to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost Acts 4. 2 c. 3. Experience assureth us that from the beginning of the Church to this present day Christ never gave too many able faithful Ministers to his Church Supernumeraries of such were never its disease nor the amputation of them its cure There is still need of the Lords-prayer Thy Kingdom come And Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers c. That man is but a Christian or a Pastor in jest and Image and not in earnest and reality who thinketh that the Pastors now allowed are so sufficient for the great employment of the Ministry that more are but supernumerary and the rest may be spared without any detriment to the souls of men Even in the Apostles age of Miraculous gifts Dr. Hammond thinketh the Pastors were so scarce that every Episcopal Church had no more than one Bishop with some Deacons without ever a Subject-Presbyter And that there was de facto none of the Order of subject-Presbyters in Scripture-times And so think all the Presbyterians too And it is a notorious truth that afterwards the Presbyters were so low in abilities that publick preaching in the Church was mostly used by the Bishops only And many Countries have lost the Gospel for want of Preachers And wherever ignorance and prophaneness have broken in upon the Church as the Greeks Abassines Armenians Moscovites Papists and too many Protestant Churches it hath commonly been by the decay of able godly faithful Pastors And if one City or Parish of ten thousand have had too many their near neighbours have so much wanted them that they could not be esteemed supernumerary And in England there are few Parishes which need not helps even where the ablest men are placed much more where Is it seasonable then or doth it answer the Will or Providence of to call in so many when the Church hath always had too few 4. The punishment which you inflict upon the Ministers doth fall a thousand times more heavily on the souls of the innocent people who without being accused or speaking for themselves in a Legal trial have so great a penalty inflicted on them as none but a believer that judgeth of things in reference to Eternity is able to estimate a right Alas to the Preacher the suffering is small in comparison of the peoples What if they live poorly what if they want house or clothes or bread How small a matter is that in comparison of the want of knowledg and faith of grace and salvation I confess their sufferings will cost them dear that are the true cause when Christ condemns those that do not relieve them But to themselves it is no such dreadful business Nay if they were but discharged in conscience from the Ministerial Office most of them might live in much more peace and plenty in the world There are many other Callings to betake themselves to in which they might live quietly and not be as the Hare before the Hunters pursued from place to place with cryes as if they that will imitate Paul in labours must bear also his reproach as pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the people that do contrary to the decrees of Cesar and turn the world upside down Yea many are already turned Physicians and they have better words and kinder usage But every man that hath the eyes of a Christian in his head and seeth what the people of England VVales and Ireland are for members and for quality and seeth and heareth also what Ministers for number and quality do instruct them doth know as certainly that many hundred thousand souls do wofully need more Ministerial helps as he knoweth that five hundred Scholars do need more than one School-master or five hundred sick men need more than one Physician But O what a plague is it to the Church and World to have Ministers who when they read of the necessity of knowledg holiness and salvation do neither believe Christ nor themselves Argue not the people into such hard thoughts of you as if this were your case by perswading them that it is no matter whether their souls have any more Ministerial helps than now is given them Either you believe that where the Gospel is hid it is hid to them that are lost and that the cure of gross ignorance hard-heartedness unbelief and sensuality are of necessity to salvation or not If not deal openly and silence both your selves and us If yea then either you know how these maladies abound in the people and how much labour the cure doth usually cost or not If not then take not on you to be Pastors or English men or competent Judges of any of the peoples cases and concernments but confess that these are matters that you are strangers to But if you do know this then I need to say no more to you but to desire you to fuppose that soul-necessities are not the less because men complain not of them but greatest where there is the greatest insensibility and contentedness with them The Turks and Heathens cry not out for the help of Christian Pastors The worldling drunkard and fornicator is most miserable that would have no reproof or help Suppose therefore that their necessities are instead of cryes and that you hear them calling to you for help O pity the many hundred thousand souls that are drowned in ignorance unbelief insensibility worldliness and sensuality that are utter strangers to that life of faith and love and holiness without which none can please or see God and must quickly be converted and made new creatures or they are lost for ever Or suppose that their necessities being their complaints you heard them expostulating with you for their souls O take not from us that means which God by Nature and by his Institution hath made so needful to our salvation Alas our ignorance and deadness and worldly-mindedness and fleshly affections are too hardly cured by all the best means and diligence that can be used what shall we do then if you deprive us of that which we have enjoyed Alas say not that the reading of the Scriptures and a few lifeless notes of a Sermon will serve turn We confess that it should do so if our disease were so light as to need no more the thing it self is good and every word of God is precious but it is the nature of our disease to be read asleep and hardned in our sins by the customary hearing of a few good words in a sleepy saying tone It is the skilful choice of pertinent Truths convincingly and clearly uttered and closely applied with life and seriousness that our case requireth We confess that if a School-boy or a raw ignorant youth from the University did but read a chapter or say over a less pertinent cento of good words we should be moved
Wadsworth Dr. Annesly and abundance more about the City or on the generality of the silenced Ministers in all the Counties of the Land 9. But do you consider how heinously you dishonour the Conformists by the disparity of the charge which you lay on the Nonconformists and which they have laid on you I am not justifying either of your accusations But if I were a stranger in England and had seen the Chair-man of the Committee of Parliament publish his Century of Conformists accused on witness of so many Crimes especially drunkenness and negligence and insufficiency in so many and had seen the like charges before the Committees of the several Counties attested on Oath and had heard both your Icabods Groans and the Gloucester Coblers History of the present Ministry And then had read the most learned and sharp of the Nonconformists adversaries charging them with heart-hypocrisie with disobedience to those Laws for Oaths and Ceremonies which they think are contrary to the Laws of God and with cutting faces and prating phrases and incongruous expressions in praying and preaching to the vulgar c. I should suspect that their cases were not alike 10. Is it a thing possible that a Divine in England should not know that there are in all Countries such Readers and young raw ignorant Conformable Preachers O that they were but here and there one that in understanding in method in phrase and all Ministerial abilities may learn seven years and seven before they are like to reach the measure of W. B. and T. W. whom he reproveth And could he forget that it is as just and solid reasoning to say This multitude of Conformists frequently speak non-sense confusedly c. Ergo the Conformists have such a Religion as to say W. B. and T W. did not express this or that congruously Ergo the Nonconformists Religion is such 22 Obj. You overthrow all principles of Government while you say that the Magistrate may not command things evil by accident And while you allow doubting or scrupling persons to disobey authority as oft as they are but pleased to question their Commands whereas if you are uncertain whether the matter be lawful you are bound to obey because you are certain that Governours must be obeyed and being uncertain that the thing is evil the certain part must prevail against the uncertain Ans. We have long been silent at such accusations supposing by this time they would have been ashamed of themselves Had we read such Moral Divinity as some would teach us in Father Banny Escobar or other such Jesuits we had been like to have found it in the Collection of their Morals which the Jansenists published 1. I never read or heard man yet say that the Magistrate may not command any thing evil by accident But I have said my self that His Commands of things evil by accident may be sinful that is that it is not all things that are evil by accident that he may command But because some men will not understand till they are constrained against their wills I shall elsewhere open the truth about this so plainly as that they shall hardly avoid the understanding of it but by refusing to read it And I will shew them what it is to maintain that men may command any thing that is evil by accident only 2. And the other accusation is the forgery of passionate enmity also we believe that a man is not to obey authority at all times whenever he doubteth of the matter commanded or in every case of doubting But we never thought that all doubtings will excuse his obedience We use to speak more distinctly and leave them to confusion that either cannot distinguish or must have troubled waters to fish in for matter of calumniation Of this also I shall elsewhere give you a satisfactory account of our judgment Done since in my 2d Plea for Peace 23 Obj. But the grand accusation against us by Dr. Heylin in his life of A. B. Laud and elsewhere is for Calvinism or Puritanism in Doctrine against that which is commonly called Arminianism which he maketh the matter of our great contentions and calamities And many other say as he And Mr. Thorndike carrieth it yet much higher accusing us not only of the Doctrine of imputed Righteousness but others in which we have departed from the Church of Rome See his Just Weights and Measures and his Greater Volume Ans. 1. By this it further appeareth how unjustly and partially we are used and how unnecessary they themselves hold Unity in Doctine it self to be in matters which some account so great to the liberty of Preaching the Gospel For in all the Arminian Controversies the Conformists differ among themselves as much as we do from any of them if not more Nothing more common now in our Pulpits than for one man to preach up Free-will and another to preach it down and neither of them know what Free will is and for one to preach for absolute Election perseverance of all Saints c. and another to preach the contrary and shew the tendency of these opinions to all wickedness And yet all these men are suffered to preach because they all subscribe the same doctrine though they neither believe nor preach the same The Articles of the Church of England are subscribed by them all They Assent and Consent to all the Doctrine of the Church And indeed is it because the Articles are not intelligible or have they contrary meanings to fit the use of every subscriber Are they hot to one and cold to another Or rather do many of the Subscribers take heed of Tenderness of Conscience because it is but tenderness of Head and is more sensible of hurt and smart than a feared Conscience is or is a word and thing that is grown into disgrace and scorn in our times For my own part I doubt not but the Compilers of the Articles and Liturgy were in these things of Augustines judgment who was for absolute Election but for no other Reprobation but non-election and the decree of damnation and desertion only upon foresight of sin But as to the differences themselves it would grieve a man of any understanding to read such a History as Dr. Heylins Life of the Archbishop which intimateth to the world that such points as these were the occasion of all the contrivances against each other and of the enmities and calamities which these Kingdoms have undergone When-as the things are such as never bred any such dissention in the first ages of the Church nor would do among us if we had their piety and simplicity I long ago began a Treatise which the agitations of my Troublers have interrupted to reconcile the Arminians and Anti-Arminians in these matters in which I should easily have manifested how unfit such Subjects were to be so fiercely and implacably contended about And because I know not whether ever I shall live to re assume it being toss'd about and having neither
our Concord now would be our duty and our hope and our enemies terrour so we thought that the season had happily favoured our just desires We had all one undoubted Soveraign to unite in We had all seen and felt the folly and calamity of Dissentions We had found that principles and practises of jealousie violence and division had let out our blood and made havock of our wealth and separated us from our King and one another and brought us all into confusions We had newly found that our sudden unanimity and concord had restored the King and those that suffered for and with him We knew that almost all the people of the Land were so weary of contention and its effects that they were melted into an aptness for the mould of unity and never were more inclined to Concord even upon any tolerable terms We knew also that we had a King who was newly restored by the very first recovery of his peoples unity and who was even then famous for a loving and a gracious nature enclined to moderation quietness and peace And we had newly seen the many published Declarations of the Nobility and Gentry of the Land who had suffered most in His Majesties cause protesting against all future animosities and revenge The attempts which we made for the Churches healing upon these encouragements did quickly meet with gracious acceptance and yet greater encouragement from the King And we had no reason to think that among all the rest the Clergy should be averse to such a work or yet should spoil it at such a season for want of skill because we had on both sides been deep in those experiences that should instruct us and many not the least and last either in the former sin or present interest and our calling and understanding in such things were supposed such as should make us Leaders to all the people in any just attempts for Concord When we had humbly craved of his Majesty that such persons of both sides as he should appoint might bring in Proposals containing such Approaches and Abatements and Accommodations as each part could yield unto without sin against God and against their consciences and his Majesty had more than granted our requests even expressing his Gracious resolution to draw you on to such Concessions we did accordingly give notice to the London-Ministers that our Concord might be the more extensive to meet at Sion-Colledge and give in their sense of the necessary means to so good an end Bishop Reynolds and Bishop Worth and some others that Conform concurred with us in our Proposals We never spake a word against a Liturgy nor set-forms of Prayer nor against the festival Commemorations of the Saints nor many other things which many had formerly excepted against but only desired some emendations of the Liturgy and that some other forms of Prayer might be added to the several offices with a Liberty of using this or that And for the Government of the Church which was accounted the matter of greatest difference we never made one offer for Presbytery That is the Government of the Church by Classes and Presbyteries constituted of Lay and Clergy-Elders nor did we ever speak a word for Lay-Elders Not that we presumed to Censure those Churches that used them but as many or most of our selves were never for them so we knew that no forms in which the Churches were known so much to differ could be the proper terms of Concord We never made any Proposals against Episcopacy no not against the Lordships of the Bishops nor against the greatness of their Revenues nor their places in Parliament nor made we any offer of any other way of Discipline but the frame which by Archbishop Usher had been presented to the late King called The Reduction of Episcopacy c. In which he thought that he had hit upon the ancient Primitive Government by Bishops with their Clergy-Presbyters as their Colledge Not that we approved all the forementioned things which we passed by but that we knew we must yield for the Churches peace as far as we could do without committing sin our selves When we presented to His Majesty these our Proposals and Requests and expected to meet with the like Concessions and Approaches of our Brethren not yet made Bishops we met with his Majesties Gracious acceptance but our expectations failed of all the rest having never received any such thing from that day unto this But we shortly after received a sharp Answer to our Proposals to which when a Reply was drawn up we purposely cast it by lest turning the work of Pacification into a dispute should frustrate it by exasperating altercations But when we that should have been the forwardest to Peace could do no more to an Agreement among our selves his Majesty was pleased to do more and published his Gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs In which though he granted us not Archbishop Ushers Model of Episcopacy nor all that we desired yet granted he so much as made us thankfully rejoyce in hope to have seen the Churches unity and peace Because we thought the terms were such as to which we could without any guilt of sin or check of conscience have laid out our selves in perswading all our Brethren to conform And accordingly the London-Ministers did presently draw a Thanksgiving to his Majesty yea the Commons House of Parliament themselves did thank him There was nothing now remaining for the confirmation of our hopes but the intended Alterations of the Liturgy and the Confirmation of his Majesties Gracious Concessions When we had a Commission from his Majesty to attempt the first we hoped to do it by mutual compliances in gentle and amicable Conference But it was resolved to us that we being the Plaintiffs must bring in a draught of all the Alterations of the Liturgy which we desired and also of those Additional forms which we had proposed as an expedient for Concord Upon this some of our Brethren would have insisted on a refusal believing that it would but spin out time and end in nothing which would attain that Concord which was our end But others perswading them rather to do as was imposed on us than to go no further because at the worst our case would in writing be less lyable to mis-reports than if we had only spoken for our selves perhaps under checks in temptations and restraints For we had heard many wish that the Conference at Hampton-Court in King James his time had been by writing Hereupon we ventured on the imposed task We brought in writing some exceptions against some passages in the Liturgy To this we afterward received an Answer To which we offered to you a Reply and with it the Additions to the Liturgy which we desired And foreseeing the danger of the confusions and sins which since have followed our Divisions we did so far supererogate as to present to you a long and earnest Petition for Unity and Peace And we agreed with you as
sufferings of particular men 18. And we take it also for our duty to pray for the King and all in Authority not with dishonouring intimations but in such a manner as beseemeth us to speak even to God in the hearing of men of his own Officers and not that their favour may make us rich and great but only that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty 1 Tim. 2. 12. And this not seldom nor formally but daily and earnestly And we take it for our duty to preach against schism sedition and rebellion and all principles which tend to breed or feed them and to use our opportunities and interest in the people to promote their loyalty and the publick peace 19. Also we judg it our duty to preach those plain and necessary things which the salvation of men doth most depend on and the people generally have most need to hear that is the opening to them their Baptismal Covenant and the Articles of the Creed the Lords-Prayer the Decalogue and the Gospel-precepts or more briefly the Doctrine of faith in Christ and repentance towards God and of the love of God and man to live soberly righteously and godly in this world as looking and hoping for a better Tit. 2. 12. And not to fill the peoples heads with needless controversies or vain jangling or contending about words which edifie not but subvert the hearers much less to perplex them with talking of the unrevealed Counsels of God nor yet to corrupt their minds by talking against our Superiors or against dissenters behind their backs or by aggravating the faults of other mens manner of worshipping God or breeding in them distaste of the publick Worship or talking against Bishops or Ceremonies or Liturgy nor by representing any sort of Christians who differ from us in points not fundamental as odious to the hearers whether Lutherans Caelvinists Arminians Episcopal Presbyterian Independent yea or Anabaptists no nor to injure the Papists themselves by making our differences seem greater than indeed they are Our office is to preach up love and not to preach it down and mortifie it which all those do whatever they pretend that attempt to represent their brethren as odious and to hide or deny or extenuate that in them which is good and amiable 20. Lastly we must profess therefore that though we take not our selves bound to prefer our Preaching before other mens nor to tye our selves just to numbers and circumstances of time and place nor to draw a party from the lawful publick Ministers to our selves nor to preach at all where there is not a real and notorious need yet do we take our selves bound on pain of Gods displeasure and of damnation to exercise our Ministerial office as we are able in a pious peaceable and loyal manner as poor assistants to those faithful Ministers that have publick allowance and encouragement notwithstanding any present prohibitions or unwillingness of those that are against it And if this profession shall teach any to conclude that therefore bonds imprisonment or banishment must restrain us the will of the Lord be done we are ready not only to be bound but to die for preaching the Gospel of him that died for us and seeking to save men from a sorer death And we ought not to account our lives as dear to us so that we may finish our course with joy and the Ministry committed to us by the Lord Act. 20. 24. But we ought to suffer without resisting or reviling which we may the easier do while we suffer not as evil doers but for preaching the Gospel of Salvation and teaching men to seek the happiness to come and to forsake their lusts and to love and obey their God and Saviour As we are the more unwilling that the Church should be burdened with unnecessary Ceremonies because if they be used with understanding the people must be taught their sense and use which we scarce have leisure for or pleasure in while they are ignorant of so many greater things and are so very dull of hearing so it is not a little of our peace that if we suffer we be not found Preaching about Ceremonies or shadows but Preaching that Gospel which at our Ordination we solemnly promised to preach And now having told you truly our Principles I shall next tell you the reasons why we cannot forbear our Ministerial work till bonds or disability constrain us to forbear it II. AND here we shall not form Syllogisms in such an Apology as if we were speaking to captious men but nakedly open our reasons as to those that are as much concern'd in the matter as we and should be as willing to know the truth 1. We take it to be Sacriledg and that of the highest nature except Apostacy it self to alienate our selves from the work to which we are consecrated and devoted By how much the nearer any consecrated person or thing is to God and by how much the more useful to his ends his glory in the good of souls by so much the greater sacriledg it is to alienate that which is so consecrated With you we know that we need not dispute either the name of a Sacrament of Orders for we stick not upon names nor the obligation You know the usual Exposition of the Answer in the Church-Catechism to the Question How many Sacraments c A. Two only as generally necessary to Salvation We differ not from you in our sense of this Your Canons enquire after all such as alienate themselves from the Ministry to which they were ordained and turn to any other calling We dislike not that Canon But we wish our observance of it might be thought but a pardonable fault It hath possessed me oft with admiration to see the blinding power of Partiality in some men that can see the evil of Sacriledg in them that alienate Church lands and Goods and Houses and Utensils and can see no evil in the alienation of consecrated persons What are the Cups and Fonts and Tables for do they praise the glorious mystery of Redemption Are they not his Utensils who is set apart to attend the Altar and to commemorate the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world What are the Houses for but for the convenient habitation of the Pastors What are the Lands and Tythes for but for their maintenance while they do the work of God What are the Temples for but to be the convenient places of their and the peoples worshipping of God Is it a crime to steal the feathers and none to steal the goose Is it a crime to rent your clothes and is it none to rend your flesh Or to steal a tile or pick a lock and not to burn the house Is he saulty that robs your child of his hat or book or victuals and is he innocent that killeth him or that robs you of your child We must be speak all Cainuites here who like
leeches thirst for blood that they distort not these words as speaking all this of the Law makers or any of our Rulers We meddle with no mens duties and faults here but our own We leave all others to look to themselves as they must shortly answer for themselves We only say that if we should alienate our selves from that Sacred office to which we are consecrated and devoted it would be odious and accursed Sacriledg in us And if really it prove to be our own doing that we are thus alienated it will be no light or little fault And if God have forced the world to observe that even Impropriators much more gross sacrilegious persons are usually ruined before the fourth generation what might we expect if we should do much worse I have read and heard their words of late who would make the late Westminster Assembly favourers of Sacriledg forsooth because the Annotations not put out by the Assembly speak not against Sacriledg which they do expresly speak against especially on those Texts in the New Testaments on which Dr. Featly an Episcopal Divine it s said was the Author of them O the candor and impartiality of this age For my part I was none of the Assembly being then too young and too unworthy But Mr. Vines's judgment and mine against the alienation of Church lands in those times as sacrilegious I published in our Letters in the end of my Confession how displeasing soever it was to them that then bore sway But all 's one for that It is for the interest of some men to say what they have said and as they have said it O that they better understood their own interest If it be said that while we refuse conformity we alienate our selves whilest we would avoid it in that we give Rulers cause to do it that is to be spoken to by it self anon And if it be said that our forbearing the work of our Ministry is not sacriledg when we do it in obedience to our Rulers that also is to be answered afterward If there be no Law extant which can disoblige us from our undertaken office and work then if we forbear we are sacrilegious Villains and lyable to the curse and doom of the unprofitable servant that hid his talent Mat. 25. Forgive us if we had rather venture on the clamor of many Volumes and tongues and on your sharpest censures and on a prison than venture on that dreadful doom 2. We cannot be ignorant of the necessities of the people which answereth all that is said against us I say we cannot be ignorant of them if we would We can talk with those learned men that are ignorant of it with some that think the groslyest ignorant and senseless and mindless of the life to come to be better than we if they will but be for Bishops Liturgy and Ceremonies and that think little more Religion than to hurt no body belongeth to the Laity or common people And with some that have been bred up only at the University and never knew the ignorance of the vulgar And with some that have lived among them and know them not because they never conversed with them otherwise than in the Pulpit or at a Feast or a common meeting But their ignorance will not make us ignorant The Intellect is oft informed necessarily per modum naturae Though I thank God that our information hath been voluntary It was our practise while we were suffered to do our office to Catechise all the Families of our Parishes that did not refuse it Family by Family and to try the knowledg of them all and to discern what they thought of the Essentials of Christianity and of the things that Christ hath made necessary to Salvation By which we found that multitudes that come all their life-time to Church and bear up the reputation of discreet intelligent persons are utterly ignorant of many Articles of the faith while they speak the words so ignorant that it 's hard for Scholars to believe it that have not tried it And we have found that multitudes of them will be brought to learn over all the words of the Catechism that never consider or understand the sense much less the power and practice of what their tongues recite but like Parrots rest in the utterance of the words Either this much will bring them to Salvation or it will not If it will Christianity must be a needless thing or else consist but in a spell or charm of empty words and the Papists Latin devotions are as good If it will not then our Parishes have a necessity of further teaching If you say that This is not true it may serve your turn but it will not serve ours no more than if you told us that most of our Parishes speak not English It is not in our power to deny belief to our senses and the experience of our daily conversation if we were never so much reviled for our judgment But if you say that the Parish Ministers are sufficient to remedy this calamity as far as it can be remedied I answer you The necessity of our labours is notoriously evident in all these following respects 1. In respect of the multitude that need our help 2. In regard of the obstinacy of their ignorance unbelief and sensuality 3. In regard of the paucity of the publick Ministers 4. In regard of the real insufficiency weakness and badness of too great a number of them And 5. In regard of abundance of peoples prejudice against them 1. How many thousands are in some Parishes in London in Stepney in Cripplegate in Sepulchres in St. Martins St. Clement Danes Giles in the fields Andrews Holborn and many others is ordinarily observed Abundance of Corporations from whence the Ministers are excluded have very many thousands in a Parish And if there be four thousand to say nothing of them that have above forty thousand it is an excellent people if three parts in four be not grosly ignorant of some Essentials of the Christian Religion and multitudes grosly vicious and ungodly in their lives When I came first to Kiderminster 1640 the Town was ready to stone me as I went along the streets for preaching the Church-Doctrine of Original Sin in Infants whom they called Innocents till I asked them publickly Whether they thought their Children were saved without Christ and why they were baptized Which they could not answer When I came to Catechize and confer with them personally after many years Preaching many that constantly attended on Teaching thought that Christ was Man on Earth and is God in Heaven but made a God only for his Goodness upon Earth and not God from Eternity nor Man now he is in Heaven And the whole mystery of Redemption is little known to the most among us 2. And their sensuality is as hardly cured as their ignorance How common are the sins of Sodom throughout all the Land Ezek. 16. 49. Pride and fulness of bread and abundance
Son of God but not indifferently as he please but only in the affirmative He may judg if it become a publick Controversie whether God shall be worshipped whether he may be blasphemed whether there be a life to come whether the Scripture be Gods word and so whether there shall be a Ministry whether Ministers shall preach in his Dominions or so many as is necessary to mens Salvation But he is bound before hand to judg only one way and hath no power to judg on the other side at all Else he might judg that men shall not be saved and that Christ shall have no Ministers or Church and consequently be no Christ. 3. Yet if Rulers do judg amiss in any such cases they are not by force of arms to be resisted though they are not to be obeyed Obj. By this pretence of a private judgment of discerning you will set up two Soveraigns or make every mans conscience his King and so the King having lost his power over conscience a zealous conscience will be the unruliest beast in the world Answ. 1. In good sadness would you have men have a judgment of private discerning or not If you would all this concerneth you as well as us If not then no man must discern that it is his duty to obey the King rather than an Usurper or rather than to rebel against him Such excellent assistance would brutish principles give to Government then men must not discern whether to preach or be silent or what to preach on Nor whether to be drunk or sober chaste or unchaste To think and speak well or ill whether God should be honoured or blasphemed or what Religion we should be of Christians or Infidels Then only the King must be a man and his subjects bruits that must use no reason and so the King be made a herdsman to govern beasts instead of men And then what Councellors Judges and Justices shall he have and O then what excellent Preaching shall the people hear Absolute obedience is due only unto God 2. And as to what you say of Conscience to bind conscience that is science is an improper expression but as to that which is commonly meant by it it is one thing to bind a mans soul to make conscience of his duty and another thing to bind his soul to go against the conscience of his duty Binding conscience is an ambiguous word We flatly affirm as well as you That the Kings Laws do bind the mind or soul or Conscience if you will so call it to a conscionable performance of all his lawful commands for nothing but cords and irons bind the body without the soul and he that obligeth not the soul obligeth not the man and he that obligeth not ruleth not As God bindeth by a primary obligation as God so Kings bind the mind by a secondary obligation by the power which they derive from God as men I say not only that God bindeth us in conscience to obey the King but that the Kings derived power enableth him to oblige the soul in subordination to God which is no more than to say that he may make Laws and rule by them But whether this shall be called a binding of conscience is only lis de nomine Conscience is sometime taken as largely as conscire and so we are conscious of our duty to the King But in Theology it is usually taken more strictly for a mans judgment of himself as he stands related to the judgment of God And so when the very definition appropriateth Conscience to our relation to God it cannot so be subject to man 3. Conscience is no King no Competitor with the King no Ruler of any man at all in a true proper sense It is but only a discerner of our duty and not a maker of it a knower and applier of the Law and not a Law-giver And is it not fine reasoning to say If a man must be the discerner of his duty to God and the King he can be no good subject 4. And Conscience discerning duty to God is it that is here to be orderly distinguished from Conscience discerning duty to man God and man are our Governours if we are not agreed which of them is the greater stay a while and we shall be agreed Conscience is but a discerner of our respective duty to each of them or taken strictly and Theologically of our duty to God only so that this is the question Whether when a man is conscious of his duty to God he may omit it because that man forbiddeth it Or when a man is conscious what God forbiddeth he may do it if man command it so that for man to bind Conscience if you will speak ineptly to duty is one thing and for man to bind us to go against conscience is another thing For that 's all one as to bind us to do that which as far as we can discern is against Gods Law and so the issue of all is whether conscience of Gods command or conscience of mans command is to be preferred And this being the plain English of the case is it not a blessed time and land think you when confident raw confused wits shall by such questions as VVhether the King or Conscience be supream deceive and mislead poor people in a maze and confound them as to all Religion when an ordinary wit that had been but preserved by Humility and Catholicism or freedom from faction might easily have distinguished and set them in the open light 13. It went for current in the Catholick Church not only for the first 300 years but long after there were Christian Emperors that the people were to chuse their Pastors Cyprians Epistle that earnestly pleadeth for the peoples power and duty in this kind and chargeth the guilt upon them if they forsake not seducing and schismatical Pastors is well known The common practise of the Churches also is known as well And long after there were Christian Emperours though some Dignitaries as Patriarchs and a few great Bishops were obtruded on the people by the Emperours choice when they could not agree among themselves yet the people constantly kept their former custom and priviledg and chose all the ordinary Bishops and Pastors in conjunction with the Presbyters The Bishops sometimes chose alone who should be a Minister in general as the Colledg of Physicians licenseth general Physicians But who should be their own Pastors was always or usually at the peoples choice with the Ordainers as every man chuseth his own Physician See Blondels copious Testimony de jure plebis in regimine Ecclesiastico adjoined to Grotius his Excellent Treatise de Imperio sumar potestat circa sacra Now this being so the old Christians never believed that the Emperour could justly so frustrate their choices as to make it unlawful by his prohibition for their Pastors to preach to them when their Preaching was necessary to the Churches good nor that the Emperours were the only Judges of
other Nor did I ever hear man or woman blame him for any word or deed nor ever heard him ask what money he should have but took it as it came And was indeed as a willing and loving servant unto all and was beloved by all though we had many more affectionate taking Preachers 7. I gave to every family in Town and Parish being beside a great Borough about twenty Villages a Catechism and some of my lesser Books and of every Book I wrote usually as many as my Purse could well afford And to every Family a Bible which either for want of money or of willingness to buy had none where any one in the house could read 8. After the Lecture at evening as many as had leisure and will assembled at my Lodgings where one of them repeated the Sermon and any one that would did by word or writing put in such doubts about the things delivered the solution of which would tend to their further satisfaction which I then answered And if they had any other cases of Conscience they offered them to me in writing that I might see whether they were fit for publick mention and then we sung a Psalm and I or one of them did pray 9. All the Ministers of the County whose names are Printed in our Book of Concord did agree seeing the Rulers that then were did leave all Discipline to the Churches will and constrained none and seeing we were divided about Church-Government to the great damage of the Church That we would all practise so much of the spiritual discipline as all three parties Episcopal Presbyterian and Independents were agreed in which we thought enough for our union and reformation and leave the rest without the compass of our agreement that so the Episcopal party might not say that we break the Laws or shut them out nor the rest say that our narrow principles excluded them from our Communion 10. Accordingly once a mouth I had a meeting to hear and admonish them that after more private reproof had refused repentance for heinous and notable offences where were present three Justices of the Peace as at their monthly meeting to do that which belonged to the Magistrate and see that we did not usurp their power and above twenty of the Seniors of the Town and Parish not as Lay-Elders or Officers to vote but as those of the people that had best leisure and advantage to see that we did the Church no wrong and two or three Pastors and three or four elected Deacons Where our chief trouble was with drunkards exhorting them to repentance and praying with them and to keep peace among the neighbours and maintain their unity 11. The next day of every month the Neighbour-ministers met at the Lecture and afterward at an Ordinary in an honest neighbours private house where if any of our Parishes obstinately refused repentance for drunkenness or such open heinous sin he was gently admonished and exhorted before all the Ministers But our usual work was a Disputation on some useful point in Divinity to exercise and edifie the younger sort where were usually present about twenty and among them some of the most learned sober Episcopal Divines that were in these parts who were constant or frequent helpers of us Mr. Thomas Good Mr. Mar. Johnson c. 12. Those open great offenders who before these Ministers also refused to profess Repentance I did three Lords-days as gently and affectionately as I could admonish publickly before all the Church and after that some days publickly prayed for their Repentance which if they refused not they there consest their sin and desired the Churches prayers for their pardon and reformation But if they still refused I declared them unfit for the Communion of the Church according to the Laws of Christ and required the Church to avoid their Communion and we used no other Excommunication But this discipline we used on none but those that consented to it before and not over any that would rather forsake our Communion than submit to it lest they should think I did them wrong 13. The people of the place also did for ought I know as much as I for the promoting of their neighbours good 1. By their unity and concord 2. By their humility and blameless lives 3. They met in the houses of many of those that were ablest to help them on Saturday nights to call to mind the last Lords-days Exhortations and on the Lords-days twice to repeat the Sermons preacht that day and sing a Psalm and pray together and no more The Reasons of these meetings I refer not to the enemies of all things that favour of diligence for a mans soul but to all that know what a soul is worth and what is due from the Creature to his Creator and what is necessary to the information of an ignorant man 1. Many families had no one that could read and such were also the most ignorant so that they could not do any thing in a holy use of the Lords-day but what they did at Church unless they took their neighbours help And time on any day is precious and not to be cast away in vain 2. These persons and many more could remember but little of a Sermon by once hearing yea twice was too little with the most And we preach not only to be heard and admired but to edifie souls and how great a discouragement is it to a faithful Minister to bestow his time and labour in preparing and speaking that which so nearly concerneth his auditors and to cast it as seed by the high-way side and to have it all die in the hearing and carried no further than the Church-doors If I taught a School of boys or sent my servant but on certain businesses for my self I should not be willing that all my words should go no further And old ignorant men do hardlier learn than boys and heavenly Doctrine is more hardly remembered than common business in the world 3. If the Lords-day had been but a time of leave to use such helps and not of duty we should take it for a great mercy to have leave to spend that time in seeking God and life everlasting which else would be lost or spent in trifles 4. Our people were generally poor labourers that could spare so little time for such things on the week-days but what they did in their Shops at their work that it must be now or not at all 5. Common charity and many Scripture-precepts oblige all good Christians to help to edifie and save their neighbours by all just and lawful means 6. We found by great experience that it greatly increased knowledg and obedience and piety in the people 7. And so far was it from causing sects or heresies or contempt of Ministers or private mens Preaching that it was the chief of all means that ever I found successful against these exorbitancies so that when those Pastors that cried down such meetings as Conventicles and
Episcopacy and Conformity much more for being in arms against the Parliament or Preaching against them And I published it as our earnest request that all men that were utterly ignorant Heretical and scandalous or of vicious debauched lives might be cast out without respect to other opinions or Civil causes and that all the rest might unite their labours and be encouraged This is yet in Print And I met with few of my acquaintance in the Ministry that were not of the same mind And I had some more trial as to practise when Cromwell forbad as even now I said the sequestred Ministers to live within two miles of their old Benefice and commanded tâ—em to quit the houses our Vicar was never disturbed nor I never came within the house I never forbad him to preach And at a Chappel we had another conformable Minister that read Common-prayer and said somewhat like a Sermon often one Mr. Turner infamous for ignorance drunkenness railing and living by unlawful marryings and making his Ministry a scorn This Curate I connived at many a year till his death I provided a Preacher at first once a day and afterwards twice to be resident on the place I allowed Mr. Turner his Stipend but intreated him not to meddle with the Ministry For besides his vicious life I examined him and could not perceive that he understood scarce any Article of the Faith nor had the fortieth part of the knowledg or ability of many of the Wevers or some of the Plowmen of the Parish Musculus his Common-places Englished was all the Books that I could perceive he had and that he Preached out of But he would continue to read Common-prayer and did though he might have had his Stipend as much without it Judg by this whether we were over-forward to silence the Sons of the Church or cast them out 3. But what reason or conscience is it that if you can say Cromwell or the Parliament or Rump cast out such Ministers that therefore we that had no hand in it must be silenced Or if you can name forty Ministers in England as I cannot that consented unto this that therefore eighteen hundred that never consented should be forbidden to Preach Yea those that declared themselves to be against it 4. And you know that even the Usurpers allowed the Wives of the sequestred Ministers the fifth part For my part I never asked you so much 5. And either the unjust silencing of Ministers by the Usurpers was well done or ill done If ill done it should be your warning to take heed of sinning as they did for sure their practices seem not so right and lovely to you as to be worthy of imitation They Beheaded Mr. Love and Imprisoned many London Ministers and others for the Kings sake and you think not sure that you must therefore do so too 8 Obj. But we are not to distinguish of Nonconformists when Conformity is necessary to the order of the Church If a few honest men suffer among a company of Schismaticks Presbyterians Independents Rebells they must take it patiently and not blame their Rulers but themselves that chuse so bad companions The greater part of you deserve it Ans. We are not blaming our Governours but our selves not for our Nonconformity but for serving God no more diligently when we had time But 1. can you not distinguish and yet be just what not the innocent from the guilty nor friends from foes This is not the first confusion and evil that want of distinguishing hath caused in the world 2. If your I say your Conformity be more necessary than all our Preaching and Ministry and will help more souls to Heaven go on with it and let it prosper But be sure that you are not mistaken 3. Are Presbyterians so intollerable a sort of people Or will the bare opinion that singular Churches have all Church-power of Christs institution among themselves while they submit to the Civil Government prove men otherwise sober to be unsufferable You know Dr. Hammord and other Episcopal Divines do assert an Independency of Diocesan Churches which he saith de facto in Scripture-times had no Presbyters but one Bishop and his few Deacons And you know Dr. Stillingfleet of whose judgment Bishop Reinolds and many Conformists have profest themselves to be maintaineth that no one form of Church-Government is of Divine Right and Institution And if so then the Independents and Presbyterians refuse none that is of Divine Institution 4. But are you sure that you mistake not to the injury of the sufferers I can tell the world and you that I knew but one Presbyterian Minister in all VVorcestershire and that one was not of our Association nor any one Independent associated with us though there were three worthy Ministers in the County so esteemed there was not one of the Associated Ministry that was so much as reputed Presbyterian or Independent but Episcopal some were that now conform much less Anabaptists or of any other Sect but held the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and loved a Christian as a Christian and were for the uniting of all the Churches that are sound in the faith and in the things necessary to Church-Communion even upon the ancient Primitive terms And when I think of the Association of VVestmorland VViltshire Dorcetshire and other Countrys I have reason by their Articles to think they were of the same mind And must such abundance be silenced for the opinions of a few whom they never signified any consent to 9 Obj. If you are suffered to Preach you will but confirm the people in their Nonconformity and dislike of the Government For though you say nothing of it they will become a faction for the sake of your opinions and what confusion will it cause to have one party of the Church for one Preacher and another for another yea as you would have it for one to cross the baptized child and another not or for one to wear a Surplice and another a Gown Ans. 1. There is nothing in this imperfect life that shall attain perfection nor can any publick good be done without any inconveniencies But O cure not an inconvenience with a mischief Kill not a fly that sitteth on your brothers forehead with a Beetle or a Butchers axe It 's strange that wise men can be so partial or narrow-sighted as to look so intensly after their own desires or interests as to spy out possibilities of inconvenience and never see the loss of souls and great calamities that attend the other way 2. And indeed are you conscious of no frailties in your selves which are as great an inconvenience to the souls of men and the successes of the Gospel and honour of the Church as different practisings of the Cross or Surplice Are you humble men and teachers of humility Do you know your selves and teach the people to know themselves Are you penitent men and Preachers of Repentance and yet have never found
true Pastors over that people without their consent and to nullifie the relation of their former-lawful Pastors 9. That it is not impossible or rare for the Usurper to have the foresaid advantages and the true Pastors to be put to meet in privater places and so thought Dr. VVild Dr. Guning Dr. Hide c. in the time of our Civil Usurpations And even under lawful Governours it was so judged by the Churches in the case of Athanasius Basil and multitudes of Bishops then cast out 10. That abundance of the Ministers now cast out were once the lawful Pastors of the flocks 11. That when the true Pastor is thrust out of the Temples and Usurpers have that place he is rather the Separatist that followeth the Usurper in that more publick place than he that adhereth in private to the lawful Pastor as Dr. VVild and the rest aforementioned then thought 12. That therefore in those places where the Relation of prohibited Ministers to the people is truly dissolved they are the faulty dividers that adhere to them But where it is not dissolved but the publick Teachers were never their true Pastors there those may be the Schismaticks that forsake their lawful Pastors though under that restraint 13. That where the Pastors that have the Temples and those that are shut out are both true Pastors caeteris paribus it is as good a proof that they are Separatists and Schismaticks who join not with them in other places as that they are so for not coming to the Temples that is neither of the inferences is good 14. Every man is not a Separatist that is not present with others in publick worship I separate not from all foreign Churches nor from all the Parish Churches in London save one though I be present but with one But he that censureth a true Church to be no Church and so separateth from it as none and he that accounteth any Church injuriously to be so corrupted as that it is unlawful to hold communion with it both these are guilty of culpable Schismatical separation but in very different degrees 15. A mans absence from you will not alone prove him a Separatist unless he be absent upon separating Principles 16. He that keepeth not local communion with a particular Church and yet honoureth them as a Church that may be communicated with and holdeth communion of Faith and Love and Obedience with them cannot be a Separatist from them simply but only extrinsically secundum quid and that is to be tried and judged of as aforesaid 17. If therefore they will admit you to communicate with them in their way and will not communicate with you in your way it sheweth that it is something in your way and not directly in your selves from which they separate 18. And no man ought to commit one sin for the communion of any Church 19. I may have more mental communion with a Church which I dare not outwardly join with because they impose some one unlawful word or action than with a more corrupted Church with which I hold more external communion because they put me not to approve their errors 20. When there are several Churches near caeteris paribus a free man should join himself with the Purest and to the most edifying Ministry ordinarily 21. Yet in times of suspicion and division it is fit to shew our judgment by our practise and to join sometimes with some less pure Churches that put no sin upon us to shew that we withdraw not from them on separating principles 22. When a Minister is not lawfully separated from his flock but another is obtruded without a just call upon his people yet if he see that the voluntary relinquishing of his relation is most for the peoples good that they may accept another that hath more secular advantages to profit them and guide them in peace he is finis gratiâ in prudence bound to do it 23. All people in England therefore are not in the same condition but to some it may be a fault which to others is a duty Were I in a place where the Minister is faithful and worthy to be owned I would draw all the people to attend his Ministry and would help him at other seasons as I were able in unity and love But if I lived where the publick Minister were intollerable I would do otherwise 24. The case of London much differeth from most other places in the Land as very many of them think that their relation to their ancient flocks is not yet dissolved so necessity putteth them out of the track of formal Parish-order 1. In the great Plague almost all the Parish-ministers deserted them and those that then stuck to the people found such success by the help of that awakening judgment that they durst not since forsake them nor will easily be forsaken by them 2. There being so many score Churches burnt down and the Inhabitants not gone and the conformable Ministers not officiating but in the standing Temples there is no reason that the people should therefore turn Atheists and give over worshipping God 3. Many Parishes being so great that the twentieth person cannot come to the Temples and many of the Preachers voices so low that half cannot hear them who might get in there is no reason that all the rest must therefore be cast off and left as the Indians without the means that God hath appointed for mens Salvation 4. And why then should not their Assemblies take the fittest time of the day as well as yours All men know that especially in the short Winter-days there is little convenient time left for the work of a Lords-day besides the time of your morning and evenings Liturgy and other Offices 5. And when you have as many as can hear you O why should you be angry that the rest or rather some few of them are hearing others that Preach as profitably as you Nay I beseech you before God judg try and judg what is the cause that when many parts perhaps of your absent Parishioners are at no Church but some in Ale houses Taverns or Gaming-houses and some idle at home that yet the few that are worshipping God with an able faithful Minister are more exclaimed on and written against and angerly accused than all the rest Obj. But many of the Parish-churches are half empty Ans. 1. It is not so with the rest and therefore you may see that the difference between your own Preachers is the cause Unedifying Teachers will not have so many voluntary intelligent hearers as others 2. As I said half the Church-full cannot hear many of your Preachers 3. When the Parishioners know beforehand that the Temple will not hold a quarter of the people they are never certain of room as not knowing when others will exclude them and therefore they seek another place where they may be certain For he that brings his family to Church every day upon such uncertainty is every day uncertain whether he
shall spend the day as the Lords-day or have any publick communion with the Church And they are apter to be sensible of this calamity themselves than the Objectors are 6. And I must add also that as London is the most populous place so it hath the greatest number of true Separatists and Sectaries and the sounder part are not responsible for their actions 12 Obj. But with what conscience do you come into Cities Corporations or within five miles of them or of your former Preachingplaces Doth God bid you preach just here And how do your scruples engage you thus to break the Laws Ans. Even with such a Conscience as we Preach in England when the Scripture nameth not England to us Did not the ancient Christians also disobey a lawful power when they setled their Churches in Cities even when they were forbidden both City and Country and if Christ say VVhen they persecute you in one city fly to another and you bid us fly from all and fly to none Hath not a Nonconformists Conscience something of the command of Christ to countenance his practice But our true Reasons are the same as are forementioned for our Preaching If necessity be upon us to Preach because of the peoples necessity to hear then where their necessity is greatest there our obligation is greatest But in populous Cities and Towns when the ablest conformable Minister is insufficient for a quarter of the Parish the peoples necessities are greatest Ergo If it be lawful for us to desert and betray to Satan the souls of all the Cities and Corporations in England and within five miles of them and of all the places where we have Preached why will it not be lawful to do so by the rest VVhere the carcass is the eagles will be gathered together and where the work and Vineyard is the labourer must be And all good men love the publick good and therefore will chuse those places for their labour caeteris paribus which the publick good doth most depend on Especially if the people of their ancient charge live there and they think that their relation to them is not dissolved And I must profess that few of the passages of this generation do more astonish me with dread and wonder than to think that City-Pastors who have so vast a charge and so much more need of help than the Country yea men of reputed learning sobriety and piety should ever be desirous to take this burden wholly on themselves and should be the forwardest to drive away assistants yea and make it a sin to preach to those souls that they know they cannot preach to themselves Yea that the same men that one year have much ado to satisfie their own consciences to conform and think they speed well if with Conformity they can but keep up some reputation of honesty yet the next year make so great a progress as to question his honesty that will not sacrilegiously renounce his Ministry and are the forwardest to put down all Preaching save their own Do the Pastors themselves no better know the Parish bounds and the peoples wants or the worth of souls What then can we expect from others Obj. But it is not your help but your hindering us that we are against Do you help us by drawing the people from us to your selves Ans. I cannot tell whether we help you or not till I know what is your help If your work be not to get followers and applause but to bring men to Christian knowledg faith love obedience and patience then all the Ministers that I plead for are you helpers those that are not silence them and spare not But if your work be to preach up your selves and your successes be reckoned by your applause I cannot tell whether we help you or not For though we seek to increase your reputation with the people yet it is not as you are self-seekers but as in charity we hope you preach more for Christ and mens Salvation than for your selves 13 Obj. But what you before denied of the Magistrate you cannot deny of the Church The Church calleth you and giveth you your power Therefore it may take it from you And so Mr. Rathband confesseth and the old Nonconformists practised Ans. 1. The Church is an ambiguous word If you mean the Bishops all those whom you call to be re-ordained deny that ever the Bishops gave them their power 2. And it was One Bishop who ordained each of the rest or two at most who are both dead and cannot take away what they gave 3. I have answered this before and more largely in my Dispute of Ordination Men give us not our Power at all as from themselves but as Servants of Christ invest them solemnly to whom he giveth it And a servant cannot dispossess him whom by his Masters Orders he hath invested 4. You give us our Baptism and Matrimony as truly as our Ministry And yet you cannot take them from us 5. But indeed if the Church that is the People refuse us we cannot teach and edifie them against their wills 6. And if one Bishop silence us he doth it but as exercising Government in his Diocess and it followeth not that we are silenced in all others 7. And they that dissent from our Diocesan frame of Prelacy do not much reverence their Governing Spiritual Power And if the Kings prohibition bind them not against their Conscience of Gods obligations to be silent much less will yours 8. No Bishops have silenced us by Spiritual Government that we know of but only as Barons by the Secular Laws to which they gave their Votes which yet all did not How then are we obliged by their Power of the Keys to be silent For my part I have one or two of their Licenses never re-called or nulled 9. If a Bishop should silence him under pretence of Government and Order whom God obligeth to preach as much as I have before proved that we are obliged it were ipso facto null as to our Consciences as being against the Laws of God 10. He that is silenced in every Bishops Diocess is not yet thereby degraded but is still a Minister to the world at least for their conversion For those without the Infidels and Heathens are of no Bishops Diocess And it 's a question whether those among us that openly renounce the Prelacy and declare themselves to be none of their Church are yet indeed members of their Church whether they will or not We believe not that a Law of the Land doth make any man a Church-member without his own consent If you think otherwise why distinguish you the Sons of the Church from others If all the people of London be not the Sons or members of your Church the rest are not under your Pastoral Spiritual Government And as for your Secular Power enough is said of that before And I think no man will say that the extent of your Diocess to many hundred Parishes is a
Divine Institution obliging all mens consciences to obey you that shall come within that circuit of ground you will ascribe this extent of your power to the King and Laws of which more in due place And as to the old Nonconformists they forbore the Temples and publick maintenance and so do we And I am sure they used to preach in private as well as we yea and in the Churches when they thought it brought no great inconvenience by offence Mr. Hildersham Mr. Nichols and abundance more did preach in publick after they were forbidden and silenced till execution hindered them as well as Law And Mr. Nichols Mr. Langley Mr. Bromskill and many more when they were driven from one place would preach where they found opportunity in another And Mr. Herring was wont privately to preach in Shrewsbury as his most credible friends and hearers told me And indeed the far greatest part of the Nonconformists that ever I knew had publick liberty in some small peculiar for most of their time if not by connivence in greater places So had Mr. Knewstubs Ash Slater Root Ball Barnet Gilpin and many more And yet we as well as Mr. Rathband will submit to a suspension or prohibition of authority when it is but an act of Order and Government of just authority and not a notorious subversion of the thing Ordered or the End and Gods Laws and mens necessities oblige us not to the contrary The Papists hold that a Father may not keep his Son from taking Orders If the Bishops were our Fathers then they could not hinder us from the faithful exercise of what we have undertaken 14 Obj. The Reason why you are against Bishops is because you cannot be Bishops your selves And why was it that you so long demurred on the matter before you refused them when some had such offers Did it not shew that you had a mind of them Ans. The first half of this charge was given in the Pulpit to my face when no Minister or Nonconformist else was present The other is the Debate-makers in sense And seeing I am personally concerned in the matter my answer must be historical accordingly Will not all sober by-standers think that we have very hard measure and have to do with a strange generation When they shall know that Bishopricks were offered us without seeking directly or indirectly and refused with as much modesty as we could use and after all are denied not only the place of the poorest Curates but even all liberty to Preach for nothing to the rudest poorest Inhabitants of the Land and yet after all this to be told that we are against Bishops because we could not be Bishops our selves O happy Christians that must be finally judged by a more righteous Judg If you say that you mean it of those that never had such offers why should you not rather judg of them by us that were tryed than boldly judg that of them which they were never tryed in and of which it is impossible for you to have knowledge But the later objector telleth us whom he speaketh of To whom I must say There were but five or six Nonconformists of all England that ever I heard of that had any Church-Dignities offered them since his Majesties Restoration And of these but three that had Bishopricks offered them which were Dr. Edward Reignolds Mr. Calamy and my self And of these three I refused it the next day or next save one after the first offer of it by the Lord Chancellor for private overtures by inferiors before I answered with as much refusal as was fit to such uncertain offerers Dr. Reignolds in a very short time accepted Only Mr. Calamy delayed And if Dr. Bates and Dr. Manton who were offered Deanries as they said for I am certain of no offer but my own did delay their refusal it was on the same account And the true Reason of Mr. Calamies delay which few men knew better than my self was because perhaps he would have accepted a Bishoprick as altered by the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs and to be used according to that Declaration but not according to the ancient Laws and Customs of the Land and Church though of this much he was unresolved Therefore he being uncertain whether the Kings Declaration would stand or pass into a Law he delayed to see the certainty And when he saw that the Declaration was dead and Prelacy was what it was before he refused it And Dr. Reignolds professed to me to accept it but on the terms of that Declaration Now I would put two questions to the Justice of the Debater 1. Whether he do well to mention our refusing of Bishopricks at all which we our selves so studiously silence There is now no Refuser living but my self And I must profess that to this day I have been so careful to silence it that I do not believe there are many men if any alive that ever heard me mention it unless in answer to some one that askt me about it or in confutation of some such aspersions as these And my reason was because I apprehend it to favour of Ingratitude and disingenous carriage to my Rulers If they shall offer me preferment and I should boast how I refused it it would seem a casting it in their faces with unthankfulness and contempt And no man can say that ever I was so unworthy and few have ever heard me mention it And yet we cannot be quiet for accusers but if we say nothing such men will Q. 2. Whether candor or justice would without any distinction perswade the world that we had a mind of preferments and therefore so long delayed whereof only three men that had the offer of Bishops one refused in a day or two and the other presently accepted And the one that delayed with the two about Deaneries were known to do it that they might know first whether the Kings Declaration would pass into a Law or be cast by And if you proceed to intimate that we refused but for fear of losing our party I know no mans heart but my own and I will help you by some evidence to know it in this matter 1. Upon the offers by inferior agents that first were made to me my neighbour Ministers in Worcestershire having some knowledge of it concurred in a Letter to me neither perswading nor disswading me but thinking me the fittest judg assured me that if I accepted it they should be so far from censuring me for it as rather to believe that it would be for good c. 2. When I refused it being wary what men might after say I did it in writing in a Letter to the Lord Chanceller giving him those Reasons that did content him viz. If the Kings Declaration were established though I wisht a perfecter frame of Discipline than it reciteth yet I was so glad of that much that I took it to be my duty to promote our Concord with all my power upon that foundation
of sinning than your selves 3. We are so tender of disobeying our Rulers that we will do any thing to obey and please them except disobeying God and damning our own or others Souls And if you must have us yet go further you must excuse us we had rather go to your prison under all your obloquy Your furnace is not so hot as Gods 17 Obj. The only reason say most of them why they forsook their Ministry was that they durst not abjure the Covenant Dispense with them for this and they are Conformists But if that be the only thing they scruple then why are they not Conformists in all other particulars against which they pretended no such exceptions And what doeth renouncing the Covenant concern the people c Thus the Ecclesiastical Polititian Pag. 242 243. Ans. 1. Is this flaming-hot Disputer so much better acquainted with us than we are with our selves and one another Hath he talkt with the most of us or have the most ever said or written that it is only the Covenant that we stick at I must profess of all the Nonconformists that ever I knew or spake with I never knew any one of this mind which he saith the most of them say they are of Nay I never heard of any one Nonconformist of that mind And if the world and posterity must be told so confidently that most say and hold that which I that am supposed so much on their side did never know nor hear of any one man that said or held you may judge what a history posterity is like to have of this age and also with whom we have to do and upon what terms I confess I know one that hath suffered the loss of all these many years and been denied so much as leave to teach School that is for Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies as lawful and never took the Covenant nor was ever for it nor for the Parliaments War but against both that yet cannot disoblige every one that ever did take the Covenant so far as is required to Conformity nor cannot subscribe or declare Assent and Consent to every word in the three Books so to be consented to But such a one as sticks at the Covenant only I never knew nor heard of 3. But if the accusers of the Brethren do believe themselves they tell the world the little charity that is among them who had rather so many Ministers were silenced to say nothing of their bodily sufferings and so many thousand souls want their Ministry than abjuring the Covenant should be dispensed with when a fuller security for loyalty and peace is offered 4. It is either the Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent Nonconformists for all these sorts there be at least that he meaneth by most of them or most as mixt 1. The Episcopal Nonconformists are not for the Covenant but stick most at consenting and swearing to the English Hierarchy and Discipline and Church-state as it differeth from the old Episcopacy described in Archbishop Ushers Reduction 2. The Presbyterians surely have told the world by Books enow that they are Nonconformists in more things than abjuring the Covenant And in good sadness doth not England know that call them what you will the Divines commissioned by the King did give their reasons against more 3 And the Independents are so far from being to be numbered with his most of them that I know not if you would free them from the rest of Conformity whether the leaders would not yield in this For when Scotland was invaded and Mr. Love Beheaded it was pleaded that the Covenant was as an Almanack out of date And Mr. Eaton hath written a Book to prove that the Covenant and the Oath of Allegiance bind not 5. But as for abjuring I never heard that it was required of the Ministers and how can that possibly be their only Nonconformity which never was imposed on them 6. But what he and others mean to pretend that the Laity are unconcerned in the renouncing of the Covenant when it is known by Printed Laws and by practice that all the Cities and Corporations in England as to the Governing or trusted part are constituted by the Renunciation of the Covenant and also all the Vestries as the Corporation Act and the Vestry Act declare is but more matter of wonder to men that have not been used to such things So many new Printed Laws and the visible state of all the Cities and Corporations in England are not evidence enough on a Nonconformists part to decide a controversie of fact But if they shall say that they meant that the Laity are not on such terms forbidden to come to Church I answer if we also had learned the trick of speaking writing and swearing in universal terms or equipollent and meaning not universally but particularly as many do we could say or subscribe or swear as far as you desire us 18 Obj. If you be tollerated why not all others as well as you And so the Quakers and the Papists may come in And it 's well if the Presbyterians do not thus let in Popery Ans. 1. What if the Law imposed one word on you which you could not conform to and you differed from the Church in nothing else what answer would you give to such an Objection as this which equally excludeth Chillingworth and Knot Would you not say that a difference should be made O how hardly can men understand that are unwilling to know How easie a case were this to the willing Mr. John Rogers of Dedham Mr. John Ball and sometime Mr. Dod and Mr. Hildersham had liberty to preach without conforming and did it infer the necessity of such a Toleration as you talk of 2. I pray you take heed of bringing Conformity more into contempt than yet it is by seeming to judg it such a thing as men will not yield to without constraint and punishment Take off the penalty of subscribing declaring crossing c. and all that are willing will use them without force And if most must be forced it intimates that they do not like or love them What good doth subscribing a sentence which he believeth not do either to the soul of the lyar himself or to the Church 3. If so large a Toleration as you talk of be so dangerous and the Presbyterians are like to occasion it for their liberty why will you not prevent so great a danger at so cheap a rate as it might be prevented at Are you indeed against a Toleration of Heresie and Popery and yet would you rather venture on the danger of it than abate to Protestants a needless ceremony or subscription 4. I cannot tell whether you are indeed such strangers to the thoughts and talk of the people of England concerning your selves as you seem to be If you are I will not now tell you what they say of you But they rejoice that they have a King so far from Popery that he hath by a Law made it a
say that they are certain of their own Salvation I know that many excellent Protestants have made it the sense of that article of the Creed I believe that my own sins are pardoned and say that this Proposition My sins are pardoned is de fide Divina And yet I know that in propriety and strictness of speech which should be used in Controversies it is not true I know that many of the School-mens assertions are commonly rejected as erroneous because they are not commonly understood I know that Luther maketh the Doctrine of Justification to be Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae and yet I know that Ludovicus le Blank of Sedan in his Theses hath greatly narrowed the difference and understands it much better than Luther seemeth to have done Which I may say also of Bucer Conradus Bergius In Praxi Cathol Ludov. Crocius and many other such Conciliators And that Luther on the Galatians is so acceptable to the Antinomians that I conceive divers passages in it have need of as candid an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Doctrine of Scotus and many Papists on that point I am my self a Christian and that is my Religion and I own the name Protestant for no greater reason than because it is the Protestant Religion to be meer Christians and to protest against the Roman Superadditions and depravations of it And so to be a Protestant and to be a meer Christian adhering to Scripture sufficiency as the test and terms of Union and Communion are all one Yea if any one doubted of the Canonicalness of the Canticles Esther or some one or few Books and acknowledg the main body of the Scriptures and the ancient articles of faith I would not cast such a one from my Communion And these terms or none I have foretold it you oft must heal the Church if ever it be healed And till the Papists will see the equity of these terms it is our great advantage that the certain truth of all our Religion is so fully acknowledged But 2. as long as we let others alone with their additions why may they not live in peace with us and let us alone without them All men are united in the Essentials of Humanity though they are not all of one complection stature or degree of strength And if any be so peevish that he will associate with none that are not of his own complection the separation is the effect of his folly which may possibly be cured and till it be cured both the fault and the suffering is his own If a Law were made that none shall live in the Kings Dominions but men of a Sanguine complection and of a strait and comely person and of such a proportion of tallness and of strength and of flaxen hair this Law would necessitate a separation and diminution of the Kings subjects from generation to generation But if the Law be that all English men that will live after the rules of Reason Honesty and Society shall have the priviledges of subjects if an hundred thousand had got a conceit that they may not lawfully be of the same Kingdom with any but men of their own complection and stature as aforesaid this is a cureable folly and the Law-makers may say we have done our parts for universal society and it is not we that make it impossible or hinder it and men in time may come to reason We refuse not them but they refuse us If you make things necessary and of common agreement to be your terms of Union Greeks Abassines Armenians Romans may take their own way and every one without injury enjoy his own be it wisdom or folly upon these terms But if you unite upon any other terms you make Laws for schism even for the exclusion of all that are not of your mind For Hales his Doctrine is true in the judgment of all men save the guilty that the Imposer of unnecessary doubtful things is the Schismatick or cause of all the schism So that there is no true union to be expected with Rome or any others but on the terms of primitive simplicity or which all true Christians are agreed in And they are no good terms which induce the authors through the force of interest to say that none in the world are good Christians that are not of their cut and strain and wear not their livery and lace not their coats in the Imposers mode 4 And as long as we take nothing from the men of various modes and fashions by unity in the Essentials of Humanity and Christianity to imagine that it is the way to union to force all Dissenters to their modes is but to renounce union and to gratifie a distant party so far as to make them laugh at us as fools and hope ere long to get us at their mercy and thereby to lose disoblige and destroy those that are nearer to us and would indeed be our friends and strength and to become enemies to our own families rather than to displease the people of France by not wearing their fashions 5. And if you had attained a seeming union with the Papists you are not sure it will hold seven year For their Religion still thriveth and thereby changeth and is yet far short of its maturity in all likelihood For General Councils make their Religion and who knoweth how many General Councils of forty Bishops perhaps like that at Trent for a great part of the time there may yet be and what alterations of Religion they may make And are you sure you can go along with them in all as far as they will go If you must break at last unite not on such mutable terms at first But there 's no talking to men whose interest and passion and partiality is the maker of their Religion It is not my purpose to speak any of this either to one of Grotius's mind if Saraviad and the Book called Grotius Papirans be credible or if he be that man that wrote the Discussio Apolog. Rivet who would have us unite upon the acceptance of all the Councils even that of Trent nor to such as come as near them as Mr. Thorndike nor any of that degree of affinity For I suppose they are already gone out of the hearing of such a voice as mine Yet still remember that I am not setting a Law no not Christs Law to your selves for the rule of your own opinions or practices If you will please the Papists by coming yet nearer them even nearer than the learned Forbes Bishop of Edenburgh did if you will have more of their Doctrine Discipline and Worship take it if it will do you any good But why must all others needs be of your judgment or those be of your way that are not of your judgment And why cannot you unite with the Papists if you will without destroying the Protestants or renouncing them Unite in things necessary and hold and use the rest as matters of liberty and it will
Catalogue of Questions for our Disputations at those Meetings and never then talkt to us of what he here writeth in a Book called Dubitantius Firmianus 2. Mr. Thomas Foley a Nonconformist Gentleman eminent for Charity having built near Stourbridge a Hospital and endowed it with about 500 l. per annum being my friend Dr. Good wrote to me to move him to give maintenance for two Scholarships in Baliol-Colledge and I wrote this Letter in answer to that but the sending was delayed till he was dead Accus 29. Another to save the Nation from the labours of a Concordant Ministry and from the blessings of Unity Peace and Innocence hath written a book lately called The Modern Pleas for Comprehension Toleration c. considered who at his enterance saith I would fain have any of our dissenting brethren to answer directly Whether there be any one thing sinful in her Communion the Churches as by Law established or only some things as they conceive inexpedient And p. 11. he saith Suppose that the terms of the Communion of the Church are not only inexpedient but really sinful if so then I shall readily grant that the Church ought not to be communicated with while the terms of her Communion are such But I shall presume to say with some confidence that it is not easie to find a considerable man among them who will not be ashamed to own it publickly or who doth himself really believe it And p. 12. I have been credibly informed not to say that I am able to make it good that Mr. Calamy did before his Majesty and divers Lords of the Council profess that there was not any thing in the constitution of the Church to which he could not conform were it not for the scandalizing of others so that in his esteem the Constitutions of the Church were in themselves innocent and the whole objection against them lay in the mistakes of other men Yet saith he p. 11. That the separation from the Church is so avowed and pressed upon the people as if that it were highly necessary and that communion with the Church was highly criminal at least in the opinion of the teachers Ans. And now Reader what a shake doth this instance give to the credit of History at least such as is written by interessed factious men yea what a reproach to humane nature For what untruth can be imagined so gross and what thing so nakedly evil as may not be expected to be found in Man yea in professed Christians yea in Divines of such a character Either this man and such others believe what they say themselves or not If not what Preachers what Christians what Men are these If they do what matter of fact can ever be so notorious as that we can hope that such men can know it What History of such Writers can deserve any credit What regard can the people be encouraged to give to the Words and Writings of such Doctors that no better know such publick notorious matters of fact and so confidently and boldly deceive the world in cases where so many thousands yea the Churches Peace and Concord is so much concerned Reader judge by these notorious evidences of fact of these mens credibility and usage 1. The judgment of the ancient Nonconformists is declared to the world by abundance of Writings in which they thought that they proved much in the English Constitutions to be sinful and such as men must suffer deprivation and death rather than consent to And are all these Writings no evidence of their judgments nor their sufferings neither 2. Since his Majesties Restoration the present Nonconformists still distinguished 1. Between Diocesan or National Churches and Parish-Churches 2. Between the Communion and Conformity of private men and of Ministers And 3. Between Approbation of the Church-Constitutions Practising all imposed and peaceable behaviour and submission And though some exasperated persons have by the late sufferings of conscionable men been tempted to separate from the Prelates and their party as far as St. Martin did from the Bishops about him and their Synods yet the main body of the Nonconforming Ministers as far as ever we could learn did judge as followeth 1. That those Parish-Churches which had true Ministers not utterly uncapable persons were true Churches of Christ. 2 That the ordinary Liturgy appointed for the publick worship was such as a good Christian may lawfully joyn in not speaking of Baptizings Burials c. in which some things they thought more dubious 3. That though combined Churches whether you call them Diocesan or National are not any otherwise a Divine Institution than as Concord is commanded us in general and may not be set up to the detriment of the particular Churches which are of Divine Institution yet a good Christian may and must live peaceably and submissively where some such combined Churches are guilty of Usurpation and sinful abuse 4. That Conformity to all the Subscriptions Declarations Oaths Covenants and Practices now imposed on Ministers would be to us a very great and heinous sin modesty forbidding us to meddle uncalled with the Consciences of the Conformists 3. Their judgment of the sinfulness of Ministerial Conformity they declared to his Majesty and the Bishops in many Writings when they had encouragement to attempt once the healing of the divisions And when because they agreed to leave out all harsh provoking words in their accusations of the Church-Orders and Ceremonies the Lord Chancellor had put into the first draught of a Declaration That we do not in our judgments believe the practice of those particular Ceremonies which we except against to be in it self unlawful In our next Address we desired that those words might be expunged and so they were Yet this extended not to Subscriptions Oaths c. And afterward many particulars were mentioned which we thought sinful and the supposition vindicated in a Reply to which the Bishops never answered And in a long Petition for Peace p. 6. we make this Protestation following Who can pretend to be better acquainted with their hearts than they are themselves For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of a man which is in him And they are ready to appeal to the dreadful God the searcher of hearts and the hater of hypocrisie that if it were not for fear of sinning against him and wounding their consciences and hazarding and hindering their salvations they would readily obey you in all these things That it is their fear of sin and damnation that is their impediment they are ready to give you all the assurance that man can give by the solemnest professions or by Oath if justly called to it And one would think that a little charity might suffice to enable you to believe them when their non-compliance brings them under suffering and their compliance is the visible way to favour safety and prosperity in the world And if men that thus appeal to God concerning the intention of
of old will tell posterity whether the Nonconformists preached loose licentious Doctrine 5. But the fullest decision of this case will be from their cause it self The Liturgy and Canon 1. obligeth us to refuse no Child that is offered us in baptism 2. The Rubrick pronounceth the baptized Infants so dying certainly saved not excepting any child of any Infidel or Atheist or open denier of a life to come or derider of Christ and the holy Scripture of which there are now great store 3. When the baptized Children can say the words of the Creed Lords Prayer c. though they know not what they say they are confirmed by the Bishop 4. Being confirmed they are to be admitted to the Lords-Supper though they know not what it meaneth yea they are compelled for fear of Imprisonment and ruine to communicate 5. When they are sick if they will but say they repent and desire it they must be Absolved in absolute terms though they give the Minister no satisfaction that they are truly penitent and have lived till then a most ungodly life and perhaps lie cursing and swearing and railing at a holy life on their sick-bed 6. And being dead we must pronounce our hope of every one in England except unbaptized ones excommunicate and self-murderers that God in mercy hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear brother out of the miseries of this world Though they were professed Atheists Infidels scorners of Christ notorious adulterers or other criminals and never once so much as said I repent 7. And the Discipline of the Church being managed by one Lay-Chancellor and his Court with some small assistance in a Diocess of many hundred Parishes is utterly uncapable of calling one of an hundred to repentance or keeping clean the Church And these are much of that which the Nonconformists refuse to subscribe their full Assent and Consent to and to Covenant never to endeavour to reform for which they suffer the loss of all And now judge which side hath the looser principles and cause And add their refusal to approve of that which they fear to be in many thousands Perjury and the rest which the Conformists never scruple and try who are the looser and have the greater Latitude of Conscience And never did we yet meet with many that do believe that we live in more fulness and idleness and fleshly liberty than most of the Conformists do which we speak not as accusing any but in our necessary defence But he pretendeth to prove it 1. By our Books 2. By particular doctrines of Election Justification Good-works c. But 1. Doth not the world know that the Nonconformists offer to subscribe the same Doctrine of the Church of England as the Conformists do in the 39. Articles and the Book of Homilies If one then have a wrong faith professed so hath the other And let them that must contradict the Doctrine which they subscribe bear the greatest shame and punishment and spare us not if it be we 2. Why is there no publick accusation against us these years in which by his Majesties License we have preached openly as for any unsoundness of our doctrine 3. Who knoweth not that such accusing inferences are usually brought by all factious quarrel some Divines against their adversaries Whence such Writings as Caivino-Turcesinus c. have sprung up 4. The Reporter here either chargeth on the Nonconformists the Doctrines of the Antinomians which none have more confuted and of a few half Antinomian erroneous men against whom he might have read the Writings of Mr. Burges Mr. VVoodbridg Mr. Gibbons Mr. Warren Mr. Jessope Mr. Gataker and many other Nonconformists or else he falsifieth their doctrine He citeth the Marrow of Modern Divinity written thirty years ago by a Barber tainted with Antinomianism and though he cite the names of five Independents that then approved or commended it too hastily he never tells you how commonly both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Nonconformists and very many Independents reject and condemn it and how many have confuted it more than Conformists ever did And blessed be God that our forecited Books are visible to report our Doctrine to the World 5. But he singleth out one of us from the report of a Conforming Contradictor as making heinous sins such as Peters Lots c. consistent with true Grace Reader this is the true case in which you will still see what justice we have from this kind of men Baxter about near thirty years ago endeavoured with all his power and diligence to reconcile the Episcopals Presbyterians and Independents at least to joyn in the same Communion He found the two latter full of distast against the Prelatical party of Ministers but especially of the common people even his own hearers still saying they are swearers drunkards meer worldly loose ungodly people that have no seriousness in Religion and it is not lawful for us to have communion with such To cure them of this distast he stretcht his charity as far as he thought just to extenuate their faults and told the people That though many of these Prelatists would swear and curse and had divers such faults in the exercise of Church-communion they that were not-Pastors but private men must bear what they could not reform and withall must compassionately consider that many foul faults committed more through passion and custom than love and interest might stand with grace and Pauls counsel Gal. 6. 1 2. was to be well considered This being the scope of his discourse and the end what doth Mr. Tho. Pierce but retort it on him unthankfully to his reproach as holding too loose a doctrine Which this man here also now repeateth But as he told Mr. Pierce that for all this if one were necessary he had rather dye in the case of Noah Lot and Peter in the time of their sin than in the case of Mr. Pierce when he wrote that book being perswaded that they had then more of the love of God and man than he the same also he still professeth to this Enquirer and all of his spirit that so unthankfully requite men for perswading the people to judge as charitably as they could for Concord sake of scandalous Prelatists But if we be odious for pleading for charitable censures to such what are they that live in the sin it self and they that receive them constantly to their Communion And here as a proof he tells us how Dr. Hammond's Catechism and Mr. Fowlers book of Holiness being the design of Christianity have been censured and Mr. Baxter for daring to justifie the argument of that book p. 109. To which we say 1. We highly value Dr. Hammonds Practical Catechism And it 's strange that if one of us have justified the argument of the other that our Doctrine should not rather be gathered from such as he than from we know not whom For we must say that we know of none accounted Orthodox among us who have at all disowned
that book of Mr. Baxters But we observe that these men most injuriously impute the very opposition of some Sectaries and passionate weak persons to us that are opposed by them because that all go under the name of Nonconformists 2. His second Reason is Our mighty shew of zeal in all Religious performances Ans. And how knoweth he that it is but a shew Are they like to be better that shew no zeal Can a man believe the great things of Heaven and Hell and preach them without great seriousness and zeal and not play the hypocrite Who is it that said Isa. 58. 1. Cry aloud lift up thy voice like a trumpet c. But Christs kinsmen themselves went about to lay hold on him thinking that his zeal was a transportation or distraction Mat. 3. 21. Vid. Dr. Hammond in loc no wonder if mens tongues condemn us for zeal though our consciences condemn us for remisness and coldness in matters of everlasting consequence 3. His third Reason is p. 21. A very great specious seeming sanctity in carriage and common deportment the sheeps clothing worn by the wolves c. Ans. 1. Will not even strangers from such words suspect that our adversaries own not or have not at least so much as such a seeming sanctity of carriage How else could this be noted as a difference 2. And how knoweth he that knoweth not hearts that this is but seeming 3. And how do these charges of a loose doctrine and great seeming sanctity well agree 4. Would he have us not so much as seem holy and so not seem Christians that we may escape such censures 5. And how shew we that we are Wolves Christ meant that Wolves are known by their cruelty and Paul saith Acts 20. 29. that the grievous wolves that shall enter will not spare the flock We confess v. 30. that we ever expected that from our own selves some would arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them by reason of whom the way of truth should be evil spoken of 2 Pet. 2. 2. and it hath accordingly come to pass with some but with fewer of the Ministry than we might have feared according to the experience of the first ages of the Church But sure it is not we that wearing white garments have bloody jaws we persecute none we silence not our brethren And let our enemies judg of our Accuser by his own words p. 125. No men ever were better studied in all the little things that make a fair shew in the sight of the vulgar and carry with them any appearance of piety No men ever were exacter at Oral and Gestural sanctity than they are what their hearts are God and their own consciences know we will not judg them when yet the Book is an opprobrious judging them What can be said more for us than this and how contrary is it to the rest of their Accusations 4. His fourth Reason runs thus p. 126. Another method by which these persons attract a great veneration from their followers is the suffering a seeming persecution They appear evidently on the suffering side and providence hath cast them upon acting the sadder scene the Laws are something smart against them Ans. 1. This man yet confuteth the former that maketh us gainers 2. But what escape is possible from such Accusers Did we make those Laws against our selves Do we persecute our selves Shall Clergy-men provoke Magistrates to make such Laws as he calleth smart and then make our sufferings to be one of our methods If this be the method to obtain Veneration I doubt such as the Accusers will hardly learn it 3. But in our experience the vulgar usually most honour the prospering and upper side and set light by sufferers as if their very usage proved their desert It is like to be the better sort that are so compassionate and so much value men that for conscience are vilified by others But p. 132. he hath found out covetousness in our sufferings which others lay upon us and saith that Calamy found three days in Newgate more gainful than half a years preaching at Aldermanbury so that now we have found out another Vice that may possibly be in this matter Pride and Covetousness too c. Ans. Is this the Justice of Sacred Clergy-men 1. Do they lay us with Rogues in the common Gaols for preaching the Gospel when they forbid us and then envy us that charity there relieveth us and that any are more merciful than themselves Do these men believingly preach Matth. 25. I was hungry and ye fed me I was in prison and ye visited me c. 2. How knoweth this man what Mr. Calamy received Is it likely that he knoweth what he saith to be true which none of us know that better knew Mr. Calamy than he 3. If our friends are so liberal sure they are a better sort of people than the Conformists if those Preachers say true who tell the world what a wretched case their Clergy would be in if their maintenance depended on the will and charity of the people But to make them no better than they are one of us that writeth this can say by experience how like this report is to be false for when he lay for the ordinary cause many times three days in the Common Gaol he was never offered a groat by any but one Countrey Knight one Lady and one Citizen and a by offer from one that he had reason to refuse nor received a farthing from any but these three which did but defray his Prison and Law charges but not by many pounds his Losses by that prosecution 5. His fifth Reason is Their continual applauding and commending their people and crying them up as saints Ans. 1. And what get we by so doing 2. Why are we censured for preaching against mens sins if we are flatterers 3. Whom is it that we cry up for Saints Is it only Nonconformists Let our Writings witness whether our description of Saints be right or wrong But if none must be justified as Saints none will be saved as Saints Which doth the world among us take for the plainer dealers and which party for the more smooth and toothless Preachers And now let it be judged by impartial men whether our sufferings were not enough and the far sadder sufferings of the peoples souls by our divisions and the undeniable want of due teaching in many places without all the addition of these hard reproaches And whether the cited Debate maker Vol. 1. p. 113. spake like a Divine a Christian or a man when he said There can no account be given of their behaviour since in cherishing this fancy among you or suffering it to grow that Conformity is unlawful unless it be this that they think it will make more for their reputation among you if you believe it was conscience not care of their own credit and reputation that kept them from conforming When we can obtain leave to be heard and give
continued But some charitable persons pitied the needy and kept them from famishing and utter distress And some few Ministers of more than ordinary Parts and Name and Acquaintance were better supplied than the rest But those that were as conscientious but of meaner parts and more obscure and small acquaintance and lived in poor Countreys were in great necessities some have long lived with many Children with almost nothing but brown-bread and water and some have been put to work for their living at very low and fordid employments as Musculus once did with a Weaver and in the Town-ditch some took Farms and for want of stock and skill run into greater poverty and debts some that had studied Physick turned Physicians and so escaped want some left the obscure Villages through meer necessity and betook them to London and other Cities and great Towns where the Numbers and Ability of the inhabitants might afford them some relief And some by this siege did yield up their Consciences and stretched them by forced interpretations of the words of the Declaration and Subscription to Conform and upon the review were cast into miserable distress of soul which was more troublesome than poverty and famine And some that thought it not their duty to be very scrupulous and because they had not taken the Covenant or medled in matters of Civil Contention or War did judge themselves more capable than others of Conforming did after upon review repent and give up the places they had taken and the practice which they had begun But all found that the Number of persons that were both able and willing to relieve so many needy families was small and that most were either unable or tenacious of their money so that the sufferings of many were very great 3. But the service that the silenced Ministers did being now in private an Act was made against Conventicles and such penalties annexed as I need not here recite And when the Act was expired it was again revived with many additions And because that these Ministers lived mostly now on Cities and Corporations or their former flocks that were acquainted with them an Act was made in the heat of all the grievous Plague at Oxford imposing on them an Oath which he that took not having kept any Conventicle and after came within five miles of any City or Corporation or place where he had lately preached was to be sent six Months to the Common Jayl and pay 40 l. This Law was harder to them than the former For 1. many men that had made some shift to settle their habitation in the cheapest or most convenient place they could get were forced to remove yea most of the Nonconformists in England were constrained to change their dwelling 2. Some lived with some friends or relations who would give them house-room or help and they were thus driven away from their friends and relations and such entertainments 3. Abundance of them had their houses for a certain time having Leases of them for years or life And they knew not how to get Tenants to take such houses which were incommodious to Farmers though fit for them And they that before wanted bread and cloathing were put to the streights of paying Rent for houses that must stand empty being driven from them 4. And they were hard put to it to find places in England to fix their dwellings in for Corporations in most Counties are so near that he that withdraweth five miles from one doth come within five miles of another or at least within five miles of some place where they had preached And some laborious men that thirsted after mens salvation had gone about preaching over a great part of the Countrey or the Land and so were almost sentenced to banishment by this Law And when they did find out a place that was five miles distant from all the prohibited places it would be strange if there they should find empty houses when Landlords use not to leave their houses untenanted and unpossessed And if a house were empty that it should be fit for a poor Minister that could not take the ground or farm would be strange And 5. when they found a capable place they had not money to take it Being poor before and poorer by their removal 6. And when they borrowed money to take it they wanted money to pay for the removing of their goods and the furnishing of their new habitations Those that have tryed such changes know how chargeable as well as troublesome they are But the thing that most eased them in all these straights was that Market-Towns were not put into the Act with Corporations and so many Market-Towns being no Corporations and there being houses to be had without farms or ground many Ministers got into those Towns which gave Dr. Fullwood occasion to reproach them as dwelling in populous places which had least need of them of which more anon And some Ministers finding their streights so great as that their imprisonment in the common Jayl was not more to be feared and finding especially that they were no more warranted by God to desert the Souls in all Cities and Corporations and all their ancient flocks and all places where they had preached and five miles round about all these than the rest of the Land yea that populous places had the greatest need and their former Hearers might claim the greatest interest in them and that Christ commanded his Apostles when they were prosecuted in one City to fly to another they resolved to follow their work where they were invited and to commit their liberties and lives to God But Gods dreadful judgments were the great cause of their freedom from these streights The terrible Plague consumed so many thousands a week in London that some Nonconformable Ministers durst not leave them in that distress but stayed and preacht to them and visited them and gathered money abroad for the poor which greatly won the peoples hearts and the face of death so prevailed with multitudes to awaken them from security that the success of the Ministers was very great and so great as fixed their resolution to hold on whatever it cost them Multitudes of young people penitently lamenting their former sins and begging of the Ministers not to forsake them in their distress And so many of the Conformable Ministers fled from the infection that the Bishop thought it best to connive at the preaching of the Nonconformists during that necessity And quickly after the lamentable fire consumed with the Houses Eighty nine Churches which made the necessity of preaching in other places more extensive and notoririous it being unmeet that so famous a Christian City should forsake all publick worshipping of God till the Houses and Churches should be all rebuilt So that by this necessity a greater number of Nonconformists were needed and entertained in London yea many Countrey-Ministers that came thither and by their example the rest throughout England were much encouraged to appear
Those of their own Religion not charged with one doctrinal difference if they obey not their Wills in every Ceremony are the worst of all mankind Reader is this the Religion taught by St. Paul Rom. 14. 15. and Phil. 3. where mutual forbearances and Receiving dissenters is commanded against both Censurers and Despisers Will ever Church on Earth have Concord on these terms Are such mouths fit to call others Fire-brands Is not this a disgrace to the Christian Protestant Religion that all its fundamentals will not keep a man that differeth but in a Ceremony from being the worst of mankind 3. Look back but on the Instances of our Nonconformity before laid down and then tell thy self what to judge of such men and such pens as proclaim to the world that it is but an innocent Ceremony that we submit not to See the Nonconformists Plea for Peace 4. Bethink you what our Nonsubmission or Nonconformity doth to ruine Kingdoms in comparison of the course of such accusers If poor men desire to serve Christ though in poverty with diligence and peace and Lordbishops shall say Either subscribe say and swear all this or be silenced and cast out of all your Ministry and Maintenance Doth he now that patiently beareth all their penalties loseth all and goeth quietly to the Common Jayl among Rogues for Preaching Christs Gospel to more than four without Swearing and Conforming become hereby a Ruiner of Kingdoms while they are innocent that do all this against them Do they not toto nudato pectore taelum recipire tantum non with great Cameron unbutton them and cry Feri miser Is there any one word of Rebellious Doctrine proved by this man when he hath done his worst out of any one Church-Confession of those whom he revileth And if he can find any thing which is not found in the books of any particular men in the late Wars is that their fault that never owned it and were then scarce born Doth he or any of all the malicious tribe charge those whom they reproach with drunkenness gluttony luxury fornication ambition fraud lying or any such immorality 5. Are those that suffer and do so much for that which they think to be the truth of Christ well charged with hating Christ and is not the exception a prophane scorn of Christ but that he said he came not to bring peace It is easie to say with Tertullus of Paul that he is a Ring-leader of a Sect and a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people but where 's the proof 6. And mark why he professeth himself kinder to the Papists 1. Because they are more Learned Civil and Gentile 2. Because they differ in supposed fundamentals But 1. did he not know our advantage in Learning then was a great cause of the success of the Reformation in Luthers days And who that knoweth the pitiful Priests in France Spain and Italy and what a generation Erasmus Stephanus Vives Hutten and others describe and what men the Reformation found in the Priesthood in England and all other Countries will believe this man that the Papists are more learned And though we truly honour the later Leared men that have been bred among them their Suarez their Petavius and many more yet he might know that our John Reignolds our Chamier Sadcel Bochart Capellus Rivet with multitudes of their like were learned men as well as they and so were Rob. Parker Amesius Bradshaw Paget and many other Nonconformists here and Twisse Gataker and many more of the Westminster-Assembly And all the Learning of the Papists in the world is not enough to make them know Bread and Wine when they see and touch and taste it which without Learning may be easily known 2. But that differing in supposed fundamentals should prove the Papists so much better than us doth tell us with what sort of men we have to do By that rule the Mahometans are much better than the Papists and the Heathens yet better than the Mahometans for they differ from us and them in greater things I perceive why the Jews were crueller than the Heathens and the Papal than the Pagan Rome against the Ministers of Christ because they differed not from them in so many and weighty points Note Reader that this mans book of 20s Price is written to prove that Treason Rebellion and King-killing is the very Religion and the ancient and later practice of the Papists Their Councils are cited for it and their chiefest and most learned Writers cited as maintaining the excommunicating and deposing Kings to be in the power of the Pope and that in so great a number in their own words the very Pages accurately and fully cited that after a multitude that have written on that subject he hath quite over-done them all and brought whole loads of Testimonies to prove it to be the common doctrine of the Roman Church so that no man that ever wrote hath in this done so much to render them unreconcilably odious to all Kings and Magistrates as this man hath done and he hath given them the deepest wound in point of Policy and History that was ever given them with as bitter and odious terms of aggravation And yet we that agree with him in all fundamentals and refuse as he dreameth but a Ceremony are worse far worse than they Had he only done by us as he did by them recited the words of our Synoâ—s and Professors we would contentedly have left all to judge of our Confessions and of each particular Author as they deserve and those that are proved culpable to bear the blame But his sentence and inferences only tell us how desirable the coming of Christ is to his Servants and how earnestly we should pray to the Judg of the World to come and to come quickly Reasons why the Conformable Clergy should be desirous of their Brethrens Ministerial liberty that cannot Conform as is now required 1. YOU ought to be better acquainted with the Common state of peoples Souls and the great necessity of Teaching in the Land than Parliaments or Magistrates can be expected to be who converse not with the people about their everlasting hopes as your calling bndeth you to do And you are obliged also to a double zeal for the Kingdom of Christ and mens Salvation As you still profess a zeal for the Church when Revenues Power or Ceremonies are the things in question And men that have acquaintance with the Common state of Souls cannot chuse but know how insufficient they are of themselves without help for so great a work among such multitudes and what need most Parishes have of more than one much more of one If the Shepherds themselves should either be so ignorant as to think that their ignorant Parishes need no more help than one man is able to afford to many thousands or hundreds of Souls and that the labours of others may be spared because that which they do themselves is enough or
artibus inquit bonestis Nullus in urbe locus nulla emolumenta laborum Res hodie minor est quam fuit atque eadem cras Deteret exiguis aliquid proponimus illuc Ire satigatus ubi Daedalus exuit alas Dum nova Canities dum prima recta senectus Dum superest Lachesi quod torqueat pedibus me Porto meis nullo dextram subeunte bacillo Cedamus patriâ Vivant Arturius istic Et Catulus maneant qui nigrum in Candida vertunt I think this much with what is said in the Propositions may satisfie men that are willing to understand that your way will never attain the peace and concord of the Churches nor in likelihood your own ends 1. Either by changing mens judgments 2. Or bringing them to conformity against their judgments 3. Or by destroying them Nay that it is the most destructive course to all good ends that you can take And I may add that if you should banish them the worth which they carry with them as in Amesius his instance will shine where they come and their honour will be your shame for men are naturally and not without cause inclined to think them to be extreme bad men by whom men so good and learned and unblamable do so much suffer And methinks you of all men should not be guilty of so much self-denial as to contemn your Reputation in all other Countreys and not to care how odious your Names are to others and to posterity so be it you hear not their words your selves of which more anon But here I would insert an humble request to my silenced brethren that they will study and pray and labour so diligently and live so holily and innocently that whithersoever they be driven their light may shine to the glory of their Lord and the service of his Church and that they would not disgrace their silencers and afflicters by hard words but by eminent knowledg and holiness and they shall find that this splendor of their worth will speak more for them and against those that hate them than all our apologies will do I will here to this purpose cast in a brief History both for your afflicters sake and yours It is the occasion of the translation of Philosophy from Greece unto the Saracene Arabians as it is recorded by Caelius August Curio Histor. Saracen l. 2. and out of him by Hornius Hist. Philos. l. 4. p. 287 288. Mamunus their Califf or King was a great lover of learning in whose time there was among the Greek Christians one Leo a Bishop of Thessalonica who for differing from those in power in the controversie about Images which then troubled the Churches was driven from his flock and coming to Constantinople he lived in a poor cottage privately but being a most excellent Philosopher taught many in his private School so that many excellent Philosophers went out of it in a little time Among whom one young man was taken prisoner by the Saracens in the Wars who being excellent in Geometry fell into the hands of a great man by whom his fame was brought to the King who trying him and finding him to excel all his Philosophers must know who was his Master He told him one Leo a man that was frowned into obscurity and poverty but a most excellent Philosopher The King Mamumus was so inflamed with a desire of Leo that he presently wrote to him and offered him all the Honour and Riches that he could desire so he would but come to him Leo shewed the Letters to the Emperor at Constantinople whereupon the Emperor not willing that such an honour should pass to his Enemy gave him License to teach in publick King Mamumus despairing of Leo sendeth important Letters to the Emperor to beg Leo's presence but a little while professing that he would have come with the request himself but that the Government of a fierce sort of people detained him Hereupon the Emperor coming to know his worth and how his own Honour was interessed in the business restored Leo to his Bishoprick and had him in great honour and gave him great Riches And Mamumus not obtaining his desires wrote many of his difficulties as Questions to Leo and so procured some of his instructions in Writing by way of answer to his great satisfaction And this is noted as the introduction of Learning into that Countrey which since Mahometanism hath famished O that we were all such that our worth might be our apology and O that those who think it their interest to afflict such and suppress them and render them odious to the world did better understand their own interest and know on whom the dishonour will redound at last which I wish not to befall them but wish them to prevent 7. If you could procure Uniformity by the means of violence it must be both got and kept up at dearer rates than the thing is worth 1. Uniformity must be purchased at the loss of Unity If Violence drive mens bodies nearer together it will make the heart-separation much wider Christ hath said that by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another but not By this if ye all swear obedience to the Bishops or subscribe that their Writings are infallible or if ye use the same Liturgy Cross or Ceremonies Our salvation lyeth more on our unity in Faith and Love than in our uniformity in things unnecessary And that is the most prosperous state of the Church in which mens salvation is most promoted He that loveth not his brother whom he seeth daily loveth not God whom he never saw And he that hateth his brother is a manslayer and no manslayer hath eternal life abiding in him and violence and cruelty are the great and known destroyers of Love He that saith as some Let them hate so they fear doth shew that he hateth God and man and will prove the greatest hater of himself at last 2. You will wrong the King and Kingdom by depopulation and weaken it so that it may become not only the scorn of our common enemies but their prey For ought I can discern you that have despised my predictions of that kind have encreased the number already manifold of those that dislike you and your way And if your self-conceitedness and unskilfulness shall first make most of the Kings subjects distast you and then your cruelty shall suggest that they must be punished till they love you or be destroyed for disliking you this will be but like the work of unhappy Surgeons that must cut off the limb because they have themselves made the wound uncurable Believe it the hanging or banishing of a few hundreds or thousands will not do your business but make it worse I told you so long ago as to silencing and you would not believe it nay it will make it incomparably worse And if you banish or kill all that are against you Land will be very cheap and Houses cheaper and
others will call that Solitude which you call concord uniformity and peace And our unity will be like theirs in Moldavia and VValachia And who shall compensate the Kings damage 3. And Foreign Churches and posterity will be brought by it to so great a hatred of Prelacy that they will never be reconciled to it more but prefer a poor and humble Ministry And indeed it is already so known by its fruits that I am much in doubt the experience of it will alienate the people from that Primitive lawful Episcopacy which I would have them to desire They say already Give us the old honest humble serious Puritans that lived not upon Gold and Worldly greatness and cherished not mens sins that they might cherish them Fruatur vocibus obscaenis omnique libidinis arte Qui Lacedomonium Pytismate lubricrat orbem Namque ibi fortunae veniam damus alea turpis Turpe adulterium mediocribus haec eadem illi Omnia cum faciant Hilares nitidique vocantur Juv. I suppose you know how much it alienateth men from Popery that their Religion must be fed and live by blood yea by precious blood Some of you have written your wishes that the course had been followed which was begun in the days of Whitgift and Bancroft when divers Nonconformists were hanged And some have written that it was not for Religion but for Treason As for Hacket and Coppinger it 's known they were crackt-brain'd men pretending to be sent to judge the World whom the Nonconformists condemned which Bancroft himself in part confesseth And whereas Dr. Sutliffe conjectured that Cartwright was privy to all Mr. Simeon Ash gave me a Manuscript supposed to be Mr. Cartwrights own writing fully confuting that accusation And as for the rest it 's true that the Bishops then laboured by exposition of a Law to make Treason by consequence of that which was spoken against themselves But it will be long ere the confutation of that is well answered which is written by some one learned in the Law called A Petition to her Majesty c. And what the same Author saith Pag. 25. of that Pious man Mr. Udal will by others and perhaps one day by your consciences be thought on with respect to the 2000 silenced Ministers of late and the many that have dyed in and by imprisonment and much more of so many as if you prosecute what you have begun you must destroy His words are That the Bishops should be so unnatural as to seek the life of a right godly and faithful Preacher of the Gospel I mean Mr. Udal to whom Life was offered if he would take his Oath that he did not make a book whereof he was supposed to be Author A rare example that a man should be known standing at a bar shackled in bolts but quaere quo jure and coupled with a murderer whose conscience was thought so faithful and sound by the Judg himself that he would not swear falsly to gain his life He had not learnt some mens rules for expounding Oaths Nor loved his life so well as some men do a Benefice But were no worse men suffered 8. You may have all that is truly desirable and to be expected in this world as necessary to Unity and Concord to Order and Decency and to your own honour accomplished ten thousand times easilier surer and better by obvious honest lawful means God never putteth men upon such bloody and desperate courses as some advise It is no necessity of Gods making that is pleaded for such means but of their own sinful making or false imagining God never wanteth lyes or cruelty to his service or glory They are usually wicked selfish ends whatever is pretended for which men chuse and use such means Or if the ends were never so good they will not justifie such means nay good ends will condemn them as contrary incongruous and destructive But when there are easie suitable and honest means enow at hand the choice of such as are forementioned beseemeth none but those whose design is to destroy If you say What be those means They are easily told you but your little self-interests will not give you leave to think them tolerable I shall tell you more particularly anon I will now speak but of the generals Quest. 1. What if you would learn of the Holy Ghost to impose no other than Necessary things Act. 15. What if you had the patience to endure the Apostolick Primitive way of Discipline and Worship and suffered men to go to Heaven in the same way as the Apostles and Christians of those times did What if you kept all that Wisdom to your selves in which you excel the Apostles and put no more upon the Churches than they did Would the inconveniences of this weigh down the mischiefs which are now upon the Churches throughout the world by the contrary course Let not your passion make you run away with a conceit of an intollerable conclusion and say I would reduce you to the Primitive poverty or persecution No I talk not of matters extrinsick to Discipline and Worship for faith we will yet suppose we are agreed in I suppose you think not that Poverty or Riches are parts of the instituted worship of God I am as far from expecting that you should consent to be as poor and persecuted as the Apostles as that you should be as good as the Apostles Those that you have to do with believe that the Scripture hath more exactly determined how God will be worshipped than hâ—w much a year shall be the Revenues of a Bishop We meddle not with your Lands or Lordships whatever our own opinion be of such matters Though we are ambitious of your higher and wealthier condition yet we neither envy it nor think it our duty to diminish your wealth But the question is If you let men worship God without any more yokes or burdens than Christ and his Apostles laid upon the Churches what harm would it do Did they then want any needful uniformity Did they not pray decently without a Surplice Did they not baptize decently without the Cross If you say that they had their rites of decency then though not the same that we have now I answer Impose no other than they imposed Leave those free which they left free Though you think your own to be better than theirs so do not all Christians If it be mens infirmity to think that the Scripture-rites are better than yours yet what harm will it do you to bear with that infirmity What if you required no more Oaths of obedience to the Bishops than the Apostles required to themselves or to any Pastors of the Church What if you required no Subscription to any thing as certain truth but only to the infallible Oracles of the Spirit Nay the Apostles required not any to subscribe to all the books of Sacred Scripture but only to receive them in general as the Doctrine of Christ and the Holy Ghost and they
culled out the few necessary Articles of the faith as the matter of a necessary particular profession I will tell you what good these things will do and do you tell me what harm they will do and let the good and hurt be well compared 1. It would either Unite all Christians or make their Union an easie thing as soon as the minds of men were prepared for it All Christians are agreed that the Holy Scriptures are infallible All Christians are not agreed that your three books are infallible Therefore all Christians may easilier unite in their subscription or belief of the Scriptures than of your three books Perhaps you will say that it will not unite us with the Papists nor with any that require more I answer We shall be so far united as that they will approve of all our Religion though we approve not of all theirs For they confess the truth of all our Canonical Scriptures and confess that all things universally necessary to salvation are contained in them and much more So Bellarmine Costerus and many others and especially the old Schoolmen freely assert And it is a great advance to Concord and to our satisfaction to have the common concession of all Christians that our Religion is all true and nothing of absolute necessity wanting But I have spoken more to this before to which I refer you 2. It would make it as easie for any Protestant to justifie all his Religion as it is to justifie the sacred Scriptures to those that confess them to be true and so to tell the Papist where our Religion hath been in all ages and what succession our Church hath had 3 It would take none of your forms or ceremonies or superadditions from any that will needs have them while you make them not the necessary terms of union and communion he that will may be without them 4. Christian love and saving unity and concord may be thus maintained by mutual forbearance while nothing is done contrary to the nature of love to mortifie it And if any would take occasion by differences to revile and villifie one another the Magistrate may have the approbation of all sober men in keeping the peace and punishing all the fruits of such uncharitableness that tend to the destruction of love or godliness 5. A thousand unhappy crimes will be prevented which will follow the death of Christian love and the exasperation of mens passions and tongues by their sufferings 6. The Pastors when they grow like to Christ in meekness gen tleness and love will be loved and honoured by the flocks and the name of a Bishop will not be odious any more and consequently the lives of faithful Pastors will be more comfortable 7. And then the doctrine and labours of Ministers will be more successul and consequently piety and justice will increase and multitudes more will be sanctified and saved 8. It will be a comfort to the King and Magistrates to be loved honoured and obeyed by an united willing people and to be excused from the unpleasing works of fining imprisoning banishing or hanging their subjects for differing from them about some cases of sin and duty when the fear of offending the God of heaven is that which bringeth them to their sufferings 9. It will be a great strength and beauty to the State and Church and fortifie us against a common Enemy and end our fears of Sedition on account of Religion at home 10. In a word it would make us liker to the primitive believers and lead the way to all Christian States and Churches for the right reconciling of all the Christian World And what now is the hurt that these Scripture primitive terms would bring Obj. It would make as many factions as there be different Opinions or Ceremonies Ans. 1. Do you judg of others by your selves Are all men so proud and void of humanity and love that they must needs be factious if they do but differ in an opinion or ceremony from others or that they cannot live in love and peace with any that differ from them in an opinion or ceremony or that they can endure to see none live at liberty out of Gaols that be not in all such things of their mind 2. If there be any such proud and uncharitable persons the Magistrate may curb the expressions of their folly that it wrong not others 3. If that were true there would be as many Factions as men if you will pardon your contradiction for all men differ in opinion from each other and in as great matters of Religion as a Ceremony 4 Doth the differences forementioned among yourselves as between Dr. Taylor Mr. Thorndike and some others from the Doctrine of the Church of England make any such Factions among you Did the difference mentioned by Heylin between Bishop Mountague and Wren about coming up to the Altar to communicate make any factions Doth the difference now between your Arminians and Calvinists which we ordinarily hear in your own Pulpits make such Factions Doth the different modes of Cathedral and Parish-worship make such Factions If not why should it make a Faction for one man to cross a child in Baptism and another not Do not the very Papists keep up their unity and strength by allowing far more and greater diversities in Doctrines and in Religious Orders Rules and Ceremonies according as every Order hath desired Obj. But if any be allowed to forbear those that use the ceremonies or subscriptions will be censured by the followers of the nonconformists Ans. And is it indeed to preserve your honour that we must undergo all these convulsions Speak it out then plainly that the world may understand you Must all that differ in a ceremony from you be silenced and hunted about the world lest the people should think worse of you than of them 2. But how notoriously do bad means overthrow the ends of them that use them It is Honours Motto Quod sequitur fugio quod fugit ipse sequor Do not the people know that we differ from you in these things as much when we are silenced as when we preach Will imprisonment or banishment make us agreed or make the people think we are agreed Or will they forget all the difference think you when we are out of sight If the bare different opinion and practice make them undervalue you will not they think worse of you when they think you do worse Will they not distast a Conformable man whom they judg an envious persecutor more than a Conformable man whom they judg a meek and loving man One would think that you should need no answer to such objections But I have answered enow before 2. Well! if the Scripture simplicity be too narrow for you my next question is What harm will it do you to unite on such terms as all the Churches did unite in in the days of Tertullian and Cyprian yea for 300. years after the birth of Christ Look whatever was then the