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
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
Convocations govern but as their Representatives 2. All that say that it is only the Bishops and not the Presbyters in Convocation that are the Governing Canon-making Church 3. All that say that the Clergy represent not King Nobles Parliaments Laiety and that these are true parts of the Church of England All these are ipso facto excommunicate 45. The 140. Canon Excommunicateth them that deny the Canons obligation of absent Dissenters which yet even many Papists deny of Councils Canons 46. The last Canon Excommunicateth all that contemn these Canons as taking them to be the work of a Company of Persons that conspired against Religious Godly men All this huge Catalogue are here excommunicate 47. If any part of all this be Schism Mr. Dodwell and this man seem to teach Separation from the Church of England Or if the late silencing hunting and ruining of two thousand Ministers were Schism and as bad as Bishop Taylor in Duct Dubit Mr. Hales of Eaton Chillingworth c. say of the like then these men make all the Church of England to be in as damnable a State as Adulterers and Murderers Yea they make all damnable Schismaticks that hold Communion with the Church of England for that is their Sentence on them that communicate with Schismaticks viz. that they are guilty of their Schism 48. They unchurch and damn the Churches of Corinth Galatia Laodicea Ephesus Smyrna c. in the Apostles dayes For the Scripture tells us of many guilty of Schism in all these and yet the rest communicated with them for the Scripture speaks more of Schism in a Church than of Schism or Separation from a Church Rom. 16.17 1 Cor. 1.10 3.3 11.18 Mat. 12 25. Luke 12. 52 53. 1 Cor. 12.25 Iam. 3.15 16. And yet no one was commanded to separate from those Churches no not from those that had Heresies among them such as denyed the Resurrection and taught Fornication and eating things offered to Idols that were drunk at the Sacrament or Love-Feasts nor those that had Jewish Schismaticks who talkt like ours Act. 15. Except ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses ye cannot be saved The Churches were not all unchurcht and damn'd that communicated with such Yea Peter was guilty of encouraging them in Schism that would not eat with the Christian Gentiles but he was not unchristened by this 49. They separate from or unchurch almost all the Ancient Churches in the dayes of the most famous Emperours and Councils For I have manifested past doubt that they almost all did Hereticate or separate from one another It was Schism either in Victor to Excommunicate the Asian Bishops or in them to deserve it and be excommunicate The owning or disowning several Councils specially that of Calcedon and that at Const. de tribus Capitulis c. was the Schism of almost all the Imperial Churches one part condemning the other And if either were in the Right it salves not the Case with them For most of the same men that went that way call'd the Right in one Princes Reign went contrary in the next and so condemned each other round especially about Images adoration 50. Hereby they cut off that Succession of that sort of Ordination which they say must be uninterrupted while it came down from Churches excommunicated by one another or make the Proof of it impossible 51. They separate from all the Greek Church at this day as guilty of Schism both in their Succession from Schismaticall Bishops at Constant Alexand. Antioch Ierusalem c. and in their excommunicating not only the Church of Rome for a wrong cause the filioque but other Churches and for divers Acts of Schism 52. They must by their Principles Separate from the Abassines Aegyptians Syrians and all the Eastern and Southern Churches that are called Iacobites and Nâ—storians For Councils and other Churches condemn them And they condemn the Councils of Ephesus and Calcedon and all since And they must separate from and condemn the Churches of Armenia Georgia Circassia c. because they separate from others and are separated from 53. Their Principles utterly unchurch the Church of Rome 1. Especially because it is guilty of the greatest Schism on earth by setting up a false Church form and head 2. And because they Schismatically condemn and Unchurch three parts of the Church on earth even all save their Sect 3. And for their many other Schismatical Doctrines and Practices 4. And as being condemned by the Greek Protestants and most Churches and separated from by the Church of England which they own 54. They separate in Principles from all or near all General Councils save the first as having separated from other Councils and condemned them and being again condemned by them 55. Some of them condemn and separate from all the Protestant Churches that have Bishops in Sweden Denmark Germany Transylvania c. because they had not their Ordination Successively from Bishops but Presbyters at the Reformation And because they have been guilty of Schism against others 56. The Principles of Mr. Dodwel and his Associates condemn the Church of England as Schismatical 1. Those that claim Succession from Rome whose own Succession hath been oft and long interrupted by incapacities and Schisms 2. For holding Communion with those Protestant Churches which these men call Schismaticks 57. They condemn and separate from all the Churches called Presbyterian in France Holland Geneva Scotland formerly and those in Helvetia that have no Bishops Thô some would threat kindness on them by saying that they would have them and cannot And why cannot they 58. Their Principles make the Bishop of Oxford Bristol c. Schismaticks For their Dioceses are Churches taken out of Churches being lately parts of other Dioceses 59. And they condemn all the Parish Churches in England as Churches distinct from Cathedrals For they are all Churches gathered out of Churches At first the Cathedrals were the only single Churches Next Monasteries were gathered and next our Parish Churches And the Parish Church of Covent-garden is a Church taken out of a Church 60. Their Principles damn St. Martin that separated to the death from all the Bishops Synods and them that were near him save one Man because they perswaded Maximus to use the Sword against Priscillian Gnosticks and brought men of strict Religion under Suspicion of Priscillianism And sure the ruined persecuted Protestants here are more Orthodox than the Priscillians And they damn Gildas that told the English Clergy that he was not eximius Christianus that would call them Ministers Do they not disgrace the many Churches dedicated to the Memory of St. Martin if he be a damned man I doubt they damn Paul and Barnabas for local angry separating from each other Whatever they do by Peter and Barnabas for the Separation blamed Gal. 2. 61. If all are Schismaticks that here conform not all those called Conformists are such that conform to the words in a false sence 62. They separate from
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
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
trust the conduct of their Souls Nor did they think so that forbad men hearing fornicators Nor Cyprian that required the People to forsake Basilides and Martial Peccatorem Praepositum XXXV So full was the proof given in the Book called The first Plea for Peace that the Church from the beginning denyed Princes and Magistrates to be entrusted with the choice of Bishops or Pastors to whom the Churches were bound to trust the conduct of their Souls that he who denyeth it is not worthy to be therein disputed with And yet we doubt not but they may force Infidel Subjects and Catechumens to hear sound and setled Preachers and Catechists And may dispose of the Tythes Temples and many other Accidents of the Church and may drive on Pastors and People to their Duty XXXVI It is false Doctrine that two distinct Churches may not be in the same Precincts or City This being a meer Accident which abundance of Cases make unnecessary and unlawful Which I shall prove That which is no where commanded by God is no duty But that there shall be but one Church or Bishop in the same Precincts is not commanded of God Ergo c. Divine of Gods making They own the Major in the case of Indifferent thing If they deny the Minor let the affirmers prove any such command We grant a command of Love and Concord and a prohibition of all that is against them But in many instances to have several Churches in the same precincts is not against them If they fly to the Canons of foreign Councils the reason of them we shall weigh and duely regard But they were National and had their Legislative Power only from their own Princes and their Counselling Power only from Christ And we disown all foreign Jurisdiction XXXVII In all these Cases following and more two Churches may be in the same precincts yea and a City 1. In Case that several Bishops are called justly to dwell in the same City or Diocess and many of their Flock be with them e. g. Many Bishops of England dwell long yea mostly in London or in London Diocess e. g. The Bishop of Eli dwells in the Parish of St. Andrews Holbourn Qu. Whether there he be a Subject to Dr. Stillingfleet as his Pastor and bound to obey him or whether many out of his Diocess thousands may not as Lawfully dwell half the Year in London as he And whether when he preacheth to them he do it not as their Bishop in London Diocess And so of many other Bishops that here reside XXXVIII 2. Either our Parish Churches are true Churches or not If not the Separatists are so far in the right And separate not from true Churches eo nomine because they separate from them If yea then many Churches are in the same City and Diocess Of their agreement and dependance on the same Bishop I shall speak anon XXXIX 3. In case that in one City there be resident Stranges that are sent on Embassies or live for Merchandize or flee from Miseries and are the Subject of other Princes whose Laws and Customs they are under e. g. At Frankford Hamburgh Middleburgh Dantzick Constantinople there have been English distinct lawful Churches And in London there are Dutch and French Churches And if the King allowed a Swedish Church a Danish Church a Saxon Church c. with their several Bishops who is so weak as to need proof that this is lawful and they true Churches XL. 4. In case men of different Language are not capable of mutual converse by personal communion or help As Dutch French Italian Greeks Germans c. Grotius and Dr. Hammond oft in Dissert and Annot. do maintain that Peter at Rome had a Church of Iews and Paul a Church of Gentiles And that the like distribution of Churches of Iews and Gentiles there was at Antioch Alexandria and other places And by this they Salve the Contradictions in Church History about the Succession of Linus Cletus and Clemens And the Apostles setled not a sinful Church way XLI 5. Yea Grotius maintaineth that the Apostles setled the Churches at first not like the Jewish Priesthood but in the order of their Synagogues de Imper. sum Patest and in Annot. And that as there were divers Synagogues in a great City with their Archisynagogus and Elders so there were divers Churches in a City with Bishops and Presbyters XLII 6. When there are a greater number of Persons in one City or precinct than can have any just personal Knowledge and Communion and more than any one Bishop with his Presbytery can perform the needful Pastoral oversight to it is lawful and a duty to gather another Church in that City or Precinct But this is truly the Case of many great Cities though worldly Wisdom have at Rome and other places oft denyed notorious evidence and experience He that will gather up all the duties that Dr. Hammond saith were charged on the Bishops in his Annotations on all the Texts that name Elders and Bishops if he can believe that any Bishop can perform the tenth part of them to all in the Diocess of London York Lincoln Norwich c. I will not dispute against him if he maintain a Bishops Ubiquity or that at once he can be in twenty places But if they say that what then was commanded them to do personally they may do by others I say that if they may change the Work they may change the Power that specifieth the Office and so it is not the same Office in specie instituted in Scripture And then Lay-men may have Power to preach and administer Sacraments and do the Office of Priests and yet be no Priest as Civilians do of Bishops which is a Contradiction Certainly if there be more Scholars in the City than one Master can Teach and Rule it is no Schism to set up more Schools and Schoolmasters but a duty And if the Lord Mayor on pretence of City Government should put down but as great a part of Family Government as those Diocesans do of Parochial Church Government who allow none under them to be truly Episcopi Gregis and have the power of their Church Keyes I think that it were no Schism to restore Families so that the City might have more than one entirely XLIII 7. If the Soveraign Power upon Politick or Religious Reasons should determine that e. g. Dr. A and Dr. B and Dr. C. shall all be Bishops in London to such Volunteers of Clergy and Laity as shall choose each of them to be their Bishop and this without altering their dwellings no man can prove it sinful And of his reasons the King is judge XLIV 8. If the Bishop or Clergy of a City Diocess or Nation do agree by Law or Canon to admit none to the Ministry or Communion that will not commit a known sin deliberately as the Condition of his Communion it is a duty to congregate under other Pastors in those precincts This is confest If they
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
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
Bare Unity is more intelligible tho no one know wherein it must be § 39. He adds To preservt the Peace and Unity of Episcopacy it 's necessary that every Bishop do not only observe the same Rule of Faith but especially in matter of weight and consequence the same Customes and Usages and the same Laws of Discipline and Government and when any difficult case happens for which they have no standing Rule to consult Ans. The longer the worse If I ask him whether he mean such Customs and Usages as are part of God's Word materially commanded or commended in Scripture I know not what he will say but I strongly conjecture he will say No It is Tradition and Church-Customs not there mentioned If I ask how these come espcially to be mentioned as matter of weight and consequence he confesseth that God and not Man made the Church And is not God's Law sufficient to be its Universal Rule If man make these matters of weight man may unmake them 2. But is it not Universal Church-Communion that he is speaking of I provoke him to tell me if he can who on Earth hath power beside God and our Saviour to make Laws the same of Discipline and Government to the Universal Church Is not Legislation the prime part of Government Have not you oft denied any Humane Supreme Government under Christ over all the Church Do you not here say the contrary Know you not the difference between the Contracts of a Community and the Laws of a Polity It 's no true Law if it be not the act and instrument of a Rector to govern his Subjects If Twenty Kings meet or School-Masters Physicians c. and agree on certain Points of Government this maketh them not One Polity Kingdom or School Their Contracts are neither Laws to each other nor to their common Subjects but every King may make them a Law to his own Subjects 4. If you should mean only National Laws of Discipline and Government how come all the Churches in the World to be obliged to observe the same Laws e g. our Canons This as to Traditions is expresly contrary to our Articles of Religion which you subscribe And when the Church-Laws of all Countreys differ so much which must all be reduced to If you say They must all agree to those called the Codex Ecclesiae Universalis or the Four or Six first approved Councils c. I answer 1. It 's gratis dictum And how prove you those universally obligatory and no other And how will you satisfie Conscience which are the obligatory Laws indeed 2. Why do you then cast all from Communion that observe the 20 th Canon of the Council of Nice 3. What power have dead Bishops over us and all Christ's Church They were Canons for one Empire which is dissolved and of which we are no part 4. Is Christ so insufficient a Lawgiver even for Laws necessary to the Unity of his Church as that we must have more Laws of Government and Discipline which the Catholick Church must unite in or be no Church And shall that man plead for such Laws that yet saith There is no universal Governor I never said you are a Cassandrian or a Papist But it was such ignorant Doctors that saddled the Horse and held the Stirrup while the Pope got up § 40. This saith he makes it highly reasonable for Neighbour-Bishops at as great a distance as the thing is practicable with ease and convenience as the Bishops of the same Province or Nation to live together in a strict Assâ—ciation and Confederacy to meet in Synods to oblige themselves to the same Rules of Discipline and Worship There may be a primacy of order granted to some Bishops and their Chair by general consent and under the regulation of Ecclesiastical Canons for the preservation of Catholick Unity Ans. You make this Catholick Unity essential to the Church And yet doth it lie in Humane Canons and Assâ—ciations Did Christ leave things so essential to Humane Invention And is concord in your Canons necessary to salvation And yet the proof of all this is but this and such Doctors Assertion that it's highly reasonable And so Unity and Salvation must lie on all that such will think highly reasonable 2. If Subjects may thus make their own Laws no doubt they will make them suitable to their Natures and Inclinations And it 's confest that oft the most even of Bishops are bad and worldly men and suitable to their Ends and Interests How many would be glad if Soveraigns would thus let Subjects make their own Laws 3. But how were the Canons or Laws of a National Church to be a Rule to all the Church on Earth and necessary to its Unity 4. And how comes this man that made it damnable in the Independents to make a Church-Covenant as if they renounced Baptism now to make Church-Associations and Confederacies to be so necessary to Catholick Unity Truly I know no answer for the man but the same that Binnius giveth us when Pope Iohn and Hormisda gave a contrary determination de fide on the question Whether it may be said that One of the Trinity was crucified One said Yea But the Nâ—storians taking hold of it the other said Nay Ita mutatis hostibus saith Bâ—â—nius arma necessario mutanda sunt That 's true when it 's for themselves which is false when it 's for others 5. But it was modestly done to confine these Confederacies to the greatest distance that the thing is practicable with ease and convenience And so he fairly denieth General Councils and after more plainly But when the Armenians Syrians Abassines Greeks c. cannot with ease and convenience go above Five or Six Hundred miles at most and so each Countrey hath different Customs Laws and Canons Can the Catholick Church obey them all § 41. P. 127. This saith he seems to be the true Original of Archiepiscopal and Metropolitical Churches Ans. If so I will not believe that they are necessary to Catholick Unity and Salvation till I know who invented them and whether they had as good a Commission as the Apostles 2. If Bishops made the first Achbishops and parish-Parish-Bishops say others the first Diocesans and Presbyters the first Parish-Bishops then 1. Inferiors may make Superiors and give the power which they never had 2. Why then may they not ordain Equals and propagate their species 3. Then Presbyters or Bishops are of God and Archbishops of Men. § 42. Page 128. Saith he Every Bishop is the proper Governour of his own Diocess and cannot be regularly imposed on against his consent Ans. Yet even now He that causelesly breaks this Union is no Catholick Bishop It seems then it goeth not by Vote but a Dissenter may be a free Catholick I pray you then impose not on others against their conâ—ent The whole Authority saith he of any Bishop or Council over other Bishops is founded on the Laws of Catholick Communion Therefore they have no
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 only Remedy against Schism to be the chiefest cause They have made Associations and Confederacies of Men to set up New Forms of Churches Church-Government or Communion by multitudes of Clergy-Laws or Canons of their own to be necessary to Ministry and Communion and consequently to avoid Schsm and consequently to Salvation By which Arrogancy and Impositions and Arbitrary Laws and Censures thereupon the Christian World is now almost all broken into Sects condemning and censuring one another into Greeks Muscovites Armenians Georgians Nestorians Jacobites Abassines Maronites Papists Protestants c. And of all these the Papists pretend to a Power of Government by Legislation and Iudgment over all the Christians on Earth some placing it in the Pope as chief some in a Council or the Colledge of Bishops as chief of which the Pope is the prime Member most in Pope and Council agreeing This Sect unchurcheth all Christians save themselves and have made so many Canon-Laws as none can understand and keep Some that yet do not own the Pope tell us That yet the Church on Earth is one Political Body not unified by its Relation to Christ the Head and Form He is not Visible enough say the Papists to Head a Church that may be called Visible But it is unified by a certain Confederacy of Communion among themselves which sometime they call an Universal Government and say they have power to make Universal Laws and sometime say It is not One Unifying Government but One Communion and yet make Laws which all must hold Communion with They say and unsay and know not what to say They cannot tell us what are the necessary terms of that Communion nor how to know with what Nations and Churches we must hold it But this they agree in That Christ the Finisher of our Faith hath left Faith Worship and Government so unfinished that Bishops of all the World or many Nations they know not who must make us more Laws and when they will have done and compleated Religion no man knows And that all that will be Christians must on the Terms of these Canons have Communion with them and refuse not one thing that they command And therefore must all be learned enough to know that all that they command is lawful And if any withdraw for an Oath or Covenant or Ceremony tho he mentally own them as true Churches or if for dissent he be excomunicated by them he must worship God in no other Assembly but live like an Atheist till he be convinced of the Lawfulness of their Impositions else all that so worship God are damnable Schismaticks and so are all that communicate with them So that I know but few on Earth that they damn not for breaking their Canons tho they would keep all the Laws of Christ And every where they that have strength and possession presume that it is they that must thus be the Standers and Rulers of all others about them It is an utter Maze which they make the Terms of catholick communion and consequently of Salvation instead of the few plain certain things which Christ made necessary We can get but few of the vulgar to understand the sense of Baptism the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments And our churches are much made up of such and our Parishes have too many Sadduces Infidels and Hobbists yet all must be supposed to know 1. That all the Bishops and Priests are truly called and authorized when few know what maketh them Pastors indeed 2. And that all their words ceremonies and impositions are not repugnant to God's Word 3. And that all are to be avoided whom their Canons and Lay-civilians excommunicate 4. That it is a company of true Bishops and Churches in other Nations whose communion they own 5. That all are Schismaticks that they so judg and their churches no true churches of The English Schismatick detected and confuted Occasioned by a Resolver of Cases about Church Communion CHAP. I. SAITH THE RESOLVER § 1. THE Church is a Body or society of men separated from the rest of the World and united to God and to themselves by a Divine Covenant A. He saith this is the plainest description he can give That is not the fault of his Auditors or Readers 1. As to the Genus a Community of equals without Rulers is a body but I suppose he meaneth not such 2. Is it enough that it be of Men sure now they should be Christians 3. Many are separated from the rest of the World secundum quid that are no Christians some in one respect and some in another and none in all respects 4. Vnited to God is an ambiguous word no Creature is Vnited to him perfectly so as to be thereby what he is God in the created Nature Only Christ is united to him Hypostatically in his created Nature All are so far united to him in natural being as that in him they live and move and have their being And the Nature of man is one sort of his Image All things are united to him as effects to their constant efficient The Church should not be defined without any mention of Christ The Churches Union with God is by Christ. 5. Christ himself as Head is an essential part of the Church and should not be left out of a Definition thô the meer Body may in common speech be called the Church as the People may be called a Kingdom 6. Will any Divine Covenant serve or must it not be only the Baptismal Covenant 7. Is it called Divine only as made by God or as commanded by God and made by Man or as mutual Certainly Gods Law and offered or Conditional Promise is most frequently called His Covenant in Scripture and this uniteth not men to God till they consent and Covenant with him Their own Covenant Act is necessary hereto And that is a Divine Covenant only as commanded and accepted and done by Gods assisting Grace 8. The form of a Church is Relative and the Terminus is essential to a Relation It is no definition that hath not the End of the Association Therefore this is none at all and so the beginning tells us what to expect This description hath nothing in it but what may agree to divers forms of Society and so hath not the form of a Church And if he intended not a Definition but a loose description I would a defining Doctor had had the Chair during this controversie Let us try this description upon a Mahometan Kingdom Army or Navy or suppose them meer Deists 1. Such a Kingdom Army or Navy may be a Society 2. Of Men. 3. Separated from the rest of the World secundum quid ad hoc and none are separated from it simpliciter ad omnia e. g. No man is separated from the common humanity No Deist from any but Atheists and no Christian in believing a God and the Law of Nature and Nations 4. They are Vnited to God so far as owning a God and
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
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
we there Worship and therefore it is it self a subordinate act of Worship So to stand or kneel at Prayer and not to sit Though in Scripture we read of sitting standing kneeling and prostration yet no one of these is made necessary by Institution yet are they subordinate Acts of Worship expressing our inward Worship of God And the reason why being uncovered or kneeling are now chosen is not a particular Institution but because the Custom of the Country hath made them the most congruous Expression of our inward Worship when as Paul tells us That then and there it was a shame for a man to be covered and the whole Church for many hundred years forbad all kneeling in Adoration on the Lord's Days And more To these I add the gesture of the Adult in Baptism whether they shall be Baptized kneeling to signifie Humble Reception or not is left to choice So is the Gesture in singing Psalms If any think that speaking to God by prayer praise or thanksgiving in Psalms should in honour to God be done Standing or Kneeling rather than Sitting it is no addition to God's Institution And that we commonly use sitting in Psalmody and not when we Pray in Prose is meerly because Custom maketh one more offensive than the other The same I say of the Gesture of Preaching which some do sitting with their Hats on and others stand to avoid a seeming dishonour of Gods Name and Service Also some holy Nonconformists I have known that would rarely name God but with their Hats put off or bowing their Heads or with Hands and Eyes lift up towards Heaven Old Mr. Atkins at Tipton near Dudley did thus use to shew such Reverence when he named God that would strike Reverence into those that saw and heard him and hath oft Affected me more than a Sermon This was External Worship not Instituted in the particulars but in general of Reverence to God 2. Another instance is in Vows to God which are acts of Worship But for the Matter of them several things may be Vowed which are not particularly commanded but onely in the General And for the Form or Words I do not think that Mr. Raphson can shew me all that Vow called the Covenant in any particular Institution and yet I conjecture that he taketh it not to be Idolatry nor Unlawful 3. Another Instance is in things devoted and offered to God The Scripture in general saith Honour God with thy substance and with the first Fruits of thy increase And that Christians at first sold all and laid at the Apostles Feet which yet Peter tells Ananias he might have chosen not to do And for many hundred years after they brought their Weekly Donations for the Ministers Sacraments and Poor to the Altar and Offer'd it first to God And so Paul would have the Corinthians give their Collections as to God for the Saints But no Institution told them how much they should give but the General Rule 4. Another Instance is the length or degree of outward Worship If I pray two hours rather than one it is an act of Honour or Worship not particularly commanded So whether men shall in Publick read one Chapter or two sing one Psalm or two or more is undetermined by God 5. Another is about set Days and Hours for Worship as to keep a yearly Thanksgiving for Deliverance from the Powder Plot the Spanish Invasion for the Reformation c. So also Fasts and what days Lectures shall be kept and what hour And what day and hour the Lord's Supper shall be Administred which are Circumstantial Acts of Worship 6. Another Instance is in the choice of Psalms and Hymns the use of Davids are Lawful and so are others but no Institution tyeth us to One but leaveth us to chuse 7. Another Instance is in the Tunes and Metre of Psalms which we use as Subordinate Acts of Worship It is but lately that the Churches used Metre and Melody of Tune but Prose read with a loud Voice yet I hope we are not Idolaters for our Metre and Melody which I may say also of Church Musick which David used and we may do where it 's Edifying but it 's no Institution now Yea when Paul directs the Church to use Psalms Hymns and Spiritual Songs which is for singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord and therefore it is Worship which some men must indite and make 8. Another Instance is in the versions of the Psalms of David where among many we may chuse which seems best 9. Another Instance is in the publick and private Reading of the Scriptures Translated where every word is the work of man God wrote it not in English but in Hebrew and Greek but man Translates it some well and some defectively yet I hope an English Bible is not an Idol 10. So also the dividing the Scriptures into Chapters and Verses which are the Works of man is no Idolatry 11. And another Instance is the Method and Words of Sermons and Prayers whether a Minister shall Preach by way of Doctrine Reason and Use or otherwise and Expound by way of Paraphrase or otherwise what words he shall use God hath not instituted in particular but mens invention maketh these some suddenly and some beforehand 12. Another Instance is the use of helps or written Words Whether one shall use Notes in Preaching and read them or not Whether the words of a Prayer shall be written and read or not God hath not determined And so Books of Catechism Publick Confessions Prayers Meditations as formed are all the works of man and no Idolatry And if Parents impose words of Prayer on their Children it is no Sin as Deut. 6. and 11. shew 13. Another Instance is in the form of Ordination when the Words and many Circumstances are undetermined Imposition of Hands is a lawful Sign and so is doing it by a Writing or by meer Words without that Imposition some receive it Kneeling some Standing some by one Form of Words some by another c. some from one Ordainer some from many c. And none of these determined by Institution 14. The same is true of Discipline The Form of Words for Admonition for Absolution for Excommunication for the Penitents Confession and Request are left to Humane Wisdom so the matter and manner be regulated by the general Law And they that say that God hath Instituted that the Church shall be Governed Necessarily by fixed Classes with Appeals to National Synods and that here a Major Vote hath Governing Power over the lesser part yea and that these must be made up of Two sorts of Elders of which one sort are un-ordained or are not Authorised to Administer the Word and Sacraments do but add to the Word of God if they say these National Assemblies are the Supreame Church-Power what Law of God did ever Institute That a Minister or Classis e. g. in Geneva Breme Scotland is not as much subject to the Decrees of
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
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
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
to sin they will shew so much partiality and self-esteem and so much impatient tenderness of themselves as will too much harden their Accusers Obj. 4. Many Learned good men do differ from you Ans. I think a thousand to one through the World differ from them Obj. 5. It will save none from suffering there being so many other Laws against them Ans. It is my duty to save men from mistakes and sinful censure and suffering for mistakes and so it may save me from the guilt of Omission Obj. 6. It is but Man's Law which you suppose maketh it a duty Ans. 1. I make not light of the Laws of men about lawful things But your supposition is not true Were there no Law for it but God's it is my duty Obj. 7. Some body will answer you and so it will cause strife Ans. Do or must all men forbear giving a Reason of their Judgment and Practice to those that think them sinful yea or to confute the mistakes of others for fear of being censured Will you censure us and must not hear our Reasons Are you so much worse than Lawyers that can plead without breach of Charity May not friendly debates beat out the truth to our mutual edification No truths are so clear to us before they are controverted usually as after Reproach not the Nonconformists as if they could not bear contradiction Obj. 8. Your Cure of Church-Divisions did increase Divisions Ans. The Disease then is very far gone if the Remedy increase it But I have cause to believe that it healed many But I confess as the Books by which I drew off many Anabaptists did increase Division from their Party by ceasing the Divisions from the Church so it may be here Obj. 9. But if men believe it lawful to go to the Parish-Churches they will come to your Assemblies no more Ans. 1. Experience confuteth this I think most who hear me do think it lawful and oft go thither 2. I have oft told them publickly That I desire none of them to hear me who do not need my help If they have room and sufficient helps in the Parish-Churches I had rather they would not take up with us the room which others should have who truly need our help If nothing bring them to me but an Opinion that it's sin to joyn with the Common-Prayer I will do my best to drive them from me But if any cannot have room elsewhere or cannot overcome the foresaid mistake of the sin of hearing the Parish-Miâ—ister I will give them the best help I can And if any live where publick hearing is but lawful and they truly need more suitable help the bare lawfulness of hearing elsewhere will never keep away those persons who feel their need of better and the benefit no more than it will make them forsake better Cloathing good Physick or Estate because a worse is sometime lawful Obj. 10. But why do not you conform if you can communicate with them Ans. 1. Why cannot I be carnal contentious drink too much at the Sacrament if I could have communicated with the Church of Corinth that had such Why did not Christ commit the Synagogue-sins if he could communicate in the Synagogues The persons who put this question disgrace themselves by judging of things which they understand not If they know not what more is in Ministers Conformity than in joyning as private persons in the Parish-Worship let them read my first Plea for Peace and they may know I will joyfully conform I. If they will impose on us no sinful Oaths Covenants Promises Subscriptions Declarations or Practices II. I would rejoice in the Reformation if while some essentiate a Church by a Bishop they would restore the Parishes to be Churches which they make but Parts of the lowest Churches as Chappels are and make the Parish-Ministers Pastors again whom they have degraded to be but Half-Pastors or Curates to the lowest Pastors III. I would hope that we might yet escape back-sliding into Popery if that part of the Clergy never govern the Ship who are not content with a National Government but make it our necessary duty as against Schism that all come under a Forreign Iurisdiction And if the true Protestant Clergy will ioyn in the renunciation of that Jurisdiction but not of Communion with Forreign Churches § 11. IV. Why I publish my Reasons at this time Ans. 1. Because I think I have an urgent cause to endeavour to save some from the guilt of Persecution And if I note the mistakes of One side only I shall be justly charged with partiality 2. Because mens censure of my practice as sinful doth continue And I owe them an account of the Reasons of it 3. Dr. Stillingfleet and such others would make the World believe that we defend that Separation which by word and practice we have long opposed And we owe fuller satisfaction to them and to such as they misinform 4. I am much obliged to rectifie mens mistake of the Reason why many Nonconforming Ministers here come not to the Parish Churches Many were agreed to come when the Oxford Act of Confinement coming out prevented it For to have appeared in the Churches would have exposed them to Six months imprisonment for being in the City And since then the same Reason hindereth many which keepeth Conformists from communicating with each other even their own labours at home But many do go to the Churches in publick and I conjecture others hereafter will get their Places sometime supplied by others that they may go For most of my acquaintance hold it lawful as far as I can judg 5. I would stop them that censure as sinners unjustly the late Parliaments the Common-Council Iurors and all the good Christians thrâ—ugh all the Kingdom who differ from them and that have no Ministers but Conformists 6. I remember why Mr. Io. Ball wrote against Separation just when Reformation was intended Many thought it unseasonable but it proved otherwise by the sad effects which he would have prevented 7. I cannot forget what this mistake hath wrought in England from 1641. to 1660. which I will not further recite but only say That when there was neither Bishops nor their Courts nor Liturgy nor Ceremonies imposed on them separate Assemblies were as numerous and as much and more pleaded for than now and managed with too much strife and reconciling and Unity was much resisted by that side 8. I am bound to have real compassion on the multitudes who suffer as for Recusancy and not by silence wrong their Consciences and their Purses If I shut up the bowels of my compassion where is the love of God 9. I am bound to do my best to keep out Popery which must be by keeping up as much of Religion as is possible in the Parish-Churches that it be not first thrust into corners and then out of the Land and by concord with the Parish-Ministers who are honest And many such through God's mercy there are
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
would meet about it when they were desired to come to Sion Colledge and after they Printed a Thanksgiving to the King for his Declaration so that then they were not against all imposed Liturgies so that the Imposition had no unmercifulness in it 20. The forreign Churches in Holland France Germany c. are so much used to pray in the same form of words that if they were put to do all ex tempore it would be lamentably done by most even far worse than it is 21. I have formerly told the world That many of the most noted Nonconformists in London met and concluded for communicating in the Parish-Churches about 1664. And two things done by the Conformists stopt them One was a storm then arising against those that could not do it which they feared to seem to countenance by their compliance And Plague and Fâ—re interrupting the purposes of some The Oxford Act of Confinement made it unpracticable because to be seen in a Church would have cast them six Months in the Goal with Malefactors 22. Being thus hindered and delayed the King's Declaration after giving them liberty to have Assemblies otherwise they were then kept from the Parish-Churches by their labours with their own â—locks as the Parish-Ministers be from hearing one another 23. Some in the City and more in the Countries all this while went constantly to the Parish Churches before this liberty and as oft as they could after lest they should by their practice draw the people to thâ—nk that they took it for unlawful 24 Others that thought it lawful judg it not necessary when they might do that which they judged better And finding many Hearers offended at it were loath to displease them and bear their censures till at last by long disuse the people thought their judgment was against it And when necessity driveth them to declare their judgments and change their practice their Hearers and their Adversaries call them unconscionable Temporizers 25. Tho Mr. Tombs wrote for Parish-Communion few Anabaptists followed him and tho Mr. Nye wrote for hearing the Parish-Ministers few Indâ—pendents consented But some of their Ministers took the advantage of the foresaid forbearance of others and so brought Separation to pass for a common duty with many And renewed sufferings made it easier to draw men from the Communion of those that they so much suffered by following the eâ—ample of St. Martin and saying That persecutors obtruded without their conâ—ent were none of their Pastors and that it 's no Schism not to communicate with the Church which causelesly hath ipso facto excommunicated them in Can. 6 7 8 c. This is the true premised History D. O. Some things must be promised to the confirmation of this Position 1. The whole 〈◊〉 of Liturgical Worship with all its inseparable dependences are intendâ—â— For as such it is established by Law and not in any part of it only as 〈…〉 is required that we receive it and attend unto it It is not in our powâ—â— it is not left to our judgment or liberty to close with or make use of any pâ—rt of it as we shall think fit There are in the Mass-book many Prayers directed to God only by Iesus Christ yet it is not lawful for us thereon to go to Mass under a pretence only of joyning in such lawful Prayers As we must not affect their Drink-Offerings of Blood so we must not tâ—ke up their names in our lips Psal. 16.4 Have no communion with them § 2. I Shall now examine the Doctor 's Premises To the first I answer 1. If he will include all that is in the Liturgy the Nonconformists confess that there is somewhat in it which they dissent from as unjuâ—tifiable And so there is in all mens Worship of God 2. He intimateth That it is not in our power to close with some I. Error and not withall This is his First Error Tho Man give us no such power God doth As it is in my power 〈◊〉 believe all that one speaketh truly and well and not that which he speaketh amiss I am not bound to own all that any Preacher or Priest shall say in the Church God put it in the Disciples power to beware of the Leven of the Pharisees and yet to hear them Proving all things is not approving all things 2. Tho the Mass have many good Prayers the corruption by twisted Idolatry and Heresie maketh Communion there unlawful Heathent and Turks have good Prayers Prove any such Heresie or Idolatry in the Church-Worship by the Liturgy and we will avoid it But if I may joyn with your own good Prayers and Preaching notwithstanding your many Failings and such Errors as are here pleaded for why not with others 3. Psal. 16.4 is too sadly abused which speaketh only of sacrificing to and worshipping false Gods D. O. 2. It is to be considered as armed with Laws 1. Such as declare and enjoyn it as the only true Worship of the Church 2. Such as prohibit condemn and punish all other ways of the Worship of God in Church-Assemblies By our communion and conjunction in it we justifie those Laws § 3. THat our Communion justifieth all the Laws that impose the Liturgy yea the penal severeties is too gross an Error to be written with any shew of proof What if the Creed or Lord's Prayer were too rigorously imposed II. Error or Presbytery or Indepency must we forbear them or justifie the Law I can prove Episcopacy excluded too severely by the Covenant But every one that is against it justifieth not the imposition of that Covenant in that rigor What if rigorous Laws should make it imprisonment or death not to use our Translation of the Scriptures our approved Catechisms our Metre and Tunes of the Psalms not to put off the Hat at Prayer not to meet at the appointed Place and Hour c. Doth every man justifie the rigor of the imposition who obeyeth the Law Then a rigorous Law-maker may take away our Christian Liberty by commanding us to use such things too strictly yea he may turn Duty by too strict commanding it into Sin These are your unproved Premises D. O. 3. This conjunction in Communion by the Worship of the Liturgy is the Symbol Pledg and Token of an Ecclesiastical Incorporation with the Church of England in its present Constitution It is so in the Law of the Land It is so in the Canons of the Church It is so in the common Understanding of all men And by these Rules must our Profession and Practice be judged and not by any reserves of our own which neither God nor good men will allow of Wherefore § 4. TO the Third Premise I answer 1. The Church of England is an ambiguous word 1. As it signifieth a part of the Universal Church agreeing in Faith one God one Christ and all essential to the Church so we desire the honour of being parts of it 2. And also as it is a Christian
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
Church-yard or Porch to shew that they are not presentable but would get in if they could the nineteenth Canon commands to drive them away 19. The Liturgy and Canon 22. c. bind all under the penalty of the Law to receive the Sacrament thrice every year If a secret Infidel Sadducee Hobbist Socinian or any Heretick say I am not able to change my Iudgment which is inconsistent with the Sacrament or if one whose Conscience tells him of the guilt of Adultery and that he is not resolved to confess and forsake it yet or one that by Melancholy causelessly feareth unworthy receiving to damnation I say if any of these will avoid the charge of Schism they must run upon worse till grace recover them which is not at their command And yet all notorious Offenders are prohibited it Canon 26. and particularly the Perjured And if the tenth part so many be perjured in England in City and Countrey as many fear it 's a very great number that are uncapable of Communion with the Church 20. By Canon twenty seventh on pain of Suspension no Minister must wittingly administer the Communion to any but such as Kneel or to any that refuse to be present at publick Prayers c. So that all that Kneel not in receiving are rejected and if they worship God elsewhere must be taken for Schismaticks as dangerous as adulterers or murderers 21. The twenty eighth Canon forbids admitting strangers to Communion and commands sending them home to their Parish Churches It 's disobedience to violate this 22. The twenty ninth Canon forbids urging Parents to be Present when their Children are baptized and admitting them to Answer as Godfathers for their own Children and any Godfather to make any other Answer or speech than the prescribed 23. The thirtieth Canon describeth the Cross as a Sacrament as seemeth to us 34. By the thirty sixth Canon no man must be a Minister that subscribeth not that the Book of Common Prayer and Ordination contains nothing in it contrary to the Word of God and that he himself will use no other form in publick Prayer and administration of the Sacraments By which all that refuse this or that use the forms made and imposed by the Bishops on occasions of publick Fasts and Thanksgivings seem all to be under disobedience to the Church 35. By Canon fourty ninth no Person not Licensed as a Preacher may in his Cure or elsewhere expound any Scripture or Matter or Doctrine but onely shall study to read plainly the Homilies So that all Ministers before Licence to preach all School-masters all Parents or Masters that do expound to their Schollars Children or Servants the meaning of Baptism or of any Article of the Creed any Petition of the Lords Prayer any one of the Ten Commandments to fit them for Confirmation or Salvation otherwise than by plain reading the Homilies or Church Catechism doth disobey the Law of the Church And so do all Tutors in the Universities that expound any Scripture matter or Doctrine to their Pupils before they are examined or approved by the Bishop or any Judge on the Bench or Justice that presumeth to do it to the hearers or any Friend or Neighbour in discourse For it is No Person whatsoever not examined and approved by the Bishop of the Diocess How few in England separate not from the Church as far as this disobedience amounts to If by no Persons be meant only no Ministers it 's hard enough that Ministers may not be allowed out of the Church what Lay-men are allowed 36. All those that deny not the validity of Baptism or the Lords Supper when they are done by an unpreaching Minister but yet think that a man utterly unable to Teach otherwise than by Reading may not lawfully be encouraged in so high a function any more than a man in Physick or School-teaching that hath not necessary skill or is utterly illiterate and thinks it a sin to consent to take such an Ignorant fellow for the Pastor of his Soul if he can have better If this man I say go to the next Parish Church for Sacraments he is to be suspended first and next excommunicate Specially if he should judge that Ignorant Reader no true Minister for want of necessary capacity 37. Surplices Hoods and Tippets are made the matter of Obedience Canon fifty eighth 38. By Canon thirty eighth no Minister must refuse or delay to Christen any Child without exception according to the form of the Common Prayer that 's brought to Church to him on Sundaies or Holy-daies though the Parents be both Iewes or Heathens or Atheists or Sadducees The Minister must be suspended that refuseth it 39. The seventy first Canon suspendeth all Ministers that Preach in any private house except to the sick or impotent in time of necessity By which had Paul here preached publickly and from house to house or Timothy in season and out of season as dreadfully adjured or Christ preacht as he oft did they must be suspended And every Minister that preacheth to his Family And no doubt repeating his Sermon is preaching the same again 40. All Ministers must be suspended and then excommunicate that without the Bishops Licence appoint or keep any solemn Fasts publickly or in private houses other than by Law appointed or be wittingly present at any Though it were in time of Plague or when divers of his Neighbours are sick or troubled in Conscience or in preparation to a Sacrament or on some great occasion in Noble-mens Houses and Chappels He is not to be trusted to fast and pray with his own Flock or Friends or come among them lest being excommunicate he be a damn'd Schismatick The same prohibition is for holding meetings for Sermons called Exercises Which Arch-Bishop Grindall was zealous to set up Q. Was he then a Schismatick or is the damning dangerous Engine made since 41. By Canon seventy third if any Ministers meet in any private house as many did by consent in 1660. and 1661. to do any thing that any way tends to impeach the Common 〈◊〉 or any part of the Government and Discipline e. g. to Petition King or Parliament for the least Reformation of it he is excommunicate ipso facto 42. Canon seventy fourth brings all Ministers apparel under Church Laws for the Shape 43. Canon seventy sixth Excommunicateth all that voluntarily relinquish their Ministry and use themselves as a Lay-men And man having free will that is done voluntarily which is done in Obedience to mens command And yet we are ruined in the World if we will not leave our Ministry at their Command 44. It 's tedious to go over all the rest I end at the end of them Canon 139. excommunicateth all them that affirm that the Synod is not the true Church of England by Representation that is 1. All that take it for the Church real and not Representative lest they make the diffused Church People and all to be Chief Church-governours while