An Account given of the Principles Practises Of Several NONCONFORMISTS Wherein it Appears that their Religion is no other than what is Profest in the Church of England In Vindication of themselves and others of their perswasion against the misrepresentation made of them And in hearty desire of Unity in the Church and of peace and concord among all true Protestants for the strengthening of their Common Interest in this time of their common Danger Written by Mr. John Corbet late of Chichester and approved by many other Nonconformists LONDON Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and 3 Crowns near Mercers Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside 1682. To the Reader REaders Least you should think that the agreement of all here written in sense and very much in words with what I have Published doth signifie that it is not wholly the Authors work but any of it mine I do truly acquaint you that he never so much as acquainted me with his writing it nor did I read it all before I gave it to the Printer nor did I alter adde or diminish one word in all the book But as we were of one Mind and Heart our agreement is no wonder And his widow the daughter of the famous Dr. Twisse assureth me that several eminent Nonconforming Divines saw it and approved it as I doubt not but most others will do when they have seriously perused it But alas I that have known these twenty years what other designes have been in some mens heads inconsistent with all such indeavours for our Concord and how powerful those men have been who profess that there is no way of Concord and avoiding Schisme but by obeying the Governing Universal Church which hath the power of Universal Legislation and Judgement which is a Forreign Jurisdiction I say I that know this must needs know how little more than the satisfying of our Consciences such pacificatory endeavours as these do signifie But as my dear Brother dyed in the comfort of Christs judgment Blessed are the Peacemakers the rest of us wait in hope so to dye Richard Baxter Feb. 10. 1681. Several Tracts not yet Printed prepared for the Press and left under Mr. John Corbett's own handting intended shortly to be Published are as follows 1. THE true State of the Ancient Episcopacy 2. The present Ecclesiastical Government compared with the Ancient Episcopacy 3. A Consideration of the present State of Conformity in the Church of England 4. A Discourse of the Church and of the Ministry thereof 5. A Tract of Certainty and Infallibility 6. Of Divine Worship in three parts 1. Of the Nature Kinds Parts and Adjuncts of Divine Worship 2. Of Idolatry 3. Of Superstition less than Idolatry 7. His Humble Representation of his Case touching the Exercise of his Ministry 8. Discourses between Dr. Gunning late Bishop of Chichester and himself wherein are several Humble Defences made both as to his Principles and Practice 9. An humble endeavour of some plain and brief Explication of the Decrees and Operations of God about the free Actions of Men. More especially of the Operations of Divine Grace 10. Matrimonial Purity An Account given by some deprived Ministers of their judgement and practice c. THE manifold reproaches heaped upon the Nonconformists among whom it is our lot to be numbred have filled the whole Nation Our Religion hath been represented as a mixture of folly and villany our principles and tempers as turbulent seditious and utterly inconsistent with the peace of Church or State and our pretences as frivolous and often baffled Our Governours have been admonished to beware of us as their worst and most dangerous enemies and excited to use the utmost severities against us Hereupon it behoves us to humble our selves in the sight of the Lord and to implore his mercy and to bear his just rebukes in the unjust reproaches cast upon us by men also to suffer these indignities with Christian patience and to shew our selves reconcilable to those who have been so adverse to us and to endeavour peace and concord with them if it be possible many of whom we suppose to have been acted in this matter with an undissembled zeal though not regulated by sound knowledge or due charity but hurried with unreasonable prejudice and passion We hold it also our duty not to neglect our own necessary vindication but in honest simplicity to make known to all what principals and practices we own and stand to Though we are taught and encouraged to labour and suffer reproach and to reckon it a very small thing to be judged by man's judgment yet we are bound to vindicate our innocence for the truths sake and out of charity towards all men to provide what in us lies that none may take an occasion of stumbling in us And here it shall suffice us only to make a true representation of our selves having this confidence that the bare stating of our case will be our sufficient defence 1. In the first place we declare that with us the kingdom of God is not Conformity or Nonconformity as such but Christianity or real Godliness which is most summarily comprized in the baptismal Covenant of Grace and more explicitely yet briefly in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decaloge and at large and most perfectly in the Holy Bible A religiousness made up of little opinions and modes and phrases and sidings with this or the other party is none of ours though we are injuriously personated in some late writings to act such a part Faith hope and love is the essence of our Religion and with us differences in things not essential do not make different Religions VVe disdain our being of a party as such And though the godly be a peculiar people we confine not godliness to any peculiar way narrower than mere Christianity We make no Humane additions in Sacred things nor any mutable circumstances to be the terms of Christian Fellowship 2. Accordingly we seek not the advancement of any Sect or Party to the injury or neglect of the Universal Church or Christian cause or the common good And as we are no faction we know that Factiousness is not our Interest but turns to our greatest loss Our aims being Christian and Catholick we seek the increase of the visible Catholick Church or the whole Society of men professing true Christianity in order to the increase of the Church invisible or the Society of Regenerate Christians And to these ends we desire and most approve the primitive simplicity in Doctrine Worship and Discipline And herein we boast not as if we were the only men of the Primitive Christian Spirit but we answer them who have trampled upon us as an impertinent trifling Sect. 3. We heartily own the Protestant Reformation in Doctrine and particularly that of the Church of England contained in the Nine and Thirty Articles except those Two or Three that relate only to some of our present differences and not at all to the Doctrine of
speak so highly of morality and virtue we will not differ with them about the name For morality or immorality taken not vulgarly but theologically is no other than the conformity or inconformity of our minds and actions to God and his Laws And that to preach morality in this sense is to preach Christ we acknowledge as freely as any others But we know the vulgar notion thereof respects the civil righteousness of the natural man and for the sake of common hearers who understand words as they are commonly used among themselves we think it necessary to distinguish between saving grace and moral virtue Furthermore we say not nor are we acquainted with them that do say that the morally righteous man is at a greater distance from grace than the prophane and better be lewd and debauched than to lead an honest and virtuous life We hear no such words out of the mouths of Non-Conformists though some have suggested it against us to make us odious And it seems strange that any should insinuate a charge of Antinomianism against us by making the personated Non-Conformist to call the Doctrine of good works legal preaching when it is so well known that some of ours have done as much as any in confuting the Antinomian dotages We teach none to call themselves Godly meerly because they hear Sermons frequent Lectures and meet together for Prayer and other Religious Exercises yet our aim is that men should make Religion their business and we incourage their diligence in attending on God's Ordinances and redeeming the time and helping each other forward in the way to Heaven 26. Though we are accused to be of that Spirit that saith Stand by thy self come not near to me I am holyer than thou yet we place not Holyness in any peculiar garb of profession or in standing at a greater distance from others than God would have us We receive all men as much as either brotherly kindness or common charity will allow VVe affect no greater singularity than the uncontroverted Non-Conformity to the VVorld makes necessary Differences of perswasion in the matters controverted we make not to be marks of distinction between good and bad men VVe judge not any as ungodly upon the meer account of their Conformity yea we have incomparably more value for a Godly Conformist than for a meerly Opinionative Non-Conformist VVe renounce not Communion in the publique worship of the Parish Churches though for its outward form and order in some respects it be not that which is most desireable by us It is our hearts desire and prayer to God that the VVord Prayer and Sacraments therein dispensed may be blest to the great increase of true Godliness in those that attend thereon Yea we wish so well to the ability and godliness of our opposites in these controversies that it would be our great rejoycing that every Parish Church in England were filled with an able Godly Minister though conformable VVe own the Catholick Communion of Saints and desire a part in the Prayers of all faithfull Christians whether they pray by a set form or without it 27. VVhereas we are charged with immodesty and boldness in our inquiries and conclusions we profess that in the Doctrines of predestination redemption divine Grace free will original sin justification perseverance and assurance of Salvation we differ not from the Established Doctrine of the Church of England and we approve her moderation used in those Articles which we take in the same sense with the English Episcopal Divines in general that lived in Queen Elizabeth's and King James his times And for our parts we judge that the controversies about these points might be lessened and would gladly do our endeavours to the lessening of them 28. Our Doctrine tends to unquietness and confusion no more than the common Doctrine of Protestants and of the Church of England it self for it is the same as we have shewed And we protest against such citations to the contrary as men bring out of writers reputed of our party and renounce whatsoever is written or spoken contradictory to our here avowed Principles And we think it not fair dealing in our adversaries to repeat and aggravate all intemperate passages vented in those times when impetuous actings hurried men into extremities and states-men and sword-men heightened the differences between Divines and especially to do this after our professed moderation hath been acknowledged by our Governours Besides the generality or at least the far greater number of the silenced Ministers now living were not ingaged in the late wars And if these were allowed to preach the Gospel we should be thankfull for the favour though the rest remain excluded 29. We acknowledge the importance of a publique settlement and how necessary it is that both people and teachers be under the regulation and influence of authority And that the willfull and indiscreet might be held in their due limits we would not have things left at random but under stated rules We seek not to be received upon lawless terms but are willing to submit to tryal not only upon accusation of lewd scandall or insufficiency or negligence in our calling but of venting any error contrary to the received Doctrine or of doing any thing contrary to peace and order But it is unreasonable for any to urge this concession for the rigorous imposing of doubtfull and needless things which tend to trouble and not to settle the Church It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to the Apostles and Elders and Brethren assembled at Jerusalem to lay upon the Churches no other burden than things necessary And here we take notice of their impertinency who think it enough to confute all our plea for moderation by publishing quotations out of our writers which were written against an intolerable toleration to wit of heresies blasphemies and open impieties and not the indulgence which we have pleaded for If they can see no medium between tolerating all things and tolerating nothing others can Besides it is an accommodation and union that we have sought by a sufficient comprehensiveness in the publique constitution and then there withall an indulgence towards remaining Dissenters but such as for the subject of it hath nothing that is intolerable We have a true regard to our Brethren that are more streigthened in their judgments than we are and would not have them the worse for our liberty if we could obtain it 30. Though we have not the same latitude of judgment with Conformists in some points yet we have the same Catholick Spirit to promote the common interest of Religion and more especially the Protestant Reformation and to dread the weakening or shattering of it by needless Schisms We mind the way of unity and consistence and retain healing principles we hold it not our duty to publish all truths when the unseasonableness thereof might cause disturbance nor to defend lesser truths with the disadvantage of greater We would not widen breaches nor make other mens opinions
to do our uttermost to perswade them upon whom we have any influence and we would gladly come to the tryal to see which party should outvy the other in forwardness in allaying the present distempers and lessening the differences and drawing on towards peace and union 38. We have here done our part to remove the offences taken at us by testifying to all men that conscientious dissatisfaction and not carnal interest or a Spirit of opposition is the ground of our Non-Conformity and to bring such as differ from us to be more in charity with us than to judge that we are utterly unworthy or uncapable of the publick Ministry or that such persons as for ignorance and lewdness are scandalous and contemptible among their Neighbours are more tolerable in that sacred office than we are or that gross insufficiency non-residence and other hainous negligence should be made less criminal than our dissent about the ceremonies subscriptions renunciations and such like injunctions VVe submit what we have done to the wisdom piety and clemency of our Governours VVe acquiesce in Gods wise and holy determinations concerning us And we resolve through his grace to abide stedfast and unmoveable in our subjection and loyalty to our Sovereign in our due obedience to those that are put in authority under him in our earnest indeavours of holiness unity and peace in the Church in brotherly love to all saithfull Christians in charity to all men and in the Faith and Patience of the Disciples and Servants of Jesus Christ. VVe are moved at this time to publish this account of our pacifick principles and inclinations that we might promote what in us lies the true bond of union among sincere Protestants These though of different perswasions in points of lesser moment have one joynt stock the Protestant Religion for which they are all jealous and at this time allarm'd by the imminent danger from an irreconcileable and restless adversary that would destroy them all All true Protestants have their interest not a part from but in strict conjunction with the whole body of that profession they have no possible way of securing themselves but in the general good of the state of England They cannot fly to the refuge of any forreign Prince or State they acknowledge no forreign jurisdiction all their stake lyes at home VVhereupon one would think that the common safety should incline all the several parties to strengthen their common interest by a good and firm accord upon just and reasonable terms And whosoever remain averse from it seem to value a partial interest and their own peculiar state more than the Protestant Religion it self A just latitude of Church-state in the established order for the comprehending of all those whose more moderate Principles render them capable of being conjoyned in one setled National Government and for others who by reason of their narrower principles cannot enter into such conjunction a sufficient yet duly limited indulgence are the things which we humbly propose and earnestly desire We seek not the destroying of foundations but some necessary reformations relaxations and forbearances For us to set forth the propounded latitude in the particular limits thereof would be presumptuous both in reference to Superiors and to the parties concerned in it We humbly leave it to the prudent and pious consideration of our Governours This grand affair is acknowledged to be full of difficulty caused by the passions prejudices and interests of the several parties nevertheless we hope that the prudence and patience of those who sit at the helm of Government is able to master it Next under the power wisdom and goodness of God standing on our side our help stands in the wisdom and piety of our Sovereign and his Parliament His most excellent Majesty in his declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs hath mentioned particular concessions on both sides and a harmony of affection therein which he calls excellent foundations to build upon The moderation specified in that gracious declaration would do much to the present healing of our breaches in great part and would set us in the surest way for as perfect healing thereof as may ordinarily be hoped for in the imperfect state of things in this World FINIS