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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A94218	An anti-diatribe: or The apologie of some ministers and godly people, asserting the lawfulnesse of their administring the Lords Supper in a select company proving also the necessity of examination in our congregations, in order to a more holy church-fellowship. Wherein a paper is answered, bearing this title, viz, A diatribe concerning the administration of the Eucharist and examination thereunto precedent. Together, with a vindication of the Lords Supper from its manifest abuse by a general admission; being an answer to Mr. Humphrey. By Humphrey Saunders Minister of Hollesworthy in Devon.	Saunders, Humphrey.; Manton, Thomas, 1620-1677.	1655 (1655)	Wing S746A; ESTC R229794	95,185	240

all good thoughts and hopes May not our actings proceed as well from the tendernesse of our consciences and love of holinesse as from the base over-weening conceit of our own purenesse Surely it is possible they may May not a man be humble in his own eyes and yet be wary about his society in Gods Ordinance We are perswaded he may we see no incongruity in either of these Truly we desire more holinesse in our selves and others then is yet attained and we judge our present way conducing to it When you finde us boasting of our own holinesse condemne us boldly we wish all Pharisees had hypocrisie written on their foreheads with a Sunne-beame we should see many a worlding and Politician detected then As to that text of Esay it is spoken as the best think by the people to the Prophets Musculus on Esay 65. ch p. 851. who had reproved them for their corrupt worship in gardens and mountaines Stand by thy self say they to Esay come not near us Now if the speakers prove to be the people why are the Ministers marked with this coale for Pharisees Many like those in Esay's time stand off from us as too holy and the while blame us for standing off from them as Publicans The distance between us and others is not of our making but of their own SECT XXI Wherein of the fourth Querie namely Whether it mell not strongly of the spirit of Diotrephes that sought the preheminence and be not a Lording it over Gods heritage since it tends to reduce every one to an awful subjection to his Minister lest his reputation be blasted by being repelled from the Communion The fourth Querie ● his is the more suspected because not only persons which they may think they have cause to suspect to be of incompetent knowledge must passe this trial by examination but generally every one not only such of whom they might be doubtful and yet in dubio melior est possidentis bonam famam as I said before yet when sure there can be no such violent suspition that makes the thing morally certaine and which onely by the opinion of the Casuists may warrant the trial but even those that perchance were more susceptible of Catechising the Minister and whose shekels are known to be double to those of the Sanctuary And to think there is cause to suspect every mans insufficiency in point of knowledge is to imply as the Papists have abusively perverted that of Gregory that while the Oxen laboured The fourth Querie in the tenth Section of the Paper they were all Asses that fed by them It grieves some that suffrage for Presbytery to see others hereupon to suspect that it was cast in like mould with that of Popery whose main if not only pinciple was the advance of the power and grandor of the Prelates and Priests As they among other things would seeme to have a power to damne any man while they taught a necessity necessitatem medii of partaking the Sacraments as absolutely medious to salvation and the efficacy of those Sacraments to depend upon the intention of the Minister so as it was no Sacrament where he intended it not vesting a power in the Pastor without any notorious offence to exclude from the Sacrament impowers him to reject any from the ordinary means of salvation and so coacts an awful dependance of all upon him in order to subjection § 21 We have transcribed the whole as the other tasted so this smells such hard thoughts we are more grieved to reade then troubled to answer The spirit of Diotrephes is that which seems to possesse and act us in our way Pudet haec opprobria dici potuisse non potuisse refelli Should we spread our selves upon every limbe and part of this Objection too much time would be spent in answering But why the spirit of Diotrephes 1. Because it designes reducing our people into awe 2. Because all are called to trial yea such as are more able then the tryers 3. Makes the people asses 4. Shapes Presbytery to Popery This is the series Answ Answer unto these severally 1. To Diotrephes and his Lording power See Estius on the 3. Epistle of John v. 9. It feems to us that the author is somewhat mistaken in the condition of Diotrephes The text tells us he sought preheminence and the learned tell us that his ambition rather crossed John then oppressed the people He was an heretick and sought to sit in the Church above an Apostle He receiveth not us saith John any thing over the people above the state of a Bishop we reade not of in him only he depressed John so that he was nearer the spirit of an Anti-apostolist then of a rigid and imperious Presbyter as to the people But what is it to Lord it over Gods heritage It is a going beyond Ministerial power and infringing the liberties and priviledges of the Saints 1. It is a going beyond Ministerial power Then if keeping away ignorant and scandalous persons be not an exceeding of this power it is no Lording 1 Cor. 4.1 c. or imperious thing That Ministers are Church-Officers and have committed to them as stewards in Christs house all the mysteries of the Gospel is too clear to be denied or doubted This Paper yields somewhere a Ministerial power as to the use of those two keyes of Doctrine and Censure we desire but Ministerial power If we act more we are deservedly blamed We shall not dispute here the proper and proximate subject of Church-power as Ministers we claime but what doth belong to Church-Officers without injury to the Church Now if stewards of the mysteries of the Gospel it behoves us to be faithfull as to the peoples right so to the dignity of the Sacrament Did we impose any thing not commanded of God or act Bishop-like in a sole jurisdiction we could never avoid this blame Let Lording fall so rule may stand some subjection is due by Gods Word to all godly Ministers from their people If when minded of this they crie out of Lording this is their own fault and ignorance of their duty In a way of surmising what godly courses but may be thus blasted and confuted With some men all rule is tyranny Some Anabaptists count all Magistrates Tyrants so do others all Church-power tyrannie Erastianisme and Anabaptisme do in this joyne hands Ph. Goodwin Evan. Communicant p. 206 A late godly Writer saith that in Luthers time some profanely professed that they had rather live under the dominion of the Turk then where all should be ordered according to the will of God Shall such thoughts and sayings now prejudice Gods wayes We read that the men of Israel counted Solomon a Tyrant 1 Kin. 9.22.10.27 yet the Queen of Sheba admires the happinesse of his servants and Subjects he made none of the people bondmen Yea he made silver to be as stones only he laid a tribute for the house of the

Paper IN the Primitive Church were excluded from the Communion the Catechumeni The sixth Section of the Paper Energumeni persons excommunicate and penitents and such as lapsed into Heresie untill they repented and I should be glad to be taught for sure it is out of my learning where or when any others were rejected but only under this notion and capacity In these ancient times I finde that mutual reconciliations and in Affrican Churches vigils with prayers and in Chrysostomes times fastings and sometimes in some places the publick renouncing in some particular heresies were antecedent to the Synaxis but I finde no necessity of previous examination When the Church saw the benefit of publick confessions for publick offences as well for the subduing of the stubbornnesse of their hard hearts and the improving of their deep humiliation as for the raising up again by those sensible comforts which they received by the publick prayers of the Church and use of the Keyes Some men reflecting hereupon and finding their consciences smarting for like fins which being secretly carried were not obnoxious to the censures of the Church to the end they might obtaine like consolation and quiet minde did voluntarily submit themselves to the Churches Discipline herein and underwent the burthen of publick confession and pennance and to the end this publication of secret offences might be performed in the best way and discreetest manner some prudent Minister was first acquainted therewith by whose direction the Delinquent might understand what sins were first to be brought to the publick notice of the Church and in what manner the pennance was to be performed by them At first it was left free to the penitent to choose his Ghostly Father but at length by the general consent of the Bishops it was ordained that in every Church one certaine discreet Minister should be appointed to receive confessions untill at length in the time of Nectarius Bishop of Constantinople who died An. D. 401. Socrates Hist l. 5. c. 19. upon occasion of the infamy drawn upon the Clergy by the confession of a Gentlewoman defiled by a Deacon in that City it was thought fit it should be abolished and liberty should be given to every man upon the private examination of his own conscience to resort to the holy Communion which doubtlesse occasioned Chrysostome the successor of Nectarius to make those deliveries of himself which are prementioned The result of those premises is this that the ancient Church sometime thought it requisite that confession of penitents should precede the Communion but not the examination of all or any that communicated I shall desire that it may be deliberately considered First Whether repentance be not as necessary to worthy receiving and as principall a part of that examination which every one ought to make of himself as knowledge and then as advisedly to perpend Secondly Whether there be not as great a reason to revive Auricular confession in some qualified and rectified manner as to introduce a particular examination especially since the Church of Rome asserts and practiseth it upon this same principle Greg. Valentia tom 3. disp 6. quest 8. punct 3. pag. 43. which these men do their precedaneous examination viz. because it is the duty of the Priest to repell unworthy and to admit the worthy which is best done upon the knowledge of the penitents estate in confession SECT XIII Wherein of the practice of Antiquity in preparation for and exclusion from the Lords Supper In the sixth Paragraph he passeth from Scripture-Argument to Antiquity Illi verò quamvis non habent sacras literas habent fortasse doctores veteres sanctos Patres Juel Apol. p. 114. which discourse is continued in the seventh and eighth Sections In this a line is drawn from the Primitive Church down to the time of Chrysostome or rather a circle about that age he lived in In whose time the yoke of Auricular confession was broken and liberty granted to every man to resort to the Communion upon the private examination of his own conscience We shall now make triall of the strength of this also where we finde some things yielded others affirmed and supposed all which we will consider We might here shew many reasons against building too much on the Fathers and Antiquity this objection being raised upon the sand thereof and taken not for Scripture-Antiquity but upon humane account of Fatherss and Councels Sibrandus Lubertus de principiis c. dogm p. 7. It is received among all Orthodox Divines that the Books of the Prophets and Apostles are the onely principle of Christian belief The Fathers have their errours sometimes they agree in mistakes and another while are divided in truths It is the saying of an eminent man L. Verulam Essays p. 140. They that teverence old times too much are a scorne to the new in his Essay on Innovation whereon by some passages in the first Section of the Paper sent we conjecture the Authors eye to have been Justine Martyr refers the opinion of the Chiliasts which hath been taken for an errour to the Apostles Irenaeus sayes that he had by tradition that Jesus Christ lived fifty years on earth which is false It is the manner of the Fathers saith our Author when they would commend a thing Sib. Lub de p. c. dog p. 130. not knowing its Original to refer it to the Apostles and Primitive Church In the three first ages or centuries of the Fathers the Learned are perplexed with spurious works so that there is great uncertainty as to the Fathers and state of the Primitive Church as it is reported by Writers Besides the Primitive Church is stretched somewhat too farre when it is brought down to the time of Chrysostome who lived in the fourth Century when in the judgement of some it extends not beyond the Apostles dayes or but to the third Century We wonder most at this that devout Chrysostome is brought in for this suggested liberty Let the Reader consult him especially on Matth. Hom. 38. Chrrysost Hom. 28. on Mat. p. 98 toward the end of the Homily and if he finde not Chrysostome of another minde we are deceived We shall set down his words hereafter But what if such a thing be concluded on will it therefore be a truth not to be gainsaid No the consent of Bishops is not alwayes so authentick Here again Auricular confession is made our patterne and so presented as to cast an odium upon the Ministers and their actings in this businesse What else that story of unclearmesse serves for we know not As to the Queries and demands in the end of the Section we answer 1. Repentance is as necessary as knowledge and is a part of examination or rather examination is a part or act of repentance 2. That private confession in a right and rectified manner hath never been totally disused the private unburthening of grieved soules into the bosome of some Christian friend