articles of the faith as the matter of a necessary particular profession I will tell you what good these things will do and do you tell me what harm they will do and let the good and hurt be well compared 1. It would either Unite all Christians or make their Union an easie thing as soon as the minds of men were prepared for it All Christians are agreed that the Holy Scriptures are infallible All Christians are not agreed that your three books are infallible Therefore all Christians may easilier unite in their subscription or belief of the Scriptures than of your three books Perhaps you will say that it will not unite us with the Papists nor with any that require more I answer We shall be so far united as that they will approve of all our Religion though we approve not of all theirs For they confess the truth of all our Canonical Scriptures and confess that all things universally necessary to salvation are contained in them and much more So Bellarmine Costerus and many others and especially the old Schoolmen freely assert And it is a great advance to Concord and to our satisfaction to have the common concession of all Christians that our Religion is all true and nothing of absolute necessity wanting But I have spoken more to this before to which I refer you 2. It would make it as easie for any Protestant to justifie all his Religion as it is to justifie the sacred Scriptures to those that confess them to be true and so to tell the Papist where our Religion hath been in all ages and what succession our Church hath had 3 It would take none of your forms or ceremonies or superadditions from any that will needs have them while you make them not the necessary terms of union and communion he that will may be without them 4. Christian love and saving unity and concord may be thus maintained by mutual forbearance while nothing is done contrary to the nature of love to mortifie it And if any would take occasion by differences to revile and villifie one another the Magistrate may have the approbation of all sober men in keeping the peace and punishing all the fruits of such uncharitableness that tend to the destruction of love or godliness 5. A thousand unhappy crimes will be prevented which will follow the death of Christian love and the exasperation of mens passions and tongues by their sufferings 6. The Pastors when they grow like to Christ in meekness gen tleness and love will be loved and honoured by the flocks and the name of a Bishop will not be odious any more and consequently the lives of faithful Pastors will be more comfortable 7. And then the doctrine and labours of Ministers will be more successul and consequently piety and justice will increase and multitudes more will be sanctified and saved 8. It will be a comfort to the King and Magistrates to be loved honoured and obeyed by an united willing people and to be excused from the unpleasing works of fining imprisoning banishing or hanging their subjects for differing from them about some cases of sin and duty when the fear of offending the God of heaven is that which bringeth them to their sufferings 9. It will be a great strength and beauty to the State and Church and fortifie us against a common Enemy and end our fears of Sedition on account of Religion at home 10. In a word it would make us liker to the primitive believers and lead the way to all Christian States and Churches for the right reconciling of all the Christian World And what now is the hurt that these Scripture primitive terms would bring Obj. It would make as many factions as there be different Opinions or Ceremonies Ans. 1. Do you judg of others by your selves Are all men so proud and void of humanity and love that they must needs be factious if they do but differ in an opinion or ceremony from others or that they cannot live in love and peace with any that differ from them in an opinion or ceremony or that they can endure to see none live at liberty out of Gaols that be not in all such things of their mind 2. If there be any such proud and uncharitable persons the Magistrate may curb the expressions of their folly that it wrong not others 3. If that were true there would be as many Factions as men if you will pardon your contradiction for all men differ in opinion from each other and in as great matters of Religion as a Ceremony 4 Doth the differences forementioned among yourselves as between Dr. Taylor Mr. Thorndike and some others from the Doctrine of the Church of England make any such Factions among you Did the difference mentioned by Heylin between Bishop Mountague and Wren about coming up to the Altar to communicate make any factions Doth the difference now between your Arminians and Calvinists which we ordinarily hear in your own Pulpits make such Factions Doth the different modes of Cathedral and Parish-worship make such Factions If not why should it make a Faction for one man to cross a child in Baptism and another not Do not the very Papists keep up their unity and strength by allowing far more and greater diversities in Doctrines and in Religious Orders Rules and Ceremonies according as every Order hath desired Obj. But if any be allowed to forbear those that use the ceremonies or subscriptions will be censured by the followers of the nonconformists Ans. And is it indeed to preserve your honour that we must undergo all these convulsions Speak it out then plainly that the world may understand you Must all that differ in a ceremony from you be silenced and hunted about the world lest the people should think worse of you than of them 2. But how notoriously do bad means overthrow the ends of them that use them It is Honours Motto Quod sequitur fugio quod fugit ipse sequor Do not the people know that we differ from you in these things as much when we are silenced as when we preach Will imprisonment or banishment make us agreed or make the people think we are agreed Or will they forget all the difference think you when we are out of sight If the bare different opinion and practice make them undervalue you will not they think worse of you when they think you do worse Will they not distast a Conformable man whom they judg an envious persecutor more than a Conformable man whom they judg a meek and loving man One would think that you should need no answer to such objections But I have answered enow before 2. Well! if the Scripture simplicity be too narrow for you my next question is What harm will it do you to unite on such terms as all the Churches did unite in in the days of Tertullian and Cyprian yea for 300. years after the birth of Christ Look whatever was then the
or the superstitious people that must long keep up your reverence and honour We see by daily experience that the Atheists and Infidels and professedly impious ones deride you behind your backs and come very seldom to the publick Assemblies Your Assemblies are more made up of such as dislike your proceedings than of these that are brought beyond all fear of sin or punishment 12. The Preachers whom you silence would do you less hurt in their permitted publick Ministry than they do now or will do when you have done your worst In publick 1. Your friends and multitudes of several sorts will be their hearers and witness against them for every word that they say amiss But in secret they may take more liberty to oppose your way if they affect so doing 2. Your kindness and their own and the Churches interest will more oblige them to forbear you when they have publick liberty than when you prosecute them as foes 3. And the very Assemblies of men separated by expulsion and violence doth seem to invite all the people to a sense of the cause thereof which a liberty of such meetings without danger and unkindness would not do 4. And if you keep them from Assemblies they will make the deeper impressions on the people in the families and secret converse which they use 5. Or if you banish imprison or hang them their sufferings will do far more against you than all their preaching I am assured that it is you that advance the reputation of many Nonconformists and arm them thereby against your selves The truth is though they are commonly the most hearty serious feeling Preachers yet some of them are weaker as to the congruity of expression than the Debate maker or the young Politician But when the people see them true to their consciences they value them much more than they would have done if you had let them alone Whether you like it or not so it is and so it will be Therefore it is you that fight against your selves 13. You take the way to make your Church an unknown thing None are to be reckoned for Christians and Church-members but voluntary professors of it Coacti non est consensus And as Protestants tell the Papists They may know who come within their Temples but they never know who are members of their Church because they know not who professeth voluntary consent and who doth it involuntary by meer constraint And so it may be said of others that go their way 14. By the course fore-described you will have a Church so corrupted as will be a continual temptation to the most religious sort to distaste it if not to separate from it When men that fear sin are the suffering side and fearlesness of sin and a conscience that can do any thing is full security from all those penalties it is easie to foresee what sort of people you will make your friends who will do you more harm than good and what sort will be more and more alienated from you And then the zealous sort of Ministers and people will from age to age be the sharp reprehenders of your vices And then that will encrease your enmity against them And what will this come to at last I will give you but two instances now to calm you Gildas our ancient Britain hath so characterized the British Clergy even in those elder and less tempted times that he doubteth not to call them Wolves and not Pastors and plainly to profess that he that took them for Ministers or Pastors was not eximius Christianus one of the more excellent sort of Christians What could a Separatist have said more of you And yet you can praise Gildas for it is not in your power to eclipse his glory and not endure the same words from any one that is near you The other is that oft mentioned instance of St. Martin who would not come to their Synods nor communicate at all with Ithacius Idacius and the rest of the Prelates of the Synods and Countrey about him though of the very same belief because by their cruel ungodly prosecution of the Priscillian Hereticks they had taught the world the way of violence in matters of Religion and had made the strictest Religious people every where brought under the malignant suspition of being Priscillianists so that having but once for the saving of a condemned mans life communicated with the Bishops being a Bishop himself at the perswasion of the Emperor Maximus he was as he professeth sharply rebuked for it by an Angel in a Vision and would communicate with them no more And what worse do the Separatists do by you as to communion And yet Sulpit. Severus tells you by what abundance of Miracles Martins credibility was confirmed Hear a little of the story from your own Hooker with his application judg you to whom I deny not but that our Antagonists in these controversies may per adventure have met with some not unlike to Ithacius who mightily bending himself by all means against the Heresie of Priscillian the hatred of which one evil was all the virtue he had became so wise in the end that every man careful of virtuous conversations studious of Scripture and given to any abstinence in diet was set down in his Character for suspected Priscillianists For whom it should be expedient to approve their soundness of faith by a more licentious and loose behaviour such Proctors and Patrons the truth may spare Can you endure these words of Hooker too short a scrap of that notable history and can you mark them and learn by them to know your party and to foresee the end and perceive what service such do the Church Nonconformists think that this is too like our present case 15. Sword-severities as coming from the instigations of the Clergy do abundance more harm than if they came from the Magistrate alone Experience telleth us that they have ever made the Clergy much more odious than the Magistrate Because the Sword is the Magistrates weapon And if he err in using it it doth the less abate mens respect to his person because it is but the misdoing of his proper work Or if he drive men into hard thoughts of his person it hath not much influence on the honour of Religion But Ministers have nothing to do with the Sword Their office is exercised by Gods Word alone and that is the only weapon with which they are to strike offenders And their office being only to govern by Light and Love the people cannot bear that from them which they do from Magistrates It seemeth a monstrous and horrible usurpation to them And if the Clergy will play the hypocrites as the Papists do and say We do not meddle with the Sword but only deliver them up to the Secular power to be punished when they tell the Secular power that it is their duty and drive them on to it with the threats of Excommunication or Damnation this will never reconcile the
in his glory which is much in the LOVE and Concord of his servants II. The Interest of the Universal Church is the pleasing and glorifying God in its unity and strength in the same Faith Hope Love and Obedience to Christ the sole Universal King III. The Interest of particular Churches is their pleasing and glorifying God by their union with Christ and the Church Universal by Faith Love and Obedience and their holy Union between Pastors and people and of the people among themselves IV. The Interest of the Kingdom is its pleasing and glorifying God and the welfare of the whole by a holy unity with God the Universal King and of the Soveraign and Subjects and of the Subjects among themselves V. The Interest of the King is the pleasing and glorifying God in the foresaid welfare and just government of the Kingdom his own salvation and his Political strength and honour which consisteth much in the most inseparable twist of union and interests with his united subjects VI. The Interest of the Pastors of the Church is the pleasing and glorifying God in the ministerial uniting of souls to God in Christ and among themselves in the same holy Life and Light and Love and their own salvation and consolation herein VII The Interest of each particular Christian is his pleasing and glorifying God in his holy union with Christ and with the Church Universal and subordinately his holy unity and concord with the Ecclesiastical and Civil Society where he liveth VIII The true Interest of an honest Separatist and Papist in England supposing them uncurably such requireth them to live quietly and peaceably in subjection to the King and in love with others in the concordant practice of so much of Religion even the Laws of Nature or common Christianity which we are all agreed in and in such tolerated exercises of their several errors as is consistent with the common welfare and not to exasperate others by reproaches or striving to get into suspected power IX The mistaken Interest of the Pope and Papal Clergy is to have their own wills in ruling all the world and to that end to weaken and disable Kings and States by divisions contentions and diversions and to draw them by deceit to a voluntary subjection as necessary to their salvation and to the concord of their subjects and the Christian world and to silence and disgrace all such as are against them X. The mistaken Interest of English Papists Quakers and all true uncurable Separatists is to encrease and strengthen their several parties and if it may be to get into power and to that end to unite in the bond of a common Toleration and to make the tolerated party as strong as they can and to weaken the united Ministry and Churches and therefore to cry down a Comprehension or Union of the sober Conformists and Nonconformists and to desire that those Impositions which themselves account sinful may be continued that good may come by the evil viz. lest the union of the rest should weaken the tolerated party and render them inconsiderable and to bring the established Ministry and all that are for union with them into contempt by reproaches XI The true Interest of a meer Nonconformist requireth him to commit no known sin on pretence of obedience unity or peace nor forsake his Ministry whatever he suffer for it but to live in loyalty peace and patience and in love and communion with the Parochial Churches and all Christians so far as they are agreed XII The true Interest of a Conformist requireth him to use all lawful means to procure as comprehensive a Union and Concord of all sound and faithful Ministers and Christians as they are capable of and to bear with tolerable differences to live in peace among themselves and by Ministerial skill fidelity diligence and holy living and by condescending humility and love to all men to win Dissenters to edifie and unite the people and so to advance the true honour of the Ministry and to encrease and corroborate the Church Octob. 27. 1675. R. B. FINIS THE CONTENTS A Prefatory History of our Case Page 1 c. Our judgment how far we are bound to Preach p. 14. Our Reasons for Preaching I. We judge it sacriledge to for sake the work to which we were consecrated p. 20. II. We cannot be ignorant of mens obliging necessities p. 22. III. Many express texts of Scripture oblige us p. 32. Many Objections answered to p. 44. Whether Princes may silence us Largely answered Of mans binding Conscience Of the Peoples choice of Pastors IV. By deserting our Ministerial Work we shall sin against the Natural Law of Love and be guilty of soul-murder p. 45. Objections and Accusations answered 1. That our preciseness falsly pretendeth mens necessity p. 52. 2. That we think too highly of our own Preaching as necessary p. 55. 3. That our Preaching doth more harm than good p. 56. 4. That we have made the People disobedient hypocrites c. p. 64. 5. That when we had liberty we cast out Catechising the Creed the Lords-Prayer Decalogue and Church-Government c. p. 69. 6. That we lived in sequestrations on other mens bread Mr. Durel's accusations of my self herein answered p. 77. 7. That we silenced and ejected others when we had power p. 83. 8. The better must suffer with the worse if they will joyn with them p. 85. 9. That our Preaching will increase mens dislike of Government p. 86. 10. That our pretended Piety is Pharisaical hypocrisie pride zealous Villanies The Pharisees described p. 91. 11. Of gathering Assemblies and separating from the Church p. 97. 12. For coming into Cities and Corporations within five Miles p. 102. 13. The Church giveth you power and may take it from you as the old Conformists in Mr. Rathbands book c. confess p. 104. 14. You are against Bishops because you cannot be Bishops Why did you demur so long before you refused Preferments p. 106. 15. Must the Laws be changed as oft as tender heads will scruple p. 108. 16. Obedience beseemeth tender Consciences Disobedience is as the sin of Witchcraft p. 110. 17. The only reason why some forsook the Ministry is that they durst not abjure the Covenant Why do they not do the rest p. 111. 18. Why not all tolerated as well as you and so let in Popery p. 113. 19. Preaching was necessary before the World became Christian c. p. 114. 20. Why do you not go preach among the Indians p. 115. 21. The folly and villany of your Religion is so opened by the Debater and the Ecclesiastical Politician that you should be ashamed to ask leave to preach ibid. 22. You overthrow all Principles of Government p. 120. This is answered since in a full Volume called The 2d Plea for Peace 23. They object our Doctrine as Calvinism and Puritanism c. The intended Scheme of my Reconciling doctrine since published p. 121. 24. You would make our Reconciliation with the Church of Rome impossible which is more desirable than with you p. 128. 25. Abating would countenance your scruples by authority and make you thought to be true Reformers p. 134. 26. It is rebellion that is in your hearts as your not renouncing the Covenant and resistance sheweth The foresaid 2d Plea for Peace fully answereth this accusation p. 137. 27. We remember your practices heretofore c. p. 140. 28. Dr. Goods Charge of the Kings death answered in a Letter to him p. 142. 29. The inhumane Calumnies of a book called The Modern Pleas for Comprehension Toleration c. considered p. 147. 30. The errors and faults of Sectaries imputed to us p. 155. 31. Dr. Ashtons and the Debate-makers Accusation of us of covetousness and pride and delaying to refuse preferment p. 157. 32. The Calumnies of a book called A free and impartial enquiry into the Causes of the very great esteem and honour that the Nonconformists are in c. p. 165. A notable passage of Clemangis and another of Bernard p. 173. The true Case of the Nonconformists sufferings which they are said to under go by Covetousness for gain p. 175. 33. Mr. Hollingworths Story of a Nonconformists cruelty p. 182. 34. Henry Fowlis heaviest accusation examined p. 182. Twenty Reasons why the Bishops and conformable Clergy should desire and endeavour the Nonconformists Ministry Plainly and seriously urged to their consciences p. 186. A Postscript Answering Mr. H. Dodwell's Reasons against our Preaching and publick worship when forbidden by the Bishops What he cannot deny us what we grant him what we cannot grant with the reasons of our dissent p. 237. An Account of the Interests of all the several Parties among us Interest ruleth the World p. 250. Reader I have not time to gather the Errata of the Press All this was written 1669. * 1669. â—y Gods merâ—y since theâ—riting of this have publiâ—hed it called â—atholick Theâ—ogy * The Earl of Orery who was present all the while at both times that ever I spake to Cromwell which was plainly and faithfully to his displeasure †The Lord Chief Justice Hale told me he had Hookers last books before and I now have the last printed long before Bishop Gauden published them ☞ â—his was writâ—â—n when we â—ad the Kings â—icense
do plainly tell them how little they are beholden to you for their peace and that it is because you have not power to take it from them which you would do if you could 4. You greatly injure Christian Monarchs while you would make the world believe that they are the great adversaries of the Churches peace and unity For it is not only from the Will of their several Princes that several Churches must unite only on Catholick terms or not at all but it is from the impossibility that all the Christian World should ever come in all things controvertible and indifferent to be of one opinion any more than to be of one stature and complexion And now you come and tell them that if they had all one Emperor they must all agree upon all the controvertible and indifferent things which Canons and Laws should impose upon them or else their Ministers be forbidden to preach Christs Gospel to the people and the Churches forbidden to meet and worship God yea prisons and other penalties shall constrain them And what a temptation is this to men that know the wonderful variety of humane temperaments educations advantages apprehensions that is who know what it is to be a mortal man and a weak Christian to pray against the largeness of Empire and to dread it as the most certain Engine to wrack the Churches in pieces and to silence imprison unchurch and distress the Christian Ministers and Churches To conclude this reason Take away but your Imposition of the few things controverted and leave the particular Churches free in things confessed indifferent by your selves and we are then all one and the quarrel at an end And a little love to Christ to the Gospel and the Souls of men would tell a disinteressed person whether the fruits of that Concord or the fruits of our present Uniformity in those Subscriptions Oaths and Ceremonies would be the better and which is the more lovely and beautiful state of the Church 9. The different estimation which the two Parties have of the things imposed doth make your violence notoriously unequal in the sight of any equal Judges You call the Impositions antecedently Things indifferent The Nonconformists do not so but take them for such heinous sins that they dare scarce denmoinate them to you lest while they do but tell you their own reasons for avoiding them they be thought to make you or the imposers odious by their censures So that they are fain to suppose their judgments to be scruples and themselves to be the weak Christians and bring all under that name of Tenderness of Conscience lest if they should tell you that they are strongly perswaded that if they should Conform not medling with any others it would be in them no less than owning the Perjury of many thousands and a publick Ministerial renunciation of a needful Reformation and a promising to God or declaring before all the people that we will not obey him nor repent and amend what is amiss in our places and an owning of all the Usurpations and abuses committed by many others and a publick lying on deliberation declaring that we assent and consent to more than we do indeed or can do and a justifying of all the failings in that worship which is thus prescribed when we dare not justifie the best prayer that ever we put up to God in all things and an offering to God a worship which we cannot in faith be assured that he accepteth c. These are the Names of their fears which they dare scarce utter lest the incarnate Accusers of the brethren cry out They make us all perjured and publick rebels against God and they make our Rulers the Imposers of such things But the day is coming when it will be proved an unhappy artifice to stop the mouth of innocencies defence by making the crime imposed in their judgments so great that it shall not be judged a thing sufferable to name it But if you believe that ever there will be a judgment where equity shall be of any regard methinks you should see that quoad hoc their end of the ballance much weigheth down yours and that the opinion of Indifferency should yield to the opinion of so desperate a danger If you prove it the right yet you confess that God may be worshipped decently in a comely Gown without a Surplice and that a Child may orderly and decently be baptized without the transient Image of a Cross appointed to a dedicating half-sacramental use and that a man may acceptably worship God that cannot subscribe that your three books are Infallible to a word c. But if it should prove that the Nonconformist is in the right Aggravated Perjury deliberate lying rebellious profession of disobedience to God owning great and publick sins corrupting holy worship c. are more tremendous matters than a thing indifferent Let any then besides your selves be judges whether not yielding and complying be the heinouser crime in them or you If you say that By this rule we must abate the Imposition of things indifferent to all that will but be so erroneous as to account them heinous sins I answer 1. If you did do so it were but the doing according to the Wisdom of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles Acts 15. to impose nothing but necessary things And to do as Paul did that would forbear eating flesh while he lived rather than the weak should be offended or scandalized 2. But whether there be no more reason of the Nonconformists dissent and fears than what such silly scrupulosity as you intimate may suggest have patience till we come to the particulars and we shall tell you if you can endure to hear it 10. The Argument from real scandal in this matter is of greater force than you seem to take notice of We fear that we shall do much to make our hearers infidels impenitent or utterly debaucht and to make all our Ministerial labours a vain and fruitless thing to them if we should Conform We still tell you that we are not accusing the Lawmakers or you but telling you what we fear it would be in us if we should do it You see here that we plead not against the meer displeasing of our Hearers but the damning of them nor for the preservation of our own interest in them but for the preservation and salvation of themselves And is this kind of scandal think you which consisteth in tempting ensnaring and damning men regardable or not Had Paul a soft head in having so soft a conscience in this point We were never Apprentices to the Butchers trade but to the Physicians It is not with us a thing indifferent to send Souls as much as in us lieth to Hell You shall hear the reason of our fears Our Calling is to save men from sin without which we cannot save them from Hell Were it not for this end we had nothing to say to you no request to make to you nor would