Sect. I. BEcause men will judge of such Causes according to their several Principles and Presuppositions we must take notice of some of the divers Principles of those whose censure we must expect Though not of inconsiderable Sects Sect. II. And 1. Some say that no humane Form of Church Government and of Churches as governed is of God's Institution or as they say Jure Divino but that it is left to humane prudence Sect. III. 2. Some hold only an Universal Church governed by a Pope say some of them or by a General Council while sitting and a Pope in the Intervals say others or by a Pope and Council agreeing while it sits and a Pope in the Intervals say others to be Jure Divino and all particular Church-Forms as subordinate left to the prudence of this Universal Governour as Supreme as Inferiour Officers in Kingdoms are made by the King Sect. IV. 3. Some hold that this Universal Church-Form and also Diocesan and no other are instituted of God Sect. V. 4. Some hold that the Universal Patriarchal Metropolitical or Provincial Diocesan and Parochial are jure divino or instituted by Christ and his Apostles Sect. VI. 5. Some hold that only Diocesan Churches and Metropolitical or Provincial are jure divino and not the universal And of these some take Diocesan Churches for those only that contain many fixed Assemblies and some for such as have one Bishop whether over one Congregation or over multitudes Saith the very learned Dr. Hamond in 1 Tim. 3. The Church of the living God was every such regular Assembly of Christians under a Bishop such as Timothy was an Oeconomus set over them by Christ Such again every larger circuit under the Metropolitane who as Timothy had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordination and Jurisdiction over the whole Province 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 any one Oeconomus but by the several Bishops as inferiour 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 He here supposeth as he elsewhere sheweth that de facto Episcopal Churches were in Scripture-times but single Congregations but that after it was otherwise And whether then the New Form of Congregations were jure divino when they became but Parts of a Bishops Church we leave to the Readers conjecture as also of the New Form of a Diocesan Church Sect. VII 6. Some hold that National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms as governed by the Soveraign Secular Power are instituted by God and that all Church-Forms else within that Kingdom are jure humano at the pleasure of the King so be it that worshiping-Assemblies be kept up and Bishops and Priests placed as it shall please the King Sect. VIII 7. Some think that Diocesans or Bishops whether over one Congregation or many are instituted by God and some say also Archbishops and that these have power by consent or contract among themselves to make Patriarchal and National Churches And so that these National and Patriarchal Churches are jure divino mediato but jure humano immediato and are rather made by the consent of Bishops than by Kings And so under Heathen Kings the Churches may be National Sect. IX 8. Some think that Parochial Churches consisting of Christians distinguished by the circuit of ground and combinations of these into Synods less and greater Classical National are jure divino and no other lawful Sect. X. 9. Some think that only Parochial Churches ordinarily and single Congregations of any Neighbour Christians when Parish Order cannot be observed are jure divino Sect. XI 10. And some think that only such single Congregations of Christians with their Chosen Pastors without any necessary respect to Parish bounds are properly called Churches of Divine Institution though these Churches may and should hold such associations as correspondence and mutual help require Sect. XII There being so many sorts of Churches in the world as Universal National Patriarchal Provincial or Metropolitical Diocesan Classical Parochial Congregational it is hard to give a just decision of the question From which of these and when it is a sin to separate till it be first known which of these is Divine and which of Humane Institution and which Humane Churches are necessary which lawful and which sinful And it must be known of which the question is And while there is so signal a diversity of Judgment about the several Forms the nature of Schism will be hardlier opened SECT III. What Churches we hold to be instituted by God and what not Sect. I. OUR own Judgment we shall plainly express in this following Order 1. We shall shew what Church we judge to be of God's Institution and what not 2. What about Churches the Magistrates or Pastors may institute by God's Authority or allowance And what they may not institute 3. In what cases it is lawful to gather Churches where Churches are In what cases it is lawful to separate from Churches and in what cases neither of these last is lawful Sect. II. 1. All Christians are agreed that Christ is the Author of the Universal Church considered both as Baptized or Externally covenanting and professing called Visible and as Regeneraâ—e and sincerely Covenanting called Mystical as it is Headed by Christ himself and called his Body and his special Kingdom Sect. III. 2. We doubt not but Christ hath instituted the Office of the sacred Ministry to be under him as the Teacher Ruler and High Priest of the Church in Teaching Guiding and Worshiping And that he hath instituted holy Assemblies and Societies for these things to be exercised in And that a Society of Neighbour Christians associated with such a Pastor or Pastors for personal Communion herein even in such Doctrine Discipline and Woâ—sâ—â—p is a Church-Form of Divine Institution Sect. IV. If they be not Christians by Baptism or visible Profession they be not visible Materials for a Church If they be not Neighbours that is within reach of each other so as to be capable of such Communion they are not matter that hath the necessary extrinsecal disposition If they be not associated explicitely or implicitely by some signification of Consent they may be an accidental Assembly but not a proper Christian Church If they be not associated for this holy Communion they may be a Civil Society but not a Church If they be not associated for Personal Communion at some due seasons but only for Communion at distance by Delegates Messengers or Letters they are not a Particular Church of this species now defined though they may be members of larger associations National Diocesan c. If they are not associate with one or more Pastors they may be a Community of Christians but
not a Political Church which we now define If they are not joyned with a Pastor that hath all the foresaid Powers of Teaching Ruling by the Word and Keys and going before them in Worship and if they consent not to his relation as such they may make a School or an Oratory but not a proper particular Church simpliciter so called but only a Church secundum quid or as to some part for an Essential part is wanting But it is not the defect of Exercise that unchurcheth them while there is the Power and that consented to for Men cannot be Pastors or Churches against their wills Sect. V. 3. As all Christians grant that the Apostles had a general Commission to call Infidels to Christ and to plant Churches with their particular Pastors as aforesaid and to take care that their Pastor and they do the duties not compelling them by their Sword but by the Word so we are far from denying that yet some Ministers of Christ may and should seek the conversion of Infidels and plant Churches of the converted ordaining Pastors over them by their consent and taking due care by their grave advise that such Churches walk in the obedience of Christ as far as they can procure it And such Seniors which have so planted these Churches and Pastors by Gods blessing on their labours should be much reverenced by the Churches which they have planted and their just advise exhortations and admonitions should be heard by the People and the Pastors whom they ordained and all their juniors And though the Apostles have no successours in their extraordinaries yet that some should in this ordinary work succeed them we deny not because 1. We find that it is a work still necessary to be done 2. And others as well as Apostles did it in those times as Silas Luke Apollo Timothy Titus c. and since all such as have planted the Gospel among Infidels 3. Because Christ promised to be with them that did this work to the end of the world Mat. 28. 21. But whether such men be of a different office or order from the junior Pastors whether any true Presbyter that hath ability opportunity and invitation may not do the same work with Infidels and by his success and seniority may not so ordain Pastors over the Churches which he gathered and have an answerable right to reverence and regard from those that he so planteth and ordaineth are controversies which we presume not now to decide And we cannot prove that this maketh a distinct form of a Church no not in the Apostles time and case For we cannot prove that they distributed the Countrys into Provinces or Dioceses peculiar to each Apostle and had any Churches which they supposed to be peculiarly under this or that Apostles Government so as that any of the rest might not with Apostolical power have come resided preacht and governed in the same No Scripture tells us of such limits Provinces Nay the Scripture tells us that many of them were as Apostles at once in the same places As at Jerusalem oft Paul and John had Apostolical power at Ephesus Peter and Paul as is commonly held at Rome And its probable that as Christ sent forth his disciples by two and two so the Apostles went in company as Paul and Barnabas did so that such appropriate settlement of Provincial or Diocesan Churches we cannot see proved though such a Generall Ministry is easily proved and we doubt not but by consent they might have distributed their Provinces had they seen cause and that actually they did so distribute their labours as their work and ends required But if they had become proper Provincial Bishops over several Districts or Provinces it seemeth strange to us that no history telleth us which were the twelve or thirteen Provinces and how limited and that they continued not longer and that instead of three Patriarchs first and four after and five next we had not twelve or thirteen Apostles or Patriarchs seated over all the world with their known divisions And that men seek not now to reduce the Churches to this Primitive State rather than to the said Imperial Constitution and rather to subject us all to the Apostolical Seats than to five Patriarchs in the dominions of another Prince and now mostly subject to an Infidel Yea it is strange to us that the first Seat Rome should derive its pretended power from two Apostles as if our Church might have two Bishops and the second Alexandria from Saint Mark who was no Apostle and the third Antioch from the same Apostle that Rome did as if one Bishop might have two such Dioceses and the fourth Ierusalem from St. James commonly said to be no Apostle and the last which became the second or the first from no Apostle nor make any such pretence if thirteen Apostolick Provinces were then known But we easily acknowledge that as Apostles having planted many Churches staid a while in each when they had setled it and some time visited it again so they are by some historians called the first Bishops of those Churches being indeed the transient Governours of them In which sense one Church might at once have two or many Bishops and one Bishop many Churches and he be Bishop of one Church this week who was Bishop of another where he came the next Sect. VI. Christian Community prepared to be a Polity and a Christian family and a Christian Kingdom we doubt not may all prove their Divine Right And if any will call these Churches let us agree of the definition and we will not strive about the name Sect. VII We know not of any proof that ever was produced that many Churches of the first Rank must of duty make one fixed greater compound Church by Association whether Classical Diocesan Provincial Patriarchal or National and that God hath instituted any such Form And we find the greatest defenders of Prelacy affirming that Classes Provincial Patriarchal and National Churches are but humane institutions of which more anon Sect. VIII We find no proof that ever God determined the Churches should necessarily be individuated by Parish-bounds or limits of ground and that men in the same limits might not have divers Bishops and be of divers particular Churches Sect. IX We never saw any satisfactory proof that ever Christ or his Apostles did institute any particular Church taken in a Political sense as organized and not meerly for a Community without a Bishop or Pastor who had the power of Teaching them Ruling them by the Word and Power of the Church-Keys and leading them in publick Worship Sect. X. Nor did we ever see it proved that any one Church of this first Rank which was not an Association of Churches consisted in Scripture-times of many much less many score or hundred such fixed Churches or Congregations Or that any one Bishop of the first Rank that was not an Apostle or a Bishop of Bishops of whom we now speak
crimes against Religion yea those that would not enter into or renew their Covenant with God were by Asa's command to be put to death But Christ will have mens Atheism Irreligiousness Idolatry and Iâ—fidelity cured by the Preaching of the Truth which therefore requireth that the Preachers for number and qualification be answerable to their work especially seeing they are things so mysterious and supernaturally revealed which men are to believe And the works of Moses's Law lay very much in ceremony and outward actions which a man of mean qualifications might easily do But the great work of the Gospel is to bring Life and Immortality to light and to Preach Christ by whom came Grace and Truth and more notably than the Law of Moses did to call men to Mortification Self-denial Cross-bearing contempt of the World by Faith and Hope and Love of a better World and to bring them to a heavenly mind and life And mens salvation is laid on this If it were but to offer Sacrifices and do over the task of outward Ceremonies a Mass-Priests qualifications might serve the turn And if it were but to put men to death that will not be Jews and take their Covenant and that draw any from their Religion neither so many nor so excellent Ministers were necessary But we are under a better Covenant even a Law of Love which is more eminently become the first and last the great and new Commandment and the regent Principle in Souls and Churches and the number and quality of the Preachers of it must be answerable XV. As Moses was God's ministerial Law-giver to the Israelites and was faithful in all his trust so Christ is the great Prophet like unto him as typified by him whom God hath raised up to his Church whom they that hear not shall be cut off by God and from that Church as he hath appointed The Legislation Universal is now the work of Christ by himself and by the Holy Ghost which he promised and gave for that use to his Apostles that they might infallibly understand his will and remember what he had commanded them to teach the world XVI Kings or Pastors may not now alter or suspend any of these Laws of Christ any more than the Jewish Kings or Priests might alter or suspend the Laws of Moses XVII Christ hath instituted a Ministry to be for ever stablished in the world to Preach his Gospel to convert volunteers unto Faith and Holiness and to gather by Baptism all Consenters into his Covenant and Church and to teach them all that he hath commanded them And this none have power to overthrow XVIII He hath stated on the Pastors of such Churches the Power afore described of Teaching Assemblies and particular persons of leading them in publick Worship and Sacraments and of judging by the power of the Keys whom to receive into their communion by Baptism and profession of Faith and whom to admonish and for obstinate impenitence to reject And this Institution none may alter XIX He hath instituted ordinary Assemblies and stated particular Churches as is aforesaid for these holy exercises and forbad all Christians to forsake them and he and his Apostles have appointed and separated the Lord's day hereunto None therefore may abrogate or suspend these Laws All this is proved Matth. 28. 19 20. 16. 19. 18. 18 19. Joh. 20. 23. Luk. 12. 37 38. Mat. 21. 36. 22. 4 5 c. 24. 45 46. Heb. 10. 25 26 Act. 11. 26. 1 Cor. 11. Ephes 4. 4. to 17. 1 Thes 5. 12 13. Heb. 13. 17 24. Tit. 1. 5 6 c. 1 Tim. 3. Act. 14. 23. Act. 20. 1 Cor. 16. 1 c. XX. Christs Laws empower and oblige the Bishops or senior Pastors to Ordain others for this Ministerial service of the Church and so to propagate their order to the end of the world By which Ordination 1. They are Judges of the persons qualifications whether he be such as Christs Laws admit into his Ministry 2. And they solemnly invest him in the office But the Power with which they ministerially invest him delivering him possession as Christ appointed resulteth directly from the Law or Donation of Christ As the power of a Mayor from the Charter of the King and not from the Electors or Investers None therefore have power given them by Christ to hinder such Ordination and Propagation of such a Ministry Act. 14. 23. Tit. 1. 5. XXI So exceeding great are the benefits and priviledges of being members of Christ and his Church universal and particular that no unwilling person is immediately capable of it Nor is it possible ex natura rei for any adult person that consenteth not to be a Christian or a Member of any particular Church He cannot be a just Communicant against his will nor pray and praise God with the Church nor take a man for his Pastor or use him as a Pastor against his will And God hath laid mens salvation or damnation on the choice or refusal of their wills Therefore no man can be the Bishop or Pastor of a Church either de jure or truly de facto against the Church or Peoples will or without their consent And as the Nature of the thing proveth this so doth the sacred Scripture Act. 14. 23. 2. 37 38. 1 Joh. 1. 7. Mat. 28. 19. And so doth the judgment and practice of Christ's Church for many hundred years which is so fully proved by Blondell de jure plebis and confessed by the Papists themselves and so express in all antiquity that we need not add the proof Therefore no power may change this Law of Nature and of Christ nor can they by any Law Mandate Choice Ordination Institution Imposition or other act make any man a real Pastor to that People that consent not to the relation Nor are they any true particular Churches where Pastor and People do not consent No more than the relation of Husband and Wife Master and Servant Tutor and Scholars can be without consent XXII Christ and his Spirit have commanded his Ministers to preach the Word to be instant in season and out of season to reprove rebuke and exhort 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. And having put their hand to Christ's Plough not to look back and none hath power to alter this Law of Christ or to suspend it His Ministers by his Authority preached against the will of Princes for above three hundred years and since then against the wills of erroneous Princes who professed Christianity XXIII If Church-History be not to be believed the pleas thence used for Prelacy must cease If it be to be believed God hath wrought miracles to justifie those that would not cease Preaching when Princes yea Christian-Princes have forbidden them And the Church hath honoured their fidelity herein The case of Athanasius Basil Meletius and abundance more evince the later And for the former we will now instance but in the case of the Bishops of Africa whose tongues
were cut out by the King's command and they spake freely by miracle after they were cut out as is testified by Aeneas Gaze◠and by Victor Uticensis who saw and spake with and heard the persons when this miracle was wrought upon them and by Procopius XXIV It will be objected that Constantius Valeus Gensericus Hunnericus c were Arrians and the later conquering Usurpers Answ 1. Even Heathen Emperours and Kings are our Governours though they want due aptitude to their duty as also do many wicked Christian Princes And we owe them obedience when their Laws or Mandates are not against the Laws of God We must not say as Bellarmine that Christians should not tolerate such Princes and that the ancient Christians suffered for want of Power to resist 2. Let the Emperours called Arrians be made no worse than they were Some were for Concord and Toleration of both Parties and so are more suspected than proved to be Arrians And Arrians themselves though unexcusably erroneous were not like the Socinians that utterly deny Christ's Deity They subscribed to all the Nicene Creed save the the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They would say that Christ was Light of Light very God of very God begotten not made c. They thought that as the Sun-beams or Light are its immediate emanation but not its substance as commonly Philosophers say they are not how true we say not so Christ was an immediate emanation from the Father before and above Angels by whom all things else were made And how dangerously Justin and most of the ancientest Doctors before the Nicene Council speak hereabout and how certainly Eusebius and other great Bishops were Arrians and how lamentably the Council at Ariminum endeavoured an uniting Reconciliation by laying by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And even old Osius by their cruelty yielded to them as Liberius subscribed to them we need not send any men to Philostorgius nor Sondius for proof it being so largely proved by D◠Petavius de Trinitate who fully citeth their dangerous words And if the heterodoxies of the Prince shall be made the reason of the Subjects disobeying him in a matter lawful in it self as some that we speak to now suppose we shall hardly know where to stop nor what bounds to set the Subjects when they are made Judges of the Princes Errours and what examination of cognisance of it they must have 3. Constantine that banished Athanasius who kept in while he could against the Emperours will is not proved an Arrian Nor Valentinian who commanded Ambrose not to cease Prenching himself nor to forsake his Church nor to subscribe to Arrianism but only to tolerate the Arrians to meet in one spare Church which was in Millan as an act of moderation But Ambrose resolutely disobeyed the Emperour we justifie not the manner because he thought that God's Law made it his office as Bishop so to do 4. And as to Gensericus and Hunnericus's Usurpation it was then ordinary with the Bishops even of Rome to submit to men that had no better title and alas how few of many of the old Roman Emperours had any better at least at first XXV We doubt not at all but that Kings are the Governours of Bishops and Churches by coercive power as truly as of Physicians or other Professions And though they have no Authority to abrogate or suspend the Laws of Christ yet they have a Power of Legislation under Christ as Corporations for By-laws have under them which power is only about those things which God hath left to their determination and not either above Christ against Christ or in coordination with Christ but only in such subordination to him and to his Laws XXVI How far Rulers have power or not to command things indifferent and how far things scandalous and evil by accident some of us have opened already distinctly and need not here repeat XXVII And we have there shewed that as they may regulate Physicians by General and Cautionary Laws but not overthrow their Calling on that pretence by prescribing to the Physician all the Medicines which he shall use to this or that Patient at this or that time c. so they may make such General and Cautionary Laws circa sacra 1. As shall drive Bishops and Pastors on to do their certain duties 2. And as shall duely restrain them from sin and doing hurt 3. And they may punish them by the sword or force for such crimes as deserve that punishment And a King of England may depose or put to death a traiterous Bishop Priest or Deacon as lawfully as Solomon deposed Abiathar XXVIII And as we have there said we suppose that there are some circumstances of the Ministers work which it belongeth to his own office to determine of and are a true part of his Ministerial works But there are others which it is meet should be universally determined of for the Concord of all the Churches in a Kingdom These the Pastors and Churches by consent may agree in without a Law it Kings leave it to them And Kings by the advise of such as best understand Church Cases may well by their own Laws make such determinations As for instance in what Scripture Translations what Versions and Metres of Psalms the Churches shall agree Much more may they determine of the Publick Maintenance of Ministers and the Temples and such other extrinsick accidents XXIX Princes and Rulers may forbid Atheists Infidels Hereticks and Malignant opposers of necessary truth and godlyness and all that preach rebellion and sedition that propagate such wicked Doctrine and may punish them if they do it And may hinder the incorrigible and all that provedly or notoriously are such whose Preaching will do more hurt to men than good from exercising the Ministry or Preaching in their jurisdiction or Dominions For such have not any power from Christ so to Preach but serve the Enemy of Christ and man XXX Princes and Rulers may for order sake distribute their Christian Kingdoms into Parishes which shall be the ordinary bounds of particular Churches And such distribution is very congruous to the Ends of the Ministry and Churches and conduceth to orderly settlement and peace And experience hath shewed us that such Parish Churches where the Pastors are faithfull and fit may live as Christians should do to their mutuall comfort in Piety Love and Peace And such Parish-order we desire XXXI But no Rulers may hence conclude 1. that Parishes are distributed by God immediately or that he hath commanded such a distribution as a thing of absolute necessity to a Church But the Generall Rules of order and Edification do ordinarily in Christian Kingdomes require it 2 Nor may any make a Parish as such to be a Church and all to be Church members that are in the Parish as such for Atheists Infidels Hereticks Impenitent Rebels may live in the Parish and many that consent not to be members of that or any Church And not
a one doth not lie or dissemble 2. Whether a baptized person as such have no right to our special love which we owe to those that we hope are true Believers and sanctified but only to our common love and kindness which belongeth to those also that are the heirs of Hell Some friends that are gone from extream to extream and in remembrance of their ancient Schisms can look but one way with impartial sense and that have made their repentance the passage to a greater errour and sin should better bethink them them what they do They did well to stand still in the way of Schism when they saw here a leg and there a hand and there an arm in their way and who but a mad-man indeed would not But if they have impartially read Church-history and the works of such Fathers as give us historical notices and ever since Constantine made a Bishoprick a bait to a proud and worldly mind even such as Nazianzen Basil Chrysostom Isidore Pelusiota Hilary Pictav and the over-orthodox disputations of Cyril and the Epistles of Theodoret rejoycing at his death and abundance of such like had they seen in the way of Church-pride and tyranny not here a leg and there an arm but here a hundred carkasses and there a thousand here two thousand godly faithful Preachers silenced and many thousand dry Vines planted in their rooms and there whole Kingdoms interdicted and their Churches shut up here Churches and Kingdoms turned into confusions about a word or about the interest of Prolates striving which should be the Chief and have their will and rule the rest and there hundred thousands murdered in the name of Christ for obeying him and bloody wars managed by the Clergy against Christian Emperours and Kings stabbed one after another and most of the Christian world Roman Greek Moscovites Armenians Abassines degenerated into doleful ignorance and dead formality under the Government of great High-Priests and millions of the vulgar bred up in ignorance and senslesness of spiritual and eternal things this should stop them at least from serving the master of such designs as much as a leg or an arm in the way 3. At least we would intreat them to hate that mistake which will pretend to do all this for charity unity and the Churches good and to believe that it is no sign of charity 1. To believe that charity should not be exercised in judging that men professing saving faith do speak the truth and have the faith that they profess 2. Nor to teach all Christs Church that a baptized Church member as such is to be lookt on but as a man in a state of damnation and no man is bound to love him as a true Christian with a special love 3. And that to prove that a man is not to be taken for a true Christian but to be admitted into Church Communion as one that shall have a greater damnation than heathens without a further renovation is a great act of Charity Contrary to the uncharitable narrowness of others These are too great recesses from Anabaptistry but not from real Schism § 3. As for those that will not take the intelligent serious profession of true Faith and Covenant-Consent for a credible sign of the sincerity of the Professor till they can sufficiently disprove it but will be the arbitrary Judges of mens hearts either as pretended heart-searchers or by self-devised or uncertain signs not taking up with this Profession we are no Patrons of such mens presumption and uncharitableness § 4. There are various degrees of Credibility in mens professions some give us so much as is next to certainty some but small hopes But yet till we can disprove them we are to take their professions as credible in some degree And if they prove false it is they that will have the loss § 5. II. The second case about Church Covenants deserveth no longer a discussion He that will put any article unnecessary into any such Covenant sinfully corrupteth the order of the Church As if he would bind the people to be Church Governours or never to depart from that particular Church but by the consent of the Pastor or the flock or any such like And he mistaketh that will make a more explicite contract to be more necessary than it is But it seemeth strange to us that any understanding Christian should deny that consent is absolutely necessary to the being of an adult member both of the universal and each particular Church respectively What bindeth a man to consent is another question but if he be any member of the Church till he profess consent we know not what a Christian or Church member is An explicite covenant is necessary to our relation to the Universal Church for it must be solemnized sacramentally That we express it by writings or words is not of necessity to our membership of a particular Church But consent is necessary And mutual consent expressed satisfactorily is a contract or Covenant If the Pastor say all th◠at consent hold up your hand or stand up or stay here while the rest depart c. these are significations of consent And if it be notified that all that appear at the solemn Assemblies and attend the Pastors Ministry shall be taken for Consenters their presence and attendance is a profession of Consent indeed and so a covenanting But though the most explicit be not necessary ad esse no man can give a reason why it should not be best ad bene esse seeing the most intelligent and plain dealing in the great things of God are most suitable to the work and fittest to attain the end why should we not deal openly and above board § 6. It is certain that to be a Christian maketh no man a member of any mans particular flock or charge And it is certain that none can be such without consent And it is certain that the Pastor is not to take every Atheist Jew Infidel Papist Heretick c. in his Parish for a member of the Universal or of that particular Church Therefore he must know whom to take for such And it is certain that the consent must be mutual so far is the Pastor from being a slave and bound to every mans desires that he is entrusted with the Church Keys himself § 7. A worthy person on this subject maketh these six things sufficient to such Church relation 1. That they be baptized Christians 2. Neighbours bound to mutual love 3. And apt to Neighbourly duty 4. That providence make us such Neighbours 5. Scripture Churches took their name from cohabitation 6. The command of authority that so it shall be Fresh suit pag. 260. Ans By making these six the sufficient proof of Parish Churches our friend unhappily would consequently unchurch them all For if this were all certainly they were none at all For all these which he maketh more than they are are but the dispositio materiae antecedent to any reception of the form 1.
only in worse lands but in Ireland and in England as part of Lancashire the far greatest part of the Parishioners are Papists who renounce the Protestant Churches in some places XXXII Neither dwelling in the Parish nor the Law of the Land makes any Christian a member of that Parish Church without or before his own consent But proximity is part of his extrinsick aptitude and the law of man or command of his Prince may make it his duty to consent and thereby to become a member when greater Reasons mollify not that obligation XXXIII Parish Bounds and such other humane distributions for conveniency may be altered by men and they bind not against any of Christs own Laws and predeterminations nor when any changes turn them against the good ends for which they are made of which more afterward when we speak of separation XXXIIII And about these humane Church-Laws the general Case must be well considered how far they are obligatory to conscience and in what cases they cease to bind Sayrus Fragoso and other the most Learned and Moderate Casuists of the Papists ordinarily conclude that Humane Laws bind not when they are not for the Common good We had rather say that when they are notoriously against the Laws of Christ or against the Common good or are made by usurpation without authority thereto they bind not to formal obedience in that particular though sometime other reasons especially the honour of our Rulers may bind us to material obedience when the matter is indifferent and though still our subjection and loyalty must be maintained But of this before and more largely by one of us Christian directory Part. 4. Chap. 3. Tit. 3. c. The Council of Toletum 1355 decreed that their decrees shall bind none ad culpam but only ad poenam see Bin. Inoc. 6th Sect. XXXV Kings and Magistrates should see that their Kingdoms be well provided of publick Preachers and Catechists to convert Infidels and Impious men where there are such and to prepare such for Baptisme and Church priviledges and Communion as are not yet Baptized but are Catechumens And they may by due means compel the ignorant to hear and learn what Christianity is though not to become Christians for that is impossible nor to prosess that which is not true nor to take Church-Priviledges to which they have no right and of which at present they are uncapable But they may grant those rewards and civil Priviledges to Christians and Churches for their encouragement which they are not bound to give to others and which may make a moving difference without unrighteous constraint XXXVI Christ and his Apostles having as is aforesaid settled the Right of Ordination on the Senior Pastors or Bishops and the Right of Consenting in the People and this continued long even under Christian Emperours Princes or Patrons may not deprive either party of their Right but preserving such Rights they may 1. Offer meet Pastors to the Ordainers and Consenters to be accepted when there is just cause for their interposition 2. They may hinder both Ordainers and People from introducing intollerable men 3. They may when a Peoples Ignorance Faction or Wilfulness maketh them refuse all that are truly fit for them urge them to accept the best and may possess such of the Temples and Publick Maintenance and make it consequently to become the Peoples duty to consent as is aforesaid so also when they are divided XXXVII Princes ought to be Preservers of Peace and Charity among the Churches and to hinder Preachers from unrighteous and uncharitable reviling each other and their unpeaceable controversies and contentions XXXVIII Christ himself hath instituted the Baptismal Covenant to be the Title of Visible Members of his Church and the Symbol by which they shall be notified And he hath commanded all the baptized as Christians to Love each other as themselves and though weak in the faith to receive one another as Christ receiveth us but not to doubtful disputations and so far as they have obtained to walk by the same rule of Love and Peace and not to despise or judge each other for tolerable differences much less to hate revile or destroy each other and it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and the Apostles to lay no greater burden on the Churches even of the Ceremonies which God had once commanded but Necessary things Act. 15. 28. And these terms of Church-Union and Concord which Christ hath made no mortal man hath power to abrogate All things therefore of inferiour nature though Verities and Good must be no otherwise imposed by Rulers than as may stand with these universal Laws of Christ which are the true way to prevent Church-Schisms XXXIX Princes by their Laws or Pastors by consent where Princes leave it to them may so associate many particular Churches for orderly correspondencie and concord and appoint such times and places for Synods and such orders in them as are agreable to Gods aforesaid generall Laws of doing all in Love to Edification and in order And how far if Rulers should miss this generall Rule they are yet to be obeyed we have opened elsewhere XL. As we have there also said that Princes may make their own Officers to execute their Magistratical Power circa sacra which we acknowledge in our King in our Oath of Supremacy and if such be called Eclesiastical and their Courts and Laws so called also that ambiguous name doth not intimate them to be of the same species as Christs ordained Ecclesiastical Ministers or as his Churches and Laws are so now we add that if Princes shall authorize any particular Bishops or Pastors to excercise any such visiting conventing ordering moderating admonishing or governing power as it belongeth to the Prince to give not contrary to Christs Laws or the duties by him commanded and priviledges by him granted to particular Churches we judge that Subjects should obey all such even for conscience sake However our consideration of Christs decision of his disciples controversie who should be the greatest and our certain knowledge how necessary Love and Lowliness and how pernicious wrath and Lordly-Pride are in those that must win souls to Christ and imitate him in bearing not making the cross together with the sad history of the Churches distractions and corruption by Clergy-Pride and Worldliness lamented by Nazianzene Basil Hilary Pictavus Socrates Sozomen Isidore Pelusiot Bernard and multitudes more yea by some Popes themselves these and other reasons we say doe make us wish that the Clergy had never been trusted with the sword or any degree of forcing power or secular pomp yet if Princes judge otherwise we must obediently submit to all their Officers XLI It seemeth by the phrase of His Maiesties Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs 1660 in which after consultation with his Reverend Bishops the Pastoral way of Perswasion reproofs and admonitions are granted to the Presbyters that a distinction is intended between this Pastoral and the Prelatical Government And we
Church Because the charge is more odious and injurious and tendeth more to destroy Love IX 7. To accuse a Church its Doctrine Ministry Worship or Discipline falsly as guilty of such corruption which maketh it unlawful for any Christians to have communion with it or falsly to pretend such faults for his own and others separation from it is a great sin though not so great as to unchurch it X. 8. To hold that every Error in the Doctrine Worship Discipline Pastors or People of that Church yea though settled and continued and foreknown not forced on us to consent to or practice is sufficient cause to make Communion with the Church unlawful is to hold a principle which would infer separation from all the known Churches in this world XI 9. To draw others to such separation by such false accusations or opinions is worse than to do it silently ones self and the more the worse XII 10. The more such accusations strike at the heart of Christian Love which is the life of holy Societies and of Holiness it self and the more they draw men from Piety and to hate and abuse and wrong each other the greater is the sin XIII 11. When men erroneously and causlesly gather separated Members from true Churches where they should continue into Antichurches or Societies where their business is to make others unjustly odious that differ from them this is to gather Schismatical Societies And if they pretend themselves wiser than the Generality of the true Orthodox Churches in the world and so separate from them they were for this called Hereticks at first But if it be but upon a quarrel with some particular neighbour Church or Pastor it was called a Schism XIV 12. If any proud or passionate or erroneous person do as Diotrephes cast out the brethren undeservedly by unjust suspensions silencings or excommunications it is tyrannical Schism what better name soever cloak it XV. 13. If any should make sinful terms of Communion by Laws or Mandates imposing things forbidden by God on those that will have Communion with them and expelling those that will not so sin this were heinous Schism And the further those Laws extend and the more Ministers or People are cast out by them the greater is the Schism XVI 14. If any should not only excommunicate such persons for not complying with them in sin but also prosecute them with mulcts imprisonments banishments or other prosecution to force them to transgress this were yet more heinously aggravated Schism XVII 15. All those would be deeply guilty of such Schism who by talk writing or preaching justifie it and cry it up and draw others into the guilt and reproach the Innocent as Schismaticks for not offending God XVIII 16. If any should corrupt such a Church or its Doctrine Worship or Discipline in the very Essentials by setting up forbidden Officers and Worship or casting out the Officers Worship or Discipline instituted by Christ and then prosecute others for not communicating with them this would be yet the more heinous Schism XIX 17. If either of the last named sorts would not be content with mens Communion with them but would also silence and prosecute such as will not own justifie and consent to all that they do by subscriptions declarations covenants promises or oaths this would yet be a more aggravated Schism XX. 18. If the men that do this should be mere obtruders and usurpers that have no true Pastoral power over those whom they persecute as the Pope over other Kingdoms and Churches this were yet more aggravated schisme XXI 19. If such Usurpers will claim a dominion or Monarchy over all the world and unchurch degrade and unchristen all that will not be their Subjects or will impose sinful termes of Vnion upon all the Christian World and declare all Hereticks or Schismaticks that receive them not and so cast out most of the Christians on Earth and all the sounder Churches this is one of the most heynous sorts of Schism that the mind of man can think of Which is the grand Schism of the Roman Papacy worse than all their interior Schisms when they had many Popes at once XXII 20. If such shall send agents and emissaries into the Dominions of Christians Princes or States to draw the Subjects to that Schisme and make them believe that Princes are by right the Subjects of the Pope and that men shall be damned if they will not take him for the Bishop or Vice-christ of all the World and keep up a rich and numerous Clergie in Christian Kingdomes for this use and make Decrees to exterminate or burn Christians and to depose temporal Lords that will not obey them and execute their lawes This is to maintain and prosecute a Schisme against Religious and Civill peace by open hostility to Princes and People and to mankind XXIII 21. If because the Roman Emperours and Clergie setled five Patriarchs in the Roman Empire of which the Roman Bishop was the first and by Councils called General of that Empire did make Church Laws to bind the Subjects any therefore will teach that these Patriarchs and the Pope as Principiâ—m unitatis must be Rulers in the dominions of other Princes and that such Councils must govern them by their Decrees and that the Universal Church must be united in any one mortal head whether Personal or Collective such as General Councils and so would bring Christian Princes and people under the Laws and Government of forreigners and brand those as Schismaticks that will not fall in with such an Universal Church Policie This were also a very heinous sort of Schism For the Universal Church never did nor will be united on such termes And therefore to make such terms of its unity is to make an Engine to divide it and tear it all into pieces XXIV 22. If any will confine the Power or Exercise of the Church Keyes into so few hands as shall make the Exercise of Christs Discipline impossible as by laying that work on one which multitudes are too few to do or shall make Churches so great and Pastors so few as that the most of the people must needs be without true Pastoral oversight teaching and publick worship and then will forbid those people to Commit the Care of their souls to any others that will be Pastors indeed and so would compel them to be without Christs ordinances true Church Communion and Pastoral help This would be Schismatical and much worse XXV 23. If any Pastors will deny Baptism which is their investiture in the Christian Church to the Adult that refuse to receive the transient Image of the Crucifix or any thing equal to it as a Dedicating means to consecrate them to God and to signifie their Covenant Engagement to Christ and as a badge and symbol of the Christian Religion it seemeth to us to be Schismaticall when Christ himself instituted Baptism without such a Covenanting Image to be the test and bond of his Churches unity But
28. When able faithful Pastors are lawfully set over the Assemblies by just Election and Ordination if any will causelesly and without right silence them and command the people to desert them and to take others for their Pastors in their stead of whom they have no such knowledge as may encourage them to such a change we cannot defend this from the charge of Schism which puts a Congregation on so hard a means of Concord as to judge whether they are bound to that Pastor that was set over them as Christ appointed or must renounce him and take the other when they are Commanded So Cyprian in the case of Novatian sayes that he could be no Bishop because another was rightfull Bishop before XXXI 29. In England it belongeth 1. to the Patron to present 2. to the Bishop to ordain and institute and therefore to approve and invest 3. to the people jure divino to be free Consenters 4. and to the Magistrate to protect and to judge who shall be protected or tolerated under him If now these four parties be for four Ministers or for three or two several men and cannot agree in one the culpable dissenters will be the causes of the Schism XXXII 30. If a Church have more Presbyters than one and will be for one way of worship discipline or doctrine and another for another as at Frankford Dr. Cox Mr. Horn and others were for the Liturgie and others against it so that the people cannot possibly accord it is the culpable party which ever it be that must answer for the Schism So much of enumerated Schisms XXXIII On the Negative we suppose that none of these following are Schisms in a culpable sense 1. All are agreed that it is no Schism for the Christian Church to separate from the ancient Jewish or from the Infidel Heathen World XXXIV 2. All Protestants are agreed that it is no Schism to deny obedience to the Roman Pope nor to deny that communion with them which they will not have without obedience To separate from other Churches is to deny them meer Communion But to separate from the Roman as Papal is but to deny them subjection To deny any other Christian Church to be a true Church is Schismatical if they have the Essentials of a Church But to deny the Papal Church or Monarchy to be a true Church of Christ's institution is true just and necessary though they be Christians because we mean only the Papal Church form as it is an Universal Ecclesiastical Monarchy of the whole Christian world which no other Church but that doth claim XXXV 3. It is no Schism to deny Subjection to Pope Councils or Patriarchs of other Kingdomâ— or to any forein Power by what names or titles soever called XXXVI 4. It is no Schism to deny that Christ hath any such Visible Church on Earth as is one by Union with any Universal Head Personal or Collective besides himself XXXVII 5. It is no Schism to Preach and gather Churches and elect and ordain Pastors and Assemble for God's Worship against the Laws and will of Heathen Nahometan or Infidel Princes that forbid it For thus did the Christians for 300 years And if there be the same cause and need it is no more Schism to do it against the Laws and will of a Christian Prince Because 1. Christ's Laws are equally obligatory 2. Souls equally precious 3. The Gospel and Gods worship equally necessary 4. And his Christianity enableth him not to do more hurt than a Pagan may do but more good If therefore either out of Ungodly enmity to his own profession or for fear of displeasing his wicked or Insidel Subjects he should forbid Christian Churches he is not to be therein obeyed XXXVIII 6. If a Prince Heathen Infidel or Christian forbid Gods Commanded worship and any Commanded part of the Pastors office as in Papists Kingdoms Prayer in a known tongue and the Cup in the Lords Supper is forbidden and as they say all preaching save the reading of Liturgies and Homilies is forbidden in Moscovie and as the use of the Keyes is elsewhere forbidden It is no Schism to disobey such Laws what Prudence may pro hic nunc require of any single person we now determine not XXXIX 7. If any Prince would turn his Kingdom or a whole Province Diocess or County into One only Church and thereby overthrow all the first order of Churches of Christs institution which are associated for Personal present Communion allowing them no Pastors that have the power of the Keyes and all essential to their office though he should allow Parochial Oratories or Chappels which should be no true Churches but Parts of a Church It were no Schism to gather Churches within such a Church against the Laws of such a Prince Many write that there is but One Bishop in Abassia though some say that others have Episcopal power under him some that read the old Canons which confine Bishops to Cities and take not the word as then it was taken for any great Town or Corporation but for such priviledged Towns only as are called Cities in England hence gather that as the King may disfranchise Cities and reduce them to ten two or one in a Kingdom he may by consequence do so by Churches that have Bishops which if it be spoken but of Episcopi Episcoporum we resist not But if of Episcopi Gregis of the first Order of Churches called Particular we suppose that out of such a Kingdom-Church Provincial or Diocesan-Church it is no Schism to gather particular Parochial Churches though forbidden And the same reason will prove that if in a lesser circuit the same things be done though in a lower degree viz were it but three four or ten particular Churches of the largest size capable of Personal Communions turned into one which is capable only of distant Communion per alios it is lawful to gather particular Churches out of that larger sort of Church If the Bishop of Rome Alexandria Antioch Cesarea Heraclea Carthage c. should have put down the Bishops of ten twenty an hundred or many hundred Churches about them and set up only Oratories and Catechists in their stead making them all but part of their own Churches it would have been lawful to have gathered Churches in their Churches For God never made them proper Judges whether Christ should have Churches according to his laws nor whether God should be worshipped and souls be saved or his own nstitutions of Churches be observed XL. 8. If Bishops would ordain Presbyters by limiting words restraining them from any Essential or Integral Part of the Office or Power as instituted by Christ and yet profess that they ordain them to the Office which Christ hath instituted it is no Schism for those Presbyters afterward to claim and execute in season all the power which by Christ's institution belongeth to their Office though against the Bishops Wills Because the Bishops are not the Authors or Donors of
the Rulers ought â—o judge so and do well If not but he be innocent or one that ought not to be forbidden his Office no man hath power from God to judge contrary and causelesly to forbid him And his conscience is not formerly bound by that prohibition Though he must still keep his Loyalty and subjection and his care of the publick peace and welfare LX. We conclude again that seeing we meet with none that will say that Rulers may Judge that we shall not worship God or that the Gospel shall not be preached or that men must obediently forsake Christ or go to Hell Nor with any Christian that will say that without faith and holiness we may be saved we dread the consequence of such arguing as taketh this up as the last defence that those people that visibly live in Sensuality Drunkenness Fornication Coveteousness Pride Ungodlyness or Gross Ignorance are indeed in a safe condition for salvation and therefore that Preaching which should bring them to repentance is not necessary But that its safer to continue Ignorant and ungodly than to joyn with the Religious for fear of Schism For we cannot deny that they that have no other Medium to defend their Assertion that the lifeless unskilful Ministry of Novices which maketh very few seriously Religious doth more good than the contrary which hath contrary success if it be by men forbidden do too plainly perswade us from our Christianity it self that is from the chiefest evidence of its truth and glory For if there were no better Christians in the world than such unholy persons before described and if Christ had not a holy peculiar people of heavenly minds and lives and zealous of good works we could never prove or believe him to be the Christ that came to save his people from their sins He is not the Physician whom we can trust that doth not cure men And if they will resolve the case into the question of fact whether such different Ministers have usually different success and serious Christianity be not much more rare under Reading Novices and unexperienced lifeless men than under skilful serious godly Pastors we are unable to doubt of it against all experience LXI Obj. 5. But if every man that is proud and heretical may set up as a Preacher when he will and when any people will chuse him Religion will be corrupted and the Church confounded Answ True therefore that must not be 1. There are some previous qualifications so essentially necessary to the Ministry that without them no man is owned as his Minister by Christ nor should be by men 2. The Ordainers are to be Judges whether men have these qualifications 3. The people are discerning Judges which qualified ordained man or to be ordained is meet for them so far as it is necessary to their mutual Consent 4. If a Heretick or other intollerable person must set up a Preacher or if any turn Heretick the Orthodox Churches are after due admonition to renounce him as unacceptable of their communion that he may be shamed and avoided 5. If yet he continue obstinate and do more harm than good the Magistrate is Ruler and must restrain him and deny him leave so to Preach in his Dominions so he do it not by penalties unsuitable to the offence Dis franchising discountenancing and shame do usually more against Heresies than cruelties But Necessary Faithful Teachers may not on these pretences be cast out LXII 18. If the People conscious of their great Necessity of Pastoral over-sight and help and of Christ's command to use it do live in a Parish or Countrey where they cannot have it from those that the Magistrate alloweth either because they cannot perform it for them or because they will not it is no Schism for such to seek and use it from worthy though prohibited men We before spake of the Schisms of Teachers and now of Hearers In this case men may justly thus argue Our Necessity requireth Pastoral oversight and Christ commandeth us to use it when we may have it But from this publick Minister we cannot have it Therefore we must seek it where we can That most men have need of Pastoral oversight is certain else Christ would not have instituted it for them And every man should be conscious of his own need That Christ hath commanded us the use of it is certain 1. In all those Texts which command the Pastors their general and particular duties to the People to Preach and be instant in season and out to reprove rebuke exhort to comfort the feeble minded to visit the sick to convince the erroneous to administer the Sacraments to pray and worship God publickly with them c. 2. In all those Texts that command the People to hear submit to obey and imitate such Guides and use such Ordinances In several cases the People may possibly be deprived of this at home as from the allowed Minister 1. When publick Pastors are at so great a distance from them as that such Pastors cannot come to them nor they and their families go so far without such inconvenience and trouble as will frustrate the end of their endeavours As in France where the Protestants must go twenty miles or ten to a Church which the weak children and aged cannot do nor the rest of the family without such cost and pains and loss of time as will deprive them of the benefit Obj. But yet the Protestants there do not set up unlicensed Churches Ans That is not as an act of formal obedience as if they took it to be unlawful because prohibited but in prudence because the persecution should they do it would frustrate their attempt In such cases the old Christians met in secret 2. Where Parishes are so great that the allowed Pastors cannot Preach to half or a fourth or tenth part of the people and cannot visit half the sick and Baptize and administer the Lords Supper as is necessary And have not time if the ignorant and doubting and troubled persons should come to them for Counsel resolution or comfort to speak duely to one of twenty of them In a Parish of 50000 or 30000 or 20000 or 15000 or 10000 soules how few is it that one or two Ministers can perform all the Offices to publick and private which the Gospel requireth Pastors to perform 3. Where the allowed Pastors are so slothful or proud that they will not condescend to these Offices of Personal help to many thousands especially of the poor 4. Where they are young raw men or ignorant of such matters unable to counsel people as their necessities require in order to their salvation and perhaps to do it tolerably in a publick Sermon 5. Where they are so prophane and malignant that if poor people come to them with cases of conscience or for counsel what they must do to be saved they will but deride them as scrupulous and precise and make them believe that to be solicitous about salvation
For all that he inferreth or can infer from them all is obligation to consent and to other duties after consent But obligation maketh not the relation of a member All that are obliged to be Christians are not Christians All that are obliged to be Pastors are not Pastors Nor all that are obliged to consent first and to do the duty of Pastors after Even as all that are obliged to consent to be subjects Husbands Wives Masters Servants Tutors Scholars c. are not such If meer obligation serve to one relation why not to others 2. Else a man might be a true Pastor unchosen unordained and against his will For he may by his qualifications be obliged to be ordained and to become a Pastor 3. And so the people may be the flock of one that was obliged to be their Pastor when another is set over them and in possession because it was the first that was obliged and they to choose him And so utter Confusion will come in And if a man can prove that another mans wife and servant was obliged to be his he may take them as his indeed 3. By this rule all the Papists Seekers Quakers c. that renounce our Churches should yet be members of them because they live in the Parish and are commanded to be members Which who believeth 4. A member of a Church hath right to Communion and Ministerial vigilancie and help But so hath not every baptized person that is commanded to be a member and obeyeth not that command If a man say to a Pastor I will be none of your flock or Church but yet I require you to do the office of a Pastor to me though I renounce your relation to me and the people to use me as a member of the flock because I am commanded to be a member this were a strange claim 5. If this did hold then no man that liveth in the Parish could be a proper separatist so as to break off himself from that Church nor become a member of another unless he apostatized from Christ For he would be still under the Magistrates Command and obligation But the consequent is absud Why do the same men speak so much against schismatical rending mens selves from the true Churches and gathering other Churches if there be no such thing The Laws change not which oblige them 6. They that are against schism and singularity should be against this opinion because as it is utterly absurd so it is notoriously contrary to the Judgment of all the Christian world in all ages to this day as acquaintance with Church history may fully inform them They have ever taken mutual consent between the Pastors and the flock to be necessary to the being of a particular Church and that whatever they were obliged to they were not actually related to each other as Pastor and flock till they consented And therefore have noted schismatical Churches in the same Cities that have been no parts of the Church which they disowned § 8. But it is objected that this unchurcheth our Parish-Churches and all the Churches in the world Ans Not one But the contrary would Our Parish Churches are associated by mutual consent The Pastor expresseth his consent openly at his institution induction and officiating The Flocks shew their consent by actual submitting to his Ministerial Office They hear him and communicate ordinarily with him and seek Ministerial help from him though all that are in the Parish do not so those do it that are indeed his flock or Church They do not perhaps by word or writing covenant to submit to him as their Pastor but they do it by actual signification of consent to the relation And the Bishops in Consecration enter into a Covenant to watch over the flock as do the Priests and the Priests promise if not swear in England to obey them This is a Covenant §9 It is objected that this is a disparagement to Baptism which is the only Church-making Covenant Ans Baptism only as such maketh us members of the universal Church but is not enough to make us of any Ministers special flock I am not a member of the Church of York Norwich Bristol c. because I am baptized Nor am I a member of the Parish Church now where I was baptized Consent to be a Christian is one thing and consent to be a member of this particular Church and to take this man more than all the rest about us for the Guide of my soul is another §10 And if a man would say I will be a member of this Parish Church and you shall perform so much of your Office as I desire and no more I will hear and receive the Sacrament but when I please and I will not admit you to catechize or instruct any of my family nor visit the sick nor will I be responsible to you for any thing that I hold or say or do nor have any thing to do with you but in the Church is a Minister bound to do his office to men or take them for his special flock on these terms The ancient Churches had abundance of strict Canons if the people should have chosen a Bishop and said We will obey none of these Canons nor you but you shall be our Bishop on our terms was he bound to have consented and to have been such a Bishop This is really the case of no small part of England though they say it not openly by words §11 It is objected that as Apostles so ordained Ministers have their authority before the consent of the people and receive it not from them Ans 1. Who ever questioneth it that is considerate as to an indefinite charge in the Church universal But what 's that to the question Are all the Ministers in the world bound to be the Pastors of this Parish or Diocess Our question is what constituteth the relations between a Pastor and his Particular flock Doth not the ordainer here say Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God c. when thou art thereto lawfully called Because a man is a Licensed Physician without me doth it follow that he is my Physician without my consent 2. Are all those Church-members that Ministers are authorized to preach to Then all the Heathen-world are Church-members 3. They receive not authority from the people but their consent is necessary to make themselves capable receivers of the relation and right of Church-members God and not the Wife giveth the Husband the superiority but he is no such Husband to any that consenteth not §12 God hath laid mens rights and benefits on their wills so that no man can have them against his will It is a great priviledge to have right to communion with a particular Church and to this or that faithful Pastors oversight And its new Doctrine to say that unwilling persons have this right because they are willing of something else viz. to be members of the Church universal §13 We conclude
such as the Counterminer will say that to fear such sin as I have here named by one that is not willing to be damned is Treason Rebellion Schism Faction Pride Obstinacy this will not pass with me for convincing Argument on which I may venture my salvation Jul Scaliger exercit tells us that in France our Bicott the Learned Schoolman was envied by another for his Auditors in Philosophy and his crafty adversary told the King that Bicott was a Peripatetick and Aristotle was against Monarchy There needed no more and Bicott was cast down As for them that think that to name the late Wars is a Confutation of Nonconformists as if they knew not that they were raised on both sides by Conformists Heylin in Lauds Life will tell them who I now only repeat Silence all that had a hand in those Wars except the Conformists and no more and I and thousands will give you thanks I plead not for my self The years are past in which I might have better served the Church had I been thought tolerable I am almost uncapable now of your kindness or of any great hurt that you can do me A torrent of reproaching scornful words may ease some mens minds and serve some mens ends but will not satisfie my conscience nor heal the Land I write not this as accusing Conformists or the Law-makers but as answering their loud and long accusations and demands If telling what I fear seem a telling what others are guilty of it is a consequent which I cannot avoid but to avoid it and such like have seventeen years been herein silent So far am I from desiring the weakening of the Church that I had not written this but to prevent it Though I with Saint Martin renounce communion with Ithacius and Idacius I go not so far as he in separating from the Synods of Bishops nor will I separate from any Christians further than they separate from Christ or expel me Church-Order I love Church Tyranny and Schism I love not I am for more Bishops and not for fewer If Parish-Oratories or Chapels were made Parish-Churches at least in each Corporation antiently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea if the Parish-Ministers might be Pastors Episcopigregis and not forced by strangers to excommunicate absolve and receive to communion against their knowledge and consciences nor to profess promise or practice sin against God nor omit their known Ministerial duty far be it from me to be against Conformity I doubt not but he that will preserve Religion here in its due advantages must endeavour to preserve the Soundness Concord and Honour of the Parish-Churches And as the truly wise and honest Judge Hale hath said to me It must be a new Act of Uniformity that must heal us if ever we be healed I am of the mind of old Mr. Dod who for the peoples sake thanked God that there were so many worthy Conformists and for Truth and Conscience sake thanked God that there were so many Nonconformists I love and honour the Reverend solid worthy Preachers which I hear in most Churches in London where I come and I endeavour to have all others honour them And though I am by the Canon ipso facto excommunicate they shall put me out from them before I will depart But for the Church and Kingdom and their Consciences sake I beg of the Clergy that before they any more render odious those whom they never heard and urge Rulers to execute the Laws against them that is to confine imprison excommunicate silence and undo them they would be sure what manner of spirit they are of and that this is acceptable to God and profitable to the Land or to themselves and that which the Churches Experience commendeth My honest friend whom I once perswaded from Anabaptistry writing against Separation saith that when he saw hereâ—a leg and there an arm in the way it was time for him to stop But in Church-history I have had a sadder sight even the carkasses of thousands streams of blood and turnults in the chief Cities and Churches of the world the Crowns of Emperours Kings the loss of the Eastern Empire the generation of the Papacie the reproach of Christianity and that by Clergie-Domination and Contention striving who should be Greatest and seem wisest Some say If we take in a few moderate men like you what the better are we Ans More than you dream of are far better than I I hope few are worse Bishop Morley bid Ab uno disce omnes Shall London have no clocks unless they will all strike at once shall none be tolerated but the perfect Are you such your selves Do you differ in nothing how then shall we have Communion with you when we differ in all the things here described Pardon me for saying I think that Mr. Tombs hath said more like truth for Anabaptistry the late Hungarian for Polygamy many for drunkenness stealing and lying in cases of necessity than ever I yet read for the lawfulness of all that I have here described And what is it that some men cannot copiously and confidently talk for And what wretched Reasons be they that have hindred Englands unity and peace And how fully hath Rom. 14. and 15. and our Common interest and notorious experience confuted them I have long wondered what powerful cause it is that with such men and so many could so long prevail against such evidence and light If you will not hear those will whom God will use to the healing of his Churches and blessed are the Peacemakers for though you call them otherwise they shall be called the Children of God I have prefixed the words of some as our admonition and I have written with this a fuller Treatise of the only true terms of the Concord of all Christian Churches and of the false terms which they never will unite in but are the causes of Schism I commitall with my self living and dying to him that is the Lord of the dead and living and will shortly judge us all in righteousness Come Lord Jesus and prepare us for thy Coming Amen THE CONTENTS 1. THE Reasons of this writing and the sense of the word CHURCH 2. The various opinions of such as we have to do with 3. What Churches we hold to be instituted of God and what not 4. What Princes and Pastors may do in such matters 5. What separation and what assembling or gathering Churches is unlawful and what lawful 6. Matters of fact to be known preparatory to our case 7. Matters required of us for Conformity first of â—ay-men 8. Secondly Matters imposed on Ministers And I. Of Assent Consent Approbation and Canonical subscription that nothing is contrary to the Word of God II. 9. The second Part of the Matter of Conformity Reordination III. 10. The third Part of the Matter of Conformity of swearing or Covenanting never to endeavour any alteration of Church Government VI. 11. The fourth part of the Matter to declare that neither
not had more than one of such fixed Societies or Churches under him Or might have more stated members of his Church than were capable of Personal Communion and mutual assistance at due seasons in holy Doctrine Discipline and Worship Though we doubt not but as now there are many Chapels in some Parishes where the aged weak children and all in soul weather or by other hinderances may hear and pray and occasionally communicate whose proximity and relation to the Parish-Churches do make them capable of Personal Communion in due seasons with the whole Parish at least per vices in those Churches and in their conversation And as a single Congregation may prudently in persecution or foul weather meet oft-times in several houses so the great Church of Jerusalem though it cannot be proved a quarter so big as some of our Parishes might in those times when they had no Temples hold their publick Meetings oft at the same time in divers houses and yet be capable of Personal Communion as it is before described Sect. II. It is not inconsiderable to our confirmation that so worthy a man as Dr. Hamond doth over and over in his Dissertations against Blondell and in his Learned Annotations on the new Testament assert all the matter of fact which we are pleading for viz. That the word Presbyter and Pastor in the New Testament is ever taken for a Bishop That it belonged to the Bishops office to be the Preacher to his Church to visit all the Sick to take care of all the Poor and to take Charge of the Churches stock to administer the Sacrament c. And as he saith on Acts 11. 6. That although this Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Elders have been also extended to a second order in the Church and is now only in use for them under the name of Presbyters yet in the Scripture-time it belonged principally if not alone to Bishops there being NO EVIDENCE that any of that second Order were then instituted though soon after before the writing of Ignatius's Epistles there were such instituted in all Churches Sect. XII By this it followeth that 1. the office of a subject Presbyter that was no Bishop was not in being that can be proved in Scripture-times 2. That no Bishop had more than one worshiping assembly at once For all Christians assembled for worship on the Lords dayes and their worship still included somewhat which none but a Minister of Christ might do and when there was no other Minister in being but Bishops and a Bishop can be but in one place at once a Bishop could have but one assembly Though for our parts we think that we have just reason to believe that Churches then had more Ministers than one when we read how Paul was put to restrain and regulate their publick officiating at Corinth 1 Cor. 14. Sect. XIII And it further confirmeth us that the said Doctor tells us that for ought he knoweth the most of the Church then were of his mind And Franciscus a sancta clara de Episcop tells us that this opinion came from Scotâ—â— And Petavius that Learned Jesuit was the man that brought it in in our times viz. That the Apostles placed only Bishops with Deacons in the Churches and that it is only these Bishops that are called Presbyters in Scripture So that the Matter of fact for the whole Scripture-times is granted us by all these learned men Sect. XIV It being the Divine Institution of the Office of this second Order of Presbyters which we are unsatisfied about and these Reverend men confessing that de facto they were not in being as can be proved by any evidence in Scripture-times and those times extending to about the hundredth or ninety ninth year after Christs Nativity when St. John wrote the Revelation we must confess that we know not how that Order or Office can be proved then to be of God's institution 1. As to the Efficient who should do it as the certain authorized Instruments of God 2. Or how it shall be certainly proved to us to be of God when Scripture telleth it not to us and what Records of it are infallible And whether such pretended proofs of Tradition as a supplement to Scripture be not that which the Papacy is built on and will not serve their turn as well as this Sect. XV. And whereas it is said that the Bishops made in Scripture-times had authority given them to make afterward that second Office or Order of Presbyters 1. We cannot but marvel then that in such great Churches as that at Jerusalem Ephesus Corinth c. they should never use their Power in all the Scripture-times And when they had so many Elders at Jerusalem so many Prophets and Teachers at Antioch and Corinth that Paul was fain to restrain their exercises and bid them prophesie but One by One and one said I am of Paul and another I am of Apollo c. there should yet in that age be none found meet for Bishops to ordain to this second sort of Presbyters as well asmen to make Deacons of 2. But we never yet saw the proof produced that indeed the Bishops had power given them to institute this other Species of Elders Sure it belonged to the Founders of the Churches Christ and his Apostles to institute the Species of Ecclesiastical Officers though the Bishops might make the Individuals afterwards And where is the proof that the Apostles did institute it If Ecclesiastical generation imitate natural the Bishops would beget but their like men beget men so Physicians make Physicians and so Bishops may beget Bishops But he that saith they could morally first beget this other Species must prove it Sect XVI When Presbyters were first distinct from Bishops we see no proof that it was as a distinct Office or Order in specie and not only as a distinct degree and priviledge of men in the same Office Nor hath the Church of Rome it self thought meet to determine this as de fide but suffereth its Doctors to hold the contrary Sect. XVII It much confirmeth us in our judgment that no mere Bishop then had more Churches than one as afore described when we find that Ignatius whose authority Dr. Hamond Dissert cont Blondel Laieth so much of the cause upon and whom Bishop Pierson hath lately so industriously vindicated doth expresly make ONE ALTAR and ONE BISHOP with the Presbyters and Deacons to be the note of a Church Unity and Individuation And that by one Altar is meant one Table of Communion or place where that Table stood is past doubt with the judicious and impartial Whence learned Mr. Joseph Mede doth argue as certain that then a Bishops Church was no other than such as usually communicated in one place Yea saith Ignatius the Bishop must take notice and account of each person even of Man-servants and Maids that they come to the Church And this was the Bishop of a Seat that after was Patriarchal Such Bishops we do
not oppose Sect. XVIII We find proof thar ordinarily Churches were first planted in Cities there being not then in the Villages Christians enough to make Churches But we find no proof that when there are Christians enough to constitute Churches they may not be planted in Villages also Nor yet that there may not be more Churches than one in the same City For so Grotius saith There were even then when Christians were comparatively but few and that they were as the Jewish Synagogues in this respect And Dr. Hamond largely asserteth that Peter had a Church of Jews and Paul another of Gentiles at Rome and that so it was in other Cities Sect. XIX Much less is it by Divine Institution that Bishops and their Churches or Seats be only in such as we now call Cities which by their priviledges are distinct from other great Towns and Corporations whenas the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then signified a great Town or Corporation such as our Market-Towns and Corporations now are Sect. XX. But it is the Law of God that all things about Churches and Church-affairs which he hath left to humane prudence should be done according to such general Rules as he hath prescribed for their regulation SECT IV What Princes and Pastors may do in such matters I. THese foresaid General Laws of God do both give the Rulers their Power for determining things committed to them and also limit their power therein II. These General Laws are that All things be done to Edification the circumstances fitted to the End the Glory of God and the Publick Good the promoting of Truth and Godliness that all be done in Love to the promoting of Love and Unity and that all be done in Order and Decently and as may avoid offence or scandal to all both those without and those within Gal. 6. 15 16. Phil. 3. 15 16. 1 Cor. 14. 3 5 12. 26. 17. Rom. 14. 19. 15. 2. 1 Cor. 10. 23. Ephes 4 12 16 19. 2 Cor. 12. 19. 6. 3. 11. 7. 1 Cor. 8. 13. III. Therefore no Rulers Civil or Ecclesiastical have their power to scandalize and destroy but only to edifie being the Ministers of God for good Rom. 13. 3 4 5. 2 Cor. 10. 8. 13. 10. IV. The great Dispute is handled excellently against the Papists for Kings by Bishop Bilson of Christian Obedience Bishop Andrews Tortura Torti Bishop Buckeridge Spalatensis and many more whether the Kings of Christian Kingdoms have not the same power about Church-matters as the Kings of Israel and Judah had David Solomon Hezekiah Josiah c. which cannot be answered by an only Yea or Nay without a more particular consideration of the compared Cases V. We suppose it certain that Christian Kings have no lesser power than the Kings of Israel except 1. What any such King had as a Prophet or in peculiar by an extraordinary grant 2. And what alteration is made by alteration of Church-offices Laws and Worship which may make a difference of which hereafter VI. And 1. It must be remembred that God then reserved the Legislation to himself which he exercised by Revelation and by special Prophets And so the Prophet Moses delivered them that Law which no King had power to abrogate suspend or alter by adding or diminishing Deut. 12. 32. Jos 1. But they had a mandatory power and of making some subordinate By-laws as Cities and Corporations have from and under the King VII 2. Yea great and special Mandates were oft sent from God by Prophets against which the Kings of Israel had no power VIII 3. The Executive or Judicial Power was divided part was in the Kings and Magistrates and part was in the Priests and Levites which the King could not usurp himself as appeareth in Uzziahs offering Incense nor yet forbid the Priests to use it according to God's Law nor change or abrogate their Office For he and they were subject to God's Laws IX 4. God himself settled the High Priesthood on the line of Aaron and all the Priesthood on the Tribe of Levi and it was not in the power of the King to alter it X. 5. God stated the High Priesthood on the Priests during life Numb 35. 25 28. Jos 20 6 c. which Law the Kings had no power to violate XI 6. There are more particular Laws made by God for the duty of the Priests describing their office and work than for any other particular case as many hundred Texts will tell us And none of these Laws might be altered or suspended by the Kings of Israel Nor those by which God stated some of the Judicial Power in the Congregation Num. 35. 12. to 26. XII 7. Solomon's putting out Abiathar and putting in Zadok is not contrary to any of this For supposing the words 1 King 2 35. to be not only a history of the bare matter of fact but a justification of it de jure 1. It poseth learned men to resolve how Zadok and Abiathar are oft said to be both High Priests before and Zadok still put before Abiathar 2. It is certain that Zadok had the right both of Inheritance and especial Promise Numb 25. 11 12 13. 1 Chron. 6. 3 4 c. And what Solomon did was that the word of the Lord might be fulfilled How the possession came into the hands of the line of Ithamar Expositors cannot find It is like it was by occasion of the confusions of their oft Captivity and Anarchy in the interspace of the Judges 3. Even the Priests were the King's subjects and might be punished for their crimes so it were according to God's Laws And if Abiathar forfeited his life he forfeited his Office XIII 8. The Priesthood then depended not on the institution or will of the King or People He might not put out a lawful Priest that had not forfeited his Life or Office He might not have put any one in his place that had not right from God or that was unqualified He might not have forbid the Priests the work appointed them by God But yet if he had injurioâ—slâ— deposed one Abiathar and put in a Zadok the loss had been little to the Church But if he had deposed so great a number of the Priests and Levites as that a great part of God's commanded work must needs thereby have been lest undone and Religion so far destroyed or had as Jeroboam put of the basest of the people or uncapable persons into the Priesthood the loss had been greater and the thing unwarrantable and such as he had not power from God to do XIV And the quality of Moses Law and its Works as different from the Laws of Christ and the Works thereof must be considered that we may discern the difference of the Cases A man that did attempt to draw the people to Idolatry was then to be put to death yea the City to be destroyed that concealed him Deut. ch â—3 so were they that blasphemed and such as committed other heinous
must with very great concern profess that if the Churches of the lowest sort Parochial be but indeed made true Churches such as Christ by his Apostles instituted and not only Parts of a Diocesan Church as if that were the lowest raâ—k And if these particular Churches have but Pastors that have the power of the Keys in those Churches and all that the scripture maketh essential to the Officâ—r which was then set over eveâ—y such particular Church And if the Discipline instituted by Christ himself be but made possible and seasible in such Parochiall Churches yea if we that were trusted by our calling with the mysteries of God may not be forced our selves to administer the Sacraments against our own knowledge consciences and against our consciences and knowledge of mens cases to pronounce men absolved or excommunicate upon other mens decrees or to pronounce the notoriously wicked to be saved and to deny worthy Christians the seal of Christs Covenant nor their infants their visible Christianity by baptism we say might we but have this much we should be so far from using the Controversie about the Divine Kight of Episcâ—pacy as a distinct Order from Presbyters to any schism or injury to the Church that we should thankfâ—lly contribute our best endeavours to the concord safety peace and prosperity thereof And might we but also be freed from Swearing Subscribing Declaring and Covenanting unnecessary things which we take not to be true against our consciences and from some few unnecessary Practices which we cannot justifie we should joyfully serve the Church in our publick Ministry though it were in poverty and rags But of so great a mercy experience hath made our hopes from men to be very small And the reason of the thing maketh our hopes as small of the happiness of the Church of England till God shall unite us on these necessary terms SECT VI. 3. What Separation and what Gathering of Assemblies or Churches is unlawful and what lawful I. THough some mens abuse of the word Schism and calling mens duty to God by that name hath proved a great temptation to many to take it but for a word of Passion or of no certain or odious signification even as the Papists abuse of the word Heresie and Heretick hath been to others yet the evill of true Shism and the odium that God layeth on it in the Scripture should move all Christians to fear the thing and use the name with the disgrace that it truely importeth without misapplication and to avoid all guilt of so great a sin II. There are several sorts and degrees of Schism which greatly differ from each other Its one thing to divide from a Church and another to cause divisions or factions in it It s one thing to divide our selves from it and another to cause others to divide It s one thing to draw men away by words and another to drive them away by laws or execution by unjust excommunication or by violent persecution It s one thing to tempt away or drive away a single person or a few and another thing to draw or drive away multitudes It s one thing to separate from the Universal-Church and another from a particular Church or a few only It s one thing to separate from the species of particular Churches and another from some individuals only It s one thing to separate from the Churches of Christs institution and another to separate only from those of mens institution It s one thing to separate from such as men make lawfully and another from such only as they make without authority and sinfully And here separating from one whose sinful constitution is traiterous against Christs prerogative as the Papal Universal Usurpation much differeth from separating from one whose constitution though sinful is of no such perniciousness It is one thing to deny total Communion and another to separate but secundum quid for some act or part And that is either a great and necessary part or some small or indifferent thing or ceremony It is one thing to separate Locally by bodily absence and another mentally by Schismaticall principles It is one thing to separate from a Church as accusing it to be no Church of Christ and another to separate from it only as a true Church but so Corrupted as not to be Communicated with It s one thing to judge its Communion absolutely unlawful and another only to forsake it for a better which is preferred It s one thing to depart willfully and another to be unwillingly cast out It s one thing to depart rashly and in hast and another to depart after due patience when reformation appeareth hopeless It is one thing to remove upon religious reasons and another upon Civil or Domestical or Corporal It is easy for a confounded head to pass over all such distinctions and with unjust and confounding censures to reproach others as Schismaticks in the dark before he knoweth what schism is being guilty of Schism in his very accusations But sober Christians must be discerners and know that confusion is an Enemy to truth and love and justice III. I The Union of the Church Universal is in the seven things mentioned by Paul Eph. 4. 3. 4 5. 6. viz. One Body One Spirit of faith and Love One Hope of Glory One Lord One faith or Creed One Baptismal Covenant One God and Father of all He that separateth from this Church directly is an Apostate Uisibly if from its Essential profession and invisibly if only from the inward sincerity of faith consent and Love This is damning separation And if he separate but from some one Essentiall article of faith or duty it is that which is most usually and strictly called Heresie of which we are now to speak no further IV. 2. To make Factions Parties Contentions and Mutinies in a true Church of Christ or in any Community of Christians yea or but in families in the Universal Church is a great sin in all that are the true culpable Causes of it and are not only the involuntary occasions by unavoidable accidents V. 3. To separate from all the particular Churches in the world as if they were no true Political Churches of Christ as those called Seekers do who say that the Ministry Scripture and Churches are lost in the wilderness is a very heinous sin though such as do so renounce not their Baptism or the Church Universal VI. 4. To separate from most or many Churches by so unchurching them is far worse than to separate from few or one it being a greater wrong to Christ and men VII 5. To separate from one upon a reason that is known to be common to all or most or many is virtually to separate from all or most or many VIII 6 To separate from a true Church accusing it to be no true Church is a greater injury and sin caeteris paribuâ— than to separate from it only on an unjust accusation or culpability consistent with a true
if those Pastors hold Baptism necessary also to salvation and yet will so deny it to such this seemeth a great aggravation The same we say of such Pastors as reject from Baptism and the Church the Infants of true Christians on the aforesaid account As also of those that reject them from Baptism because the Parents will not offer them to it unless they may themselves be the Covenanters in their own Childrens names and the Express dedicaters of them to God and because they either cannot get credible Godfathers or will not put others to promise the Christian Education of their children who they have no reason to believe do at all intend it or will ever do it we can excuse no such rejection of Christian Infants from Christs Church from Schism XXVI 24. If some Christians be of opinion that Christs example bindeth them to receive the Lords Supper in a Table gesture or that the tradition of the Universal Church and the Canon 20th of the Nicene Councill is obligatory to them which forbad men to adore Kneeling on any Lords day in the year or on any week day between Easter and Whitsuntide which no other General Council revoked but continued till meer usage by degrees wore it out saith Dr. Heylin of the Sabbath above 1000 years after Christ Or if the said persons should think that to receive Kneeling were such a scandalous appearance of the Papists Bread-worship as the bowing before an Image forbidden by the 2d Commandement was a scandalous appearance of Idol-worship though these persons did in this mistake we could not excuse our selves from Schism if we should therefore refuse them Sacramental-Communion Nor if we should Assent and Consent to the rejection of men for so small an errour seeing Christs Spirit Rom. 14. 1 c. commanded both Pastors and People to receive him that is weak in the saith but not to doubtful disputations and to live in Love and Union with those that have greater weaknesses than this XXVII 25. It may be Schismatical to cast men out of the Church for that which yet may be Schismatical in the person so ejected If he depart from the Church though Schismatically only in some accident circumstance or some one act or thing of no necessity to communion or salvation we think he may not be excommunicated e. g. for not paying Fees at the Chancellours Court or such like For as God departeth not from sinners first or further than they depart from him so we humbly conceive the Church should imitate him remembring how Christ that came not to destroy mens lives but to save them rebuked the Sons of Thunder that would have had him destroy those that refused to receive him telling them That they knew not what manner of spirit they were of On the other side it may be Schism to separate from a Church that hath some Schismatical Principles Practices and Persons if those be not such or so great as to necessitate our departure from them For alas it is too few Churches that are so happy as to have nothing and do nothing which is Schismatical XXVIII 26. Gathering New Churches by way of Separation from others or gathering Assemblies without the consent of the lawful Pastors who had the charge of the People of those Assemblies is a sin and Schism in all these Cases following 1. In general when the Laws Practices or Persons of the Church which they separate from give them no sufficient cause of a departure 2. In general when in the judgment of true reason according to the notable evidence of the case the said Assemblies are like to do more hurt than good 3. When such Assemblies are gathered in opposition to some Truth which the Separaters would thereby disown e. g. Infant-Baptism the lawfulness of Set-forms of Praise or Prayer or any sound Doctrine or for the profession and propagation of some Heresie or Error as Antinomianism Popery c. 4. When such Churches are gathered by men that have no true Fitness and Calling for the Sacred Ministry or the work which they undertake 5. When they are gathered by the pride of the Ministers that would thereby unduly set up themselves and draw away Disciples after them or by their covetousness seeking not the good of the Flock but the Fleece not them but theirs not serving the Lord Jesus but their own Bellies Or when gathered by the Pride of the People that unjustly think those that they separate from men unworthy of their Communion and say to them Come not near to us we are holier than you Isa 65. 5. 6. When they are gathered by a quarrelsom Passion falling out with the Pastors and People whom they separate from The parting of Paul and Barnabas had some evil in it 7. When they are gathered to encourage and strengthen a sinful Faction or Party or when men separate from others for fear of being censured by such a party as Peter did withdraw from the Gentile Christians lest he should displease the erroneous lewes Gal. 2. 8. When it is done out of a proud overvaluing of mens own opinions or some odd singularity whereby men cannot bear those that are not of their mind or whereby they would fain be be more conspicuous as more Orthodox and wise than others 9. When it is done mistakingly to set up some wrong course of Church Government or worship As that the People may have the Power of the Keyes or of examining and judging all admitted members or that Papal Government or the mass may be introduced enthusiastical disorderly talking by pretended inspiration by ignorant uncalled men or to introduce such traditions and superstitions as the Papists use c. 10. When it is done upon a false conceit that a mans presence with any Church that hath known errour or saults in doctrines or worship is a guilty approving of them and therefore that they must separate from all such 11. When they separate out of an unruliness of spirit because they will not be governed by their lawful Pastors in lawful things as time place order c. or because a Minor part in elections is overvoted by the major part and cannot have their wills 12. When they separate out of a prophaneness of mind not enduring the power of the Preachers doctrine or the holiness and discipline of the Church but would be licentious while they would be called Religious All these are unlawful separations and assemblings â— Yet that which is unlawful as to the Principle End and Manner secundum quid is not alwaies unlawful simply and in the thing it self for a proud covetous turbulent person may sinfully do a Lawful thing XXIX 27. When Pastors by concord or Magistrates by Laws have setled Lawful Circumstances or Accidents of Church Order or Worship or Discipline though they be in particular but humane Institutions it is Sinful disobedience to violate them without necessary reason e. g. Parochial Order Associations Times Places Ministers Maintenance Scripture-Translations c. XXX
of preserving Truth Charity and Peace But it is but a Means to the Ends of the things Ordered and the publick good Therefore if Order should be made the advantage of Heresie Church-Tyranny or Iniquity and be turned against the good of Church and Souls as it is in the Policy of the Roman Church and in well ordered Armies of Rebels or such as have unlawful wars this would make it no Schism or sin â—o break such order These notices interposed we add 4. That it hath been the Judgement of the most honoured Ages of the Church that it is no Schism in the forementioned Cases to cleave to the faithful Pastors that were duly ordained and consented to and to refuse subjection to such as lawful Princes have imposed in their steads 1. That even in the Jewish State the Kings had not the Election of all the Priests and Levites much less the Prophets is before proved though they had the Government of them according to God's Laws 2. That the Apostles sent by Christ performed their Office against the will of the Roman and Jewish Rulers is not denied 3. And because some think that this was proper only to Apostles or men sent immediately by Christ we add that it is not denied that this was the case of others in that Age As Timothy who is charged before God and Angels to Preach in season and out of season 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Titus Apollo Silas and such others and of all the setled Elders of the Churches Act. 14. v. 23. Tit. 1. 5. 2 Thes 5. 12 13. Heb. 13. 17 c. 4. And it is not denied that this was the case of all the ordinary Pastors for the first three hundred years under the unbelieving Emperors And as is aforesaid even these were Governours of the Christian Pastors and Churches who are commanded Rom. 13. to obey them and they wanted not Governing power though in part they wanted aptitude to use it well so that Christians were to obey even Heathen Governours in lawful things 5. And it is undeniable that this was the judgment and case of the Fathers and People of the Church under the Christian Emper ours that were Arrians or favoured the Arrians And as is aforesaid the Arrians would have subscribed to all the Nicene Creed that Christ is Light of Light God of God very God of very God begotten not made till they came to that one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea Eusebius subscribed to that also and to the whole who yet notwithstanding Socrates's charitable excuse is by his own Epistle from that Council to his People plainly proved to be an Arrian as Petavius hath fully manifested And yet how the Churches of the East did commonly cleave to their Pastors when Constantius and Valens ejected them and how they resolutely refused the imposed Bishops some as Arrians and some but as suspected saying We have lawful Bishops already and how stifly they refused to forbear their forbidden Meetings and Publick Worship with their former Pastors Church-history puts us out of doubt Athanasius oft stayed with his flock till banished by violence by Constantine Constantius and Valens Eustathius Bishop of Antioch did the like yea came to the Imperial City Constantinople and there lived in secret to confirm the People and presumed to ordain a Patriarch of that City chosen against the Emperours will For when Eudoxius was dead the orthodox people chose Evagrius a man of their own judgement and refused Demophilus Socr. l. 4. c. 13. Both the consecrator and the consecrated Bishop stayed with them till the Emperour sent souldiers from Nicomedia to master the people and banished them both into several Countries and at once put fourscore Priests to death burning them in a ship at Sea to whom the people adhered who came to petition him for justice and forbearance Saith Socr. cap. 14. When the Emperour at Edessa gave the Lieutenant a blow with his fist because he had not scattered the Conventicles as he had charged him the Lieutenant for all this great disgrace set himself though unwillingly to obey the Emperours wrath and displeasure but gave notice secretly of it to the people for it was far from his mind to fall a murthering so many godly Citizens that none should shew his face in the Temple that none should be found raising of any Conventicle But not one made account of his advice nor regarded his threats for the day following all flocked in great companies to the Temple Then followeth the mention of a woman that with her little Child hastned through the crowd to the meeting hoping to die with the rest The citizens of Cyzicum banished Eunomius from their City whom Eudoxius had preferred to that Bishoprick not so much for his Errours as for his arrogant and insolent manner of Preaching with Logical tricks and sophisms which they could not bear and so they drove him to Constantinople where he layd by his Bishops Office Id. c. 7. And when Eleusius repenting of his sin in a forced subscribing to the Ariminum faith would have had them have chosen another Bishop they would have or acknowledg no other but him being the undoubted Chusers of their own Bishop Ib. c. 7. The City of Antioch sell into two parties of the Orthodox besides the Arrians and chose two Bishops Paulinus and Meletirs Though it was then contrary to the Canons that one City should have two Bishops none questioned the peoples right to chuse nor denied either of them to be true Bishops And though the Emperour forbore Paulinus for his rare parts and virtues and banished only Meletius the people would not obey his Orders but still assembled as before We are not ignorant what tumults popular Elections of Bishops have oft caused But two things all acquainted with antiquity know which much serve to counterballance this objection 1. That where Emperours and Synods of Bishops have made themselves the Electors the tumults or confusions or at least the consequent evills were not less but greater 2. And when they did thus assume the Election which was for the most part but in a few great seats and not of ordinary Bishops still they suppose a necessity of the peoples consent When the Emperour chose the Patriarchs what one Emperour did another undid And the peoples dissent undid it sooner and the Ruling Bishops so oft disagreed that their synods and Churches were lamentably militant By the favour of the Emperour Dioscorus was the strongest at Ephesus having the Souldiers and Rulers on his side and by them the Major Vote of the Bishops But it was more Theodosius and his Officers that carryed it than equity even to the condemning of Eusebius and such others and the beating of Flâ—vianus the Patriarch of Const unto death And when by the Emperour and prevailing Bishops will new Bishops were placed Anatâ—lâ—us at Const Maximus at Antioch Nonus at Edessa Athanasius for Savinian c saith Liberatus in Breviaro cap. 12 schisma factum est inter
to forbid it 2. If the Gospel be hid from the mind though not from the Ear it is hid to them that are lost 2. Cor. 4. 3. And without holiness none shall see God Heb. 12 14. Christ will come in flaming Fire to render vengeance to them that know not God and obey not the Gospel 2. Thes 1. 10. 11. All they shall be damned that obey not the truth but have pleasure in unrighteousness 2. Thes 2. 11. 12. They that live after the flesh shall die and they that have not the spirit of Christ are none of his Rom. 8. 9. 13. It is not then easie to think of a greatet hurt than to forbid men such means without which experience assureth us that few comparatively are thus inlightened and renewed to God and with which more Comparatively are renewed To say that God can bless to us an ignorant heartless Carnal Teacher is no answer while experience certifieth us that Comparatively he doth not do it If the people would chuse such Pastors Rulers must do their best to change their minds and to provide better for them But that 's not the case that we are now speaking to If people would run into Sects and Heresies Rulers may punish and restrain false Teachers that dangerously corrupt the Christian doctrine and seduce the peoples souls But they may not therefore silence the faithful Ministers of Christ And adhereing to such Ministers doth not any hurt of it self Nor any way tend to the furthering of so much hurt as the contrary would do 3. For who knoweth where to bound his obedience to such silencers as aforesaid If a thousand or two thousand faithful Ministers must cease Preaching when so forbidden why not 3000 why not 4000 If half a Kingdom can you satisfie the consciences of the other half that they must not do so too and so all Christian Kingdoms conform to Moscovie when the Prince commandeth it And if 1000 or 2000 or 3000 Parishes must choose the apparent hazard of their souls and refuse such helps as experience certifieth us they greatly need in obedience to man why must not the rest of the Parishes do so also May I give away the needfull helps to my salvation because others have them as if their salvation might satisfie me instead of my own 4. We acknowledge it a very great Mercy of God to have a Christian Prince and that every Kingdom should be Christian and that Princes must do what they can to accomplish it And that they are the Governours of Paâ—tors as well as of Physicians as is aforesaid and that it is most desireable that the Church and Kingdom should be commensurate and none in their Kingdoms reject the Gospel and that Pastor or people who will do any thing contrary to this or will not further it with all their power are great transgressours But yet the old saying is true owned even by the Papists vid. Pet. De Marcâ— De Eccl. Const that Ecclesia est in impe rio And none but prosessed consenters are Christians And the Temple is a prison and not a Church as men are there forcibly driven against their wills so far is it from saving the souls of any Yet constraining the ignorant and Heretical to hear sound Teachers we are far from opposing But when Paul hath said Not a Novice If Rulers will silence better Teachers and set up Novices that are unskilful in that great and sacred work and never felt that work of faith love and heavenlyness on their own souls which they must Preach to others this will do more hurt than the peoples choice of better men 5. Yea if men of such doctrine could once make Princes and people believe that the people ought to receive only such Pastors as Princes choose for them it may do more harm than all our sects do For sects cannot cast out religion at once Nay usually they perish themselves by their own divisions and shame before they can ruine the Church But Princes might change Religion as oft as the Moon changeth And if good Princes were but the tenth part as rare as they thought that said In uno annulo c. what then would become of Religion in the World LIV. And though we profess our great detestation of Church-Schisms and our lamentation for the sad case of these Nations and the Christian world by reason of them believeing that Schism should be odious to all Christians yet we are past doubt that aggravating some differences and breaches passionately by odious names hath been Schismatical by makeing the distance seem much greater than it was and rendering Dissenters odious to others and teaching Adversaries and ignorant persons to reproach men as guilty of more Schism than they are guilty of indeed Among the Papists if they unite in the Pope they pass not for Schismaticks or Hereticks who differ in all those many and great points which H. Fowlis Montaltus the Jesuits Morals Mr. Clarkson c. reeâ—â—e viz. about Murder Adultery Fornication King killing seldom Loving God c. And among us a man that doth but scruple certain Oaths Subscriptions Covenants Declarations or a Ceremony is charged by some with Schism LV. The Distance of Doctrines or Objective Religion must be distinguished from the passion and peevishness of subjective distance of mens minds e. g. Suppose Grammarians differ about a Criticism whether Vergilius or Virgilius be the truer spelling and Philosophers differ de vacuo de definitione spatii temporis c. de causa motus projectorum c. and Divines differ of the translation of a Text of the antiquity of the Hebrew points of the time of Easter day of a Ceremony or Form of Prayer of the lawfulness of a Lay-Chancellors use of the Church-Keys Would not an impartial stranger say How concordant and happy are these men that differ in no greater matters And if they all fall together by the ears about such things as these it is an aggravated Subjective Schism and a shame to such wranglers who deserve the remedy of scolds But sure they that peaceably and calmly differ about the aforesaid things viz. whether we are bound to Love God once a year whether the Pope may excommunicate and depose Kings that will not extirpate all Protestants Whether an excommunicate King may be murdered as no King c these are far more distant really in point of Religion than the other LVI And we must lament that we find in Church-History and by too much experience that there hath been and is in too many Pastors such a selfishness and high esteem of their own judgments and so little sense of the common weakness of mankind and the lowness of our highest degrees of knowledge and so little Love to others as to themselves that by envy and impatience they raise or increase Schisms in the Church by making a causless outcry against Schism or making little differences seem great They that cannot bear with Persons and Congregations who in little matters
and afraid of sinning and seriously godly is but to be Hypocrites melancholy or mad And perhaps bend their Preaching the same way 6. When they are Heretical and not to be trusted in point of faith 7. And when they are so Factious and Schismatical as that their Preaching and Conference tendeth to render other good Christians odious and stir up men to hate persecute or separate from them and so to destroy true Love and Concord In any of these cases when the people or part of them are deprived of that Pastoral helps which their necessity requireth and God commandeth they may seek it where they can best have it LXIII In all these cases it is an unsatisfactory Answer to tell them that Religion is kept up in the land and that other persons or Parishes have what they want or that Order and Obedience must be preferred to their supply or that God can save them without a Pastor c. For so God can save the Heathen world without the Gospel Preached if he please And so you might perswade the Poor to famish rather than against Law to beg because if thousands of them dye of Famine yet other people are supplied and have plenty Or you might tell men that they must use no Physician though they dye for it if they have no tolerable one allowed them by the Magistrate because others have Physicians though they dye for want of them What if the Parish Priest could Baptize but one of many or not all Must the rest be content to be unbaptized If not why must they be content without all publick Preaching and Worshipping of God and the Lords Supper and personal helps of Pastors which they need Paul thanketh God that he Baptized none of the Corinthians save some few and saith that God sent him not to Baptize but to Preach the Gospel And can any man prove then That if the Parish Minister cannot or will not Baptize his Children he must get another to do it yea a prohibited Minister rather then they should be unbaptized and yet that if the Parish Church cannot receive him or the Pastor cannot or will not do the Office of a Pastor for him he must be without Preaching Worshipping God and Pastoral oversight LXIV Yet here we must declare 1. That in such necessity people must caeteris paribus first seek their supply in that way that is most for peace and most for publick good and least scandalous or dividing and that is most agreable to the Rulers will and honour 2. That for some short season in which his soul is not apparently hazarded as also in the tolerable loss of some measures of Pastoral help a man must submit his own personal advantage to publick interest and may hope that God will make it up As also when it tendeth to his probable greater advantage afterward by putting by some present storm But not statedly to be without Christs instituted ordinances and helps e. g. Parish Order is desireable and is the Rulers will If therefore supply can be had in a neighbour Parish for them that want it in their own and by an allowed Minister rather than a disallowed it should be chosen unless the disparity be so great as to weigh down the contrary inconveniences And if for a time any be constrained to another way they should do it but as an extroardinary necessity for the present time till they can be supplied in the allowed Parochial way and avoid as much as possibly they can all waies though lawful that encourage true Schisms 3. And we must profess that if any Preachers or people shall out of self conceitedness pretend necessity when there is none their pretence is no justification of their disorder or disobedience Magistrates may regulate us in the Circumstances of those duties which the Law of Nature or the Gospel do Command But if on such pretence of regulating Circumstances they will violate or contradict either the Law of Nature or the Gospel and destroy the duty it self or its end we are not bound in such cases to obey them but muâ—â— pariently suffer LXV 19. If the Church Laws do exclude those Christians that have right from the Communion of the Church and their Children from Baptism and do decree that they shall be excommunicate and then laid in Gaols it seemeth to us no Schism in those persons to have no such Communion with that Church which is denyed them by the Laws of the Church Nor yet to join themselves with another Church that will receive them And as we say of the Papists that they unjustly call those men Schismatâ—â—â— whom they first cast out themselves by unjust excommunication so may we of any others Especially when either for that which is a duty or for some small mistake which it is not in the persons power to rectifie no greater than most good Christians are guilty of the Church Law saith that he shall be excommunicate ipso facto by which he is cast out antecedently to any sentence or no place left for his pardon or forbearance by the favour of the Ordinary He that is so cast out is not the wilful Sparatist Nor is he bound to continue without Church Communion and Pastoral oversight LXVI 20. If those that live in a Parish where the Incumbent by utter Insufficiency Heresie Usurpation Malignity or Wickedness is such as men may not lawfully own or commit the Pastoral Conduct and care of their souls to shall desire the Pastoral care of the next Parish-Minister and communion in that Parish-Church and may not be admitted but all other Parish-Ministers are by Canon commanded to refuse them and to turn them home to their own Parish-Priests and Churches so that they must either commit their souls to such uncapable persons and own them as Christ's Ministers or have none at all we dare not charge those persons with Schism if they commit the care of their souls to worthy ordained men though not allowed but prohibited by the Magistrate For the reasons before given Yea if they know that Church-Laws forbid all other Parish-Priests to receive them we see not that they are first bound to offer themselves to such as profess obedience to those Laws Obj. 1. But some take a meer Reader for uncapable that cannot preach or one that cannot pray without Book or a young man that is not able to resolve doubts or cases of conscience but our Canon 57. saith that the Sacraments are equally effectual whether they be administred by a Preacher or no Preacher Ans 1. By an uncapable person we mean such as is utterly unable to perform the Pastoral duties which Christ hath commanded and mens souls greatly need which among others Dr. Hammond in his Annotat hath well described If bare Reading were sufficient Ability every Boy or Artificer were sufficient that can read Bare Reading will encourage no man to take any one for his Physician or Lawyer and soulconduct is a matter of greater importance and needeth
they promised it was not thâ—y but the Parents that were bound to perform 3. Or Nonconformists in this point who purposed before hand to be but the Parents Râ—pâ—esentatives and that the promise and obligation should all be devolved from them on the Parents though they knew the Church meant otherwise and that they were not bound to the Churches sense and therefore their standing to hear this is your part was no consent to take it for their part And none of all these do answer the Churches sense in their undertaking And if we are commonly baptized and made Christians in a way of false Vowing or Covenanting of such persons or of â—â—lusâ—â—y Equâ—vocation it is not well 11. We know not where Parents can procure any to undertake this Office as the Church imposeth it that credâ—â—ly signifie themselves able and willing to performâ—â— we could not do it our selves were we never so desirous Perhaps some Rich men might hire others to take their Children into their Care and Education as must be promised but who would do so for the poor yea for all the poor of England And the Nonconformists are not satisfied that it is lawful to engage any in a perfidious covenanting before God when before-hand they have no credible signification of any purpose to perform it Nay when the Parent resolveth to educate his own Child and not to trust him to the Provision or care of others 12. The Minister Covenanting to use the form in the Book of Common Prayer prescribed in administration of the Sacraments and no other Can. 36. No Parent may speak a word in the name of his own Child nor to enter him there into the Covenant of God nor profess that he offereth him to Baptism by virtue of and in confidence in the promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed in their Generations Nor to promise himself what the Godfathers are to promise The words also of the Can. 29. are these No Parent shall be urged to be PRESENT nor be admitted to answer as Godfather for his own Child Nor any Godfather or Godmother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech than by the Book of Common Prayer is prescribed in that behalf 13. It is the Godfathers work also by the Liturgy to take care that the Child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him in the manner of the Church of England as soon as he can say the Creed Lords Prayer and ten Commandments and be further instructed in the Church Catechism which Godfathers use not at all to perform nor do the Parents use to expect it Nor doth one Child of a multitude understand what the Baptismal Covenant is of many a year after they have learned to say the said Catechism 14. That the Godfathers stand not there as the Representers of the Parents is evident according to the sense of the Church because the Parent himself is not suffered to do it or speak one covenanting word nor must be urged to be present nor are they to speak in the Parents name in any of their undertakings Nor is there the least intimation that the Church taketh the Sponsor for the Parents Representative 15. The Parents are to be admonished not to defer the Baptism of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday unless upon a great and reasonable cause to be approved by the Curate whether they can get understanding credible Godfathers or not These are the Matters of Fact Here note 1. That there is no Controversie between the Conformists and Nonconformists whether Christians Infants should be baptized 2. Nor whether a Conformists baptizing be valid 3. Nor whether the Parents presence be absolutely necessary and another may not speak in his name 4. Nor whether Adopters or any Proprieters may not covenant for the Child 5. Nor whether the old Sponsors be lawful who 1. Witnessed the credibility of the Parent 2. And undertook the Christian Education of the Child if the Parents should either die or apostatize The Nonconformists are against no such Sponsors though they think that their Children have right to Baptism without such 6. Nor do they deny that Baptism in the Parish Churches is valid and lawful as to the Parents and Godfathers if they do but agree on the Nonconformists way that the Sponsors shall but represent the Parents and that they be not bound by the contrary judgment of the Authors of the Liturgy to the contrary But the questions are 1. Whether a Christians Child whose Parents have no way forfeited their credit have not right to Baptism without other Godfathers 2. Whether the Parent should not solemnly enter his own Child into the Covenant of God as well as in times of Circumcision And whether any Parent should be forbidden it viz. to appear and speak as the Representer of the Child or Undertaker for him and Promiser of his Education 3. Whether that Child must profess by another that He Himself Believeth Renounceth Repenteth and Desireth Baptism And it be not rather to be prosessed that he is the seed of a Believing Penitent Parent whose Will is as his Will and is under God's Promise I will he thy God and the God of thy seed 4. Whether a Christian Parent may consent to the persidious undertaking of any Godfathers who give him not the least reason to believe that they intend that provision for the Children which they undertake Or else may let his Child be unbaptized till he can get such a credible Undertaker which is never like to be with most or many 5. Whether the Children of Heathens or Infidels or Atheists have right to Baptism upon the presentation of any Godfather who never adopteth them or taketh them for his own nor giveth any credible notice that he really intendeth to educate those Children as pro forma he seemeth to undertake Or whether such Children are truly said to believe because the Godfather or Minister or Congregation or Diocess or Nation or Catholick Church believe III. The Nonconformists are not of one mind about receiving the Lords Supper Kneeling Many judge it Lawful though neither necessary nor most eligible were they free some judge it also most eligible And some judge it as things stand unlawful Their reasons are 1. In doubtful cases duty lieth on the surest side But this to them is a doubtful case on one side and to imitate Christs institution by such sitting as men use to do at meat is certainly Lawful 2. Because they think this Kneeling violateth the reasons of the second Commandment being used where by whole Countries of Papists round about us and many among us it signifieth Bread-Worship or Idolatry by the same Action at the same season used For they suppose that the second Commandment forbiddeth Images as being External Corporal Idolatry and Symbolizing scandalously with Idolators though the mind intend the worshiping of the true God alone And such they think this kneeling is and that it encourageth the
Papists as is instanced in a story in the Life of Bishop Hall 3. Because they think that the Tradition and Custom of the Catholick Church and the Câ—nons of the greatest General Councils not repealed by any other as Nic. 1. Can. 20. Can. Trull c are of stronger obligation than the Canons of our Convocation And those Canons Customs and tradition prohibite all Adoration by Genâ—flection on any Lords day in the year and on any week day els between Easter and Whitsâ—â—tide And this custom continued 1000 years as the Tradition of the Universal Church and was never repealed but charged by degrees by contrary practice They that think not that they are bound by these Canons or Customs at all yet think that they are enough to nullifie a contrary Canon of a lower power or ad hominem may excuâ—e them Yea the Constitutions called the Apostles seem to Command all the people to receive the Sacrament standing and to go for it Lib. 2. Cap. 57. Having prescribed the order of worship that after the old Scriptures read they sing a Psalm and then read the Acts and Epistles and the Gospels and then that the Presbyters one by one exhort the people first and the Bishop last for in those time every Church that had an Altar had a Bishop he concludeth Postea vero fiat sacrificium cuncto populo Stante silentâ—o precantâ— oblatione facta quisque ordo scoâ— sim corpus Domini preciosum sanguinem sumat accedentes ordine cum pudore reverentia ut ad corpus Regis Iâ—em mulieres operto capite ut ordiaem earum decet acc dant that is After let the sacrifice be made all the people standing and praying in silence And the oblation being madâ— let every order apart take the body of Christ and his precious blâ—od Coming to it in order with modesty and reverence as to the body of the King And let the women approach with covered heads as becometh their order For such reasons as these set together some Nonconformists Lay and Clergy take this Kneâ—ling while Papists about us by the same gesture adore the Bread to be unlawful who yet profess as great Reverence to Christ and the Eucharist as any others But other Nonconformists say that they can answer all these arguments But that they truly render the scruples of the dissenters tollerable and the persons unmeet to be therefore excommunicate 2. By the Canon and Rubrick no one of these dissenters must be admitted to the holy Communion Can. 27. Saith No Minister when he celebrateth the Communion shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel under pain of suspension And the Ministers Covenant to use no form of administring the Sacraments but according to the Liturgie V. The Rubrick after Confirmation saith There shall none be admitted to the holy Communion till such time as he be confirmed or be Ready and Desirous to be confirmed So that desire of Confirmation in the English way is made a necessary Condition of Communion 2. The publick owning of the Baptismal Covenant is that which the Nonconformists are so far from being against that they take it with a serious Confirmation thereupon to be the meet way of transition from the Infant state of Church-membership into that of the Adult and the most Congruous means of uniting dissenters about Church discipline and of preventing Anabaptistry that can be found out But many sober Christians are unsatisfied with the English way of Confirmation 1. Because they find it so like to that Confirmation which the Papists have made a Sacrament and which very many beyond-Sea Protestants have written against vide Dallaeum de confirmat 2 Because it is made the proper work of a Diocesan and wholly denyed to the Parochial Pastors And because those Diocesans know not ordinarily whether the persons be meet or unmeet to be confirmed being strangers to them for how can they know all the persons men women and such Children of so many Parishes as a Diocess doth contain some Diocesses having above a thousand Parishes others many hundred One above 100 miles in Length and others very great It s true that the Minister of the Parish is bid to Catechise them and to bring or send in writing the names of such as he thinks fit for Confirmation But 1. This is not ordinarily done but Children in our time have used to run together to a bishop when he came into the Country on that work without the Ministers Certificate or Godfathers and none that ever we knew of that came for Confirmation in this manner was refused And as the Bishop never saw or knew one of the multitude whom he Confirmeth so he taketh not time so far to examine them as to give him rational satisfaction of their fitness Nor indeed can he possibly do it for one of a multitude of so large Diocesses when most great Parishes are too big for a present Minister who is acquainted with them better than a strange Diocesan can be How can a man that hath so many other employments as Diocesans have find leisure were he never so willing to examine so many hundred thousands as are in this Diocess or so many score thousands as are in many others 3. And as the Ministers rarely certifie according to the Canon so the Bishop is not tyed to take his consent but may thus impose confirmed persons on his Communion though he know them to be never so ignorant or unmeet 4 And it is Children that are thus to be confirmed who rarely ever come so young to own with any tolerable understanding and seriousness their Baptismal Covenant Few of us by experience can say that we did it of many years after that we had learned the Lords Prayer c. 5. And no other qualification is necessary but that he learn the Creed Lords-Prayer Decalogue and Church Catechâ—sm the bare words of which are learnt by rote by multitudes of Children who understand little or nothing of what they say We do not find that if persons stay unconfirmed till they are adult that any Heresie or wickedness of life is a bar to their confirmation much less are they required to bring any testimony that they live according to their Bâ—ptismal Covenant 6. And as far as we can learn it is but a very small part of this Kingdom in comparison of the rest that ever were confirmed 7. Nor know we many Ministers that ever examined their people generally whether they were ready and willing to be confirmed VI. The Nonconformable Laity are ejected from the Communion of the Church and their Children that are disposed of by them from Baptism Christendom and Christian burial if not from salvation as far as in the Church lyeth and those that affirm themselves to be Nonconformists are by the Church Laws excommunicated ipso facto though they should desire Communion 2. That no Minister is to admit them to the Sacramental Communion is before shewed from
Gods account 3. And it was before enquired In what sense this Godfather doth not promise only that the Child shall believe at age but in the Childs name profess that he doth at present believe And whether it be not enough and much more necessary then the Godfathers faith that he be the Child of a believing Parent dedicating him to God 4. And it hath been shewed that Godfathers promise themselves partly to teach the Child and partly to provide that he be taught all that a Christian should learn as necessary to his souls health 5. And that these Godfathers never ordinarily give the Parents the least reason to believe that they have any purpose to do any such thing as they undertake Which is perfidiousness in the weightiest business And 6. also that as such they are no adopters or owners of the Child 7. And also how hard it is for any Parents ever to get better seeing wiser and better will not undertake it in the foresaid conformable sence 8. The sence and use of Godfathers is partly known by the Practise of Princes and great men who must be supposed to know best and be most righteous and exemplary who usually by a Proxie are Godfathers to the Children of Foreign Princes or Great men perhaps Papists whom they never saw nor ever are like to see their Children 9. Ministers must Assent Approve of and Consent to all this exclusion of the Parents and presentation profession undertaking and promise of the Godfathers which the Liturgy mentioneth 10. Conformists are not agreed themselves of the true Office and undertaking of these Godfathers nor of the Parents part nor by whose right it is that one Child rather than others is to be baptized and whether any at all should be refused by whomsoever that is a Christian offered thereunto 8. The Rubrick to which we must declare our Assent Approbation and Consent hath this Article of faith It is certain by Gods Word that Children which are baptized dying before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved And the Rubrick at Buryal excepteth all the unbaptized from Christian Burial according to the Office 2. The Canon 68 and 69 suspendeth any Minister who shall refuse or delay to Christen any Child without exception which is brought to the Church on Sundays or Holydays to be Christned according to the Form in the Common-Prayer or if in case of danger he be desired to do it privately Neither Rubrick nor Canon here except from Baptism and certainty of salvation any Children of Turks Infidels Heathens and Atheists or those whose Parents renounce Christianity and consent not to their Childrens Baptism so be it any Godfathers as aforesaid bring them 3. The Conformists agree not of the sence of this Article of Faith Some hold that the word Children here meaneth not All Children that are Baptized but some such only But others affirm that this exposition is false and contrary to the plain importance of the words for it is an Indefinite say they in re necessaria in the sense of the Book And if the meaning be not Children that are Baptized qua tales it hath no intelligible sense the certainty of their Salvation being Asserted as from Scripture and not any other reason of it given But if this be the meaning as it is then a quatenus ad omnes valet consequentia unless any exception had been added which is not 4. Some say that it is implied that Children that had no right to Baptism are excepted But others say 1. That ubi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum The Church could have excepted if they would 2. And that quod fieri non debet factum valet 3. Yea that all Children have right to Baptism if any Christians offer them to it 5. Some confound the Ministers right to Baptize them and the Infants right to be Baptized And this right as only in foro Ecclesiae and as in foro Caeli As if all Baptized upon any of these rights were undoubtedly saved But others distinguish these and say 1. That the Minister may have right to Baptize one if offered that yet ought not to have been offered which will not save an uncapable subject 2. That the Children of Hypocrites have right Coram Ecclesia and that their Baptism ascertaineth to them no more than external or common priviledges 3. And that only the Children of true believers have such a right coram Deo as certainly saveth them But others say that both the last sort are saved 6. Some of them hold that All Infants in the world Baptized or not are saved by universal redemption if they dye before actual sin And that the Article therefore affirmeth it of the Baptized But others say this cannot be the sence For 1. To say All baptized and mean All unbaptized or any not as Baptized were not intelligible nor candid 2. And the Burial Rubrick excepting the unbaptized from that Christian burial sheweth the meaning of the Church in this Article 7. Also about the undoubted certainty they differ some think that the subscriber or Declarer doth not by these words profess that he himself is undoubtedly certain of the salvation of all dying Baptized Infants but only that the thing is certainly revealed to be so in Gods Word But others say that both objective and subjective or personal certainty must needs be meant And that it were too hard an imputation to say that the Church commandeth uncertain doubting men to profess that the thing is certain and undoubted of for how can they tell that it is so And if they know it not to be so why should they declare it to be so The meaning is not I declare that the Convocation saith it is certain for that were but the part of a cryer or reader Nor is it I declare that it is certain to others though not to me For no man knoweth anothers certainty Therefore it must mean that I am certain and past doubt by the Word of God or I see ascertaining evidence in Gods Word putting it past doubt So that no uncertain or doubting person can truly thus declare or subscribe 8. Divers of those Divines who are furthest from the Nonconformists hold that by the Scripture alone we cannot prove that Infants are at all to be Baptized and the Jns Baptismi must be proved before the salvation of the Baptized as such Others think it hard for that man to be certain by the Word of God that all Baptized dying Infants are saved who is not certain by that word that any Insants should be Baptized 9. Many of the most rash or self conceited Ignorant men are readier to profess undoubted certainty than they that are more humble and know much more than they And it is not he that Hith most certainty who is now capable of the Ministry but he that dare profess most whether he have it or not 10. They that shew less Learning especially less knowledge in the Scripture far than
or be ready and desirous to be confirmed that is In the manner prescribed by the Liturgy This as it concerneth the Conformity of the Lay-receiver is spoken of before But now as it concerneth the Ministers Assent and Consent 2. Some that take this for a very useful passage as it enableth them to hold back some uncapable persons dare not approve it and consent to it as it denieth the Church Communion which Christ giveth commandeth to persons of unblemished uprightness and piety if they will not profess themselves willing to be confirmed by our Bishops in the manner before described though they are willing to own their Baptismal Covenant and few in most places are confirmed XIII The Liturgy saith that No man should come to the holy Communion but with a full trust in God's mercy and a quiet Conscience To which we must declare Assent Approbation and Consent 2. The sense of these words remaineth dubious whether it speak de necessitate praecepti vâ—l medii Some think that the meaning is that it is the Duty of all that come to the Communion to have a full trust and a quiet Conscience Others think that the meaning is only that all should seek these Others think that tht meaning is that they should not come without them Their reasons are 1. From the plain signification of the words No man should come but with c. which must differ from They that come ought to be such 2. Because the necessit as praecepti may be affirmed of perfect obedience since our use of reason It is every mans duty not to sin at all And it is every mans duty to believe and love God not only sincerely but with a stronger Faith and Love and it s every mans duty to seek after perfection And yet no man will say that we should not come to the Communion but with high degrees of grace or with perfection 3. And the words are not that they should seek it but that they should not come without it 3. The Nonconformists confess that all men ought to have a full Trust and a quiet Conscience But they think that many 1000 good Christians have but a weak Faith or Trust and an unquiet Conscience And that the Eucharist is a Confirming and Comforting Sacrament and that those that have a weak Trust and unquiet Conscience should come for strengthening and comfort and be encouraged to come 4. Therefore seeing no entreaty will prevail with the Imposers after so many years time to explain these and many other such words they think that the usual sense of such words must be the measure of their exposition and therefore they dare not profess Assent and Approbation and Consent till they are better explained to them XIV The Liturgy requireth that the Priest deliver the Communion to the people into their hands All meekly kneeling 2. The 27th Canon saith No Minister shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel under pain of suspension 3. The Conformists differ among themselves about the sense of the Liturgy herein viz. whether All kneeling include a prohibition to deliver it to any that kneel not some say No that it only bids them give it to such as kneel but not to deny it others though the Canon do Others say yea that it requireth us to give it to no others Their reasons are 1. Because else the precept signified nothing if men were after it left at liberty 2. Because All plainly excludeth others 3. Because the Canon being the decrees of the same Church expoundeth the Liturgy and it is absurd to say that their Rubrick leaveth the Minister at Liberty to do that same thing for which the Canon suspendeth him 4. Because we must also subscribe that we will use no other form of administration but that of the Liturgy which Reasons we judge to be cogent 4. The Nonconformists differ among themselves about kneeling some taking it to be sinfully scandalous on the reasons before given and some taking it for lawful But they commonly hold that it is sinfull cruelty and Schism for them as Ministers to cast any true Christians out of Christ's Church and Communion of Saints and to deny them the body and blood of Christ which he hath commanded his Church to deliver and receive on so small a reason as this not kneeling 1. Considering the three reasons which are before mentioned as the cause of their doubt 2. And that the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. commandeth both Pastors and People to bear with and receive each other notwithstanding such kind of differences 3. And that good mens judgments in such cases are not in their own power 4. And that to tie Communion to such doubtful Circumstances will certainly cause Schism and such doings have long distracted Christ's Churches through the world 5. And Christ hath commanded all his true Disciples to live in loving concord and communion But kneelers and not kneelers are his true Disciples 6. And men must not be cast out of the Churches Communion even for gross and heinous sins unless they add obstinate impenitency Therefore they dare not Assent Approve Consent to or Practice this rejecting of godly Christians for not kneeling in the act of receiving from those priviledges which Christ by his testament hath given them XV. By the Liturgy every Parishioner is to communicate twice a year and by the Canon and statute to be compelled so to do and the Churchwarden to present them that do not And those that do not in a certain time are to be EXCOMMUNICATED and after laid in Gaol during life unless they conform To the Liturgies Imposition we must profess Assent c. 2. Not every Parishioner yea in our experience not one of many hath a full trust in God's Mercy and a quiet Conscience without both which they are not to come 3. Many good Christians have so great a sense of their sins and unworthiness that they dare not communicate till they are fitter And some are so timerous and melancholy that hearing the Liturgy threaten men to be given up to the Devil and eat and drink their own damnation if they eat and drink unworthily it would drive them by fear into distraction should they take it till they have better thoughts of their title and preparations so that their dilemma is sad when they are either to go to Bedlam or to the common Gaol 4. To say that all these doubting and timerous people should be otherwise minded and that this is their errour is true but as impertinent as it is to tell all men that they should never sin or all ignorant carnall ungodly men that they should be wise and godly But to conclude that men should receive the sacrament because they ought to be prepared though they are not prepared is somewhat like telling the sick that they should work and eat as they ought to have done if by intemperance they had not disabled themselves 5. There are many among us who are
conscious of Infidelity Atheism Sadduceism and Heresie and some of many secret heinous sins some of these in their hearts deride Christianity and the sacrament And the other are afraid of increasing their damnation But yet do not make known their sin But it is notorious that abundance of such there be And the doubt is whether these should be compelled to the sacrament thrice a year 6. The Nonconformists hold that to deliver a man that sacrament is to deliver him the body and blood of Christ and therewith a sealed pardon of sin and guift of life eternal And they think that the terms on which these are to be received are wholly devoting our selves to Christ denying all and taking up our Cross and following him And therefore that to say Receive the sacrament or he in a Gaol seemeth much to alter the terms of the Gospel which saith If thou canst not suffer a Gaol for Christ thou art unworthy of him It is he that can forsake all for Christ that is fit for the sacrament and not he that would not Communicate without the fear of a prison or other punishment To give the sacrament is to give more than all the riches of the world which none but volunteers and desirers are fit for 7. The ancient Churches made delinquents long beg for such great priviledges and gifts knowing that to give them to those that are unwilling is to subvert the Gospel But they never said Receive them or go to Gaol 8. Were it but granted in England that the great gift of Christs body and blood and holy Communion should be administred and received freely that is only given by and to voluntary agents and receivers it would heal almost all the English differences between Episcopal Presbyterians and Independents 9. Yet the Nonconformists are not against the encouraging of Communicants by special favours nor the prudent compelling of Ignorant men to hear the truth nor the hindering of pernicious heresies moderately But the foresaid compulsion of all Parishioners they dare not Approve XVI The Minister according to the Liturgy is himself to give the Eucharist to many to whom the Nonconformists dare not give it For they must give it thrice a year to all the Parishioners except such as are proved to him that hath no power to examine them or witnesses to be in malice towards others or to be in any scandalous sin and that but for that time till they are accused and acquit or still permitted viz. 1. They must give it to many that consent not to be any part of their charge nor take them for their Pastors but bid them deny them the Sacrament if they dare though they consent not to the relation 2. They must give it to multitudes of the grosly ignorant who know not the essentials of Christianity or the Sacrament nor will come to them to be taught When by fame yea or personal knowledge they know them to be such yet without proof nor we think with proof they cannot refuse them 3. It is known that Infidels and deriders of Scripture and mans Immortal state do swarm more among us And yet they must all Communicate till we can bring proof of it against particular persons When few men that report it will accuse their neighbours and prove the accusation for fear of their displeasure 4. We must give it to all the ungodly that are dismist by a Lay-Chancellour after accusation 5. We must give it to all that are unwilling to receive it sobeit they had rather take it than lie in a Gaol and be undone 3. On these terms the Nonconformists dare not Assent Consent to and Approve the giving of it as is prescribed 4. It is confessed that compelled Receiving is not commanded by Christ nor was used by the Church for many hundred years even after Emperours were Christians XVII The Liturgy requireth Ministers at Burial to use these words importing the salvation of the person Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take to himself the soul of our dear Brother here departed And We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world And That we may rest in him as our hope is this our Brother doth 2. The Conformists are not agreed of the sense of these words One sort of them say that all these words import not the salvation of the person But the rest have more ingenuity and confess that else the words are not intelligible and that such equivocation is not tolerable 3. Some of them say that these passages are good supposing Discipline well exercised which if it be not it is not the fault of the Liturgy But others consider that 1. We know that Discipline is not so exercised as they suppose 2. And that these passages are not to be approved and used whether Discipline be so exercised or not The meaning is not I approve of this where Discipline is well exercised 3. It is known that the Bishops will not have every Priest to be Judge 4. The Canon which is the work of the same Church thus expoundeth the Churches meaning Can. 14. All Ministers shall observe the Orders Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer as well in reading the holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers as in administration of the Sacraments without either diminishing in regard of Preaching or in any other respect or adding any thing in the matter or form thereof This also concerneth most of the cases before instanced in as Expositions of the Churches meaning 5. And Can. 68. it s said No Minister shall refuse or delay to bury any Corps that is brought in such manner and form as is prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer And if he shall refuse to bury such except the party deceased were denounced excommunicated Majori Excommunicatione for some grievous and notorious crime and no man able to testifie of his repentance he shall be suspended by the Bishop 6. The new Edition of the Liturgy increaseth the exceptions thus The Office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized or excommunicate or that have laid violent hands on themselves 7. Note 1. That many children of good Christians by surprize die unbaptized 2. Many godly sober persons are excommunicated for some point of Nonconformity 3. Some upright Christians in phrensies melancholies and distractions make away themselves 8. Note That Atheists Infidels Sadduces Blasphemers Whoremongers c. swarm now among us and we rarely hear of any one of these multitudes that are excommunicated so that they are not excepted 9. It cannot be denyed that exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis so that no other must be excepted 10. It is known that all England consists of all the Individuals and all the people are all England 11. We commonly Preach that without Faith and Holiness none shall see God and that Whoremongers Drunkards c. cannot enter into
perish Dead Images of all good things is but the last and most effectual means of destroying the life and real good Dead shews and Images of good are Hypocrisie sincerity is reality seriousness and life We take our Baptism to be our Christening or the summe of the Christian Religion And it is but for men to do that seriously at Age which they did in Infancy by others authorized or others for them which is the Conversion which we daily preach And it grieveth us to see what multitudes when aged never seriously think either what they did or received in their Infancy and how many hate such a life as they have vowed and yet think that they stand to their Baptismal Covenant And till the Pastors of the Church make a serious work of it to bring all their Parishes to a serious understanding and consideration of their Baptism and a serious owning it and renewing of that Covenant we cannot hope that the people will be serious Christians or that men will not think that serious Anabaptists are better than Hypocrites that contemn their Baptism SECT II. The Second Part of the Matter of Conformity THE First Part de facto being contained in the Canonical Subscription and the Declaration hath been opened The Second Part is the case of Reordination Either they that require Episcopal Ordination for all that were otherwise ordained when Bishops were put out do intend it a second Ordination or not If yea then it is a thing condemned by the ancient Churches by the Canons called the Apostles c. and by Gregory M. and others likened to Anabaptistry If not then they take such mens former Ordination to be null and consequently no Ministers to be true Ministers that are so ordained and not by Diocesans and consequently all such Churches to be no true Churches while they take the Roman Ordination to be valid To speak of the consequences of this as to the nullity of Baptizings and Consecration of the Lords Supper c. and of the taking of God's name in vain in the Office if it prove evil would be to go further than the Matter of Fact SECT XI The Third Part of Conformity THE Third Part of Conformity is the Subscribing against the obligation from the Vow To endeavour any change or alteration of Government in the Church with the Oxford Oath That we will never endeavour any alteration and the Articles for our Prelacy and the Ordination-promise and Oath of Canonical Obedience before-mentioned as to this point together 2. Even those Nonconformists that are for the lawfulness yea the need and desirableness of Bishops and Archbishops have so much against this Subscription as that to avoid prolixity we will forbear reciting the particulars any further than to tell you that while a thousand or many hundred Parish-Churches are all without any particular appropriate Bishops great Towns and Villages when in Ignatius's daies the Unity of each Church was known by having One Altar and One Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons And Jerom defineth a Church to be Plebs unita Episcopo and consequently they are without the Discipline and Pastoral oversight of such Bishops and while all these Parishes are in the old sense become No Churches for ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia but only Parts of a Diocesan Church And while the old form of Churches Presbyters and Bishops is thus changed And while one Bishop hath now more work of Discipline besides Confirming and all his other work than an hundred of the ablest and best men can do and so such Discipline is necessarily undone And while the Case is as if the Bishop of Carthage had put down six hundred neighbour-Bishops and become the sole Bishop of all their Churches or as if all the Schools in a Diocess have but one Governing School-master who had power to judge what Scholar to receive or to refuse And while the Keys are to be exercised by Lay-men these will be unsatisfying things 3. The Conformists are not agreed of the meaning of these Subscriptions and Oaths some think that they covenant only to submit to them though they dislike them But others think that it is also to approve the Government Some think that it is only Bishops that they are bound to But others say that the word Ordinary certainly signifieth more than Bishops even Lay-Chancellours And that the forâ—cited Canon expresly nameth many others even with an catera the rest that bear Office And any alteration must needs mean more as any alteration in State sure extâ—nleth to more than not endeavouring to change Monarchy or the King himself Some say that by nâ—t endeavouring is mâ—ant only not unlawfully endeavouring but not that all endeavours are forbidden viz. not petitioning speaking when called c. Others say that if exceptions had been allowed the Law makers would have made us know it and not have spoken universally And that if you expound it of unlawful endeavours you leave all men at liberty to judge what is unlawful and all Schismaticks will take the Oath or Subscription because they hold their endeavours to extirpate Prelacy to be lawful Some say that one may endeavour in his place and calling to take the Church-Keys out of the hands of Lay-Chancellours notwithstanding this Subscription and Oath But others more ingenuously say that the very actual Government or Keys being in the hands of Lay-Chancellours if it bind us not against endeavouring to change these it binds us to nothing that can be understood And that if Subjects thus take liberty after Universal Oaths and Promises to make such exceptions they reproach the Law-makers as if in such tremendous things as these they knew not how to put their Laws in words intelligible and of common sense And they relax all such sacred bonds Some say that in not endeavouring is excepted unless the King commission or command us But others say that if the Law-givers would have had such exceptions they had wit enough to have put them in And that if you leave it to men to except from universals you cannot tell them where to stop And that the use of the Oath and Subscription is that the Church-Government be taken for unalterable SECT XII The Fourth Part of Conformity IV. THE Fourth Part of Conformity is the Subscription against the obligation of the Oath called the Solemn Vow and Covenant Corporations are constituted by Declaring that there is no obligation from it to any one without exception But Ministers must only subscribe that there is no obligation on me or on any other person from the Oath to endeavour any change or alteration of Government in the Church 2. It is none of the Controversie here 1. Whether that vow was lawfully imposed or contrived 2. Nor whether it were lawfuly taken 3. Nor whether part of the matter was unlawful But supposing all these unlawful 1. Whether all alteration of Church Government be unlawful whether it be not in the power of the King and Parliament
We are agreed that to commit a sin by passion or sudden surprize is not so wicked as to do it on deliberation Nor is the doing it only so bad as undertaking to justifie it and encourage others to do the like XVIII We are agreed that God is jealous about holy things and that wilful corrupting his Church worship or discipline to the disgrace of religion and encouragement of wickedness is a heinous sin Especially to Approve such things XIX We are agreed that to make a deliberate Covenant that I will sin against God and to subscribe and declare this is a heinous aggravation of the sin e. g. When the high places were kept up in Judea if any had Covenanted to keep them up and purposed to transgress the wilfulness had been the greatness and dangerous signification of such sinning XX. We are agreed that Repentance is Gods condition of forgiveness and that for a man to resolve and Covenant to sin and to profess it openly to all the Church and that oft times and so to renounce Repentance is alas XXI Most sober Christians are agreed that Christians should be united upon the terms which Christ himself hath made in the baptismal Covenant and in their obedience to his Laws and that Papall Usurpations and imposing of things unnecessary as necessary to Union Communion or Ministration hath been the great cause of Schisms through the Christian world for about 1000 years at least And that they who will still obey such dividing Imposers do continue Schisms in the world by encouraging the causes of them XXII We are on both sides agreed that it were heinous hypocrisie and prophaneness if we should make our sacred Ministerial work the pretended reason for our sinning and should swear declare or subscribe that which we take to be false and do that which we take to be sin that we may have leave to preach against sin in others and so offer God a Sacrifice of iniquity and put a beam into our own eye that we may have leave to Preach against the mote that is in our brothers eye XXIII We are afraid of making Separatists and Anabaptists and tempting men to avoid us as scandalous men XXIV We are afraid lest by such wilful sin we should by a carnal interest to defend what we have once done be tempted to impenitence and to persecute the just XXV We are agreed that they that will run into willful heinous sin as they deserve to be forsaken of God so they cannot expect such a blessing on their Ministry as Conscionable upright men may do XXVI It is agreed that the ancient Christian Pasters Preached against the will of Princes for 300 years and after that against the will of Christian Princes Constartius Valens Theodosius Junior Vaientinian c. And not only Apostles said that God was to be obeyed rather than men but such as Timothy who was ordained by man were charged before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and dead at his appearing and Kingdom to preach the Gospel and be instant in season c. XXVII We are agreed that the Children of Christians when they grow up know no more of God of Heaven of Christ without teaching than the Children of Heathens do And therefore that the opening and applying the Gospel is needful in England as well as in America XXVIII It is so far from saving unbelievers or ungodly persons that they are the Children of Christians and in the visible Church that it maketh their case more miserable if not worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah XXIX As of old every single Church had usually many Presbyters and Deasons with the Bishop so it is undeniable that many of our Parishes have work enough for many Ministers and only want of maintenance is pretended for our present paucity with the want of worthy men XXX It is granted us that to alienate consecrated persons from the holy Ministry causlesly is greater Sacriledge than to alienate consecrated Lands Goods or Temples which are but means to the use of the said Ministry We are not here accusing our silencers of this heinous Sacriledge Their Righteous Judge and ours will quickly pass the final sentence But we dare not we will not sacrilegiously silence and alienate our selves lest we forsake our Lord and betray mens souls and be doomed as the slothful servant that hid his talent Mat. 25. and bring down more plagues upon the Land We fear when we read 1 Thes 2. 15 16. the signs that wrath was come to the utmost on the Jews even their forbidding men to preach the Gospel of salvation lest we should contribute to such a dreadful desertion of this Land SECT XVII The Case of the Ministers since they were silenced and their Practice with the Peoples WE humbly crave of those narrow Seers who venture to censure the generality for somewhat which they dislike in some persons that are neerest to themselves that they would truly understand the case and practice of their Brethren before they any further in Sermons and Writings provoke the Magistrate to execute the Laws upon them as Schiâ—maticks Seditious or what accusation is readiest at hand I. That the elder sort of the Nonconformists are ordained by Bishops and most of the rest by such Pastors of Churches of Cities Corporations and other Parishes associate as the times then allowed and that in this Ordination be the Ceremonious part right or wrong they are all by Consent or Covenant devoted to the sacred Ministry and that not for a time as hirelings but for life this is denied by none that we know of II. It is known to all Faithful Ministers and others who converse with the common sort of men that a great part of the people of England are ignorant of the very Essentials of Christianity and a great part dull and worldly neglecters of all serious religiousness and a great part senâ—ual drowned in filthy fleshly sins Besides the ignorance weakness and unwarrantable opinions and passions of many that are more seriously religious than the rest And that it is a hard work to cure one ignorant erroneous vitious soul And each one is precious and not to to be left in sin as desperate considering the everlasting consequents III. It is certain that most great Parishes especially in Cities and great Towns have more souls which call for Ministerial help than Conformists and Nonconformists if they lovingly joyned are able well to afford necessary help to IV. The Ministers that dwell in Cities or Corporations when they were cast out did quietly surrender Temples and Tythes But many of their people claimed the continuance of their Relation and Ministry and many professed that they could not trust their souls to the Pastoral guidance and care of many of those who were placed in the Temples in their stead and charged the neglect of their souls on such as refused V. The Bills of Mortality shew us that the 7 Parishes within the walls of
Ministers usually to be as full as will consist with the peoples hearing the voice which in many places will not reach to a great part of the Congregation we find such Preachers whether Conformable or Nonconformable every where almost crouded after which shews that it is not meer faction that moveth the hearers and that worthy men have no cause of discouragement And if none of either side be valued much above their worth for the bare Office sake we cannot help it nor would it be helped if there were no Nonconformists Some of us well remembring the time 1632. till 1640. when we were troubled or threatned also for going out of our own Parishes to hear worthy able men that were very conformable XXXV It is very ordinary with Gentlemen and others that are zealous for the present Church State in London to go from their own Parishes though the Canon be against it so that it is not sure the breach of the Canon that they stick at XXXVI We shall never disswade men from making the strictest Laws to punish any Nonconformist that shall be proved guilty of Sedition Disloyalty Drunkenness Fornication Swearing and any other immorality but we know of none of them that was silenced ejected or punished on any such account Nay if they Preach against their Church Government Liturgy or Ceremonies we must expect that they should be restrained Our earnest desire is that the Magistrate would keep up Peace and Order in the Church that Popish Clergy men may not think that it belongeth to them alone to do it XXXVII Whereas there is a sort of ignorant or ill meaning men that still say we know not what the Nonconformists would have and why will they not tell us what would satisfie them While we offer to beg on our Knees for leave to do it we humbly intreat them to weary men awake no more with that canting 1. As long as the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs is visible 2. And as long as our Reply and our Reformed additions to the Liturgy and our Petition for Peace which respected the old Conformity remain unanswered by those to whom in 1660 we did present them 3. And till we are once called or allowed to speak for our selves against the new conformity a favour which the justice of old Romane Heathens yea and splenetick Jews did grant to all that were accused before they punished them but since Popery prevailed in the world is become a thing among them not to be expected 4. And as long as men know that Bishop Wilkins and Dr. Burton appointed by the Lord Keeper Bridgman to treat with some of us of the terms of Union saying it was His Majesties Pleasure did come to a full agreement with us in terminis which was drawn up into the form of an Act by no worse a man than that PILLAR OF JUSTICE the excellent Judge Hale and the Parliament presently Voted that no such Act should be brought in and offered Dear Brethren God is the father of Lights and with him is no darkness Men may be mocked but God is not mocked If the day that will bring works of darkness to light and finally clear the Innocent be not the object of certain faith and hope let our cause be bad and let us as fools be judged such as have forsaken our best hopes But that it is otherwise we believe and therefore appeal to a righteous God from an unrighteous world XXXVIII What harm our Preaching the doctrine of salvation can do to the Bishops or people of the Land while they may punish us for any word that we speak amiss And why we should not rather speak openly where men may bear witness of our errours than in secret where men are tempted to too much boldness And what but a spirit of envy or a carnal interest cross to the interest of Christ and mens salvation should grudge at such Preaching while we are responsible for all that we say or do amiss we cannot tell XXXIX Nor can we tell if our not swearing or not entering into the Bishops National Covenant be as great a crime as our penalties import why no other mulct or penalty will serve turn to expiate such crimes but our ceasing to preach the Gospel of Salvation while we are willing to do it under the strictest Laws of Peace and Order XL. It is visible that the Parish-Churches of those Ministers caeteris paribus are fullest of Auditors who are most willing that the Nonconformists help them in due time and place and desire to live with them in Love and Concord For all that have the spirit of holy love and peace do love those that have the same spirit And such serious holy Conformists as Bolton Whately Fenner Preston Sibbs Stoughton Gouge and such other were formerly as much crouded after as Nonconformists But it is those that Preach against holy Love and Concord and wrangle with the most Religious sort whom they should encourage whose Congregations are thinest usually through the tepidity of their followers and the distaste of others XLI When we read in the Council of Calced the Egyptian Bishops crying so long miseremini miserimini lying prostrate on the earth even when they could say Non dissentimus and beging of their fellow Bishops for their lives and consciences and their Brethren crying against all Away with them They are Hereticks while they professed the same Faith while the men that with such out-crys were condemning those of their own confession had newly cryed Omnes peccavimus for condemning Flavianus and the Truth and saying that they did it for fear and owned that Eutychianism which yet these Egyptian Bishops now disowned it mindeth us that even Bishops had need to be remembred that while the wheel is turning the upper side should not tempt men to forget what side will be uppermost shortly and for ever Additions more particularly of National Churches §1 THere are some worthy persons who plead more specially for National Churches as of Divine Institution whose Doctrine calls us to a special consideration of it But though some of us have oft desired it we have not hitherto obtained any satisfaction what they mean by A National Church or any true definition which they agree in Some of them deride us for doubting and asking the question and some answer it to the increase of our doubt §2 It must be presupposed that we speak not of a meer Community that hath no Pastors but strictly of a Society called by some Political by others Organized constituted of Pastors and People mutually related which is the ordinary sense of the word Church And we must premise what being commonly agreed on is none of our doubt or question §3 The question is not whether any or all Nations and Kingdoms should be Christians and so be the Kingdoms of Christ That 's past doubt 2. Nor is it whether in such Kingdoms the King be the Head as to the power of the sword that is
a Christian Civil Governour of a Christian People that are his Subjects We daily pray that the Kingdoms of the world may all be Christian and we believe that their Kings are the Governours by the sword of all the Clergy as well as others 3. Nor is the question whether Kings may call all their Kingdoms into a holy Covenant with God by lawful means giving them an example first themselves 4. Nor do we contend about an Equivocal Name whether a Christian Kingdom as such may be called a National Church 5. No nor whether a Christian Nation governed by a Heathen or Mahometan King may be called a Christian Church or Kingdom or a Protestant Nation ruled by a Papist King is to be called a Protestant Kingdom or Church for this is but about bare names 6. Nor do we question whether a Christian King may make such accidental disparity between the Pastors as we have before described 7. Nor yet whether the Pastors of one Kingdom may associate and hold Synods for Unity and Counsel and be named a National Church as they are such Associations obliged to Concord §4 But our doubts are these 1. Whether it be in it self specially instituted by God that every Kingdom or Nation of Christians shall have One summam Potestatem essentialiter Ecclesiasticam or one Priest-Head whether a single person or an Aristocracy or a Common Synod as a constitutive part of the National Church 2. Whether this Priest-Head whether High-Priest or Council stand in subordination to the King as part of the same formal Church as a General or a Vicerov that maketh not a distinct Kingdom though he may make a distinct subordinate Society as an Army City c or is he Head of a coordinate different species so as that the same Kingdom shall be two Policies formally viz. a Christian Kingdom or Royal Church and a Priestly Church each being supream in their proper species and both made coordinate by Christ and so they are formally two Churches National About the Jews the Controversie is made by Dissenters e. g. Galaspie Coleman Selden c. exceeding difficult 3. Whether the very Jewish Church Policy be established by Christ for the Christian Church or be repealed 4 Whether the said Ecclesiastical Head must be One as the High Priest or an Aristocracy of many or a Synod of the whole Clergy or whether it be left indifferent which 5. Or whether God hath ordained such a National Church-form only by the general Command of doing all things in Order and Unity and to Edification 6. Which is the Priestly-Head or highest Governour of the Church of England which is a constitutive part as a King in a Kingdom 7. Who is it that chooseth or authorizeth the National Priestly Head that we may know when we have a lawful Chief Pastor and when an Usurper 8. Whether the King or he is to be obeyed in Circumstances or matters Ecclesiastical if they differ and make contrary Laws Without the solution of these questions the name of a National Church will not be understood nor of any practical importance Our own thoughts of them are as followeth § 5. It is certain that the Mosaical Law made for the Jews peculiar republick as such is abrogate not only the Ceremonial part but all All that was not then made for all the world is ceased 1. Because the Common-wealth is ceased for which it was made 2. The Holy Ghost expresly and frequently determineth it so even of that Law that was written in stone as such 2 Cor. 3. 7 8 9 10 11. Heb. 7. 12. 19. Gal. 4. 21 o. 3. 24. The natural part and that which was instituted positively long before for perpetuity were both of them God's Laws before Moses's time and as such obliged other Nations and so do still The matter written in stone except some few mutable particulars as the seventh day Sabbath c. is such as we are still obliged to 1. By Nature 2. By Christ But not as it was part of the Jews peculiar Mosaical Law Much less doth it bind all the world to its Policy § 6. If the Jewish Law either as such or as stablished by Christ for his Kingdom did bind all the world to this day then it would bind them to their Civil Policy as much at least as to their Ecclesiastical But few Christians think that it binds them to their Civil Policy For if it did then 1. All Nations that have varied from it to this day have sinned 2. No diversity of Governments could be lawful 3. Then it would perplex men to be sure whether it be the old Mosaical form by Judges or the later Regal form that bindeth 4. Then such a Civil Council or Sanhedrim as was appointed the Jews would be a Divine Establishment and not variable at the will of Kings or People Many other things would follow which Kings would not easily believe § 7. There may be much more said for the continuance of the Jews civil Policy than for their Ecclesiastical For there is much more forbidden of the latter than of the former Though all nations be not bound to their civil policie they may set it up if they please They are not prohibited For Christ hath not made new Laws for civil states as such But he hath made new Church Laws and thereby altered yea prohibited much of the old § 8. We know no more reason why the Jewish form should bind us than that which was before the Jews and particularily Melchezedeks who was a King and Priest God owned both and commandeth us neither at least as in conformity to them § 9. The Holy Ghost saith expresly Heb. 7. 11. 12. That perfection was not by the Levitical Priesthood and that the Priesthood being changed there is made of necessity a change of the Law which is called the Law of a carnal Cammandment verse 16. and that there is a disanulling of the Commandement going before for the weakness and unprofitableness of it for the Law made nothing perfect v. 18 19. the Covenant or Law being not faultless a new one doth succeed it v. 7. 8. 9. 10. The first Tabernacle is not standing which had their ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary Heb. 9 1. 8. 11. He taketh away the first Law and Priesthood that he may establish the second Heb. 10. 8 9 11. 16. 17 c. § 10. Whilest it is agreed on that the essentials of the work or office of the Jewish Priests is ceased as Heb. 7. and 8 9 and 10 shew and their Title by birth and the appropriation to one Tribe c. it followeth that the Jewish Priesthood is ceased But yet we confess that Christ if he had pleased might have setled a High Priest and Council like theirs in every nation for his own work But if the old form bind us not we are left only to enquire what new one is setled by Christ and whether he have done so or not § 11.
prophesied to be Christian Nations never were distinct Christian Kingdoms but parts of the Empire nor had a National Church or Head being but parts of such a Church Nay when Rome got the National Primacy it had not such a Priestly Governing Soveraignty as the Jews High-Priest had § 25. Though there was no Christian King for three hundred years unless he of Edessa or Lucius of England of whom we have little certainty but it 's like that both were subjects to others yet if a Supream Church-Power had been necessary the Apostles would have before erected it which they never did For even Rome pretendeth to be by them made the Ruler of the whole world and not a meer National Head which Constantinople claimed but not as of Apostolical institution § 27. The question whether the Jews had they believed should have continued their High-Priest and Church Policy is vain as to our purpose 1. It being certain to Christ that they would be dissolved by unbelief And 2. he having setled another way and changed theirs 3. And if their Priesthood and Law except as it typified spiritual things had stood yet it would not have bound the Gentile Christians in other Nations § 28. When Emperours became Christians they did not set up the Jewish Policy nor thought themselves bound to it no nor any setled Priestly Supremacy for National Government For Councils were called but on rare accidents by the Emperours themselves and to decide particular cases about Heresies And the Pope had but the first voice in such Councils § 29. But if every Nation must have the Jewish Policy then the whole Empire must then have one High Priest and then the Pope hath a fair pretence to his claim of a Divine Institution as the Church Soveraign of the whole Empire which it 's like was then seven parts in eight of the whole Christian world at least unless Abassia were then generally Christians as now But then his power would change with the Empire and fall when it falleth § 30. III. But if the question be only whether a National Priestly Soveraignty be lawful or whether God's general Rules for Concord Order Edification do bind the Churches prudentially to erect such a form To this they sayas followeth 1. We will first lay hold on certainties and not prefer uncertainties before them We are sure that such a power of Apostles and Pastors as is before mentioned was established and that the junior Pastors were as Sons to the seniors ordained by them Whether the power of Ordaining and Governing Ministers was by Apostolical Establishment appropriated to men of a superiour degree in the sacred Ministry seemeth to us very dark 2. We are past doubt that all particular Churches by Apostolical order had Bishops and that a Church was as Hierom saith Plebs Episcopo adunata and as Ignatius the Unity of every Church was notified by this that to every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop at that time and as Cyprian Ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia 3. And we are satisfied that every Presbyter is Episcopus Gregis whoever claim to be Episcopi Episcoporum which the Carthage Council in Cyprian renounced 4. And we are satisfied that no Church-superiours have authority to destroy the particular Church form Ministry Doctrine Worship or Discipline which were setled by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles And that the priviledges and duties of these single particular Churches being plainest and surest in Scripture they must be continued whatever Canons or Commands of any superiour Priests should be against them 5. Nor can they force any man to sin 6. Nor have any Priests a forcing power by the sword or violence but only the power of the Word and Keys that is of taking in or putting out of the Church where they have power and binding men over on just cause to the judgment of God The power that they have is from Christ and for him and not against him and for the Churches edisication and not destruction and what is pretended contrary to this is none They cannot dispense with the Laws of God but preach and execute them 7. And these things being thus secured though in our doubts we dare not swear or subscribe that National Patriarchal Provincial or Metropolitical Powers are of God's institution yet we resolve to live in all Christian peaceableness and submission when such are over us § 31. And we must profess that when we find how anciently and commonly one Presbyter in each Church was peculiarly called the Bishop without whom there was no ordinary ordinations and against whom in matters of his power none was to resist and also how generally the Churches in the Roman Empire conformed themselves to an imitation of the civil power as to their limits in all the official part being all subject to the Emperour who set up no Ecclesiastical Peer we are not so singular or void of reverence to those Churches as not by such notices to be much the more inclined to the aforesaid submission and peaceableness under such a power nor are we so bold or rash as to reproach it or condemn the Churches and excellent persons that have practised it §32 Nay we have already said that securing the state worship doctrine and true discipline of the inferiour particular Parish Churches there are some of us that much incline to think that Archbishops that is Bishops that have some oversight of many Churches with their Pastors are Lawful successours of the Apostles in the ordinary part of their work And such of us have long ago said that the Episcopal Government of the Bohemian Waldenses described by Commenius and Lascitius is most agreable to our judgment of any that we know excercised Therefore that which we humbly offered for our concord in England at His Majesties Restauration was Archbishop Ushers form of the Primitive Church Government not attempting any diminution of the Power wealth or honour of the Diocesanes or Archbishops but only a restauration of the Presbyters to their proper Office-work and some tolerable discipline to the particular Parish Churches §33 But we must ever much difference so much of Church order and Government as God himself hath instituted and is purely divine and unchangeable from those accidentals which men ordain though according to Gods general Rules For these are often various and mutable and are means to the former and never to be used against them And of these accidentals of Government we say as they that say no such form is fixed by God Concord order decency and edification are alwaies necessary But oft times it may be indifferent whether concord order and decency be expressed by this accidental way or that And that which is most congruous for order decency edification and concord in one Countrey Church or time may be incongruous in another Therefore if the question be but how far the giving one Bishop or Pastor power over others or making disparity of Cities in conformity to
may use it in other Churches when called thereto and by consequence it may reach further For few Bishops will think if another Bishop come into their Diocesses or Parishes and excommunicate divers of their flocks that they and all others are bound to stand to such mens sentence and to hold such excommunicate That which a Pastor doth in ordinary Excommunicating is to declare after proof that This person is by his sin and impenitency made uncapable of Communion with the Church and therefore to require him to forbear it and the people to avoid Communion with him and to pronounce him unpardoned before God till he repent Now if this be done by one known to be heretical with whom the other Churches have no Communion those other Churches are not bound to deny that man Communion Nor yet if he offer himself to their Communion and they examine the matter and find him wronged It is concord in good and not in evil that we are bound to by the command of God Therefore if any man be wrongfully put out of this Church the next may and should receive him And what necessity is there then of going a thousand or an hundred miles to a Pope or Patriarch or Diocesan to right him And whoever thought that there was need of an Universal Physician or Schoolmaster or a General Council of such to receive appeals from Patients and Scholars that are wrongfully turned out of the Hospital or School The Caviller will here tell you of disparities in the cases but the question is whether the disrities be such as alter the reason of the Conclusion What man of conscience will be a Physician Schoolmaster or Pastor that hath not power to judge whom to receive for his Patient Scholar or part of his flock but must take all that some other man shall send to him or command him to receive and give them what others command him to give An Apothecary may do so but not a Physician What if a man had no other scandal but to say I will not take you for my Pastor nor take my self obliged to answer you speak with you give you any account of my self nor be questioned by you on any accusation must I be constrained to suppose this man to be one of my flock In despite of his own denyal If the freedom of consent be not mutual but I must be constrained to take those for my charge as Christians that renounce such a relation or will not own it a Pastor is not a free man nor hath any power of the Church-Keys but is as an irrational Slave a Cryer or Executioner that must but execute another mans commands 2. But if there be need of appeals and our own actions must not be free why will not the Synods of Neighbour-Pastors met only for Counsel and Concord and not to command the Pastors suffice for such persons to appeal to And what if I turn a servant out of my house or from his meat and he may take another Master when he will must there be an universal Judge of all family cases that shall force me to keep my servant against my will Is it not enough that I know why I am unwilling to keep him who am no way more bound to him than to others but by my own consent What if as Nazianzen left Sasimis Constantinople and Nazianzum at last I should give up my whole Charge and Bishoprick and say I will be a Pastor to none of them any more upon sufficient reasons as Latimer did Is it not better for the people to take another than to accuse me at Rome or Canterbury as wronging them 3. But if all this serve not neither the sufficiency of Pastors for one single Parish nor yet the Counsel of all the Neighbour-Pastors or Bishops what is there more to be done which the authority of Princes and Magistrates may not do All Christians confess almost that no Bishops or Pastors as such have from Christ any forcing power over the flocks that belongeth to the Magistrates only And they are to keep peace and force us to our certain duty And I would ask the contrary-minded whether if Bishops Patriarchs and Councils had no forcing power but only to excommunicate by the application of Gods word and leaving all men to their consciences would this sort of Government serve their turn and keep out Heresies or maintain order and unity They say no themselves And next whether it be not certain and confessed that the Pastors have no other power but the Magistrates only Obj. But shall all men gather Churches and teach Heresie and do what they will Answ 1. The power of Popes Patriarchs or Councils did not prevent it when there were all the Heresies that fill Epiphanius Volumns And when the far greatest part of the Clergy was long Arrian And when the Nestorians and Futychians so greatly multiplied after the condemnation of the Councils And when the Novatians lived so many years in reputation and when the Donatists nor they were not diminished by Prelates or Councils Censures till the sword dispersed them And cannot the Sword be drawn without such as have no power of it 3. And as to the last and greatest reason that the Apostles have successors who must orderly exercise their Government it is answered 1. The common doctrine of the Church was that all Bishops are their Successors so far as they have successions and every Church of one Altar had a Bishop in the daies of Ignatius and long after 2. The Council of Carthage said None of us calleth himself Bishop of Bishops 3. But if any be set as the Bishop of many Bishops and Churches so be it they use no violence but govern volunteers as all the old Bishops did and sorbid them nothing commanded of God nor command them any thing which God forbiddeth and destroy not the order doctrine worship or discipline of the lesser particular Churches we have before said that we shall submit to such §41 IV. As to the question whether the Government setled by Christ in National Churches be as to the Clergy from all parts Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical and who must have the summam potestatem The disagreement of the persons that we have herein to do with puts us into utter despair of any solution And what good will it do us to believe that some must be obeyed if we cannot be certain who it is §42 V. And to the question Whether the King be the formal or only the accidental Church-head We find no more agreement 1. Some think that the King as Melchizedek is a mixt person secular and Clergy and hath both Offices to use and communicate as they say the Princes before Aaron had 2. Others say that this is not so but that the Clergy-jurisdiction distinct from the Priestly common power is a branch of the Christian Magistrates power and so derived from the King 3. Others say that the Church formally is distinct from the Civil
State though not alwaies materially And that the King as King is but an Accidental Civil Head as he is over Physicians and Schoolmasters being neither himself and that the National Church must have a formal Clergy-head Personal or Collective which shall in suo genere be the highest though under the Magisttates Civil Government as Physicians are 4. The Papists say that all National Churches are under the Pope as Universal Pastor who may alter them as he seeth cause 5. Some moderate men say that only Diocesan and Metropolitical Churches are jure Divino and that they are called National only improperly from one King or concording association as ab accidente and not properly from any formal Clergy-head § 43. VI. Lastly which is the formal Head of the Church of England and so what that Church is we are left as much uncertain 1. If it be only a Civil Head that denominateth it One then it is but a Christian Kingdom which we never questioned And Dr. Rich. Cosins in his Tables of the English Church-Policy saith That the King hath Administrationem supremam magisque absolutam quae dicitur Primatus Regius And Tho. Crompton in his dedication of it to K. James saith Ecclesiastica Jurisdictio plane Regia est Coronae dignitatis vestrae Regiae prima praecipua indivisibilis pars Ecclesiasticae leges Regiae sunt neque alibi oriuntur aut aliunde sustentantur aut fulciuntur penes Ecclesiasticos judices per Archiepiscopos Episcopos derivata a Rege potestate jurisdictio Ecclesiastica consist it And yet our Kings and Church explaining the Oath of Allegiance declare that the King pretendeth not to the Priesthood or power to administer the Word and Sacraments but as Crompton adds from Constantine is extra Ecclesiam constitutus a Deo Episcopus alii intra Ecclesiam Episcopi This is plain If they hold to this and claim no power in the English-Policy but as the Kings Officers in that part which belongeth to Christian Magistrates who will oppose them But this reacheth not to the Keys Preaching or Sacraments 2. Some say that the King is partly a Clergy man as Melchizedek and so that he is the formal Head and might perform the Priestly Office if he would But this our Kings have themselves renounced 3. Some say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is the formal Head but that cannot be because he is no Governour over the Arch-Bishop of York or his Province 4. Most say that the Convocation is the formal Church-Head which makes it One Political Church But 1. If so then why saith the Canon that the Convocation is the true Church of England by Representation and those excommunicate that deny it We enquire after the Church-Head or Governour And that which is but the Church it self by representation is not its Head unless the Head and Body be the same and the Church govern it self and so it be Democratical The governed and Governours sure are not the same 2. And the Supream Power is supposed by those that take Episcopacy for a distinct Order to be in the Supream Order only But the far greater part of the Convocation are not of the Supream Order Nay thus the Presbyters should be partly the chief Governours of the Bishops while they make Canons for them 3. When we did but motion that according to Arch-Bishop Ushers form of the Primitive Episcopacy Presbyters might joyn with the Bishops in proper executive Church-government instead of Lay-Chancellors and such like they decryed it as Presbytery and call us Presbyterians ever since And if they say that the Presbyters have so great a part in the Supream Government it self which obligeth all the Nation how much more would they be themselves Presbyterians which they so abhor § 44. Having oft said that we desire Christian Kingdoms as the great blessing of the world we mean not either that 1. All in a Kingdom should be forced to be baptized or profess themselves Christians whether they are so or not For lying will not save men nor please God and even the Papists are against this 2. Nor that all should be supposed to be Christians that are in the Kingdom But that the Kings be Christians and the Laws countenance Christianity and the most or ruling part of the Kingdom be Christians and all just endeavours used to make all the rest so The Ancient Churches continued them Catechumens till they were fit for Baptism and though they were for Infant-Baptism they compelled none to be baptized in Infancy or at Age but left it to free choice They baptized but twice a year ordinarily They kept many offenders many years from communion And if Crabs Roman Council sub silvest be true they at Rome admitted not penitents till fourty years understand it as you see cause The true Elibertine Canons kept many out so many years and many till death and many absolutely as shewed that they were far from taking all the Nation into the Church And the Christian Emperours compelled none It was long before the greatest part of the Empire were Christians In the daies of Valens the Bishops were some of them banished into places that had few Christians if any In France it self even in St. Martin's daies the Christians of his flock were not the most but he wrought miracles to convince the Heathens that raged against Christianity where he dwelt c. § 1. There are two appendent Controversies handled by some that write for National Churches which need but a brief solution The first is whether it be not an Independent Errour to expect real holiness in Church-members as necessary in the judgment of charity The second Whether it be not such an Errour to require the bond of a Covenant beside the Baptismal Covenant § 2. To the first we say that so much is written on this point by one of us in a Treatise called Disputations of Right to Sacraments c. that we think meet to say no more The Opponents now confess that it must be saving Faith and Consent to the Baptismal Covenant that must be professed And Papists and Protestants agree with all the Ancient Church that Baptism putteth the true Consenter into a state of certain pardon and title to life And God maketh not known lying a condition of Church-communion He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved It is true that God hath not made Ministers Arbitrary Judges of mens secret thoughts but hath limited them in judging to take their tongues that profess Faith and Consent to be the Indices of their minds But sure the power of the Keys containeth a power of judging according to Christ's Law who is to be taken into the Church by Baptism and who not If only the seeker be made Judge it will be a new way of Church-Government and a bad And then the question is 1. Whether he that accepts ones profession seemingly serious of Faith and Consent and that de praesente is not bound to hope in charity that such