the Church of England to be the best and well knows the Reverence the most or at least the most Learned in the Reformed Churches have for it he heartily wishes and desires until it be reviewed and some Alterations and Additional Forms made the Ministers who dislike some Clauses and Expressions would not therefore totally lay aside the use of the Book of Common-prayer but reade those parts against which there can be no exception which would be the best instance of declyning those marks of distinction which his Majesty so much labours and desires to remove Have you herein submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration Have you read any thing of the Common Prayers and thereby instanced your desire in compliance with his Majestie 's to remove and decline those marks of distinction What you can lay hold of to your purpose in his Declaration you greedily catch at the rest you pass by However you pretend to submit to his Majestie 's Declaration he therein complains your Party of which you are the Leaders have not dealt candidly with him that there are amongst them unquiet and restless Spirits who continue their Bitterness against the Church and indeavour to raise Jealousies against his Majesty and have unseasonably printed published and dispersed a Declaration to his Majestie 's Reproach and since the printing this Declaration you say you submit to several seditious Pamphlets and Quaeries have been published and scattered abroad to infuse Dislike and Jealousies into the Hearts of the People Behold your Submission to his Majestie 's Declaration You next tell us of your own Proposals of the Primitive Episcopacy and your own Liturgy What your Primitive Episcopacy is your Jus Divinum Ministrii Anglicani speaks That there is no Bishop in the sense of our Church no Episcopus Pastorum but all Presbyters are equally and in a parity Episcopi Gregis and what your own Liturgy is you have let us see such a one as you would have for your selves in opposition to that of the Church and yet though you would have it you will not be bound to use it neither which is as much as to say If you may not have your own fancied frame of Government and publick Worship and that with Liberty too to throw them off when your fancie changeth you receive mighty wrong and as you said before all the Protestant Churches so you say now all the World will think it strange Bishop Vsher you mentioned before you now bring him in again after Bishop Hall and give them the Titles of Reverend Learned and Moderate 'T is well Bishop Hall now he is at rest hath from you so kind a Character Time was when your combined Forces were bent singly against him you fought neither with small nor great but onely with Bishop Hall and when Smectymnuus was not able to dispute him down your Rabshakeh railed him down and however you now complement him you have shewn your present Esteem of him and of the Primitive Episcopacy in reprinting your Smectymnuus now since his Majestie 's Restoration and if as you say he and Bishop Vsher have published to the World that much less than that would have served to a fraternal Peace you publish to the World you have been obstinate and averse to Peace and Unity who when you had the Law in your hands would not hearken to those by you confessed Moderate Terms of Unity and Peace and your own Pens will bear witness against you that you are now justly repulsed who would not yield when fair means of Accommodation were offered as to Re-ordination which you often mention and here it comes in again 1. We deny your Presbyterian and Independent so called Ordination to be really and indeed any Ordination at all and till you prove it such you charge the Bishops falsely wih requiring Re-ordination 2. Many who have been under your hands have of themselves without being required judging your pretended Ordination a Nullity desired Ordination from the Bishops 3. The Canon supposed of the Apostles toucheth not this Case nor our Bishops who neither do re-ordain nor allow it Re-ordaining rightly so called being the Ordaining again of a Deacon or Priest by a Bishop who was by him known to have been by a Bishop before ordained 4. Bishop Bancrost speaks of those who were ordained by Presbyters where were no Bishops to ordain them as in many of the Reformed Churches abroad But we had Bishops till you pull'd them down Nay blessed be God we had Bishops after you had pull'd them down and till his Majesty set them up again and those who would in all the late times might have had and very many had Ordination from their hands 't is therefore a most gross Untruth and 't is strange such Godly men as you should dare to utter and publish it That your young Preachers by the old Presbyters sent were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by Parochial Pastors without Diocesans if there had been no Bishops you might then have said the Age and Countrey required lest the Church should fail Ordination from Parochial Pastors but I say and you to your Sorrow know there were Bishops all that time divers English and also Scotish and Irish Bishops who though many of them were latent yet were and might be addressed to and did all along confer holy Orders there are at least five English Bishops living to my knowledge and you may know more having the Honour to be joyned with them in Commission which all good men are sorry is not on your part managed temperately and humbly prudently and piously to the Peace of the Church by your selves chiefly but for all our sins long and lamentably divided R. 11. Is a repeated Complaint of their Afflictions and an Accusation of the Bishops as their Afflictors which is already answered The Twelfth and Fourteenth are the same and shall be considered together The 13 th is hammered on the same Anvil with the 11 th That they are the Godly party and afflicted the Episcopal are cruel and persecute them for the Cause of Christ How will Christ take it of you to cast out from the Ministery or Communion of the Church or to grieve and punish all that dare not conform to you in these Matters Ans How will Christ take it from you to cast out all Bishops and Episcopal men who durst not conform to you in your Matters The Bishops Proceedings are by gentle methods 1. They Admonish 2. Suspend 3. Silence before they deprive any and none are deprived but for foul and incorrigible Crimes but you eject at first and totally for no Crime for no Breach of the Laws and Orders but even for that the Episcopal persons stand for the Laws and Orders established You trod down the Stars of Christ's planting as the Stones in the street All those places of Scripture misapplied by you may against you be rightly applied And whereas elsewhere they say to this purpose Sad Experience tels
that you will quarrel at it you are known to be of a polemical humour and temper of a hot Brain and hasty Pen the Hector of the Old Cause the Non-conformists Pope I wrong you not in the Appellation You have more than proved it in Acting the Pope Yours are the two Swords and you have with mighty valour drawn them both The temporal Sword you have drawn against the King in the late Rebellion and you glory that you drew in with you many thousands And in cold bloud near twenty years after you tell the World you cannot see you were mistaken nor dare you repent of it nor forbear the same if it were to doe again in the same state of things And Sir may I be so bold as to ask you Are you not this day of the same mind and wish the state of things were now the same that you might be Doing again Blessed be God who hath by Miracle taken from you the temporal Sword and restored it to the King whose it is But the spiritual Sword cannot be wrested from you and this you are so daring as to draw still against the Church upon which you are ever and anon making new Assaults and here too you muster your holy Army Two thousand Ministers and by the number of those Centurions we may guess how many are your Legions Shall demonstrate to you further how you take upon you the Pope in both his claims of highest Power One over Kings in your Holy Common-wealth bounding them all by your Laws for Government or rather binding them in your long and heavy Chain of 380 Links The other claim of highest Power over the whole Church you do in effect make of being its universal infallible Head and Guide where you say you have written a Treatise of The onely true terms of Concord of all Christian Churches and of the false Terms which they will never unite in but are the causes of Schism Here speaks an Oracle The onely terms of true and false Concord and Schism are in your Breast and given out from your infallible Chair a rare and happy Catholicon O that it may work the Cure Sorry I am it comes forth a little too late had you published it in the vacancy of the See of Canterbury you had infallibly been made Papa alterius orbis When you penned the Petition for Peace you proclaim to the World you onely had the Spirit of fortitude telling us how stoutly you stood up against the Bishops for the Old Cause when deserted by all your brethren in the Conflict But I hope you had not then attained the Spirit of infallibility if so I am upon a vain attempt and your Petition as you suggest is unanswerable and I have some ground to hope it since the pious old Gentleman who wrote Doctour Sanderson's Life assures us that the present Bishop of Chester told him very lately that one of the Dissenters whom he forbears to name but you intimately know him appeared to Dr. Sanderson to be so bold so troublesome and so illogical in the Dispute at the Savoy as forced the patient Bishop then Moderatour to say with an unusual earnestness that he never met with a man of more pertinacious Confidence and less Abilities in all his conversation Sir you talk much of Peace and Love Concord and Vnion and the Cure of Divisions and they are the Title of divers of your Books yet abundance of judicious and peaceable person do think and say that you have more opposed the Peace of the church and State too and contributed to its Divisions than any or all the party of your profession Nay that you are not at peace with your own party and where they express their dissent from you though never so modestly you treat them rudely and insolently as anon I may give you an Instance At present I shall take the liberty to consider and offer you some of my Sentiments upon two of those Discourses I now named your Holy Commonwealth and your Plea for Peace For the first truly I was seised with wonder and grief at the sight of your Commonwealth that seventeen years after our late Troubles began and they yet continuing you having in prospect our lamentable Confusions and leisure to reflect upon the Ruins of the Church and State and seeing the Kingdom overturned by Rebellion Sedition Murther and Plunder the Violation of all the Laws and of all mens Rights and the seising sequestring and selling the Estates of the King the Bishops and the most eminently loyal Subjects and after the horrid Assassination of the King himself turned into several monstrous forms as the several powers and ambitious of several parties prevailed and seeing also the Church rent all into sects and factions its holy Doctrine polluted with monstrous heresies its apostolical Government pluckt up root and branch its most religious Form of publick worship abolished and every gifted Brother left to his private mode you could have so little sense and pitty that I say not piety as not in the least to deplore the Calamities of our Zion that God in the indignation of his anger had despised the King and the Priest cast off his Altar abhorred his Sanctuary his Enemies roaring in the midst of his Congregations and setting up their Banners for tokens That in all your tedious Book you not once lament our Josiah the Lord 's Anointed taken in the snares of wicked men Though in the beginning of it you resent the ill useage of the usurping Protector to whom you give flattering Titles Nay that you could cry up those who had contrived and acted all these Mischiefs and Miseries to be the Godly party and theirs the Good cause and as if there had been never such a thing as a Kingdom in England you should form as Utopian Common-wealth by Centuries of wild and seditious Maxims I may hereafter make some Animadversions upon your Common-wealth I will now onely recall to your second thoughts a few of your Theses which speak it not very holy In your Preface Romans the 13th being objected unto you you avow resistence of the King with an offer of your Head to Justice as a Rebel if any can prove that the King was the Highest Power in the time of Division and had Power to make that War That is If any can prove the King was in Authortiy above those who even when opposing him acknowledged themselves his Subjects and turning Rebels he had Right by War to defend himself and reduce them to obedience Sir you may bless God that the King's Son and Successour was like him a most mercifull Prince else your Offer might by his Justice have been taken All Writers think Saint Paul means by the Higher Powers the Emperour or which is all one the King and name him and your self name him elsewhere If a heathen persecuting Nero must be obeyed and Saint Peter calls the King Supreme and yet you miserably shuffie off both with
Laying on of the hands of the Presbytery whether the Lawn be de essentia to the Ceremony and the Hands avail nothing without the Sleeves on Sir St. Paul appealed to Caesar you cannot but appeal to the Higher Powers It seems with you there are Higher Powers than Caesar And as you mistake the Object so you do the Subject matter or Case of your Appeal which should be Whether Timothy who was ordained by the Laying on of the hands of the Prebytery was not again ordained by the Laying on of the hands of St. Paul and the Higher Powers may put you to prove your selves ordained as was Timothy which will be a little difficult and your Quoeries will be to them as hard Whether the hands of the Presbytery were without Sleeves Whether Saint Paul had Lawn Sleeves Whether Ordination be a Ceremony Whether a Ceremony hath any thing belonging to it de essentia Important Quoeries all these verily and fit to be revised and judged by the Higher Powers if you knew who they were but alas you do not as you complain in your Sermon to the House of Commons If then you would take my counsel refer it Brother Cheny One thing I am mighty sorry to see and say This wise case is ushered in with a gross leasing when just before you affirm the case was such That there was no other than Presbyterian Ordination to be had here in the late times Truly if your good will might be taken for the deed there was no other to be had But in the late times my self and hundreds more had Episcopal Ordination But quoere whether it were valid you having taken away their Lawn Sleeves and Rochets and Rochets to which might be de essentia to the Ceremony One thing more I must observe and then I shall end your Trouble and 't is my own great trouble that I must observe it and rebuke you for it you say in your Preface Ans to Dr. Stillingfleet I am past doubt that Richard Hooker Bishop Bilson and BishopVsher where they now alive would be Non-conformists And you said it before as I remember elsewhere Sir Your being past doubt puts us past our faith in your assertions no body will believe what you say while you talk at this rate and blemish the precious memory of such venerable Persons two of them having been the highest Assertors of Conformity since the Reformation and have left us for it their Monuments in writing incomparable and unanswerable Pray Sir How came you by this Plerophy Have their Ghosts appeared unto you and informed you that they have been convinced in another world that they erred in thinking there ought to be Church Order and Vniformity in this And Have they told you for no body else could what sort of Non-conformists they would be Those of the first Edition in Forty two or those of the second in Sixty two Would they when Non-conformity was rampant have risen up against the King and Church and with you cryed up the good Cause and pluckt up the perpetual Government of Christ's Church and the Ecclesiastical Polity root and branch and in order to a thorough Beformation taken the Solemn League and Covenant and with you taken up Arms for the Parliament Or Would they now having answered onely the old Objections when alive be so stagger'd with your new ones that that one alone of the erroneous Kalendar would be a flaming Sword to keep them from entring Sir Hereafter talk things crediible such Romances become you not What would your Censure be should we affirm we are past doubt that Mr. Cartwright Traverse and Brown were they now alive would turn Conformists One thing in the Epistle to your Plea I omitted is fit here to be remarked your Complaint that you have been called on to tell what it is that you would have as if you had told it and we well knew it But truly Sir 't is a very hard Question which we think you neither have nor can tell One thing you would have to day another to morrow a little will content you when you are under but nothing will content you when you are uppermost When you writ your Petition for Peace you would have Bishop Usher's model and could yield to Bishops and Archbishops When you writ your Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet you would have your Grievances proposed to the Higher Powers and would have the Higher Powers strip the Bishops of their Lawn Sleeves We know by what measures you proceeded in Forty one from Petitioning to Protestation thence to Covenanting to Arming to Sequestring till you had levelled all before you and overturned the Government of both Church and State I am very unwilling to mention your past Actings but that you give us great cause to think you would be acting the same things again and do in effect tell us What you would have But What you would not have you can better tell us No Bishops no Liturgy no Canons for decency and order in the publick Worship no King but upon such terms if you be the Casuists who resolved upon the prospect of the King's Restoration That in that state of things the King could not justifie the resuming of his Government nor his people the submitting to it But your Non-conforming Brethren best know your minde Let them tell you and us what you would have had when you had all You complain of your Misery Bondage and Slavery of Oppressions Sorrows and Troubles of the Church that is doubtless of the Church Presbyterian and no other What doth all you What troubles you who doth oppress you have you not Authority on your side have you not all the Church livings in the Kingdom have you not Declaration upon Declaration Ordinance upon Ordinance Order upon Order to back you Is there the least shew of Oppression Sorrow or Cause of complaint administred unto you except it be because you are not suffered to oppress vex and gall your Brethren that joyn not with you Can you feed upon nothing but Bloud yea the Bloud of your Brethren that though you have every thing else that onely prohibited you complain of Sorrow Slavery and Oppression that you cannot enslave and lead into Captivity Is this to kill you with the Sword that you cannot kill your Brethren with the Sword THE NON-CONFORMISTS CHAMPION HIS CHALLENGE ACCEPTED 1. WHEN God had in mercy and faithfulness unto David delivered him from the Sword of Saul and set him upon the Throne of Israel the first thing he esteemed himself obliged unto in duty and gratitude was to set up God's Kingdom and settle his true Worship in Israel who had set up and settled him in that Kingdom To this end he brings the Ark of God in a Religious State and Triumph to Jerusalem which had been taken by the Philistines and remained some time with them in Captivity and after lodged in obscurity in the houses of Aminadab and Obededom His gracious Majesty our David
who hath been a parallel to King David both in his Persecution and Restoration is as truly his parallel in Piety and holy Zeal for the true Religion and hath made it his first Care as soon as God brought him back to his Kingdom to bring back the Ark of God to Jerusalem to restore the holy Doctrin Worship and Government of our Church which had with himself been long banished and having in the happy Examples of his most Royal and Religious Predecessors observed how exceedingly this Church hath florished under the established Order for many years how eminently her Faith hath been spread abroad in every place how all her Sisters of the reformed Church rejoiced to behold her order and stedfastness towards Christ The Daughters all calling her blessed as also finding by sad experience that in these times of Trouble and Confusion of which we may truly wish with Job That they were blotted out of times and might not come into the number of years the plucking up of the established Order hath been the loss at once of Truth and Peace in the Church and the cause of all the bitter Dissentions and lamentable Divisions wherewith it hath been wounded and dilacerated and which never could be cured or closed by any the Balms and healing Medicins applied by Presbyterians Independents or any other who pretended to be our Physicians this I say his Majesty in his Princely and Pious Wisedom observing hath restored to God's glory and his own great honour that Religion which had before this Rupture obtained and long flourished 2. But there is nothing can be so well devised so warily composed so innocently established as to satisfie all Judgments and anticipate all Objections That Manna wherewith God himself fed his people from Heaven that Angels food was soon loathed and despised As it was at King James his coming to this Crown so at his present Majestie 's there are Dissenters and Complainers who with great and loud Importunities vehement Accusations and a mighty specious Zeal cry out against the publick Worship and Order to be restored His Majesty imitating in the like case the example of that our English Solomon was pleased to give Commission for a Conference or Treaty between some select persons of the Episcopal and Presbyterian Judgment to consider of the Form of publick Worship the Common Prayers of this Church and if occasion be to make such reasonable Alterations Corrections and Amendments therein as should be jointly agreed upon to be needfull and expedient and doubtless for the same reason with that of King James Not but that any thing in the Common Prayer contained might very well have been born with by men who would have made a reasonable construction of things But for that in a matter concerning the Service of God we were nice or rather jealous that the publick Form thereof should be free not onely from blame but from suspicion so as neither the common Adversary should have advantage to wrest ought therein contained to other sense than the Church of England intendeth nor any troublesome or ignorant person of this Church be able to take the least occasion against it The Treaty wanting that Issue his Majesty and all good men desired and no Accommodation thereby effected it is enquired and diversly censured where the blame lies 3. The Presbyterians charge the Episcopal Commissioners to be wholly in the fault and say They have petitioned the Bishops proposed their Alterations made their Objections against the Liturgy replied upon the Bishops Answers finally have cleared themselves and given account to his Majesty of the whole Transaction But the Bishops have answered nothing to their Petition have not considered their Alterations have said little to their Objections and granted as little by way of Concession Therefore they profess the Disappointment hath not been on their part and that they have quiet in their minds having discharged their duty and been Seekers and Followers of Peace But for all this fair flourish it will appear to any Judgment that is not forestalled that 't is on the score of the Presbyterians and for the fault of their undue managing thereof that the Treaty hath proved ineffectual and this I shall manifest by first answering their pretensions and then considering their Petition 1. That the Bishops answered not their Petition it was for good causes what they ask was not in the power of the Bishops to grant the matter was unreasonable the motives weak and not worthy an Answer being in number many but light in weight as when they come to be examined will appear and however directed to the Bishops the Petition was intended to gratifie the people of their own party the design of it being popular and the aim of it apparent to keep up their Interest 2. That they answer nothing to their new Form which they call their Alterations a perfect Abolition of the Churches Form was not their fault but their favour They were obliged to the Bishops for their silence who might justly have convented them instead of answering them the very publishing of that Form being a high Attempt against the Laws and a plain Violation of his Majestie 's Directions in his Commission 3. That they say little to their Objections is for that many of them had little in them were trivial and stramineous and little or nothing have they said in their Objections but what had been said before by Cartwright and others and by Archbishop Whitgift and Mr. Hooker abundantly answered 4. That they granted little by way of Concession they had great Reason and great Precedents Great Reason for 1. The Compilers of the Common Prayer Book were holy able zealous and orthodox Persons and such an Alteration as they desired as I said in effect an Abolition had been to question their Piety and Ability and to cast Dirt in the Faces of those venerable Fathers Confessors and Martyrs 2. The Common Prayer Book was revised approved and confirmed by divers Acts of Parliament and Proclamations in several Princes Reigns to alter it after their Model had been also to cast Dirt in the Face of Supream Authority and to question the Wisedom and Piety of the wisest and most pious Kings and Parliaments 3. It would have opened a gap to the Papists who cry out against us for Novelty and Inconstancy 4. It was his Majestie 's Order That there should be as little Alteration as might be for that the people were acquainted with and accustomed to the Form established 2. They had great Precedents for 1. In Queen Elizabeth's time it being revised very few alterations or additions were made and 2. In King James his time also who judged the Form so compleat that he would have some small things rather explained than changed nay more admonisheth all men That hereafter they shall not expect nor attempt any farther Alteration 5. For that the Bishops have said little and the Presbyterians much it makes nothing for the one nor against
the other they are not the fullest vessels that make the greatest sound 't is not the best cause that is most clamorous the Bishops cause was not their own more than the King 's the Parliaments and the Churches having been by Law established and continued except in the Popish and Presbyterian Persecutions ever since the Reformation Therefore the Bishops judged it needless to give themselves and the World the trouble of any tedious Defence But the Presbyterians pleading against the Laws and established Order thought it necessary to bestir themselves and to make long Apologies for so high an Attempt Therefore they have left no Stone unturned have sent Paper after Paper and posted them through all parts of the Nation to keep up their Interest in the Party and their Party's prejudice against the Churches Liturgy I suppose it is hereby plain to all indifferent Judges that the Blame is not on the Bishops but the Presbyterians that the Treaty had not its desired success And to manifest it farther since they justifie themselves and wash their hands and cry We are innocent They must be told 1. That they have not duly prepared for an Accommodation before the Treaty 2. They have not demeaned themselves candidly and ingeniously in the Treaty 1. They have not duly prepared for an Accommodation before the Treaty There is no hope of a fair Agreement between two dissenting Parties so long as on the one part there remain causes of Jealousie which will not be removed Now since the Prebyterians do lie under the Scandal of holding divers Tenets in reference to his Majesty Episcopacy and the Liturgy to which if they still adhere they render themselves uncapable of a Treaty it highly concerns them to purge themselves by a full and free Declaration of their Judgments in those particulars which have an immediate influence upon the Treaty 1. Since the Presbyterians both from the Pulpit and the Press have taught That it is lawfull to resist Kings and have stirred up the People to arm against their lawfull Sovereign upon pretence of Reformation in Religion herein joyning with the Jesuits That Heretical Kings may be resisted and deposed as many of their Books and Sermons declare For the undeceiving of the People and clearing themselves of the guilt of that antichristian and impious Tenet they were bound in duty and conscience to have publickly disavowed that Doctrine and to have published to the World that they hold the Doctrine of our Church That Kings are Sacred above all coercive Power That they are Supreme the Highest Powers onely punishable by God and not upon any pretence of Liberty Property Law or Religion be it never so specious nay be it never so real to be resisted or opposed 2. For that they maintain and publickly teach the Civil Magistrate not to be Superior to the Ecclesiastical Governors They were obliged to make a publick acknowledgment of the King's Supremacy in all causes and over all persons Ecclesiastical in short to have offered to take the Oath of Supremacy The Denial of which is a second Opinion wherein some of them symbolize with the Papists 3. For that they have in their Writings so publickly opposed the Episcopal Government covenanted against it taken it away and in the place thereof set up another Government they should expresly have owned the Episcopal Government now restored and have promised to be obedient unto it 4. For that they had cast out and laid aside all set forms of publick Prayer Ordination and other Administrations their Directory being a very cypher neither used by themselves nor imposed upon any other every Minister being left to his own dictates in publick holy Offices they should previously have declared their Judgments that a set form of publick Prayer is in every Church necessary to which all in that Church should be obliged 5. For that their Party have taken away the Form of Prayer by Law appointed and forbidden all Ministers under great penalty to use it they should have declared that the substance of it was agreeable to God's Word onely they judged it needed some Alteration and that if his Majesty with the Bishops should consent to the Amendment of such things as by their joint Judgments should be thought needfull they would submit unto it and be obliged ever to use it in their Ministrations These things were necessary should have been precedaneous to the Treaty and would much have conduced to an happy Accommodation Such an ingenuous Confession and Retractation beseemed them and would have melted his Majesty and the Bishops and all good Christians would have wept with them and rejoyced for them and embraced them with the same Affection that Joseph did his repenting Brethren and indeed it was a wonderfull condescention in his Majesty to appoint the Bishops and a high Obedience in the Bishops to his Majesty to treat at all with them without and before such a Confession Surely till they do retract those not onely erroneous but some of them prodigious and most dangerous and unchristian Opinions they in vain go about to persuade the World that â—â—ey cannot submit to our Liturgy upon the Principles of Conscience 'T is not Conscience that swallows Camels and streins at Gnats 't is not Conscience that sees Motes and winks at Beams 't is not Conscience that neglects the weighty things of the Law and tithes Mint and Cummin Certainly they must have abundance of Charity that can believe be their words never so smooth that these men have no Motive but Conscience to oppose our Church Ceremonies do out of Conscience scruple at a Surplice a Gesture a Set form a Word obsolete or improper whose Conscience could swallow Sedition Rebellion could make War against their Sovereign King could overturn all Order both civil and sacred and fill the Church and State with Bloud and Confusion One thing more which evidences their Insincerity as to an amicable Treaty as if they resolved it should take no effect and feared lest Duty Piety Conscience and Reason should work upon their Brethren to submit to the Form of Worship now likely to be restored they sent to all of their Judgments in the Nation to send up whaâ— Objections they could make against the Common-prayer and advised them to hold off and not to conform by any means for their standing out was the onely way to obtain their own terms and liberty their numbers being so considerable that in case of their deprivation there were not Conformable Ministers enough to supply their places and so the King and the Church must be forced to indulge and continue them Surely this was not consciencious and discovered their Design to continue a Division and keep up a Party Though herein their Politicks failed them the Bishops sented the Design and provided for the Churches against the Vacancy 2. They have not demeaned themselves candidly and fairly in the Treaty which themselves in their two Papers the Petition for Peace and the Grand
of God serving him with one mind and with one mouth having the same Doctrine the same Worship the same Government Now consider who they are which hinder this Peace You need not petition the Bishops 't is in your own power to grant your own Petition and truly a Petition for Peace though it have a pleasing Sound yet carries a sad Supposition it suposes 1. That you are not in Peace with the Church and 2. it implicitly accuses his Majesty of Persecution But to come to the matter of your Petition two things you pray 1. That the Bishops will grant what you have in your Preface proposed and craved their Consent unto the Alterations and Additions to the Liturgy now tendred unto them that being inserted as you have expressed It may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other at his discretion upon his Majestie 's Approbation according to his gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs Here they desire That it may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other the new or the old Form and 't is not hard to judge which will be chosen the old by all who are Episcopal the new by all the Presbyterians So shall we have Altar against Altar Common-prayer-book against Common-prayer-book confusion in all Parishes and Division those who are for the old if the new be read will leave their Minister and go where the old is read and the like will they doe who are for the new So shall there be endless Contestations between Ministers and Ministers People and People one pleading for the old Form and exploding the new the other arguing for the new and despising the old Is this to petition for Peace nothing can be more against Peace Certainly we shall ever be two and the Church divided if we have two Liturgies And whereas they appeal to his Majestie 's Declaration his Majesty speaks plainly enough his meaning and more plainly in his Commission that he intends not two Liturgies be established but onely some Alterations in one and the same Liturgy some additional Forms to be left unto the Ministers choice to use one or the other at his discretion and these Alterations and additional Forms not to be made by the one Part separately as yours are but by those of both Persuasions You farther Petition since we cannot obtain the Form of Episcopal Government described by the late Reverend Primate Ireland and approved by many Episcopal Divines we may at least enjoy those Benefits of Reformation in Discipline and that Freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies which are granted in the said Declaration by the means of your charitable Mediation and Request Answ 1. Why did you not then when it was in your Power and the Staff in your hands hearken to Bishop Vsher and those Episcopal Divines did you not covenant against Episcopacy do you not still judge your selves obliged to keep your Covenant did not a prime Leader of your Party in his Sermon at the Treaty at Vxbridge call Episcopacy and the Common-prayer-book The Plague-soars of the Nation did not his late Majesty of blessed memory offer as great condescentions as could be desired to your Divines at the Isle of Wight and did they not oppose and disown all Episcopal Government Hear his Majesty I was willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with reason or discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the authority of that ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church and State Behold what his Majesty was willing to doe in yieldance to Presbytery so as Episcopacy might not be abrogated Behold what the Presbyterians will doe they will goe no lower than to abrogate Episcopacy and since they could not doe it by the Word they will doe it by the Sword But 2. Have you now really changed your minds are you in good earnest do you speak Verbo Sacerdotum when you make us believe you desire to obtain an Episcopacy How doth this consist with your Profession in your Grand Debate There you utterly disclaim all Episcopacy These are your words We doubt whether men in the same Order do by Divine appointment owe obedience unto those that gradually goe before them and they may scruple whether such making themselves the Governours of their Brethren make not themselves indeed of a different Order or Office and so incroach not upon the Authority of Christ who onely maketh Officers purely Ecclesiastical and whether it be no disloyalty to Christ to own such Officers Again 't is a matter of very great doubt whether a fixed Diocesan being the Pastor of many hundred Churches be indeed a Governour of Christ 's appointment or approbation and whether Christ will give us any more thanks for owning them as such than the King will gives us for owning an Vsurper He who can reconcile their Petition for Peace with their Grand Debate the one pretending for Episcopacy the other renouncing all Episcopacy Erit mihi magnus Apollo But the Instance you might have let alone of owning an Vsurper Did you not own and set up an Usurping Parliament against the King and will you not disown the most Lawfull King that shall deny your Will and Way and own the Greatest Usurper that will set up and yield his Neck to your Presbyterian Government But if you cannot gain your own you would be free from Obedience to any other That we may at least enjoy freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies by the means of your charitable Mediation A modest and merry Request That the Bishops will mediate with his Majesty that the Presbyterians may be free from Obedience to Episcopal Government Were your Presbyterian Government set up would you allow the Freedom you ask You have preached and printed against Toleration you would bind Kings with your Chains and Nobles with Links of Iron you would be very shy to give the Indulgencies and Dispensations your selves desire Nay you refuse them to your Independent Brethren Your second Petition is Seeing some hundreds of able holy and faithfull Ministers are of late cast out and abundance of Congregations in England Ireland and Wales are overspread with lamentable ignorance and are destitute of able faithfull Teachers and seeing too many that are insufficient negligent or scandalous are over the flocks we take this opportunity earnestly to beseech you that will contribute your endeavours to the removal of those that are the shame and burthens of the Churches and to the Restoration of such as may be an honour and blessing unto them and to that end that it be not imputed unto them as their unpardonable Crime that they were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by parochial Pastors without Diocesans Ans 1. Is not this a Pharisaical strain through all your Papers To cry
up your own Holiness Faithfulness Piety and Painfulness and to reproach the Conformists as Insufficient Negligent the Shame and Burthen of the Churches Comparisons are odious unto you but we dare appeal to the World and to him who can judge of Hypocrisie and Sincerity that there are Episcopal persons many far more Able Holy Painfull and Faithfull Ministers than any of the Presbyterians and many of the Presbyterians more Insufficient Negligent and Scandalous than any of the Episcopal and if Accusations of others were a Vindication of our selves we could write Centuries as well as your White and name abundance of those you count and call Godly who are the Shame and Burthen of Churches And to be plain with you who trust in your selves that you are Righteous and despise others you are all none excepted the Shame and Burthen of the Church If to preach up Rebellion against the King the Nursing Father of the Church to cast off the Apostolical Government of the Church to eject all the true Sons of the Church to invade and possess your selves by Violence of all the Revenues of the Church be any Shame or Sin or Burthen to your tender Consciences whether it be so or no 't is so certainly to all who are truly consciencious and God grant your deep Resentment and timely Repentance may by God's mercy wash away the Sin and Shame and ease the Burthen which if not now you will one day feel very heavy and uneasie 2. How can you tell us of hundreds of yours cast out and your guilt not fly in your faces Did you not foresee we could retort that thousands of Episcopal men were cast out for their Loyalty and Constancy to the Religion in the Church of England established for not covenanting for not contributing to the Schism and Rebellion we could name if need were thousands whose Learning Piety and Painfulness in their places Envy it self cannot accuse Their onely Crime being their ample Revenues and competent Livings 3. Seeing some hundreds are of late cast out your Consciences know you affirm an untruth that there are none cast out but such as were unjust Intruders into other mens Charges those who without and against Law were deprived are now by Law restored and if any of them be unworthy the Law is open and may they be prosecuted and if they deserve it impartially punished we justifie not any that are scandalous O that all were holy who serve in the holy Ministry and here on my knees I beseech the most Reverend Fathers of the Church That those Ministers who are Conformists but whose Lives are vicious and scandalous may notwithstanding their Conformity fall under the severest Censures Episcopacie hath no such great Enemies as these pretended Friends 4. But why all this Complaint of your being cast out by the Bishops as if they had cast you out when you know and the whole Nation knows that they were cast out by Act of Parliament the Bishops not sitting in that Parliament or rather removed from the unjust possession of other mens Churches and the lawfull Incumbents restored So that you smite his Majesty and the Parliament through the Bishops sides You go on Being conscious that we seek not great things for our selves or for our Brethren that we are ambitious of no greater wealth and honour than our daily bread 1. Do not those seek great things for themselves in respect of Honour who would be co-ordinate with Kings and who would not be subordinate to Bishops disowning their Authority their Ordination and Government and challenging to themselves an equal right to both And for Wealth you cannot but be conscious that you have sought great things the greatest Livings though with the Ruin of the Lawfull Owners the most wealthy places in Cities Universities and the Country Many of you had a rich Benefice and a fat Lecture or a Government in some College So that whatever you profess you lie as deeply under the Scandal of Ambition and Covetousness as you would bring those who are Episcopal These are their Requests 1. That they may have a Government and a Liturgie of their own different from that established and if not that they may be free from that in the Church established 2. That all Presbyterians may be placed in the choicest Livings as holy able and faithfull and that Episcopal men as they have been by them cast out may be kept out of their own Livings as scandalous negligent and insufficient How can these Requests be denyed in number so few in nature so modest religious and rational for with twenty Reasons are these two Requests enforced yet when well considered will shrink up into almost as few as their Requests and will prove as ponderous R. 1. They tell us they dare not use a Cross or Surplice or worship God in a Form which they judge disorderly defective or corrupt when they have better to offer him Malachi 1.13 To that Scruple of the Surplice I have already answered and to that of the Cross the Church hath answered Canon 30. and those whom the Church cannot satisfie 't is in vain for any private person to attempt it and whereas they say their Form of Worship is better than ours we must give every one leave to have a love for the Creature of their own production and the Text they alledge Malachi 1.13 as the Reason why they judge our Form defective and their own better speaks alowd the fondness of their Affection blinding their Judgment Nothing could have been said more for our Form or against their own supposing the words any way applicable to either Are not you they that say the Table of the Lord is polluted his Meat is contemptible Do not you say What a weariness is it And ye have snuffed at it and ye have brought instead of it your new Form that which is torn and lame and sick thus ye have brought an Offering The 2 d 3 d 4 th and 5 th Reasons we had all before in their Request and are now repeated as the Reasons of it their Holiness their Ableness their being cast out their great Sufferings their tender Consciences But though I have spoken to them before I shall pass on them some Remarks lest they should judge we could not answer them 2. There are few Nations under the Heavens of God as far as we can learn that have more able holy faithfull laborious and truly peaceable Preachers of the Gospel proportionably then those that are now cast out in England and are like in England Scotland and Ireland to be cast out if the old Conformity be urged And 3. Whether it be equal to bring upon so many of them so great Calamities Again 4. We would here remember you how great and considerable a part of the three Nations there is that must incur those Sufferings And again 5. We may plead the Nature of their Cause to move you to commiserate your afflicted Brethren in their Sufferings Ans The
Bishops and Episcopal and Loyal Clergy have learned by their own Sufferings to compassionate the Sufferings of others But this Complaint of the Presbyterians Sufferings is like that of Children who bite and cry some can endure much and complain little some will cry out for little or nothing and they say they are most impatient in the least Sickness who have lived long in health not knowing what Sickness meant Let me be bold to ask Who of you are the men that have suffered what have you suffered how long and under whom who have been your Persecutors 1. Who are the men Are all the Presbyterians ejected and sequestred All the Bishops and Loyal Clergy were generally cast out unless Poverty were their protection 2. What have they suffered Have they been deprived of their Livings wherewith the Law invested them Have they been silenced plundered of their Goods Books Papers shut up in Prisons banished martyred You know who suffered thus 3. How long The Conformists have suffered in Silence and Patience near twenty years together and your pretended sufferings a few months being in a capacity to be restored when ever you will return to your duty make more noise than all the Sufferings of all the Episcopal persons all these years 4. From whom Have you suffered from your Brethren from your fellow Subjects without and against Law There are you know who have thus suffered But you cannot say you have suffered any thing but what the Law inflicts and surely that is no note of Innocency and Sincerity as you insinuate If your Sincerity be no more than your Sufferings you have as little cause to boast of that as to complain of the other Non cruciatus sed Causa Let it not displease you if I lay before you and the World a true and just account of your Sufferings and Calamities 'T is shortly this You and your Party had by Arms and Violence against all Law Conscience Justice and Charity seised and possessed your selves of the Estates of your King divers of the Nobility and Gentry the Bishops Deans and Chapters the Dignities and Livings of the Loyal Clergy all the honourable and wealthy Offices ecclesiastical and civil by Sea and Land these you held and enjoyed until God turned our Captivity and the King and the Church was happily restored and then their Estates and Rights were restored and you enforced to quit them without the demand of Arrears or Restitution for the time you enjoyed them which was so long and the Revenues so large that abundance of you being good Husbands and great Improvers have provided well against a Storm and got out of your Sequestrations and Purchases plentifull Estates so that of the Calamity of our suffering Brethren and the Cruelty of the restored King Church and Laws this is the most deplored and lamentable account The King the Church and the Suffering Loyal Party will needs have their Rights again and so the Godly Party who invaded them must no longer injoy them The Prey is plucked out of their Teeth and they must vomit up the sweet morsell You must pardon me if against my Genius your loud and redoubled Outcries of your mighty Sufferings enforce me to be plain with you and tell you your own In their Fifth after their Preface mentioning their Sufferings and in their Sixth they argue from the meanness of the things imposed in the Judgment of the Bishops and the ponderousness in their own It is in your own account But for refusing Conformity to things indifferent or at the most of no necessity to Salvation It is in their account for the sake of Christ Do you think the Lord that died for Souls and hath sent us to learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice is better pleased with Re-ordination Subscription and Ceremonies than with the Saving of Souls by the means of his own appointment Ans 1. Do you think that the Lord who died for Souls and hath sent us to learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not Sacrifice is better pleased with your Refusal to save Souls by the Means of his own appointment upon the Scruple of Ordination by Bishops Ceremonies and Indifferent things than he would be if submitting to them you would preach the Gospel and save Souls Will this be a good Answer to the Lord at the great Day of Accounts Lord I would have preached the Gospel I would have endeavoured the Salvation of Souls But I durst not wear a Surplice I durst not use that declared Indifferent Ceremony of the Cross I durst not kneel before thee at thy holy Table I durst not be obedient to my Lawfull Superiours who required these things and though I know that necessity is laid upon me yea wo is unto me if I preach not the Gospel yet I thought my self obliged rather to dispense with that necessity thou hast laid upon me than submit to those indifferent things they would lay upon me against my Christian Liberty and to let thousands of Souls perish than hazard my own by Subscription and Ceremonies But 2. The Offence of Refusing Conformity in things indifferent is not to be measured according to the things unto which we are to conform which the Church hath declared her Judgment in that they are not to be valued for their own sakes But 't is Pride Contempt and Disobedience to Lawfull Authority to oppose its Orders and these are not so slight faults as you imagin it was but a light fault that Shimei made in going out of the City but he lost his Head for it it was but a light fault that Vzza made in touching the Ark but he lost his Life for it But say you Though the Bishops call the things they enjoin Indifferent yet our Sentiments are otherwise 'T is in our account for the sake of Christ because we dare not consent to that which we judge an Usurpation of his Kingly power and an Accusation of his Laws as insufficient Answ 'T is worth our Observation that of Dr. Sanderson that all their Arguments against our Ceremonies are drawn from the Head of Christian Liberty and then with the same Breath they deny them to be things indifferent and often do they use this Topick in this Address 2. He and others have proved the things to be indifferent as the Church declares them which they can never disprove 3. 'T is for the sake of Christ that you disobey the Command and Example of Christ that you disobey the Magistrates of Christ and the Government of Christ and the Orders of his Church 4. You judge the Bishops Injunction of things indifferent an Usurpation of Christ's Kingly power and Accusation of his Laws as insufficient But your Apostle Mr. Calvin judges otherwise as do the Bishops That Christ hath given Laws for all things necessary in the Divine Worship But as to things pertaining to outward Order and Comeliness he hath taught nothing expresly Those he hath left to the Churches prudence
Hath Christ given such Laws Open our eyes shew us and let us see them Hath he not then not the Governours of the Church but you who judge he ought do accuse Christ's Laws as insufficient In their fifth Reason they say Suppose they be mistaken in thinking the things to be so displeasing to God yet it is commendable in them to be fearfull in displeasing him and carefull to obey him Ans We see be they right or wrong whatever they opine and act is commendable Suppose they mistook in preaching us into Rebellion in pulling down Bishops in taking away the Liturgy in overturning the Foundations of Church and State yet their Zeal is commendable May not all Zealots plead thus Suppose the Papists were mistaken in their Fiery Zeal to blow up the King and Parliament and in the Irish Massacre yet their Zeal was commendable in designing to destroy those they judged the Enemies of their Church Suppose they be mistaken in worshipping the Saints and their Images and Reliques yet since they think they please God 't is commendable Suppose the Quakers mistaken in denying Magistrates and Ministers and all Authority in Church and State yet in that they think they should displease God in owning those Powers 't is in them commendable to disown them Is this the Counsel you would give to one who doubts and seeks your Resolution Will this satisfie and deliver him from doubting to tell him Suppose you were mistaken yet if you think you are in the right pursue your opion 't is commendable Saint Paul is a better Casuist and gives other Counsel Prove all things hold fast that which is good abstain from all appearance of evil 7. That because men are forbidden to preach unless they conform they are tempted to infer that Preaching being necessary to Salvation and those things called Indifferent being made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it therefore they are made necessary to Salvation and preferred before that which God hath made necessary Ans The Accusation is most untrue those Indifferent things are not made necessary to Preaching much less preferred before it and those who are tempted thus to infer because men are forbidden to preach unless they dare subscribe and use those things therefore those things called Indifferent are made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it are very weak Logicians Every thing that is required is not required as necessary as you have been often told Many things are required as expedient as decent as comely as orderly so are our Ceremonies Ministers are forbidden to reade Prayers without the Surplice to preach without a Gown The Judges are forbidden to sit in Judgment till they reade their Commission and are required to sit in their Scarlet will any hence be tempted to infer that the Surplice and Gown are made necessary to and preferred before Prayer and Preaching and reading a Commission and wearing Scarlet Robes are made necessary to and preferred before doing Justice 2. Every thing that is made necessary to any End or Action is not thereby preferred before it Methinks so many Learned Divines should know that though these Indifferent things should be made necessary by the Command of the Church to Preaching yet it no way follows they are preffered before it The Means sure is made necessary to the obtaining the End yet is not preffered before it 'T is you will confess justly forbidden that Ordination should be given to any without Examination and Imposition of hands or that any should preached without Ordination yet I think you are not tempted to infer that Examination Imposition of hands and Ordination it self though necessary are to be preffered before Preaching Follows their 8. R. which implies we lay our Religion upon our particular Liturgy and so teach the Papists to insult Where was our Religion 200 years ago the Common-prayer-book as differing from the Mass-book being not so old 1. We thank you for your ingenuous Acknowledgment that our Common-prayer-book differs from the Mass-book A Mass-priest now yours turning from Popery to Presbyterianism most impudently affirms them to be the same 2. Religion is made up of Doctrine Worship and Government our Liturgy is our Form of Publick Worship and so a part of our Religion and being agreeable to God's Word nor Papists nor your selves can justly except against it For their Question Where was our Religion 200 years ago You might know they make it not so much upon the change of our Liturgy themselves in Queen Elizabeth's time for many years joining in it as upon pretence we have changed our Doctrine and the Question as it hath been oft ad ravim usque by them asked it hath been by us as oft and satisfactorily answered and if we should as we do not lay our Religion upon our Liturgy 't is most agreeable to the Scriptures where our Religion is and contains all the Fundamentals of Religion and your Mr. Calvin doth witness it for us That the Common-prayer-book doth excellently contain the chief heads of our Religion The 9. is A Request for Liberty upon on an Insinuation That no Liturgical Forms were imposed on any Church in the primitive times Ans 1. Then sure the now named your much Reverend Mr. Calvin was either ignorant of the Constitutions of the primitive times or had other Sentiments of them then you who declares his Judgment contrary to you Quoad formulam Precum Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valde probo ut certa illa exstet à qua Pastoribus discedere in functione sua non liceat As to the Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Rights I greatly approve that it be settled from which it may not be lawfull for the Pastors in their Function to vary or depart 2. You have surely heard of the Liturgies of S. Peter S. James and S. Mark and that of S. Mark S. Cyril owns and comments upon in his Catechism and S. Cyril was a Bishop in the primitive times living about the year of Christ 350. and S. Basil a famous and primitive Bishop too was deeply censured and put to make painfull Apologies for a little Change he made in the usual Church-liturgy It was thought in him saith our Authour an unpardonable Offence to alter any thing in us as intolerable that we suffer any thing unaltered in the Liturgy R. 10. And if you should reject which God forbid the moderate Proposals which now and formerly we have made we humbly crave leave to offer it to your consideration what Judgment all the Protestant Churches are likely to pass on your Proceedings and how your Cause and ours will stand represented to them and to all succeeding ages Answ Their moderate Proposals we have heard which they now make that they may be free from the established Government and Liturgy of the Church and they as Able and Godly continued in the choicest Livings they had invaded and the Episcopal kept out as Scandalous Negligent and Insufficient What moderate Proposals they made
formerly I am to learn they know his late Majesty made to them moderate Proposals but was refused and they confess the Lord Primate of Ireland made moderate Proposals but by them never accepted As to their bold Appeal to all Protestant Churches presuming they will give their Judgments for them and against the Church of England's established Constitutions which they have the huge Confidence to prophesie even of the Judgment of all succeeding ages They might without a Revelation by their Jugdment past and present have foreseen their Judgment for the future The past age hath cryed Grace Grace to our happy orderly and moderate Reformation in Doctrine Government and Worship the Protestant Churches have given us the Right-hand of Fellowship have maintained sweet Communion with us have in Marian Persecution received our Exiles their most eminent Lights have sent us high Congratulations their ablest Ministers have divers of them come over and with Joy beheld our Order and some have lived and died amongst us What Judgment did Mr. Beza give Let himself speak Quod si nunc If now the Reformed Churches of England being underprop'd with the Authority of Bishops and Archbishops do continue as this hath hapened to that Church in our memory That she hath had Men of that Calling not onely most notable Martyrs but also excellent Pastors and Doctors let them truly enjoy that singular Blessing of God which I wish may be perpetual unto her What Judgment did Peter Martyr pass in the Case of Bishop Hooper about the Ceremonies Did he not answer his Arguments vindicate the lawfulness of them exhort him to submit unto them The Judgment of Doctor Moulin you have heard and much more might be told you of the high Honour he had for the Church of England And to come nearer what Judgment the Protestant Churches passed upon your Covenant your Reforming the Church by the Sword and in the Bloud of the Nursing Father and the Prime Pastour of it with many Thousands more you have surely heard Were they not ashamed confounded and astonished at our Schisms and Seditions and Violations of all Authority Sacred and Civil And Have not your Actions in the late lamentable times cast a Blemish upon the Honour of our Nation never to be washed off An English-man daring scarce to look another man in the face in a foreign Countrey being under the Objection and Reproach of Rebellion Murthering their King Changing the best tempered Monarchy in the World into a puny Common-wealth and that swallowed up soon into a Barbarous Protectourship and Abasing the most primitive and venerable Episcopacy into a novel and contemptible Parity and Linsy-woolsey Presbytery made up of Preachers and Lay-elders and that too straight undermined and baffled by a Mushrome Independency Pudet haec Opprobria vobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli This is the past Judgment of the Protestant Churches abroad concerning our Church established and you who ruined it till God in mercy restored it For the Churches of succeeding ages I think they will hardly believe the History of ours That such men as you professing highest Godliness should in a pretended zeal for it preach up Sedition and Schism and embroil the Church and Nation wherein you were born and baptized in Bloud and Confusion and which seems more incredible Appeal to all Protestant Churches in your own Justification nay Supplicate the King whose Royal Father was martyred and himself long banished for standing up in defence of the Church which you opposed and by Force destroyed to screen you from the Churche's Power to grant you the chief Benefices in the Church and give you Liberty to be of another Church to enjoy a Worship and Government of your own Mode and Model But my Brethren how come you to make this lowd Challenge Why enquire you or rather Why presume you what Judgment the Protestant Churches will make of our Churches proceedings Sure your mighty Zeal and ardent Affection to your Cause hath clouded your own Judgment and quite bereaved you of your Memory You mention often and with seeming regard his Majestie 's gracious Declaration touching Ecclesiastical Affairs he therein tells you the present Judgment of the Reformed Churches abroad and had you Faith to believe his Royal word you might have spared this Argument and Out-cry which you may blush for and wish you had suppressed Hear his Majesty speaking their Judgment We do think Our self the more competent to propose and with God's Assistence to determine many things now in Difference from the time We have spent and the experience We have had in most of the Reformed Churches abroad in France the Low-countries and Germany where We have had frequent Conference with the most Learned men who have unanimously lamented the great Reproach the Protestant Religion undergoes from the Distempers and too notorious Schisms in Matters of Religion in England And as the most Learned among them have alwaies with great Submission and Reverence acknowledged and magnified the established Government of the Church of England and the great Countenance and Shelter the Protestant Religion received from it before these unhappy times So many of the have with great Ingenuity and Sorrow confessed that they were too easily mis-led by mis-information and prejudice into some disesteem of it as if it had too much complyed with the Church of Rome whereas they now acknowledg it to be the best Fence God hath yet raised against Popery in the World and We are persuaded they do with great Zeal wish it restored to its old Dignity and Veneration You see what Judgment the Protestant Churches have passed upon the Church of England and her former Proceedings and thereby may take an Estimate what Judgment they will pass on her present Proceedings and how the Churche's Cause and yours will be represented to them They will acknowledg and magnifie with great Submission and Reverence the established Government of the Church of England if you dare believe his Majesty and consequently will censure you as Schismatical and Disobedient to refuse to submit unto it But I must not misrepresent you your Submission you profess If after our Submission to his Majesty's Declaration and after our own Proposals of the primitive Episcopacy and of such a Liturgy as we here tender we may not be permitted to exercise our Ministry the Pens of those moderate Bishops will bear witness against you that were once employed as the Chief Defenders of that Cause we mean such as Reverend Bishop Hall and Usher who have published to the World that much less than this might have served to our fraternal Vnity and Peace Ans You before appealed to the Protestant Churches abroad now unto two Bishops of our own and with like Success 1. You say you have submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration you should have instanced wherein His Majesty there declares That having seen all the Liturgies that are extant and used in this part of the World he esteems that of
the World that if the Ministers we are pleading for be laid aside there are not competent men enough to supply their room Ans Their Care that there be a supply of competent men to serve the Church is commendable and pious But why did they not take that Care when it was in their power when themselves laid aside and cast out Thousands to provide competent men to supply their rooms Indeed for competent and great Livings they provided but the places that were poor if empty they filled them not if full by persons never so incompetent they amended it not I believe it is a measured Truth never were so many places unprovided never so many meanly provided as in those times since the first times of Queen Elizabeth when competent Ministers as now required to be qualified could not be had for many places one indeed I have heard of having in Zeal helped to eject his Minister out of a small Living desired the Clerk of the Committee for plundered Ministers to commend a Minister unto them he answered O none of us will accept of that you must provided as you can The 14 th Reason the same as I told you and you may find with the 12 th tels us the Constitutions of the Church are against their Judgment and they have not their Judgments at Command and were they never so willing to believe they ought to obey them they cannot therefore believe the Impositions lawfull because they would the Intellect being not free Ans What is every body's Argument is no Argument Thus may the Jew the Turk the Papists the Quakers plead for their own and against the true Religion and thus your Independent Brethren have argued in their Pleas for Toleration which once you opposed but now you sharpen your Goads at their Forges You bring an Objection as made by us that we may say 't is your own fault that your Judgments are not changed and that the means have been sufficient to which you shape an Answer such as it is but which may make your selves blush That the Sword can easilier take this for granted than the Tongue or Pen of man prove My Brethren Quorsum haec You might well have spared the mention of the Sword Why do you expose your own Miscarriages to the review of the World Who were those that drew the Sword for Reformation Who called to Arm Who promised Heaven to all that would take up the Sword in that blessed Cause of the Covenant when you were then told of the Word and of the Laws you could answer with that Roman Nunquamne nobis Gladiis succinctis Leges recitare desinetis Tell you us who have our Swords by our sides of the Laws We tell you we have drawn our Swords to cut in sunder those Gordian Knots your Parchment Laws So of late your Heroick Oliver to those who pleaded the Laws and ancient Charters granted and confirmed by our Kings Magna Charta Magna Far But I pray you what Sword do the Bishops whom you plead with use but the Spiritual They are no Popes who challenge Potestatem utriusque Gladii They are no Presbyterians who are Co-ordinate Powers with Kings and Princes and for their Tongues and Pens you must strike Sail till you shall be able to encounter and conquer those Worthies Bishop Whitgift Bishop Bilson Dr. Sanderson Mr. Hooker Mr. Mason and many more such Generals in the Lord's Host with whom your Hildersham Baines Parker Ames Dod Ball Nichols are not to be named the same day 15. We crave leave to ask Whether your selves do not in some things mistake Good Leave have you and you ask a wise Question with a Consequence as wild in your Covenant you yoake Popery with Prelacy and now you wittily and merrily ask the Prelates Whether they think themselves as the Pope Infallible and yet your Party proclaim themselves next to Infallible I need not remember you where they say Loath we are to think that they who are most sound in Doctrine should mistake in Discipline Well but the Prelates will confess they may mistake are not infallible What 's the Consequence If you may mistake in any thing may it not be in such great things as these and in the same breath you say These great things are the smallest Ceremonies and Circumstances of Worship I conceive you speak this Ironically otherwise your Inference is in you a foul mistake understanding men may mistake in great things ergo they may mistake in small things However on this Supposition you destroy all Power in men to make Laws in great or small things because Governours are men and may err and mistake in some things ergo they may make Laws in nothing 16. Whether this be doing as you would be done by would you be cast out for every fault that is as bad as this Put your selves in their case and suppose you had studied conferred and prayed and done your best to know whether God would have you to be re-ordained and to use these Forms Ceremonies Subscriptions or not and having done all you think that God would be displeased if you should use them would you then be used your selves as your dissenting Brethren are now used or like to be Ans This is their strongest and fairest Argument drawn from the general Rule of Equity and Charity and 't is easie to retort it being much more strong on the Bishops part Put your selves in the Bishops case and suppose you had studied conferred prayed and done your best to know whether God would have you to preach Resistence against your Sovereign renounce Episcopacy cast out the Church Liturgy and having done all you think nay are sure for thinking will not doe that God would be displeased if you should doe so would you be used your selves as your party used the Bishops imprisoned beheaded sequestred 17. Reason is drawn from the Divisions caused by imposing things unnecessary and the Unity and Peace which would follow if men might enjoy their Liberty and might have leave to serve God as his Apostles did and upon these they enlarge in four whole Pages Nothing more affecteth us than to think of the lamentable Divisions that have been caused and are still like to be while things unnecessary are so imposed and on the contrary how blessed an Vnity and Peace we might enjoy if these occasions of Division were removed and we might but have leave to serve God as the Apostles did Ans If it affect you so much to think upon the Divisions it should affect you to think that you have been and are the chief cause of them and you might if your Will stood not in your way remove them but you mightily mistake both the Cause and Cure of our Divisions which are the direct contrary to what you surmise The Cause of our Divisions is the Liberty you desire the Cure would be your Obedience to the Churche's lawfull Impositions and this not onely Reason but your own Experience might have
taught you You cast off the Reins of Church Government you set your selves at Liberty Did this Cure your Divisions and create among you Peace and Unity No after you had divided from the Church and cast off its Rule and Orders you subdivided among your selves and broke all into pieces and parties never did any Age see such lamentable Divisions in this Church and Nation But you accuse the Bishops as if they will not give you leave to serve God as his Apostles did God forgive you this as false as foul an Accusation Do not the Bishops maintain and the Church stedfastly continue in the Apostles Doctrine Do they not against the Romanists who would obtrude upon us their Traditions in conjunction with the Scriptures assert the Scripture alone to be a most perfect Rule of Faith and Manners Do they not serve God as the Apostles have taught and so many you in Communion with our Church Truly if your meaning be that they give you not leave to serve God as Apostles and no less or lower will serve you than to be as they to give Laws to all the Churches and to be under the Laws of none you must prove your selves to be such before you crave that leave But though you are not Apostles yet you are Prophets you foresee and foretell the Sufferings of your Innocent Party Strange What a Noise they make in almost every Paragraph lamenting and repeating their Sufferings We are against our wills enforced as often to let them know and I wish they would rightly resent and lay it to heart that the Bishops and Conformable Clergy have been really Sufferers for many years and in the Loss of all they had and they the Causes of their Sufferings and for all those years enjoyed all Ease and Plenty and at this time of their present loud Complaint they have yet suffered nothing and are certain they shall not doe if they will return to their Duty all their former Miscarriages being by his Majestie 's Mercy buried in oblivion and if they will doe so they may be received into Favour and are as capable of all Preferments as any the truest Sons of the Church I am unwilling to remark the other part of their Prophecie ripping up our Divisions by their Party raised and continued ever since the Reformation they in effect threaten they will be their Sons and Heirs and that we must not expect Peace but look for Misery and Division unless they may have their Demands to be as free and high as the Apostles and here as their manner is they heap up a multitude of Scriptures you may judge how pertinently by the first they alledge 1 Philippians 14. There St. Paul saith Many of the Brethren in the Lord waxing confident by his bonds were much more bold to speak the Word without fear This Text they cite to prove that the Bonds and Burthens and Displeasure which is upon them from their Superiours hinders them from serving the Lord without fear Saint Paul's bonds made these Brethren confident and set them above fear But our Brethren upon their meer fancy of Bonds and Burthens are faint-hearted and with fear even distracted The other Scriptures make as little for them or against the Bishops and so I shall pass them over The 18 th and 19 th Reasons are of the same Bran yet again and again they cry up their Abilities and their Godliness and cry out of their Sufferings and Persecutions and the Ungodliness of all who are not of their way I cannot conceive the Reason why this one Topick of their Sufferings makes up more than Ten of their Twenty Reasons and they bring it in over and over so very often but that they think no body knows or will believe they have suffered any thing and therefore they say it so often or else by the loud and repeated Cry of their own they would drown the loud Cry of the Bishops Sufferings by them and their Party which yet the Bishops themselves pass by in Silence but the World cannot but take notice of with much concernment Let us yet hear them again In the 18 th they call themselves the Holy Seed and so many able Ministers laid aside and that many of them suffer and that the Ungodly add Affliction to their Affliction And in the 19 th So many truly fearing God being cast or trodden down are tempted to think ill of that which themselves and the Church thus suffer by and when so many of the worst befriend this way because it gratifieth them it tendeth to make your Cause judged of according to the qualities of its friends or adversaries Of their Sufferings enough and too much of their Godliness and the Ungodliness of all who are not of their Party We have heard often too 't is their strain and way with the Pharisee to stand on their Tiptoes and say God I thank thee I am not thus and thus I am not such as this Publican The worst they say befriend that way 1. That 's no proof of the evil of that way rather of the goodness which shines forth so apparently that it convinces and even enforces the worst of men to approve it Video meliora probóque 2. Who are those worst The King the Parliament and all the obedient Sons of the Church of all Estates and Qualities This is usually their great proof that themselves truly fear God their dislike of established Order this their evidence that others have not the fear of God their Obedience to those whom God hath set over them in Church and State By the one they commend themselves by the other they condemn all but themselves and that this is no untrue Accusation they have made appear in that they made no difference between the best and the worst but cast out all of the Episcopal way Nay as one of them pleading before them the Sobriety and Unblameableness of his Life and Conversation they told him to his effect He should fare the worse for that they liked not so well a sober as a scandalous Malignant who gave their Proceedings against him some colour of Justice 2. They tell us they are tempted to think ill of that they suffer by Ans 'T is easie to guess whence that Temptation is a Criminal is tempted to think ill of the Law because he suffers by it Ungodly men are tempted to think ill of God and murmur at him because they suffer by his just Judgments for their Wickedness You are taught otherwise Matt. 5.44 20. We repeat what formerly we have said That the Holy Ghost hath already so plainly decided the point in controversie in the Instance of Meats and Days Rom. 14.15 that it seemeth strange to us that yet it should remain a Controversie A weak Brother that maketh an unnecessary difference of Meats and Days is not to be cast out but so to be received and not to be troubled with such doubtfull Disputations despising and judging the Servants of the Lord
whom he receiveth and can make to stand and that upon such small occasion is unbeseeming true Believers Their 20 th Reason is delivered with so mighty Confidence that they would make us believe it looks like a Demonstration But 't is scarce worthy the name of a Reason They tell us The Holy Ghost hath decided the Point in controversie between us that they think it strange 't is yet a Controversie A strange Presumption whereby they at once condemn all the Conformists and Non-conformists too in this Church ever since the Reformation They think it strange 't is a Controversie and yet know 't is the great Controversie of these 100 years What Volumes have been written pro and con upon this Subject The Churche's Power in things indifferent their own it seems wanted the Illumination of the Holy Ghost who could not see and shew that his plain Decision and so were fain to argue against the Churche's Orders with their slender Probabilities And ours in these charitable mens Judgment were Resisters of the Holy Ghost in asserting the Churche's Power to command for Decency and Order the Holy Ghost having plainly decided the Point against them that they had no such Power the most reverend Whitgift Morton Hall Hooker Mason Sanderson I wonder you did not demonstrate to this last Dr. Sanderson who I suppose was a Commissioner on the Bishops part his wilfull Sin and Errour in Preaching and Writing so earnestly for the Churche's Ceremonies from this very 14 th Chapter of the Romans we look upon him as the great Casuist of the Age a most rare Preacher and Textuary his Temper truly Christian and primitive charitable humble meek modest even to diffidence his Discourses profound and yet plain to the meanest capacity nothing more clear more clean more cogent and convincing And we judge those two Sermons of his one upon the first of St. Peter 2.16 the other upon Romans 14.23 do fully assert the Churche's Constitutions by the Non-conformists opposed and fairly represent and fully answer their Objections and Master Hooker had with as much meekness and strength done it before you have Time and Numbers if you resolve to stand out and not conform to answer Mr. Hooker point by point your many hands may make the work light but to make it short and easie I challenge a whole Smectymnuus of you to answer onely Dr. Sanderson solidly and soundly and I shall promise you to renounce Conformity and if you cannot as I know you cannot you are self-condemned if you renounce not Non-conformity and now I shall be as highly confident as your selves and shall affirm in a direct contradiction to yours that the Holy Ghost hath so plainly decided the Point in Controversie on the Churche's part that she hath Power to command things indifferent for Decency and Order in God's Worship in the 1 Corinth c. 14. v. 40. That 't is strange it should be yet a Controversie Nay the Church had that Power as to outward Order and Decency to appoint Rites and Ceremonies even when God himself had made Laws for Ceremonies and those so many that we might have thought none could or might be added The Religious Kings and Governors of the Jewish Church enjoyned divers things concerning God's Worship which were not by God commanded There was no Commandment of God assigning the Priests Order Manner and Times of Attendance in the Service of the Temple yet David and Solomon appointed them and the Priests conformed and observed them There was no Commandment for Singers Psalteries Organs Cimbals Harps yet David appointed for the Temple this Musick vocal and instrumental There was no Commandment for the Feast of Purim yet Mordecai enjoined it Hester set it forward and the Jews established it for succeeding Generations There was no Commandment for the Feast of Dedication yet our Saviour observed it If therefore the Jewish Church when God himself had instituted abundance of Ceremonies might and did appoint others besides those by God commanded which were generally by all without contradiction observed surely à fortiori the Christian Church having no Law of particular Ceremonies and Rites given by Christ since without Religious Rites God cannot be publickly worshipped in any orderly and decent manner may especially having a general Law to authorize her 1 Corinth c. 14. constitute and appoint such Rites and we must obey her Constitutions in things neither commanded nor prohibited But to come closely to their 20 th Reason since ad Triarios ventum est 't is their last and that in which they place their greatest strength The Holy Ghost say they hath plainly decided the Point in controversie in the Instance of Meats and Days Rom. 14. 15. A weak brother that maketh an unnecessary difference of Meats and Days is not to be cast out but so to be received I shall here premise the weighty Monition of Dr. Sanderson O beware of misapplying Scripture it is a thing easily done but not so easily answered I know not any one gap that hath let in more and more dangerous Errours into the Church than this that men take the words of the Sacred Text fitted to particular occasions and to the condition of the time wherein they were written and then apply them to themselves and others as they find them without due respect had to the differences that may be between those times and cases and the present Sundry things spoken in the Scripture agreeable to the infancy of the Church would sort very ill with the Church in her fulness of strength and stature This Caution directs me to tell the Petitioners that the Point and Case in controversie between us and them is hugely different from that Rom. c. 14. v. 15. in respect of the Time the Persons and Matter in difference 1. For the Time The Jewish Church was now expiring its Constitution dissolved The Christian Church succeeding it was in planting in its infancy in this time when the Church was not settled and its Order not fully established the new Converts being tender Plants were to be tenderly used and all sorts in pious Prudence to be indulged but not so in a Church planted and settled then and there all its Members are obliged to obey its Orders and not to cast them off upon pretence of Conscience or Christian Liberty the Troubles at Francford they mention though much to the hindrance of the Reformation because in the infancy and beginning of it yet because in the beginning of it that Party which opposed the new-made Constitutions of our Church were not so culpable as these Troublers who a hundred years after the Orders of the Church had obtained and happily flourished have invaded and overturned all Order and Government and now that 't is restoring keep up the same humour of opposing it 2. The case is different in respect of the Persons differing about Meats and Days The one Party were weak the other strong in Faith and Judgment of their Christian Liberty Now of