many lawful things into unlawful 3. But are we the grea◠admirers of Antiquity and yet must we have Oaths even publick Oaths in the Church it self and Matters so necessary as that Ministers must be sworn to them which the Church never knew for 800 years Well! plead for Antiquity when it serves your turn and when it makes against you cry it down 4. If you will among many others that have written how the Pope got Princes under his feet by imposing Oaths upon the Clergy read but what Bishop Carlton saith of Jurisdiction Chap. 7. and you will see one Reason why we are loth to swear to the Church Government as totally unalterable and that before the States § 44. About Lay-Chancellors exercising the Spiritual Power of the Keys and our swearing never to endeavour any alteration of it you say Me thinks a Person of your ingenuity should rest satisfied with that modest Declaration of our Rubrick concerning the Censures of the Church in the Preface to the Communion Answ Is there one Syllable in that Preface for justifying Lay-Chancellors use of the Keys What need is there of Ingenuity to swallow an Oath upon such satisfaction as this But you add Do they do this of themselves as Lay-men or do they not You see it is easie to push with the Horns and to evince that you are either ignorant or absurd But I shall only remember you that Lay-Chancellors excommunicate not as Lay-men but by vertue of those Surrogates who are Delegates for this purpose originally by the Bishop himself This abstraction is not too hard for you to conceive Answ We have feaverish and skittish Brains indeed if all this Oyl will not get down Oaths But come Sir Horns against Horns is an ordinary way of combating These Lay-Chancellors either are Clergy-men or they are not If they are not as they are not then they that excommunicate not as Lay-men do it as Clergy-men or not if not as Lay-men nor as Clergy-men as what then If as Clergy-men then they that are no Clergy-men may excommunicate as Clergy-men or not If not all the Fat is in the Fire still If yea then either they may act as in a Person which they have not or not If not yet we cannot swear If yea then you are push'd up to a Stone Wall and must deny two Principles 1. That operari sequitur esse 2. That a negatione est secundi adjecti ad negationem est tertii adjecti valet argumentum Qui non est Clericus non operatur qua Clericus 3. To which I may add a Moral Principle Non est mentiendum But I have heard before now of Preaching and other officiating per se aut per alium But let us horn it with you a little further Either the exercise of the Keys by excommunication is an Act proper to the Sacred Pastoral Office or it is not If it be not then Preaching Praying Sacraments or some other Actions are proper to it or not If none be proper to it we are at the Wall of a Contradiction for then it is no Sacred Office but if something be proper to it that something is more Sacred than the Power of Excommunication or not If not then we are again at the Wall of a Contradiction If they be equally Sacred they are equally proper to the Sacred Pastoral Office If yea then Argumentum valet ab opere ad Officium the Office of a Bishop as such is less Sacred than the Office of a Presbyter And either it is one half a Bishops Work that may be done by a Lay-man or all If all Ordination and Jurisdiction or Censure then a Lay-man may be a Bishop and a Bishop a Lay-man and so Episcopacy no Sacred Office If half 1. Either that half is included in the Keys of the Kingdom given to Pastors or not If not then we are at a Wall for 1. It will prove no part of their Office or Power as Bishops or Pastors 2. The word Keys will never be intelligible if it include not the Power of Binding and Loosing but if that half be included in the Power of the Keys then either Christ when he committed the Keys to the Clergy did distinguish in that one word and make one Act of the Keys proper to the Clergy and not another or he did not distinguish but make the said Keys wholly proper to them If the former what is the proof where is the distinction found there is none in the Words If the latter then habetur quaesitum Excommunication is not to be done by a Lay-man or else he made all the Keys communicable to the Laity and then Baptism which is the first Exercise of them Politically is communicable and then there is no Sacred Office Again a Bishop can excommunicate by a Presbyter as well as by a Lay-man or not If not we are at a Wall If yea then a Presbyter may do the Work of a Bishop if a Bishop please and if so then he may ordain also if a Bishop please for why may not one Key be exercised per alium as well as another and if a Bishop please Presbyters Ordination is valid Moreover either the Bishop may commit this Power to a Lay-Chancellor only pro hac vice or statedly as an Office If the first farewell Chancellors who have an Office of it If the latter then either to make a Man a Chancellor is to make him a Bishop or not If yea then speak out and call him not a Lay-man but let him be ordained and consecrated if not we are at a Wall again and we must deny a Principle viz. That they are the same things that have the same true definitions For do but suppose the other half the Prelatical Work Ordination also to be done per alium in a stated way of Office and he that doth it will have the same definition that is one in stated Office authorized to ordain and exercise the Keys of Jurisdiction or Absolution and Excommunication For the Office is nothing else but Authority and Obligation to do the proper Acts. In a word Circumstantials circa Sacra or Accidentals may be done per alium as to call the People to Church c. Acts proper to the Sacred Office of Bishop or Presbyter may not Otherwise 1. Ordination or Consecration cannot be proved to be an entering into a Sacred Office because it tyeth us but to that which another may be tyed to without it 2. or the Office which may be exercised per alium by a Lay-man is not Sacred and Episcopacy may be translated into the Hands of the Laity or rather is a Lay-Office already But what mean you by saying That they excommunicate by vertue of those Surrogates c. Do you mean that Surrogates give the Chancellor his Power I knew not so much before nor believe it now or doth the Chancellor represent the Surrogate and do it in his name I am content to be still so ignorant and absurd
Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons is as lawful at least as one Bishop only to a thousand or 500 Churches And I believe that it is in the Power of the King and Parliament to reduce our Episcopacy to that ancient Form And if they do it I will not swear to disobey them if they command my Service under them I was once commissioned among others under the Broad Seal to endeavour such an alteration of the Liturgy c. And before what was done about Episcopacy the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs sheweth and I will not swear to disobey the King if he command me the like again nor I will not swear universally and mean particularly till the Law-givers so expound themselves 8. I know by what Oaths the Roman Clergy got their Supremacy and mastered Kings and Emperors 9. I know that till Roman Tyranny invaded the Church the Clergy was not put to swear to the Bishops 10. I love but one King in a Kingdom nor any thing that is injurious to him and I am willing to swear Allegiance to my lawful King as I have done and to take his Office as a Constitutive part of the Kingdom But not to twist any other with him by Oaths into the Constitution nor any thing that looks like it especially not to swear to the Church-Governours before the Kings State-Government And now what is the connexion of your Premises and Conclusion The King is the Center of our Happiness c. ergo none that are Natives and Christians and expect protection should once demur whether he may swear to Diocesanes and Lay-Chancellors yea not to endeavour any alteration of their Government by Petition or if the King command them ergo they that doubt of this have even shaken off the Yoke of Subjection ergo they all deserve not only to be forbidden preaching Christ but to be hanged as all do no doubt that have shak'd off the Yoke of Subjection ergo not only the Non-conformists but the Conformists that swear doubtingly should be all hanged Thus differ the Priest and the Levite that pass by the bleeding Church from us wretched Samaritanes Turba gravis paci placidaeque c. As to the Popish malicious Slanders long since by them vented against Geneva c. Beza the Scottish and English Encouragers of Bothwell which you intimate on the by the first are long ago refuted by King James Bishop Jewel Bishop Bilson c. And lately by Dr. Pet. Moulin Junior in his Answer to Philanax Anglicus where he will let you know that Geneva Holland c. shook off their Governours while they were Papists before they turned Protestants And of the later learn more truth from Buchanans History of the Queen of Scots and of Bothwells Murder of the King I am weary of following your Treatise so far I will add but a little more as to your Letters In the first Letter these words astonish me I hope there is not so much Gall and Acrimony in the whole Book Wonderful that any Man should so little perceive what he saith and doth and be so blinded by Self-love as to think he speaketh Oyl and Sugar when he speaketh Fire and Swords You say you find me not so peremptory as to hold Conformity simply and absolutely sinful I pray you could you judge so hardly of me as to think that I left my Ministerial Labours to which I was vowed to escape but that which I account no sin You say Some of my own Books have not an Imprimatur why would you say so before you knew it I know of none of them that want it that were then printed since the Law required it though the Imprimatur be not printed in them But since you have so urged me to print without License I cannot say that the last Book the Defence of my Cure is licensed nor that it is not but if it come without you have taught it the way You so far credit your Neighbour Lee's Report as to give me the advice for restitution of his Horses Charity is not so easie of belief Why did he never make such a demand of me while I lived there in sixteen years space This is like Dr. Boremans printing that it is said I killed a Man in cold Blood with my own Hand but if that be not true I am not the first that have been slandered Very true Whereas I know not that ever I struck one Man in anger except Boys at School in my life nor did I ever kill or wound any Man in War or Peace Nor did I ever take any Mans Horses with my own Hand nor was I ever to my knowledge in Northfield or Kings-norton Parish nor ever with any that were employed about taking up Horses in the War to my knowledge but once which was when the Kings Soldiers had taken up about a thousand in Warwick-shire and 500 in Northamptonshire the Earl of Essex gave a Commission to Colonel Mitton and others to take up some three hundred in the Kings Quarters in Worcester-shire And about twenty Men went three or four times about it of which times I went once with them to see that they committed no abuse by taking from such as they were not warranted to do and they brought away about twenty or less and some were restored and I touch'd not one of them nor was their Guide and I never heard that they that went the two other times which was towards Northfield where and when I had nothing to do with them nor knew what they did took about thirty more which I heard were many of them restored and if your Neighbour had come to me and given me any probability that he had lost by me injuriously it 's like I had repayed it but his slander obligeth me not to restitution I will say no more about your Rule with relation to all that were present on either side when any were wronged in that War Your acquaintance with the Huxters that so readily print and sell unlicensed Books is no direction to me that know them not A few Sheets many will venture on but I know not them that will venture on a large Book lest they be undone by the surprizing of it In your Letter you could find a Categorical Affirmation that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Verb whereas you may see in the Errata of another Book then at the Press because that Book had no Errata prinâ—ed that Verb was misprinted for Wordâ— And if I know not a Verb from a Participle yet that little concerneth our Case in hand And though my own opinion be that the Parts of Speech should be reduced to three c. I will not trouble you with my Gramatical ignorance any further than to tell you that I am contented that you take liberty to judge it as great as you please but that Man should be more temperate in censuring the Errors of the Press Scribe and Author who citeth Dr. Manton then in Prison upon Jude
about Discipline Put out your other Clauses and let us have no more Oaths of Allegiance or Fidelity to Diocesanes or Lay-Chancellors put upon us than were imposed on Christs Churches for 600 or 800 years and then try who will refuse to swear a Renunciation of War against the King 7. But I admire how you came to such an obdurateness as to talk of nauseating that way of Discipline which startles at renouncing War against the King Is it Episcopal Discipline that you mean If not what way of Discipline is it that startles at it unless you mean Military Discipline Read over the Confessions of the French Belgick and all other Presbyterian Churches and see whether there be any thing in their Discipline that startles at it What if it had been the Presbyterians and not the Episcopal that in England raised the War Doth it follow that their way of Discipline was for it Name us that Form of Discipline and tell us where to find it which you mean that is guilty of what you charge on it Doth he that saith Every Church should have a Bishop and not only a thousand or 600 in a Diocess hereby say we may not renounce War against the King Do not so wrong God as to think him so unjust as always to suffer such as you thus to abuse the Innocent 8. And you that talk so malepertly of the Savoy Papers it 's like know that it was not Presbytery nor any other than Arch-Bishop Usher's Form of Episcopacy in terminis in his own printed Paper which we offered the King and Bishops as the Medium of our Concord in 1660. And when that would not be received see in the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs whether it was not the down-right Prelacy that was submitted to with only the additions of some Pastoral Power in a Rural Deanery And I never heard Presbytery pleaded for by Word or saw it by Writing in all that Treaty but only Vshers Episcopacy Why then do you talk of the Discipline of the Chorus unless you mean the Episcopal Discipline And do you not know that write about the Cause that the War was not founded in Theological Differences but in Law Differences and that it was Statesmen and Lawyers that made the difference by their Political and Law-Controversies Not but that Divines on both sides were too guilty if not the forwardest But my dull Brains could never find out any one Point of difference in Theology about the Power of Kings and the Duty of Obedience in the People between the Divines called Presbyterians and Episcopal If you know any name them me and tell me your Proof I know that they medled too much with the Political and Law-Controversies of Lawyers and States-men for there lay the difference as I did my self in my Pol. Aphor. of which I unfeignedly repent though I thought then that Oceana forced me to do it 10. It 's not probable that so Learned a Man is ignorant what Bishop Jewel Bishop Bilson Bishop Andrews in Tortura Torti and many more such have said to prove that Calvin and the Presbyterians and the English Puritans differ not in these things from the Theology of the Church of England taking the same Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance c. And how come you to be wiser than they and to prove the Discipline Interest in the disagreement And when you have taught the Papists to say that Andrews c. spake falsly how will you prove it I know that there were many Sectaries and some individual Persons of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Judgment that erred in Law and Politicks and perhaps in Theologicals too But what 's that to a difference between the Parties in their Religious Principles 11. For can you be ignorant that it is the grand Champions for Prelacy that have written for the Principles of the Long Parliament by which they pleaded for their War Do you not know to pass by Bishop Jewel what Bishop Bilson of Subjection hath said and what Rich. Hooker in his Eccles Pol. L. 1. 8. hath said higher than those Parliament Soldiers that I was most acquainted with I have now written a Book Licensed which containeth a Defence of Monarchy against R. Hookers Popular Errors Why then do you not call the Episcopal Party to repentance or why do you insinuate such suspitions into Mens Minds that the Discipline is it that startles at renouncing War against the King You know I suppose what Grotius de Jure Belli also hath said in his Enumeration out of Barclay of Cases in which it is lawful to take Arms against Kings Even that Grotius who was the Master of the late Game and boasteth of the approbation of the English Prelates Was Arch-bishop Abbot a Presbyterian who saith he was suspended for refusing to License Dr. Sybthorpes Book see his Narrative in Rushworth Did he and all the Clergy and Parliaments that went his way forsake the Church of England Who then were the Church Yet you can add P. 125. And since the Lines of our Peace and Happiness as to Church and State do meet and concenter in him as our common Father is it unreasonable for Subjects to swear they will not endeavour the alteration of Government in the Church and State who would think that any Natives of a Land professing themselves the Followers of Christ and expecting protection from a lawful Prince should once demur whether they should make this Declaration or take this Oath O easie happy Swearer Qui deliberant desciverunt Such as doubt of this have even shak'd off the Yoke of Subjection unhappy Doubters 1. Here They will not endeavour the alteration of Government is put in stead of will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government 2. In Church and State is put instead of in Church or State 3. Not one Man of my acquaintance of them you question refuseth to swear that he will never endeavour any alteration of the Church Government as it is in the King according to the Oath of Supremacy 4. They that offered Bishop Vshers Form of Episcopacy are not for altering Episcopacy as such 5. The Oath of the Canons 1640. put we will not consent in stead of endeavour And a Parliament condemned that Oath and no Parliament since thought meet to justifie or restore it 6. We know that Lay-Chancellors exercise the Power of the Keys by decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions And we believe that exercising the Power of the Keys so is Church-Government And we are all agreed that yet no reforming alteration is to be attempted by Sedition Rebellion or unlawful means but only by Subjects petitioning Parliament-mens speaking c. And if you think to come to Heaven by swearing that we may not petition against Lay-Chancellors use of the Keys cannot you go quietly your own way and let others alone that trust not to such means 7. We believe that Ignatius his Episcopacy every Churches unity being known by one Altar and one
of those that are Modern and English And yet had you no acquaintance with these You say and you ingeminate it That there is not any Non-Conformist but is ready to swear he holds it not lawful to take up Arms against the King Why did so many of them then flit their Habitations five Miles from any Corporation or their own ancient Homes What was the Sum of that Oath was it not plainly and directly against taking up Arms Did it any way hinder Parliament Mens speaking or others peaceable petitioning for such Reformation as is necessary were not those who were commissione'd to administer it ready to declare the sense of it yet down it would not go with many latet aliquid But I find it is with many of you as I have found it experimentally with some who have been troubled in Conscience When I have apply'd the best Balm I could to these tender Souls so that they had nothing to say against their own Peace yet still they would be starting some black doubts against themselves turning their very Shadows into Gorgons that so they might continue in the Valley of Baca. Just so will you find knots in Bulrushes Mysteries in Cabbalistical Titles and Anexes spin Webs to intangle your selves out of your own Imaginations and with Thrushes pinion your own Wings that so you may scrupulously vex your selves You say well in your Book of Conscience That Melancholy is often mistaken for Conscience So I fear this shieness and skittishness of these Men is rather the result of an hot and feavourish Brain than any well-weighed conclusion of a sound Heart But put out the other Clauses out of the Oath let us have no more Oaths of Allegiance to Diocesans or Lay-Chancellors put upon us than Christs Churches had for six or eight hundred years imposed upon them Why do you lay this Injunction upon me and others in my Sphere Are we the King and Parliament Have private Men a Legislative Power Can they reverse and retrench Laws It is very plausible in you to bring all things to the Institutions of Christ and in things doctrinal 't is also necessary But as to what concerns all the Modes of External Policy and Administrations it is not only difficult but impossible Nay I think he may be impleaded of Schism and Singularity that stands up too stifly for the immediate Dispensations especially where they are so uncertain in opposition to the Instrumental teachings and directions of Men. You may find my Ground 1 Cor. 1. 12. It seems you are much troubled at Lay-Chancellors as if they hindered your Conformity by exercising the Power of the Keys in decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions Me thinks a Person of your ingenuity should rest satisfied with that modest declaration of our Rubrick concerning the Censures of the Church in the Preface to the Communion But since you say That Lay-Chancellors exercise the Power of the Keys in Excommunications do they do this of themselves as Lay-men or do they not You see 't is easie to push with your Horns and to evince that you are either ignorant or absurd But I shall only remember you what you cannot but know already That Lay-Chancellors though commonly very knowing in the Civil Law which is an excellent Hand-maid to Divinity yet they excommunicate not as Lay-men but by vertue of those Surrogates who are delegated for this purpose originally by the Bishop himself This Abstraction is not too hard for you to conceive But why are you so incens'd against Lay-Chancellors I 'le warrant you have more kindness for Lay-Elders if they were joyn'd with you in things Sacred as Catechising admission to the Sacrament and the Censures of the Church But as Luther distinguishes of little and great Devils so I think this of Lay-Chancellors is but a Gnat in your way The Camel or Belzebub is Diocesan Bishops The Episcopacy of Bishop Usher you are for and the Episcopacy of Ignatius you say is lawful I am glad you grant this for one of your Brethren maintained to my Face That there is no difference betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter in Ignatius But you are kinder to Bishops for where there is one I suppose you wish there were many hundreds And if this were allowable we that are minorum gentium as to our own Interest have no cause to oppose it For then it may be you and I might in some time of our Ages commence Bishops But me thinks we should now agree especially if you would call to mind that Maxim in Logick Magis minus non variant speciem If Bishop Vsher were now alive he would give you but small thanks for pressing his Model of Episcopacy if his now the King and Laws are restor'd which he only calculated as that which could be born by the iniquity of the latter times Sequestered Ministers who would gladly then have received a fifth part out of their Revenue would be loth now to be bound up to the same terms The Counsel Bishop Vsher gave to the late King Rather to part with his Life than Episcopacy And his Notes upon Ignatius concerning the division of Asia confuting Dr. Meric Causabon affirming that Episcopacy crept into the Church in the second Century do sufficiently discover his Judgment If Thieves should strip me of all my Cloths I I will rather accept from them my old Coat than go naked yet if the time come that honest Men may come to their Goods I would have all again to a very Shoo-string Let us not take up the old trick and method of the Papists they have given out that some famous Men who liv'd Protestants dyed Papists So let not us extract Presbyterian Government out of the dead Trunks of Episcopal Cedars Calvin seems to excuse his New Government at Geneva Habemus qualecunque Presbyterorum Judicium formam qualem ferebat temporum infirmitas What is there any Sorcery or Necromancy in the word Diocesan As Tertullian once jested De nomine Chameleontis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a modest word in Greek and is it become Babylonish by being rendred into English Beza was more propitious than you are to the Diocesan Bishops of England Fruatur says he ista singulari Dei beneficio quae utinam sit illi perpetua But you think they have too many Parishes under their Inspection and Jurisdiction This is but obliquely to reflect upon former Kings and Statesmen who have allowed such large Provinces Some of them have been much canton'd in latter Ages if we look into our own Stories What think you of Crete 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephesus Rome were there not many Parishes in these And I cannot think but as Jerusalem had her Daughters the Cities and Towns adjacent So many Regiones suburbicariae did belong to the Bishops of those great Cities ergo they had their Chorepiscopi to assist them Tell me true were there not Bishops before there wery any Parishes If so Christ never ordained they should be Parochial Do
not you know that the Bishop of Alexandria had all Aegypt Lybia and Pentapolis under him And that Thebais and Mareotis were afterward added to his Diocess But you will be guided you say by Cyprian and Ignatius Well! Agreed yet these were Diocesans Cyprians Diocess was Africa over great part of which his Power did extend Ignatius was Bishop of Syria Coelosyria and Mesopotamia If you doubt of this I can shew my Authority But why should we swear Allegiance to Bishops Till the Roman Tyranny invaded the Church the Clergy was not to swear to the Bishops This is to twist them into the Constitution of the Kingdom say you Is it unlawful to promise or swear to be obedient to Bishops in rebus licitis honestis Yet this is the sum of our Canonical Obedience By your leave Sir de facto Presbyters have been obedient to their Bishops under the Penalty of an Anathema and Excommunication long before the Roman Tyranny invaded the Church I could tell you of the Apostles Canons and Decrees of Councils for this But since you have such a kindness for Ignatius see his Epistle to the Ephesians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And to the Magnesians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in his Epistle to the Philadelphians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is not this Canononical Obedience But this intrenches upon the King and twists Bishops into the Constitutive part of the Kingdom I am glad you are so tender of the Kings Honour and Power Mr. Cartwright wrangled himself at last into Conformity And if you have arriv'd to a just Latitude of Allegiance in giving unto Caesar the things that are Caesars I think you have shot the Gulph and may at last per tot discrimina rerum tendere in Latium I will secure you that what we swear to Bishops does not twist them with a Coordinate Power with the King no more than when I sworesidelity to the University at my Matriculation When a Soldier takes a Sacrament to be true to his General and Tradesmen do the like to their several Corporations I say no more do we set up an Aemulous confronting Power with the King in subscribing to Bishops which he does not only allow but authorize than I made the University or they their Generals or Corporations to have divisum cum Jove Imperium When I quote your words We must not communicate with a Parish Minister who concurreth with the Bishops you say I should have added In consenting to our silencing Indeed I thought those words needless and superfluous For what Parish Ministers had any hand in your silence If as being Subjects virtually in the Parliament so you were accessary your self If as approving and rejoycing at your silence you will find this very diffcult in any good Parish Ministers especially since we cry aloud for your Ministerial Assistance You tell me You can as soon drive the People through a Stone Wall as bring them to Communion in our way You bid me do it my self if I can Sir Had they not been distracted distorted and poisoned by other Tutors much might have been done perhaps we might have taken such stragling Sheep upon our Shoulders and have brought them to their proper Folds But since they have been taught like Wolves not to value the Scepter I have small hopes to prevail with my Shepherds Crook If they will not now hear your Voice and be obsequious to your Whistle they will like Corah's Company tell me to my Face They will not come up or like Mastiff Dogs will worry me to pieces Those that are lately perverted any way are most heady and sierce The Revolters are profound to make slaughter Hos 5. 2. And after the Scribes and Pharisees had compass'd pass'd Sea and Land to make one Proselyte when he was made he was two-fold more the Child of Hell than themselves Mat. 23. 15. Now Sir Since you do both in print and in your Letters so scorn at my absurdity in desiring your Reasons for Nonconformity whereas it would hazard your safety if you should do it without a License which is not to be expected If you have such strong Arguments in store which may prove Conformity to be simply and absolutely sinful An avowed and deliberate sin what think you of transmitting them to me I will do my best to Midwife them into the Light without any commerce with the Huxters you reproach me with Indeed I did send an Epistola veridica to the Tryars in the Usurper's days without an Imprimatur You end as it were glorying That you have not given me a lenifying Answer or spoken me fair You might have said If you are so naturally addicted as you say to speak plain truth That taking your Rod into your Hand you have slash'd the Malepert Levite Well! I will get some good by you whether you will or no I will think more humbly and meanly of my self than you can speak And though you say I am so blinded with self-love that I neither know what I say or do yet I will not pay you in your own Coin but pray for you as I do for my self That wherein you or I erre that God would even reveal this unto us and reduce us into the Way of Truth If your habit of severity and keen edge of fastuous contempt may be abated and you may be happily mollified into more kindness If you shall then vouchsafe to write to me in a more favourable smooth and obliging Strain you shall not overcome though you conquer me In the mean time you may call me a Levite but I will take the boldness to subscribe my self Your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jo. Hinckley Northfield May 23. A LETTER Written to Mr. Baxter After his BOOK of Church Divisions came forth SIR I Perceive that my Answer to your Letter was not satisfactory since I find in your late Book not only oblique Reflections but direct and down-right Expressions wherein without any Ambages you articulately signifie your discontent both with me and my Book Who would have thought that a word or two of advice and seasonable counsel should have merited such harsh and Passionate Censures or should not escape branding with the black Theta of a Challenge Ambuscade and an intimation of Defamation and Blood Herein me thinks considering the Premises you shew as great a defect of Logick as of Charity To what purpose is your Tragical out-cry of provoking you to gape against an Oven and making your Name a Stepping-stone to those Ends I aspire after Alas what advantage will it be to me to see you in the flames or your Name sullied That 's barbarous and this ambitious I am in the Zenith of my preferment whilst I am a constant Preacher of the Gospel How are you sure that I am not able to endure the light of the Truth If the Organs of my Eyes are indisposed at present I will borrow some Spectacles or procure some Eye-salve to clear them before you can prove those things
to be truth which you call so When I see Scripture and reason for them let me be accounted stabborn or stupid if I either shut my Eyes or cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hold them steddy enough to discern them in their genuine Colours Before this be done you cannot be assured that you are a true Prophet in judging and condemning me afore-hand Are you Secretary to him who at one glance sees them who have Eyes and see not or else see but perceive not You know who it was that boasted that his Eyes were open Numb 24. 3. I wish you knew me better and then you might have abated these severities How can you hope to heal our Divisions and to wooe our English World into mutual love when your own Gall runs over with such large Effluviums and your thoughts are so over-weening as if you did comprehend all Knowledge Truth and Light and we poor Wretches were groping in Cimmerian darkness or grovelling in some narrow Ditch But if you will not hold up your Taper and help us forth reserving your Antidote against our sin and error in your own Breast take heed you meet not with the same doom as he in Cardan who knew how to cure the Stone and dyed without revealing it It is well that you are pleas'd to prolong your Answer until I procure you a License for so you may spare your own trouble usque ad Cal. Graec. For who would unmuzzle a fierce Panther that would worry him that sets his Chops at liberty Although another Man would tell you Herein you deal like the Papists who tell us they can prove us all Hereticks if they might have liberty to dispute and write without the hazard of the Law Yet when it pleases them they take liberty more than enough Sir if ever you comply with my sober Request you need not direct it to me but to the Common-wealth of the English Clergy As for those four Lines 2. Part. Pag. 8. spend your second thoughts upon them and see whether you can make sense of them There you serve in again the same Dish of Coleworts but you leave out the Author and name the Book yet in your Grammar the Book is a Person This is no Solacism with you who can make one Disparatum to predicate of another for in the same Part Pag. 92. you categorically affirm that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a Verb. These are but trifles yet if a Man be put to sencing he will take all advantages As for the bulk and scope of your Book concerning healing Church Divisions Cum sis mortalis c. The Scene is laid in Heaven and the design is Generous Noble and Christian It is great pity that you should Ausis excidere tam magnis Yet consider whether the aim and level be both right If you would have us joyn together with one Heart and Shoulder in the Worship of God as now constituted which you allow P. 38. me thinks you should not I will use as much softness as I can have spoken so sleightly of Conformity As if you should conform it would neither be a little or single sin Pag. 26. This must needs weaken our Hands prejudice our Ministry and make the People cold in joyning with us Will those words of Mr. Dod hold weight in the Ballance of the Sanctuary who thanked God for the Churches sake that some Men conform'd and for the Truth sake that some conform'd not Can that be for the advantage of the Church which is not according to the Truth Does God stand in need of our Lies should we speak wickedly for God or talk deceitfully for him Job 13. 7. 2. Though in some places you speak honourably of our Liturgy Pag. 38. 59. 88. yet you dash all again by complaining of its imperfect mode and fashion of words Pag. 59. And that you joyn with us meerly by force for want of a better for were you in New-England you would not joyn with our Prayers 2. Part P. 176. Is this your Balm of Gilead for our Wounds Are you like to prove a good Samaritan to our bleeding Church What lowring and longing must there be after another mode of Worship if ours be so imperfect and that of other Churches so far beyond it You do well Go on that you joyn with the Prayers of the Liturgy and in the Celebration of the Sacrament P. 34. 40. yet you will not touch either as to an active Administration of them with the least of your Fingers And herein you resemble the present Jews who hire Christian Servants to kindle their Fires and to dress their Meat on the Sabbath-day They care not what is done so they do it not themselves 3. Was it a right course to cement us and cure our Divisions by alienating the Minds of Men from their Governours and that Government which is established by Law amongst us As if it were not lawful by your Doctrine to own Diocesan Bishops and to hold Communion with a Diocesan Church P. 75. Nay we must not communicate with a Parish Minister who concurreth with the Bishops P. 77 The Government is such as God will not accept Part 2. P. 3. And to take off the Stomachs of Subjects the more from their present Governours you have found out a Forreign Government for them though not in Rome yet in Bohemia Pag. 46. which in your Judgment does far surpass ours Sir I thought it had been far better for you and I to obey old Establishments than to invent or prescribe new ones If we set the People a gadding after Innovations we neither perform our own Duties nor go the right way to cure the Peoples Divisions Now Sir I have given you these Strictures not out of any desire to reciprocate the same with you any farther than a private Letter but only to prepare you for what you may expect from your Antagonist and to shew you how dangerous it is to recede from the good old Paths and allowed Principles and to bewilder our selves and others with new and rash contrivances of our own Heads As for any thing which upon just and proper Grounds shall have a tendency to the advancing of Love and Peace I shall always be your Second and your Fidus Achates whilst I am John Hinckley Northfield April 11. In Worcester-shire Mr. BAXTER'S Third Letter SIR THough you foretel me how little good my writing will do you in which I presume not to contradict you yet the vindication of Truth is an end sufficient to invite me to bestow a few more Lines in detecting your unworthy opposition against that Object of the intellectual Nature Truth and Repentance are the things which you vehemently militate against under pretence of skirmishing with my words and that by no better Weapons than a wrangling Wit Rhetorical diversions which you use like one unwilling to understand the truth or to confess an Error or injurious Deed. § 1. You tell me I am a treacherous Watchman if I suffer sin
War I cannot say of a multitude a few only were ingaged for there was then no multitude in England of Nonconformable Ministers Little did I think to have ever been put to dispute such a Cause about open matter of Fact I know not your age but being a Preacher near four years before the Wars I was old enough to know that in all the Counties that I was acquainted in there was not above one poor obscure Nonconformable Minister in a County taking one with another nor I think past one for two Counties Poor old Mr. Barnet in Shrop-shire Mr. Langley in Cheshire none in Worchester-shire Mr. Atkins in Stafford-shire Mr. Angier in Lancashire and how few more in all England and which of these medled with the Wars § 26. And here you say I had thought currente rota while your Hand was in you would have said that the Regicides were Episcopal too c. Sir I now perceive Cateline was a Fool c. Answ And is there any sense or strength in such an Answer Do such words satisfie your Conscience for the falsifying of such notorious matters of Fact Is there any room for a doubt in the Business except to Strangers or those that were unborn or Children Would you make me believe that I saw not what I saw and heard not what I heard You say If Episcopal Men began and carried on the War and Presbyterians were free c. Answ Did I say that they were free or that they joyned not in the Progress How could a non-ens be free or guilty There were very few Presbyterian Ministers then in England the Scots did bring in Presbytery afterward You add § 27. You were too credulous c. were they Episcopal Men that cryed To your Tents O Israel that preached Curse ye Meroz first voted and then fought against the King Answ Is there one Man named here as an Instance to Confute me Is this Evidence fit for such a Contradictor of notoriety it self When you have named me the Men that used those words I will answer you whether they were Episcopal I think Dr. Burges was one of the most accused Preachers being Assessor in the Assembly and Chaplain to the Earl of Essex's own Regiment And he was one that protested for a Salvo for Episcopacy when the Covenant was taken in the Assembly as he hath told me with his own Mouth and wrote to me with his own Hand and none deny And Dr. Downing of Hackney was one of the next Chaplain to the Lord Roberts's Regiment who being Dr. of the Civil Law hath Writings yet visible in print for Prelacy and Conformity Mr. Marshal and Mr. Obadia Sedgwick were two of the next one Chaplain to Essex the other to the Lord Hollis's Regiment both old Conformists Of all the Chaplains of Essex's Army I knew not a Non-conformist and Presbyterian but Mr. Ash and I think I knew them almost all And for the Parliament I said enough before The Members yet living say that Mr. Tate of Northampton-shire was the only Presbyterian then in the House of Commons and I never yet knew one among the Lords § 28. You say If they were they were degenerous from the English Episcopacy they did not keep close to our Church which were my words to our Articles our Canons our Lyturgy our Homilies 1. Answ Your words were also Who can choose but nauseate that way of Discipline c. 2. Speak out then and confess that they were degenerous Episcopal Men and call them to repentance as the Raisers of the War and deceive not Posterity by telling them the contrary 3. But Sir what mean you by your Church which they kept not close to Doth not the Canon Anathematize them that deny the Convocation to be the Representative Church And must not the main Body of the Clergy then be your Church And doth not Dr. Heylin largely shew you that there were but five Bishops joyned at first with Bishop Laud and that Abbot had the rest with him in so much that they durst not commit their Cause to a Convocation And that Arminianism new Ceremonies with Matters of Propriety and Prerogative were the Matters then of the Contention which made Heylin say That he knew not whether the Church could have a greater plague than a Popular Prelate because of Abbots Interest in the Nobility Gentry and People How should one then have known which of the Parties was the Church and who shall be Judge which Party it is that keeps close to the Articles Canons Lyturgy and Homilies Whitgift with Dr. Whitaker thought that the Anti-Arminian Lambeth Articles were the sense of the Church and Articles George Abbot Arch bishop and Robert Abbot Bishop of Salisbury with Davenant Hall c. thought the middle Augustinian way was the true sense of the Articles Lyturgy c. which is the plain truth Bishop Laud with his four Partners Neile Buckeridge Howson and Corbet thought as Heylin saith that the way called Arminian was the true sense of the Articles and Church Overal and Mountague kept with them of the middle way in the main yet were more averse to the Calvinist Prelates than the rest These fall out among themselves The Arminians being few are born down by the rest in Parliaments and Convocations The Duke of Buckingham and as Heylin saith the King favoured the five dissenting Bishops When favour strengtheneth their Party they call themselves the Church accordingly one part of them pleadeth for His Majesties Prerogative c. and the other are for Parliaments and cry up Propriety and Liberty At last the Scotch and Irish Bussles prepare all for a War and these two Episcopal Parties sight one Party cryeth down Arminianism Innovations Altars favour to Papists Ship-money c. the other Party cryeth out against absolute Reprobation Calvinism Puritanism c. the one Party cryeth down the Papists and calleth the Scots Presbyterians to their help the other Party cryeth down the Presbyterians and calleth the Papists to their help Which of these is the Church which keepeth close to the Articles Canons c. for my part I am none of the Judge between them in that Point And I think if you call one side the Church it will be never the more the Church for that unless the King doth make it so but surely they were both Episcopal though one Party after fell in with the Presbyterians and the Presbyterians were conquered or cast out by the Sectaries and the other Party kept with the King § 29. You say Would Episcopal Men conspire to root out Episcopacy Answ At first they conspired but to restrain and regulate those that they thought Innovators and Arminians c. I speak only of Church Matters but after they were too weak to defend themselves without the Scots and Sectaries and were content to take down Episcopacy to please their Helpers rather than to be overcome themselves § 30. Whether Williams or Laud was the better Arch-bishop or whether they did well that
The Kings Grant of any favour made contrary to Law is void Rex nihil potest nisi quid jure potest And Pag. 210. When all which the Wisdom of all sorts can do is done for the devising Laws in the Church it is the general consent of all that giveth them the Form and Vigour of Laws without which they could be no more to us than the Counsels of Physitians to the Sick well might they seem as wholesom admonitions and instructions but Laws could they never be without the consent of the whole Church to be guided by them Whereunto both Nature and the Practise of the Church of God set down in Scripture is found every way so fully consonant that God himself would not impose no not his own Laws upon his People by the Hand of Moses without their free and open consent O fearful Passage And P. 220. It is a thing even undoubtedly natural that all free and independent Societies should themselves make their own Laws and that this Power should belong to the whole not to any certain part of a Politick Body And P. 221. For of this thing no Man doubteth namely that in all Societies Companies Corporations what severally each shall be bound unto it must be with all their assents ratified Against all equity it were that a Man should suffer detriment at the Hands of Men for not observing that which he never did either by himself or by others mediately or immediately agree to And P. 205. If Magistrates be Heads of Church they are of necessity Christians as if no Magistrates but Christians were Chief Governours of the Church which is meant by Heads And P. 218 223 224. What Power the King hath he hath it by Law The Bounds and Limits of it are known The entire community giveth order c. P. 223. As for them that exercise Power altogether against Order although the kind of Power which they have may be of God yet is their exercise thereof against God and therefore not God otherwise than by permission as all injustice is P. 224. Usurpers of Power whereby we do not mean them that by violence have aspired unto Places of highest Authority but that use more Authority than ever they did receive in form and manner afore-mentioned such Usurpers thereof as in the exercise of their Power do more than they have been authorized to do cannot in Conscience bind any Man to obedience ☜ And Pag. 194. May a Body-politick then at all times withdraw in whole or in part the Influence of Dominion which passeth from it if inconveniences do grow thereby It must be presumed that Supream Governours will not in such case oppose themselves and be stiff in detaining that the use whereof is with publick detriment c. Sir I do not by reciting it dissent from every word that I cite but I am against Mr. Hookers Popular Fundamentals themselves and desire you to let me know whether these be the Prelates Principles which you defend And for an Exposition of Mr. Hooker remember that Sir Edwin Sandys was his Pupil and chief Bosom-friend But you say you have read his Book over and over and therefore it is not from ignorance of what he wrote that you become a defender of him I suppose you are not ignorant that these are the very Principles which I will not say the Long Parliament but the very Rump and Regicides went upon that Power is originally in the People and escheateth to them and that the King is Singulis Major but Vniversis Minor c. See Parkers Observations 1642. If I were writing to such as Mr. Walton who would tempt Men to question whether the 8th Book be not corrupted I would tell them 1. That the Passage in the first Book is the Sum of all the rest and sheweth that they came from the same Author 2. Dr. Spencer was not a Person so to be suspected as one that would befriend a corrupted Copy 3. I can yet give you the Testimony of one of the famousest Men in England for Learning in the Laws and Integrity who had long ago a Copy in M. S. agreeing with the printed Copy 4. Bishop Guuden dedicated it to the King and saith That even the eighth Book is interlined in many places with Mr. Hookers own Characters as owned by him and he proveth it by other Reasons And the same Bishop Gauden saith P. 18. He admirably expresseth the original of all Laws And yet Bishop Carlton Treat of Jurisdiction Pag. 12. saith This I observe the rather because some of the Popes Flatterers of late as others also to open a wide gap to Rebellions have written That the Power of Government by the Law of Nature is in the Multitude I conjecture that Mr. Hooker was the chief Man whom he meant by others And his foresaid Pupil and Friend was far from being a Presbyterian as his Europae Speculum sheweth and yet it 's well known how close he stuck to Abbot's Party and how great a Man he was in Parliaments for the Subjects Liberty and the restraint of Monarchy And even Bishop Gauden his last Publisher saith Pag. 4. of his Life This is certain that the strength of the Church of England was much decayed and undermined before it was openly battered partly by some superfluous illegals and unauthorized Innovations in Point of Ceremony which some Men affected to use in publick and impose upon others which provoked People to jealousie and fury even against things lawful every Man judging truly that the measure of all publick Obedience ought to be the publick Laws ☜ Partly by a supine neglect in others of the main Matters in which the Kingdom of God the peace of Conscience and the Churches Happiness do chiefly consist while they were immoderately intent upon meer Formalities and more zealous for an outward conformity to those Shadows than for that inward or outward conformity with Christ in Holy Hearts and unblamable Lives which must adorn true Religion To which he adds the Testimony of Dr. Holsworth So that it is a thing notorious and past contradiction that the Arminianism Innovations and supposed excesses and exorbitances of one part of the Prelatists gave occasion to the other part then accounted the Church and the more Protestant to vent their displeasure and fear in many Parliaments and at last to take up Arms and when they found themselves too weak to invite the Scottish Presbyterians to their Aid who fell at last into the Hands of the Sectaries And therefore I excuse or justifie none of the Parties but those that say that the beginners of the War against the King are guilty of his death as well as they that kill'd him must confess that it was the Prelatists or they must be impudent And therefore I again advise you to forbear the defence of Hooker and such Conformists and call them first to repentance who were first of the English in taking up Arms against the King § 34. It 's well you disclaim
the Politicks of Grotius But what abundance more Authors of Politicks could I name you that make the Majestas Realis to be in the People yea and the Power of judging Kings Such as Willius he whom Bishop Hall wrote his Epistle to in his Remains Alstedius c. Besides the Papists and if you agree with me in disliking those do not own the same in Hooker or other Prelatists § 35. Because you said Who can choose but nauseate that way of Discipline which startles at renouncing War against the King I desire you ro tell me what Discipline you mean You will not say Prelatical Discipline If you mean Presbyterian 1. I told you it was Episcopacy which the present Non-conformists offered to the King and Bishops 2. I desired you to peruse the Confessions and Descriptions of the Discipline of the Forreign Churches and to tell me which words do deny renouncing such War And what say you to this why first you deride the motion as a thing not to be required of you and say their Actions are quite contrary to their Confessions Will not your Conscience mark here 1. How your own Pen doth acquit their Confessions and yet you nauseate the way of Discipline that startles c. And where is the way of Discipline to be found but in those Confessions which even the Accuser now absolveth 2. And now you lay it on Practice and what 's that 1. to the way of Discipline 2. or to the whole Chorus which you speak to or any one Man whose Practice you have not proved such as you accuse And is your printed Clamour come to this § 36. And what say you of the Practice now 1. You tell me of Davila I pray next go to Parsons Image of both Churches and to Philanax Anglicus where you shall find the Prelatists as deeply charged And must Davila a Papist be credited against Bishop Jewel Bishop Bilson King James and many other on the other side And is not Davila a false Historian For instance he falsely saith That Carpenter was kill'd in the Massacre who dyed of the fright and that Peter Ramus the Father of the Independents was a Papist c. And is a false Forreigner and a Papist to be believed against the French Protestants I again refer you to the late notable Vindication of the Forreign Presbyterians in France Holland Embden Geneva c. by Pet. Moulin Jun. in his Answer to Philanax Anglicus And yet his Father might well blame them for some Instances as you cite him For as to the last Business at Saumurs and Rochel he was a noted and suffering Dissenter from that Party and so were other Protestants as well as he But one would think by your Progress that I had justified all the Wars or Actions of the Presbyterians because I told you that the Prelatists begun the English War which if you would insinuate or else you speak not sense you want either that understanding or that sincerity which beseemeth a Historian and a Divine But if really you will stand to it that their way of Discipline is to be nauseated who are guilty in practice of resisting Kings who do you not speak out then that the Prelatical Discipline is to be nauseated when you have not spoken a word of sense to disprove the aforesaid Charge against the Prelatists As to your Margin 1. I have no more to do with Martyn than you have 2. If you had any thing to have justifyed your Calumny out of T. C. or Travers you should have cited it for it 's but a silly shift to set down their bare Names 3. And I will no further believe Bancroft or Sir Th. Aston than they prove what they say no more than your self And I have reason for so saying § 37. Next you feign me to say That the Divines Presbyterian or Episcopal medled little with it whereas I had no such word but on the contrary told you That the Divines on both sides were too guilty if not the forwardest And are you a fit Man to state these matters in print for Posterity and pour out such Invectives against other Men that have not so much patience or care as to heed what you read in a Letter or what you write in answer to it What use can such Writings as these be of but to abuse the simple I only told you the differences were Political and Legal and not Theological but I said not that Divines medled not in them § 38. I did as you say desire you to name the Theological Differences if you know any for I never did And what say you to this would not any Reader here expect that you should have named some one difference But instead of that you exclaim This is strange and you ask me Did I never hear of Dr. Ferne Mr. Dudley Digs yes and of Mr. Weldon and Michael Hudson and Sir Francis Nethersole and more and have long ago read them all And what of that And I have read Jo. Goodwin Mr. Bridges Mr. Calamy c. And what of all that Why did you not name the Theological Difference You say That it was called the Cause of God Religion c. Did you think that you spake to the purpose when you said this It was Gratia materiae finis effect us that they accounted it the Cause of Religion They thought it had been the liberation of their Church and Country and the defence of Religion against Innovators But what 's that to the lawfulness of taking up Arms Is any Man so mad especially an Episcopal Parliament as to think all War lawful against the King which is for Religion Will a good end justifie ill means Your own Instance of Mr. Vines and Mr. Marshal to prove that in Rom. 13. by the higher Powers was meant the Parliament-houses c. if you had been a Man of consideration would have clearly shewed you how it confuteth your self That and many Texts of Scripture were agitated by Dr. Ferne Mr. Digs and those that answered them Upon all which it was agreed as far as I know that the Higher Powers were not by Arms to be resisted And this is all the Theological part But did you think that they thought that Rom. 13. or other Scriptures did tell the World whether Caesar or the Senate was the higher Power or which is the higher Power in Venice Germany Poland Hungary France England or any Country in the World Will you put the King to prove all his Power from Scripture What ever you take it I and all that ever I met with that were above the Rank of those you describe by Jobs Wife did take this to be a Point of Policy and Law and not of Theology and that Scriptures tell us not who is the Supream in every Republick but supposing that known commands us not to resist them And then comes in Bishop Bilson and saith what is before cited for Lords and Commons vindicating their Librerties and then comes in
as to wish you had more consulted the Honour of your Knowledge than to talk at these rates In my opinion of the two you had taken a more plausible way if with your Brethren you had pretended that taking down Chancellors who are the stated Governours is no alteration in the Church Government or else that the ordinary Priest who sometime pro forma pronounceth the Sentence which the Chancellor decreeth is the Excommunicator and Absolver and so say that a Presbyter exerciseth the Episcopal Office rather than a Lay-man if we were not more jealous of the Presbyters claim of right to it than of the Lay-mans I pray take some of these ways the next time or else do not rant too hotly against those skittish hot-brained Men that make a question of swearing as boldly and as deeply as you expect them And teach them better than by Rhetorical Flourishes how to confute the Seperatists that say A Perjured Clergy is not to be communicated with But c. If I had no better answer for them than what you afford me I would leave them to some that are more able to confute them For with your Weapons I am unable And your saying they do it by vertue of the Surrogates makes me question by how many descents a Bishops Power may be committed to others Doth the Bishop commit it to the Surrogate and the Surrogate to the Chancellors and the Chancellors to the Official And what if it come down yet ten degrees more Is it a Lay-work or a-Sacred Clergy-work at last when it is per alium qui per alium qui per alium c. If you shall say that by the Surrogate you did mean either any Priest that doth pronounce the Sentence or the Parish Priest that proclaimeth it in the Church remember that it is neither Ministerial pronouncing nor Ministerial proclaiming or reading it that we speak of but Judicial authoritative decreeing it and that the Chancellor doth not excommunicate decretively by any vertue of the Priests pronuntiation or reading which both follow after and are done ministerially in obedience to him And that the Cryer that readeth the Kings Proclamations is no Magistrate much less one by vertue of whom the King doth make them § 45. You add I 'le warrant you have more kindness for Lay-Elders if they were joyned with you in things Sacred As Catechizing Admissions to the Sacrament and Censures of the Church Answ Your Warrants are so ready and rash that I know not well what it is that you may not warrant at these rates or else you would not have warranted this to one that hath wrote so much against Lay-Elders and never had any thing to do with them as Men that medled with any part of the Sacred Office though Lay-Magistrates and Aged Men I honour I will not trouble the Churches Peace either against Lay-Elders or Lay-Chancellors but I will be sworn to neither of them as Vsers of the Keys But you think this is but a Gnat in my way so wide is your Swearing-swallow and so terrible to us Men of feaverish Heads are your things indifferent § 46. You say The Camel or Belzebub is Diocesan Bishops The Episcopacy of Bishop Vsher you are for Answ 1. Quer. Whether the Arch-bishops and Bishops in Ushers Model be Diocesanes or not or whether the Game you play at be not self-contradiction 2. If ever I be a Bishop I shall bless my self from such a Defender as you if you can defend no better than you do swearing to Church-Government by Lay-Chancellors § 47. You say You are kinder to Bishops for where there is one I suppose you wish there were many hundreds and if this were allowable we that are Minorum Gentium as to our own Interest have no cause to oppose it For then it may be you and I might in some time of our Ages commence Bishops Answ O for one Grain of ingenuity and modesty in this kind of Men The Debater reproacheth us in print for blowing so long upon our Ecclesiastical Dignities before we refused them When I delayed my Answer but one day and there were but three of us that had the offer of Bishopricks and two of Deanaries that ever I heard of And one did almost as soon accept it as I refused it And the third Mr. Calamy and the two other only delayed till they saw whether the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs would be established by an Act and refused when they saw it at end And I was so afraid of the odious Crime of Ingratitude that I was fain to give the Reasons of my refusal as easily as I could in writing to the Lord-Chancellor lest it should favour of undervaluing the favour offered And I scarce ever talk'd of it to any to this day unless in answer to a question lest I should seem to be unthankful yet can we not have rest in silence for this sort of Men while all my fear was lest my refusal would be too displeasing and cast me under more discountenance than before sometime I hear out of the Pulpit from a grave Doctor known to you when no Non-conformist but my self is present that the reason why we dislike Bishops is because we cannot be Bishops our selves and yet I ceased not hearing the Accuser And here you Sarcastically insinuate some such thing which alloweth me again to wish for one Grain of ingenuity in you § 48. You add Magis Minus non variant speciem Answ That is only in Substances where the different quantities are all consistent with the Form But not in Relative Beings where difference of Quantity may change the Subject and so the Relation as Keckerman might have taught you Log. de Relat. in the Instance of a Ship Doth your Logick teach us that the People of a whole Nation may be but a Family a vicus vel pagus or that a single person may be a Kingdom or a Family because Magis minus non variant speciem Would your Spoon be a Spoon if it were as big as a Church or your Church be a Church if it were no bigger than a Spoon Is a Troop a Regiment and one Army of the same Species or if all the Captains and Collonels were put dowu and the General would be the sole Ruler of the Army were there no change of the Species of any of the Government If all the School-masters in the Diocess were put down or turned only into Monitors except one general Diocesane School-master would it not vary the Species of School and School-masters Is a Christian Society united for Personal Communion in Gods Worship of the same Species with a thousand such Societies united in one Diocesan Head which can have no personal present Communion as never seeing one another Enjoy your Logick I am contented with the dishonour of being no Graduate in the University that teacheth thus and so applyeth it § 49. You say If Bishop Usher were now alive he would give you but small
thanks for pressing his Model of Episcopacy if his now the King and Laws are restored which he only calculated as that which could be born by the iniquity of the later times Answ 1. That the Model was his he told me with his own Tongue 2. That he thought better of it than of that which you set against it and did not offer it as a less desirable thing appeareth by the Reasons which he giveth for it from Antiquity and from the nature of the Pastoral Office to which he saith a part in the Keys or Discipline belongeth And he took this to be the true ancient frame of Government used for many hundred year after Christ and to be the true means of our union And he told me that he offered it his Majesty before the War and it was not accepted and after the War and then it might have passed And in conference with me he came lower than that Model as the Minimum that might serve for our agreement which I mentioned publickly to the Parliament in my Sermon the day before the Kings Restoration was voted by them printed by their Order And he told me That moderate Men would unite on those terms but he had tryed that others would not 2. But what is there in that Model that is so intolerable now Is one tittle taken from the Bishops or Arch-bishops Honour Is one farthing taken by it from their Estates Is any of their Power or Negative Voice taken away or is not the stated Ministry only made their Presbytery instead of a few uncertain Presbyters that must be present when they ordain and instead of the present Form of some Courts c. O humble Clergy-men that take this for more intolerable than all the contrary evils that we undergo Dishonour not our Church so as to tell Forreigners That to be reduced to such an Episcopal Government by Bishops with their Presbyters as was commonly in use for six hundred years at least as that which could be born by the iniquity of the latter times but cannot be born by the Clergy now if it pleased His Majesty so to order it But mistake me not I only speak of Ushers Model I do not now speak against the Government nor plead for a Change for the Law forbiddeth me As to what you say concerning Vshers Notes on Ignatius concerning the division of Asia I suppose you should have said His Notes on Ignatius and his Discourse of the Proconsular Asia which are two Books if you knew the Books you talk of But I know very well that he supposed Episcopacy to have been before the second Century but the question is what sort of Episcopacy and that Question his Model doth resolve § 50. To all that you talk after on this Subject I cannot find in my heart to trouble my self with any other Answer than to tell you that all you say is utterly impertinent to those you write of and sheweth that you do not at all understand the Case of the present Non-Conformists nor the state of the Controversie § 51. But about swearing Obedience to the Bishops you say 1. It is but in Licitis Honestis 2. That of old Presbyters have been obedient to their Bishops under the Penalty of an Anathema Answ 1. The Question is not only of Swearing to obey them but swearing never to endeavour any alteration of Church-Government 2. The King himself is to be obeyed but in licitis honestis And must we be sworn as much to the Clergy as to the King 3. Those that think the English Species of Diocesanes to be unlawful take them to be quoad jus divinum Usurpers And they say they would not swear to obey the Pope in licitis honest is nor Cromwel if he were alive lest it prove Treason against the true Sovereign to swear Obedience to an Usurper even in licitis honestis And how impertinently do you speak of Presbyters Obedience sub poena Anathematis when I only spake of antecedent swearing to them Nay not to them but to Men of another Office though of the same name Are we not now under Anathema's enough in the Canons if we obey not Yet how little have you heard the Non-Conformists say against those Canons these eleven years I mean such as have ever publickly agitated their Cause If you Anathematize me unjustly it is none of my sin But if I swear unjustly it is my sin I can obey many a Man that I cannot swear obedience to He that taketh away my Coat may have my Cloak also and if you bid me go a Mile for you I may rather go two than do worse And we must submit our selves to one another but yet I will not swear Obedience to all that I may thus obey And I may obey a Justice or Constable as my duty and yet not swear to the perpetuity of their Office and that before the Kings But if Obedience under pain of Anathema served above a thousand years without swearing it why may it not serve turn now Are new Oaths necessary to be sworn by us to the Clergy which never were necessary till of late You mean not I perceive that Antiquity or Universality shall be the Character of your Church or Impositions Nor to stand to Lerinensis Test quod ab omnibus ubique semper c. If we may neither have Ignatius his Episcopacy in specie nor be under such Bonds only as Ignatius speaks for without such Oaths as he never mentioned it is self-condemnation for you to cite the words of Ignatius § 52. You say Mr. Cartwright wrangled himself at last into Conformity Answ It is not well done of you to write Historical untruths so boldly You have no way to come off but either to say some body told you so or that by Conformity you mean that he separated not from the Parish Churches which he never did or that he was favourable to kneeling at Sacrament and not peremptory against the Surplice into none of which he wrangled but studyed himself And saith Amesius retracted his moderation about the Surplice But did he conform to Diocesanes to Subscription to the Oath of Canonical Obedience to the Cross c. How is the World abused by false Historians Thus one of my Antagonists chargeth him after Suttliffe with acquaintance with Hackets Villany and other such things from which he so fully vindicateth himself in a Manuscript of his own which I have by me given me by old Mr. Simeon Ash as may make the Reader wonder at the hardened front of Calumny § 53. When you say you will secure me about the Oath I have no confidence in your security till I see it to be better back'd than your bare word with a fallacious unlike supposed Simile when I must subscribe and swear That I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government in this Army Colledge Vniversity or Corporation nor of the State putting them conjunct with the State and before
that did so vehemently complain of Grievances and Innovations I question not aim'd at that which their Successors accomplish'd the down-fall of Bishops and the possessing of their Lands Nay some of them lived to make it good what was the Quarrel they design'd Who did the King mean 2. Caroli when he said the Hand of Joab was in the mis-understanding 'twixt him and his Parliament and that the Incendiaries of Christendome had suddenly and subtlely insinuated those things which had unhappily caus'd diversions and distractions There might be clashing 'twixt those Episcopal Men in Parliament yet it would have been long enough e're these had rais'd War against the King You are not ignorant that in the Marian days many Lay-men and Clergy fled beyond the Seas to Geneva and other Places at their return their Garments smelt of the Disciplinarian Fire ever after which grew stronger and stronger until it had burnt the Cedar in our Lebanon and level'd the glorious Towers of the Church How did Calvin and Beza labour with their Favourers here to promote their Discipline that as it was once said The S. S. came from Rome to Trent in a Cloak-bag so did it come from Geneva hither in Packets You say Sect. 25. There was but few Presbyters or Non-conformists here before the War no Presbyterians except two in the Parliament The General Lieutenant-Generals Major-Generals were Episcopal Men. I little thought to have disputed such a Cause I medled not with Lay-men but with my dissenting Brethren Though the other cannot be excus'd yet these were most guilty in blowing up the Trumpet Dathan and Abiram of the other Tribes rose up against Moses but that Rebellion was call'd the gain-saying of Core because he being of the Tribe of Levi was deepest in the Conspiracy And it is observable that all Insurrections against Princes have been inflam'd by some Clergy-men or other for some Centuries last past But were there so few Non-conformists in England before the War yet Anno 1603. King James is said to be saluted with a Petition of a thousand Ministers against Episcopacy and before that Anno 1582. Mr. Cartwright who was no Episcopal Man for he had renounc'd his Episcopal Ordination beyond Seas met usually with sixty Ministers of his own Way in some Corner of the Land Did not these think you increase and multiply If five or six in the Assembly and five Bishops as you say in the Parliament rais'd such stirs what shall we think may be effected by so many Dissenters Whereas you think that the late Wars furnish'd us with Presbyterians out of Scotland it is doubtful to me whether Scotland infected us or we Scotland for when the King was in Scotland he was inform'd that the Scots had neither taken up Arms nor invaded England but that they were incouraged to it by some Members of Parliament you 'l say these were Episcopal Men on a design to change the Government of Church and State One Proposition sent to the King after Edgehill was That he should yield to extirpate Arch-bishops Bishops c. yet you 'l say that all the Parliament except two were Episcopal Men. As good as any among the Covenanters who vow'd to abolish Prelacy c. or as any of those in your own Association When Alderman Pennington with his 15000 Myrmidons petition'd against Bishops it may be you 'l vouch them to be Episcopal Men as well as you do the Parliament Men Yet I do not find that any said any thing against that Petition besides the Lord Dighy as for many others it did appear that such Lettice was too suitable to their Lips yet sound Episcopal Men in your sense The War was called Bellum Episcopale not as if fought by Episcopal Men on both sides but Episcopacy or rather the Bishops Lands was the Palladium or Helena one side fought for it the other against it Mulciber in Trojam pro Troja c. And here was the very stick at last in the Isle of Wight As for the particular Members in the Army they were better known to you than my self I delight not in personal Reflections or Quarrels If those that are yet alive be not Episcopal I wish they were so But that they were whilst they acted in the support of the late Cause I have not so far renounc'd my reason and experience as to fall in with your Account And if you persevere in this new Doctrine we shall be as distant as the two Poles One Document I cannot but observe from what is said That the late War was so odious that neither side will own it Even as the dead Child in the Parable was rejected by both the Mothers § 28. Your notion of the Arminian and other Calvinian Bishops fighting and beginning the War and also each claiming to be the Church is a pritty singularity and savours of a Romantick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Did they all fight against one another Did they not all equally abhor the War Where did either part pretend to be the Church You have fram'd a strange imagination and when you are setting of it up it will not hang together I may say of it as the Lacedemonian did of one setting up the body of a dead Man when his Head swagg'd this way and the other he cried out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something is wanting within So it is with your discourse it is Soul-less and Life-less sine sanguine succo It is true Arch-bishop Williams was in Arms but he lost the Lord-Keepers Seal and was not admitted to do his Office at the Kings Coronation This inflam'd the Man and transported him beyond his duty towards the end of the War The missing of a Bishoprick did pervert Arrius and St. Jerom himself was not a jot the better for it 29. 31. I had said Would Episcopal Men root out Episcopacy You apply your former groundless Hypothesis They intended at first to regulate the Arminians but after by the help of Scots and Sectaries they took down Episcopacy How transparent and thin is that Answer Just as our modern Naturalists salve every Phaenomenon with their round square and forked Atoms So do you silence Doubts by the Arminian and Calvinian Bishops But you must prove it better that the Bishops began the War or else all you say tumbles to the ground You say I trifle in referring you to Dr. Heylin on the Presbyterians though you referred me before to his Book on the Life of Arch-bishop Laud Who would have thought but ad hominem this Method had been justifiable If I am sparing of my pains and forbear an elaborate Answer to such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such shallow and partial reasonings another Man would soon pardon me You say you will not justifie the Presbyterians in that he chargeth on them yet he says the Presbyterians thrive best when they involve whole Nations in Blood and Sacriledge I mentioned them not at all yet you charge me for traducing them 33. The Principles of
them You say in effect you renounce them for you have written against them Where shall I find you If I touch upon any thing that may reflect upon the Presbyterians or their Discipline presently your blood is up and I must be call'd to a severe account by your self as the Achilles of the Party Yet if any part of that Discipline be charg'd upon you or want a defence then you fly off renounce the Cause you have espous'd You know not the Man although you think I am oblig'd to defend every usage of the Church with which you have a mind to quarrel What prevarication is this Into how many Shapes can you transform your self Hecate Triformis Flesh Fish Mirmaid Episcopal-Presbyterian-Independent yet none of these when you please An 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes in the Water and sometimes out I only wish you were either hot or cold I find that Beza made the same Complaints as you do that Excommunication was decreed by the Civil Lawyers and not by the Presbytery yet I find that at Geneva the Power of Excommunication was in the Consistory whereof two parts were Lay-men And how it was with the Sanhedrim Mr. Selden will inform you But as great a Mecaenas as you are for the Discipline I doubt whether you will own this If ever I be a Bishop I shall bless my self from such a defender and herein you would do me a kindness for you would be such a strange and uncouth a Bishop that it would exceed the skill of a better Advocate than I to defend your manner of Episcopacy But there is but little fear of this trouble for before Richard will agree with Baxter what kind of Bishop he would be it will be too late in the afternoon with me to undertake your defence 47. Here you say I sarcastically insinuate something about your Nolo-Episcopare and so you wish again for one grain of Ingenuity in me You might have sav'd this labour if you had not undertaken to know my mind better than I do my self Who gave you commission to read my thoughts backward as destitute of ingenuity as you make me I never reproached any with their misery or upbraided them with their choice It may be an act of magnanimity to refuse preferment for Nazianzen and many others have done it before you I will not be so curious and inquisitive as to search whether your motives and theirs be the same 48. Magis Minus non variant speciem holds in substances say you but not in relatives Yet neither substances nor relatives in my Logick Suscipiunt magis minus If they be relatives secundum esse But this is onely in respect of quantity and quality which do adhere to them For as one man is not magis homo so one Father is not magis Pater than another But say you Would a spoon be a spoon if it were as big as a Church It is enough for my purpose that there is no specifick difference betwixt a little Spoon and a great one nor betwixt a small Diocess and a great one and this you seem to assert in your next Section shewing that there is small difference betwixt Bishop Ushers and the present Model Take heed of absurd and ridiculous suppositions for as they are not argumentative so they infer nothing but monstruous conclusions Rub up your Philosophy about maximum quod sic minimum quod non and see what Vossius says that things only dissering gradually are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and then it may be you may give leave to magis minus and to be a Maxim still But right or wrong you must have a fling at Diocesan Bishops which you say can have no personal present Communion with a thousand Churches under them since they never saw one the other Is there no Communion but personal and 'twixt those that see each other Many of the Kings Subjects never saw his face yet they have many hands and eyes in respect of their subordinate Officers So have Diocesans in their Curats and may not we be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Saints below and the Saints above though we never saw them 50. To all you talk after on this Subject I cannot find in my heart to trouble my self with any other Answer than to tell you that all you say is utterly impertinent you would have cry'd out O easie Answer but why impertinent you had declar'd your self for the Episcopacy of Cyprian and Ignatius but not for Diocesan Bishops because they were not primitive I told you there were Bishops before there were Parishes therefore the most primitive Bishops were not Parochial Then I shew'd you the large Diocess of Ignatius Cyprian c. And I quote the very words of Ignatius in his Epistles and all this is impertiment but 't is no strange thing with you for when I mention'd several grand Authors about the Discipline you give me just such another Answer 51. You had spoken as I understood against our Oath of Canonical Obedience to Bishops I told you this was only in rebus licitis honestis This you canvas up and down yet when you had to do with Mr. Bagshaw you grant it but with me you dispute it over again Are Oaths necessary to be sworn to the Clergy It was once made necessary to swear and vow against the Clergy to the utter rooting them up and those that refus'd ran the hazard of all they had And may not we now promise Obedience to them in things lawful or rather by the King by whose Law this is injoy'nd but where is any Antiquity for it I produc'd the words of Ignatius to this purpose yet you take no notice of them 52. I had said Mr. Cartwright wrangled himself into Conformity you say it is well done of you to write an historical untruth so boldly you have no way to come off but to say some body told you so some body told you so is sometimes and in some cases a good account If we were stript of the advantage of Tradition you would be much puzzl'd about the Christian Sabboth But is this an Historical Vntruth You might have read the very words in print before now and in another Author you may read Cartwright either was or was perswaded to be satisfied when he was admitted to Warwick he faithfully promised if he might be tolerated to preach not to impugn the Laws Orders Government or Governors in the Church of England but to perswade and procure as much as he could both publickly and privately the Estimation and Peace of the Church he carried himself with as much respect to the Archbishop as any of the regular and conformable Clergy to his death Dr. Burges Observ'd that Cartwright opposed the Ceremonies as inconvenient not as unlawful and therefore perswaded men to conform rather than leave their Flocks so that you may see I had better ground
other than you name let any Man that understands sense read the Papers and perpend the state of the Controversie and I dare boldly say he will fall into the same Toil. Your Explicatory Clavis has expedited me out of that intanglement And I am resolved not to be resolute in quarreling It is a strange courtesie you tender me of sending me your Lads scraps If I had not a competent measure of that kind of Learning I could have a better Tutor who as I told you is the Glory of his Age. I have known pregnant Boys praecocis Ingenii come from Westminster School fraught with a Cyclopaedy of Languages and yet before they have left the Colledge they have scarce retain'd any foot-steps thereof unus in omnibus c. Just as you have seen the beauty of a fair Face either by Sickness or Age so obliterated and furrow'd that there 's no more remainder of Beauty left than there is of Troy in those plow'd Fields where it once stood The Fathers were good Divines yet as Dr. Hackwell observes Among the Latins St. Jerom and Origen Among the Graecians did excel in the Oriental Languages The last part of your Charge I cannot but take unkindly You say I prefer Shreds before true Knowledge in Divinity and real Science Sir here you speak without Book For I have neither said so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor can you charitably infer it from any thing I have spoken I know not how to confute you but by wishing you knew me better When I have heard Sermons at the University as smooth as Glass so that the Art in wording them did opus superare I have declar'd to Persons of no small Place that such slippery Preaching and Cadencies of words will spoil all in the Country Such Sermons will reach no further than the Ears and be look'd on as Romantick Harrangues You know what Austin said of Tullies Hortensius The same say I of such Preaching which tends not to advance Piety and Holiness Now worthy Sir For as Calvin said of Luther Think of me what you please I will acknowledge your worth in many Particulars And as for Absoluteness it is so incompetible an Attribute to Man that I know you do not aspire unto it I am sorry and it shall be for a lamentation to see in your late Writings a Foundation laid for a grand Schism in this Church as things now stand Give me leave supra totam materiam to re-inforce my Perswasive by this Consideration Have not you seen Presbytery supplanting Episcopacy Independency Presbytery Have not you seen Anabaptism with one foot in the Stirrup And who knows but as Montanus said of the Holy Ghost Quakers and Fifth-monarchy-men might have had their turns Nay Papists and Atheists if those days of Anarchy and Non-conformity had continued If you saw the boldness of Papists and their great Numbers where I sometimes exercise my Ministry you would count it no small happiness that such fluctuations are limited by Reformed Bishops in a Reformed Church It shall be my Prayer therefore that you were not almost but altogether a Conformist John Hinckley Feb. 2. 1671. Respondi c. A LETTER TO AN Oxford-Friend FROM A Countrey-MINISTER Concerning the INDULGENCE Anno 1671 2. CAP. I. The Commendation of an Oxford-Life Dear Sir I Have always had a great Veneration for that Bishop who never approach'd your Oxon though in his Episcopal Grandeur and Declining years but whil'st he was in the way when he first saw your rising Towers he alighted from his Horse And in the open Field prostrating himself upon our Common Mother the Earth He paid his Duty to his Mother the University or rather the Tribute of Praises unto God who first brought him thither In like manner Sir The Sense of that Mercy and Goodness which I have seen and tasted within your Walls has prompted me to say How beautiful are thy Tents O Oxford If at any time from Shot-Over or any of those Adjacent Hills I have as from Mount Nebo beheld your Land of Canaan And well I may call it so where there has been such a torrent of Milk and Honey The Sincere milk of Gods Word And that which is sweeter than honey I earning and Religion These are the genuine streams of that Fountain except it be mudded by some strange Cattle or poysoned by Principles of a Forreign growth If any come from you either loose or illiterate they are but degenerous Plants that never tasted the sweetness of your Soil nor bow'd themselves to your Discipline They are but the Wenns and Cancers of your body Or rather Insects hatch'd out of their own ill humours which they brought with them thither out of their Countrey Schools or Families Sir Our Friendship is no Mushrome sprung up the other Night But it is almost immemorial of so long standing that I am even puzzled to trace it up to its first original or to shew where was the head of this Nile She was a very unhappy Girle who had so long liv'd under an Act of wanton Indulgence that she could scarce ever remember that she had been a Virgin But it is the Crown of your Kindness that I am not able to tell when It was otherwise Yet All this while I never Acquainted you with one notable change or dispensation which befell me at Oxon. I came thither blessed be God well principled in the First Table Religion towards God My dearest Friends were accounted Puritanes in those days yet I had not learn'd my Duty to the King I look'd upon him as an ordinary Man And if things went not well that is in my Apprehension I was too ready to murmur against his Government But to Pray for him to speak Reverently of him as God's Vicegerent And to give him that Obedience which was his Due I had not learn'd Conscience was not so well Edified as to concern It self in these things They seem'd to me Indifferent Acts they might be done or they might be left undone They were no Essential parts of my Religion But altogether Extrinsecal to it until with David I went into the house of God I mean upon a day of Inauguration I heard Dr. Wentworth of Baliol Colledg Preach at St. Maries on 1 Tim. 2. 1 2. I exhort that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and Giving of Thanks be made for all men for Kings and all that are in Authority c. He shew'd so Invincibly from hence That all these do belong even to wicked Emperors and Kings that I was thorowly convinc't of my Former Errour And had Cause to Report That God was there of a truth Had you sate in Mr. Nye's Chair among the Triars you would have look'd on such a Transmutation as an Act of Conversion But such a Confession before those Rabbies would have been so far from an Evidence of grace so much was this word Abus'd that it had been enough to have drawn down an Anathema It would not have been easie