the Catholick Church is Ans. He maketh me think of the Man's Answer to the Pharisee John 9. I have told you and you heard not Would you hear it again If you would know what Unity is in uno which is affectio entis I must again send you to Schibler or Suarez or some such Tutor for I am not meet to tutor you If you would know in what this Unity consisteth I have told you before and oft § 16. But tho this Doctor use it not we use first to enquire whether the Controversie be de nomine or de re And 1. If I satisfie him what maketh the Church to be One will he grant that if we agree in that Union we are in Catholick Communion If he will we shall soon be Friends and no Schismaticks at least with any that knows what Unity is If he will not doth he not all this while abuse his Reader when he so hotly damneth us for want of Catholick Communion and tells us that he meaneth Unity and chargeth me with wilfulness or nonsense if I think that he meaneth any transient act But 1. De nomine I will once more tell him why I distinguish Unity and Communion and think he should have done so too Words in Dispute are to be used in the sense that Men of the Profession which the Subject most belongs to use them unless otherwise explained But Men that write of Logick Metaphysicks Physicks and Politicks use to distinguish Unity from Communion so far as that usually Communion presâ—pposeth Unity secundum quid and ever includeth some transient Acts when Unity is but the denomination of Eus qua Uâ—um I hope I may take the Language of our Creed to be so tollerable as that it is not necessary to salvation to condemn it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by the Church of England which I hope is no damned Schismatical Sect translated the Communion of Saints That by Communion they mean some tâ—anâ—ient Acts and not meer Union all Expositors that ever I read among them shew as do all the Fathers and all Forreign Interpreters that I have read At least methinks he should not disdain to learn his Grammar again of Dr. Hammond and Dr. Heylin I remember not that ever I read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated Communion Indeed Eph. 4.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expresseth Communion in transient acts but bare Unity doth not But Communion must maintain it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in the bond of peace King Iames so liked Bishop Usher's Sermon on that Text that a Knight then near him told me that when by his winking posture the Courtiers thought he had been asleep at the end of the Sermon he spake aloud This is the Religion that I will live and die in or to that sense The regardful reading of consenting learned Commentators on Eph. 3.4 5 6 7. Verses might have quenched this fire-â—rand Indeed I believe with Beza that they who translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by meer participation say too little For it is not all participation which is the Communion which many Texts express but such a participation as connoteth an Union in quibusdam For Union absolute and simple is uncapable of Communion except with some other thing having no parts 1 Iohn 1.6 7. we are said to have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with God and with Christ or one another I find no Expositor that taketh this for meer Union Some call it Partnership some Society some Friendship others Communion but all take it to include transient acts Dr. Hammond goeth so far from this Doctor that he will have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 almost every where in the New Testament to signifie Communication by transient acts Yea he goeth so far from his Friend Grotius who placeth it in the exercise of Friendship that he saith It is appliable to Friendship or Society no otherwise than to knowledg or anything else So he expoundeth Rom. 15.26 2 Cor. 8.4 2 Cor. 9.13 Phil. 1.5 Heb. 13.16 Phil. 6. and the Creed Tho for my part I doubt not but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 1.9 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2.1 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 10.16 c. do signifie such a participation of that which is common to them all as implieth and connoteth that Unity which is the thing signified in this Communion tho it includes transient acts II. I should now again answer his question de re What makes all these Churches one But he stops me with a profession that he will not be to me intelligible and complaineth that I am unintelligible to him So that we seem Barbarians or Men of strange Languages in disputing with one another And it would be no edifying work for any to hear e. g. a Dutch-man and a Spaniard dispute in their several Tongues not understanding one another When I distinguisht of unifying the Church and uniting a single Member to it he tells me That he supposeth the particular Churches formed and particular Christians united to them and only enquireth how they are one Church and saith my distinction is to prevent understanding which his confusion promoteth And when I distinguish between Union in essential parts and in integral parts and in accidents without which distinction no true satisfaction can be given to the Querist he saith He perceiveth that we shall never come to the business for he did not enquire wherein the Essence of a Church consists or what degrees of Communion are more or less necessary to its being but how a thousand Churches become one Church Ans. Which words are to me as unintelligible as any Nonsence Doth any thing make it One Church but that which maketh it A Church Doth not that which maketh it eus existens make it Unum Doth not the word Church name its Essence If he ask me how the parts of Man come to make One Man Who would think but he meant either One Man essential or else improperly One entire Man And what Answer would any give but this If your how mean what was the efficient cause it 's God and the Generators If you mean what are the constitutive causes They are Soul and Body united that make a Man in Essence and the integrating parts united that make him an entire Man O! but saith our Doctor I ask not wherein the Essence of the Church consists Ans. Then you ask not what maketh it One in constitution What then do you mean unless it be the efficient cause which no Man would think you meant that read the rest of your Book For my part I despair of knowing what you mean till you have better learned to speak But this seemeth to imply that we are agreed of the constitutive Causes of the One Catholick Church and our disagreement were of the Efficient If that be it I 'le tell you what maketh the Church One efficiently 1. God maketh Man to be Man and so capable
stairs to hatred and destroying it 's his way to cure Schism that is commonly painted with Horns and Cloven feet If a man come from a Countrey Village and be made by Covenant a Citizen of London how prove you that he renounceth King or Kingdom But he saith p. 9. Those who wilfully separate from the Corporation to which the Charter was granted forfeit their Interest in the Charter Ans. What Reader doth this man presume upon that will not ask him how he proveth 1. That Gods Law or Charter to his Church doth not require them to congregate in distinct single Churches as London Charter doth to erect several Companies and the Universities several Colledges 2. And that God hath not in his Word given order or command for such single Churches But that the Apostles and Titus by fixing Elders to their several Churches and Cities separated from the Universal Church 3. And that their subordinate Churches have not need of distinct subordinate consent and duty And that our Diocesan Churches all separate from the Universal Did he think these things need no proof at all It may be he will say that the Diocesan depend on the Vniversal but the Presbyterian or Independent do not I Answer Dependance is either that of Subjects on Soveraign or Magistrates for Government or that of a Community of Equals for Communion In the former respect they depend on none but Christ as Universal Soveraign Nor on any Foriegners for Governments In the latter they depend on all true Churches for Communion And Doctor Hammond and most Diocesans hitherto have said that Diocesan Churches are thus far Independent or National at most And if any be for a Forreign Iurisdiction in Charity before they perswade England to it they should procure them a Dispensation from all the Oaths that have sworn all this Kingdom against endeavouring any change of Government and against a Foreign Iurisdiction For some Fanaticks now Dream that PER is the Mark of the Beast and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the number of his Name is nominal as well as numeral and refers to CH-urch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and STate For as for them that find a mans name in them I abhorr their Exposition more § 11. P. 9. God saith he hath not made any Covenant in particular with the Church of Geneva France or England c. A. 1. God hath made one General Law for Christians congregating with their fixed Elders or Bishops in particular Churches all the World over And his Command is not without Promise of being with them to the End of the World and that Promise becometh a Promise to every Church so congregate God hath not made distinct Laws or Promises to every Christian But the Promise to Justifie all Believers justifieth each single Person when he believeth If the King should make one common Law to command all his Subjects that are Freeholders to live in Corporations or Hundreds described with their priviledges those priviledges would be all theirs that are so incorporated As one Charter may Priviledge every London Company diversified by subordinate Agreements 2. And that God who will have them thus incorporated and distributed into several single Churches doth Covenant or Promise according to their demerits to each Do I need to recite the peculiar Promises and threats to the seven Asian Churches Rev. 2. and 3. which are Covenants to them § 12. Next Pag. 10. He will tell us what Communion is and in many words it is to tell us that Communion is nothing but Vnion I know that quoad notationem nominis Communion may signifie Vnion with others But they that write Politicks have hitherto distinguished Vnion and Communion taking Communion for Actual Communication or exercise of the duties of men in Union But to speak cross to other Writers on the same Subjects and give no reason for it and to confound Vnion and Communion is one part of this edifying Resolution § 13. Pag. 11. Our Communion with the Church consists in being members of the Church which we are made by Baptism saith he Then the Baptized are still in Communion with the Church till their baptism be nullified And hath he proved us Apostates § 14. Pag. 12. Should any man who is no member of the Church nor owns himself to be so intrude into the Church and Communicate in all Holy Offices it 's no Act of Communion c. A. I thought communicating ordinarily in Holy Offices had gone for an owning of Communion If it do not would you would tell us how to know who are of your Church § 15. P. 13. Saith he Church-Communion does not consist in particular Acts of Communion which can be performed among those who are present and Neighbours but in membership Now as a member is a member of the whole Body not meerly of any part of it c. All the Subjects of England who never saw nor converst with each other are members of the same Kingdom A. 1. That word meerly hath more Craft than Justice or Honesty Meerly signifieth Only I suppose and if he would make his Reader think that they that are for single Church peculiar membership and consent do take themselves to be meerly or only members of those single Churches and not of the Universal it is shameless injury 2. Will he ever draw men to conformity by making them believe that because they owe Common Communion to all Christians therefore we owe no special duty to the Bishops Priests Churches or Neighbours where we are setled Do the Men of one Colledge School Corporation owe no more duty to that than to all others Do the Free-holders of Bedford-shire choose Knights for Middlesex or the Citizens of Oxford choose Officers in London These seem strange Resolutions to us 3. But doth he remember that if Communion consist not in Acts of Communion to such but in membership even with the distant then he that is baptized and no Apostate and performeth no other Acts of Communion to the Bishops Parson or People where he liveth than he is bound to perform to them a hundred or thousand miles off is no Separatist Methinks this favours Separation too much § 16. Pag. 14. When he denyed any Divine Covenant to make us members of particular Churches distinguish't from the Vniversal as all National Diocesan and Parochial are as parts from the whole he presently confuteth all again saying The exercise of Church Communion as to most of the particular duties and Offices of it must be confined to a particular Church and Congregation for we cannot actually joyn in the Communion of Prayers and Sacraments c. but with some particular Church A. Oportuit fuisse memorem 1. Reader doth not this man here confess that there are particular Churches 2. If these be not distinct from the whole then each particular is the whole 3. If the Exercise must be in particular Churches must not men Consent to their Relations and Duties Is it a sin to Promise
Communion is an Essential duty of a Church-member meaning a Christian. A. 1. And yet before he denyed that Communion lay essentially in this Exercise but only in Vnion Yea and Nay is his Custom 2. Some few Christians as those that live where such Communion cannot be had without sin c. are not bound to it therefore it is not true that it is Essential to Universal Church-membership And I think sickness endeth not the essentials that disableth men 3. Note Reader that by this mans Doctrine we are all unchristened and damned if we do not gather into disallowed Churches if we be unjustly cast out of the allowed ones For all must be Church members that will be Christians and an unjust Excommunication cannot disoblige us from Christianity nor bind us to consent to be damned Now read the 5 th 6 th 7 th 8 th c. Canons of the Church of England which ipso facto Excommunicate all that affirm any thing in their Liturgy Articles Ceremonies or Government sinful and answer Spalatensis arguments against Excommunicating ipso facto and prove all this just and you may prove what you will just But you see where he layeth the Controversie If any be Excommunicated without sufficient cause or by Lay Civilians to whom God never gave that power or by such Bishops or Pastors as have no just Authority for want of a true call or Consent or if any unlawful thing be made necessary to Communion all such persons must by his own confessions hold Church-communion whether these imposers will or not for all Christians are bound to be of some Church § 3. p. 33 34. He saith that None but publick Prayers are the Prayers of the Church properly and acts of Communion that is such as are offered by the hands of men authorized and set apart for that purpose c. Ans. Who would have thought that we are more for the Liturgy than he I undertake to prove that all the Responsal Prayers and all the Litany Prayers in which the Minister names but the matter to them and the People make it a Prayer by speaking the petitioning parts are all the publick Prayers of the Church and so are all the petitioning Psalms spoke or sung by the People and not only that which is offered by the Priest I do not think that he believeth what he carelesly saith here himself But the Independents are stiffer for his first Thesis of the necessity of Church-communion than he is his unfit words I pass by CHAP. III. Of his second Case § 1. THE next question of Occasional Communion as distinct from fixed he turns out of doors as if there could be no such thing and it 's very true as to the Church universal but as to visible actual Communion with this or that particular Church it is not true 1. A Traveller of another Country who on his journey communicateth with every Church where he passeth is not a fixed Member of that Church for 1. The Pastor or Bishop hath not that peculiar Charge of him as of fixed members 2. He is not bound where he passeth to take such notice of the lives of Communicants or Pastors and to admonish the Offenders and tell the Church as fixed members are 3. He hath not the right in chooseing Pastors or Deacons as the fixed Members have 4. An itinerant Bishop in transitu is not their fixed Bishop ergo an Iterant Lay-man is not a fixed Member The same I may say of one that is a fixed member of another Church in the same City and cometh to that only to signifie universal Communion or neighbourly which though he deny to be lawful I shall further prove anon And the same I may say of those that dwell where there is no fixed single Church at all for want of a Pastor but they congregate only when some strange Minister passeth through the Town CHAP. IV. His third Case § 1. PAge 48 49. He resolveth his third Case Whether it be lawful to Communicate with two distinct and separate Churches negatively and saith It is contrary to all the Principles of Church Communion as any thing can possibly be it is to be contrary to our selves it is Communicating with Schism That the Presbyterian and Independent Churches have made an actual separation from the Church of England he hath evidently proved and they are Schismaticks and to communicate with them is to partake in their Schism and if Schism be a great sin and that which will damn us as soon as Adultery and Murther then it must needs be a dangerous thing to communicate with Schismaticks And p. 42. There cannot be two distinct Churches in one place one for occasional and another for constant Communion without Schism Ans. To save those that are willing from the Poyson of these Schismatical Doctrines lapt up in confusion by men that abhor distinction or understand not what they say I will first lay down that truth that he fights against with convincing evidence and then shew you the mischief of his false Doctrine and Application § 2. The confusion of these words Church Communion Separation and Schism which every one signifie divers things is the chief means to blind and deceive his Reader whether it do so by himself I know not I. The Word Church signifieth sometime the universal Church sometime a single Organized Church as part of it and sometime humane combinations of such single Churches and that into Diocesan Classical Provincial Patriarchal National and Papal II. The Specification and Nomination of Churches is from the formal cause and the proper Government is that form And the Individuation is from matter and form but principally from the form III. The Union of Pastor and Flock in Relation makes that which is a form aptitudinal as the Soul to the Body to be the form in act as the Union of Soul and Body and Gods command and consent with the consent of the necessary relate and correlate cause that union IV. Union is in order to Communion which is primary by the exercise of the formal powers on the matter and secondary by the action of all the parts according to their several capacities and Offices V. The Union of the Church is of divers degrees 1. The formal Union of the Head and Body which maketh it essentially the Christian Church 2. The Vnion of the parts among themselves as Christian which maketh them a Body capable of Union with the Head 3. The Union of the parts as unequal Organized the Official with the rest which maketh it an Organized Body fit for its special use and welfare 4. Union in integrity of parts which maketh it an intire Body 5. Union in due temperament and Qualities which maketh it a healthful Body 6. Unity in Common Accidents which make it a Comely Beautiful Body joined with the rest But 7. Union in mutable Accidents is unnecessary and impossible VI. These several degrees of Union are found in Bodies natural and Politick 1. The
the same place their neighbourhood maketh them capable of Personal presential Communion as men that may know and admonish each other and meet by turns and in presence manage their concerns which differenceth single Churches of the lowest order from associated Churches of men that have Communion only by others at distance XV. As Logicians say of other Relations the matter must be capable of the end or it is not capable of the name and form so is it here e. g. It is no Ship that is made of meer Sponge or Paper or that is no bigger than a Spoon it is no Spoon that is as big as a Ship One House is not a Village nor one Village a City nor a City a meer House So twenty or an hundred or a thousand Parishes associate cannot be a single Church of the first or lowest Order being not capable of mutual Knowledge Converse or personal present Communion Nor are two or three Lay-men capable to be such a Church for want of due matter But supposing them capable thô a full and rich Church have advantage for Honour and Strength yet a small and poor one is ejusdem ordinis as truely a Church and so is their Pastor as Hierom saith of Rome and Eugubium so Alexandria and Majuma c. Gregory Neocaesar was equally Bishop of nineteen at first as after of all save nineteen in the City XVI If the Apostles have Successours in their care and Superiority over many Churches it will prove that there should yet be men of eminent worth to take care of many Churches and to instruct and admonish the younger Ministers But it will neither prove 1. That they succeed the Apostles in the extraordinary parts of their Office 2. Nor that they have any forcing power by the Sword 3. Nor that one Church hath power over others by Divine right for the Apostles fixed not their power to any particular Churches but were general Visitors or Overseers of many Yet if the same Man who is fixed in a particular Church have also the visiting admonishing oversight of many as far as was an Ordinary part of the Apostles Office and be called an Archbishop I know no Reason to be against him XVII There be essential and Integral Acts of the Sacred Ministry instituted by Christ These none may take the Power of from any Ministers nor alter the species or integrity of the Office by setting up any such Superious as shall deprive them of that which Christ hath instituted or arrogating the like uncalled But as in worship so in Order and Church Government there are undetermined accidents As to choose the time and place of Synods to preside and moderate and such like And these the Churches by agreement or the Magistrate may assign to some above the rest And if the Magistrate affix Baronies Honours Revenues or his own due Civil forcing Power and make the same Men Magistrates and Ministers whether we think it prudent and well done or not we must honour and obey them XVIII Some call these humane Accidental Orders forms of Church Government and affirm as Bishop Reignolds did and Dr. Stillingfleet in his Irenicon and many excellent men by him cited that no form of Church Government is of Divine Command Which is true of all this second sort of Government which is but Accidental and humane but not at all of the first sort which is Divine and Essential to Christ himself first and to Pastors as such by his appointment so that the essential Government of the Universal Church by Christ and of each particular Church by Pastors specified by him if not of Supervisors of many as succeeding Apostles and Evangelists in their Ordinary work are of unalterable Divine right But the humane forms are alterable Such I account 1. The Presidency and Moderatorship and accidental Government of one Bishop in a single Church over the other Presbyters Deacons c. 2. The accidental Government of a Diocesan as an Archbishop over these lowest Bishops and Churches 3. And the Superiority of Metropolitans and Patriarchs over them so it be but in such Accidentals and within the same Empire not imposing a forreign Jurisdiction These tota specie differ from the Divine Offices XIX All these single Church being parts of the Universal are less noble than the whole and are to do all that they do as members in Union with the Whole and to do all as Acts of Communion with them XX. The General precepts of doing all to Edification Concord Peace Order c. oblige all the Churches to hold such correspondencies as are needful to these Ends And Synods are one special means which should be used as far and oft as the Ends require And if National Metropolitans and Patriarchs order such Synods I am not one that will disobey them But if on these pretences any would make Synods more necessary than they are and use them as Governours by Legislation and Judgement over the Particular Bishops by the use of the Church Keyes and will affixe to them or Metropolitans besides an Agreeing Power and the said Government in Accidentals a proper Church Government by making and unmaking Ministers or Christians excommunicating and absolving as Rulers by the said Keyes it may be a duty to disown such usurpations As the King would disown an Assembly of Princes any where met that would claim a Proper Government of him and his Kingdom Thô it were much to be wisht that all Christian Princes would hold such Assemblies for the Concord and Peace of Christendom XXI The Essentials of Faith Hope and Loving Pracâ—â—ce essentiate the Church objectively And these are all summarily contained in the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalouge and all with much more even Integrals and needful Accidentals in the Sacred Scriptures which taking in the Law of Nature are Gods Universal Law XXII There is no Church on Earth so sound and Orthodox as to want no Integral part of Christian Religion Proved There is no man on Earth much less any multitude so sound as to want no Integral part But all Churches consist only of Men And therefore if all the Men be so far defective all the Churches are so It is not their Objective Religion Generally and implicitely received that I mean but their Subjective Religion and their explicite reception of the Objective The Scripture is our perfect Objective Religion in it self and as an Object proposed and in general and implicitely we all receive it But as a man may say I believe all that 's in the Scripture and yet be ignorant of the very Essentials in it so a man may explicitely know and believe all the Essentials and more and yet be ignorant of many Integrals All things in Scripture proposed to our Faith Hope and Practice are the Integrals of our Religion But no Christian understandeth all these proposals or words of Scripture Therefore no Christian explicitely believeth them all or practiceth all To hold the contrary
us that he did not place this Communion in any transient Acts but in a fixed permanent state Ans. But 1. Taking the Bishops for true authorised Pastors and the Church for a true Church are transient acts Believing in Christ and repenting of sin are transient acts quoad objectum tho immanent quoad subjectum effectum Baptism and Profession of Christianity and of love and obedience to others are transient both quoad objectum effectum Coming to Church communicating obeying Bishops and departing from Schismaticks are transient in both respects You see that by Catholick Communion the Doctor meaneth none of all these 2. What meaneth he then a fixed permanent state But 1. Which Predicament can you conjecture that word state is in It 's commonly applied to Relation Quality and Scite and Place These latter I am confident he meaneth not If he mean Quality it is Dispâ—sitiâ—n or Habit sure But those come by Acts and he tells us not what he meaneth nor is it probable that this is it Relation is most likely to be that fixed state which is indeed the true form of a Church and a Church-Member and saith Durandus is meant by Baptism's indelible Character Supposing this his meaning 2. Are not transient acts the fundamentum of this Relation as verily as of Paternity Marriage-Relation c. Is any Man a Church-Member or Christian but by the transient acts of Baptism Profession Covenanting c. And do you define a Relation without the Fundamentum 3. But if Relation be all wherein lieth our damning Schism We profess Catholick Communion then somewhat more than you do For as we profess the same Relation that you do to Jesus Christ so we profess our Relation of Fellow-Members to all his Body even to those that in such Matters depart from each others and if I can understand you to the greatest part of Christ's Church on Earth which you damn as Rebels This is our profest Relation If you can disprove it 〈◊〉 § 9. He adds I conclude it 's sufficient to let you understand what the Ancients meant by Christian-Communion which in a large Notion signifies the Christian Church or Society which is called Communion from Communication which all the Members of it had with each other The plain and obvious sense is All the Churches of the World are but one Church or Society and have the same right and the same obligation on them to communicate with each other for the sake of which Christian Churches are instituted as the members of a particular Church are Ans. 1. Such large Notions may be sufficient to you but they signifie little more than noise to me Here we are told that by Communion he meaneth the Church And so when we read of Communion with the Church it meaneth the Church with the Church and Church-Communion are Two Synonimal words and signifie Church Church And in the Creed the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints is a Tautology 2. But the Church is called Communion from Communication And is Communication no transient act but a fixed state 3. If the plain sense be That all Churches in the World are one Church as parts in the whole who differs from you in that We are all then of one Catholick Communion and shall believe that all true Christians are of one Church till the Excommunicators better disprove it 4. But have all the same right and obligation to communicate with each other 1. All do actually communicate with each other 1. In their Union with and Relation to our Saviour and Head 2. And in having one holy Spirit 3. Being the adopted children of one God 4. Being of that one body formally related to Christ. 5. Believing in the same God and Father Saviour and holy Spirit And 6. Consenting to the same Baptismal Covenant 7. Having the same hope of everlasting life These are the Instances of Christian Union and Communion in Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. And 8. They have also Communion in the same common benefits Pardon and Justification and right to life 9. And besides all this when they may be had they have Communion in the same species of necessary worship the use of the same Gospel and Sacred Scriptures and Creed of the same sort of Eucharistical Sacrament and Prayer and Praise and Thanksgiving in all parts of absolute necessity and holy Assemblies to that end consisting of several Pastors with their Flocks 10. Yea and all true Christians love one another as such and live in sincere tho imperfect obedience to the same holy Laws of Christ. In all this all Christians have Communion 2. And all have right to such measures of Local Communion where they come as they are in a more immediate capacity of 3. And all are obliged to exercise so much Mental and Local Communion as is necessary to edification and to the exercise of Christian love and peace besides what is forementioned But yet 1. All Churches on Earth are separate by distance as to Local Communion 2. No Two Churches or Men on Earth are perfectly united as to Mental Câ—mmunion There are Multitudes of degrees of differences in this 3. There are very many just causes of diversifying Local Communion in the same City Diocess or other Precincts and of diversifying individual Pastoral Relation and single proper Church-Communion Diversity of Languages is a cause that no man can deny The excessive Magnitude of a Church that is the Multitude of Persons is another Suppose that I were first and alone made Pastor of a Church in Mexico or Quinsay and I am not able to do the work of a Pastor for a Thousand Souls I get the help of Three or Four Presbyters and Deacons and we all are utterly unable to do the Pastoral work for Four Thousand may Four Thousand or Forty Thousand more claim of me the performance of the Pastoral Office Am I bound to undertake Tenfold more than I am able to perform Then Men may not only enslave me but damn me at their pleasure and pretend their right to Communion with me If you say I am bound to multiply Presbyters in the same Church to sufficiency I answer 1. What if I can neither have Men nor Maintenance 2. What if I think that when the Multitude is so great that I cannot know them nor they ever speak with me or know one another any more than Men of several Countreys that I ought not to undertake a personal oversight of them but perswade them to associate in Churches capable of such oversight It 's no breach of Charity for one School-Master or Physician to refuse a personal Relation as School-Master to Five Hundred Schools or Physician to all the City or Five Hundred Hospitals tho he have Apothecaries or others under him No Man hath right to more of my labour than I am able to perform If I be a Bishop and bound to hear and try the Causes of all that ought to come under Church Censure in a whole Diocess and am
certain that I am unable to do this to One of an Hundred who can claim a right to that or more 4. But out of this his Doctrine I gather That if all the Christian World have rigâ—â— to communicate with me upon occasion 1. Sure there is some difference between occasional and fixed Local Communion 2. And surely if I refuse any that would communicate on common necessary terms because they will not break the Custom of their several Countries and communicate with me in doubted unnecessary things I wrong all the Christian World and am to them a Schismatick Much more if I presume to Excommunicate every Stranger that cometh into my Precincts and herein differs from me as you do us and most of all if I impose many sinful terms of Communion on him All Christians are bound to hold Communion in Christianity and in all things necessary to the common Communion of them all and to extend this also to as many Integrals as they can reach But there are Multitudes of things in which they are not bound to have Communion much less as necessary to salvation § 10. p. 36. We have all explained by an odd supposition viz. Suppose the whole World were one Family or one Kingdom in which every man according to his rank and station enjoys equal Priviledges the necessity of Affairs would require that Men should live in distinct Houses and Countries But yet if every Man enjoyed the same Liberty and Priviledges wherever he went as he now does in his own House and Countrey the whole World would be but one great Family or universal Kingdom Ans. 1. The whole World is one great Kingdom of God as verily as the Church is the Church of Christ And yet we Non-Conformists think that every Man in it no nor every Saint hath not right to be King of England nor a Judg in our Courts nor Lord Mayor of London nor so much as a Freeman in any City And we think that the Church hath no more one subordinate universal Soveraign than the World And that therefore the case in point of universal priviledg is not by this similitude well explained 2. Your odd supposition of the World being one Family either supposeth one Husband to all the Wives in the World and one Father to all the Children in the World or else that all distinct Husbands Wives Children and Servants are in this one Family In the first supposition I may suppose that you take him to be more than a Man that can be an Husband to all the Women and a Father to all the Children on Earth And therefore if his Wisdom be equal to such a greatness he must be no Fool. And if so whiâ—e Men are his Family he will order and govern them as Men and then they will be distributed into subordinate Families Cities and Kingdoms as now they are But if you suppose many Husbands and Fathers our Opinion is that Husbands and Wives should not be common nor Parents and Children Nay which way ever you take that Childrens Food Rayment and Portions should not be common Nor could any come from India and claim a Lordship or Lands in England as a Member of the Family Fathers distribute unequally as their Will and Wisdom and their Childrens fitness are diversifying Causes Even in a Colledg one cannot claim anothers Chamber Books Cloaths or Food One would think by your scourge for Non-Conformists that you were no Leveller nor against fatherly justice and inequality of right and distribution Even they that come to your Church cannot so much as claim equal right in Seats And verily if all the World that will come to you may claim equal Pastoral oversight from you or any Bishop your equality must be like his to the Beggars that gave nothing to any that he might serve them all alike § 11. P. 38 39 c. he saith He can hardly be so charitable to me as not to believe that I wilfully mistook him it being impossible for any man of common sense who ever read him to mistake his Catholick Communion for some transient acts Ans. Reader it 's hard terms that these Men hold us to I was loath to judg him so void of common Sense or use of Words as to talk of Catholick Communion which was in no transient acts But for the future rather than forfeit common sense or be wilful I will believe him that by Catholick Communion he meaneth Union and that he meaneth neither Baptism nor profession of Christianity nor owning any Article of Faith nor owning Bishops nor any Church-order or Worship of God But do not unsay all this again and call us all to nought for believing you § 12. But he saith Upon a stricter examination he finds me blundered and confounded about the Notion of Unity This Unity I term Union Ans. The Doctor will grow over-critical if he hold on if he mean this as part of my blundering and confusion But it is but Grammar that I am ignorant of I confess my ignorance I thought that Unio had Two significations one active for that act of uniting which maketh One of Two and that also Twofold 1. To unite efficiently 2. To unite constitutively And the other as signifying the same with Unity caused And I thought that Unitas had ordinarily signified by a more abstract word the same Oneness as Unio in the latter sense and sometimes abusively active Union But I am ready to learn better § 13. But saith he He understands it of our Union to Christ not of the Unity or Oneness of the Christian Church Ans. The best is he saveth me from unmannerly telling you that he speaketh falsly by confessing the falshood in the very terms of accusation For if he dare say that it is no Church-Union to be all United to one Christ in our common Christianity he is a very falâ—e Teacher § 14. P. 39. Repeating my words he tells you I misconstrue both terms But you are best take it on his word And he feigneth that I do or must infer ergo the Unity of the Catholick Church doth nâ—t consist in being one Body and Society and Communion of Christians Whereas I infer the clear contrary That it doth consist in one such body it 's Union with Christ making it such an one Yet here he addeth If this be to write controversies we may as well lay wagers and cast lots for major minor and conclusion Which words truly tell you what the Doctor 's Logical strength is like the Woman that told the Doctor that she could make her hungry Pig cry with better Logick than all the Doctors in the University did dispute And could not a Quaker say as much § 15. P. 41 42. He seemeth serious in asking me How the Catholick Church is united in one Body so as to be one Church And when I tell him how many sorts af Union there are he saith he cares not how many sorts there are so I will tell him what the Unity of
proper Authority but only in such matters as concern the Unity of the Episcopacy or the Peace and Communion of the Catholick Church If a Bishop be convicted of Heresie or Schism or some great wickedness or impiety they may depose him and forbid his people to communicate with him and ordain another in his stead because he subverts the Unity of the Faith or divides the Unity of the Church or is himself unfit for Communion Ans. 1. Either these are meant as acts of Government or not If yea then why do you so oft disclaim it and call it only Advice and Communion Then you place this governing Power in Forreigners when they are no further off than with ease and convenience we may confederate with them And whither this will lead I 'le not enquire If nay then it seems men may depose Bishops and set up or ordain others in their stead without any governing Power over them If so then by Authority you must mean Authoritatem Doctoris vel Nimcii and so I confess Pastors may in Christ's Name require other Churches to do their duty and not Authoritatem Regentis And if so it 's as true that when there is just cause a few may depose many as many depose a few But men use not to call it deposing and ordaining in his place when men do but charge others in Christ's Name to do their duty I find not thaâ— St. Martin excommunicated the Bishops and Synods in Ithacius and Idacius time but I find that he renounced Communion with them and so may Equals do § 43. P. 140. he saith The sensless imputation of Cassandrianism and French Popery is managed so knavishly by Mr. Lob and with such blind fury by Mr. Baxter with so much confusion c. Ans. The Terms I wonder not at but whatever we are for Knavery or blind Fury if this man help us against Confusion it 's strange § 44. P. 173. he grants that the Bishops are not the Governours of the Church as united in one common regent Head over the whole Church but as every Bishop governeth his own share And this of true Bishops who denieth him P. 183. It is but a voluntary combination and stricter associasion for preserving Unity by advice c. All this is good tho damned by him in the Independents if they would combine to rule according to the Laws of Christ and not make any of their own without authority nor so as to accuse Christ's Laws of insufficiency nor make dividing noxious snares § 45. Saith he p. 189. That this Church is Universal is founded on the Laws of Catholick Communion Ans. No Humane Laws make the Church Universal Men may make their own Subjects or Confederates unite in accidents either just as in one Translation of Scripture one time and place and meeting c. or unjust when it 's hurtful vain or belongs not to them but it is only he that maketh the Church a Church who thereby maketh it One Church in Essentials And in Integrals he that maketh it entire by institution or efficiency 2. This Union is founded in mens Unity in Christianity Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. § 46. P. 192. He saith The Association and Confederacy of Neighbour-Churches is founded on the Law of Catholick Communion and the Catholick Communion cannot be maintained without it Ans. Not without Baptismal Confederaâ—y in the necessary Duties commanded by Christ But as to your Confederacies in Humane new Church-Forms Patriarchal Metropolitan c. was not the Church One without them before they were invented Here he maketh voluntary Confederacies to make new Church-Canons or Laws of Discipline necessary to Unity and that Unity necessary to Salvation all being cut off from Christ that break it As if Christ had not made Laws enough necessary to salvation and he that only kept his Laws and not mens Canons could not be saved Can he tell us then where to fix our Religion On what Bishops and on what Canons I am certain that his Religion will not stand with certainty of salvation when no man can be certain what is necessary to salvation nor what de novo will by Bishops be made necessary the next year nor who those Bishops must be 2. See here again When he made it a renouncing our Christianity to confederate and associate to do mens duty in a particular Church he yet maketh it necessary to Unity and so to salvation by confederacy to make new Humane Church Forms All this is to bring all mens salvation opinionatively into the power of those that can get uppermost as if men could as easily damn others as themselves § 47. P. 200 201. saith he If the Church cannot be a Political Society without one constitutive Regent Head then the Church is not a Political Society for it neither has nor can have any such on Earth over the whole Ans. We thank you for that much But the Church is a Political Society and to deny it is to deny an Article of the Creed and to unchurch it quoad ipsam formam And Christ is its constitutive regent Head The whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named by him from whom the whole compacted body is increast and edified And it 's dangerous false Doctrine worse than breaking one of your Canons to hold that the Church cannot be a Political Society unless it have an Head on Earth § 48. He adds when I shewed that all Episcopal Writers as Hooker Spalatensis c. of Church Polity take the Church for one Body Politick But what is this to the purposo Does Hooker set up one Regent Head Ans. 1. Yes Christ. 2. Was it not directly to my purpose to prove it a Polity which was that which I alledged it for But saith he do any of them prove That Civil and Ecclesiastick Polity is the same thing Ans. Yes in genere Do they use the word equivocally Is not Polity or Government in Civils and Ecclesiasticks Polity in genere How can these else be distinct species of it Was this ever denied by Conformist before Saith he ' Do not the Civil and Ecclesiastick Commonwealth differ as much as the Church and the State Ans. And do not Church and State differ in specie as being both Politick Bodies sub uno genere He adds Therefore he must still prove That as one supreme Regent Head is necessary to the Unity of a State or Kingdom so it is to the Unity of the Church which will be a fair advance towards Popery Ans. 1. Every Christian holds That Christ is the Head over all things to his Church But every Christian says not That this is an advance to Popery Is Christianity Popery 2. Is one State and Kingdom all the World All that I have to prove is That as all the Earth is one Divine Kingdom God being the absolute Soveraign and each particular Kingdom is part of it a Political Body subordinate informed by its One Humane Soveraign even so the Universal Church is one Body
Politick informed by Christ the Divine-Humane Head and particular Churches are subordinate Bodies Politick parts of it as such but not as Christian constitutively informed by their proper Pastors which all those Episcopal men believed that used the old description Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata This is all plain to other men § 49. P. 201 202. He finds nothing like proof but my Assertion That the Regent part is the Informing part and if it have not one Regent part it is not one Society as Political If it have none it is no Polity If it have many it is many Ans. Reader his own words are What a Drudgery it is to dispute with such If he had talkt of these things at School he would not have challenged his Master to prove the signification of the words in his Dictionary but now he is a Disputer there is no end with him If he challenge me to prove that Rex signifieth a King and Subditus a Subject and so of the rest he will get the better by tiring me I can only refer him to books and use and men of that profession And so I do here If Politia do not signifie the Government and Governed Societies informed by Government all the Politicks and Dictionaries and use of Politick-Professors have deceived me I know Politria is sometime used Tropically for any cause of life any rules of living yea for good works by Chrysostome c. But I said enough to make him know that I spake of it in the usual proper sense of Politicians And so it is taken 1. For the stated Form of â—â—vernment in Civiiate 2. For the administration of that Government 3. For the Ius Civitatis or Burgesship in a governed City 4. For the â—nverâ—ation of men in such a governed Society What is Politica but civilis scientia What is Politicus but civilis respublicae gerendae peritus or â—ui rempublicam gerit Tho it be called Respublica a fine from the publick â—â—od yet men of that profession have appropriated the Names of Respublâ—ca Civitas and Politia to governed Societies only and analogum per se pâ—situm stat pro famosiâ—re analogato Saith he ' This I grant is true of such Societies as are One by one supreme 〈◊〉 power but not of such a Society as is One not by one supreme power over the whole but by one Communion And such a Society the Church is Ans. This is downright Heresie But he meaneth not as he speaks For he often confesseth that Christ is the Soveraign Head of the Church And to confess that and yet say That tho Christ be the Regent Head and Soveraign yet this doth not inform it or unifie it is gross contradiction as if the Fâ—rm did not give the specifying and unifying esse nemen We may next come to deny that Master and Scholars are a School or King and Subjects a Kingdom or Soul and body united a Man or that Two and Two are Four 2. He here plainly makes the Church to be but a Community which is false 3. And yet he will have it a Political Society For he saith That for a Politicaâ— Sâ—ciety to be informed by the One Regent part is not true of the Church which plainly includeth That the Church is a Political Society and yet hath not One Regent Head which is a contradiction He saith The Church must be excepted from Mr. B 's Rules and Definitions of 〈◊〉 Ans. You see to what a pass these men would bring us As we must have New Rules and Laws of salvation if we will be of their Church-state so we must have New Politicks and New Dictionaries The Church cannot be a species of a Politick Society without New Definitions of Polity Next say God's Laws are no Laws unless you make a New Definition of Laws in genere and Christians are no Men without a New definition of a Man I will not pretend to teach this Doctor but if he will go to School again I may hope he may meet with a Tutor that will teach him these Things following I. That a meer Community is not a proper Body Politick Civitas vel Respublica but an ungoverned Society of Equals in hoc associated for common good So are a company of men that venture all their Goods and Lives in one Ship as Equals agreeing on some means of common safety or any combined Body without Government 2. That no Community can make a true Law in proper sence but meer contracts tho the Names of Laws may be abusively so used For a Law is only the signification of a Rector's Will making the Subjects duty with due reward or punishment And it is the first part of the Administration in Government Legislation is the Prerogative of Rulers and never belongs to Equals in Community III. That a proper Political Body is only a Society consisting of Governour and Subjects united relatively IV. That if Twenty Governors Kings or States that are each supreme in their Republick confederate so as to set up one in rule over all the rest or the Major Vote of themselves to be Governor of the rest they make a new Kingdom or Republick by it But if they only confederate for the strictest Concord Offensive and Defensive this makes no new Polity nor Law but meer Contract of Equals tho all are Kings each one may make Laws for his own Kingdom according to those Contracts but they are Laws only by the Authority of their proper Soveraign V. That Cities are Bodies Politick and in a Kingdom are subordinate parts headed per modum formae by their proper chief Governour but supposing the superior Headship of the Kingdom and that Kingdoms are informed by Union with their Soveraigns specified as the Soveraigns are Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or mixt and unified by them But no man's Soveraignty is unlimited independent or absolute God being only such over all and Earthly Soveraigns more dependent under him than Mayors and Justices under the King VI. That even so it is in the Church which is one Political Body under Christ containing particular Churches subordinately inâ—ormed by their proper Pastors VII That a Confederacy of these Pastors is very useful for agreement to observe the Laws of Christ and to make such Local By-Laws as Corporations may do by Charter to determine their own Circumstances which the Law of the Land determines not each Church hath power which many may agree to use allowing necessary variety And the Magistrate may determine that which is not proper to the Pastor's Office for many But the concord of these Associated Confederates can make no Law but contract nor any proper new Church-form save as improperly called a Church from Accidents If the Saxon Heptarchs had agreed to govern all their Kingdoms by strict consent this had not made another Kingdom or Law they had not been made One Kingdom by such a Confederacy but many Kingdoms agreeing as one Community of Equals VIII The Relation that all
Subversion of Civil or Ecclesiastical Order and Governmenment when they were trod down and suffered for their Dissent But in all Ages and Nations the Churches that were under the grinding Dividers have laid more of the blame on the upper Milstone than on the lower Action and Violence making their Part more notable bearing more easily the censures and words of such as think Losers may have leave to talk than the Stings Swords and Flames of the elder Sons of Abaddon Apollyon And indeed in all Ages the lower Party have been less averse to Peace and Reconciliation but whoever have got uppermost into uncontroulable Clergy-Domination have usually disdained and abhorred the Peace-makers It was King James his wisdom to make Beati Pacifici his Motto and the Disposition and Counsels that are contrary to it will prove pernicious folly at last But we have a greater Doctor and Exemplar even our Saviour and final Iudge who while some repraoch such and talk and write to bring men from Love to hate each other hath said what in despight of malice he will make good Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Matth. 5.9 The Contents of the First Part. WHether the Resolver truly define the Church Page 1. Whether there be not many particular Churches 3. Whether these Churches must be Members of one another 5. Whether the Vniversal Church and Particulars be not distinct as Whole and Part. 6. Whether the Church hath all things Common and this be essential to it 6 7. Whether God only Constitutes the Church and no Humane Contract 9 10. Their Charge against the Independents Church-Covenant examined 11 12. Whether Church-Communion consist in no particular Acts. 15. His Self-contradiction p. 16. More of his Contradictions and Errors 17. His first Case Whether Communion with some Church be necessary 18. His second Case of Occasional Communion examined 19. His third Case Whether we may Communicate with distinct and separate Churches 20. His confused use of the words Church-Union Communion Separation and Schism opposed by a large Explication of Vnion Communion and Separation in which is fully shewed what Separation is Schism and what not from p. 21 to p. 41. He seemeth to damn all Christians on Earth as Schismaticks 41. His condemning the Church of England and many other largely manifested p. 42 to 53. What it is for which he calleth Men Schismaticks 53. It is absurd to be Members of opposite Churches because Christ hath but one Body 55. Whether all are Shismaticks who are guilty of Schism or Traitors that break any Law e. g. If the Church of England have any guilt of Schism c. 56. The Contents of the Second Part. WHether Mr. Ralphson prove 1. That Kneeling at the Sacrament and use of the Liturgy are unlawful false Worship or Idolatry and the places are Idols Temples and to joyn in them is to joyn in Idolatry p. 1. Whether the Argument prove it because they are Worship not Instituted 1. The word Worship explained and Worship distinguished 2 3. Twenty unquestionable Instances of Lawful Acts in Worship not particularly Instituted by God which are Modes or Accidents of his own Instituted Worship and may be called Worship in a subordinate sense 4 c. Whether the use of any such be a defection to Idolatry 8 9. Of Kneeling before the Bread and Wine 12 13. Another Instance of a Lawful Accident of Mans appointment 13. The Face of his Doctrine of Separation unmask'd in twenty Particulars 14 c. The Contents of the Third Part. Dr. Stillingfleet's Defender tried THe general Character of his Book p. 1 c. He placeth not Communion in any transient Acts but a fixed permanent State 4. Whether Communion and the Church be the same 5. Have all the Churches the same Right and Obligation to Communicate with each other 5. His Supposition of the World being one Family c. p. 7. His Accusation of Confusion Mistaking c. examined 8 9. Whether Union and Communion be all one and this be in no transient Acts 9 10. To his Question What makes the Church One 10 11 12. Whether that which makes it a Church make it not One 13. His Philosophy opened for his Pupils p. 14. when he dare not confute the Boyes common Notions of Physicks he stands wondering at them p. 14. As that the Soul is principium motus to the Body That Vnion is to Soul and Body like the Copula in a Proposition 15. Whether Christ cannot be to the Church a constitutive Form as the Soul is to the Body because he is it's Head and whether Scripture ascribe not to him such Soul-Relations as well as to be Head 15. His putid intimation that I write for another Head of the Chvrch than Christ. 17. Whether the Organized Body be not the constitutive matter of Man and matter be no part 17. More of his fumblings about the term Organized The Dr. cannot understand that forma Corporis and forma Hominis are two things 18. A Story of a Leveller shewing how such Doctors writings have success 19. How the Doctors Tutor should in his Youth have taught him to understand what the Churches Vnion is wherein it consisteth and by what it 's caused 21 to 27. His profest incapacity of applying the similitude of a Copula pitied 27. His palpable untrue Accusation in the dark 28. His confused Communion 30. His Schism plainly confuted That Churches or Persons of separate and opposite Communion cannot be united to Christ By three distinctions 1. Between Communion and Subjection 2. Between mental and local Separation 3. Between mental Separation from Essentials and from meer Accidents or Integral parts Instances of the famousest Fathers and Churches that have so far separated from each other 32. His Whimsey of Two Vniversal Visible Churches 33. What excommunicate persons are cut off from Christ. 35. Six begg'd Suppositions which these false Accusers of Schism must have 36. His kind Concessions That Rebels and Schismaticks may have the power of Orders and Officers rightly constituted Sacraments and all Essentials of a true Church except Peace and Vnity and Catholick Communion as if Essentials united not 36. What Schism is damning briefly opened 37. His Doctrine Thas those that believe in Christ repent of their sins and lead an holy life in all godliness and honesty may yet be excluded from all the ordinary means of salvation proved false subverting the Gospel 37 38. His odd Doctrine That the Divine Spirit is the Principle of Immortality in us which first giveth life to our Souls and will at last raise our Bodies modestly examined and Reasons given for the Immortality of all mens Souls as well as those that have the Spirit and that the rest are not annihilated but have a future life aad that there is a Resurrection of the just and unjust and an Hell 39. His Notion That all Bishops are but one Bishop because Episcopatus unus est 42. Of Independency of Churches 43.
The word Unus equivocal 44. Whether we may call all those Bishops who causelesly break Vnity No Catholick Bishops 44. More of Catholick Vnity of Bishops His Opinion of the Original of Arch-Bishops 46. His charge of Knavery and blind Fury managed by more and more confusion 47. He denieth the Church to have any one constitutive Regent Head when it is essential to Christ to be such and the Church to have such He confesseth that the Church is no Politiâ—al Society as headed by men 48. Whether Civil and Church Policy be not the same in genere 49. What Principles of Politicks the Dr. should have learnt in his Youth Nine Points which he should have been taught p. 51 52. Dr. Parker's Doctrine The Defenders dâ—shonouring Dr. Stillingfleet as if he denied Christ to be a constitutive Regent Head of the Church Visible as such p. 53. How far Christ is such a Visible Head 52. Whether all causeless Separation from any part of the Church on account of Accidents or by Opinions cut off men from the whole Church with more of his errors confuted to p. 56. The Contents of the Fourth Part. The Reasons of my own Communion with Parish-Churches QU. 1. Whether men should be compelled to Communion with any Church by corporal Penalties plainly answered p. 1 2. Qu. 2. Whether they who consent to communicate with some Church may choose their own Pastor or Company or may by force be confined to their Parish-Priest and Church 3. Qu. 3. For what Reasons I and such others do hear in and communicate with the Parish-Churches And whether so to do be a sin or a duty or a thing indifferent 6. The true case and extent of my Iudgment herein 8 11. Twenty Four Reasons of my Iudgment and Practice which have still seemed unresistible to my conscience 12. The Iudgment both of the old Nonconformists and the old Separatists for it in their own words 18 19. Many Objections answered 24. Why I yielded to mens importunity to publish these Reasons at this time 26. The Contents of the Fifth Part being an Account why the Twelve Arguments said to be Dr. I. O's do not change my Judgment MY Position and premised History of the matter of Fact p. 1. Dr. O's Premises considered p. 6. Many mistakes therein manifested 11. His First Argument from the want of Institution examined 12. His Second Argument 18. His Third Argument p. 30. And so to the Twelfth Forty Errors proved in them at least His laying the stress of his condemnation not of ours only but of all Liturgick Forms on the ill effects of them constrained me in faithfulness to the present endangered minds of Readers and also to my own conscience to say so much of the ill effects of Separation on the other side as I know will be censured by many But as I have oft done it before in my Treatise of Baptism my Gildas Salvianus my Key for Catholicks Admonition to Mr. Bagshaw c. I judg it made necessary on this occasion to repeat so much as have done THE PREFACE DID not the Thoughts of a better promised World afford me Comfort and Relief the Thoughts of the Case of this so much forsaken Earth would break my Heart my Faith and Hope To see so much of Earth yet Unchristian and so few of the Christian Nations either in Knowledge Love or Holiness answering their Holy Profession but damning one another and more themselves And to see how great a hand the Clergy of almost all Churches have in this by notorious implacable Contention and to see how little hope there is of a Remedy If Princes and Patrons chuse Wise Holy Peaceable Men in England will they do so in France Flanders Spain and other Popish Lands And either there they will expect the same Royal Power make the Pope and his Agents the Electors which is worse And with such the Love of Money Vain-glory and Self-opinion Worldliness Pride and Ignorant Error will keep up Envy Strife and Persecution Confusion and every Evil Work O how sad is the Case of the Laity that must hear Men pretending to great Learning and Authority with raging Confidence damning the Opinions and Persons of each others and calling to Princes to destroy those that they cannot convince and that will not take them for their Masters pretending that subjection to them and all their ensnaring Laws is necessary Communion And with such Confidence do they Write and Talk that it must be very expert and setled Christians that can tell who is in the Right but the Crowd believe them that have most Interest in them or that speak the last word or that have greatest Power There is but one way possible to cure all this besides wise and godly Princes which all Peace-makers have still agreed on Even to Unite in the Divine Authority and Primitive Simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Discipline and to bear with others in smaller Matters Supposing the Determination of such mutable Circumstances which belong to each Minister his Place Christ hath promised Salvation to all that practically so agree He hath commanded them all to Love one another even as themselves and to receive one another as Christ received us Baptism devoting us to the Father Son and holy Ghost then made men Christians and Catholicks The Creed the Lords Prayer Ten Commandments were thought a sufficient Test as to the Orthodox Exposition of the Baptismal Covenant Upon these Terms the Church Formed into Pastors and Flocks lived in Loving Communion in the Lords Supper and in holy Doctrine Prayers Praises and doing good to all they could The Kingdom that is the Church of God and Christs Reign therein consisteth not in Ceremonies and lesser things but in Righteousness Peace and Joy in the holy Ghost The Unity necessary hereunto was that described Ephes. 4.3 4 5. One Body One Spirit One Hope One Lord One Faith One Baptism One God and Father of all And the keeping of this Unity was in the Bond of Peace with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering forbearing one another in Love v. 2 3. These Terms were made for our Love and Communion by Christ the Maker of the Church the Author and Perfecter of our Faiih These Terms are few sure plain possible as Christs Yoke is easie and his burden light and his Commands not grievous These Terms all Christians are actually agreed and united in He knows not Mankind that doth not know That the ignorance weakness and badness of Man is such as that it is impossible that all good Christians should unite otherwise upon things hard dark doubtful and numerous The Primitive Simplicity Purity and Love are the only Terms of Universal Concord in the Church on Earth But now by Preachers with wordy confidence these only healing terms are accused as the way of the most damning Schism O the subtilty of the Serpent that beguiled Eve O the folly of Men that will be thus drawn away from the simplicity of Christ by takeng
Worshipping him amounts to besides the Union of the Creature with the Creator in whom he liveth c. And no unregenerate ungodly Christian is united to him savingly 5. They are united among themselves 6. This is by a Covenant 7. And by a Covenant Divine as to command approbation and object It is God that they Covenant to own and obey The common Profession of the Mahometans is There is one God and Mahomet is his Prophet It is Divine in tantum as commanded For God Commandeth all men to Own him to believe that God is and that he is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him And God so far approveth it St. Iames saith Thou dost well to him that believeth there is a God much more that is professedly devoted to him Let us by this examine the Jewish Church Iews now may be 1. A Body 2. Of Men 3. Separated from the rest of the World even in Religion and Church pretensions 4. United to God as Creatures as Men as the corporal seed of Abraham and as professing Belief Love and Obedience to God as their God 5. Strictly united among themselves 6. By a Covenant 7. Which God once commanded and still approveth so far as they own God Let us consider whether this description take not in those in every Nation that fear God and work Righteousness that never heard of Christ being thus combined And whether the Kingdom of God be not larger than his Church Joyn the Head and Tail of this mans book together and by the Head the description for ought I see Iews Mahometans if not almost all Heathens are the Church But at the End I think none on Earth is the Church At least none that separate from a pair of Organs or an ignorant Curate Nor can any man know who Page 2. § 2. He explaineth his Word Body as opposed to a confused Multitude A. But a Community of Equals that have no Governours may have order and â—e no confused Multitude And he himself after pleads over much for a necessity of Rulers P. 3. § 3. And in many places his Confusion and grand errour is repeated that the Christian Church is but one p. 7. We know no Church but what all Christians are members of by Baptsme which is the Vniversal Church p. 8. There is but one Church of which all Christians are members as there is but one Covenant p. 19. If there be but one Church and one Communion of which all true Christians are members c. p. 23. I am no otherwise a member of any particular Church than I am of the Vniversal p. 40. It 's a schismatical Notion of membership that divides the Christian Church into distinct memberships and therefore into the distinct Bodyes And p. 19. and often he saith those Churches which are not members of each other are separate Churches and Schismaticks A. I had hoped that no man but Mr. Cheny had talkt at this rate I. It 's agreed on that there is but one Universal Church The contrary is a Contradiction 2. It is agreed that there is no lawful particular Church which is not a part of the Universal 3. That whoever hath just Union and Communion with a true particular Church hath Union and Communion with the Universal 4. That all men in their Worship of God should accordingly perform it and do all that they do as Men in that Relation to the Universal Church None of this is controverted II. But I had hoped never to have heard any but Seekers say that there are not many lawful particular Churches distinct from the whole and from one another though not disjunct in the Common Essentials For the proof of the contrary 1. I begin with that which I expect should be most powerful The mans own after-Confessions to which he is oft brought Pag. 8. Distance of Place and the necessities and conveniences of Worship and Discipline has divided the Church into several parts and members and Particular Churches c. So pag. 14. pag. 19. All Christian Churches ought to be members of one More fully p. 20 21. This is ad hominem Yea and Nay is his Resolution 2. But I 'le bring other Arguments that prevail more with me The Sacred Scriptures oft tell us of many Churches therefore there are many Act. 9.31 The Churches had rest and 15.4 Confirming the Churches 16.5 So were the Churches established in the Faith Rom. 16.4 All the Churches of the Gentiles So ver 16. 1 Cor. 7.17 So ordain I in all Churches 11.16 Neither the Churches of God have such Custom 14.33 As in all the Churches of the Saints 34. Let your Women keep silence in the Churches So 16.1.19 2 Cor. 8.1 The Grace of God bestowed on the Churches of Macedonia 18. Whose Praise is in the Gospel through all the Churches So 19.23 24. and 11.8.28 The care of all the Churches 12.13 Inferior to the other Churches Gal. 1.2 22. 1 Thes. 2.14 2 Thes. 1.4 Rev. 1.4 To the seven Churches ver 11.20 Angels and Candlesticks of the seven Churches And 2.7 11 17 29. and 3.6 13 22 23. and 22.16 His Concordance might have shew'd him all these in order Phil. 4.15 No Church communicated with me concerning giving and receiving but ye only The dispute now must be whether the Apostles or this Resolver be to be believed They say there are many Churches parts of One he saith There is but one and it 's Schismatical to divide it into distinct memberships or Bodyes c. It 's no Schisme here to say I am for Paul and the Holy Scripture Let who will believe the contradictor 3. My next Argument is this Where there are many Political Societies consisting of Christian Pastors and People professedly associated for the ordinary Exercise of those Relations as such in holy Communion in Christian Doctrine Worship Order and Conversation for Edification in true Faith Hope Love and Obedience and the Glorifying of God therein There are many distinct true Churches parts of the Church Universal But on Earth there are many such Societyes c. Ergo c. Either the controversie is De re or de nomine for we called Separatists use to separate these 1. If de re Let the existence of the thing defined be tryed by Scripture Reason and common Experience 2. If de nomine Forma quae dat esse dat Nomen Here is the true specifick form which is found in many single Churches ergo the Name of such single or individual Churches is due to them 4. Again ad hominem from the consequences 1. If there be not many single Churches in the Universal then there are not many Patriarchal National Provincial Metropolitical Diocesan or Parochial Churches For non entium non datur numerus Many nothings is a contradiction Multae sunt ergo sunt Abest tertij adjecti ad est secundi valet argumentum But if there be not many then 1. All the Parish Churches in England being but one and not many
so of Politick Bodies of the same species But the Churches of Ephesus Smyrna Thyatira Philadelphia c. were of divers matter and form numerically Ergo they were divers Political Churches Sure God doth not commend Laodicea for Philadelphia's Church Virtues nor condemn the Church of Philadelphia for the other Churches Sins And if the Angels be Bishops why are some Bishops praised as the Bishops of such Churches and the Bishops of other Churches threatned But I confess this is a ready way to end the Controversies between the Bishops of several Churches which shall be greatest if they be all but one But I hope that when the Bishop of Rome and his Church was corrupted it is not true that every Bishop and Church fell with him or with any that hath turned to Mahumetanism To be no longer on this which I thought no Prelatist would ever have put me on if these men speak not notoriously against Scripture against the constant Language of Canons and Fathers Historians and Lawyers and all Antiquity and all Christian Countreys and Divines yea even those that at Trent would have had only the Pope to be of immediate Divine Right then I know not any thing by Reading And if poor Nonconformists must be put to defend themselves against such singularities and be Schismaticks unless they will differ from all the Christian World of all Ages there is no Remedy § 7. But p. 5 6. he tells us that a Church is made by a Divine Covenant God only can constitute a Church Such Persons if there be any so absurd are not worth disputing with who dare affirm the Church to be an humane Creature or the invention of men And no Church can depend on humane Contracts for then a Church would be a humane Creature and Constitution whereas a Church can be founded only on a Divine Covenant 1. Who would think but this man were a Nonconformist that talks so like them e. g. Amesius in Medul Theol. against humane Church Forms But what then will Bishop Bilson and almost all other Bishops and Christians be thought of who affirm Patriarchal and Metropolitical Churches and many of the Diocesane to be but humane Constitutions and Inventions And if these be not worth the disputing with it seems that you differ from them more than Separatists do and then were not all these Schismaticks and then are not you a Schismatick if you communicate with them yea your Mr. Dodwel himself maketh Diocesan Churches to be a humane Creature and A. Bishop Bromhall much pleadeth for mans power to make Patriarchal Churches and so do such others 2. But is it true that humane Contracts make not a Church Ans. No◠alone But I think that all Churches are made by mutual Contracts and humane is one part of that which is mutual I. As to the Vniversal Church 1. God as Legislator and Donor instituteth the species of Covenanting by Baptism and therein he commandeth mans consent to his offered Covenant and conditionally promiseth to be our God But Conditionale nihil ponit in esse This much maketh no Christian nor Church To command a man to be a Christian and conditionally to promise him life if he will be one proveth him not to be one else all were Christians that reject an offered Christ. 2. But when man consenteth and covenanteth with God then Gods conditional gift becomes actual and efficacious the man being a capable Recipient and not before and in this it is the Contract that is the Fundamentum Relationis but a single Promise is not a mutual Covenant or Contract So that it is no wiser Divinity to say Gods Covenant and not mans consent Covenant or Contract with God doth make Christians and the universal Church than it is sober Reason to say That Gods Institution of Marriage or Magistracie only doth make the Relation of Husband and Wife without their covenanting consent or doth make Common-wealths without the consent or Covenant of Sovereign and Subjects Did this Doctor think that Voluntariness is not as necessary to the Relation of Christianity as to the Relation of Prince and Subjects yea or of Husband and Wife if he do he is shamefully mistaken Baptism delivereth men possession of Pardon Grace and right to Glory and can men have this against their wills One would think by the Doctrine and course of some men that they could force men to Pardon and Salvation if I believed that their force could accomplish this I would never call it Persecution If they can force men to be true Christians they may force them to be justifyed and saved and then they are very uncharitable if they do not Let them then cease preaching and disputing us to their Opinion but bring us all to Heaven whether we will or not Yea the self-contradictor playing fast and loose confesseth p. 6. That no man at age can be admitted to Baptism till he profess his faith in Christ and voluntarily undertake the Baptismal Vow And is not that humane Covenanting Yea he knoweth that the Liturgie maketh even Neighbours or Strangers vow and covenant both in the name of the Child and for the Child And so necessary doth the Episcopal Church think humane Covenanting that without this no Child must be Baptized publickly though the Parents would covenant and that they can neither for Love nor Money for many poor men hire Godfathers get any one much less three who examined will seriously purpose to perform the Covenant for the Child 's holy Education which they make II. But is not humane Covenanting a cause of single Church Relation as well as of universal I see no cause to doubt it and I am sure that the Church for a thousand years before and since Popery came in have declared him no Bishop that comes in without consent of Clergie and People which Consent is their covenanting act To make a single Church manifold consent goeth to the Fundamentum Relationis 1. God commandeth single Church Officers order and consent and promiseth them his blessing where they are met The Lord and his Angels are among them No command is vain and without a virtual Promise 2. To this a threefold humane consent is needful Ordinarily 1. the Persons called 2. The Ordainers when it may be had 3. The Peoples He that formerly from the Apostles dayes for a thousand years should have said that neither the covenanting that is the consent of the Pastor or People or Ordainers is necessary to the Fundamentum of a single Church Relation or Form would have been taken for a wild-brain'd Schismatick at least § 8. But saith this Doctor and another of them p. 6. But the Independent Church Covenant between Pastor and people is of a very different nature from this Vnless any man will say that the voluntary Contract and Covenant which the Independents exact from their Members and wherein they place a Church state be part of the Baptismal vow if it be not then they found the Church upon a
humane Covenant for Christ hath made but one Covenant with Mankind which is contained in the Vow of Baptism if it be then no man is a Christian but an Independent Ans. Alas for the Church that is taught at this rate 1. I never saw what Independents do in this case but I think none of them that are Sober own any other sort of Church but the universal and single Churches as members of it and therefore require no Contract but 1. To the Covenant of Baptism or Christianity 2. To the Duties of their particular Church-relation 2. And nothing is here of necessity but manifested Consent which is a real Contract but a clearer or a darker an explicite or implicite consent differ only ad meliús esse 3. Is not God the Author of Magistracy Marriage c. And is it any violation of Gods part if Rulers and People Husband and Wife be Covenanters by his command 4. Is it any renuntiation of Baptism to promise at Ordination to obey the Arch-Bishop and Bishop and to take the Oath of Canonical Obedience Is it not still exacted Are not the Takers of it obliged are not Covenants imposed on all that will be Ministers in the act of Uniformity are not multitudes kept out and cast out for not making these Covenants Quo teneam nodo c. How should one deal with such slippery men Good Mr. Zachary Cawdry that wrote to have all men to covenant Submission to Bishops and Parish Ministers did not dream that it was any violation of Baptism 5. Do not men owe duty to their Pastors which they owe to no others If not put them not on it Why are you angry with them for going from you Why doth the Canon suspend those that receive them to Communion from another Parish that hath no Preacher Why are we ruined for not covenanting as aforesaid if yea then is it against Baptism to promise to do our duty 6. But hath God commanded or instituted no Covenant but Baptism Yes sure the Matrimonial at least and I think Ordination is covenanting for the Ministry Did not the Apostle Acts 14.23 ordain Elders in every Church if you would have by Suffrage left out of the Translation no sober man can doubt but it was by the Peoples consent and was it without their consent that Titus was to ordain Elders in every City Could any then come otherwise in Did not all Churches hold and practise this after and was it none of Gods Institution If so God requireth us not to take any of you for our Bishops or Pastors Who then requireth it What meaneth Paul when he saith they gave up themselves to the Lord and to us by the Will of God 7. Can the wit of man imagine how it is possible without consent for a man to be made the Pastor of any Flock Who ever ordained a man against his will or for any man to have Title against his will to the proper over-sight and pastoral care of any one Pastor or the priviledges of any Church If any think they may be cramm'd and drencht with the Sacrament or that an unwilling man may have a sealed pardon and gift of Salvation delivered him he will make a new Gospel And how any particular Pastor is bound to give that man the Sacrament ordinarily that consents not ordinarily to receive it of him I know not No man is a member of any City or any Company of Free-men in the City but by mutual consent and the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy to the King maketh not the Oath of a Citizen as such or of a Member of a Company as such unlawful 8. Doth this Doctor think that he ever yet proved to sober men that the Covenant aforesaid of Godfathers and Godmothers to make Christians and members of the universal Church is more or so much of Gods Institution than the Contract or Consent between Bishops or Pastors and People to make a single Political Church 9. If it follow not that no man is the Kings Subject that sweareth not to the City It will not follow that none is a Christian but an Independent or Church-consenter 10. How are your Parish or Diocesan Church members known to your selves or any others Are all that dwell in the Parish or Diocess your Church members Then Atheists Sadducees Hobbists and all vicious men and thousands that never communicate are such Yea those that you call Separatists If it be every transient Communicant have you a proper Pastoral care of every Travellers Soul that so communicates with you You after plead that his very ordinary Communion maketh him not a member if he be unwilling to be one And is not his consent then necessary Or if ordinary Communion be the test how few then of great Parishes are of the Church yet that is because such Communion signifieth their Consent to your over-sight of them § 9. But it 's much to be approved which p. 5. and oft he saith that to be taken into Covenant with God and to be received into the Church is the very same thing as to the Universal Church By which all his gross Schismatical Accusations afterwards are confuted No man then is out of the Church that is not out of the Baptismal Covenant either by not taking it or by renouncing some Essential part of it And when will he prove that to take him rather than Dr. Bates that was cast out to be a Teacher or Pastor at Dunstans or to take this man and not another to be the Lawful Bishop or Priest and to obey him in every Oath and Ceremony is an Essential part of the Baptismal Covenant or of Christianity But such a rope of Sand as Mr. Dodwell and this man tye together to bind men to their Sect will serve turn with some that know not who speaks Truth by any surer way than prejudice § 10. His Doctrine of Separation and gathering Churches out of Churches is anon to be considered But whereas he addes p. 7. These men convert Christians from common Christianity and the Communion of the Vniversal Church to Independency Ans. My acquaintance with them is small save by reading their Books And there are few Men of any Common Denomination Episcopal or other that are not in many things disagreed But I must in Charity to them say that as far as I can judge by their Writings or Speech he palpably slandereth them and that none that are grave and sober among them do separate their Churches from the common Christianity or the Universal Church any more than the Company of Stationers Ironmongers c. are separated from the City of London or London from England or Trinity Colledge from the University of Cambridge or Oxford I never met with man and I am confident never shall do that doth not take his Independent Church to be part of the Universal and Dependent as a part on the whole If belying others stopt at words the wrong were small But when it 's made but the
Duty 4. Sure it is not meer Place but a mutual Relation of Pastors and People that distinguisheth these Churches The Presbyterians preach't once in the same Places that you do and yet you take them not for the same Church Pastors If one from York or Cornwall come into your Pulpit without consent do People stand as much related to him as to you Some men are of extraordinary sufficiency to resist and conquer the clearest evidence of Truth But he addes every Act of Communion thô performed to some particular Church is and must be an Act of Communion with the whole Catholick Church A. And who denyeth this No sober Independent or Presbyterian that ever I met with It 's a weighty Truth § 17. P. 14. Saith he Praying and Hearing and Receiving the Lords Supper together doth not make us more in Communion with the Church of England than with any other true and Orthodox part of the Church thô in the remotest part of the World A. I think that 's not true With the remotest parts you have only Catholick Communion with the Church Universal In England and London you have that and more even special subordinate Communion with your own King Bishop and Flock 2. And hath not the Church of England such Communion in obedience to its own Laws as the Act of Uniformity Convocation and Canons which you have not with all abroad Do your Bishops in Convocation make Canon Laws for all the World Do you Swear Canonical obedience as much to the Bishop of Paris or Haffnia c. as to your Ordinary Do the Canons of all Churches impose our Liturgy or ipso facto excommunicate all that affirm any thing in it or our Ceremonies or Church Government to be against Gods word Sure this is a peculiar kind of Communion 3. If not why are all the Nonconformists cast out that offer to officiate and Communicate on such terms as are common to all sound Churches Pag. 15. Saith he There is nothing in all these Acts of Communion which does more peculiarly unite us to such a particular Church than to the whole Christian Church A. What neither in these Acts nor any other Then we are no more bound to hear you or maintain you as our Pastor than to hear and maintain the whole Christian Church § 18. P. 20. Saith he There is no other Rule of Catholick Communion for private Christians but to communicate in all Religious Offices and all Acts of Government and Discipline with Christians those with whom they live A. 1. Elsewhere you added sound and Orthodox Else they that live with Arians Socinians Papists in Spain France Italy c. are bound to communicate with them in all Religious Offices and obey them 2. This concludeth that where Presbytery or Independency is the way of the place where we live all must thus communicate and obey The King and Custom then may make any way to become our Duty 3. If you tell us that it 's only with the Sound and Orthodox you were as good say nothing unless you tell us who must judge that whether the People themselves or who for them 4. But if this be the only rule for private Christians what shall they do e. g. in Aethiopa Egypt Syria and many other Countreys where the Churches are such as General Councils and other Churches judge Hereticks or Schismaticks And what shall they do when at Antioch Alexandria Constantinople c. one party is uppermost by the Judgment of Councils and Prince one Year and another contrary party the next And what shall they do where the Prince equally tolerateth both and it 's hard to know which is the more numerous as in Zeno's and Anastasius Reign c. And what shall they do when many Churches in one City are of divers Tongues as well as Customs Have the Greeks French and Dutch in London no rule of Catholick Communion but communicating in all Offices with the English and obeying all your Bishops Courts § 19. P. 21. Saith he Distinct and particular Churches which are in Communion with each other must have their distinct bounds and limits as every member has it's natural and proper place and Situation in the Body A. Why may not the Greeks Dutch and French live in Communion with the Churches London though they live dispersedly among them In Brandenburg Hassia and many free Cities and Belgia where Lutherans and Calvinists as called live together and own each other as Brethren why may not both be Churches of Christ § 20. P. 21 22. A great deal more he hath of the like making Schismaticks at his Pleasure This is plain in the Case of the Presbyterian and Independent Churches and those other Conventicles They are Churches in a Church Nothing can justifie the Distinction of Christians into several Churches but only such a distance of place as makes it necessary c. p. 22. Distinct Churches in the same place can never be under the same Communion A. These things are repeated so oft and the word separate so deceitfully rolled over and over that I will answer all together under his third Case at the End § 21. P. 27. See how openly he recanteth most aforesaid There is a sence indeed wherein we may be said to be members of one particular Church considered as distinct from all other particular Churches But that principally consists in Government and Discipline Every Christian is a member of the Whole Christian Church and in Communion with it but he is under the immediate instruction and Government of his own Bishop and Presbyters and is bound to personal Communion with them and this constitutes a particular Church in which all Acts of Worship and all Acts of Discipline and Government are under the Direction and conduct of a particular Bishop A. Omitting that he seemeth to make the Parochial Churches no Churches but parts of one here he saith all that he seemed to write against and that those that he reproacheth hold allowing the difference of the extent of Churches And is it Edifying to read such a discourse that saith and unsaith by self-contradiction And he adjoyns 28. p. how by agreement Patriarchal and National Churches are made And is not Agreement a humane Contract CHAP. II. Of his first Case § 1. PAge 31. His first Case Whether Communion with some Church or other be a necessary Duty incumbent on Christians And he thinks the Resolution of this is as plain as whether it be necessary for every man to be a Christian For every Christian is baptized into the Communion of the Church A. In this I know no Christian adversary to him But it being the Vniversal Church that he giveth his proof of necessary Communion with it 's odde to say We must have Communion with some Church or other As if there were more than one Universal Church 2. But we grant more that all that can well should be also members of some single Church § 2. P. 32. He saith External and Actual
Union of Soul and Body makes a man and an Embryo before it be organized 2. The Union of the Body maketh it capable of the Souls further Operation 3. The Union of the Organical chief parts as Heart Lungs c. to the rest make it a true humane Body compleated to the nutriment and action of Life 4. That it have Hands and Fingers Feet and Toes and all integral parts makes it an intire Body 5. The due site temperament and qualities of each part make it a sound Body 6. Comely colour hair action going speech c. make it a comely Body 7. To have all parts of equal quantity and office would make it uncomely And to have the same hair colour c. is unnecessary at all 1. The Union of King and Subjects as such makes a Kingdom 2. That the People be agreed for one conjunct interest and Government maketh them a Community capable of Politie or Government 3. That there be Judges Maiors and Justices and subordinate Cities or Societies maketh it an Organized Body in which Kingly Government may be exercised to its end the common good 4. That no profitable part be wanting Judge Justice Sheriff c. maketh it an entire Kingdom 5. That all know their place and be duly qualified with Wisdom Love Justice Conscience Obedience to God first to the Sovereign Power next to Officers next c. maketh it a sound and safe Kingdom 6. That it be well situate fertile rich eminent in Learning Skill c. maketh it an adorned beautiful Kingdom 7. That all be equal in Power and wealth is destructive and that all be of one Age complexion calling temper degree of knowledge c. is impossible And that all have the same language cloathing utensils c. is needless at least VII Jesus Christ is the only Universal Soveraign of the Church both of vital influence and Government nor hath he set up any under him either Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or mixt Pope Council or diffused Clergy that hath the Power of Legislation and Judgment as governing the whole Chorch but only Officers that per partes govern it among them each in his Province as Justices do the Kingdom and Kings and States the World nor is any capable of more VIII To set up any universal Legislators and Judge Pope or Council is to set up an Usurper of Christs Prerogative called by many a Vice-Christ or an Antichrist and as bad as making one man or Senate the Soveraign of all the Earth and to attempt the setting up of such or any forreign Iurisdiction in this Land is to endeavour to perjure the whole Kingdom that is sworn against it in the Oath of Supremacy and sworn never to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State in the Corporation Oath the Vestry Oath the Militia Oath the Oxford Oath with the Uniformity Covenants And if any should endeavour to introduce such a forreign Jurisdiction who themselves have had a hand in driving all the Kingdom to all these Oaths against it I doubt whether all the Powers of Hell can devise a much greater crime against Clergy Cities and all the Land Good reason therefore had Doctor Isaac Barrow to write against it as he hath done and to confute Mr. Thorndike and all such as of late go that pernicious way by the pretence of Church Union and Communion As if one universal Soveraign and Legislator and Judge were not enough to unite Christs Kingdom or man could mend his universal Laws and could not stay for his final judgment and Churches and Kingdomes might not till then be ruled without one humane universal Soveraign by necessary and voluntary agreement among themselves XI To be a true Believer or Christian or the Infant seed of such devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost according to the sense of the Baptismal Covenant uniteth each Member first to Christ himself directly and consequently to his Body or Church and this coram Deo as soon as it is done by heart consent and coram Ecclesia regularly as soon as he is invested by Baptism which Baptism when it may be had so is regularly to be administred by none but an authorized Minister or Deacon but if through necessity or mistake it be done by a Lay-man the Ancient Christians took it not for a nullity much less if the Baptizer was taken for a Minister by mistake being in his place and if no Baptism can be had open covenanting is vallid X. The Papists and their truckling Agents here have here hampered themselves in a fatal contradiction To make themselves masters of the World they would perswade us that Sacraments only regenerate and sanctifie and that God saveth none by any known way and grant but by his Covenant Sealed by the Sacraments and that he authorizeth none to administer this Covenant but Prelates and their Priests and none can validly have it from other hands And so if you will but abate them the proof of many things that stand in the way Heaven and Hell Salvation and Damnation are at the will and mercy of such Prelates and Priests But unhappily they cannot retrieve their old Opinion but maintain that Lay-men and Women may baptize in necessity validly and that Baptism puts one into a State of Salvation XI As he that swears and keeps his Allegiance to the King is a Subject and Member of the Kingdom though he be no Member of any Corporation so though he disown a thousand fellow Subjects yea though he deny the Authority of Constable Justice Judge so he that is devoted to Christ truly in the Baptismal Covenant is a Christian and a Member of the Universal Church though he were of no particular Church or did disown a thousand Members or any particular Officer of the Church XII All faults or crimes are not Treason A man that breaketh any Law is in that measure Culpable or punishable but every breach of Law or wrong to fellow Subjects or Justices as it is not Treason so it doth not prove a man no Subject though some may be so great as to deserve death and make him intolerable And so it is in the case of our Subjection in the Church to Christ. XIII To own Christs Instituted species of Church Officers is needful to the just Order Safety and Edification of the Church as to own the Courts of Judicature Justices c. in the Kingdom but to own this or that numerical Officer as truly commissioned is needful only to the right administration of his own Province XIV As Christ did his own work of universal Legislation by himself and his Spirit eminently in the Apostles and Evangelists who have recorded all in Scripture so he settled Churches to continue to the end associated for Personal Communion in his holy Doctrine Worship Order and Conversation with authorized Ministers subordinate to his administration in his Prophetical Priestly Kingly and Friendly Relations And thô these may not always or often meet in
should not only hold any errour or practise sin but require men to subscribe and approve it and say it is no sin no man ought to do this nor yet to live like an Atheist and forsake all Worship because men forbid him if it were but to subscribe one untruth But alas this is no rare Case In one Emperours Reign all were Anathematized that subscribed not to the Council of Chalcedon and quickly after all that did or that would not renounce it The same division and changes were made by the Councils against and for the Monothelites de tribus Capitulis Images c. And when all Men living have many Errours and the Church of England disclaimeth her Infallibility and yet will receive no Minister that will not subscribe that there is nothing in her Books contrary to the word of God the Case is hard But when all the things mentioned in the Plea for Peace are proved lawful we shall be more yielding in this Case XLV 9. If true and sound Christians mistakingly think one or many things to be heinous sins as Perjury Lying Renouncing Obedience to God and Repentance c. which are things indifferent but of so great difficulty that most Learned and Godly and Willing Men cannot discern the Lawfulness and agree and yet are not necessary nor just conditions of Ministry or Communion and so it is the Imposer that entangleth them by difficulty in their dissent it is not lawful for these men therefore to forbear all Church Worship but must use it as they can XLVI 10. If any Church unjustly excommunicate such men or others they must not forbear all Church order and worship because men so excommunicate them No man must Sin to escape Excommunication and every man in the World is a sinner And therefore all the World must be excommunicated if all Sinners must be so As I before said the times oft were when almost all the Bishops in the Empire were excommunicated by one another Councils and Popes have oft excommunicated some for trifles and some for Truth end Duty And such must not therefore renounce all Church Worship and Communion The Church of England do by their standing Law ipso facto excommunicate all as aforesaid that affirm any thing to be repugnant to Gods Word or sinful in their whole Church Government Articles Liturgy and Ceremonies and so to stand till they Publickly revoke this as a wicked Errour Now many Lords and Commoners in Parliaments have spoken against some of these particulars and some out of Parliament Many Ministers have done the like when the King Commissioned them to treat for Alterations And many when the Accusations or demands of others have called them to give a Reason of their Actions Some have maintained that it is repugnant to Gods word that Lay Civilians should have the decretive Power of the Keyes and that the Parish Minister must cast out of Communnion all that the Lay Doctors or Chancellors excommunicate and all that dare not receive kneeling and that they should deny Christendom to all that scruple the English sort of God-Fathers Covenants and the transient Symbolical Image of the Cross with abundance such things Now all these are ipso sacto excommunicate And thô they be not bound to avoid the Church till this be applicatorily declared yet actually excommunicate they are and that by a higher authority thâ—n the Bishops and they know the Churches decree and the Priests are sworn to Canonical Obedience And he that will not tempt them to be forsworn nor come into a Church that hath excommunicated him seems therein excuseable But must he therefore renounce the Church of God XLVII 11. If the People are so set against one Bishop for another as that half being for one and half for the other and both Orthodox they cannot be perswaded to unite in one A Council at Rome determined in the Case of Paulinus and Flavian at Antioch that both of them should hold their distinct Churches and so live in love and peace And though one or both parties in this were mistaken Sinners so are all morral men who yet must not live like Atheists XLVIII 12. An undetermined accident must be so determined as most serveth to do the greatest good and avoid the greatest Evil But whether divers Churches shall promiscuously live in the same City or Diocess or Parish is an Accident not determined by God and either way may be for the greatest good as circumstances vary e. g. When in a Church half cannot consent to condemn the words of Theodoret Theodore Mopsuest and Ibas and half will condemn them with the Council if these can serve God quietly in Love and Peace in different Congregations but cannot endure one another in the same it is most for the Churches Peace that they be permitted to joyn with those of their own Mind When one Pope declared that it 's sound Doctrine to say One of the Trinity was Crucified when another had declared that it is not sound Doctrine they that held with one Pope and they that held with the other might both be true Churches in different Assemblies When Iustinian raised the bloody controversie between the Corrupticolae and the Phantasiastae wise men thought both sides were true Churches Yea and so did many wise men think of the Orthodox and Nestorians and many Eutychians XLIX 13. It 's a common case under Turks and Heathens that they give liberty of Conscience for Christians of all parties Now suppose that in Aâ—â—ppo in Constantinople or elsewhere there be partly for Countrey sake and partly for Language but most for different Judgments one Church of Armenians one of Greeks one of English-men c. what Law of God makes only one of these to be a true Church and which is it L. 14. Suppose that the setled Church e. g. in Holland Sweden Saxony is for Presbytery or for an Episcopacy that arose from Presbyters ordination or that had none or a short Liturgy and the Prince would tolerate English men as Frankford did to set up a Church of the English Form and Liturgy I think few Prelatists would deny it to be lawful LI. I omit other instances and come to the matter of Separation which word serveth this man and such other in so general and undistinguished a sence as would make one think he were of Mr. Dodwell's mind That words in dispute have but one signification which all are bound to know that use them Even a Bell by the same sound sometime signifieth a call to Church and sometime a Funeral and sometime Joy but Separate Separate is rung over and over with these men as if it signified but one thing 1. He that heareth half the Sermon and Service and goeth out of Church doth Separate at that time from the rest When a Protestant Heretick was doing Penitence with his Faggot at St. Maries in Oxford and the Fryer was Preaching a mistaken Voice in the street made them think the Hereticks had set the
Church on fire and they separated from the Preacher one Fryer stuck by the belly that was going out at the window the door being wedged with the crowd a Boy that saw it open above their heads got up on their shoulders and went on 'till he slipt into a Monks Cowl and there lay still 'till the Monk was got out and felt something on his back and thinking it was an heretical Devil began to conjure him in the Name of Father Son and Holy Ghost to tell him what he was and the Boy cryed O good Master I am the Bakers boy c. Quaere Whether this was Schismaticks separation At Walsall in Stafford-shire Mr. Lapthorne known to me in his lusty age who had been a Non-conformist but thought it an honour to be converted by a King and gloried that King Iames in conference changed him but being as rustick a thunderer as Father Latimer and more he was wont to let fly without much fear one Mr. Martin in the Parish accounted the greatest enemy to Puritans when he heard what he liked not would goe out of Church one day in a path way where Mr. Lane had rode a little before pelting Crabs with a pole the ground opened and swallowed him and his pole that they could never be found being a Cole-mine long on fire ever after that when any one would goe out of Church at a blustering passage Mr. Lapthorne would call to him Remember Martin Quere Whether all these were separating Schismaticks But this is too far off In Dunstans West where Dr. Sherlock Preacheth when I was licensed twenty years ago at Christmas as I was Preaching some Lime or Stone fell down in the Steeple with the crowd the Church being old and under suspicion they all thought it was falling and most ran out in tumult and some cast themselves headlong from the Gallery for hast when they were quieted and came in again the Boyes in the Chancel broke a Wainscot Skreen with climbing on it and the noise made them run out again one old woman going out cryed It 's just with God because I took not the first warning Lord forgive me and I 'le never come again Quere Whether these or at least this resolving Woman was a Schismatick and separated from the Catholick Church If not there is some separation that is not so bad as Murder and methinks the Doctor should forgive it for the success for the Parish hereupon resolved to pull down the Church and build it new a far better Fabrick where the Dr. now Preacheth and it drove me away that I preacht there no more Whether this new Church built where the old one had possession before be not a Schismatical Separatist I leave to him LII 2. Local Separation without Mental can make no culpable Schism for Nil nisi Voluntarium est morale if a man be imprisoned or be sick and cannot come to the Church it is innocent Separation I have been at no Church this half year much against my will O that God would heal me of this Separation LIII 3. If it must be mental Separation that must be culpable then it is diversified according to the mental degree and kind and no man separateth from the universal Church who separateth not from somewhat essential to it to separate from its Integrals or Accidents may be culpable but it 's no Separation from the Church no more than every breach of the Law is a Separation from the Kingdom LIV. 4. Some separate as to place locally and not mentally some mentally and not locally and some both He that daily observeth the outward Communion of the Church and yet taketh it for no Church or denyeth its Faith Hope or essential Duty separateth indeed All those men that live unbelievingly atheistically wickedly that in their converse prate against the Scripture and immortality of the Soul and that hate and persecute serious Godliness are damnably separated from Christ and therefore from the Catholick Church and are so to be esteemed so far as this is known thô when it is unknown the Church can take no notice of it LV. 5. It being only Humane Laws and Circumstantial Conveniences that make it unmeet to have divers Churches and Bishops living promiscuously in the same Parishes Cities Dioceses or Nations where Laws and circumstances allow it it is no unlawful separation LVI 6. He that liveth in forreign Lands Christian Mahometan or Heathen where various Churches live promiscuously Greeks Armenians Protestants Papists c. is no Schismatick if he choose which he thinks best and be absent locally from the rest condemning them no further than they deserve LVII 7. He that removeth into another Diocess or Parish for his worldly interest separateth without fault from the Church he was in LVIII 8. It is a lawful separation to remove ones dwelling because the Minister is ignorant unskilful or otherwise bad and this for the better edification of his Soul and the use and help of a more able faithful Minister even Law and Custome and reason do allow it LIX 9. Thô the Canon 57. and 28. forbid Ministers oft to give the Sacrament to Strangers that come out of other Parishes even where no Preaching is yet those many sober People that use this in London are not taken to be Schismaticks as bad as Murderers Many that are esteemed the most sober religious Conformists do ordinarily goe from their own Parish Churches some in Martins and St. Giles's Parish c. for want of room and some for more Edification to Dr. Tillotson Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Burnet Dr. Fowler Mr. Gifford Mr. Durham Mr. Horneck and such others and communicate with them and thó these are called by the late Catholicks by the Name of Dangerous Trimmers I think even Dr. Sherlock will think it more pardonable than Murder if they come to him LX. 10. If the King and Law should restore the antient order that every City that is every great incorporate Town in England should have a Bishop yea or every great Parish and that the Diocesans should be their Arch-Bishops and our new Catholicks should tell the King and Parliament that they are hereby unchristened Schismaticks as dangerous as Adulterers or Murderers for gathering Churches within a Church I would not believe them LXI 11. If e. g. at Frankford Zurick Lubeck Hamburgh c. a Church is settled in the Lutheran way and another in the Bohemian way described by Lasitius and Commenius which is a conjunction of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency or a Church that had no Liturgy or none but that which the French Protestants and Dutch have would it be damning Schism for such as Cox and Horne at Frankford to set up an Episcopal Church in the English mode and with their Liturgy and so far to separate from the rest LXII 12. If it be true that Iohn Maior Fordon and others say that Presbytery was the Government of the Church of Scotland before Episcopacy was brought in was the introduction of
Episcopacy by Palladius a damning Schism by separating from the former or a Reformation is just Reformation Schism LXIII 13. When the Church first set up Patriarchs Metropolitans General Councils Monasteries Parish Churches distinct from Cathedrals Organs New Liturgies and multitudes of Ceremonies this was a departing or separating from the contrary Church way which was there before was it therefore Schism LXIV 14. When Socrates tells us of some Countreys that had Bishops in the Countrey Villages like our Parishes was it a damning Schism to separate from this custome by decreeing that even small Cities should have no Bishops Ne vilescat nomen Episcopi or when the Chorepiscopi were put down where they had been LXV 15. If a man separate not from any thing essential to the Church of England he separateth not from that Church though he refuse that which is its Accidents or some Integral parts We are charg'd with separating from the Church of England as if it were a matter of fact beyond dispute and scorn'd for denying it even by them that will not tell us what they mean by the Church of England or by Separation By the Church of England we mean the Christian Kingdom of England or all the Christians in England as living in one land under one Christian King who Governeth them by the Sword which includeth their Concord among themselves in true Christianity we are Christians we profess agreement in Christianity with all Christians we are under the same King as they are and profess subjection and take the same Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy yea we are not charged with differing in any thing called Doctrinal from their Thirty Nine Articles but we disown certain late Covenants and Oaths which are not Twenty three Years old and the Subscription to one Canon about the Innocency of all in their Liturgy now either these new Oaths Covenants and Canon Liturgy and Ceremonies are essential to the Church of England or not If yea then 1. It 's a poor humane Church made by them that made these Oaths Liturgy and Ceremonies 2. And then it 's a new upstart Church and no man can answer the Papists where it was before Luther or before Henry 8. yea if its essentials were made by this King and Parliament 1662. then the present Church is no older But if these things be indifferent or not essential to the Church then to separate only from these is not to separate from the Church If it be said That for the sake of these we separate from the Church it self and therefore from its essence we abhor the accusation and challenge them to prove it If we separate from the Church essentially it is either Locally or Mentally not Locally for we are yet in England nor is Local distance only a sin not Mentally for we own it for a true Christian Kingdom called a National Church bound to serve Christ in Love and Concord to their Power We deny not the King to be the Governour nor Christians to be Christians no nor the particular Churches and Ministers to be true thô culpable Churches and Ministers nor their Sacraments to be true Sacraments we profess to hold with them one Catholick Body one Spirit one God one Christ one Faith one Baptism in the essentials and one Hope and are ready to promise to live in Concord with them in all other things as far as will stand with our Obedience to God so that we separate not from the Church of England as such but from some of its Accidents which we dare not be guilty of LXVI 16. The same I say of a Parish Church he that locally removeth e. g. from a Church that hath Organs to one that hath none separateth from a pair of Organs but not Mentally from the Church unless the Organs be its essence LXVII 17. They that are for the true antient Episcopacy e. g. as much as Arch-Bishop Vsher's Reduction which we offer'd did contain but dislike the Lay Civilians power of the Keyes and Officials Surrogates Arch-deacons Government c. do not separate from the Church as Episcopal but from the humane Novelties which they disown LXVIII 18. If a Parishioner fall out with his Priest and they goe to Law about Tythes Glebes Words c. and the Suit be long and the man dare not Communicate with him believing that he hateth him thô the animosity should be culpable being but personal his going from him to another Church is not separating from Christ for I hope that even Mr. Dodwell himself will not say that every Priest is Christ. LXIX 19. Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius surely there is some qualification essential to the Ministry if a man want that qualification it is a Duty to separate from him as no Minister e. g. When I came to Kederminster after my subjection to six or seven worse I found the Vicar one reputed ignorant of the Fundamentals he was brought in by Sir Henry Blunt a Papist who Preacht but once a quarter which most thought he might better have forborn and his Curate Mr. Turner at Mitton Preacht once a day whom I found ignorant of the Catechism Principles by Conference and he confest he had but one Book Musculus common places in English and he said some of that to the People and they took it for a Sermon he lived by unlawful Marrying infamous for Drinking and Quarrelling he that had taken these for no Ministers and separated from them had not thereby separated from Christ or his Church Catholick LXX 20. If it prove as hard to know who is the true Pastor in a competition of Pretenders as it was to know which was the true Pope when there were two or three above twenty times or whether e. g. Optandus was true Bishop of Geneva that knew not Letters or whether Duke Heriberts Son consecrated in Infancy was Arch-Bishop of Rhemes or any other Infant consecrated be a Bishop officiating per alios Surrogates Chancellours Officials c. it is not here a Separation from Christ to separate from either of the Pretenders He that mistaketh not is not liable to the Charge he that mistakes doth not erre in an Article of Faith but in a difficult point of humane title and the qualification and right of a single man and my Opinion is that if such a title were tryed before our Judges or King and they should mistake and give Judgment against him that had right this were no separating from Christ nor proof that they are Infidels LXXI 21. If the Case of two contending Bishops or Presbyters come before a General or Provincial Council and they mistake and give it to the wrong and so separate from the right I do not think that thereby they separate from Christ or the Church Catholick e. g. The Constantinopolitan Council first gave the Church of Constantinople to Nazianzene and after judged him out as having no right if by this they separated from Christ they that take them for the
Rome no true Church others think otherwise Many more Armmian and other such differences there are and yet all of one Church both Catholick National Diocesan and Parochial oft Much more are those Nonconformists that differ from the Church in nothing but what the Imposers call Indifferent LXXIX 29. If one that prayeth in the Litany against false Doctrine and Schism and readeth the Conformists telling him of the danger of it should verily think that Dr. S. printeth and preacheth false Doctrine and such as plainly tendeth to serve Satan against Christian Love and Peace and to the most Schismatical dividing and damning of Christâ—ans should hereupon separate from him for fear of Schism and false Doctrine and go to a safer Pastor I think it were not to separate from Christ. LXXX 30. If a Bishop in any Diocess in London should openly write or plead for a Foreign Jurisdiction and we are told that none are true Ministers that depend not obediently on the Bishop he that for fear of the Law or of Personal or common perjury should separate from that Bishop and his numerical Diocesan Church doth thereby neither separate from the Catholick Church nor from the Church of England As if the Kings Army should have a Colonel that declared himself an obliged Subject to the King of France and bound to obey him the Regiment may forsake that Colonel Yea if the General of the Kings Army should give up himself in subjection to the Enemy or a Foreign Power and say I will take a Commission from the Turk and my Officers shall only obey me and the Soldiers obey them were not this an Army of Traytors or Rebels though none but the General took a Commission from the Enemy So if the Bishops should all take Commissions from the Pope or declare themselves Subjects to a Forreign Jurisdiction it were no separating from Christ to separate from them all in Loyalty to Christ and to avoid National perjury and Schism LXXXI 31. If a man think that he is bound to use all Christs instituted means of Salvation and live in a Church that wilfully omitteth any one of them e. g. either Infant baptism or singing Psalms or Praying or Preaching or the Lords Supper or all Personal care and discipline to exclude the grosly intolerable to resolve the doubting c. He that in Obedience to Christ goeth to a Church and Pastor in the same Diocess or City that omitteth none of these is no damned Schismatick LXXXII 32. He that is unjustly cast out of the Church and by its very Laws excommunicated ipso facto is no damned or Sinful Schismatick for Worshipping God in a Church that will receive him Nor any one that is denyed Communion unless he will sin Much more if they should prove half as many and great Sins as the Nonconformists have said they fear in the first Plea for Peace c. LXXXIII 33. If a Foreigner that doth but half understand our language withdraw to a Church and Pastor whose tongue he understands obeying God and Nature is no damning Schism LXXXIV 34. If one that is erroneously conceited of the obligation of General Councils should think it a sin to kneel at the Sacrament on any Lords day in the year or any Week day between Easter and Whitsuntide because Tradition and the twentieth Canon of the first Council and that at Trull c. do forbid then to adore kneeling this separating on that account to another Congregation is not damning If it be said that Mr. Thorndike and others tell us that it is not necessary that we do the same things which the Supream Catholick Power commanded but that we subject our selves to the same Power which may change their own Laws I answer 1. The asserting of that Universal Soveraignty is the greatest Crime and Heresie of all 2. By this it seems that our Religion is very mutable and very uncertain and a man hath need to take heed of obeying any old Canons till he know the mind of the present Church and who those be and how to know it 3. But what if the same man read Dr. Heylin of Sab. telling him that this custome against Adoration-kneeling continued a thousand years and was never revok't by any true General Council but changed by little and little by mens practice And what if he question who those Changers were and whether their practice was Rebellion at first and whether they had power to repeal the Canons of the greatest Councils without a Council Sure they that are for such Councils universal soveraignty when they have cast men into these snares should scarce tell them that they are damnable Schismaticks for joyning with such Churches as obey these Councils rather than with those that ruine men for not disobeying them LXXXIV And now Reader if thou art one that thinkest of these things with Christian Sobriety and impartiality I appeal to thee whether if I should be of the mind of Mr. Dodwell and such self-conceited Resolvers I should not write my own Condemnation and be one of the grossest Schismaticks that any History hath mentioned unless ever there were any man so mad as to hold himself to be all the Church Yea when he no more distinguisheth of Separation and Schism but involves almost all Christians in his Condemnation and tells us that Schism will damn us as soon as Adultery and Murder is it not obvious for all men to infer that we are as odious as Adulterers and Murderers and doth he not Preach Christians into the hatred of each other and can any wonder if Rulers should think the Punishment of Murderers is not worse than we deserve It is not Newgate only but Tyburn that these healing men do seem to assign us it would be too tedious to look over all these again and shew you how great the number is that these men damn and how few on Earth in any Age they excuse from being so far like Murderers LXXXV 1. It seems to me that he virtually damneth all Christians on Earth as such Schismaticks for it is most certain that all men have sin and culpable imperfection in Knowledge Will and Practice and if any say That he hath no sin he is a Lyar saith St. Iohn and it is certain that all two persons on Earth have many errours and many differences from one another it is certain that the Love and Duty of Christians towards each other is culpably defective in all men It is certain that no man living is so perfect in knowledge as to know all the indifferent things in the world which may be imposed to be Indifferent And long and sad experience hath told the Church that both gross errours and sins and things called Truths or indifferent which few can be sure of may be imposed What follows from all this but that all men on Earth may easily fall under the imputation of disobedience to Prelates and so be Excommunicate and then they have their choice when no man is perfect and
Jurisdiction by right in this Land And all that by mistake say the King hath not chief Power in all his Dominions meaning in France of which he professeth to be King and we so call him even in our Prayers to God All that say contrary to Art 38. that it is not their Duty liberally to give Alms according to their ability All that contrary to Art 39 think men in conforming may swear upon trust of their Superiours words without judgment and true understanding of Justice and Truth Aâ—l these are already ipso facto Excommunicated by this one Canon and if they elsewhere worship God are called Separatists and Schismaticks in danger of Damnation as Adulterers and Murtherers are And how great a number are these 10. All are ipso facto Excommunicate by the sixth Canon who affirm that the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England by Law established are superstitious or such as now commanded men who are zealously and godly affected may not with a good Conscience APPROVE use and subscribe as occasion requireth That is all that thus mistake kneeling at the Sacrament on the reasons aforenamed to be against the second Commandment or that judge so of the Surplice or that think the Cross as described by the Canon and Liturgy hath all the Essentials of a humane unlawful Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace And all that are against the Rites of Godfathers that never owned the Child as theirs to be the only Sponsors in its Name and to Vow its Christian Education when I never knew one living that so much as made the Parents believe that he intended it And all that think the words of the Liturgy making Imposition of hands an assuring sign of Gods Gracious acceptance make Confirmation a humane unlawful Sacrament and say so All these are cut off 11. By Canon seventh all are ipso facto excommunicate that affirm that the Government of the Church of England under his Majesty by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons and THE REST THAT BEAR OFFICE in the same is repugnant to Gods word that is all Bishops Ministers Noblemen Gentlemen or People that say that it is against Gods word for Lay Civilians or Chancellours to govern by the Church Keyes excommunicate or absolve And all that think it unlawful for Surrogates that are not Bishops but Presbyters either as a Cryer pro forma to pronounce all excommunicate or absolved who are so decreed by the Lay Chancellor or else for them or a Priest-Chancellour to govern a Diocess by the Keyes of Excommunication and Absolution being no Bishops and all that think it sinful for Archdeacons Commissaries Officials c. who are no Bishops to exercise the same Government by the Keyes over so many Pastors or Churches or for a Bishop to do his Office by others that are no Bishops any more than a Priest by those that are no Priests or for a Diocesan with his Lay Court to Govern many score or hundred Churches under him without any subordinate Bishop in those Churches that is to set up the Name and shew and make Christs Discipline impossible Or for Lay Chancellors or Surrogates to publish Excommunications in the Bishops Name which he never knew of nor tryed the cause Or for such Chancellours to oblige all Parish Ministers to publish all their Excommunications which are agreeable to these Canons What quality and number they are of that call any of this sinful I pretend not to know But they are all now excommunicate men 12. The eight Canon ipso facto excommunicateth all that affirm that the form and manner of making and consecrating Bishops Priests and Deacons hath any thing repugnant to Gods Word c That is all those that hold Bishops and Presbyters to be the same Order contrary to the words of that Book Which yet even the Church of England while Papists declared in King Aelfriks Canons see Spelman And all such as Thorndike who say the People and Clergy should choose their Bishops or that say the Peoples consent is necessary to the Pastoral Relation to them and that the old Canons for this are in force 13. The ninth Canon ipso facto excommunicateth the Separatists 14. The tenth Canon excommunicateth all that affirm that Ministers that refuse to subscribe to the Liturgy c. and their Adherents may truely take to themselves the Name of another Church not established by Law and dare publish that this their pretended Church hath long groaned under the burden of imposed grievances by the Church of England and the Orders and Constitutions therein by Law established Ipso facto is not here This reacheth to all that confine not Gods Church in England to the Party that subscribe and their Adherents If any say that if such as Blondel Rivet Amesius or any other the most Learned holy peaceable men that dare not subscribe as aforesaid should with any Christians worship God together and that these are a true Church though he judge them faulty and that these Canons are grievances such are to be excommunicated Though it be gross Schism in others to confine not onely the Purity but the Verity of a Church to their own Party For such to feel and groan loud here is Excommunication 15. The eleventh Canon much to the same purpose requireth the Excommunication of all that affirm that any Subjects in England may rightly challenge the Name of true and lawful Churches besides those allowed by Law though the King should License them 16. The twelfth Canon ipso facto excommunicateth all that make Rules and Orders in Causes Ecclesiastical without the Kings Authority and submit to them e. g. All that without the Kings authority agree to turn the Table Altar-wise to require People to kneel at the Rails or to bow toward the Alter or East or to set up Organs c. All these are now excommunicate by an Authority above the Bishops which no Bishop or Priest can dispense with but only forbear to publish and execute it but not nullifie it no nor absolve any that publickly repent not of it as a wicked Errour 16. By Canon fourteenth if any Minister shall diminish any part of the Orders Rites Ceremonies Prayers c. in regard of Preaching or ANY OTHER RESPECT or shall adde any thing in matter or form e. g. If he let the Parent express the dedication of his Child to God or lay any charge on any Parent he breaketh the Church Law and so far separateth from it 17. By Canon fifteenth when twenty or thirty thousand are commanded to come to a Church that cannot receive six thousand and the Alleys and Pewes are wedg'd so that they cannot all kneel yet all that kneel not at the Prayers and all that say not audibly the Confession Lords Prayer Creed and Responses disobey the Laws of the Church and so far separate from it 18. When twenty thousand Persons are commanded to come in more than can if ten thousand of them or any number should come to the
all that obey the twentieth Canon of the Nicene Council And from all that obey the Councils that forbid communicating with a Fornicating Priest And from all that obey the Councils which nullifie the Episcopacy of such as are obtruded by Magistrates or not consented to by the Clergy and People And many more such Abundance more instances of their Separation and Damnation I might adde In a word I think their Principles are as I first said for damning and separating from all men living for all men living are gulity of some sort and degree of Schism that is of Errours Principles or Practices in which they culpably Violate that Union and Concord that should be among Christians and Churches Every defect of Christian Love and every sinful Errour is some degree of such a violation All Christians differ in as great matters as things indifferent And no man living knoweth all things Indifferent to be such And these men distinguish not of Schism nor will take notice of the necessary distinctions given in the third Part of the Treatise of Church Concord And solutio continui causeth pain nor do they at all make us understand what sort of Separation it is that they fasten on but talk of Separation in general as aforesaid LXXXVII They seem to be themselves deceived by the Papists in exposition of Cyprians words de Vnit. Eccles. Vnus est Episcopatus c. But they themselves seem to separate from Cyprian as a Schismatick and consequently from all the Church that hath profest Communion with him and with all the Councils and Churches that joyned with him For Cyprian and his Council erred by going too far from the Schism and Heresie of others nullifying all their Baptisms Ordinations and Communions And for this errour they declared against the Judgment of the Bishop of Rome and other Churches and they were for it condemned as Schismaticks by the said Bishop And here is a far wider Separation than we can be charged with 2. And Cyprians words came from the Mind that was possest with these opinions and are expressive of his Inclination 3. Yet they are true and good understood as he himself oft expounds them the Bishop of Oxford citeth some instances many more are obvious in which he opposeth the Bishop of Rome saying that none of them pretendeth to be a Bishop of Bishops and limiting every man to his own Province and saying that they were to give account to none but God with much the like But in what sence is Episcopacie one 1. Undoubtedly not as numerically in the personal Subjectum Relationis One Bishop is not another if you should say Paternity is One none believe that one mans Relation of Paternity is anothers The Relation is an accident of its own Subject as well as Quantity Quality c. 2. Nor doth any man believe that many Bishops go to make up one Bishop in Naturals 3. Nor did ever Cyprian hold or say that all Bishops go to make up one Politick Governing Aristocracie as many go to make one Senate or Parliament that hath a power of Legislation and Judgment by Vote as one Persona politica He never owned such a humane Soveraignty But Episcopatus unus est 1. In specie all Bishops have one Office 2. Objectivè As the Catholick Church is one whose welfare all Bishops ought to seek 3. And so finaliter as to the remote End and are bound to endeavour Concord 4. And as effects all are from one efficient institutor As it may be said that all official Magistracy in England is one 1. As from one King or summa potestas 2. As described by one Law and as Justices of one Species 3. As all their Cities and Counties and Hundreds are but part of one Kingdom whose welfare all are for 4. And as they are all bound to keep as much common Concord as they can if any mean more they should tell us what If any mean that all Bishops make one numerical Universal Government they are heinous Schismaticks and the Kingdom is Sworn against their Judgment And these Men damn them in damning Schismaticks The truth is Cyprian de Vnitate Ecclesiae leaving out the Papists additions is a good Book and worthy to be read of all and take Cyprian's Description of the Episcopacy of the Church which we must unite with and the nature of that Union and we would rejoyce in such But if Cyprian had lived to see either Arians or Donatists the greater number or any Sect after call themselves the Church because that Princes set them up and had seen them depose Chrysostome and such other doubtless he would never have pleaded the Unity of Episcopacy for this but have judged as he did in the Case of Martial and Basilides nor did he ever plead for an universal humane Soveraignty LXXXVIII If we are damned Schismaticks I can imagine no pretended manner of Separation in which our Schism consists but first either Local as such 2. Or Mental as such 3. Or Local caused by Mental If Local as such be it All Christians are Schismaticks for being locally separated from others and absent from all Churches and places save one If Mental Separation be it either all Mental Division is such or but some only if all then all mortal men are Schismaticks as differing in a multitude of things from others If it be not all what is it is it all difference in the Essentials of Christianity we grant it and we are charg'd with no such thing Is it all difference in the Integrals or Accidents so do all differ that are not perfect Is it all want of Love or all Vncharitableness to one another all on earth have some degree of it and those are likest to have most that do as the Bishops did against the Priscillianists bring godly people under reproach on pretence of opposing Heresie or that seek the Silencing Imprisonment Banishment or Ruine of men as faithful as themselves For our parts we profess it our great Duty to love all men as men all Christians as Christians all godly men as godly all Magistrates as Magistrates c. Is it for our separating in mind from any Principles in specie necessary to Communion in the Church Universal or single Churches let it be opened what those Principles be We own all Christianity and all Ministry of Gods Institution and all his Church Ordinances We own Bishops over their Flocks let them be never so large so they be capable of the Work and End and alter not the true species and we submit to any that shall by the Word admonish Pastors of many Churches of their Duty or Sin or seek their good Nor do we refuse Obedience to any humane Officers set up by Princes to do nothing against Christs Laws nor nothing but what is in Princes power in the Accidents circa Sacra Is it because we disown any Numerical Rulers we own the King and his Magistrates we own all that we can understand to be true
there being somewhat opposite in all men and Churches on Earth you damn your selves for Communicating with them 9. That a man may have more Communion with the Church which he Locally separateth from even for sin than with that which he is present with E. g. A Congregation or Nation of men of eminent Sanctity and Order â—ound Doctrine and Worship may by humane frailty take some one falsehood or uncertain thing to be necessary to Ministry or Communion as they say some Churches unhappily of late reject all that own not the Antiquity of the Hebrew Points I cannot have local Communion with that Church for they will not receive me unless I subscribe either a falshood or that which I judge false but yet I highly honour and love them and have mental Catholick Communion with them when perhaps necessity may make me Locally join with a Church of far worse men and Order that will impose no sin on me 10. And I would advise these men did they not despise my advice for the Church of Englands sake and their own to retract their Errours and not lay such a Snare before the People Should you say in the Pulpit If the Church be guilty of any Schism by her Impositions oft-named Excommunications and silencing of Christs Ministers and afflicting good people without just Cause then I and all that communicate with it and me communicate in the guilt of Schism and are all in as much danger of Damnation by it as Adulterers and Murderers tell not your hearers this for if you do some will think you bid them separate or be damned and only make a doubt whether most men have Noses or not XCII Qu. But is not the Inference true Ans. No it 's false There are twenty cases in which 1. One may be guilty of Schism and not be a Schismatick as denominated from what predominateth 2. And as many in which he is not at all guilty that communicateth with the guilty And let the world that is sober and awake judge now whether these men or we be the greater Schismaticks and which more condemneth or separateth from the Church of England We say that all Churches have some degree of Schism and so hath the Church of England as it hath imperfection Errour and Sin but that it is not therefore no Church nor is it unlawful to communicate with it All Christians and Churches must not be separated from that are guilty of some degree of Schism If any will turn these Serious matters into Jest and say as Dr. Sayâ—â—ll that they will receive Greeks Lutherans c. that come to their Communion his Serious Readers will tell him that so will most Sects receive those that approve of their Communion and come to them Joyning with you signifyeth that they are of your way therein But will you go to their Churches and Communicate with them You will receive the damned Schismaticks if they come to you when yet you make it damnable to joyn in their meetings with them This quibbling beseems not grave men in great matters To conclude Reader God having allowed more Legislative Power to men in things Secular than in Religion I may say this case is like ours in debate I. Some Judges and Lawyers say that the Oath of Allegiance makes a Subject in this Kingdom that the Renouncing or Violating it by Treason or Rebellion or deserting the Kingdom overthrows the Relation But that other particular faults or quarrels against Neighbours Justices Judges yea the King himself are punishable according to the Laws but are not all Rebellion nor dissolve Subjection nor oblige the Subjects to renounce civil converse with each other though some contempt and obstinacy may outlaw them Such is our Judgment of Church Relation and Communion which I need not rehearse II. Suppose a sect of Lawyers and Judges arise that say no men are the Kings Subjects but are Rebels that break any of his Laws that Shoot not in long Bows that Bury not their dead in Woollen that swear prophanely that eat flesh in Lent unlicensed that have any unjust Law-Suit that wrong any Neighbour that oppress any Poor man all these are Rebels yea all that plead opposite Causes at the Bar and all Judges that judge contrary to one another and all that misunderstand any point of Law and Practice accordingly and all that besides the Oath of Allegiance do constitute Marriages Families Schools Societyes by any other Covenants of their own and all that are of different Cities and Companies parts of the Kingdom or all whose Justices Mayors Sheriffs c. differ from one another in any point of Law and practice Or all that obey not every Constable and Justice or that go to divers Justices in the same Precincts or that go from one Justice to another to avoid unrighteous Judgment or that go from the Physician of the Place for Health and from the Schoolmaster of the Town for greater edification or that Travel beyond Sea for Knowledge yea all that understand not every word in the Law that may concern them If any say none of these are the Kings Subjects but Rebels opposite to him and one another and deserve to be all hang'd as Murderers and so are all that have Communion with them Quaere 1. Whether these men are for the Unity of England 2. And are Friends to the King that deprive him of all his Subjects as much as those that would have him have no Subjects that be not of the same Age Stature Complexion and Wit 3. And whether they are Friends to Mankind 4. And whether they condemn not themselves if they live not as Anchorets out of humane Society 5. And whether that Nation be not by infatuation prepared for Destruction that would believe them and would hate scorn and ruine them that are of the first mentioned opinion according to the saying Quos perdere vult Iupiter hos dementat As to the more dangerous Doctrine now threatning this Land that would subject England to a Foreign Jurisdiction on pretence of a Necessity of either an Universal Church Monarch or Church-Parliament Senate or Council or of all the Church on Earth represented by Patriarchs or Metropolitans or that plead for Subjection to them under the Name of Communion they require a distinct Answer But Dr. Is. Barrow and Mr. Beverley's Catholick Catechism have effectually done it FINIS THE SECOND PART AGAINST SCHISM BEING ANIMADVERSIONS On a Book famed to be Mr. Raphson's LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers-Chappel 1684. TO THE READER Reader WHEN I had Written the first of these Discourses I came after to know more of the Authors Iudgment by another Book against me which I also Answered but it lyeth by unprinted I also wrote for the use of some private Friends my Reasons for Communion with those Parish-Churches who have Capable Ministers which many Importuned me to Print but that also is yet undone But a Book famed to
say Rom. 14.17 18. That Idolaters were acceptable to God or approved of men or Rom. 15. or bid them receive Idolaters as Christ received us He regulateth their Church-Meetings How many shall speak at a Meeting and by what course and order and that women shall be vailed and not men and that they salute each other with an holy Kiss c. not by a Law that setleth the Particulars but by the General Law of doing all in order and to edification and pleadeth not Institution but the Custom of the Churches which is alterable as the signification of such acts are And St. Iames will have the Elders anoint the sick with Oyl for recovery which yet bindeth not us The Papists use this as an Institution as they do imposition of hands in Confirmation They say in Ordination Receive the Holy Ghost and breathe on the Person They wash the feet of one another in imitation of Christ And yet these men condemn them in this as superstitious for imitating Christ and his Apostles and Scripture-Examples and cry down Popery and at the same time call us Idolaters for going beyond Scripture-institution The same I say of their keeping Lent in imitation of Christ's forty days fast c. Is it Idolatry both to follow and not to follow Scripture-Examples To all the rest I add one Instance more Swearing by appeal to God is a most solemn act of worship but the sign of taking an Oath is left free to convenient choice Abraham's Servant did it by putting his hand under his thigh Was this a common Law or Institution Others did it otherwise We do it by laying our hand on the Book and kissing it These are neither sinful additions or Idolatry The Memorial of God's Works and Mens Covenants were kept sometime by pitching Stones sometime by Pillars sometime by set days as the Feast of Purim sometime by laying up the Ensigns as Goliah's Sword c. And all these lawful and no Idoâ—latry IV. Lastly I will unveil these mens Doctrine of Separation and then judg whether it be the Doctrine of Christ which is a Law of Love and Union and Peace or the Wisdom from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle c. 1. â—t is false that all such Secondary Medal Worship is unlawful which is not instituted by a fixing Law 2. It is deceit not to distinguish these different things 3. The charge of false Worship unexplained is meer deceit 1. Worship is so far false as it is contrary to the Rule Every Sermon Prayer or Sacrament which we administer hath faultiness and sin and is so far false Worship 2. But Worship offered God on pretence that he instituted it when he did not or that Man hath authority to command the like is yet worse false Worship 3. And the worship of false Gods or Idols is yet worse than that and abhorred of God 4. His making all faulty circumstances such as he nameth to be Idolatry because false as he calls it is yet more sinful and of mischievous importance 5. So is it to make the Churches Idâ—ls Temples where they do kneel at the Sacrament and use the Liturgy 6. So is it to feign falsly that God calleth men to come out from such and be separate because he calleth them out of Babylon falsly adding to the Laws of God 7. By his Doctrine he maketh Christ an Idolater which I mention with horror For he 1. used Circumstances not instituted before or by himself He preached on a Mountain in a Ship c. not commanded He commended Mary for anointing him washing his Feet with Tears wiping them with her Hair not instituted in particular He commended the Publican for smiting on his breast standing far off not looking to Heaven without particular command His Custom was to go to the Synagogue-worship He from his childhood performed Temple-Duties and Service He commanded the Lepers cleansed to go to the Priests and offer their due and his Disciples to hear the Scribes and Pharisees in Moses Chair c. And yet 1. The High Priests were not of Aaron's line according to Institution 2. They bought the Office of Heathen Romans 3. They had it not for life according to institution 4. Doctrine Worship Discipline and Manners were heinously corrupted so that the Hearers were to beware of the Leaven of their Doctrine and not to imitate their lives 4. They were bitter enemies of Christ and Persecutors yet Christ never bid his Disciples to separate from any thing but their errors but saith They shall cast you out of the synagogues And doubtless Christ committed no sin nor can we be so holy as he 8. He condemneth Abraham and all the Iewish Church of old that used such things that were not instituted in Worship as is before mentioned in swearing c. 9. He maketh the Apostles Idolatrous that used the like 10. He maketh the Primitive Churches Idolatrous and the Scriptures to approve it For they used such uninstituted things yea the Romans were guilty of differences in God's Service and despising and judging each other for them The Corinthians were Carnal in making Parties and Divisions they defrauded each other and went to Law before Heathens They had Fornicators Judaizing envious Slanderers of Paul Heretical deniers of the Resurrection such as eat in Idols Temples or of their Sacrifices Were drunk at or before the Sacrament The Galatians are yet sharplier charged Almost all the Seven Churches Rom. 2. and 3. had Nicholaitans or Iezabels Doctrine which God hated and no Christian is called to separate from the Communion of any one of all these but commanded to amend and live in Unity without division 11. He condemneth as Idolaters all the Churches on Earth for Six Hundred if not One Thousand Years after the Apostles not One Church Christian or Heretick as far as any History tells us that I have found did ever deny such things as he calls False Worship or Idolatry They all went further than our Parish Churches do At Baptism they used the White Garment tasting Milk and Honey Chrisme or anointing the Forehead Crossing they adored onely Standing and not Kneeling every Lords Day all as significant Ceremonies No one Church or Person is said to scruple these I think they did not well but God rejected not their Worship 12. He maketh all or near all the Churches on Earth Idolaters at this day All on Earth save the Protestants are far grosser in their Liturgies and Ceremonies than the English Of the 〈◊〉 Sweden Denmark Saxony and all the Lutherans have Liturgieâ— Crossing Ceremonies Church-Images Consubstantiation The Helvetians are such as are called Erastians making the Magistrate the onely Ruler and Sacraments common Geneva and France yea and Hâ—lland have their Liturgies and some Rites 13. He condemneth Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists and all Dissenters that are here called Protestants For they have all many of the foresaid uninstituted things They put off the Hat in Church at Prayer They stand up at the
Blessing they use uncommanded gestures at Sacrament they use Psalm-versions Metres Tunes Scripture-Translations Divisions into Chapter and Verse never instituted particularly The Scots used a Government by Classes National Assemblies of various Elders ruling by Vote instead of meer consulting for Concord uncommanded 14. I humbly propose it to consideration Whether by consequence which he seeth not nor owneth he do not deny Christ and all the Gospel and work of mans redemption I challenge him to name me one Church on Earth for many hundred years after the Apostles that had not that which he calls false Worship and Idolatry Suppose this were but in a few Ages as the second third or fourth Century Then a Temple of Idols and Company of Idolaters is no true Church And if at any time there was no Church there was no Head of the Church No Kingdom no King No Wife no Husband that is no Christ. How much more if he make all or near all the Church Idolaters to this day and himself with the rest 15. If it be a heinious sin to bear false Witness against a Neighbour or to slander one man what is it to slander and back-bite all the Church on Earth and Christ himself 16. Is it not a work of Satan to destroy Love and to render almost all Christians odious And doth not he do so that calleth them Idolaters Is not this Preaching men into the hatred of each other Do we owe no Love to any Christians but such as is due to Idolaters Is not the fruit of the Spirit otherwise described 17. Doth he not deny that Communion of the Saints which is an Article of the Creed and tempt weak Christians into sinful Separations Divisions Slanders Judgings Murmurings Envies which are the fruits of the flesh 18. Doth not this directly destroy the Church by Dissolution When there is none to be owned or joyned with that hath not somewhat which he calleth false worship And is not separating the Materials destroying the house 19. Doth he not directly rush into the Sin which he condemneth adding to God's Laws and saying he forbids what he forbids not yea fathering on him Laws more rigorous than the Jewish as disowning Christ's Church as Idolators and false Worshippers 20. I add such wofully harden men in that which they themselves suffer by and which they call enmity and persecution and make more Conformists while they deny it than R. B. whom he frivolously talketh of ever did except it be a Conformity to Truth and Goodness For when men read and hear others confidently rage against Truth and Duty by rash presumptuous ignorance they judge of all our dissent by this And while many run into this Guilt it seems to justify their Afflicters And it tempteth weak Persons to suffer for sinful separation as evil doâ—rs thinking it is for Truth Oh with what grief will understanding men see Christians together as in a state of enmity by mistakes To see some at once require from others things good and necessâ—ry things Lawful but unnecessary things necessary in their Genus but not this more than that and some things sinful as if they were all almost alike To see those whose Senses are not exercised to discern things that differ misled by the words and reverence of men to swallow some Sins as excellent Duties and fly from things Lawful yea oft from great Duties as odious Sins and suffer rejoycingly for sinning against God and condemning all that sin not as they do yea even all or almost all the Churches on Earth yea and calling them Idolaters for being wiser and better than they who alas do in all things shew themselves to be ignorant Babes and who speak evil of that which they understand not And then to see others revile and hate and ruin these mistaking Christians by a far more dangerous mistake as if Religious fear of Sin were an unsufferable thing and such were intollerable Hypocrites and Conscience were a disgraceful thing and as if themselves and all Mankind were not liable to worser Errors than to take some lawful things for Sin when they see unlawful things stand near them or among them But of all this I have oft spoken and now only say again That iâ— those justly called Separatists and who think Parish Communion under honest Ministers to be Idolatry or unlawful will but without prejudice read what is written to prove it lawful by the old Godly Judicious Non-Conformists especially Iohn Ball 's Trial of Separation Mr. Hildersham Mr. Bradshaw Dr. Ames Mr. Cartwright Mr. Gifford Mr. Iohn Paget Mr. Brightman Mr. Râ—thband c. they will need no more to save them from this scandalous Schism But if Peter withdraw or separate from the Gentiles for fear of offending the Jewish Christians and Barnabas be led away with the Dissimulation Paul must oppose it to their Faces And I that have seen what the Spirit of Division hath done and read that God never blest unnecessary separation will imitate Paul And if this World be uncurable the Lord prepare me for that World where Love and Unity have no Enemies FINIS A Survey of the Reply to Mr. Humphrey and my Self called A Vindication c. of Dr. Stillingfleet § 1. HAving lately read six or seven Casuists that perswaded Men to Communion with the Parish Churches I found in them many sober discourses worthy to be read by those that are inclined to a faulty alienation and I perswaded some such to read them as being obliged to hear what both sides can say if they will escape partiality and error Though I find very few such Writers that seem to be acquainted with the true case of Non-Conformists but much strangers to it while they disswade men from it But some of them I found are not content to perswade men to Communion with their Party to which they find it advantageous to appropriate the name of The Church of England unjustly unless they also perswade them from Communion with all others in the land that be not of their Mind and Party And they conclude 1. If it be lawful to hear and Communicate with us once it is lawful to do it constantly 2. And if it be lawful to Communicate with us it is unlawful to Communicate with the Non-conformists § 2. One would think this task should signifie gross Schism in these men as well as in other Sects that say We are the only true Church and it 's unlawful to Communicate with any but us So did the Donatists and most Sects of old and every Sect usually that got uppermost by the Emperors countenance called themselves the Catholick Church and their Communion the Catholick and only lawful Communion So did the Arians and so did the Acacians and Semi-arians and so did the Nestorians a little while and the Eutychians long and so did the Monothelites and the Phantasiasts and the Image-adorers and such like And so do the Papists and some say That some Anabaptists have come to that but I
have not met with them § 3. But though little Sects for this use some appearance of Scripture-reason as the Anabaptists that say The unbaptized are no Church-Members but you are all unbaptized c. yet there are few big Sects but worldly advantage and cheating Words and Names are the strength of their Cause by which they do more than by any sober shew of reason The assumed names of the Church and Catholicks and Ancient and the Names of Hereticks and Schismaâ—icks and Lutherans and Calvinists and Novelists falsly imposed on their Adversaries next to the Sword and Flames are the Engines of the Popish Sect by which they defend their Separation from all other Christians in the World And such use the gross Schismatical parts do make of the names of The Church of Enâ—land and Catholick Communion appropriated to themselves and the names of Seperatists and Schismaticks imposed arbitrarily on others Next to the Sword this is their chief proof That men are Separatists if they will not separate from all save them and such as they § 3. Among all the Casuists I found none abound with this sort of Logick so much as the Resolver of three Cases about Church-Communion which when I had read I am so much against Separation that I thought meet to joyn with the rest of the Casuists who unite against Schism so far as to disswade Men from this Man's and Mr. Dodwells extraordnary Schismatical Doctrine § 4. But when I had written a just Confutation of him hearing by fame who he is I thought it my duty before I publisht it to see the Book which he wrote against Mr. Humphrey and Me because he may perhaps be there more intelligible for I had never before seen it and would not seek it because I would not tempt my self to a work which I have so little pleasure in as is the confutation of such men But when I had read it I found the Author a great deal sounder in his opinions than in his words and than he was represented to me to be There is a great deal that 's good and worthy the reading in his Book when he doth but keep off from his Schismatical cause He handsomely openeth some Doctrinals and so fairly alloweth forbearance of others in Doctrinal differences that were he as Catholick and equal in his opinion about Government and that which he calleth Catholick Communion he would be against Schism a Catholick indeed He doth fairly disclaim even Archbishop Bramhall's concession to the Papists And he handsomely confuteth Mr. Dodwell and maintaineth the validity of Sacraments and the duty of our Communion with the foreign Churches that have no Bishops and justifieth the Church of England that hath still owned Communion with them He hath proved the no necessity of continued Successive ordination by Bishops He hath defended the Independency of Diocesan Churches in point of Government and that one Church hath not proper Governing Power over another but only an obligation to Communion of which more anon § 5. But I must say That though he hath a smooth and handsom Stile for an Orator either He or I which of us I am no fit Judge is so wofully defective in Logick and Politicks that of these Subjects one of us is utterly unfit for a strict dispute not knowing the usual Sense of ordinary terms nor explaining them aright nor seeming to know what a true Definition is nor proceeding in any Scholar-like method But that little explication of Terms which he giveth is usually near the end of the â—ook when a confused dispute before hath tended but to seduce which ever of us it is that is in the fault it 's a great wrong to the Reader And if it be he I find no likelihood that any should cure him but himself or some one that he hath a very high opinion of For when his mistakes are discovered the substance of his Answer is a haughty ignorant scorn at the discovery Had he happily learnt to Explain Define and Distinguish and Methodize when he was young enough to submit to his Tutor it had been well for him But it being now to be learnt when he is a Doctor and such a Doctor Scorning and ignorant Wrangling will take the place of necessary Learning § 6. This I must tell the Reader That the Man speaketh so much worse than he seemeth by after Contradictions to think and hath so little Skill in exact expressing the matter or his mind that I can scarce ever pretend with any confidence to know his meaning For when he hath said worst and is confuted he comes over it again and scorneth us for misunderstanding him and tells us that he meant as we do So that it is his Words that I only undertake to confute and not his meaning till I am better able to say that I know it Nor would I think it a work beseeming me to write a Book to tell the World how unskilful this man is in speaking intelligibly and aptly if I did not find that others are seduced by receiving his words in the usual sence of such not knowing that he meaneth not as he speaketh So far as he meaneth well I think I am his Friend in perswading people to be of his mind and to believe what he thinks and not what he saith And if he hold on his way and fall not out with the Truth for my sake I am in hope that the effect also of this Survey will be that in the next he will renounce all his Errors save the terms and will say that he meant as I did And then if he do rail and scorn at me only as misunderstanding him I can bear it § 7. Nor should I think it a Duty in my condition to save Readers from his real errors were it not that they notoriously tend to perswade the Land to think of Thousands of the faithfullest Christians that I know as damnable intollerable Schismaticks guilty of the sin that will damn them as soon as Adultery and Murder and consequently to call Men to hate them as such and to proceed in silencing ruining and imprisoning them which is to tell all them that do so that they do well which if it should prove otherwise who can express the greatness of his sin against the Souls of one party and the Lives Estate and Ministry of the other § 8. His scorn p. 11 12. for my purpose to have medled with such Men in the Cause of Conformity no more seems some invitation to me to prevent the like But the foresaid Motives are far greater P. 35 36. While he over and over repeated the confused words of One Communion which must excuse us from Schism as dangerous as Murder and we that live among Men that use to distinguish Union from Communion and know that Communion yea and Union too hath a Multitude of degrees and our desire was that he would but explain in what he fixt it that we might understand his accusation he tells
matter 2. God gave Christ to be the Mediator and Head 3. God made by Christ the Covenant of Grace by which as by a Law and Gift he determineth of the Conditions of Church-Relation and Benefits and commandeth Man's belief and consent and professeth his own acceptance of such consenters 4. His Ministers and Word perswade Men to believe and consent 5. His Spirit efficiently causeth Men to believe and consent 6. At that time God's conditional grant becometh actual and giveth them actually a right and relation to Christ and his Benefits 7. Thereupon Christ's Ministers solemnize this Covenant declaring God's acceptance and by Baptism investing the person in the visible possession of his relation to Christ and all his Members the person professing his believing which maketh it a mutual Covenant the Parent doing it for Infants These Seven Acts go to make up the total efficient Cause of the Churches Essence and Unity and each Members Union therein And if you exclude any one of them you will be a false Teacher Is there any room here for a Controversie among Christians The Father the Son the Holy Ghost the Covenant and Law the Consenter the Minister and Baptism all make up the efficient Cause of the Churches Essence And that which maketh it a Church maketh it One Church As that which maketh it an House a Ship a Family a School a Kingdom maketh it thereby One House One Ship One Family c. for eus unun convertuntur § 17. But tho his Question How that ambiguous Syllable enquire not of the Churches Essence and of what who knows yet p. 43. he ventures to enquire of it upon my words it is only essential to the Church that there be an organized Body of Pastors and People united to Christ the Head saith he Here I agree with Mr. B. if he would add One Body for that is the thing in dispute Whether Christ have one or a thousand bodies Ans. I pray you remember this happy agreement that we agree of the Churches Essence But is not A Body the Singular Number If I say that a man is corpus organicum and a rational soul united do I need to put in One Body or One Soul while unum is entis inseparabilis affectio Good Doctor why must not Verum and Bonum be named with every eus in a definition as well as Unum Can it be a Body and not One Body O! what a Jest will School-boys make of us for such disputing 3. But the pretended disagreement is much worse asserted Is that the Controversie Whether Christ have One Body or a Thousand Would you make men believe that we deny the Unity of the Universal Church If you would prove it or blush 2. Do you your self deny the being of Thousands of particular Churches which are parts of the Universal When you have seemed long to do it you come again and confess such Churches and condemn us as separating from them 3. Is the Controversie whether these single Churches de nomine may be called so many Bodies of Christ 1. Name the men that so call them and prove it or confess your self a false Accuser 2. If they did an unfit Name is not an error de re I never heard man so speak We say that the word Church used for the Universal and the Particular is not univocally used but analogically expenuriâ nominum As oft the whole and part have one Name We say that as an hundred Cities and Counties may make one Kingdom and were they all equivocally called Republicks or Kingdoms it would be no change in the Doctrine All the Christian World call the universal and the particulars by the name of Church And yet if to help us out of the Equivocation you will invent a better Name and get men to consent to it not reprehending the Scripture-use we will hearken to you But as One Kingdom is individuate by One King and yet subordinate Societies may have subordinate individuating Heads so is it here And it 's grosly unfit to say Christ hath many Bodies tho he have many Churches in one as the King hath many Cities but one Kingdom here But he adds If but One how do all the Christians in the World make up that one Body How must not be explained If by how he meant by what efficiency I have told you If it mean by what constitutive Causes it is by Form and Matter united If it be any Mode that you mean vouchsafe to tell us what § 18. P. 43. he goes on thus reciting some of my words In this definition Christ only is the supreme constitutive summa potestas or regent part The organized body of Pastors and People is the pars subdita and the Union of Christ and that body maketh it a Church And saith he This is very well But the main doubt still remains untouched What is it that makes all the Christian Pastors and People in the World to be but One Church Ans. Contra negantem principia non est disputandum This intimateth that eus unum non convertuntur And that besides that which maketh it a Church somewhat else must go to make it one Whether your obstinate equivocation in the word make shall be by you expounded of the efficient or constitutive causes in this it 's all one That which maketh it a Church doth thereby without any more causality make it one Church This is as if he said We are agreed what maketh a Man an House a City a Book c. but we agree not what maketh him One Man and so of the rest Nothing but that which maketh him a Man and causeth the existing Essence Matter and Form united constitutively And efficiently all that which causeth Matter and its Disposition which Aristotle calls Privationâ— and Form and their Union But Reader it 's so hard to understand such a Speaker that we must â—ift every doubtful word lest he come again and say we wilfully mistake him Who knows but the Doctor hath a Câ—tâ—urnus in the word but and the question be What maketh this the only Church or that God hath no other but one As if the question were What made Adam at first the only man in the World or the Israelites the only peculiar Nation I answer Nothing in Adam nothing in Israel and so nothing in the Church can be the cause of Nothing No Man no Nation no Church speak Nothing Not to make another is nothing but the words are a meer Negation And Nothing hath no Cause What is the Cause that there is not another Sun Why Nothing hath no Cause But if we must give any other Answer it must be only by calling the Negation of a Cause by the Name of a Cause and saying that the Cause why there is but one Sun that we know of and one Church Universal is because God made no more § 19. The Doctor proceeds Nor does his similitude help him out which is so admirable in its Philosophy and
Application that I cannot let it pass His words are these As in the constitution of man 1. The rational soul is the real form which is principium motus The organized body is the constitutive matter That there be Heart Liver Stomack is but the bodies organization That these parts be duly placed and united is forma corporis non hominis and make the body but materia disposita 3. The union of soul and body is that nexus like the copula in a proposition which may be called the relative form or that which maketh the soul become forma in actu Reader Dost thou know as a Philosopher what a man is and dost thou doubt of ever a word of this If this Doctor be ignorant of it had he not been a Doctor and overgrown Humility and Learning I might have expected either thanks or silence from him But what saith the Man to it Had this Philosophy been known in St. Paul's days I should not much have wondered that he warns men against vain Philosophy was not Aristotle known in Paul 's days Aures erigite The Confutation will come anon I shall avoid disputing with Mr. B. as much as I can too late Sir and therefore will not quarrel with him for saying The Soul is Principium motus to the Body though it may be some Cartesians will not like it Hitherto we are quiet The Doctor is so modest that he will not deny that Fâ—rma is Principium Motus And it is but a May be whether a Cartesian will I have met lately with University-men that cry'd up Cartesius as if they had been quite above Aristotle and Plato and when I tryed them I found that they knew not what Aristotle or Plato said nor what Cartesius neither Nor saith he for affirming that the Union of Soul and Body is but like the Copula in a proposition which is but a spick and spang nâ—w Notion Ans. The man is pugnacious enough but somewhat restrains him Is Novelty here the fault More than this was Nâ—w to him within these twenty years and much is yet The terms of a Proposition are no Propositon till the Copula make them one by making the Predication And a Soul and a Body are no Man but as United which maketh the Soul to be Forma in actu Hath the man confuted this ' But saith he I shall only consider how he applies this to the Church Ans. How Sir do you accuse the Philosophy and now will you only question the application of it Christ it seems thâ—n is the Soul and Christians the Body though in Scripture he is represented as the Head of the Body and the Divine Spirit as the Soul which enlivens and animateth it And if Christ be not the Head of the Body which I think the Soul was never affirmed yet the Church must be without a Head or have another Head than Christ which I suppose is the reason why he talks so much of a Constitutive Regent Head of the Church Ans. It 's easie to suppose that the cause of these Words was a want of somewhat both in your Head and Heart that should have been there 1. Is this any Confutation of my Philosophy Could not a Quaker have talkt against it at as reasonable Rates as these 2. Do you not think that every understanding Reader doth know that both the term Head and Soul here are Metaphors as spoken of Christ Both of them signifie the form of the Society because the Head is the seat of the Soul in its Rational Regent Acts the King is called the Head of his Kingdom that is He is forma Regni for the Politick forms of Society is their forms of Government And so as the Church is a Politick Society Christ is the form of it But it is nobler than all meer humane Policies and his Headship is Essentiated by the three parts of his Office in One as he is Prophet Priest and King and as the principle of Knowledge Love and Practice and his Church is together Dominion Kingdom and a Society of Friendship or Family And the Head which is the seat of the Soul as operative by Intellection Sense and Motion most aptly representeth all this in Christ. But while the Head-part of the Body is this Seat the Soul is in it the operator And Christ as Man is part of the Church in and by whom his Divine nature performeth the operations And as the Soul is the form of the Man Christ is the form of his Church quae dat esse nomen And that the Holy Ghost illuminateth and quickneth and comforteth is so far from being against this that it is the chief proof of it For the Spirit proceedeth from the Father and the Son and is the Spirit of Christ sent by him and what he doth herein Christ doth by him Opera trinitatis ad extra sunt in-divisa Who would have thought that a Christian durst deny Christ to be forma Ecclesiae as the Soul is of a Man and the King of a Kingdom Doth the Man give you the least proof but his vain word that Christ cannot be both as a Head and a Soul that is forma informans to his Church or that Christ is not the Soul because the Holy Ghost is But I think neither is called by the name of a Soul in the Scriptures But I pray you tell us what these Texts import Rom. 8.10 If Christ be in you the spirit is life John 17.23 I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one 5.26 He hath given the Son to have life in himself 21. He quickeneth whom he will 6.51 57. I am the living bread he that eateth me shall live by me 1 Cor. 6.15 Your bodies are the members of Christ. 17. He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit 8.6 Our Lord Iesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him 12. As the body is One and hath many members and all the members of that One body being many are one body so also is Christ. 27. Ye are the body of Christ. 2 Cor. 3.17 The Lord is that Spirit 18. We are changed into the same Image from glory to glory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 John 1.4 In him was Life and the Life was the Light of men 2 Cor. 13.5 Iesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates Gal. 2.20 Not I but Christ liveth in me Gal. 3.19 Till Christ be formed in you Eph. 1.22 23. Head over all things to his Church which is his body the fulness of him that filleth all in all Eph. 3.15 17. Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith 4.15 16. May grow up into him in all things who is the Head Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth maketh increase of the body Eph. 5.30 We are the members of his body of his flesh and of his bones
Col. 1.18 19. He is the head of the body the Church In him all fullness dwells 2.3 In whom are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledg 9. In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily 17.19 The body is of Christ the head from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministred knit together increaseth with the increase of God 3.3 4. Your Life is hid with Christ in God when Christ our Life shall appear 11. Christ is all and in all 1 John 1.2 The Life was manifested and we have seen it 4.9 We live through him 5.11 12. This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this Life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath Life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life We are in him that is true in his Son Iesus Christ. These and many other signifie that Christ is fitly likened both to a Head and to a Soul to his Church and is not a dead Head but a living and that the word Head includeth the Soul operating in the Head for the Sense Reason and Guidance and increase of the body And that he doth operate by the Holy Ghost who is one God with the Father and Himself confirmeth it Even as Christ is said to be quickned by the Spirit and by the Spirit to offer himself to God and to justifie us c. which is far from proving that he did it not himself Chrysostome and Basil and Ambrose need not to have been at so great care to prove that it is Christ himself that is called The Spirit and the Lord the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.17 18. against the Arians It will prove him God that as he the word in making the World moved on the Waters by the Spirit which is one with him so he doth by his Spirit which is one with his own Godhead sanctifie Souls I hope you are not against the Filioque Briefly He that giveth to his Church and every true Member of it Spiritual Life Light and Love illumination Sanctification Strength increase and Consolation as appointed by the Father to do all this by himself and by his Spirit is the form Essentiating the Church as much and more than the Soul is to the Man But such is Christ Ergo If I were of their mind that anathematized the Nestorians Eutychians Monothelites as damn'd Hereticks for their unskilful words I should much more Hereticate a Doctor in our Age that will say That if Christ be the Head of the Church he cannot be to it as a Soul a forma informans denominans But I am not of that mind 3. But when this Doctor added If Christ be not the Head of the Body the Church must be without a Head or have some other Head than Christ which I suppose is the Reason why he talks so much of a constitutive Regent Head of the Church Reader Can you tell what he means by which is the Reason Which of the two meaneth he that I suppose the Church without a Head When I so oft and largely prove Christ to be the Head Or is it that I hold some other Head When my Book is to disprove it Which ever it be I do not think refusing such a Pastor as makes no more of the Ninth Commandment is a damning Schism The Sin of Church tyranny goes not alone § 20. P. 45 He proceeds But the organized Body is the constitutive matter of the man though other Philosophers used to call the Body a constitutive part but to let that pass Ans. You had not the Wit to let it pass Durst I have accused you of what you bewray and accuse your self Reader Is not the Matter a Part And is not the Form a Part of the man And doth that man speak plainer that barely calleth either of them a Part and tells you not which Part it is Matter or Form If one of his Pupils should say Sir you should not call the Soul the Form but a Part nor the Body the Matter but a Part what would the Boys say to him § 21. He goes on Thus an Organical Church is the constitutive Matter Of what Of Christ or of his Church or of some third compoundâ—d Ans. 1. Did I say An Organical Church or an Organical Body When Aristotle saith the soul is entelechia corporis physici organici doth he say Hominis physici Organici But you are an enemy to vain Philosophy and distinction 2. What if I had said an Organical Church as I sometimes do an Organized who knows not that ex penuria nominum the words Church Kingdom City Family School c. are ordinarily used equivocally sometimes properly for the whole Church Kingdom City c. as a Governed Society including Matter and form united And sometimes improperly for the Material part alone the Kingdom as distinguisht from the King the Church as distinct from Christ and from the Bishops and so of all the rest And when I so oft told you that the Organical Body of Christians is the Matter of the Church and Christ the foâ—m as far as these terms fit Bodies Politick could you not find in such words Of what it is the Matter of the Church of Christ. § 22. He adds But that these parts be duly placed and united is forma Corporis non Hominis which what it means I cannot tell unless that a man would be a man though the several parts of his Body did not stand in their right places nor were united to one another so they were all united to the Soul Ans. Do you not understand what it means What if I had so accused you Whether it be long of your Tutor or You I know not But 1. If you know not the difference between forma Corporis and forma Hominis some body is too blame Forma dat esse nomen The Soul giveth Being and Name to a Man He is no Man without it Do you think it gives Being and Name to the Body What if Lazarus his Body in the Grave were without its Soul is it not Corpus a Body What if such a Body as Mâ—ns had only the Soul of a Brute were it no Body What if Drâ—â—elius made his Engines move constantly by the Sun or Fire Is it not an Engine materially organized before the Sun or Fire move it Hath not a Wind â—â—ll or Water mill its mechanical form which is but the Organization oâ— dâ—e matter when Wind or Water move it not But to what purpose is it to talk to one that tells us he cannot understand it 2. But the addition is shameful misunderstanding Doth he that saith Organization is forma Corporis say that one may be a mâ—n without it This is below puerility Did I not maintain that as Aristotle haâ—h his three principles Matter Privation and Form and by Privation meaneth the Dispositio receptiva of the matter so Politick Bodies by similitude to natural have And that Organization is
that Dispositio receptiva sine qua Materia non recipit formam And now this famous Doctor cannot understand me when I assert it's Necessity to humanity unless I mean that one may be a man without it I would not exagitate this ignorance were it not in a Man that is damning and encouraging the silencing and ruining of so many Servants of Christ for their supposed Ignorance of the Lawfulness of all their Oaths Promises and Impositions But Reader my Heart grieveth to think that so great a number should be caried by such men as this to the same Love-killing opinions and practices I 'le put a case to you A Leveller that would have got down the Universities undertook that his Parrot should Learn Philosophy as well as Scholars and should dispute with any of them all He taught the Parrot only two words before Noon every day It 's true Sir and I understand you and to say two more every day afternoon viz. You lie Sir and away you Rogue When he had learnt them perfectly he inviteth a Tutor to read Philosophy to his Parrot He reads in the morning a Lecture of the Principles of Man and the Parrot oft saith I understand you and I'ts true Sir The Hearers admiring it are invited to dispute with the Parrot in the Afternoon Multitudes come and the Respondent maintained that Man hath a Reasonable Soul and next that Parrots have none such The Parrot oft answered You lie Sir and at last Away you Rogue If the Company gave the Parrot the better and concluded for Brutes against Humanity did they more deserve pity or indignation Once more God made Adam's Body before he breathed into it the Breath of Life If this Body had not its form it was not a Body nor a humane Body without the proper form of such That which hath no form is no being If the form of that Body was forma Hominis then Adam's Body was a Man without his Soul And then the Soul is not forma hominis But saith the Doctor I know not what it meaneth unless it be that Adam may be a man without the Corporeal form or Organization But lest the Doctor when he understands me should think that I have hereby served his Notion of Communion I must add that it is not either the placing or the being of all the parts of a humane Body that is this formâ—l Organization but only of the Essential parts It may be a humane Body without a Finger or Hand or Foot or Arm or Leg and what great diversity of parts are found within men and diversity of place and shape you may see in Skenkius his Observation as well as in Paraeus Hildanus Hollerius and multitudes more that afforded him his instances But without a Heart a Brain a Stomach a Liver Lungs c. it cannot be a humane Body organized And without a Gospel Ministry to guide the Flocks it is not a compleat organized Body of Christ though in fieri it was an Embrio before But I must again warn the Reader not to argue too far from Similitudes In a natural Body God hath fixed all the parts by a constant Law of generation except in Monsters But in political Bodies the difference is much Civil politicks quoad formas specificas are humane Creatures and men may alter them The Church is a Divine politie God hath fixed its essentials But he hath left many of its Accidents to the choice of Man who may alter them as Edification requireth And again I say that Catholick Union in the Essentials only is necessary to the Being of the Church and in the Integrals to its Integrity and in the needful common Accidents to its Comeliness and in other Accidents its unnecessary and impossible God makes the Man but the Tailor makes his Cloathes and the Country and Usage and Parents may diversifie Colour and Complexions Metropolitans and Patriarchs and Diocesian Churches as containing multitudes of Churches without Bishops and their Chancellors Officials Commissaries Arch-Deacons c. are humane Creatures as the Episcopal Protestants usually confess And Liturgies are various as Languages and Ceremonies are like our Periwigs Some think it lawful to wear Womens Hair and some think it unlawful though the fashion But I remember none yet that have taken all for Rebels or Out-laws that wear not Periwigs or are not of the same Habit Language or Complexion nor any that for these send men to Prison nor that think it a wise way to unity § 23. p. 46. He comes after with an If I mean to conjecture what I mean and think it fits his present case well why then doth he quarrel with it But what is his case Then the Church cannot be united to Christ in one Body without union with it self and the unity of the Catholick Church cannot consist meerly in the Union of all particular Churches in and to Christ without any Union among themselves Ans. Who did he ever Read or hear say that the Churches have no Union or no other than their Union in Christ among themselves He may see before § 9. I named ten points of their Union On Condition that he will not take the Cloathes or the Periwig or the House or the Horse or Coach no nor his Wealth or Office for the man I 'le once more tell him for the Readers sake and not his wherein the Unity of the Church consisteth and also in what all have Communion Politick Bodies are not like Natural where all the Members must have a continuity of contract Men that touch not and see not one another may be Members of one Kingdom Houses that touch not one another may make one City 1. The Church is considered in its meer Essence 2. It s Organized compleat state needful to its Edification 3. In its gradual growth or perfection 4. In its mutable accidents I. Christ and Christians United are all that is Essential to it as a Church II. Christ and Christians Sub-Churches or Societies of Pastors and Flocks are all that is necessary to make it an Organized Church compleated in the parts necessary to its Edification These Pastors at first were extraordinary Apostles and Prophets for the first settling of universal Laws and order And after Ordinary Pastors to Teach and Guide the Flocks III. This Body hath integral parts of various degrees differing in Knowledge Orthodoxness Piety Peace Power of Preaching and Purity and order of Worship and Government Some in it Preach Christ not sincerely but in strife and contention to add affliction to sincere suffering Preachers and some as Diotrephes receive not the Brethren but cast them out of the Church and forbid others to receive them and judge or despise each other for things that God would have left free and receive not those that Christ receiveth IV. All of them differ in multitudes of accidents They are not bound to agree in the same Forms Liturgies or unnecessary Circumstances Nor in humane additional Modes called forms of Government
Communion of all Forreign Pastors the validity of whose right to their places we have not just notice of our Task would be impossible or our Communion narrow And if forreign Bishops will become so pragmatical as to make themselves Judges of other Kingdoms which party of Competitors are the truly called Pastors when they cannot try them or will take the words of one party against the other because they are uppermost it is just to disregard their Judgment tho they do it on pretence of Communion XII If men will turn a voluntary consultation for concord into the Nature of a Law tho they call it but Communion the Church should not own their Usurpation As the Princes of Europe are bound to do the best they can to promote by their concord the interest of Christ and may well hold Diets or Meetings for that end yet no man calls that Diet a Kingdom nor hath the Major Vote a power to bind the Minor to consent when the reason of the thing doth not bind them So is it in the concord of forreign Churches All are bound to agree in what Christ commandeth But in circumstantial determinations no man is bound further than the End and Reason of the thing requireth Communion here is not Subjection XIII There is an Excommunication which is a governing act This no Church or Bishop can use over others And there is a meer renunciation of Communion which equals may use XIV If any Bishops or Councils Usurpers or not excommunicate men unjustly or forbid them Communion unless they will sin such prohibited men must obey Christ and not forbear Church-Worship and Communion where they can have it specially if they are many Schismatical imposing Church tearers must not be encouraged by sinful obedience to them Whomever they call Schismaticks God will judg them as Schismaticks themselves and their revilings and persecutions are self-condemnation I doubt I weary the Reader with oft repeating the same thing to make them plain against perverters § 24. Let us follow him further p. 47. he saith But how to apply the Copula in a Proposition either to the union of Soul or Body or of Christ and his Church I cannot tell and shall never be able to learn till I meet with some new Baxterian Logick as well as Grammar and Metaphysicks Ans. And yet you will think your self wise enough to stir up men against us for our ignorance while you are raging confident Are you resolved to read no Logick that 's already written One would have thought it should have pleased one that pleads for Unity As it is no Proposition but made so by the Copula uniting the terms as Subject and Predicate and the Union maketh one the Predicate so it is no Man and no Church by the bare existence of Soul and Body or of Christ and Believers without the uniting of both together that so the Soul may become in actu the forma hominis and Christ the forma Ecclesiae Homo Animal rationale are no Proposition without a Uniting est Is not this plain § 25. P. 47 48. Granting that there is no Universal Government but Christ he 's again at it that there is somewhat more than Organization and all the Essentials of Christianity and Union with Christ to make the Church One and thereupon feigneth me to say That which maketh this Body to become a Church is no union among themselves and leaveth out the rest of the Sentence but their common union with Christ As if their common Union with Christ were not an Union among themselves If I have not made this plain enough That 1. the Church hath the Unity of the parts to make it a capable Body or Matter 2. That it hath a consequent Union and Communion after it is a Church 3. But that it is only the Union of adapted Matter and Form that makes it essentially the Church of Christ in the proper political sence then I despair of making it intelligible that forma dat esse nomen And if that which maketh it the Church do not thereby make it hoc unum then eus unum non convertuntur and unum must have a distinct cause from eus § 26. He adds I should rather think that the Unity of several Churches makes them one Church and does not only prepare and dispose them to be one Ans. Their Unity in Christ doth make them one formally And this is the informing Unity among themselves But all other Unity is but preparatory or consequential to the formal unity I told you out of Dr. Barrow and may see in Rod. Goclenius Martinius and many more beside Metaphysicks in what abundance of loose sences things may be called One We deny no such Unity no not in an heap of Sand. But of formal political Unity why would you never tell us what it is but Union with one King that makes many Cities one Kingdom Do you rather think they are One Kingdom by any other Union among themselves Yes if you take Kingdom materially and equivocasly but not else Dare you say That they are the Church of Christ without their Union with him as the Form Or dare you say That all Christians united to Christ as their Head and Form are not eo nomine one Polity or Church And what 's the reason that all this while you will not name that thing else that makes the Church one Do it if you can § 27. P. 49. Falsly saying that I have not told him what Union of the Churches among themselves is necessary he feigns an Union in Christ the Center consistent with as great distance as the two Poles Ans. What base thoughts hath this man of Christianity Is it a contemptible Union to have all one Faith one Hope one Baptismal Covenant and so one God one Lord one Spirit and one body of such and all the Twelve parts of Union and Communion before named 2. Were it not worth the labour for this man to tell us what the more near and excellent Union is which he hath a mind to set up Paul saith I tell you of a more excellent way when he speaks of the Union of Love even Love to God and our Saviour first and to all his Members as united in him Out of all this man's books I cannot find what his nearer Union is unless it be to unite in such as he that is in obedience to their Wills and so Subjection to them be this high Communion He saith over and over the general word Catholick Communion but what he placeth it in let him find that can § 28. He saith This is a pretty easie way of determining Controversies to out-face all the authority of Scripture and Antiquity by a dogmatical assertion without offering the least Reason or shadow of Reason to confirm it Ans. Reader find one word of Scripture or true Antiquity that I contradict or that ever he shewed that I contradict and judg who giveth Reason and take not his word or
mine § 29. Saith he I had at large proved the necessity of one Catholick Communion to make one Catholick Church and instead of answering the proef he asserts the contrary upon his own naked authority and that must pass for confutation Ans. Could a man have spoken more untruly that had studied it 1. While he tells us that by Communion he means Union did I ever deny it No nor ever met with a Christian that denied it 2. Yea I said more than he That besides Union some Communion in transient acts is necessary which he placeth not his Communion in Is not this an hardened Disputer Who can doubt but Union and Communion is necessary to one Church But the doubt is wherein it doth consist whether in Essentials Integrals or Accidents and what these be We are far more for Catholick Union and Communion than you We are for Communion with all true Christians even those that you represent odious and excommunicate and ruin and you are for Communion with a Sect that will honour you and obey your will We know that to have one God and Christ and Holy Spirit one Faith and Hope of Heaven one Baptism and a true Love to one another and to be all under one Law and Covenant of Christ and in our several Assemblies to read the same Scripture use the same Sacraments and the same Rule of Prayer the Lord's Prayer and Praise this is a most excellent Catholick Communion We believe that true Christian Unity is the Unity of the Spirit that is mental in Faith Hope and Love but that it must be held exercised and preserved in the bond of peace Eph. 4 3. And therefore if any Christian take it for a sin to joyn with us in the circumstances of Worship if we can we 'l alter them to satisfie them If we cannot we will gladly allow them to worship God together in their own circumstances and there we will love and pray for one another We will not cut men off from Christ or the Catholick Church and damn them for not swearing or saying that they will obey us and that there is nothing sinful in any of our Government Liturgies Forms or Ceremonies Our Union is in greater matters common to all Christians and not in wearing the same fashions and reading the same forms and obeying the usurpers of the power of the Keys that are Lay-men c. And as for having obligation and right to Communion with all other Churches which is all that I can gather he placeth it in save obeying the same Bishops and Canons we make no doubt of such right to be used in due order And therefore we condemn all Church Tyrants that deny men their right And we do not believe that our right is in the power of Prelates to take from us unless we forfeit it and cast it away And we grant obligation to due Communion as well as right and therefore will be no such Separatists as you are that refuse Communion with Dissenters in their Churches yea condemn all that do but call them Churches And seeing no man is obliged to sin we disown their crime that will not let men preach nor communicate unless they will make a solemn Covenant to sin The Catholick Communion that he seems to aim at is to receive and reject the same persons in every Church that are received in or rejected by any one We are for as much of this as is needful to the purity and peace of the Church But we do not believe that all the Christian World is bound to take all the godly persons for excommunicate who shall be excommunicated here according to the 5 th 6 th 7 th 8 th c. Canons of the Church of England nor to silence all Ministers that you silence When we were newly silenced 1662. some great men were imployed to affirm That if we would go and preach to the Americans it was an excellent work and they would bear our charges I told them that our lives would be spent e're we could learn their Languages as fit to preach to them But it seems if we had gone Catholick Communion would have silenced us there too and have obliged the Americans if we converted them to reject us What if Bishops excommunicate men for not paying the Civilians their Fees or for not repenting of a truth or silence us for not assenting and consenting to all in their book must all the World reject us in conformity to them It 's an heinous crime for any one man to draw a Nation to sin with him but much more to engage all the Christian World to sin with him yea and that on pretence of Catholick Communion Christ saith by his Spirit in his Apostle Him that is weak in the faith receive and receive one another as Christ received us If Bishops silence and excommunicate even them that ate strong in the Faith must all the World disobey Christ to obey them If you grant that clave errante they bind not must we take their bare words that claves non errant or must we become Tryers and Judges of all the World that they will judg And how shall all Churches receive the same that some receive when you know not whom you receive your selves Are all the score thousands that are in some of your great Parishes in your Church Must all the World take all the Sadduces Hobbists Infidels and Damners that dwell in your Parishes into their Communion No nor all that come to the Altar when the Priest knows not who they be and never saw them before Do you use to write Testimonial Letters for every one of your Communicants when he travelleth into other Parishes or Diocesses Any man save a Nonconformist that had rather take the Sacrament than lie in Goal is admitted unless some rare Minister stop a notorious scandalous man till the Court absolve him If you make a Prison of your Church and say to all men Chuse this or Newgate c. must all the World receive such because they chuse the Church-Prison rather than the other And if we cannot possibly know which of our Neighbours be of your Church and which not in the same Parish e. g. Martins Giles c. how shall we know who hath right to Communion all the World over You must needs cast us on believing the Bishops words when as 1. They use not to give the World such notice 2. If they did we know not forreign Bishops credibility in France Spain Italy Poland Germany c. they most separate from one another § 30. P. 50. He proceeds He takes that for granted which I can never grant him That the Churches which are divided from one another by separate and opposite Communions may yet be all united to Christ for Christ hath but one Body one Spouse one Flock one Church and if we be not Members of this one Church as no Schismâ—ticks are we are not united to Christ Ans. 1. The Lord have mercy then
on this miserable Priest and save him from his heinous Schism that out of his own month he may not be condemned as no Member of Christ. 2. Reader while the Piper Harper or Trumpeter giveth no distinction in the sound 1 Cor. 7.7 8. but thinks that crying Communion Communion should charm men into the same Disease of Confusion and Schism which he is sick of If thou be awake I invite thee still but to use thy Reason in these three distinctions 1. Between Subjection and Communion 2. Between local Separation and mental 3. Between mental Separation in and from meer circumstances accidents or integrals and in and from essentials necessary to Christianity and Christian Communion And then if thou canst not Answer this Doctor and escape Schism which he tempts thee to without any further Confutation I dispair of curing thee 1. None are of Christ's Church that separate from any thing Essential to it 2. All Congregations are locally divided and separated frome one another 3. All Churches and Persons that differ in a Translation a Form a Word a Ceremony in their Communion by opposite Opinions or Practises are so far mentally opposite in their Communion E. g. They that were for observing Meals and Daies Rom. 14. and they that were not Peter and Barnabas that separated from the Gentile Christians while the Jews were there and Paul that reproved them for it Yea those that for small Mental difference separate locally A Prelatist that scruples taking one Parish Priest or Bishop for his Pastor suppossing him insufficient or a false Teacher separateth by removing his dwelling to another Diocess or Parish These Schismaticks have not yet dared to say that this man separateth from Christ. The Convocation caused Godfrey Goodman to be imprisoned 1640 His Diocess and the next were Separate in their Separate Heads Victor Excomunicated the Asian Churches Here were opposite Churches and Communion the Greeks and Romans the Abassine Syrian Assyrian Armenian Georgian c. Churches censure and Separate from others in their Communions to this day so do some Lutherans from other Protestants hold Communions opposite in point of Consubstantiation and Images So do such as Mr. Dodwell condemn all Communion that hath not uninterrupted Episcopal Succession You write against him and Archbishop Bramhall so far are your Communions opposite Doctor Gunning in the time of Usurpation was against the Parish-Communion then practised and separated from it Archbishop Usher Bishop Browning and multitudes of Episcopal men did not Did all these separate from Christ. Was Cyprian and all the African and Numidian Bishops separate from Christ or the Pope in Augustin's daies when there was so long opposition between three Popes and Aurelius Augustine and the rest of the Africans which party was unchristened Was it Miracle-working St. Martin that was unchristened or the Synods of Bishops whose Communion he renounced to the Death Epiphanius giveth so high a character of Audius that wise men think his Separation from the Bishops that abhorred his reproof unchristened him not Socrates and Sâ—zomen tells us of great diversity and opposition in the Communions of many Countries about Easter and other things that yet unchristened them not When the Scots and Britains would not communicate with Gregories Austin nor eat in the same House with the Romans which party was cut off from Christ Was it Chrysostomes Ioannites or the Council that deposed him and the Cyrillians that were cut off from Christ Was it the Party of Meletius Paulinus or Flavian at Antioch that were not united to Christ Not only Socrates and Sozomen but Atticus and Procluus and other men freer from Schism and Ignorance than our Dr. thought the Novatians were united to Christ. Was Lucifer Calaritanus cut off from Christ for gathering a Church separate from the Bishops that he thought too hastily received the returning Arians Was it Zachary and Boniface that were cut off from Christ or the Two Presbyters that they excommunicated for holding Antipodes c Was it the Church of Canstantinople or of Rome that was unchurch't when Vigilius and Menna and other Patriarchs excommunicated one another If David Derodon have proved that Nestorius spake Orthodoxly and Cirilas was an Eutichian or if I have undeniably proved that they meant the same thing or Iob Ludolphus that the Eutychians were sound in the faith which of the parties that these 1300. years have condemned each other are cut off from Christ When the Italians set up a Patriarch at Aquileia an hundred years against Rome which side was unchurched When the Pope Alexander 3. Innocent 4. c. interdicted whole Kingdoms France England c. and part of the Churches obeyed the Pope and part the King and when in the Wars with Frederick Henr. 4 th and 5 th Oâ—hâ— c. part of the Bishops were for the Emperor and condemned the rest and the other part condemned them as Henrician Hereticks which side was unchurched When all the Truths that Philastrius calls Heresies in palpable ignorance had parties condemned for holding them as Hereticks was it the feigned Hereticks or the condemners that were unchurched But if this man's words be true and Priests can so easily damn men it 's time to think what those men do that have made such damning Canons as ours before-mentioned and that damn all that differ and obey them not in every word and ceremony which they will command on those damning terms And were this true whether it were not wisdom for all men to pack up and leave the Land to the Priests themselves and those that are ductile and sequacious enough to follow them to the last For my part I believe not that he that goeth from one Church to another as separating from a pair of Organs or Cathedral singing or Copes or from a sorry Priest for a better or from an undisciplined Church to one that useth true Discipline not judging the Church that he goeth from worse than it is doth any thing inconsistent with his Christianity nor is separated from Christ What the seed of Cain do that hate and persecute their brethren and whether they separate from Christ when they fight against Love I leave to others â— 31. Page 64 65. But the man hard put to it hath a new notable subterfuge He that hath said all this for One Church hath found Two Universal Visible Churches in the World besides the Invisible One câ—nsists of all those Christians and Churches who profess the true Faith of Christ observe his Laws and Institutions and live in Communion and Fellowship with each other This he owns Ans. So do we with these Suppositions 1. That no man observeth all Christ's Laws and Institutions without sin but true Christians profess and practice the observation of them sincerely so far as they know them 2. Those that you damn and persecute profess to do this to the best of their understanding and say it is for doing it that you revile and ruin them 3. We suppose that when Christ's
Laws and Man's interfere Christ's are to be obeyed against Man's 4. And we take not the Church of England to be cut off from Christ's Church if it should be proved that they observe not all the Laws and Institutions of Christ In this you preach Separation too blindly There are some Laws and Institutions of so low a Nature that Error and Offence against them cuts not Men off from the Church But what is his other Notion of a Christian Church Why It 's that which contains the Conventicles of Hereticks and Schismaticks which are a middle thing between the true Catholick Church and the World of Infidels as Rebels in a Kingdom Ans. This is the effect of Confusion When such men are got into a Labyrinth they go the further the worse The Truth of the case is this The Church is usually likened to a Corn Field that hath 1. Corn 2. the Straw and Chaff that feeds and covers it 3. Stricken Ears in whole or in part 4. Weeds All is but one Corn Field so denominated from the Corn But the Straw and unsound Ears are Integral Parts and Accidenâ—s But the Weeds are no part at all but noxious Adjuncts So 1. True Believers and Heart-Covenanters are the Christians in famosiore propriâ significatione analogati to whom the denomination of the Church is ordinarily given in the New-Testament 2. Verbal profession and covenanting is common to the sound and unsound as the Straw and Chaff to the Grain and Ears It constituteth the Church as visible matter as it is supposed to serve and contain the Grain 3. The Ears totally and visibly smitten are but equivocally parts that is the persons whose profession or notorious practice containeth a renunciation of their Baptismal Covenant or Christianity are but equivocally called Christians and Church-Members 4. Those that deny some Article of Faith consequentially nororiously and ignorantly thinking their Opinion consistent with all the Essentials which they practically profess are not thereby cut off from the Church but they having made their Title litigious may be suspended from some Communion till it be tryed 5. All good Christians are sinners and have errors and if any judg them Hereticks and Schismaticks for such they are still in the Church of Christ. The word Heretick and Schismatick are now become what the speaker please He is a true Heretick that separateth from something essential to Faith Love or Obedience to Christ and from the Church for that or thereby Persecutors separate from Christian Love and Communion So that here is but one Catholick Church and some called by men Hereticks and Schismaticks are true Members but all that notoriously renounce any Essentials are no Members of it Rebels is a word that may signifie such as cast off the Soveraign By which renouncing subjection they renounce being Members of the Kingdom and are as an Army of invading Enemies who are in the Land but not of the Kingdom But if any will call those Rebels that do but break a penal local Law or that are disobedient to a Constable a Justice or a Master this proveth them not to be no part of the Kingdom But he numbreth the excommunicate with those that are cut off from Christ. Ans. Yes upon these Suppositions following 1. That they be excommunicate not only for sin but for such sin by which they first cut off themselves from Christ the Excommunicator only declaring it by his Sentence else Excommunicators will be worse than Devils if they damn men or cut them off from Christ who do not first cut off and damn themselves 2. That it be not only proved an heinous sin in it self but that they are proved after due instruction and patient warning to be so impenitent in it by wilful ignorance or obstinacy against Knowledg as will not stand with sincere Faith and Obedience to Christ. 3. That it 's no cutting off a man's self from Christ to say that there is somewhat sinful in your Church Government Liturgy or Ceremonies or to be afraid to assent and consent to all imposed or to take an Oath never to endeavour any reforming-alteration of Church Government nor will it prove a renouncing Christ to separate from a Usurper or a false Teacher or run out of Dunstans Church as they did for fear it should fall on their heads If therefore any will cut men off from Christ for any such thing or for observing the 20 th Canon of the Council of Nice or for the fashion of his Cloke or for not paying the Court his Fees they either condemn themselves instead of others or do much worse than the Devil that can damn none such It 's Two to One but this Doctor that here damns the excommunicate without distinction will next say he meant well tho he said ill and that he supposed the Excommunication just The best is it 's no great matter what he meaneth while he is none of our Judg except as to himself and the seduced 1. And I add That we will suppose the Excommunicator to be no Usurper but a justly called Pastor and not a proud ignorant Obtruder nor a Stranger that cannot try the Cause nor is called to try it Much less a Lay-Civilian usurping the power of the Keys These men have so many things to say before they can accomplish their work as bespeâ—ks such Auditors whom darkness and interest hath made monstrously credulous As 1. We are yâ—ur lawful Pastâ—rs 2. The Patron 's had power to choose and the 〈…〉 us so whether you 〈…〉 3. No 〈◊〉 are your lawful 〈◊〉 buâ— we 4. We have power to câ—mmand things indifferent and if we câ—mmand a Suâ—â—lice or a pair of Oâ—gans or â—â—ruâ—ue you are cut off from Christ if you 〈◊〉 us or at least if we excommunicate you for it 5. If yâ—u think any of our Oaâ—hs or other Impâ—sitions to be sins that would damn you yet if you refuse them and we excommunicate yâ—u fâ—r it you are cut off from Christ and in a state of damnation 6. If one Chancellor or Priest cut you off all the Church on Earth must judg you accordingly Reader when so small a part of Christians in a thousand years have escaped Excommunication from one or other what have these men done in the World Is it any wonder if Kings and Kingdoms were subjected by Excommunication and to say St. Peter will be angry else frightned the Nations into obedience Did not Christ and Paul speak gently when they called such grievous Wolves in Sheeps cloathing devouring the Flocks § 32. Yet p. 69 70. his cause leads him to say that this Church which is wider than the Catholick taking in Rebels yea those Rebels themselves and Hereticks and Schismaticks May have the power of Orders or else I know what would follow and Officers rightly constituted Christian Sacraments and all the Essentials of a true Church except Christian Peace and Unity and Catholick Communinion Ans. Reader pretend not to understand him but answer him
dilemmatically either by Peace and Union you mean inclusive Union with Christ and the Unity of the Spirit one Faith one hope and Union of Christian Love and by Communion a Communion in things necessary to salvation or you do not If you do then this is the true Paraphrase of your words They may have all the Essentials of a true Church except all the Essentials for those they have not If you do not include these then this is the Paraphrase They may be true Believers and penitent and love God and Man sincerely and be Members of Christ and have his Spirit and one Baptism and one true hope of Heaven and the pardon of sin and yet be Rebels and damned for want of somewhat ese which I call Unity Peace and Catholick Communion I think you mean subjection to such as you in all your Canonical Impositions In short the plain truth of this Case I before opened viz. When disobedience to true Church-â—astors proveth tâ— be as Adultery and Murder sins signifying such Predominance of the Flesh and absence of Divine Faith and Love as is inconsistent with 〈◊〉 then it is damning as other grâ—ss and reigning sin is But else it â—uts not off from Christ and if the Prelates pretend to cut off such they are liker to cut off themselves § 33 His rare distinction he fullier openeth which is Between the Visible Church and the one true Catholick Visible Church The Visible Church comprehends all Societies of professed Christians Hereticks Idolaters or whatever they be Tâ—e one true Catholick Church 〈◊〉 not Ans. I have answered this before It 's well the distinction is not commonly observed as the Coyner saith for it would be a common abuse Hitherto we have known but one Universal Church considered as Mystical in Believers or Visible in Prosessors of the same and not another Faith Profest Idolaters or Hereticks that deny the Essential are no Members of it as Visible But this Doctor hath forged an One true Catholick Church less than the Visible and yet Visible Could he have spoken sence he would but have said The Universal Visible Church hath some Members that are sound orderly and peaceable and some that are erroneous disorderly and unruly even as it hath some holy and some Adulterers Thieves and Persecutors In a great house are some Vessels of Earth to dishonour § 34. I fear if I should survey but half the confused passages of this book I should tire the Reader as well as my self I will be briefer with the rest P. 94 95 c. He giveth us an allay against the tenor of his Excommunications and Damnations to shew that he is not so uncharitable as he seems to be and that his Canon that maketh so great a noise hath but Powder without Bullet I look he should say I misunderstand him and therefore I will not tell you his meaning but the sum of his words viz. p. 87. to shew us why Those that believe in Christ repent of their sins and lead an holy life in all godliness and honesty may yet be excluded from all the ordinary means of salvation He first blames them that in these days have thought Holiness so sufficient and would cheat his Reader by citing Austin as of that mind who hath no mention in the words which he cites of Faith Holiness Love to God or to his Saints or Service but only a Catalogue of such Virtues as Heathens or â—nfidels plead for viz. Chastity Continence not coveâ—â—us not serving Idols not contentious patient quiet emulating and envying none sober frugal But yet an Heretick who is without the Christian Faith and Love so far is he from including these in his Description But no doubt he will have some Readers that will swallow all such Hooks as these Then supposing men have no Love that communicate not on his terms nor love the Peace and Unity of the Church unless they joyn in such Principles as his that would destroy it he tells us truly that Heaven is only the Gift of Christ as merited by him and therefore can be had only on his terms and that is only in Communion with his Church and by his Sacraments Ans. And what Christ's Terms are he hath told us Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved John 3.16 Whoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life c. The Whole Gospel is a Charter of salvation to all that have true Faith Hope Love and Holiness And all such are in the Church of Christ. 2. And as ordinarily doth the Scripture tell us that the preaching of the Gospel is the means of faith and holiness by which God saveth them that believe and that by the hearing of faith preached the spirit is given Gal. 3.2 c. Rom. 10.14 17. John 5.24 Acts 18.8 Acts 10.44 The holy ghost fell on all them that heard the word before they were baptized even the miraculous gift of the Spirit Matth. 13.18 Mark 4.20 Luke 8.13 21. and 11.28 Christ himself preached but did not baptize He sent forth his Disciples to convert men by preaching Matth. 10.7 and 11.1 Mark 1.38 and 3.14 Luke 4.18 19 43. and 9.2 60. Acts 5.42 and 10.42 and 8.5 25 35 40. and 9.20 1 Tim. 3.16 1 Cor. 1.17 Paul saith he was not sent to baptize but to preach the Gospel John 15.3 Ye are clean through the word c. John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and life John 17. Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth 6.68 and 8.30 2 Cor. 5.19 20. 1 Tim. 5.17 and 1.2 John 4.2 It is able to save souls James 1.21 1 Pet. 2.2 John 8.31 Heb. 4.12 It is able to make us wise to salvation It is by the word of God that men are born again as an incorruptible seed 1 Pet. 1.23 It is that abiding in us that is our continued life 1 Iohn 2.14 There is no mention in Scripture of any one that was converted and made a Believer by Baptism or the Lord's Supper The Adult were all to repent and believe before they were baptized and God promised them forgiveness thereupon He never bid men baptize Infidels nor graceless men Baptism was but the publick solemnizing of the Covenant which they consented to before and the solemn investing them in that relation to which they were before entered And entring them by Baptism stated them in the Universal Church before ever they were setled under any particular Pastor in a particular Church as the case of the Eunuch Acts 8. shews But that which I call his Allay is that he copiously tells us that Heaven is a supernatural state of happiness and not the natural reward of an eartly creature p. 92 93. It is but an earthly happiness that Nature was made for and was promised to Adam in Paradise an immortal life on Earth An immortal life after death cannot be the natural Reward Innocent flesh is flesh Were it not for Heaven
Reedeeming Restauration and other such in Scripture intimate that Christ did restore Man to the state he fell from adding more mercy to it And therefore that his Soul was immortal and he in via and not in patria And I believe not what he adds of man's being not obliged to deny Sensuality were it not for Heaven 1. He thinks Adam was made but for Earth And yet God bound him Not to eat of that Fruit which his eye appetite and fancy led him to desire Doth he not here directly condemn God's Law and justifie Adam's Sin 2. Were there no Heaven for us man were bound to rule his Appetite and Sense by Reason And the bonum publicum and his own would oblige him by Reason to restrain Sensuality as to Women Wine Meat desire of our Neighbours Estate Anger that would kill others in revenge 3. And I think God doth not bind us now to take the forbearance of such comforts as further us in Holiness Thankfulness and other Duties to be any necessary way to Heaven § 36. Page 122 123. To prove his sort of Catholick Unity he is not content with Episcopatus Unus est but he asserteth That all the Bishops of the Church are but one Bishop invested with the same Power c. Ans. 1. Episcopacy may be said to be One as it is One in specie and for one remote End and Object as Justiceship in England may be called One But that all Bishops should be but one Bishop is strange Tho by impropriety of speech almost any thing may be said No doubt but the Name Bishop signifieth in common speech the Subject related Either he meaneth that the Subjects are one or the Relation While he abhorreth the distinguishing of the equivocal Unity we must take him to speak in sinsu famosiore usitato 1. They that have divers numerical constitutive parts of men matter and form are divers Bishops as Subjects of the Relation But so have e. g. the Bishop of Canterbury and York and London They have divers Souls and Bodies They that may depose and curse each other are not the same Bishop But so did Chrysostome and his Adversaries and hundreds more If they are One subjectively the Virtues and Vices of ones are anothers and the Creditor may take one man to Prison for anothers Debt 2. They cannot be One numerically in the Relation of Bishop For the Relation is Accidens quod sequitur subjectum The same numerical Accident cannot possibly be in two distinct Subjects For it perisheth if it cease to be in its Subject One man's Colour Virtue Learning c. cannot numerically be the Accident of another So that all Bishops being one Bishop is just like the rest of this man's Doctrine I believe one may be good and another bad one saved and another damned What can the man mean by it if he could speak his mind Sure nothing but that their Office is of the same species and they bound to use it in their several places as from one Christ under one Law of his with the greatest Love and Concord they can and for the common good of one Universal Church Can he mean more without gross Error And who denieth any of this as to the Episcopacy of Christ's institution § 37. They are bound to govern where it can be had by mutual advice and consent Ans. So far as the end requireth The common good So say the Independents And is that the Unity so much talkt of § 38. ' No Bishops are absolutely independent but are obliged to preserve the Unity of the Episcopacy Those Churches must be independent which have an independent Power and Government as all must have that have independent Governours or Bishops and independent Churches can never make one Body and one Catholick Communion because they are not Members of each other Ans. 1. No Two Churches on Earth of the same species Diocesan or Parochial c. are members of each other but all of the Universal or National of which they are parts no more than your fingers or eyes are members of each other 2. Reader pardon me that in the beginning I commended him as being for Diocesan Independency in Power These words make me again uncertain what he 's for Plain English would distinguish dependance of Subjects on Rulers in a Polity and dependance of Equals by Concord in a Community These are plain words He after saith that Diocesans have no proper Governors Ecclesiastick over them or to that sence But here he saith they are not independent in Power and Government Yet the man saith so little in any determinate sence that I know not whether by dependance in Government he mean a political dependance on superior Governors or a political Union of many persons to make one superior governing power like a Senate or a meer voluntary concord of many Governors that are Equals like that of many School-Masters or Princes whose Concord maketh them not One Polity but One Community The former sence some words of his do favour but elsewhere he so much denieth them that I hope it is but the last that he meaneth 3. But if this be his sence What independent whom he so much damneth doth not acknowledg a dependance in Community on all true Christians and in Polity on Christ Doth not every Christian confess that all true Churches and Christians depend on the Whole as Parts and on each other as Fellow-Members obliged to live on the same Christ in the same Love and Communion in Essentials and in as many Integrals of Religion as they can reach to I never met with the Christian that denied this Therefore what to make of this man's words I know not § 38. P. 126. he saith He who causelesly breaketh this Unity can be no Catholick Bishop Ans. Is it come to that Alas how few Catholick Bishops then do we hear of in the World Tho no good man breaks it in the Essentials who breaks it not in Degrees or Integrals They were guilty of Schism that said I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas Peter brake it in some degree Gal. 2. And much more those Phil. 1. that preacht Christ in strife to add to Paul's affliction How shall we know then what all his talk for Communion signifieth as to practice With what Bishops in the World must we hold Communion And how shall we know them If any prove that any English Bishop causelesly breaketh this Union in any degree must we separate from him I know no evasion for him here unless he will yet distinguish of Unumâ— Martinius saith Unus is 1. Indivisus 2. Sic indivisus ut etiam indivisibiâ—â—s 3. Sic indivisas ut divisibilis 4. Sic indivisus ut divisus seâ— distinctus ab aliis 5. Unicus solus 6. Unus cum aliquo seu idem aut numero aut genâ—re aut specie aut analogia item Essentia Persona Voluntate aut actu But this is Gibberish I suppose to the Doctor
thingt in their three Books that would not prove the Church of England no part of the Catholick Church If a Lay-man could prove it unlawful to trust other men with his Child in Baptismal Covenanting as far as the Church here doth or sinful to joyn in avoiding the Communion of all such gâ—dly men as the Canons or a Lay-Civilian may Excommunicate This will not prove the Church of England no part of the Catholick Church If any Church will deny men Communion unless they subscribe to some one small Untruth as the Liturgies false Rule to find out Easter-day or a mis-translation or the denial that Christ died for all c. this doth not unchurch them all But men have made so many snares by their numerous invented sinful forms of Communion that by such schsmatical Censures as this one scarce knows what Church on Earth is â—ot unchurched § 54. He saith Where there is 〈◊〉 bâ—â—ach of Communion no declared 〈…〉 act of communiâ—n between 〈…〉 be in communion with each 〈…〉 You may say of them what you will But all these Negatives speak no positive Act And is Communion nothing but Negations All this I may say of those that never heard of each others being 2. There may be an express disowning of each as the Romans did the Asians about Easter and the Africans about rebaptizing and the Britains disowned Augustine and as some disown a Pair of Organs or neglect of Discipline c. And yet both be parts of the Catholick Church § 55. P. 326. He is so Catholick in Doctrinals as to say that We may safely communicate with any Church how different soever our Opinion in other Matters may be when we agree in all the Fundamentals of Christian Faith and Essentials of Worship Answ. What could one wish more Is this the same Man May you not then admit those that so far agree with you Are all your humane Associations and Confedearcies and all the Laws for Church-Discipline and Government made by men that have no Legislative Power Essentials of Worship or Fundamental Doctrines of Faith Are all that your foresaid Canons Excommunicate Men for such Essentials If this much be enough in the Church notwithstanding all other Sins and Errors why not in those that you should receive But it seems by this that Matters of Divine Faith and Worship besides bare Essentials are small things to him in comparison of Bishops Rules and Canons § 56. Pag. 395. He saith To separate causelesly from any true and sound part of the Catholick Church cuts such Separatists off from the Church If they will justifie their Separation they must prove that what is Enjoyned is Sinful Answ. 1. Have you answered what they have said and said again towards a Proof Remember that you call them to it and justifie their Separation if they prove it 2. But your Conclusion is false and odious leaving it doubtful what part of the Christian World you damn not If I could prove that you separate causelesly from the Nonconformists doth that certainly cut you from all the Church I doubt there are too few Christians on earth who do not in some degree separate causelesly from others Grotius joyned with no Church locally in Worship long before he died Most of the Church in East West South and North is damned falsly by this Rule He that doth but causelesly separate pro tempore from a Preacher by Passion or Mistake as Mr. Martin aforesaid from Mr. Lapthâ—rne separate causelesly from a true and sound part of the Christian Church His words make me think so sadly of the Case of the Church that must be tempted and distracted by such men as puts me far from a sporting frame But as Dr. Twisse and some of the Gravest Writers sometime divert their Readers with a sad Story that hath somewhat in it ridiculous why may I not put him another such Case At Bridgenoth before 1639. One Parson Crosse a thorough Conformist Preacht a Sermon In which inveighing against Marriage he said If you marry a Widow She will be like a Banbury Cheese when all the Paring is cut off there 's little left So when all Portions and Legacies are paid â— Whoever Maid or Widow if you will hope for a Wife and virtuâ—us Woman you must be like a Man that will find out one Ele in a Barrel of Snakes It 's a hundred to one you miss her But if you light on her you have but a wet Snig by the Tail a slippery handful Now the Women were angry with the Preacher he was an Orthodox Licens'd Man They separate from him Quere Whether they separated from the Catholick Church Reader I am tired with following this Writer and Mr. Crosse's Sermon makes me think of his Book By that time all the wordy mistakes are pared off the good matter is like his pared Banbury Cheese And if you fish for them at a venture it 's great odds but you meet with some scurvy words or matter instead of them Or if you light of that which is better his Sence is so uncertain in undistinguisht words that you have but Mr. Crosse's wet Snig by the Tail But not to seem more incredulous and indifferent from him than I am I subscribe to his words to Mr. Humphrey pag. 226. Ignorance and Insensibility is as great a security to some Men against Shame as Impudence is to others And to his words to Mr. Lobb pag. 388. What a blessed thing is Ignorance which helps Men to confute Books without Fear or Wit And I do acknowledge That this â—r hath helpt me more sensibly to understand St. Paul 1 Tim. 3.6 Not a Novice lest being lifted up with Pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil FINIS UNNECESSARY SEPARATING disowned in the Reasons of the Authors Censured Practice § 1. WHEN I see 1. How many suffer for refusing Communion with the Parish Churches 2. And how many are offended with Me and such others for Communicating with them censuring Us as mistaking compliers with Sin The Cause and some good Peoples request invite me to answer these following Questions I. Whether Men should be compelled to Communicate with any Church by Corporal Penalties II. Whether they who consent to Communicate with some Church may chuse their own Pastor and Company or may by force be confined to their Parish Priest and Church III. For what Reasons I and such others Hear in and Communicate with the Parish Churches And whether so to do be a Sin or a Duty or a thing Indifferent § 2. I. To the first case I answer 1. It were happy if the Sword could compel Unbelievers to Believe but it cannot nor is a way which Nature or Scripture ever allowed Man to use for such an end 2. To force an Unbeliever to Lie by saying he Believeth is a Sin 3. An Infidel must not be Baptized till he profess with seeming Seriousness and Willingness that he Believeth in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and will Vow
and Devote himself to Him Therefore to force the unwilling to be Baptized is a Sacrilegious Prophanation of Baptism 4. To be Baptized is to be solemnly invested in a visible State of Regeneration Pardon Adoption and Right to Christ and Life Eternal by a Ministerial Delivery of such Right as in the Name of Christ. But no unwilling Person hath any Right to these unvaluable Gifts Therefore no unwilling Person should be forced to receive the said Investiture 5. Christ's Tryal and Description of the Willing is Whether they resolve to accept of his Grace forsaking all worldly interest that stands against it Luke 14.26 27 to the end Therefore to Baptize all that are forced to it by the Sword and had rather be Baptized and say they Believe than lose all they have and lie in Gaol is to Preach another Gospel in part 6. Persons Baptized in infancy have no right to Communion in the Lord's Supper till they profess their personal Faith and Consent to the Baptismal Covenant And the Unbaptized are not to be forced to Communicate The Lords Supper redelivering all the same great unvaluable Gifts to the Receivers which were delivered in Baptism the Unwillâ—ng are no more capable of one than the other And to force them to say they are Willing and to receive that which they have no right to is Sacrilegious prophaning Holy things 7. The ancient Churches for many hundred years were so far from forcing any to Baptism or Church-Communion or thinking that they should be forced that they admitted none that did not earnestly desire it And if the Baptized by Impenitency or Apostacy or â—long withdrawing from Communion did shew themselves again uncapable by unwillingness they Declaratively cast them out 8. And that the Excommunicate as such should be laid up in Prison and undone to force them again to be Willing to be Christians or to Communicate hath the same Reasons against it as against doing it at the first and to take them for Willing and Capable of Absolution and Salvation who had rather say they Repent and Consent than lye in Gaol is to pervert Christ's Gospel and Sacraments and confound the Church And the ancient Churches would have abhorred the motion of such a thing 9. But it is just and meet that Princes make a difference between Christian and Infidel Subjects and between those that live Willingly in Communion of the Church and those that refuse it And that a Christian Kingdom should give those Powers and Immunities to willing Christians which they give not to Infidels and the justly Excommunicate especially in matters relating to Government Legislative and Judiciary and especially about Reâ—igion and the Church And if any to obtain such Immunities or Powers do Hypocritically profess Christianity and consent themselves only are guilty of the Prophanation no wrong means was used and the Church is no searcher of the Heart 10. But Christianity being necessary to our Salvation and it being the Christian Magistrates Duty to do his best for the Salvation of all his Subjects and Knowledge being the means of Consent and Teaching and Learning the means of Knowledge it is the Duty of such Magistrates to provide sufficâ—ent Teachers for Number and Qualâ—ty for all the Subjects and to compel men to Hear Conâ—er and Learn as Catechumens The ancient Churches had their previous Instructions for such who were yet dismissed before the Communion Exercises proper to the faithful § 3. II. To the second case I Answer 1. There is nothing in this World that Man can do without all inconveniencies or which may not be turned to some occasion of Evil. On one side 1. It is most desirable that all Kingdoms were wholly Christians and the Princes be Defenders and Promoters of Religion and the Church and Kingdom be materially the same and the Civil Government used Holily according to God's Laws to holy ends 2. And it is desirable accordingly that the Kingdom being all Christian be divided into fit parts for Christian Conversation and Communion such as our Parishes are and that all be of the Church who are of the Parish and the Civil State sanctified and the Ecclesiastick grow up as Body and Soul into one And that all in the Parish be of one mind and of one Church and that there be no just cause given for any to separate from the rest nor any do it without cause 3. And it is desirable that all these Parish-Churches in a Kingdom living under one civil Government do by the means of Senior Pastors and Synods hold such Correspondence as is necessary to their common Concord and Strength These things being Desirable it is no wonder if good Governours Endeavour them and that ignorant men Plead for all such Concomitants Subordinates and Consequents as do suppose them When as in Fact the case being quite otherwise to administer matters on a false supposition of the matter of Fact as if that were which is not is but like the Men of Gothams striving and fighting which way they should drive their Sheep and where they should pasture them when they had none 1. No Kingdom is so wholly Christian as not to have many alas how many uncapable of Church-Communion 2. Yet it is a matter of order to be endeavoured that the Country be divided into Parishes and that they have an Ecclesiastick as well as a Civil Relation That is That each of these Parishes have a stated Teacher or many for the Catechumens who are uncapable of Communion And that the same Men be the Pastors of all in that Parish who consent and have the Temples and Tythes by the Magistrates Countenance and Consent And this great advantage of Publick Countenance and Maintenance will no doubt prevail with the main Body of Christians in that Parish if the men be desirable or tollerable to chuse them rather than others to avoid discountenance and the maintaining of others As all in the Hospital will be for the established Physician who dare trust him with their Lives But if this should be carried further to bind all persons to an absolute acceptance of such Parish Priests to be their only Pastors under the Bishops who are put upon them the mischiefs would be intollerable For 1. Then all must accept of Papists Priests only in France Spain Italy Bavaria Austria c and of bare Readers in Muâ—covy 2. Or else all Subjects are made Judges of the qualification of their Kings whether they are Orthoodox enough to chuse them Pastors while they are not allowed to judge what Pastor to trust 3. And then every ignorant malignant or prophane Man who by inheritance or purchase hath got Advowsons or Presentations hath got an advantage greatly to hinder the Salvation of all the Parish And if Money may buy Souls for so much probability of Damnation no wonder if the god of this World imploy many rich Merchants to purchase Advowsons For how ordinarily God worketh according to the suitableness of means Scripture and full Experience
prove If the Blind lead the Blind both fall into the Ditch 4. And this is quite contrary to the Ordination and bounty of our Lord who gave men gifts for the Edification of his Church and our Salvation if we may not use the publick Pastoral help of any better than many Patrons will chuse I would fly from that Kingdom as from a Bondage where I may use no Physician no Tutor no Food but what is chosen for me by any one that can purchase such a chusing-power And my Soul is more to me than my Body and less in the Power of Man And it is not the talk of a Magisterial Ranter that shall perswade me to be indifferent what Teacher I use as if God would work by all alike § 4. 2. On the other side 1. It is of absolute necessity that every man consent before another man can do the work of a Pastor for his Soul And God in Nature and Scripture hath ordained that he who must be saved or damned according to the Ministers success should be the chuser or refuser of that which so unspeakably concerneth him and not have his salvation more in anothers power than his own if he be at Age and in his Wits 2. And yet this may be run into Extreams and these are not easily avoided 1. Infants that is all short of an Understanding chusing Age and Ideots and Mad-men are half Brutes in act and to be governed accordingly by force so far as they are uncapable of Reason But these are not capable of the Church-Communion of the Adult Yea not only Children but all Subjects who are not Communicants may be forced to hear and learn as Catechumens as is said And they must not pretend a power to chuse their Teachers to excuse them from all Learning But if they say that they can learn better of another than the Parish-Minister if they are able they may remove to another Parish If not they must give proof that they live as Learners under some Teacher who is capable to instruct them approved or tolerated by Authority where Rulers own the Truth 3. And if Communicants will be at the charge of maintaining a Pastor whom they can better trust their Souls with than him whom the Patron chuseth for them the Orthodox or tolerating Magistrate must see that he be not an Heretick that doth more hurt than good and must keep them under the Laws of Loyalty and Peace and see that they sow not Sedition and revile not others under pretence of worshipping God 4. And no men should without necessity lose the advantages of a publick Ministry which the most consent to and which hath the Magistrates countenance and maintenance because gathering singular Churches within Parish-bounds seems some accusation of the Parish-Minister or Church and such Churches are oft tempted to Envy and Censoriousness and are usually envied and censured by others And Unity is much of our strength and beauty But in case of necessity it may be done § 5. In short 1. A good Ruler chusing a worthy Teacher for the Parish will thereby do much to draw all the sober to consent to him as their Pastor 2. Bad Rulers and Patrons chusing ignorant unskilful furious malicious or scandalous Teachers will drive those that love their souls to chuse better for themselves whatever it cost them 3. Where the Ministry and Churches are so vitiated in publick that their Communion is unlawful there God's worship must be kept up only in other voluntary Churches 4. Where publick Ministers or Worship are not utterly intolerable but greatly insufficient for the preservation of Religion and good of Souls by Disability or unsound Doctrine or Vice there the chief preservation of Religion must be in Voluntary Churches but so that the Parochial be no further disowned than there is cause 5. Where the publick Ministry and Worship are sound but impose some unnecessary doubtful things as conditions of Communion in justice they bind themselves thereby to allow Voluntary Churches to such as take these terms to be sin 6. When the Ministry and Church-Worship and State are sound and the conditions lawful and weakness maketh conscionable Christians think otherwise there private Churches must be tolerated but as Hospitals for the sick under the care of the Magistrate keeping peace The strife in England at this day is chiefly about the choice of Pastors in which good people will never be indifferent And few that I have known refuse audience and honour to able godly profitable Preachers that differ from them We are not at all of different Relâ—gions tho some say so to the dishonour of the National Church as if their Forms their Cross and Surplice and their New Oaths and Subscriptions were their Religion and so their Religion were Ceremony or Novelty § 6. III. As to the Third Case For what Reasons I and such other join in Worship and Communion with Parish-Churches And whether our practice be a sin or a duty or a thing indifferent For answer I. I shall shew what I am not pleading for II. What it is that I hold and plead for or defend III. What are the Reasons of my practice IV. Why it is that I now give out my Reasons § 7. I. For the First 1. I am far from perswading any one to commit the least sin on pretence of Concord or Communion with any Church on earth Their damnation is just who say Let us do evil that good may come Sin may seem to serve us for a Job but it will be bitter in the latter end 2. I would not have any to stretch their Consciences for Worldly Interest to believe that Sin is no Sin or that they may do it because it is a little one It is no little one to him that does it wilfully for Worldly Ends. 3. If an honest Christian mistake an indifferent thing to be a Sin I would have him do his best to get a truer apprehension But if he cannot I would not have him do the thing For he that can do that which he thinks a sin tho by mistake can as easily commit a real sin And it is a real sin to him for St. Paul saith He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith for whatever is not of faith is sin Qu. But is such a man a martyr or rewardable who suffereth for his error Ans. He is rewardable as he suffereth for fearing to disobey God and for that which is formally obedience tho materially it was a mistaken thing If you had a Servant who mistook your command but died in the performance of that mistake you would commend his fidelity And if another that mistook you did what you bid him by that mistake but treacherously for hire crossed what he thought you meant you would take him for a perfidious knave Qu. But must a man then do all that he taketh to be a duty or avoid all which he taketh for a sin Ans. A culpable erring
judgment entangleth a man in sin whether he follow it or not And there is no possibility of avoiding the sin but by using God's helps till his judgment be set right For Conscience is not the Maker of the Law but the Discerner of it And the Law-maker changeth not his Law because men change their thoughts of it But while men are under a self-made necessity of sinning the lesser sin and the greater may be distinguished e. g. If you mis-judg it unlawful to keep a Saints day holy to eat Flesh on Fridays to use a Cross as a sign of Christianity it is a greater sin to do these than to omit them But if you judg it unlawful to pray or hear God's Word or worship him or to feed your self or children your error is the aggravation and no extenuation of the sin And if you think it a duty to keep a Fast once a week to wear a course garment or to do any indifferent thing it 's a greater sin to omit them than to do them But if you take it to be a duty to lie slander steal be drunk murder persecute it aggravateth the sin that both mind and practice are defiled with it 4. I perswade no one to own the Ministry of an uncapable Person viz. one utterly Insufficient Heretical or Malignant who doth more harm than good The Conformists own this Rule while they silence so many and tell men that those that have not Ordination by Diocesans are not to be communicated with or owned as Ministers Both sides then confess that uncapable persons are not to be owned 5. I perswade none to be indifferent in the matters which concern their souls as whom they hear or chuse to be their Pastor nor in what manner they worship God nor to prefer any person or mode which all things considered is worse before better nor to deny themselves the great help of a learned skilful godly faithful Pastor to teach them publickly and counsel them privately when they may have such meerly because it is forbidden them by men and the Patron hath chosen them another who hath no such qualifications 6. I am perswading none that are under the government of their Parents or Masters to disobey them in the choice of the Pastor whom they shall ordinarily attend as long as they perswade them to a safer choice than the Patron hath made for them 7. I perswade none by Profession or Subscription to justifie as true or good the least untruth or evil in the Doctrine or Worship or Discipline of any Church or in any extemporate performance of the Minister 8. I perswade no Minister to conform to the Act of Uniformity and all the Canons 9. I perswade none to make light of any Church-corruptions nor to forbear endeavouring by lawful means in their place and calling to reform them much less to swear or promise it were that any where required or to renounce any Oath as not obliging them to any thing which God had made their duty 10. I perswade none to the sinful fear of man or to abate Christian fortitude constancy and patience in a good Cause nor to be over-tender of the Flesh or make too great a matter of their suffering Alas what are Worms that in the way to the Grave they should be feared more than God Poverty and Prisons may be as safe and near a way to Heaven as Wealth and Liberty None of all these are the things that I am for § 8. II. That you may know the Reasons of my own practice I shall next tell you what it is that my judgment is for which leads me to it And 1. I think all persons are visible Christians who are Baptized and profess their continued consent to the Baptismal Covenant and are not proved to have renounced or forsaken it by Word or Deed. 2. I think that the Pastor is by Office made the Church-Judge whether the persons Profession be understanding serious and credible or not and whether he be proved to forsake it And if the man dissemble or the Pastor judge falsly it 's their Sin and not mine if I contribute not to it by omitting any Monitory duty of my own nor is it lawful for me to usurp the Pastors judging power Nor am I bound to know my self the Case and Lives of all in the Church that I joyn with much less where I occasionally or seldom come 3. I think that a tollerable man though unduly chosen yet after received and consented to by the Parish Communicants is a true Pastor supposing his own Consent And that he and they are a true Church 4. I hold that Christ commanded his Apostles to endeavour to Disciple to him all Nations and Baptize and Teach them Mat. 28.19 20. And that we should pray and endeavour that the Kingdoms of the World may become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. And that all Christian Kings are bound to do their best to make all their Subjects the Subjects of Christ more than the Jewish Kings were bound to promote the Iews Religion And that Christian Kingdoms are much more honourable and desirable than Christian Churches in an Heathen Kingdom And that the Civil State and Interest should be sanctified and made religious and more than a Shell or Body to the Religious State as the Kernel or the Soul And so they should be as far coherent and commensurable as can be procured Yet not so as to corrupt the religious state on that pretence by crookening it to any carnal interest The Body formeth not the Soul nor is it to be cut meet to the Cloathes nor the Foot fitted to the Shooe I intreat those that be not sensible of the great importance of National Christianity to read a little Book called The whole Duty of Nations written by a Conforming Minister who is much more Honourable by his Extraordinary Worth than his Great Estate and Birth which will bear down dissent by a stream of Evidence 5. In order to the promoting of this National Concord in Religion I have still resolved to conform to all the National Laws and Orders about Religion which corrupt it not nor command any sinful thing 6. Tho I renounce all Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical or Aristocratical and usurpation of an Universal Government over all the Christian World which hath no civil or religious Universal Lawgiver or Judg but Christ neither Monarch nor Senate being capable of it yet I much more value the concord of the Universal Church than of one Nation And do more abhor doing any thing which is a sinful separation or discord from the Church Universal And I take the unchurching of the Univerâ—al Church to be a denying or deposing Christ. 7. All Christians must be known to be Christ's Disciples by loving one another as themselves And love judgeth no evil till constrained 8. Therefore I will separate from no Christian or Church without necessity no further than they separate from Christ. 9. I do not
separate from a Church meerly because I meet not with them else I should separate from all the World save the place where I am present But I avoid these several degrees of sinful separation 1. Accounting true Churches and Ministers to be none such as the Papists do by all that have not an uninterrupted succession of Diocesan Ordination 2. Accounting the Ministry and Worship and Government so bad as makes Communion with the Church unlawful if it be not so 3. Doing that needlesly which hath the scandalous appearing signification of such a judgment 10. I know many of the Parish-Ministers to be men of very laudable abilities and conversations and to have the consent of the most of the Communicants of the Parish 11. I am past doubt that so much of the Liturgie as is used every Lords Day as the common Worship is so far sound as to the matter of it that it hath no more material faultiness than is too often in extemporate Church-praying And that the disorder and faultiness in the Manner is no greater than is used also by many in free prayer with whom we all think it lawful to joyn And that prejudice maketh it seem to many much more faulty than it is The greatest dislike is of the Responses by the People and the shortness of the Prayers both which were used in the Ancient Churches when no sound Christians scrupled it much less separated for it Christ approved of the short Prayer of the Publican God be merciful to me a sinner Repetitions and the Peoples Acclamations and Responses were used in the Iewish Church as is evident in Ezra and in many Psalms c. We all allow the Peoples speaking even as much as the Minister in singing Psalms And the Congregation would murmur if the People should be but Hearers while the Minister singeth alone Of old their singing was like our saying and not in Rithmes like ours Will any pretend to prove that it 's lawful for the People to sing God's Praise and not to say it But they that dislike it may be silent As to the Objection that it 's unlawful to use imposed forms I have answered it so fully in my Cuâ—e of Church-Divisions and in my Christian Directory that I will here say no more but that 1. Every Ministers Prayer is a Form to the People and imposed on them to joyn in putting it up to God 2. And that its lawful for a Child to use a Form imposed by Parents therefore not simply evil 3. And that we all allow imposed Forms of Catechizing and of singing Prayers and Praise to God And that he that said Speak to one another in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs never meant that they must not be premeditated 4. And many men sin by needless impositions when the use of the thing imposed is no sin but a duty And I am satitsfied that the Number of the Christian Churches on Earth which worship God without a Form far worse than ours is so small as that the soundness of ours is almost singular The supposed great 〈◊〉 in the By-Offices about God-Fathers Crossing the form of Burial and such other the Hearers of the common Lords-day-Service have no business with For my part I profess I take the ordinary Liturgy so â—he best part of the publick Service in half the Churches in England and had rather have it without the Sermon than the Sermon without it in those Churches 12. I therefore take it to be my duty as a private Hearer 1. When I am where there is a tolerable Minister and no other Church but the Parochial to joyn in Worship and Communion with them constantly 2. As a Minister on whom the Conditions in the Laws are put to refuse some of those Conditions 3. As an Hearer where the Minister is utterly intolerable to do nothing which seemeth an owning him as a Minister 4. In a place where the Parochial Ministry is the best but a private Minister and Church is peaceable and sound I will go ordinarily to the Parish-Church but sometime to the weaker if my forbearance would seem a disowning of their Communion yea tho it were to one that is against Infant-Baptism by mistake 5. In a place where the privater Minister and Worship is most spiritual powerful and profitable I would go ordinarily thither if I may But sometimes to a tolerable Parish-Minister and Communion in case my not going seem to signifie that I separate from their Communion as utterly unlawful And if I be a Preacher in a privater Church I will sometimes get another to supply my place and go to the Parish-Church if else my forbearance would seem to signifie that I judg it unlawful 6. I therefore take the same thing here to be lawful to one and a fault in another and a duty to another Those that have far better Helps and Communion all things considered should not ordinarily prefer worse And when the case differs not much the Will of a Parent an Husband a Master or a Magistrate should sway much And where it is a duty to noted persons to go to the Parish-Church sometime because else it will signifie that they think it unlawful an hundred Children Servants Wives poor people who are not noted or mist and their absence is no scandal are not bound to go at all while they have much better Helps and Communion elsewhere Having told you my Judgment of which in my Two forementioned Books I have given a fuller account I shall next add the reason of my Practice both to satisfie those that censure me and those that crave my help for their information but not making my self a Judg of them that differ The Reasons of my Practice in Parochial-Communion § 4. III. But here I am in the same streight as when I gave an account of my Nonconformity When upon many years urgency I did but tell men what the sins were which I thought I should commit if I conformed some said that I made the Conformists a Faction of unconscionable perjured Villains And if I now tell the Reasons why I joyn in the Parish-Churches some will say that these Reasons accuse them that do not of the guilt of Schism and sinful suffering But he that will perform no duty which none will be offended at shall scarce do any in the World My Reasons then are these I. I do it much for my own Edification And who can prove my Edification unlawful There is so sound judicious preaching in my Parish-Church where I now go that I take it to be my considerable loss when sickness keepeth me away And who can bind me to my loss If a stranger give now and then a peevish ignorant flirt at such as differ from him as those called Arminians and some others use to do I am not so thin-skin'd as thereby to smart nor so foolish as to raise a stir by talking against it which by taking no notice will go out like a Squib which the
by mistake XIII I know that the main Cause of Church-Divisions is seeking a Union on false and sinful terms And I know that the opinion That Parish-Communion is unlawful is an Error and therefore unfit to be the Condition of our Union And I see many would make it such a Condition And false terms of Concord are the great and certain means of Discord for the wisest Christians will refuse them And some Impose them by Doctrine and Censures as others do by Laws and Sword And I will not countenance dividing terms Obj. That is the chief fault of your Doctrine and Practice That it will cause Divisions among us when some will do as you do and others cannot and so our Congrâ—gations are divided Ans. 1. Can I cause that which is caused already is not so much Division known still to be among us 2. As I said Do not some write against the Lawfulness of Parish-Communion And some against Infant Baptism and the Lords Day And do not they divide by Writing against them And did Mr. Tombes and Mr. Nye forbear as aforesaid for fear of Division If we are already divided in Judgment and Practice sure giving each other an account of our reasons is rather the way to heal us 3. But I confess this Objection seemeth so sad and ugly to me that it hâ—th no small hand in urging me to what they object against Alas what are such come to They that separate because of the Liturgy Ministry or People do virtually separate as I said from almost all the â—hurch on Earth For it is on a cause common to almost all Yea not only all the Churches in the Eastern Southern and Northern parts and all in the West save themselves have Liturgies or separate not from them But even of the Non-conformists in England those that of old or of late have pleaded their Cause have taken the Liturgy for no sufficient cause of separation Nay even the old Separatists called Brownists denied not the lawfulness of forms of Prayer nor refused to join with the Parish-Churches in our Liturgy sometimes only they thought that when Crossing or such Ceremonies were used they were bound to disown them And shall men that separate from the Communion of almost all the Churches on Earth as unlawful pretend that their way is the way of Unity and that the contrary doth divide Is our shunning Division from the Christian World a dividing Practice In Holland Mr. Smith thought no man capable of Baptizing him and so Baptized himself and some others have done so since thinking none fit for Communion but the few that are their Flocks Yet these that divided from all the World cryed down Dividing from themselves But were all dividers that were against them This is the saddest of all Objections XIV Yea I am loth to do that which condemneth groundlesly the Reformers the Martyrs the Godly Conformists the old Non-Conformists the later and the Brownists themselves as being all for unlawful Communion 1. If it be simply unlawful to have Communion in the Liturgy and Parish-Churches then it was unlawful to have Communicated in their way of Worship with Luther Zuinglius Melanchton Bucer Pet. Martyr and the like Reformers And also with the English Martyrs in Queen Marâ—â—s daies or in King Edward 6. And also with such Holy and Excellent Conformists as Grindall Pilkington Downame Bâ—â—ton Sibbs Preston 〈◊〉 and abundance more such 2. And it 's well known that the old Non-Conformists wrote and practised against the Brownists in this case The Books of Hildersham Brightman Bradshaw Ball Paget Gifford c. are yet visible Mr. Hildersham in his Lectures chides them that will not come to the beginning of the Common-Prayer The old Non-Conformists begin the reasons of their Non-Conformity in refusing Subscription in these Words We protest before Almighty God that we acknowledge the Churches of England as they be established by publick Authority to be 〈◊〉 visible Churches of Christ That we desire the continuance of our Ministry to them above all Earthly things as that without which our Lives will he bitter and wearisome to us That we dislike not a set-form of Prayer to be used in the Churches And finally that whatsoever followeth here is not set down of any evil Mind or of purpose to deprave the Books of Common-Prayer Ordination or â—â—milies but only to shew some reasons why we cannot subscribe to all things in the same contained 3. I before told you Mr. Tombes the Anabaptist hath written at large for the Lawfulness of Parish-Church Communion And Mr. Nye for hearing the Parish-Ministers 4. The late Non-conformists that treated with the Bishops in 1660 and 1667. have left their Judgments fully on Record many of them being yet alive 5. The old Separating Brownists have these Words Confession and Protestation of Faith Touching the true visible Political Churches which we acknowledge are in England we profess and declare that each company of true visible Christians associated together in one place viz. a Parish and Professing to serve God according to his Will in Faith and Order so far as they know such as there are many in England the same is a true visible political Church in some respects And therefore we communicate also with them on occasion while in such communicating we countenance no evil thing in them which in many places and many times we need not do Lastly it being no evil nor any appearance of evil in us to join to the Parish Congregation and Ministry in such respect and so far forth only as aforesaid we ought as we believe sometimes on weighty occasion so to join and we sin if we do not Luke 17.32 Heb. 10.25 1 Cor. 10.32 We believe concerning Prayer That though every form of prayer prescribed by Men be not absolutely and simply a Sin neither as we judge are Idols nor an Invention of Man nor a trangression of the second Commandment yet a prescribed Liturgy or Book of Common Prayer by Commandment forced on a whole Church rightly constituted to be used still in the same Words whenever they assemble in comparison of other praying is not so profitable and we judge that it is best and most agreeable to the last Apostolick practice that even where many Pastors in one Church are yet that One have during Life a precedency and priority in order and place not in power before the rest I will not be more for separation than the Separatists themselves XV. If joining with the Parish Ministry be simply unlawful most or almost all England comparatively must cease all publick Worship of God The Nonconformists were but about two thousand 1662. Most of them I think by this time are Dead and not so many sprung up in their stead Those that are remaining for the most part are either in a few places quieter than the rest or hindered from any numerous Assemblies In 1636. I do not think there were many more than we have Counties and those few in
I durst no longer see Thousands of good Christians misguided into mistakes and like to be ruined for them and hereby hardening their Persecutors rejoycing the Papists who joyn with them in Separation reducing the Protestant Religion into corners and giving it up as publick to we may know whom censuring one another and dividing on these mistakes and fathering all this on God I say I durst not stand by in silence to see all this no more than to see men drowning or the City on fire without endeavouring to save men It is an exceeding great quiet to my Conscience under all the Confusions and Divisions that have befallâ—n us that in 1660 and 1661. I plainly and earnestly foretold the King and Bishops of them and did my best to have prevented them And the Author that I deal with necessitateth me to recite the late fruits of Separation in pulling down all Governments casting out all the Ministers in Wales and were near casting down those of England with Tythes and Universities persecuting and killing godly men and fathering all on God and now flying from the Bishops when they had opened them the door to return He layeth his main Cause on the ill fruits of Liturgies which indeed are rather the fruits of Pride and Malignity and constraineth me to shew the fruits of Separation I dare not bury that in silence which God so dreadfully disowned by their own dissâ—lution without any blood and that when multitudes are running into the old error by mistaking the Iudgment of the Nonconforming Ministers thinking that they took that for unlawful which they did not and condemning all the excellent old Nonconformists and Conformists and almost all the Churches on Earth Let wiser men deal wiselier I use the best wisdom that I have It 's true that abundance of good people fear and distaste Communion in the Liturgy What wonder when such Reasonings as these Twelve Arguments which how gross soever poor people have not the skill to answer perswade them it is false Worship and heinous sin and say others Idolatry They are conquered as the Mexicans were by the Spaniards by the frightful roaring of their Cannons the Militia used Acts 15.1 2. Ye cannot be saved and as the Pope conquered Kings and Kingdoms by threatning to keep them out of Heaven Even as since men tell me that they medicate their Wines with Arsenick and Mercury I am afraid to drink them which before I feared not so are honest souls affrightned from Liturgies and Communion How much in them I dissent from my self I have openly intimated to the World But he that will joyn in no good that is mixt by men with faultiness and evil must separate from all the World and all from him But how will he separate from himself England in her Articles and Ordination professeth to cleave to Scripture-sufficiency as being the Protestant Religion I go to joyn in this profest Religion If the Speaker of any side add any unwarrantable passages by book or without book let him answer for them I own them not Did my presence own all that I hear I would joyn with no man living The Lord fit us for a wiser and more loving World The Twelve Arguments said to be Dr. Owens impartially considered D. O. Posit It is not Lawful for us to go to and joyn in Publick Worship by the Common Prayer because that Worship it self according to the Rule of the Gospel is not Lawful 1. Ans. I Shall use the same Method that he hath used and first give you my Positions and then the supposed Matter of Fact and then consider his Arguments Posit It is not only Lawful but a Duty for those that cannot have better publick Church-worship without more hurt than benefit and are near a competent Parish Minister to go to and joyn in Publick Worship performed according to the Liturgie and in Sacramental Communion And for those that can have better to joyn sometime with such Parish Churches when their forbearance scandalously seemeth to signifie that they take such Communion for unlawful and so would tempt others to the same Accusation and uncharitable Separation The History of the Matter of Fact must be premised for the right deciding of the Case which is as followeth 1. God hath commanded us to Preach Pray Praise him and Administer his Sacraments and Discipline and hath told us what Doctrine we must preach what things we must pray and give thanks for and what Sacraments and Discipline we must Administer But he hath not told us in what Words we must do these nor in what Posture nor in what particular Method nor whether we must use oftest the same words or various nor whether they shall be before prepared or spoken immediately without preparation of words nor whether written or remembred nor whether prepared and composed by our selves or by others with such like 2. God prescribed divers Forms of Prayer Confession and Praise to the Iews in Moses Law and a Prophetical Song which they were all to learn Deut. 32. 3. The Psalms were a chief part of the Iews Liturgie in which there are many Forms of Prayer and Praise some made by David some by Asaph some by others and some in or after the Captivity no one knoweth by whom And those Psalms were not in Metre and sung in Tunes like ours now but loâ—dly said over 4. Iohn taught his Disciples to pray not only as to the Matter but as to the Words and so did Christ his Disciples at their Request who had not then the after-pouring out of the Spirit nay knew not that Christ must die for Sin rise and reign in Heaven c. and he said When ye pay say Our Father c. tho not tying them only to these words yet giving them a Form of Words to be used as they had occasion as well as a perfect Directory for Method 5. Christ himself joyned with the Iews in Synagogues and Temple when they used Forms and so did the Apostles and never blamed them for the use of such Forms 6. Christ prescribed a Form of Words in Baptism and in the Administration of the Lords Supper and used a Hymn in Form 7. There are divers Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving in the New Testament in Luke 1. 2. and the Acts and Pauls Epistles and the Revelations which its Lawful and Laudable to use 8. We are commanded to use Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs which are Forms of Prayer and Praise and was not then in Rhime And it was not every one in the Church that composed these Extempâ—re but some made them for the rest to use And if none Impose them by Office Authority or Perswasion the Churches will never use the same Christians in the primitive ages of the Church were known to the Heathen by their constant use of such Hymns sung to Christ and of Christ. 9. The Churches from Christs time to this had a Creed or Form of sound Words or necessary Articles of Faith
Kingdom under one King 3. And as it is a Confederacy of many Churches to keep Concord in lawful Circumstantials as well as Integrals In all these sences it is a lawful Association 4. But if any Church go beyond these bounds and on good pretences shall agree upon any error or evil it is a mistake to hold That all that incorporate with them in the Three foresaid lawful respects do therefore confederate with them in their error IV. Error This is your Fourth Error I will give you a general Instance and a particular one 1. You cannot name me one combined company of Churches from the Apostles days till now that had no error You take Episcopacy to be an error in the very constitution Name one Church from the 3 d or 4 th Century for a thousand years that was without it either Catholicks or Hereticks that were indeed a Church And must Christians have forborn associating with any of them Or might not own the good in their Associations without owning the evil 2. The Independents gathered a Synod at the Savoy and there among their Doctrinals or Articles of Faith laid down Two Points expresly contrary to Scripture 1. That it is not Faith but Christ's Righteousness that we are justified by when as it is both and the Scripture often saith the contrary 2. That Christ's Righteousness imputed is our sâ—le Righteousness Whereas the Scripture doth many hundred times name also our inherent and practical Righteousness I asked some yet living why they consented to these and did not rather expound the Scripture than deny it And they said That it was Dr O's doing Now doth it follow that every one that there conâ—ederated with you owned these errors The Churches of Helvetia are a very honourable part of the Reformed Churches They are commonly such as we call Erastian for no Discipline but the Magistrates Are ail that confederate with them as Churches guilty of this error 2. But I further distinguish between the many Parish-Churches and the Diocesan and the Church of England as constituted of such Diocesan Churches The Old Nonconformists commonly owned the Parish-Churches and the Church of England as made up of such but not the Diocesan This they openly professed It is therefore another of your Mistakes that owning the Parish-Churches and Worship is an owning of the present Diocesan Constitution Also it is your Mistake to say That Communion by the Liturgy is the Symbol and Pledg of the foresaid Incorporation in the Church of England in its present constitution V. Error It is only a part of the Communion commanded but no such Symbol VI. Error For 1. The Rulers openly declare that they take multitudes to be none of their Church who joyn in the Liturgy And it is subscribing declaring and swearing Obedience which is the Symbol yea they excommunicate many that come to the Liturgy-Service 2. And many come to it who openly disown the Diocesan present constitution So did as I said the Old Nonconformists and many Forreigners French Dutch c. that come over hither 3. If one may joyn in Communion of Worship with a Presbyterian Independent or Anabaptist-Church without owning the Errors of their constitution then so one may with a Parish-Church But c. You mistake when you say It is so by the Law of the Land You mistake again when you say it is so by the Canon You mistake again when you say It is so in the common understanding of all I formerly instanced in one of the sharpest Nonconformists Old Mr. Humphrey Fen of Coventry who would say aloud Amen to all the Common-Prayer save that for the Bishops by which all there knew his mind Whether it were right or wrong VII VIII IX Error I now determine not So here are Three more of your Mistakes 4. You make all other reserves of our own to be allowed neither by God or good men Here are two more mistakes 1. God maketh it our great duty to hold Communion with most X.XI. Error or almost all Churches on Earth with such reserves that is to own them in all that is good and disown all their evil tho their Laws command the owning of them without this reserve I would not joyn with yours or any Church on Earth that is If my Communion were an owning of all their faultiness 2. And it 's an immodest Error to say That none are good men that in this are not of your mind Is there any spotless Church on Earth or must we renounce the Communion with them all or reserve exception against their faults and misperformances D. O. 4. He that joyns in the Worship of the Common-Prayer doth by his practice make Profession That it is the true Worship of God accepted with him approved of him and wholly agreeable to his Mind and Will To do it with other reserves is hypocrisie and worse than the thing it self without them Happy is he that condemneth not himself in the thing which he alloweth Rom. 14 12. § 5. THis is your twelfth mistake and one that hath dreadful consequents 1. It contradicteth the express Profession of the Communicants who openly tell the World That they take not all in the Liturgy XII Error to be wholly agreeable to Gods Mind and Will And you are not to feign a Profession of men contrary to their open Protestation 2. It is most direful to your own separating followers who by this are supposed to profess all your Worship to be wholly agreeable to Gods Mind and Will And so the honest well-meaning people are made guilty of all the Errors which you put into your Worship 3. It is contrary to your own former Profession That you could in charity communicate with Presbyterians or Anabaptists c. And so you approved of all the Errors of their Worship 4. It maketh it a down right Sin to communicate with any Church on Earth For all have their faults and errors even in Worship which you feign all that Communicate with them to justifie as wholly agreeable to Gods Will And to justifie Sin and teach men so to do and to father it on God are sad Aggravations such shall be called least in the Kingdom of God By this rule you would have separated from every Church on Earth that we have notice of for a thousand years yea and to this day and is not that near separating from Christ And when no man knoweth before you speak in prayer what you will say How shall any man that joyneth with you koow but he may be guilty of your Sin at the next Sentence 5. It is a breach of the ninth Commandment thus to charge all the Ancient Churches and Reformers and the Noncoformists with hypocrisie and worse than open sinning who have all communicated on the contrary Supposition 6. It is no friendly act to the Church to lay down such a Principle of perpetual Separation and condemning each others Communion and so to make the Communion and
Concord of the Churches impossible 7. It is Self-condemnation to judg the present Bishops Church-Tyrants for excommunicating good Christians according to the Canons for profest dissent about their governing Offices Liturgies and Ceremonies and for imposing Assent and Consent to all things c. and yet to go much further than they by making it Sin against God to Communicate where the Worship is not wholly agreeable to Gods Will Prove that ever the Bishops went so far from Concord 8. I only humbly ask Whether this make not Christ and all his Apostles Hypocrites and worse than profest Sinners Did Christ by his usual joyning in the Synagogue and Temple-Worship and commanding men to go to the Priests to hear the Scribes and Pharisees c. profess that he took their Worship to be wholly agreeable to Gods Will Or did the Apostles so while they long joyned in the Synagogues with the Iews D. O. 5. There may be a false Worship of the true God as well as a worship of a false god Such was the Worship of Jehovah the Lord by the Calf in the Wilderness Exod. 33.5 6. Such was the Feast unto the Lord ordained by Jeroboam in the eighth month the fifteenth day of the month which he had devised of his own heart 1 Kings 12.32.33 § 6. YOur fifth Premise is unquestionable But if you distinguish not of false Worship you will make but false Work about it 1. There is that which is the corrupting of Gods own necessary Worship-Ordinances in so gross a manner either outwardly in the Matter or inwardly in the Mind as that God will not own or accept the Worship and Worshippers 2. There is that which is false in Integrals Accidents or Degrees by pardoned failings and infirmities To be false is to be disagreeable to the rule such in some measure is every Prayer Sermon or Sacrament that ever you administred He that saith he hath no Sin is a lyar All sinful Worship is so far false worship which the best of men are guilty of If you put all the Errors that are in this Paper of yours in a Sermon or Prayer will not so many falshoods make it false worship D. O. On these Suppositions the Proposition laid down is proved by the following Arguments 1. Argument Religious Worship not divinely instituted and appointed is false Worship not accepted with God but the Liturgical-worship intended is a Religious Worship not divinely instituted and appointed ergo not accepted with God The Proposition is confirmed by all the Divine Testimonies wherein all such Worship is expresly condemned see Deut. 4.2 Chap. 12.32 Prov. 30.6 Jer. 7.31 Isa. 29.13 c. That especially where the Lord Christ restrains all Worship to his own command Matth. 28.20 It is answered to the minor Proposition That the Liturgical-worship is of Christs appointment as to the substantials of it tho not as to its Accidentals namely Prayers and Praises not unto its outward rites and form which do not vitiate the whole § 7. TO your first Argument I answer I have fully answered this to Mr. Ralphson 1. As to the bare name either you will call all acts done to signifie immediately the Souls honouring of God by the name of Worship or you will not if not then that which is no Worship is no false Worship If you will then your Proposition is false so that either your Major or Minor XIII Error is another Error For I take it for granted that by Gods instituting you mean not a general command to man to institute it such as let all be done to edification if you did then your Minor is not true Kneeling at Prayer rather than sitting putting off the Hat using white Linnen and Silver plate at the Sacrament praising God by new Hymns and in English Metre and Tunes and many such are Worship in the secondary sence and yet not imposed by any determining Divine Institution Your wrong Exposition of all the Texts of Scripture here cited by you is more than one mistake Deut. 4.2 and 12.32 Prov. 30.6 forbid adding to Gods Worship XIV Error which is broken by all that either say that that is in Gods Word which is not there as you here do or that devise any Woship-Ordinances coordinate or of the same sort with his own as if they were imperfect But there is not a word forbidding subordinate secondary Acts of Worship such as Kneeling putting off the Hat using written Notes in Preaching or Forms of Singing Praying Catechising laying the Hand on the Book or putting it under the Thigh or lifting it up in Swearing the formal words of Vows Oaths Covenants Confessions Professions and many such Ier. 7.31 condemneth them that offered their Children in Fire to Idols because God never commanded such Cruelty and Idolatry It is not true that therefore we may not Kneel or put off the Hat or Preach Pray or Sing in an humane Form of words till God determine it by Command It was forbidden things which Isa. 29.13 and Mat. 14. are reproved as being the Precepts of Men or things feigned to be necessary Acts of Obedience to God which were not so But this you think your self doth not forbid your Form of Church-Covenant nor your Books Translation of Scripture Hymns written Sermons because they are devised by Man nor Childrens Forms of Prayer for being commanded by Parents Matth. 28.20 It follows not that because Christ bid the Apostles teach all that he commanded therefore nothing else subordinate may be taught He commanded not the additional Form of the Creed but only the Form of Baptism in three Articles nor the Hymns and spiritual Songs in Form mentioned by Paul nor the Kiss of Peace the Womens Vails the Mens being uncovered not wearing long Hair the selling all and laying it down at the Apostles Feet c. D. O. But it is replied There is nothing accidental in the Worship of God Every thing that belongs to it is part of it Some things are of more Weight Use and Importance than others Matth. 23.27 but all things duely belonging to it are parts of it or of its subsistence outward Circumstances are natural and occasional no accidental parts of Worship § 8. OUr Answer you well recite if you add that call it substantial or what you will the common Lords-day Worship according to the Liturgy hath not many if any words in it whose signified Matter is not found and true and as to the Manner Extemporate Prayer hath oft as great unaptness of words which every Age changeth disorder and defectiveness As to your Reply it is the strangest that ever I read from so Learned a Man and is a great mistake What is there in the world that is a Subject XV. Error without any Accidentals Gods Worship hath a multitude of Accidents As the Hour the Place the Pulpet the Tables the Cups of Silver the Linen and other Ornaments the Books as Printed the Metre the Tunes the Chapters and Verses the words of
repent of it and do not justifie it for fear of being thought blamable This is it that keepeth England in confusion and threatneth worse Neither of the Extreams that have caused our calamities are humbled nor can endure a motion to repent but Overturners justifie their former and their present love-destroying ways The Lord give England Repentance unto Life And the Lord help me to see all my Errors and to repent the more because I see that proud Nature is so much against it And you mistake if you think that we plead only liberty for this Communion It is duty that we plead but not duty to all persons nor all times as if the case of all were the same We have not the happiness of Innocency Repentance is next to it When we confess our sins we vindicate Christ and Religion which are against them When we justifie them we falsly honour our selves and lay all on Christ as if he would justifie that which he abhorreth and died for God will yet more shame us if we will shame his Cause instead of taking shame to our selves Impenitence is more dangerous than any sin which we should repent of Carnal Policy will be angry with me for mentioning the old faults which Adversaries sufficiently reproach us with And I must say that God in his time will justifie the generality of the sober godly people of England from the false Accusation of those Malignants and Papists who charge them with all the Guilt of the Sins of a few Sectaries got into an Army even the subversion of Church-Order and Civil Power when it could not be done but by a Conquest and Oppression of these Religious People first both Parliaments Ministers and their Flocks in comparison of whom the Army separatists were inconsiderable for number They that would destroy thousands of faithful Subjects as guilty of that which they opposed till they were Conquered and suffered for opposing do but shew their own Iniquity But yet God never taught men that way of Policy Repentance and not Impenitence or Self-justification is the way to take off mens reproach God permits them to do it because we do it not To confess our own Sins is no Extenuation of the wickedness of any Malignant Persecutors or debaucht men What they truly upbraid us with in malice let us openly lament in serious penitence and not stand to a sinful dividing Principle and Cause lest the Saints be blamed that have fathered it on God This Learned Author hath done otherwise himself and so hath the Party now opposed He and I knew the Man who was Pastor to the Commanders of the Army when they pull'd down and set up and again pull'd down till they had turned their Armed Bulwark into Atoms and when he saw what they had done said I wonder the people do not cast stones at us as we go along the streets Was not this a blaming of his Flock He knew how oft the Addresses of the Separatists to the several suddenly erected Soveraignties did change their minds and cry peccavimus by their new Addresses for the old And why may we not blame them that blamed themselves for Fathering their Mistakes on God D. O. Argument 8. That Practice which is accompanied with unavoidable Scandal engaged in only on pretence of Liberty is contrary to the Gospel but such is our joyning in the present Publick Worship It were endless to reckon up all the Scandals which will ensue herein That which respects our Enemies must not be omitted Will they not think will they not say That we have only Falsly and Hypocritically pretended Conscience for what we do when we can on outward Considerations comply with that which is required of us wo to the World because of such Offences but wo to them also by whom they are given § 24. TO the Major of your Eighth Argument I answer 1. It is not true when there is far greater Scandal by forbearing that Practice but only when there is less on the other side To the Minor I answer It is not true That it is only Liberty that is pleaded for the Communion in question It is great Duty that is pleaded XXXIX Error 1. The Duty of Christian Union and Concord and Love and Peace 2. The Duty of obeying the Commands and Example of Christ and his Apostles 3. The Duty of avoiding the Principles of Schism and the condemning and false accusing the Church of Christ on earth 4. The Duty of bearing Witness against the Principle of the sinfulness of Communicating with a Church in Liturgies which would make Christ in most Ages to be no King as having no Kingdom or Church on earth 5. The Duty of taking warning by the mischiefs of Causeless Separation in Ages that hath so much smarted by it 6. The Duty of seeking our own Edification 7. The Duty of keeping thousands of Christians from ceasing all Publick Worship where they can have no other but in the Parish-Churches 8 The Duty of keeping thousands of good people from being ruined for mistakes and evil doing 9. The Duty of obeying Magistrates in Lawful things 10. And the Duty of avoiding Scandal on the other side Is all this nothing but pretence of Liberty As to the Scandal mentioned by you No doubt Adversaries will reproach you whether you Communicate in the Parish Churches or not But note 1. That if any be guilty of such sin as for outward Considerations to do any Evil or any Good which they take to be Evil these men deserve some Reproach But 1. If they before were in Circumstances which made it no Duty and after by Gods providence are in Circumstances which make it a Duty the Reproachers do but shew their ignorance or malice whether they be Persecutors or Separatists that so reproach them 2. Or if men see the Error of their former Separation they must not forbear Repentance and Amendment for fear of Reproach There is so great a difference of Men and Cases that it 's gross sottishness to think that their Duties and Sins are the same in mutable Cirstances It 's a Sin to Preach or Pray when we should be quenching a Fire saving Mens Lives Christians as well as Pharisees are yet to learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not Sacrifice and therefore accuse the guiltless Some men have no possibility of any other Church-Worship but in the Parish-Chuches Some have no other but what is worse Some may have abler Teachers but at the cost of Imprisonment and Ruine It is not Lawful to lie in Prison merely for refusing to hear a weak Nonconformist when you might hear an abler And so it is in the Case of Conformists Else all were bound to a few men Some have Liberry to hear fitter men or at the least more agreeable to them without greater hurt than good As the Dutch and French here have Some are commanded by Husbands Parents and Masters to one Church and some to another Some have more able
Christ commandeth XLI Error it is your Church-Error For then you are in Covenant not to obey the Pastor even your self if he set a Psalm a Tune a Translation of Scripture nor if he appoint Time Place and Utensils for Worship For these are in the Worship Then you are covenanted to disobey the Magistrate if he command any of these or command men not to put on their Hats or sit at Prayer or for concord tâ—e all the Land to one Translation of Scripture or any such undetermined Mode 2. It is a greater disgrace to your Churches than ever I knew of before not only to covenant against God's Word Heb. 13.7 17. 1 Thes. 5.12 13. c. and against the Fifth Commandment but also to make this necessary to Concord That your Churches must break if the Members agree not all herein This is a plain demand of Conformity to an Humane unsound imposition No wonder if they are Dividers who set up by Church-Covenants false Terms of Unity D. O. Argument 11. That which contains a virtual renunciation of our Church-state and of the lawfulness of our Ministry and Ordinances therein is not to be admitted or allowed But this also is done in the practice enquired into For it is a professed conjunction with them in Church-Communion and Worship by whom our Church-state and Ordinances are condemned as null And this Iudgment they make of what we do affirming that we are gross Dissemblers if after such a conjunction with them we return any more unto our own Assemblies In this condemnation we do outwardly and visibly joyn § 27. IF your Church-state be essentiated by a Covenant to be subject to nothing else in Worship even the Accidents which God bids men determine by his general Rules of Edification Order Decency Love Peace Church-Custom c. then I commend the generality of Nonconforming Ministers that they set up no such Church-state And they do well to renounce all that you do ill to invent and impose while you talk against Imposition and adding to God's Word such Humane Forms But yet it 's an Error to hold That if any unjustly condemn other Churches XLII Error it is a renunciation of that condemned Church-state to have Communion with them that condemn Who would have thought the Two separating Extreams had so agreed in their Principles This is just the very Core of the evil of the Book of the contrary party which I here answer Alas how few Churches on Earth have not peevishly condemned one another it may be for Easter-day for the choice of a Bishop as the Donatists striving whose Bishop was the right The case of the Novatians Audians Luciferians and even of most in East and West are sad Instances And will such censoriousness unchurch them and forbid us Communion with them This is plain revenge and to curse them that curse us and abuse them that abuse us I lâ—ke Calvin's Spirit better than this who said Tho Luther should call me a Devil I would call him the Excellent Servant of God Too many Lutherans now renounce Communion with the Calvinists who yet renounce not Communion with them D. O. 12. Argument That which deprives us of the principal Plea for the Iustification of our Separation from the Church of England in iâ—s present state ought not justly to be received or admitted But this is certainly done by a Supposition of the lawfulness of this Worship and a practice suitable thereunto as is known to all who are exercised in this Cause Many other heads of Arguments might be added to the same purpose if there were occasion § 28. TO your 12 th Argument I answer 1. That which discovereth the unsoundness of any ones Plea for Separation is to be received There are several Cases in which Separation from the Church of England is sinful As 1. If any separate as the Papists do because they are against sound Doctrine or any good that is in the Church 2. If any renounce Communion with all the Parish Churches under the name of the Church of England 3. If any renounce Communion with the Church of England as it is a Christian Kingdom headed by one Christian Protestant King 4. If they renounce Communion with the Church of England as it is called one from the Association or Concord of its Pastors or Church Governours 5. If any renounce Communion with faulty Bishops or Worship or Discipline simply and absolutely and not only secundum quid and so forsake the good that is in them for the sake of the evil In a word 1. All that Separate for a wrong cause 2. Or further than they Separate from Christ or than Christ would have them separate do sin 2. But they that renounce any corruption as such and the Church no further than secundum quid as it is faulty do well For we must so renounce the faults of all Churches and Christians in the World and our own first But not the Churches and Christians for any tolerable faults so we commit no Sin our selves which they impose as the condition of their Communion Reader I displease my own disposition as well as others in the answering of these Arguments But when I had read them my Conscience would not suffer me to see many thousand good People so misguided who have not skill themselves to discern the Fallacies and by Silence to betray them Let it be noted That it is not all nor the greatest Objections I confess which I here deal with having done it oft elsewhere but these Twelve militate so much against all the Liturgies in the World as well as ours that I durst not pass them by in Silence 1. Some object against the faults which they supposed very great in divers By-offices Baptizing Confirmation the Lords-Supper-Impositions Burial Circumstances and Forms But these are nothing to the common Worship of the Church on the Lords days 2. Some object against the Ministers as Usurpers being chosen by Patrons and not consented to by the Flocks But this is nothing against them that are consented to by Acceptance tho not by Election 3. Some Object the heniousness of the Sins of Ministers Conformity as being deliberate Covenanting to I am loath to name them and so the command from such turn away with such not to eat And the case of Martiall and Basilides in Cyprian and that of Miracle-working Martin which on another occasion I have mentioned But were these Sins never so surely proved as great as alledged 1. Every Minister cannot be proved guilty of the worst part 2. And the Matter of a Sin may be heinous and yet ignorance take off much of the guilt as it did of Paul's Persecution An unlawful War in which thousands were murdered and Countries ruined is Materially one of the greatest Sins in the World And yet wo to abundance of Princes and People if Ignorance excuse it not and if we must renounce Communion with all Countries and Persons that are guilty of it 3. And when
whole Countries and Churches are in Sin which we cannot cure and have no government of the case of commanded Communion much differs from that which is with single Offenders and that is in our Power to chuse or refuse 4. Some Object that the 5 th 6 th 7 th and 8 th Canons have excommunicated us already Therefore we separate not but they cast us out Ans. Let them that are concerned in those Canons defend them if they can and justifie themselves for it 's past my skill But we are not bound tho excommunicate to execute them on our selves Let others do it if it must be done FINIS POSTSCRIPT REader Upon the review of what I have here written I think meet to repeat the Occasion and to say somewhat of the Matter and the Manner of this Writing The last sheet of my Reasons for Communion being Printed and the opposite Twelve Arguments suddenly sent me as being in many hands and such as would frustrate all that I had written if they were not answered For the sake of such as have not skill to see Truth from Error and are led by Prejudice and Names I durst not in Conscience let them pass unanswered they being of such dangerous tendency and so exceeding erroneous and fallacious But being put by the stay of the Press to do it suddenly I see Reason to say more lest I be misunderstood And First of the Cause which I write of in its self and its consequents 2. The Season of it 3. The Manner as to the Authors whom I gainsay and confute and the manner of confuting them 4. My Reasons for the writing of this Confutation I. I am not writing against Episcopacy Presbytery Independency or Rebaptizing I am so far from judging any part of them to be men rejected by Christ or to be cast out of the Church or denied leave to worship God in their own Way or persecuted for it that I would do any lawful thing for their just Liberty Yea so far that it is only the contrary principle and endeavours by which they strive against and condemn one another and call aloud to their followers such I mean that are for the opposed Separation to avoid one another as ever they would scape the guilt of Idolatry or wilful sin And if I see one man in the streets beating all about him I cannot keep peace without resisting his unpeaceableness I am not justifying all that is required to Conformity nor all in the Liturgy Let them do it that can Mr. Warner speaketh untruly when he talks of my change herein and as if I went to the Parish-Churches for some worldly end I have been at no Church since August was Twelvemonth nor am ever more like to be unless the Church come to my bed-side or my door Is Mr. Warner so lately born that he never saw nor heard of our joynt endeavour when the King came in 1660. to have prevented these Confusions by getting a Reformation of the Liturgy at least before he said he knew not what of one whom he knoweth not he should have enquired whether I have not to this day since then 1660. held constant Communion with good Ministers in the Parish-Churches But with bad men and well-meaning honest men Satan doth most of his Work in the World by untruths and fallacies Most that think they do God Service by speaking evil of me falsly believe and perswade one another That I do write against them for not coming to the publick Churches and that I am an Accuser and Plaintiff against them for this and that hereby I animate men to afflict them with many other such untruths Whereas I have written over and over and over That I perswade no man either to or from a publick Church till I know his Circumstances And that I doubt not but it's one man's duty and anothers sin Were I under one intollerable for Ignorance Heresie or malignant Wickedness who did more hurt than good I would not seem to own him as a Minister any more than Cyprian did Martiall and Basilides or Martin Ithacius Idacius and the like or Gildas the Priests whom he describes or the ancient Churches Heretical Bishops Abundance of Circumstances make various the Cases of particular men Yea tho those Dividers renounce Communion with one another while I blame them and lament it I renounce Communion with none of the Parties no tho they revile and hate me Only 1. I will not commit any known sin with them while I communicate with them in all things else and own them as true Christians tho faulty 2. And I will not prefer worse before better if I know it tho I renounce neither It 's ordinary for Two Women fighting and scolding in the streets to turn both their railing against him that would quiet them And I expect the like The Cause that I write against is this Reader understand it or meddle not with what you understand not 1. That God's Worship saith D. O. 〈…〉 That all that is in it and belonging to it and the manner oâ— it is falâ—e Worship if it have not a Divine Institution in 〈◊〉 That all Liturgies as such are such falâ—e Worship and not the English only used to 〈◊〉 Christ's Prâ—miâ—e of Gifts and God's Spirit 2. That this Worship is Idolatry say some or so false and unlawful say the rest That it is a denying of Christ's Fidelity and it is a going to Idols Temples or at least unlawful to joyn in Communion with such as use it And therefore they perswade all as they will avoid Idolatry or false Worship and sin to avoid Communion with such Churches 3. And suppose that they truly instance in many things amiss in Order Ceremony Forms Impositions Defects because these are sinful he sinneth who communicateth with the Church which useth them his presence signifying his approbation specially if commanded to that end 4. And so Renunciation of Communion being the Excommunication which one Church hath power to inflict on another the sum is I write against the unjust Excommunicators of one another Their Executions are divers but their Principles and Spirits too like tho few of them know or will know what manner of Spirit they are of The uppermost Schismaticks like the uppermost Millstone are the Active and the nethermost the Passive part between both which Truth and Peace is broken and the Church pulverized Both Parties have not power to burn the Excommunicate or lay them in Goals or defame them without open controul But the nethermost Party in this agrees if not exceeds the other That they renounce Communion with the whole Church on Earth for 1200 or 1300 years and with almost all Protestants as well as others now Whereas the Pope was taken to be intollerably arrogant when he excommunicated and interdicted but rarely a whole Kingdom or one King but not all the Church on Earth 2 That the Pope and his Prelates excommunicate the Greeks and such as they call but Schismaticks and
not Hereticks with Exceptions That they may yet possibly be saved Christians But those that I confute charging the whole Church on Earth for 1200. years with Idolatry or false Worship which God accepteth not and none may communicate therein do thereby call all men to come out from among them and be separate and to hate them with that hatred which is due to Idolaters and to afford them no other love than is due to Idolaters or men that we must renounce Communion with I write therefore but as a Defendant of Love and Unity and the Catholick Church and the Communion of Saintâ— and the Souls of Thousands young ignorant persons that being justly afraid of sin and Idolatry and Damnation are aâ—frightned from Christian Love and Unity and Forbearance into the Wilderness of sinful Divisions and Confusions by these false frightful Names As I renounce all Canons that ipso facto exccommunicate men for being against humane unnecessary Formalities Offices yea and Corruptions So do I for the same Reasons renounce them that at one blow woâ—ld cut off all Christ's Churches on Earth or renounce Communion with them if they have but really or conceitedly such Corruptions and Defects Yea I maintain in the First Part That such faulty seâ—arating from one another is not a separation of them all from Christ when they see not the Consequences of their own Errors and man on Earth is in so great darkness that we all swarm with multitudes of Errors Now Reader if opposing all this be not Peace-making I know not what is And if the Peace-makers be the Incendiaries for confuting the Excommunicators and to be taken for the Enemies of Peace for breaking Satan's factious Peace breaking Peace Christ was mistaken that calleth them blessed And if the Zeal of the Sects which inclineth men to speak evil of such Peace makers as Troublers of the Church be the Wisdom from above why did Christ call such the Children of God O that men would often read over Rom. 14 and 15. 1 Cor. 12. and Iames 3. with â—hil 2. The â—lain Consequents of the Cause which I confute are these which I charge on the ill Cause and not on the honest ignorant men that see them not 1. That is is unlawful to communicate with almost any Church on Earth 2. That Christ having no Church for 1200. years was no Head of it and so no Christ. 3 That men must covenant to disobey Rulers or Pastors if they bid them kneel be uncovered or any of the oft named Accidents and manner of Worship And Children must dâ—sobey Parents that command them a Form of Prayer Psalm or Catechism 4. The Scots Covenant and Independent Covenant Catalogue of Fundamentals c. are made Idolatry 5. The contrary Extream is encourag'd To charge all this falsly on the Nonconformists if we confute it not 6. The Nonconformists that 1660 1661. attempted Concord by reforming the Liturgy are made Idolaters or their Communion unlawful c. II. And whereas my Writing is judged unseasonable by some that own the Cause â— write for 1. â—t never will be so seasonable as to be liable to no inconveniencies or great abuse nor hath been this Three and Twenty years 2. It is when the Universaâ— Non-Communion is maintained in Print by many and more dangerously by an excellent man in Writing and multitudes by these drawn into the sin 3. And when thousands are possest with a false Opinion that the Nonconformists commonly are of these Opinions and are to be hated and destroyed our silence seeming to them to own them 4. And when by 20 years forbearing publick Communion tho commanded and persecuted for it our hearers are brought confidently to believe that we all this while took it for unlawful and that if any now say otherwise it is but cowardly backsliding 5. It is when the Papists assaults of us and of honest Conformists as Trimmers maketh it necessary to unite and encourage all honest men That we fall not all into Roman snares and not to bid all Christians forsake all such honest Parish-Ministers 6. It is at a time when thousands are in danger of being ruined for mistake and thousands to be drawn from all Church-Worship when they can have no other than in Parish Churches 7. It is when we are in danger of transmitting this dividing Error to posterity by suffering for it as for the cause of God 8. It is when other Ministers do it not and therefore some one must And I that have no great impediment from friends or outward temptations but wait for my change am fitter to bear the noise of Censures than they that I hope may labour longer 9. And if I do it it must be now or never For there is no work in the Grave and Darkness But of all this my Reasons say more III. As to the Manner of my writings I doubt not but all that ever I wrote are faulty I am imperfect and can do nothing perfectly I herein suspect this and all my self and which is worst I have not skill enough on the longest consideration to avoid the faultiness For I have a strong love to Truth and hatred of Lying and specially a love to historical Truth and hatred to the deceiving of the World and Posterity And I have a diseased Impatience above any ordinary Tryal to hear men rage and be confident in Error and pour out words for untruths with unconvincible Fallacy and speak evil most zealously of that Truth which they least understand And in this Impatience I am apt to fit my Confutations to the Cause taking words to be false that are not to be adapted to the Matter But when I have done the guilty yea and their favourers cannot bear them and the words fit not the hearer which fit the Matter but the Disease is exasperated by the Medicine But then I think what 's needful to save those that are not yet infected and to silence reproaching Enemies tho the guilt be not cured As to this writing it grieved me to write a Defence against Mr. Ralphson in Prison and more when I heard that he was dead But I knew no other means suitable against a printed Temptation and Accusation but a printed Antidote and Defence Mr. Warner hath since printed a further Accusation with the same charge of Idolatry and false Worship against all the Manner of Worship not instituted and gives no Answer to my Confutation of it in Mr. Ralphsâ—n and said so little that I will not write for him that cannot himself confute him The Twelve Arguments I understand are likest to prevail most by the honour of Dr. Owens name more than by any strength that is in them I was willing as long as I could to believe that they were not his they being as fallacious and frivolous as any of the rest and one Error managed with above forty Mistakes But when his own Friends that have more of his on the same Subject chiding me for Answering them