cohabit or dwell near The confutation is I conceive he is out Ans. What is he against Parish Churches after all this No He only denieth it of a transient Member pro tempore as a Traveller and granteth it as to a stated Member And yet I am out Many and many a time have I written of Churches and use to distinguish first of the Equivocal Name saying That an occasional meeting of Christians for Worship may be called a Church and a transient Christian pro tempore a Member I have written more this way than ever he did But declared that it is a settled Political Society that I defined when I speak of what he now accuseth And why should a wise and good Man thus hastily trouble the World and make discord by pretending because he cannot have leisure to know what he speaks against § 3. My third Error is That to the being of a particular Church there is necessary a mutual Covenant or exprest consent between Pastor and People even every Member and the more express the better And I define a Church to be a Society of Christians consisting of Pastor and People associated by consent The force of the Confutation is I conceive he is out But wherein is it We have here such work as I never met with before 1. He granteth that none are to each other Pastor and People against their Wills Good still And yet do I err But saith he as Christ is Christ and a Saviour by Office whether Sinners will or not So faithful Ministers are Pastors by Office whether the People accept them or no. Reader it is not the least blemish of my Writings that on divers occasions I oft repeat the same things And many a time have I distinctly said 1. That the Ordainers judge who shall be a Minister of Christ in general 2. The Magistrate is judge whom he will Countenance Maintain or Tolerate 3. And the People must be consenting judges to whom they will trust the conduct of their Souls As it 's one thing to be a Licensed Physician and another to be Physician to this Hospital or Person If this Brother mean otherwise what meant he by saying that No Man can be a Pastor to a People against their will Doth he say and unsay in the next Lines Is Christ any Man's actual Saviour whether they believe in him and accept him or not I have oft said that in divers Cases the People may be bound in duty to Consent as all are bound to be Christians But they are no Christians or Church-members till they do Consent What then is it that he meaneth as our Difference § 4. Yes He saith No more is necessary to the being or well-being of a particular Church than this A company of Christians met together in publick for the Solemn Worship of God by Iesus Christ having a Pastor or Minister with them to guide and govern the Congregation and edifie himself and them by the Word and Sacraments where there is no Assembly of Pastor and People there is no Church and no longer than the Assembly lasteth are they a Church Ans. Did the World ever here this Doctrine before When the Church at Ierusalem Corinth Cenchrea Colosse Laodicea c. and the Churches in Iudea Galatia c. are mentioned when the Apostles ordained them Elders in every Church Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 3 5. c. Is the word Church here taken for no Christians longer than they are Assembled Doth not Scripture Canons Fathers and all Writers speak of Churches as Associated Christians remaining Churches all the Day and Year and not only while Assembled If the word Church may be taken for a Transient Assembly doth it follow that there is no other Have we so many Books of Ecclesiastical Policie if there be no Political Society that is a particular Church What an unpleasing talk is it to be put on a defence against such an Opponent § 5. Saith he I would but ask Mr. Baxter what is it that you mean by Associated by consent Ans. Have I in the Books cited by you so largely told you what I mean and must you print the Question before you will take an Answer Saith he Either you mean bare Assembling or some other thing Ans. Will you better understand me if I write it again than you did before When I told you at large in what Cases express consent by words or other signs is meet and that where the Laws settle Parish Churches ordinary attendance and submission to the Pastor's Office must be taken for express Consent But then I do hold that there is such a Church as I describe and that the Parish is not Unchurcht when the Assembly is dismist § 6. He saith When the Assembly breaks up the Church for that time ceaseth till the Meeting be renewed till which time they remain Christian Inhabitants Neighbours Families Parishioners or Sojourners the Pastor of the place dwelling among them Ans. In your Equivocal sense of a Church this is true In the Political sense they are a Church still as the Parliament Citizens Souldiers are a Parliament City Army when they Assemble not If your wrangle be de re do you deny their continued Relation If it be de nomine let the Scripture and all Nations judge whether the name Church belong to them no longer than they are Assembled 1. Then all that stay at Home or are Sick are no Church-members 2. Then the Bishop or Pastor hath no Church but while Assembled And he hath no Duty to perform for his Church but while Assembled 3. This is quite contrary to our Diocesans who say as honest Mr. Cawdry himself that a Diocess is the first particular Church and that it is no matter how many Assemblies it consist of and that there is no Church without a Bishop and so that we have no more Churches than Bishops 4. If a Bishop build a Temple on London Road where Travellers shall be his ordinary Hearers whom he shall never see again this is a Temporary Transient Church but verily it is another sort Church that is described in Scripture and by Ignatius Cyprian and all Church-writers And when the Bishop was to visit the Sick and take care of the Poor and to exhort from House to House it was as for a Church and not meerly as for Christian Neighbours And do you think no more consent was necessary to his special Duty to these more than to others and theirs to him than bare Assembling Atheists Infidels Hereticks may Assemble with the rest and Catechumens ordinarily did so and were never made themselves the judges whether and when they should be Baptized and admitted to Communion but the Pastors were the judges § 7. As to your oft mentioning the words Covenants and Oaths for such Church Associations as if I had written for Oaths or had not written against all needless Covenants which though you say not your words would make the Reader believe whilst over and over it is
but Consent competently expressed which I require those that know not your Honesty as I do I doubt will judge it to savour of some worse Cause than I am willing to name If Consent be not expressed how shall it be known And I still say Caeteris paribus the plainest Expressions are fittest to attain their End as the plainest Language is counted the best for Communication Oh! how much did Cyprian and all the old Churches differ from you about consent § 8. Another of my Errors is to say He is an Invader that without consent intrudeth into their Priviledges Ans. 1. But it is not he that transiently cometh into the Temple 2. But he that will make himself one of my special Charge and oblige me to all the duty which I owe to my Charge and cannot pay to all Men and he that will claim a Vote in choosing the Bishop c. And if of old one of your mind had said That every Traveller or Stranger that cometh within the Room may claim the Sacrament without any Literae Communicatoriae upon his bare word the Bishops or Churches would not have believed you so singular are you in all this You tell us God hath made no such Corporations and every Christian is a Freeman c. Ans. But how shall I know whether every Stranger that cometh in be a Christian or was ever Baptized Or be not a Heretick Excommunicate by other Churches Or if I am able to do the Office of a Pastor but for 500 and thousands more will come and claim it § 9. Another of my Errors is that Parish Chappels and Oratories are no true Churches Ans. You should not thus become an Incendiary by pretending things that you will not first understand Where do I say what you affirm I say That there may be several Chappels that are but parts of one Church 2. And I say That if a Bishop be Essential to a Church then none below a Diocess is a Church and therefore that they that so affirm do put down all Parish Churches and turn them into meer Chappels and Oratories which are but parts of a Church 3. I never said That if a place called in English a Chappel yea if a Barn or Field or Ship have such a Pastor and People meeting as a Church must be Constituted of that they are no true Church 4. But if such Pastors and People related as one Church are by Persecution forced to meet in several Houses or the Sick Weak or Distant to meet sometime at a Chappel or without a true Pastor if a Deacon pray with some of them in a House or Oratory this maketh not a Church Political in the sense that I told you I used that word in but in another Equivocal sense it may be called a Church and so a Family may be If this be false you should have confuted it and not wrangle in the Dark § 10. You say that I blame the Bishops for putting down all the Parish Bishops and Churches when I my self do no less by putting down all the Chapple Ministers Chappel Meetings and Oratories and denying them to be proper Pastors and Churches Ans. All false or a meer Game at Equivocal words The word Chappel usually signifieth a place for the Assembling of some small part of a Church with a Curate or Houshold Chaplain who hath only power to Preach and Pray and sometimes to give the Sacrament but not to Govern Sometime a Chappel may have a Governing Pastor and People subject to him in that relation and differeth but in name from the Parish Church It is a meer Chappel or Oratory in the common sense which I say is not a Political Church The falshood of your pretended parity of the Cases I prove Those Congregations which are Constituted of Ministers of different Species are not of the same Species and Definition But meer Oratories or Chappels which have no Pastors that have the power of the Keys for Government and Parish Churches which have such Pastors according to the Divine Institution are constituted of Ministers of different Species Ergo They are not of the same Species and Definition as you affirm 2. Those Assemblies which intentionally meet but as parts of the lowest Political Church and those that intentionally meet as the whole or main Body of that Political Church are not of the same Species and Definition No more than a Squadron and a Captain 's Company or Troop or a Family and a Village or Town But c. If Bishops deny all the Lord's Chaplains to have the governing power of the Keys and their Family-Chappels to be true Political Churches of the same Species and Definition with a Diocesan Church or a Parochial do you confute them if you can I cannot But if I prove that every Parochial or other proper Political Church infimae Speciei should by Divine Order have a Pastor that hath the governing power of the Keys and the Bishops deny them any such and will have but one such in a Diocess do you defend them if you can I cannot Nor are these Cases the same § 11. My next Error He cannot tell whether I hold or no But it seems I do against compelling Men to take whom the Magistrate please for their Pastors For I make Covenanting Essential as between a Husband and Wife likening the Church Universal to a Kingdom and particular Churches to Cities and Corporations And here he talks of the Corporation Oath and exclaimeth Is this the way of curing Church Divisions And is this the true and only way of Concord Ans. Had you published and proved to us a better way I hope we should have been thankful and so will I if you will truly shew me the Errors of the way that I commended 1. He that hath read my Books which plead for no Oaths nor for any Covenanting but exprest consent to the Relations and Offices will perhaps think that here you were tempted to Injustice at the least 2. Is not the Church Universal Christ's Kingdom I rather liken it to a Kingdom than to the World because whatever you think I think it is not by Christ subdivided into many particular Kingdoms as the World is but only into many particular Churches keeping necessary Concord and Obedience to Magistrates It is not one sort only that militate against the Cure of Divisions by true Concord but I am sorry that you are become one Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall § 12. He saith It is Qualification that maketh Christians Ans. No Qualifications without Consent and Covenanting with Christ. And It is Qualification and just Ordination which makes Christian Pastors and Ministers at large Ans. Do you confute me by repeating my one words And saith he It is their being placed by the Magistrate in the several Parishes which makes them Pastors by Office and relation to all the Christian Souls in the Parishes respectively If Iesus Christ shall by the Hand of the Magistrate
King and Parliament left to the judgment of the Convocation the present Settlement proveth what was the Convocations judgment who are the present Church of England's representative They that are against Reordaining and yet call men to be ordained certainly judge them unordained before And you are to take your Ordination and speak the words in the known sense of the Imposers or else you equivocate And what Reasons have you to deceive them At least it is notorious scandal to seem to do it in an ill sense And when you pretend that your Ministry else must be forsaken we say No It is but to save you from suffering for your Ministration as long as you can use it on suffering terms And you have not escaped suffering nor saved your Ministry by Conforming If you would rather suffer than not Preach to Non-Conformists when you had an allowed Church of Conformists should not we rather suffer than by our Reordination submit to that which is the Churches or Laws publick professing that we were no Ordained Ministers of Christ before when after that we have never the more liberty for our Ministry unless we conform to all the rest I remember three Worthy men re-ordained one fourteen and two seventeen years ago that had never the more liberty to Preach § 5. You say that Ordination by eminent and Senior Presbyters is Episcopal Ordination though not in the vulgar sense For a Bishop and Presbyter in the sense of Scripture are the same Ans. Remember this when you subscribe to the distinction of Order And I believe you cannot name two Bishops in England if one that had a Vote in Parliament and Convocation for making the imposing Laws that were of your mind Nor two that will now say that it is lawful to be twice ordained Presbyter And remember 1. That it is the Act of Uniformity that requireth this last Ordination 2. That the Bishop of London of Lincoln of Hereford came into their places since and were none of the Legislators § 6. You say If the Presbyters excel those Bishops Ordination by them is more excellent than by these Ans. And yet can you assert that they are distinct Orders when the Power of Ordaining is made the chief part of the Bishops Order I that am against you stick at this somewhat more than you when the Law and Canon make the Bishop of the Quorum And as I was ordained by a Bishop so I never joyned with Presbyters in ordaining any man nor did venture to lay hands on any in an Ordination CHAP. III. § 1. YOur second Section is of our Assent to the words in the Book of Ordination of the Notoreity of the Antiquity of the three distinct Orders And 1. You justifie it by telling us that difference of Holiness Wisdom Usefulness may be said to make different Orders But this is too lusory in a serious business Words of Art or Science are to be understood according to the use of the men of that Art or Science And the many old School Disputes and Controversal Writers tell us long ago how they understood the word Orders as Offices in Specie differing from Degrees in the same Species In your equivocal sense you say true that there are more than three Orders or threescore Yea in the usual sense of old they had seven Orders and yet they held Bishops and Presbyters to be but one of the seven as I shewed you out of Spelman in Aelfrick's Canons of this Church of England in the very times of Popery § 2. You say you make it not an Article of your Faith that this sense of Episcopacy is evident to all men that diligently read Scripture and Antient Writers But the question is Whether you Assent to it or more If not how can you say you do The Bishop of Hereford in Naked Truth hath given you some reasons of dissent and Bishop Usher and many such have done so before him § 3. Whether you hit their sense or not gather by what I said to your former Point of Re-ordaining CHAP. IV. § 1. YOu next choose to speak of our Assent and Consent to the Bishop's Oath to subject himself in obedience to the Arch-Bishop and to his Seat or Metropolitan Church and to his Successors And you tell us that all men are bound to subject themselves one to another This again is too gross equivocating Do you believe that this is the Species of subjection which is meant in the Book and Oath § 2. You better tell us that being Episcopus primae sedis he may be reverenced as the Fore-man of a Iury. But is this obeying him and his Church and Successors Is not this also Equivocation Do they swear Obedience to the Fore-man and his Successors § 3. Your best answer is It is enjoyned by Authority And if it were but obeying them in Civils or circa sacra in matters determinable by the King this answer had much in it Bâ—â— when it is intended to be in the exercise of the Word and Keys and Matters which Christ hath predetermined those Non-Conformists that are not for the Divine Right of arch-Arch-Bishops cannot assent and consent to it And those of them that are for it do with you hold that there should be Parochial Bishops or to every Church and that those that you call Diocesans are indeed arch-Arch-Bishops And they are not for arch-Arch-Bishops over arch-Arch-Bishops lest it lead you to a Pope as he was in the Empire at least § 4. And Successions so often prove unhappy that we like not setting up one Church over another to the end of the world when we cannot justifie it at all They that are contrary to the Carthage Fathers for a Bishop of Bishops would yet have him their Ruler but as an Arch-Bishop as General Officers in an Army over the Colonels but not that our Church shall be set over many others much less to swear to unknown Successors § 5. And I told you divers old Councils condemned Bishops swearing inferiours to them as the cause of many mischiefs and sad experience taught them to make that Canon CHAP. V. § 1. NExt you speak of the Oath or Covenant of Canonical Obedience And you 1. Doubt whether it be an Oath In the Act of Ordination it is but a Covenant But what they do now I know not but heretofore it was also imposed as an Oath You tell me of my Concessions I grant that â—o far as they exercise but such power as belongeth to Officers of the King we may obey him in covenanting to obey them But it is in the exercise of the Keys proper to Christ's special Officers that the Book meaneth which you assent to even in matters of sacred Guidance Excommunication and Absolution And you say nothing to satisfie 1. Those that are under obtruded and unlawful Bishops that come in so contrary to Christ's and the Old Churches Order as that the Old Canons decree them to be no Bishops 2. Nor to satisfie those that think
dare or if his saying he repenteth satisfie the Judge that knoweth him not while the Minister that is his neighbour heareth no sign of it but contrarily of his malice against him for accusing him he must still give him the Sacrament if the Chancellor acquits him VII Nay if he be excommunicated first and by friends fees or saying I repent get the Chancellor's Absolution he must be received to Communion though the Minister see not the least sign of his repentance but the contrary VIII If Ignorance be so common in the Parish that we have reason to judge that of twenty or thirty thousand Parishioners more or fewer one half of them understand not the very Essentials of Christianity and of the Sacrament yet the Minister must refuse none I that have but three servants can seldom have all three such as with my plain teaching will be brought while they are with me to understand all the Essentials and be capable of the Sacrament And though in general experience telleth us of the great numbers of such yet the Minister cannot know them He that knoweth not their faces much less ever catechized half And commonly children and ignorant people will say the words of the Creed and Lord's Prayer when they are grosly ignorant of the sense 2. And if the Minister know such an one to be so grosly ignorant the Law giveth him not power to deny him the Sacrament IX How should the Minister have power to excommunicate one out of a particular Church when his Parish is not a particular Church but a part of a Diocesan Church only It 's known now it is maintained by Bishops That the Diocesan is the particular Church That it is no Church that hath not a Bishop of its own That Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata and therefore the name of Pastor is usually appropriated to the Bishop and in most places of the Liturgy where Bishops Pastors and Curates were joyntly named one of the two first is put out of the New Book and only Bishops and Curates or Pastors and Curates mentioned And who can cast out of a Church that is no Church in the Rulers sense X. I have had many Parishioners that have made me know that they take me for none of their Pastor nor will do nor themselves for any of my Flock and yet to satisfie the Law or fame or humour they will demand the Sacrament A Minister cannot refuse such a one but must do the one part of a Pastor's Office to them that disclaim the relation XI If I upon strong suspicion of gross Ignorance would desire my neighbours aged or young to come and speak with me and would try them and instruct them or if I desire to confer with them on a just private suspicion of Heresie or Atheism or accusation or fame of wicked living and if they refuse to speak with me or give me any answer or account but shut their doors against me and bid me meddle with my own business I have no power to refuse them the Sacrament XII I have known many persons that for fear of being guilty of the body and blood of Christ would be in danger of desperation or distraction should they receive it Yet if for fear of an Excommunication such unwilling ones come I must give it them And I know too many that let me know that though they will have the Sacrament they do not consent to the Essentials of the Sacramental Covenant but think Christ's terms too hard till they have sinned longer yet these must I admit to the Sacrament XIII On the other side I must give it none that dare not take it kneeling nor any that think Conformity unlawful nor that the Canon calleth Schismaticks XIV I must give it to none of the most worthy of my Flock whom the Bishop or Lay-Chancellor will excommunicate if it be but for not paying fees or not appearing at his Court. XV. The Priest must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Excommunication if against the most conscionable of his Flock XVI And he must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Absolution though he know the party to be most unworthy XVII He hath no power to judge whom to take into the Church by Baptism but must Baptize any Child of Atheists Brutists Heathens Infidels or Hereticks that have but God-fathers who never take them for their own though his conscience be against it as is aforesaid XVIII He hath no power to forbear pronouncing Absolution from all sin in absolute terms to any sick man that will say he repenteth and desire it though by never so much evidence the Priest judge it to be either counterfeit or from meer attrition or fear without love XIX I have proved that he hath no power to forbear pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Brutists Adulterers Drunkards worldlings c. saved at their Burial except the unbaptized excommunicate and self-murderers XX. In a word the Priest is so far from having the power of excommunicating out of a particular Church that he hath no power to do the necessary previous acts 1. If he would tell him his fault privately the sinner may refuse to speak with him as is said 2. If he would take two or three witnesses he may refuse yet to speak with him or hear him 3. If he would tell the Church where he hath Communion and would publickly admonish him before them all and pray for him by name that he may repent he doth more than he can answer and the man may have his Action against him accordingly at Law XXI If a Minister will prosecute at the Bishops Court all that he hath cause to keep from the Sacrament as he must do within fourteen daies 1. It will take him off all his Ministerial studies almost in many great and wicked Parishes It will be work enough to travel long journeys as an Informer 2. It will spend all his Benefice in the charge of journeys Proctors and bringing witnesses so far 3. He shall but get the hatred of sinners and never be like more to do them good Whereas had he power to use true Pastoral Discipline with them his love and tenderness might possibly melt them into repentance which a Chancellor's Court so like a Civil Judicature and putting them to great expences and danger is unlike to do Nor did I ever in my whole life know one sinner brought to Repentance seemingly serious by their Courts XXII To conclude If the Minister have power to keep any from the Sacrament for fourteen daies till he prosecute them they will as members have all other Communion with that Church even in Prayer Praise and Thanksgiving and the Baptizing of his Child c. Albaspineus that great and notable describer of the Churches Customs tells us that the Old Excommunication did shut them out of all other Church-Communion as well as the Sacrament even their oblations were not accepted If I understand the Case of the Parish-Priests and their Power of Discipline this
thing here said by you And your citing my limited and conditional approbation of the Assemblies Catechisms and the Synod of Dort's is certainly no Reason for my absolute and unlimited professing to Assent and Consent to all things in Books which have so much more which I dissent from CHAP. XXX § 1. YOur 29th Section containeth your unproved Opinions and false Devices for stretching Subscriptions Covenants and Professions And first you tell us of the difficulty of using any words that may not seem doubtful But yet if there be not a satisfactory intelligibleness in words Humane Converse is overthrown and Oaths of Allegiance and all Contracts are of little use unto their ends § 2. You say Though there be in this Volume which we call the Common-prayer-Book many Matters Sentences and Words bound all together yet do we Assent and Consent to no more but that which goes under the name of the Service of the Church and the Rules and Orders touching the same and the Rites and Ceremonies thereof Ans. If you say All things contained in it means not all things indeed tell us what difference there is between the Equivocations of the Jesuits and this of yours So one tells me that when we profess to Assent to all in the Bible the meaning is To all the Precepts Promises and Words of God in it but not that there is no Humane Errors in Numbers and Chronologie Genealogie History or Citations And so you may say I will swear not to endeavour any alteration of the Government of the State but I mean not to alter Monarchy And what may not one thus say and swear 2. But yet I think it is no great number of Matters Sentences and Words which are neither Service Rules Orders or Rites Rubricks and Calendars and some Prefaces belong to these But it is a strange Interpretation which would exclude Doctrinals such as the Article of Faith of the certain Salvation of all Infants baptized and dying before actual Sin Your Citations signifie nothing for your purpose but tell us what you would have them signifie § 3. But now I come to Sampson's Hair the very strength of all your Book page 115. The Preface saith When Doubts arise in the Use and Practice of the same to appease all such diversity if any arise and for the resolution of all Doubts concerning the manner how to understand do and execute the things contained in this Book the Parties that so doubt or diversly take any thing shall always resort to the Bishop of the Diocess who by his discretion shall take order for the quieting and appeasing of the same so that the same Order be not contrary to any thing contained in this Book Whence you gather that the Law makes the Bishop the common Expositor and if he gives a good Exposition or by silence shew consent all is safe and you may Conform I confess this Reed is the strongest support of your Cause that I have met with And I am not censuring others that lean upon it I doubt not but they may be better Men than I But I will tell you why I cannot 1. It is a help to those that be in doubt But I am out of doubt in many of the Reasons of my Non-conformity and therefore it is no help to me 2. The words expresly limit the Bishops Exposition so that his order be not contrary to any thing in the Book If it be not contrary to the Book it will give me no satisfaction If it be contrary it is of no force 3. It is only about the things contained in the Book that the Bishop must resolve us Now either the Acts of Uniformity are part of those things or not If yea then it is the Acts also that I must Assent and Consent to which you as well as I are far from And you maintain that the Act is no part of the Book If not then the Bishop hath no power to expound the Act And the forms of Assent and Consent and Subscription imposed are parts of the Act. 4. The words make not the Bishop the publick or common Expositor of the Law or Book as Judge but only as a Teacher who bindeth but so far as he tells the truth The Bishop must teach his ignorant or divided Clergy how to understand what they understand not And this is not about their Subscriptions but matters of Use and Practice as where the Table shall stand and such like That it maketh not the Bishop the obliging Judge of the Law appeareth 1. Because here is no such word 2. The foresaid limitation speaketh the contrary 3. Else there might be as many Religions Doctrines or Practices as Bishops or many at least I will give you all the little Money in my Purse if you will get me under the hand of Bishop Morley Bishop Gunning Bishop Sparrow and Arch-Bishop Stern their approbation of your Expositions of the parts of Conformity written in your Book And I suppose you know how zealously many write as well as Doctor Saywel against tolerating diversity of Forms and Rites and Orders of Worship And this would be to set up as many Sects or Ways as differing Bishops pleased This Case was notably tried between Arch-Bishop Laud and the Church that followed him and Williams Bishop of Lincoln about the Table or Altar 4. Else Bishops would have the Legislative Power For the sense of the Law is the Law And if the Parliament form but the Letter or Body of it and the Bishop may give it what Sense or Soul he pleaseth it is he that will be the chief Law-maker 5. Else Bishops might corrupt and change our Religion and Church under pretence of Exposition Bishop Godfrey Goodman of Glocester who was a Papist might have set up Popery in his Diocess by putting a Popish sense upon Subscription Words and Practices And the Bishops by agreement might set up Popery in the Land by the same means Or a Bishop might set up Non-conformists by gratifying them by his Expositions The thing meant in those words is no such dangerous power but only an Instructing and a Pacifying informing of the Clergy when they ignorantly differ about some dark Word or Circumstance or Practice the Bishop must teach them the true sense of the Book but do nothing against any thing therein 6. Is it not called An Act for Uniformity and imposeth all the heavy Penalties on purpose to procure Uniformity Would they have Silenced and Ruined two thousand Ministers for Non-conformity if Uniformity had not been thought of more worth than their Ministerial Labours And can you think that after all this they meant to leave it to the particular Bishops whether there should be any Uniformity or not You think one Bishop will say You are Parish Bishops and may publickly admonish and reprove the Scandalous and Excommunicate them Excommunicatione minore You may give them the Sacrament that conscienciously scruple Kneeling you may Baptize them that conscienciously scruple the dedicating Cross
and the English sort of God-Fathers you may refuse to say the words of Prayer which imply his Salvation over the Dead who were Excommunicable though not Excommunicated You may understand the Article which professeth the certainty of Baptized Infants salvation of those only that are the Children of faithful Parents or Pro-parents you may say you Assent to all in the Book and mean not all but some part and that not as true but as usable You may profess Consent to use it all and yet not mean to use the Calendar or Rubricks or to Administer the Sacraments otherwise than as aforesaid You may Say or Subscribe or Swear that it is on any pretence whatsoever unlawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King and mean only such as are lawfully Commissioned You may subscribe that no one in England that sware it is bound by the solemn Vow and Oath to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State and mean only that he must not endeavour it by Sedition or Rebellion And so on to the end But other Bishops will say the clean contrary viz. That the Bishop is the only Pastor and the Parish Priest hath none of the power here named and so of all the rest And what Uniformity then will there be Know you not how they write against such different Administrations as destructive and intolerable 7. And know you not that a Bishop hath no power against the Canons The Canons are their own Laws and Judgment and bind them And when the Canon saith e. g. He shall be suspended that giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or that the Non-conformists are ipso facto Excommunicate c. Hath the Bishop authority to say the contrary 8. And you know that I wrote not to accuse you or any Man for Conforming but to tell them that judge us worthy to be Silenced and Ruined what our Non-conformity is And what use then is your own Latitude to me or such as I though I went your own way For I have askt and heard the Opinion of divers Bishops already and they have said clean contrary to you I have heard him that first forbad me Preaching in his Diocess say that The Liturgy forbiddeth delivering the Sacrament to any that Kneel not I can shew it you under his Hand that the Priest must not be Judge when to omit the forementioned words at the burial of the Dead nor tolerated in such Liberty as you presume on I have been told by a Bishop That seeing Christ died for all the Children of any Parents in the World have right to Baptism and any Man hath as good right to present to it an Infidel's Child as to take in an exposed Infidel's Child to his House in Charity I told you that Bishop Sanderson publickly before the Bishops Nemine contradicente told me That I need not question Baptizing any Infidel's Child if God-Fathers presented him according to the Order of the Church of England Are we not then concluded against Conformity by the Bishop's judgment by your own Rule And must not you be a Non-conformist in the Diocess of any such Bishop as these 9. And by your Rule a Man must be a Conformist in one Bishop's Diocess and a Non-conformist in another's and change his mode of Religion as he Travelleth or doth change his Dwelling I imagine that by your Rule I might partly Conform in the Diocess of London or Lincoln Hereford or Carlisle but I should be as Non-conformable as I am in the Diocess of Winchester Ely York Norwich and any other as far as I yet know I conclude that your Catholicon may purge your self from all Non-conformity but it is utterly unprofitable to me Facile credimus quod volumus I have had as much reason as you to be willing to find Conformity lawful if it be so I have lost many thousand Pounds more by Non-conformity than you have got by Conformity But I have no such Byas on my Will as should set all my Wit on work to find or buy a Rope for my Conscience And I find nothing better that you offer me herein § 4. When you have told us Where no God-Fathers can be had we must Christen without and such like You say And this is the common sense put upon the Law by the Law-makers themselves that is by the Bishops Ans. What reason did you think we have in such an Historical Assertion to believe your bare word In what Synod did they declare it Why did you neither name the Bishops nor the Time or Place or Witness by which it might be proved the common sense But could you think this should convince me that know it to be false § 5. You tell us pag. 119. If it were a part of Assent and Consent that Ordination by good and substantial Presbyters were null it would be a hard point indeed to Unchurch Churches and Unbaptize the Baptized and plead the cause of Satan the Pope and all Malignants of the Ministry in the Name of Christ. Ans. Excuse us then for not Conforming I before gave you this Proof that it is the sense of the Law-makers or Bishops They that abhor Reordination or twice ordaining to the Priesthood and yet require those to be ordained by Bishops who were before ordained by Presbyters must be judged to hold the said Ordination by Presbyters to be null But c. Ergo. § 6. 1. You say No Man that I know of takes the Silenced Ministers and those ordained by Presbyters only for no Ministers at all unless one Mr. Dodwel a high-flown Man whom Conformists themselves do utterly dissent from in this Ans. Your ignorance is no good reason for my Conformity If you know of no more I do Read Mr. Thâ—rndike of Forbearance of Penalties Ask Bishop Gunning his judgment c. If your acquaintance be so small you should not write of that which you know not § 7. 2. But you say All both Rulers and People Conformists themselves do own them for Ministers otherwise they would take some course for the Rebaptizing of all Baptized by them Ans. Did you ever read the Conference at Hampton Court Did you dream that all these take Laymens Baptizing for null Or do you conclude that all think what you think § 8. 3. You prove it from the toleration of the Foreigners Churches in London Ans. How will you prove that they judge all true Ministers whom they Tolerate § 9. 4. You say the Acts against Conventicles and the Five Mile Act prove it 5. The King's Proclamation for Indulgence proveth it 6. The Fines and Imprisonments for Conventicles prove it 7. The allowing four Persons to meet in private proveth it 8. The common sense of Bishops Divines and People of the Church of England prove it Ans. You may next say That any thing that you see or hear proveth it It 's liker these prove the contrary than this By this Men may see how little satisfaction we may expect
Of the use of the Apocryphal writings as they are imposed by the Calendar and Rubrick to be approved of and consented to CHAP. XII Concerning consenting to the Imposition of Reading the Liturgy every day CHAP. XIII About denying Christian burial to unbaptized Infants and persons excommunicated CHAP. XIV Touching Confirmation CHAP. XV. Whether we may declare our Consent that none should be admitted to the Communion till he be confirmed or desirous and ready to be confirmed CHAP. XVI Concerning the sole sponsion of God-Fathers in the Liturgie CHAP. XVII Concerning the imposing of kneeling at the Lords supper CHAP. XVIII Of the Cross in baptism as a Consecrating dedicating sign § 1. Reasons against it ibid. The silence of Christ in this matter 2. It seemeth to accuse Christ's Law of imperfection 3. Christ commissioned not his Apostles to institute any new Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace Whether it be made a Sacrament § 2. Of Gods prohibition 12 Deut. of adding or diminishing § 3. Mr. C's Argumentum ad hominem considered § 4. The antient Christians practise § 5. Mr. C's objection removed § 6. The meaning of the second commandment in forbidding Images § 7. Mr Cheney's concession § 8. A full explication of the nature of that sign § 9. Answer to the great Bishops notions § 10. Of the efficacy of Sacraments from Aquinas c. § 11. More objections answered and cavils removed § 12. c. CHAP. XIX About giving the Sacrament to all parishioners thrice a year CHAP. XX. Of accusing those that are refused the communion within 14 dayes The true case of the parish minister's power to suspend his own act and not give the Sacrament against his conscience in 22 particulars § 2. CHAP. XXI Of the Chancellor's office Of Mr. C. thirteen parts of discipline § 2. Proved to be defective § 3. Objection answered § 4. What power the parish minister hath in publishing an excommunication § 5. CHAP. XXII Of the Surplice CHAP. XXIII Of the Rule for finding Easter day CHAP. XXIV Concerning our Assenting Consenting to and approving of the many disorders and defects in the Liturgy CHAP. XXV Whether we may assent to the Preface for justifying all that was in the Book before CHAP. XXVI Whether the Act of Uniformity be any part of the book to which we are required to give our consent CHAP. XXVII About declaring it unlawful to take arms by the Kings authority against any commissionated by him CHAP. XXVIII Of the Obligation of the Covenant handled at large per tot CHAP. XXIX About the exposition of Oaths and Laws CHAP. XXX Several false devices of Mr. Ch. for stretching of Subscriptions Covenants and Professions The vanity of which is discovered CHAP. XXXI Mr. Cheney ' s conclusion evidenced to be a bundle of mistakes and impertinencies CHAP. XXXII A full and clear answer to Mr. Ch's supplement The second part Mr. Cheney's Five undertakings considered 1 Quest. Whether it be certain by Gods word that Infants baptized dying before actual sin be undoubtedly saved 2 Quest. Whether may unconverted ones within the Church demand and receive the Lords supper 3 Quest. Whether a minister may put from the Sacrament those of his parish who be Christned People and come to Church and joyn in the publick worship and tender themselves to receive being under no sentence of Excommunication 4 Quest. Whether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by penal excommunication and used as excommunicate ones 5 Quest. Whether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good A DEFENCE OF THE NON-CONFORMIST'S Plea for Peace AGAINST Mr. J. CHENY THE Non-conforming Conformist CHAP. I. § 1. DEar Brother I have diligently read and considered your Book and think it my duty to give a short Account of the Effect I have reproved many that blame you for not telling me first of it and knowing what I could say to it before you ventured to publish it 1. Because of our true Love and Acquaintance 2. Because a man should be willing to try and hear the utmost before he engage too deep 3. Because if you mistake it is many and heinous sins that you may be guilty of by hardening multitudes in impenitency To which I answer then 1. I consulted not you before I wrote and why then must you needs consult me 2. A wise man can conjecture what may be said against him without asking 3. You might suspect some hinderance to that which you judged a necessary duty 4. You have heard and read what the Non-Conformists say as I did what the Conformists say without any further consultation But I am most impatient with them that suspect your intention and design and do hereby profess to them that know you not so well as I do that I do from my heart believe you to be a better man than my self of good judgment in other things of greater meekness patience humility and self-denyal and do verily believe that your End was to promote Christian Love and Concord which was mine And as I wrote to cure mens uncharitable thoughts of the Non-Conformists so did you to cure or prevent mens thinking worse of the Conformists than they do deserve an End that 's good and necessary § 2. But our measures of understanding are so various that it is no wonder that we differ about the means And therefore lest I should be guilty 1. Of deserting the Truth and Cause of Righteousness 2. And of the loss of the Plaister which I made to heal the ulcerated minds of the haters and reproachers and silencers of them that deserve it not 3. And of the sin of such as be drawn by your Book to that which hath the aggravations which I named and fear my self I shall take the freedom of telling you and others my thoughts of your performance in your Book § 3. I. I perceive it is not your design to draw any man into so much Conformity as will procure him allowance in the Publick approved Ministry And then what the better will the Church be for his change in all the rest while one point of Non-conformity will keep him out as well as a hundred For 1. You profess that you cannot justifie all though you fain would 2. You over-pass some in your defence 3. You call your self a Non-conforming Conformist 4. You are fain to fly from your Country being an excommunicate man and to live in a poor condition among strangers to keep out of the Goal to avoid the Writ de excommunicato capiendo and yet you lived under the Worthy and Learned Bishop Pearson accounted one of the most moderate and best in England And what good would so much Conformity do the Church Can we serve them in a Prison any better than Non-Conformists may But let us consider of your Defence it self § 4. II. You would have your Reader have my Book before him and you profess to answer it and yet you profess
Chancellors use of the Keys to be unlawful 3. Nor those that think that Officials Surrogates Commissaries Arch-Deacons being no Bishops have no just power but what the King may give them and not a superior Power of the Keys see Dr. Hammond's Explication of it § 2. But after you think that none but the Bishop is the Ordinary but the Church-Laws and common use contradict you and call all these when Judges of the Court your Ordinaries § 3. And I told you which you pass over that this is condemned by the Decrees of Antient Councils as a mischievous thing § 4. You say It binds us not to obey the Canons else the Oath of Allegiance would bind us to it and all the Statute-Laws Answ. This hath more seeming strength than the rest But 1. If it did hold it removeth but one branch of the difficulty 2. And indeed he that sweareth Obedience to the King doth swear to obey him according to the Law And so he that sweareth Obedience to the Bishop may mean more and include Mandates but he cannot reasonably mean less and exclude the Governing Laws But yet as we never meant that the King's Laws are all blameless or that we will obey them if they command us to sin against God but only will shew our submission by suffering So I confess our Oath to Bishops as such can mean no more But then were I under a King whose very frame of Laws were unlawful as tending to extirpate Piety I should doubt whether I might simply swear to obey him as my Governor How far the Canons are more unmeet instruments for true Church-Government than our Laws are for Civil Government I will not here enquire CHAP. VI. § 1. YOur fifth Section is about the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. in Ordination 1. Two things you include in the sense 1. Inward Qualifications 2. Investiture But I told you 1. Inward Qualifications are presupposed and the person examined accordingly 2. I never heard or knew of any that received them by Ordination 3. By Investiture it is the Ministerial Office that is given them To none of this do you answer But you say Christ used the words and no extraordinary thing then conferred c. Ans. 1. If Christ intended their after-reception of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost it followeth not that we must use such words that can promise or give no such spirit 2. There were five several sorts of Mission or Commission then given to Christ's Ministers 1. Christ sent out the twelve and seventy temporarily to Preach do Miracles and return and gifted and blessed them accordingly 2. He chose twelve as related to the number of the Tribes and ordained them stated Apostles to the Jews or Circumcision and he qualified them accordingly by his Spirit 3. He ordained them Apostles to all the world indefinitely and accordingly renewed their Commission For this he qualified them with ordinary gifts of his Spirit initially now at his resurrection together with their new Commission and more fully and miraculously at Pentecost You know how ignorant the Apostles were of Christ's Death Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. till he was risen And then Christ opened their understandings in these Articles and gave more Faith and answerably we must conceive other grace was given than they had before This cannot be denyed And is not this giving of the Holy Ghost more than man must now pretend to imitate 4. Besides these there were after-missions of particular Apostles as Paul and Barnabas or particular messages in particular Provinces 5. And there was the Ordaining of Bishops or Elders as fixed Guides of particular Churches And these being ordinary Officers were ordinarily to be qualified before they were ordained and not to receive their Abilities by their Ordination And this is the Ordination that we have to do with CHAP. VII § 1. YOur sixth Section requireth pity rather than reply The Church that a Bishop is ordained to is many hundred Parishes the Bishop of Lincoln hath many Counties You know by whom the Bishops are Chosen and where Consecrated The words were originally used to the Church over which the Bishop was placed And is it serious dealing to send word to none of them of your Time or Place and then call to Men in a Church in London or a private Chappel to come forth and speak their Exceptions If you can prove that this may be Assented and Consented to you have a stronger proving Faculty than I have CHAP VIII § 1. I See nothing satisfactory to the Objections which I made about the Damnatory Passages in Athanasius's Creed And I had reference much to a Manuscript in which Mr. Dodwel is the Objector and the Bishop of Lincoln supposed the Answerer which he doth with great Learning and Impartiality But to his Argument That we are not to Assent to the truth of the Passages excepted against because we read the Apocrypha and yet the Church intendeth not to bind us to believe some Untruths in it which he nameth I Answered that Athanasius's Creed is part of the Book which we must assent to but the Apocrypha is not I make less my self of this Scruple than the rest because I have reason to believe Athanasius meant it well when I have not the same assurance of the meaning of the Authors of some late Impositions CHAP. IX § 1. YOur Sect. 8 about the certainty of Baptized Infants Salvation being made here an Article of Faith I have much more to say against But you answer not to any of the strength of my Objections 1. And how strange is it that you saw a Manuscript of Bishop Usher's telling us of this Clause coming surreptitiously into the Book whereas he was Dead two Years before the Book was altered or that Clause put in Indeed there was another in that sounded almost like it which meant no more than that A Baptized Child hath all that is necessary to Salvation supposing his right ex parte Ecclesiae though he die without Confirmation or the Eucharist which were formerly given to Infants But this never said what the new Article saith § 2. You say many Conformists say It is no part of Assent and Consent because it is not used as part of the Church Service and they subscribe to no more Answ. Name not those Conformists lest you Dishonour them Do they declare their Assent to all things contained in the Book and mean only the Service which they must say Or do they Consent to the use of all and take an Article of Faith to be put in for no use Intreat them not to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy with that Latitude and Exceptiousness § 3. You say you can Assent to it in a sound sense And it's more than you can prove that all Infants are saved but all that have right before God are saved but not those that have no right before God Answ. 1. But you were told that the Church signifies her sense by
the Canons which forbid the Minister on Penalty to refuse any Child that hath God-Fathers not excepting Pagans Infidels Atheists or Apostates Why did you not answer that 2. A Right before God signifies either properly to be a Child that is under the promise of Pardon in the sense of 1 Cor. 7. 14. Else were your Children unclean but now they are holy And of such I am of your mind Or else it signifieth only one that the Minister hath Coram Deo a right to Baptize And so he hath as to any adult Atheist or Heathen or his Child if he deceitfully profess Christianity I suppose you speak in the first proper sense But if you think that the sense of the Rubrick you are mistaken No one knoweth better than Bishop Gunning and he will tell you otherwise viz. That God's merciful Covenant giveth us Right to bring any Child in the World to be Baptized for Salvation as it giveth any Man right to take in an exposed Orphan into his House And if the Sponsor were to become Proprietor and take the Child for his own as Abraham Circumcised the Children born in his House I would not dispute against it though I were in doubt But I have proved to you that the Liturgy or Canon oblige the Sponsor to no such thing nor are they to profess it and you your self suppose the contrary that the Parent is the First Covenanter This Rubrick then speaketh of any Child and you limit it to the Seed of the Faithful and so Equivocate At our Conference at the Savoy 1661. before the Bishops I put this true Case I have in my Parish a profest Infidel that derideth openly the Scripture and the Life to come but for fashion saith beforehand I will bring my Child to be Baptized and say as the Book requireth and refuse my Child if you dare The Reverend Bishop Sanderson was in the Chair and answered me none of them contradicting That if I Baptized him according to the Church of England that requireth God-Fathers I need not scruple it I askt him By whom that Child had right more than any other Heathen's Child Seeing 1. The God-Father is oft as bad as the Parents 2. And the God-Father taketh not the Child as a Proprietor for his own Bishop Morley answers That he knew some that did take them and Educate them as their own I answered 1. The Canon or Rubrick require it not 2. I never knew one Man yet that did it or that ever thought that as a Sponsor he was obliged so to do 3. If it were otherwise Poor Mens Children could get no God-Fathers and Rich Men would have none And what 's this then to the sense of the Article in question that speaks of all Baptized Children It being of the Baptized quâ tales and an indefinite in re necessaria You dare profess that of all and undoubtedly certain by the Word of God which you think is true but of those that have right before God And may not one profess any thing at that Rate Besides I that know why the old words were changed into these and by whom it was brought in urged and procured am fully satisfied of the sense of them that did it by experience Your Exposition of the Doctrine of Baptism here adjoyned is very sound and good As to your Catholicon which gets down all I may cause you to cast it up anon CHAP. X. § 1. YOur 9th Section about not coming to the Sacrament without a full trust in God's Mercy and a quiet Conscience tells us what the Imposure should have said when I only except against what they have said The Case is so gross I am apt to think they meant as you say especially when I consider that those must be Ruined that have not a quiet Conscience if they will not or dare not Communicate But if well meaning Men put me to assent to words of a contrary signification in the common use I had rather approve their good meanings than their imposed words through oversight so expressed CHAP. XI § 1. ABout the use of the Apocrypha you quite mistook the Question It was not chiefly whether you may use or read it but whether you may approve and consent to the Calendar and Rubrick which imposeth it to be read yea those Books of Tobit Iudith Bell and the Dragon c. If you say that you Consent not to the Calendar and Rubrick I ask 1. Is it not contained in the Book 2. Is it of no use when the use is named in the Preface Cannot we thus say any thing required and mean what we list by it Teach not the Papists to take the imposed Test and Oaths at such a rate as this § 2. You say It is not on Lords Days Answ. On the Week Days God must be Worshipped purely and according to his Will § 3. You say It 's more than you can prove that any thing is false Why did you not answer the two Instances which I gave out of the Bishop of Lincoln's excellent Manuscript And how much may you find in Dr. Io. Reynolds and many other Protestants against the Papists § 4. You say If any thing be Fabulous it may be read as an instructive Parable some cite Aesop ' s Fables Answ. But dare you consent to the reading and imposing of Aesop's Fables or any other to be read in stead of God's Word under the same name of Lessons so many days in the Publick Worship CHAP. XII YOur 11th Section saith no more but that you see nothing but one may Consent to the imposed reading of the Liturgy every day to save his Liberty Ans. 1. I gave you a reason against Covenanting so to use it every Day which you answer not And. 2. Why took you no notice that it is the Books Imposition of this which you must consent to and not only the Practice Is not the imposing Precept contained in the Book yea and is it of no use 3. And why do so few Conformists so use it CHAP. XIII § 1. IN your 12th Section you joyn several things 1. About denying Christian Burial to the Unbaptized Infants and the Excommunicate as not signifying their Damnation But if you take in the foresaid Rubrick Articles that pronounceth certain Salvation to them if Baptized you may see what is like to be the meaning of the Church here And also if you read how they use to expound their Anathema or Major Excommunication and on what account it is often made Doctor Heylin tells you That the necessity of Baptism was one of Bishop Laud's first Thesis's publickly maintained in Oxford You are now Excommucate your self but not with that Anathema which is of the hardest signification But this is little to my objected Case 2. But the doubt is about the words that in sense pronounce all others that are Buried in England saved And you would make us believe that the Rubrick which excepteth the Excommunicate and the other two sorts only meaneth
speak there as dedicating his own Child to God and forbid us to urge him to be present Yet are they utterly disagreed of the Child's title Some say it is from God's Covenant only and that all Children on Earth have title and want but one to offer them to Baptism as he may take in an exposed Orphan Some say that the God-fathers Act is his Title to Baptism Some say it is the Churches Faith And by the Church some mean the Ministers some mean that Parish some mean the Diocesan Church some the National Church and some the Universal Church But you seem to think the title is from the Parent but you speak it not out nor much meddle with the case and the Church seemeth not to be of that mind though St. Paul say Else were your Children unclean but now are they holy § 2. But you say The Parent is not excluded nor forbid to be present Ans. But 1. No man in the Town is forbid to be present Doth it follow that any man giveth title to the Child who may but be present if he will If the Parents Faith were thought necessary to the Title or a Pro-parents the Book would require it and require the Minister to take account of it or at least would suffer the Parent to be one of the Sponsors or to speak one word of Sponsion all which is expresly forbidden by the Canon and by the Book appropriated to others § 3. But you say If he will he may profess and Covenant for his Child yea the Minister may and ought to urge and require him Ans. What and yet Conform When he is forbid and the Minister forbid to suffer it § 4. But say you The Canon is no part of the Liturgy nor are we bound to it wherein it is against the Liturgy and good Order Ans. 1. By the Can. 36. we are all to subscribe to use no other form in Administring the Sacraments but the Liturgy And you shall be no Minister here if you subscribe not to that Canon though you should say It is against good Order 2. The Liturgy it self appropriateth the whole Sponsion to the God-Fathers 3. Our question is of the Churches sense herein And it is the same Church the made the Canons and still owneth them Therefore in the Canon the Church expoundeth her sense more obligingly than you or any Bishop can expound it So that for you to assent and consent to the form of Baptism in the Churches sense and when you have done to say that you may and must go against it because the Canon binds not is a method of Conforming which I will not follow you in § 5. What you tell me of my Decision in my Directory is nothing to our present Case But you say The Canon supposeth the Parents as present or Consenting and Principal for he procureth the God-Fathers and the Sureties are his Deputies or Seconds and yet undertakes not the Parents duty Ans. I have proved to you that the Canon or Church neither foundeth the Title in the Parent nor permitteth him any Sponsion and professedly layeth it all on the God-Fathers saying That it is by that the Child believeth and promiseth performeth c. And no such word of the Parents Faith Nay all Children of Infidels or Atheists must be thus Baptized This therefore is your meer disproved Fiction Secondly That the Parent must procure the God-Fathers no way proveth that he is supposed to be a Christian or Consent or that he is the Principal Sponsor For it is for the Child's sake that the Law bindeth him to get Sponsors and all Atheists and Infidels among us are bound to send their Children with Sponsors to be Baptized as well as Christians § 6. You say The Sureties undertake not to do the Duties of a Parent nor more than they can do c. Ans. Then it is not undertaken at all For all that is to be undertaken is by them and nothing at all required of the Parents § 7. As to the Interrogatories and Profession that the Child is said to Repent Believe forsake the Devil Consent c. and not only to be the Child of one that Repenteth Believeth which is his Title you say it is but to oblige the Infant But professing to Believe and Repent at present and promising to do it hereafter are different things But you say These words may be submitted to till better may be had Ans. And why may you not say so of any Untruth But the question is whether they may be Consented to and approved § 8. As to the great Question Whether it be the Intention of the Book that we deny Baptism to such as cannot procure God-Fathers and God-Mothers or to such as out of Conscience scruple and refuse to procure them and will stand as Undertakers themselves You say No surely Ans. Alas how little know you what the Conformity is which you defend 1. Are not all Ministers to subscribe to Administer the Sacraments in no other Form than the Liturgy Canon 36. 2. Doth not the Liturgy make the God-Fathers Office necessary and a great part of the Baptismal Office is the Ministers Speech to them and their Answer and the Charge laid on them Can you say all these words if no Sponsor be there Or can you have such Answers 3. Doth not the Church Command that no Parent be God-Father to his own Child and no Questions or Answers be used but the words of the Liturgy 4. And did you ever know a Child Baptized without any Sponsor You rightly call your self The Non-conforming Conformist for you plead for it and against it in the same Lines Your contradiction meeteth through all your Book § 9. You add If it be lawful to violate a Divine Command to save the life of a Beast the Sabbath sure it is lawful to violate a Humane Rule or Order rather than cast Infants out of the Church and deny them Christian Baptism Ans. It is so And therefore it is unlawful to Consent to that which I must not do and to Covenant to use that which I must not use If I must not obey it I must not Covenant to obey it But perhaps you mean that the Law-makers intended that in such cases the Ministers have leave to violate it and admit Men to the Communion that will not have God-Fathers for God intended such liberty in his Law Ans. God's Law was not violated by David the Priests or the Disciples in the instanced cases of the Sabbath For he never forbad them what they did in those Circumstances Yea his Law had been violated I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice had they done otherwise and he hath no Contradictory Laws It is said that the Priests in the Temple brake the Sabbath and are blameless that is They violate materially the outward rest of the Sabbath but they violate not God's Law else they were not blameless But you can prove no such things by the Church Laws in question as that
Administration of the Sacraments and no other IX And the Can. 27. saith No Minister when he celebrates the Communion shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel under pain of suspension Can the Church more plainly speak the sense of her Liturgy You say It is against Schismaticks Yes 1. That is the end and the words express the means 2. And it is expository calling those Schismaticks that scruple and refuse to kneel X. Those that say the Liturgy hath any thing contrary to the Scripture or that the Ceremonies are such as he may not use approve c. are excommunicate ipso facto And therefore as Schismaticks not to be admitted to the Sacrament till they repent of that their wicked Errour Can. 4 5 6 7. XI Can. 14. All Ministers shall observe the Orders Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer as well in reading the holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers as in administration of the Sacraments without either diminishing in regard of Preaching or in any other respect note that or adding any thing in the matter or form thereof XII Can. 29. No Parent shall be urged to be present nor be admitted to answer as God-father for his own Child nor any God-father or God-mother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech than by the Book of Common-Prayer is prescribed in that behalf If yet the Church have not declared her sense of the Liturgy but that I may Baptize without Cross or God-fathers and give the Sacrament to them that sit rather than refuse them I can understand no mans words And what can constrain an unwilling person to understand XIII Yet I say again If I practice on any pretence of mercy according to your Rule the Judges will condemn me the Justices will send me to the common Gaol among Rogues to lie six months and will fine me twenty pound and forty pound a Sermon as I have tryed and the Bishops or their Courts will excommunicate me and prosecute me to lay me in Gaol as you have tryed who fly to escape it And are not these made Judges of the sense of the Law and will not all this convince us what it meaneth Because you have put three of the chief matters of my Non-conformity here together I have answered all together If you will prefer the judgment of the Bishops before all this I pray you do not pretend that some honest Bishop that had no hand in our Changes and Silencing saith to you in private but get it us under the hands of many of them if you can that because mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice we may Baptize without the Cross and God-fathers and may give the Sacrament to them that kneel not if they dissent through consciencious fear of living CHAP. XVII § 1. IN your sixteenth Section you profess your liking of sitting at the Lord's Supper rather than kneeling How then can you declare Assent Consent and Approbation to the Liturgy expounded by the Canons which in plain words and by sharp penalties on Dissenters so much preferreth kneeling before sitting § 2. Your preferring the preaching and hearing of the Word and Prayer and Praise as more excellent than the carnal you mean the outward part in the Lord's Supper is very far from Conformity to the common sense of the Bishops who ordered the Altaring of the Communion Tables and commended bowing towards them and suspended so many Ministers on such accounts even far from the sense of Arch-Bishop Laud expressed in his life by Dr. Heylin and of the whole Church of England expressed in the Canons of 1640. § 3. I answered before your conceit that the Liturgy alloweth you to give the Sacrament to them that kneel not and your distorting the Canon because the Title is against Schismaticks when they mean that those that kneel not shall be taken and excluded as Schismaticks and so excommunicated as I have proved and not that the word is distinguishing and limiting allowing you to admit those to sit that are not Schimaticks The Bishops will deride that Exposition They that heard us at the Savoy can tell you who that Dr. now a Dean was who craved leave to have disputed the Case against me and to have proved That it is an Act of mercy to those that scruple and refuse to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny them the Communion of the Church therein CHAP. XVIII § 1. YOur seventeenth Section is for the Cross in Baptism I distinctly proved that the Church imposeth it As a Symbol of our Christian Profession and as a consecrating dedicating sign by which 1. God's part of the Covenant is signified even the Grace by him given and the duty by him imposed on us 2. And the Receiver's part is signified and by solemn Engagement there professed even his Faith in Christ crucified and his resolution and self-obliging Consent or Covenant to be the Lords as dedicated to him and to perform all the future duties of the Covenant And that this is the true description of a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace The word Sacrament larglier taken may signifie no more than man may institute But a Sacrament strictly taken as thus described I suppose man may not institute 1. Because Christ hath instituted two as an act of his Royal Prerogative And if any Institution be proper to his Kingly and Priestly Power it must be such No other can be named excluding this And if none be proper what is it for him to be Great and One Law-giver to his Church If Legislation the chief part of Supreme Government be common to him and Bishops why is not that Royally Common 2. And if Christ would have had any more Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace he would have somewhere expressed his Commands and Directions to his Ministers to make them But he that hath given them full Commands and Directions for Preaching Prayer Baptizing and his Supper and for their other duties for the Flocks hath not said a word to them of this either biding them make new Sacraments or telling them how many or directing them what or how to do it nor how to use them when made nor promising to bless them 3. To make more seemeth to accuse Christ's Law or Institution of Imperfection Subordinate actions do not so But to make Ordinances ejusdem generis with those which he made not as a meer man nor as a meer Minister but as Mediator or King of the Church doth seem to say That Christ left half his work undone Did he institute Baptism and his Supper as a meer Man or a meer Minister then à quatenus ad omne any Man or any Minister may do the like and make more Sacraments But if as King of the Church and as Saviour then none but our King of the Chuch and Saviour may do the like Christ hath instituted one day of each week to commemorate his Resurrection as God the Creator instituted a weekly
is it And is this the Power of the Keys or Excommunication If you ask me How I would have all this remedied I have oft enough answered it and will not here repeat it Only I would have a Minister have some such freedom as a School-master or Philosopher hath in his School and not a meer slave or Agent of others to take in and use and exclude and say as strangers to the Flock command him against his conscience and knowledge of the Case till it be proved that it shall justifie him at judgment for all such actions to say The Law Bishop or Chancellor commanded me § 2. You tell us as by your many Years Experience that private repelling by Counsel and Persuasion may serve with most And 1. I wonder that you that had but a small Country Chappel and no Church at all where near Neighbours might easily be spoken with should talk of your Experience as an argument against that which is of notorious matter of Fact 1. Shew me where Law Canon or Rubrick giveth power to the Priest to refuse a Parishioner that saith I take you not for my Pastor nor to have any authority over me but as the Bishop's Curate to do what the Law bids you and I will not speak with you 2. Do you not now dwell in London where Parishes are so great that the Parson can do no such thing on one of a Multitude nor doth so much as know them And know you not that de facto there are Multitudes that will refuse and scorn to give you any account or hear you or come to you or admit you to any such discourse with them I had the most obedient tractable People to deal with that ever I knew And yet I had some that attempted by present violence to Murder me for Admonishing them and forbidding them the Sacrament and many that would give me no other account of themselves but demand of me to deliver them the Sacrament as the Canon and Liturgy order it whenever they appear at Church and require it Hundreds and Thousands will stoop to no other Terms in the great Parishes of England § 3. I confess if ever I had been thought tolerable under our Prelates and had thought my self able as I do not for the care of some of the smaller Parishes I should have most trusted to the New Liturgy for my power to keep away some of the grosly Ignorant as being not ready to be Confirmed because they know not the Catechism But now I perceive by you this were not like to serve my turn for you say It is only for those that never yet Communicated when as multitudes of the Aged are grosly ignorant of the Essentials that have long Communicated 2. And divers of these grosly ignorant Persons are Confirmed long ago Bishop Morton was one of the Learnedst and best Bishops that ever I knew And when I was fourteen or fifteen Years old I and my School-fellows and abundance of Boys and Girls when he came into the Country went as to some Spectacle and without any certificate or question to us or instruction of us we all kneeled in a long row in a Church-yard in the Path-way and as he went by he laid his Hands on every one and huddled over a short Collect of which I scarce understood one sentence that he said and I was never the wiser nor fitter for the Sacrament that I perceived § 4. But you say that The Order binds to a Repelling by publick Admonition and Church Power notifying to the Congregation such a Man's Crimes and Scandals as a Fornicator c. and warn him not to come to the Sacrament till he have made open confession of his Sins and reformed his Life Ans. What Order is it that binds us to this If you mean Christ's Order we must do it If you mean the Churches where shall we find it This is like the Rubrick new Article of Faith which will Silence us all who are not certain by God's Word that Baptized Infants without exception are undoubtedly saved and yet that Charity was wanting that should but once have cited the Text that maketh it undoubtedly certain A short labour for so great an End So when you might know how very far it would go to reconcile me to our Prelacy could I but prove what here you say yet you will not so much as tell me where to find it Nay if you that have studied the Law would but have told me how to escape when I am accused for doing it § 5. But your next is too apt to provoke Laughter viz. Suppose you honestly tell the Ordinary that the uncapable are too many to be presented lest Violence make them worse and Excommunicating them signifie nothing but endanger them to rise in Rebellion or Mutiny and turn you and us out of Place that reason is considerable or quite leave our Assemblies and turn Quakers Papists Infidels and precipitate Souls to Hell by Obstinacy and Viciousness But if you will leave it to me I will Christen their Children and keep them within the Church Is that Excommunicating them as Hearers and Learners and Candidates c. Do I not then honestly perform the Law Ans. Your honesty I shall commend And Christ's Law you may much perform But what Law of the Church is it that you thus perform What is the Law that giveth you any such power What Law forbids it you I have shewed Let the Rejected sue you and let the Judges tell you whether you have kept the Law The issue will answer you better than I can But you say It is the Intention of the Law that you perform Ans. You have proved me also and all of us Conformists before we were aware The end of the Law is to edifie and save Men and to prefer Mercy before Sacrifice But all this I do or endeavour in my Preaching Dwelling and Practice Ergo I am a Conformist and perform the Law But that did not keep me out of the common Gaol nor save my Library And must we be punished for Conforming Break the Law and Canon and say you did it in Mercy and kept it and try whether you will pass for a Conformist Did you not thus keep the end of the Law when you Preacht at Warrington and did your Excommunicators call it Conformity § 6. But you say All that are accused are not Excommunicate nor laid in Gaols it is to be hoped that the Ordinary will do them Iustice. Ans. 1. As they did you 2. They may escape the Gaol by flying their Country as you do But what shall they do with their Wives and Children 3. But we grant you all this If 500 in a great Parish should be accused by the Minister as uncapable of the Sacrament by gross Ignorance Infidelity Heresie or Crimes and as you say they be not Excommunicate when they come home acquit the Minister must give them the Sacrament the next time 4. But our question is not what
the Ordinary will do but what the Law and Canon bind him and you to do CHAP. XXI § 1. YOu entitle the next Section of the Chancellor and his Office and reading Excommunications and the Order and Discipline in the Church of England And 1. You tell us of them that would have Unordained Ruling Elders in every Parish But 1. If that be ill how will it justifie Lay-Chancellors 2. Cannot many with the Pastor better govern one Parish than one Chancellor can many Scores or Hundreds 3. Some give Lay-Elders only a part of the Magistrates work and some only to be Delegates for the People to do but what they may do who cannot be oft present and to be occasional Arbitrators and some that give them any use of the Keys take them not for Lay-men but Ministers separated to that Ecclesiastical Office § 2. You tell us of thirteen parts of Discipline among us To which I said enough before 1. No Atheists Infidels or Pagans then must be refused Baptism if communicating God-Fathers how bad soever present him who never take him for their own and we doubt can neither give or prove his Title And that we are disabled to keep the unworthy from the Communion I have proved and the Excellent Learned Pious Parish Priests of London tell you by Practice 2. Few Communicants are Confirmed and Sacramental Capacity is not required to Confirmation And if it be not used or worse by Bishops who only have the power what satisfaction is that to the Parish Priest and Church 3. There is no sufficient means to Convict and keep away scandalous Sinners 4. The Sinner hath power to forbid you private Admonition by refusing to speak with you or come near you 5. What is Family Power to the Church We thank you for nothing But were not Parents formerly disabled from keeping Children and Servants from spending much of the Lord's Day in Dancing c. And doth not the Canon yet disable them from bringing them to hear a Sermon at the next Parish Church when they have none at Home 6. The Lawyers that I speak with take all for meer Falshood that you say of the Priests power of publick admonition of sinners by name not censured by the Ordinary You say Where is it forbidden I ask you Where is the Priest authorized to do it If not the Man will have his Action against him and Ruine him and the Bishop may suspend him for Usurpation And 2. Of all the worthy Parish Incumbents in London who did you ever hear once do it I never one heard one do it nor heard of one that did it in my life except a Non-conformist or a hot Parson point at a Puritan in the Church for some Non-conformity in a Circumstance Reverse then your charge of Hypocrisie if you find it must fall on all the worthy London Incumbents For they all speak for Discipline though not for more 7. If there be half as many bad Ministers as the Country saith there is it 's a small honour to the Church to reproach the Fathers that admit them as sinning against Church Law and Conscience and a small relief to Peoples Souls to tell that some Body had power to have provided better But the People had no such power to save themselves from a bad one though the Church for 700 if not more Years took him to be no Bishop but an Usurper that came not in by the consent of the Flock and election of the Clergy of which more elsewhere 8. Do or can Bishops by Visitations know the People and their Cases of a thousand or many hundred Parishes so as to hear and judge them Would they not have ten thousand scandalous Sinners sometime to try and exhort to Repentance in one or few Days 9. and 10. We are glad that the old prohibitions of Afternoon Sermons and Lectures are not yet revived But how few Parishes have such Lectures comparatively and how few have Catechizing And they that have none may not go to another If you think that it will save the Peoples Souls that the Priest might have instructed them if he could and would and that the Bishop should have made him do it I dissent 11. I have seen no Visitation Articles of late but in the old ones of 1634 1635 36 37 38 39. the Church-wardens were to swear to persecute Men for so many things which they thought their Duty as the foresaid going from a Non-preaching Minister keeping private Fasts and such like that many Men that feared an Oath and Persecution suffered because they durst not be Church-wardens 12. I confess more manners of Church-censures are in use among us than we desire The Canons will tell them to you Else so many hundred Non-Conformists formerly and lately had not been forbid to Preach nor all forbid to admit Non-conforming Christians to Communion nor had they been ipso facto excommunicate though Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis say so much to make odious all excommunicating ipso facto who they say first devised the name of a Doctrinal Penitence And Bishop Ier. Taylor saith so much against it And I confess that there is the Magistrate's sword to back all this by which about two thousand of us were silenced and you fly out of your Country from the Writ de excommunicato capiendo § 3. My belief of your unfeigned honesty makes one at last pity you and wonder when you add What more would you have what it was that could tempt you to contract the guilt of defending things of such publick and sad an Aspect and prospect against such light and after such experience of the effects and in such a time 1. Do you believe in your conscience that the Bishop of York Norwich Lincoln London or the rest with a Chancellor and his Officials and Arch-Deacons can possibly exercise that Discipline or the hundredth part of it which Christ hath appointed were they never so honest 2. Do you believe that a Lay-Chancellor who you confess hath not the power of the Keys doth or can well execute them 3. Do you not know how little of the Parish-Government against scandals is exercised by the Bishop and how almost is done by this Chancellor and Officials 4. Do you not know how unlike their Courts are to fit a sinner for absolution by true Repetance 5. Did you ever in your life know a sinner brought to a repentance seemingly unfeigned by them 6. Did you ever hear such worthy men of greatest honesty and Learning as Dr. Lloyd Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Mr. Sharp c. name any in the Pulpit or Church by way of publick admonition and invitation to repentance who was not first censured by the Ordinary 7. Do you think none of them would do it if they thought it a duty and the lawful and safe way of Discipline 8. Do you think their Parishes have no scores or hundreds of Brutists Atheists Drunkards Fornicators or other scandalous sinners 9. Do you think they can possibly
know any thing of their peoples gross Ignorance Infidelity Atheism yea or Scandal who can know so few of the persons much less can the Bishop 10. Do you think that it is exercise enough of this Discipline when about 5000 in a year only communicate to leave 20000 or 30000 more as members of the Church in that Parish that use not to communicate or else may come when they will extraordinarily to save them from the Law though utterly unknown to the Minister And so proportionably in Parishes half as big And how is it possible this can be amended rebus sic stantibus And would not so many good men amend it were it possible Oh draw not the guilt of so many and such things on your self without cause Were it as small a thing as the Israelites High Places if you cannot amend it do not become the open defender of it Iudas himself at last accused the Pharisees and High Priests and justified Christ. I do not think he would have written a Confutation of Christ's reproofs recited in Matt. 15. and 23 c. How can you pray for a Reformation of that which you think needeth none And hath the Church and Cause of holy Discipline lost so much of your prayers too If you say to God as you do to us What more would we have I am glad that God hath a firmer people that will pray for more § 4. You say As to the Chancellor and his Office it is less matter by whom Excommunication be done so it be honestly and soundly done He is a Christian he is a man of Knowledge and Learning he is authorized by the Laws of the Kingdom his Office is incorporate into the Government of the Nation Though he may not bind and loose as a Pastor he may as a Christian authorized by the King See Matth. 18. 15 c. Ans. This is a great business 1. Why said you before that the Power of the Keys belongs to the Pastors c But you meant not only to them 2. Is it the same sort of Excommunication and Absolution which belongs to the Pastor and to a Lay-man If not you say nothing to our business For our Laws Canons and Church pretend here no difference I confess that there are three acts of separation which the Magistrate may do 1. He may command Bishops and Pastors to do their Office faithfully in excommunicating notorious impenitent criminals 2. When they are excommunicated he may forbid them intruding into the Church 3. He may judge the flagitious to be stigmatized or be taken as out-lawed and forbid men to be familiar with them But the Power of the Church is a power of judging what individual persons are fit or unfit for Baptism the Eucharist Church Entrance and Church Communion is the Church is the Porch of Heaven and as a preparation to the final judgment And it is not another sort but this sort which the Lay-Chancellor pretendeth to exercise in the Bishop's name I have been thought by some to give my self too much to Magistrates in Church-matters But I am far from your mind for the reasons following 1. It is notorious that in Scripture Christ hath instituted a special Office to use these Keys and do this work which he would not have done had he left it common to any others 2. The Power of the Keys is so much of the essential comprehensive title of that Office as that it is nullified when it is made common 3. If this part may be done by the Lay-men or Magistrate no man can give a reason why any of the rest may not even not only to be the stated Teachers of the Church and their Guides in Worship but also Baptizing and administring the Lord's Supper As it is more to be the Law-makers than the Cryers and the Judge than the Marshal so it is more to decree who shall have the Sacraments than barely to deliver it them which the Deacon may do And so we shall have not only Lay-Baptizers but Lay-Preachers Lay-Administers of the Lord's Supper or by contradiction Lay-Priests 4. You plead for Conformity and may easily know that the Church of England abhorreth this Opinion 5. When King Henry the Eighth was called Head of the Church to avoid the Papists calumnies Queen Elizabeth and King Iames have published their disclaiming of that power of Word and Sacraments called that of the Keys and if my Ears deceived me not I have heard our present King profess the same 6. The judgment and practice of the Churches of all Ages and places since Christ is against you I think Helvetia it self not excepted And should this be nothing to you who call on us to reverence the Old Conformists 7. The reason of the Institution fully satisfies me It was not meet so great a trust should be placed in unfit men As in case of Ordination it must be men that are able to try the persons as to skill and life that must be trusted with so weighty a business and also such that can have leisure to attend it and therefore as an Office are empowered for it and separated to it lest it miscarry so as to Baptism Absolution Excommunication it must be done by men 1. That are capable of full acquaintance with the person witnesses and cause 2. And that can try and judge of it 3. And especially of the persons Faith and Repentance for it is on these that the sentence must pass No Baptism without Faith No Excommunication without obstinate Impenitence No Absolution without Repentance 4. It must be by men fit to exhort them to Faith and Repentance and confute their Errours and pray for them that God would give them Faith and Repentance 5. And it is so great a part of the world and all the Church of Christ that this or much of this must be done for that reason shewed it needful that it be made the work of a great and special Office And if so then those men that do it 1. Must be tryed as Ordained Ministers be 2. And Ordained to the Office of doing it 3. And profess to do it as such Officers 4. And not lacerate that Office and change it by taking a part of it and leaving the rest And so they must be no Lay-men I could with that you had studied and consulted better before with such more than Erastian singularity you had pleaded for so dangerous a thing as Church-Levelling or so much overthrow of the necessary sacred Office and set your self against the judgment and practice of the Christian Church But all men have their hour of temptation and all do not overcome § 5. You say The Excommunication is of no force till published by the Parish-Minister who hath power if he please to make it his Text and declare the nature use and ends c. Ans. 1. I had rather have a better Text. 2. It is of force if another publish it 3. It 's part of the true Charge of the Minister himself
that if the same were done here we may enter into a solemn Covenant never to endeavour to reform it No were it but the high places in Iudaea 2. Submitting is either by Obedience or meer Patience Under Papists and Turks Men must submit by Patience But if you say We hold that we must obey all that they command our practice tells you It is not true But the question is Whether there be no one thing but what we may covenant never to endeavour to alter and subscribe that no Parliament Man or any other in England is bound by that Oath which they took to endeavour it The Law forbids me to say They are and therefore I say it not But if you say They are not Dare you undertake to answer for them You say Their Office binds them to no evil That is None of the things fore-mentioned are evil Which you said were so Again you say All the while Excommunications and Church Censures are soundly done it 's the the less matter by whom they are done Ans. 1. Do not say so to the King about Kingly Government Nor to the Judges if an intruder invade the Tribunal 2. Make the Bishops believe this if you can of any that should usurp their Office 3. Make the Parish Priests believe it if you can who are so angry with us for helping them at a distance though we invade not Places 4. Make any sober Ministers believe if you can that if the Word be well Preacht and Sacraments soundly Administred it is no matter who doth it 5. Make any Master of a Family or Husband believe it as to their Offices that it 's no matter who doth it so it be soundly done If the Wife do believe it 's two to one the Husband will not § 4. Again you say By the Government of Church and State whatsoever is absolutely sinful is forbidden the Laws declare it Null c. Ans. This is before answered You say Silencing and Excommunicating the Non-conformists here are sinful Instead of this impertinent talk go try your Oratory on the Judges and Bishops if you can persuade them that the Law forbids them all to fine Imprison or Silence us or Excommunicate us Why did you not use this pretty Argument for your self 2. And do not Papists and Turks say that No Law against God is in force And doth their Government therefore contain no evil Or will you tell them that swear to amend it that it 's well enough already You tell us what to say to the Bishops and Judges for our selves But if by this Medium I would prove that I am conformable to the Law and they are the Non-conformists that punish me because they break the Law of God I doubt they would Laugh at me first and send me to Gaol next § 5. But in answer to Where read we in Scripture of the Chancellor's Office You repeat again If soundly done no Man may reprove them I will not repeat my Answer But I add If so No Man may reprove the Boys if they soundly Whip their Master when he deserveth it nor a Cobler that will send Offenders to Prison as the Lord Mayor doth Nor a Justice yea or a Tinker that will step up in the Chancery or King's-Bench to do Justice § 6. But though I will not Laugh at your Writing I should hardly forbear if I heard you do what page 95 you say you would do viz. If a Bishop or Arch-Bishop or Chancellor live where you are Pastor and be a Member of your Congregation you must needs look on your self as obliged by the Laws and Canons of the Church and State by the Word of God and by the Rules of the Common-prayer-Book publickly to admonish him if he grosly misdemean himself and do a scandalous crime and if he shall not by open confession give satisfaction to the Church bar him from the Sacrament and declare him Disorderly and Contumacious and that if he do not repent he shall perish and warn the People to beware of such evil Courses and to have no more to do with him than they needs must And this I maintain to be part of the Discipline and Government of the Church of England Ans. I would I could see this bout I doubt he will have something to do with you Your Chancellor had the wit to begin with you first I pray you forget not this Case when you go to the Bishop for his sense of the Liturgy and tell us his answer when you come Home I must profess this is an edifying Passage As when I read in Saltmarsh that Christ repented and believed for us it let in more Light against Libertinism than I had before So doth this Passage raise up some useful doubts in me about our Churches which I thought not on till now Q. 1. Whether are the Bishops that dwell in the London Parishes or others Members of the Parish Church where they dwell Q. 2. If they are not Whether dwelling in the Parish make a Christian a Member of the Parish Church Q. 3. If not what is it that makes a Member and how are the Pastors special Flock truly known to him from others Q. 4. If they be Members to whom shall we present the Bishop for not coming to Church or for his Crimes Is it to himself Q. 5. Whether is the Bishop or the Parish Priest there the higher Power or Governor and which must obey Q. 6. Doth the Canon that forbids Men to go from their own Parish Churches extend to the Bishop Q. 7. How is the Bishop one of the Parson's Flock and the Parson one of the Bishop's Flock both at once Q. 8. Whether the Bishop that is Excommunicated by the Parson out of the Parish Church be cast out of the Universal or other Churches may have Communion with him or not Q. 9. What if the Parson Excommunicate the Bishop and the Bishop the Parson both at once what a Case are they in And which shall stand one or both and how far Q. 10. How will the Parson practice his Conformity who consenteth when he putteth any one from the Sacrament to certifie the Ordinary within fourteen Days will he prosecute the Bishop to himself or to his Chancellor Q. 11. Doth not this Instance prove Mr. Cheyney to be a mistaking Expositor of the Church-Government the Bishops themselves being Judges and would not one days practice of any such thing convince him by Experience that the Church of England now take not Parish Parsons for Parish Bishops Q. 12. Is he in the right page 96. that this Course would make Bishops and Arch-Bishops and Chancellors stand in awe of the Priests why then did you not thus awe your Bishop and Chancellor CHAP. XXIX YOur 28th Section hath nothing in it that requireth many words for Answer That Oaths and Laws must be charitably expounded no one denieth so they be truly expounded In this we stand to Bishop Sanderson's Rules which are far better stated than any
sincerely Penitent thy Sin is pardoned and thou hast right to Salvation and mayst come to the Lord's Table Ans. And doth not this imply that else he should not come And is such a Man Unconverted It is too irksome to rake up the rest of your Contradictions and examine your slight words of the Parable of the Tares But that rooting up the Tares forbidden is Excommunicating or denying Sacramental Communion to any Parishioner of your Description who will believe that knoweth 1. What Christ saith Mat. 18. 15. c. and Paul 1 Cor. 5. and 2 Thess. 3. Tit. 3. 10 11 c. 2. Or he that knoweth that the Universal Church of Christ in all Ages hath been of another mind and indeed went at last too far against it having no punishment for Christians but Suspension and Excommunication 3. And that the Christian World at this day is of another mind though the Helvetians are too remiss in the Principles and most in the Practice 4. And that the Canons of this Church requireth the Minister to deny the Sacrament to some such as you describe And in your former Book you pleaded this as for Conformity And are you changed already And shall any Wise Man follow such quick Changes 5. The Church of England forbids us to give the Sacrament to any that are not Confirmed and desire it not or are not ready But such are many of your Description 6. If the power of Excommunicating over a thousand or many hundred Churches be confined to the Bishop and the Chancellor or Officials and so all the Parish Ministers denied it and disabled all these Churches must be Prophaned and Confounded at the will of one Man or because he cannot do an Impossibility And the reasons why Christ would have his Church to be visibly Holy and a Communion of Saints and openly differenced from the notoriously ungodly are so many and so great that I will not here attempt the opening of them having often elsewhere done it QUEST IV. WHether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by Penal Excommunications and used as Excommunicate ones You say I conceive not Ans. Would any one that pretended to confute our Errors no better open the case in question 1. In your sense they are Christians that never professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant but only took the Water in order to Conversion hereafter These are no visible Christians And I suppose by parity of Reason the Council of Nice which decreed the Rebaptizing of the Paulmists would have been for Rebaptizing these 2. Is the Ordinariness the satisfying Character who is not to be Excommunicated In one Country those are ordinary that are extraordinary in others In some places Arrians are ordinary in some Socinians in some Papists in some open Scorners of the Scripture Christianity and Religion In some ignorant Persons that know not the Essentials of Christianity nor will learn or let the Minister instruct them any where but in the Pulpit in many Parishes here not one of many their Neighbours say go to Church about once or twice a Year 1 Cor. 5. 13. Put away from among you that wicked Person ver 11. If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or on Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat Do not ye judg them that are within 2 Thess. 3. It is the idle and disorderly And these are ordinary in some places But we easily grant that Excommunications are not to be used Tyranically or when they do more hurt than good And if the Body of a Church turn e. g. Socinians or professedly ungodly and will not be Reformed the Excommunication which we plead for is but withdrawing from them and renouncing their Communion declaredly § 2. I have oft said that Perfidious Covenant-breakers who live in gross Sin and still tell the Minister they repent and will not be persuaded to leave their Sin e. g. Whoredom Drunkenness Stealing Perjury Blasphemy have so far forfeited the credit of their bare word that the Pastor should see their actual amendment before he Absolve them And now your Hand is in the World must be saved from this Doctrine too But because it is a common principle in Nature and in all Church Canons and the common judgment of Divines I will not stay to dispute it with you But when you are a Master of a Family if you think Family Discipline a Duty Experience will cure your credulity If your Servant or Son beat you or spit in your Face or Rob you once a Day or Week but for one Year together and say still after it I repent But what will not Men talk for QUEST V. WHether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and Principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good And you confute them Ans. 1. Those that read them are in no danger by them And those that do may be confirmed by so slight a confutation as I said 2. As for my Book of Universal Concord of all Christian Churches I know that the Devil hateth it so much that I expect some far more subtile Assault than yours or else I shall think that the Devil wanteth wit or power more than is commonly believed But I am sorry that he hath drawn so good a Man to be his instrument § 1. My first mentioned Error is That a particular Church is a regular part of the Universal Church as a City is of a Kingdom The confutation is In this I conceive he is out A particular Church is to the Church Universal with a single Town consisting of a Magistrate Governing and People governed according to the general Rules and Principles of Society is to all the World Ans. The proof is I conceive he is out and an Assertion in other words of the same that is denied and so we are out both or neither 1. I used the Name and he the Definition It may be he thought that by City I had meant only such Towns as are so called in England But methinks he should know that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth all such Towns as he defineth and that it is the common definition of Civitas which he giveth us as all Politicks speak de Civitate It is therefore the same subject in the Similitude which we both speak of 2. The difference then must be between the words Kingdom and World I say A Church is such a part of the Universal as a City is of a Kingdom He saith no but as a City is of the World What a dangerous Error hath he detected But All the World is God's Kingdom And as it hath but one King so I thought I might liken it to a Kingdom that hath one King but a multitude of Corporations without stretching the Similitude to intend that This Kingdom is not a part of the World § 2. My second Error is He that will be a Member of a particular Church must
set a faithful Minister in the Parish he becomes as to Office and Right a Pastor a Guide a Minister and Teacher to their Souls If they receive him not they are Rebels and Traytors against Christ and are no longer Christian People save as an Adulterous Wife c. Ans. Alas where can we say a Man will stop when he is once tumbling down the Hill 1. Why did you think your bare word should serve for this That it is Jesus Christ that made this the Office of the Magistrate 2. Is it all Magistrates or some only that have this Power and Jesus Christ chooseth us Pastors by If but some what the better are we for your Discourse if you tell us not how to know them And 3. Will you not then put the People upon a harder and more perilous Task to judge of all Magistrates fitness for this Trust than it would be to judge of their Pastor 4. If it be all then Heathens and Turks must choose Christians their Pastors If you say It is all Christian Magistrates then the Protestants in France are Rebels and not Christians for refusing Papists Priests If it be not Papists who are they Must all receive Lutherans or Socinians or Anabaptists or such like Pastors that live under Imposing Princes of those minds 5. Why do you limit it to faithful Ministers who must judge of their Faithfulness and Qualifications If the Magistrate Papists Socinians Prophane Magistrates or Heretical will judge as they are If the People we are wheeled about to that which is resisted And then When is it that they must judge before they receive him or after If before then must they have trial of him or take all for Faithful that are ordained by a Bishop or that Being Strangers they know no harm by him or all the Patrons present If so we come to the forementioned Misery If they must receive them first and try them after and depart from them when they shew themselves unfaithful then the People must either depose their Pastors or separate And most that separate from the Parish Churches do it as thinking the Ministers unfaithful And is this your Cure of Church-divisions And if never Preaching be a proof of the Unqualified the Canon forbids us to go from such And in some Countrys there are none within reach to go to from them And if there be the Canon suspendeth them if they receive one to their Communion that goeth from a Non-preaching Minister 6. Did any one Church on Earth receive a Pastor by the Magistrates imposition for the first 300 Years Or had not the Churches then rightly called Pastors 7. Did not the Orthodox Churches commonly refuse Bishops which Valens and such Erroneous Emperors set over them 8. Were not Parish Ministers chosen by the Bishops and People and not by Magistrates for 1400 Years in all known Churches in the World It was but the Patriarchs at first that were imposed on the People by the Emperors and afterwards when the Henrys contended with the Pope it was not for choice of Priests but for the Investiture of Bishops and Abhots only and in this they left the choice to the People and Clergie and pleaded but for Investiture per baculum annulum so that for ought I know Magistrates never imposed Priests on Parish Churches till the Reformation And since then besides Helvetia and Belgia it is but few that do it And even in England it is not done by Magistracy but by Patrons presenting and Diocesan Prelates Instituting So that if this be Christ's Way of making Pastors to particular Churches there were no true Pastors or Churches for 300 Years and perhaps none or next none for 1400 Years in Parishes And if this Doctrine be true the Catholick Christians in many Princes Reigns that rejected imposed Bishops if that were as bad as rejecting Parish Priests were Rebels and Traytors against Christ and no Christians And whether he so Stigmatize not the Universal Church for want of such Reception of Priests in almost all Ages I wish him to consider And whether that be like to be a better way of Concord which he and few such in the end of the World devise to the condemning of the Churches of all the former Ages that never had any such Concord 9. Hereby also he leaveth the Tolerated Churches in France Germany and all the Greek Churches and Copties and Syrians c. that are under adverse Princes to be without Pastors sent in the way of Christ's Appointment And yet vouchsafeth not to name one Text where Christ ever Appointed it 10. And when he maketh all in a Parish to be the Pastors Flock or Charge that are Christians he condemneth those Canons that ordained that if Any Bishop convert not the Hereticks in his City they shall be his Flock who doth convert them and all that have had two Churches in one Parish Or else he maketh Parish Priests to be Pluralists and if there be many Chappels and Churches in his Parish he is the Pastor to them all And yet he never tells us whether the Chappel Priest be also Pastor of the rest of the Parish And if so whether each be to Govern distinctly or one subordinately as Governed by the other Or whether both must agree each being but part of the Governing power 11. The same Man saith That multitudes of Parishioners are Rebels Traytors and no Christians c. and yet that we must give them all the Sacrament if demanded For multitudes demand the Sacrament to satisfie Law and Custom who declare that they take not the Priest for their Pastor nor as Authorized by Christ and multitudes that know not what Christianity or a Sacrament is and will not speak with the Minister about it 12. Did not he say before that the Man cannot be their Pastor without his own and the Peoples consent And yet the Magistrate may make me a Pastor to the Parish What Whether I will or not Am I also a Rebel Traytor and no Christian if I refuse What if the Parish have 60000 or 40000 Souls and I am not able to do a Pastor's Office for 500 What if I think it is a Sin to be obtruded on dissenting unwilling People And if my Dissent do not Unchristen me why doth the People's Unchristen them The Lord pity us we need no Enemies but our selves to seduce us and destroy nor any to make the most odious Schisms than the decryers of Schism What Schismatick doth condemn so many Christians and Churches as this Censure I can scarce except Mr. Dodwel whom in his last Book he called an odd disowned Man § 13. He tells us after of the Pastor's Duty to teach Publickly and from House to House And yet it 's no Church but when Assembled and he hath equal charge of all Christians though Papists in the Parish § 14. He saith No thing cuts off from a Church particular but what cuts off from Christ Christianity and the Church Universal Ans. 1. What if