to the Elector The King electeth the Bishop and the Patron the incumbent Parson Doth every one that after consenteth do more or must we lay by our senses in believing such Writers against damning errour 4. Note that he quite overgoeth the truth on the popular extream which he accuseth others of As if the people must elect a man to the indefinite Office of a Minister as such which is false Christ sent out his Apostles and the Apostles sent abroad a converting Church-gathering Ministry without any popular election The Ordainers must chuse who shall be a Minister by his consent The Christian people should chuse and must consent at least who shall be the special Guide of their own Souls or their Pastor in particular And the Magistrate must chuse 1. Whom he will maintain and encourage 2. Whom he will tolerate How came he to think that Election is nothing to the case as if Consent were something more yet is he at it again P. 119. They make it another Baptism § 24. XX. Next he answereth our saying that No man can be a Pastor to a people against their wills And doth he say Yea or Nay Neither plainly but talks of somewhat else and saith He is a Pastor by Office and Calling whether the people will or not and so Pastor and people are not simul naturâ As if the equivocating with the word Pastor warranted him to damn his Brethren and confound Church-order As a Pastor signifieth but a Minister commissioned to become the actual undertaking Guide of a particular Church-flock when he is called to it so this man may be called a Pastor aptitudinal as a man is a Captain that hath Commission to raise a Troop But as the word Pastor signifieth one that is actually the Overseer of a particular Church-flock he is none till he have a Flock and in both senses Pastor and Flocks are relate and correlate simul naturâ that is in the first simul in esse cognito intentionali In the later in esse existente But saith he God is God whether the people will or no and Christ is Christ Apostles are Apostles and so faithful ordained Ministers are Pastors Ans This is but the fallacy of the foresaid equivocation of the word Pastor 1. God is not made God nor Christ made Christ nor Apostles or indefinite Ministers such by contract or humane consent But he that said Come out from amongst them c. I will be your God and you shall be my people and maketh some a holy Nation and peculiar people c. is so related to none but Consenters Christ is an offered Saviour to refusers but he is not the Saviour and Head of any as Christians or a Church actually but Consenters without consent we are not materia disposita receptive of the peculiar relation A man may be authorized to be a Tutor Schoolmaster Physician Captain Master c. without my consent but he is not my Tutor Master c. till I consent save aptitudinally not actually 2. And these relations are more dependent on humane Contract or Consent than Gods being God c. But saith he If all be Pagans the Minister lawfully ordained and appointed to convert and baptize and be a Pastor to them is a true full and compleat Pastor before he have christened one soul of them Ans True or false as the equivocation is taken As one decreed to be a Husband to a Wife that is yet unborn may by the deceiving improper language of an equivocator be said to be the true full and compleat Husband of her yet unborn or unmarried that is one designed to be a Husband hereafter in a proper sense so here But Pastor est ovium seu gregis Pastor Analogum per se positum stat pro significato famosiore Heathens are no Church Ergo no man is a Pastor of them as a Church Is he a compleat Pastor of a Flock that hath none § 25. XXI But saith he Mark the matter you are baptized a godly man I have nothing against you onely this I cannot take you for one of my Flock unless by a voluntary consent c. I must shut you out as an Apostate or a Pagan Ans Calumny and Deceit conjunct 1. It 's immodest calumny to say as an Apostate or a Pagan I take him for a Christian and on due testimony shall admit him to such Communion lawful as he himself desireth 1. Whether as a Member of the Universal Church 2. Or also as a fixed Member of another Church desiring temporary transient Communion here 2. It is gross Deceit to say I put him out that refuseth to come in If I give him no more than he is willing of what do I put him out from If I take him not for a Member of my proper stated Charge it is because he desireth it not I thank God I never was a proper Pastor to any People against their wills nor ever will be were I capable of more service § 26. But saith he This makes against you Can any man forbid these people from being Members of the Particular Church that are of the Universal Ans Self-contradiction Do we forbid them that are not willing or do they forbid themselves Doth the Physician forbid them to be his Patients that consent not Do we shut them out that will not come in Yet he feigneth us to do no less than cast them out of the Church Universal as casting them out of all Particulars under Heaven Ans Calumny hath got such a channel that his Writing runneth commonly that way 1. I cast them out of no Church under Heaven who will not consent to come in 2. Were they of no particular Church they may be in the Universal as I before proved of many sorts § 27. He next noteth that it is but signified Consent that I require But he saith neither Christ nor his Apostles mention it and all the Church are without it Ans Let us trie here whether this be true or false and all his damning and unchristning censures fall not on the Holy Ghost and all the Churches I. It is certain that besides Ministers unfixed and of general indefinite work there were by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles time fixed Churches of Neighbour-Christians setled II. It is certain that these had fixed Pastors of their own that were related to them specially as their special Charge so as they were not related to all or any other Churches III. It is certain that these Pastors had not equal authority to go into all other mens Diocesses or Parishes and say You are as much my Charge as any others and play the Bishops in other mens Diocesses though when they had a Call they might be Ministerial Temporary Helpers IV. It is certain that these Pastors were specially obliged to many Offices for those peculiar Flocks which to other Churches they were not so obliged to but onely to occasional help Dr. Hammond nameth many of them and so do
a Church and I take not Heathens for the Church XIII I believe that in this Universal Church are thousands of particular Churches and this by Christs Institution XIV I believe that there is no particular Church or Christian on earth who is not respectively as Visible or Mystical a part of the Universal Church XV. As every worshipping Assembly is a Church in a larger sense so a Church in a political sense is essentially constituted of the Pastor and People or the Sacerdotal guiding and the guided parts and of such a Church it is that I am speaking XVI As such meeting in transitu are an Extemporate transient Church so fixed Cohabitants ought to be a Church accordingly fixed related to each others as such for longer than the present meeting XVII Every such Political fixed Church should consist of a Pastor at least accordingly fixed to a cohabiting people and as their Pastor more specially related by obligation and authority to them than to strangers or neighbour Churches He is not bound to do that for all as he is for them nor may go into other Pastors Churches with equal power nor officiate where he please XVIII If there be no Church but the Universal than there is neither Parochial Diocesan or National nor are Assemblies Churches Nor is our King the Royal Governour of any Church for of the Universal he is not XIX Christian Princes must do their best to settle faithful Pastors in all Churches that is according to the Laws of Christ but not against them But as they must do their best that all their Subjects may have good Phycisians Schoolmasters Wives or Husbands Servants Dyet Cloathing c. but yet are not trusted by office to choose all these for every one and impose them on Dissenters because the same God that made Kingly power did first make personal and paternal power which Kings cannot dissolve so every man is so nearly concerned for his own Salvation more than for Wife Servant Dyet Phycisian c. that though he must thankfully accept of all the Rulers lawful help he is still the most obliged chooser Nor is it any part of the office of a King to choose and impose on every Subject a Guide or Pastor to whom only he shall trust the Pastoral conduct of his Soul any more than a Physician or a Tutor for him XX. Parish-bounds are not of Primitive or Divine Institution but cohabitation or propinquity is a needful qualification of setled Members gratia finis And Parish-bounds are a useful humane determination according to the general Rules Do all to edification and in order XXI No one is a Church-member merely because he dwelleth in the Parish for unbaptized Infidels Heathens Atheists may dwell there XXII Nor is a stranger a Church-member for coming into the Assembly for such as aforesaid or Jews Mahometans may come in XXIII A Pastor oweth more care and duty to his flock than to the rest of the world as a Physician to his Hospital Therefore he must know who they are better than by knowing that they dwell in the Parish nor may he Baptize them or give them the Lords Supper only because he seeth them in the Assembly or in the Parish else Jews and Heathens must have it XXIV Nor is he to give it to every one that demandeth it for so may Jews and Heathens that take it in scorn or for by-ends XXV Yet a Christian having a valid Certificate that he is such hath right to transient Communion with any Church of Christ where he cometh but for order the antient Churches used not to receive them without some Certificates from the Churches that they came from lest Hereticks and Excommunicates unknown persons should be every where received XXVI No man can be an adult Christian without signified consent nor a stated member of any particular Church without such consent no nor a lawful transient Communicant without consent For so great benefits none but consenters have right to nor can such relations be otherwise contracted XXVII Consent not signified nor known is none to the Church XXVIII A man may be obliged to consent that doth not but that makes no man a Christian or member of the Universal Church else Millions of Infidels and Heathens are Christians And so it maketh no one a member of a particular Church that he is obliged to be one nor am I a Pastor over any men as a Church because they are obliged to take me for their Pastor no more than that is a Husband Wife Servant who is obliged to be so and will not To say that I am a Pastor to Heathens as a Church is a contradiction or that I am their Pastor as my special Christian flock and particular Church-members that consent not XXIX But the same man that liveth among such may be to consenting Christians a Pastor and to Refusers Infidels or Heathens a Teacher The Church ever distinguished the Audientes and Catechumene Candidates from the Fideles who were the Members of the Church XXX No Pastor or people should impose any Covenant on any adult to be Christened but consent to be Christians signified by Baptism nor on any in order to transient Communion among strangers but just notice of their Christianity and understanding consent to that Communion nor on any in order to their being the stated Members of this or that flock and particular Church but due notice of their Christianity and of their understanding consent to what is essential to such members that is to the relation as essentiated by the correlate and ends XXXI No one should be obliged by covenant to continue one year or Month in the station of that particular relation because they know not when Gods providence may oblige them to remove or change it XXXII Though the Peoples consent be necessary to their relation their Election of the Pastor which signifieth the first determination who shall be the man is not absolutely necessary though of old so thought An after-Consent may serve ad esse relationis XXXIII Much less is it necessary that the people choose who shall be ordained a Minister unfixed and only of the Universal Church XXXIV 1. Mutual consent of the duely qualified Ordained and Ordainer determineth who shall be a Minister in the Church Universal as consent of the Colledge and the Candidate do who shall be the Licensed Physician 2. The Peoples consent and the Ministers instituted determine who shall be the Pastor of this particular Flock or Church 3. The King determineth whom he will tolerate countenance and maintain XXXV Though a man may be Ordained but once to the Ministry unfixed in the Universal Church to which I said the Peoples consent is not necessary yet may he be oft removed from one particular Church to another on just cause to which the peoples consent if not Election is still necessary Though to avoid Ambition the old Canons forbad Bishops to remove XXXVI It 's lawful to be ordained sine titulo
me and you must be baptized in the name of Paul c. No Church-covenant no Church-member no right to any Church-ordinance Ans Confundendo fortiter caluminaris 1. The Eunuch consented to be a Christian of the Church Universal but not to be of a particular Church without that Consent he had not been baptized but this was not needful to it 2. The dispute whether Lay-mens baptism be valid I leave to you But if yea it is not necessary that I judge the Baptizer a Minister If not then it is necessary and my consent is necessary to make me a Christian but not him a Minister But mutual consent is necessary to his Pastoral relation to a particular Church 3. An Ordinance common to the Church Universal and proper to a particular Church should not be confounded nor so much as the modal ministration Do I adde to Baptism if I say that by the Canons and Custom of all the Churches for one Thousand years a man was not to be taken for the Bishop of any Church without mutual consent what 's this to Baptism And what temerity is it to feign men to wrong Christ by that which was his Institution and so judged and used in all the Churches § 14. X. Saith he It maketh the people Church-Rulers or Co-partners in office with the Pastors so that without their Consent they can do nothing not baptize Ans Of me the calumny hath no excuse I have written so much to the contrary Yea the very Act calumniated essentially containeth the contrary in it As he that consenteth to be a Servant consenteth not to be Master but to obey So they that consent to be Lay-members of a Pastors Flock consent that he and not they shall rule and that they will be the obeying part How could you wink so hard as not to see that your false witness confuteth it self And what if he cannot be their Governour without their consent doth this give them any part in governing Nay what if he cannot baptize a Non-consenter or give him the Lords Supper is the Refuser a Church-governour The man had got a heap of Notions against the Independents in his mind or his instigator that hath the same disease had thrust them in and out they must come against he knew not whom or what upon the word Consent What work would he make in the Church if he should deny the necessity of this Consent and have the Church made a Prison where Infidels should be cram'd and drencht with the Sacrament § 15. XI It sets up saith he Rebaptization by a Law For it requireth of godly baptized ones an antecedent Covenant to be Members of the particular Church As if a man should covenant to be a godly Citizen of London to be a Member of Gods Church at K. and hold communion therewith the people are called on to be new Christians as if they had been no Christians before Ans It is a sin to read such words without grief and indignation What! is every renewal of the Covenant of Godliness or Christianity a Rebaptizing or supposeth us Pagans Is this made by a Minister a heinous sin Are we not to do it in every partaking of the Lords Supper Yea explicitely or implicitely in every prayer Is Mr. Allen's Book for Covenanting and Mr. Rawlet's of Sacramental Covenanting such unchristening Heresies Is it damnable or sinful to covenant to be a godly Servant or a godly Husband or Wife or a godly Minister or Magistrate Doth this suppose them ungodly before with wat weapons are we assaulted § 16. XII He addes It bindeth people to be dwellers within the precincts of that one Church to hear no other Minister to joyn with no other Congregation Ans Concatenated Calumnies as to me They onely consent to the Relation of lay-Lay-members till they remove their dwelling or relation They consent to take that Church but as a part of the Universal and therefore to hold just Communion with all others and receive what benefit they can from any other Ministers I abhor a Covenant that renounceth Communion with the Universal Church or any part of it without necessary cause Putide haec putares § 17. XIII He addes What shall godly Strangers Travellers c. do your Doctrine maketh them invaders Ans 1. If I have no notice of their consent to communicate with us pro tempore they expect it not And de ignotis non judicat Ecclesia and non apparere is equal to non esse If I have notice of their Consent it supposeth some notice that they are baptized or Christians and have more right than Heathens to Communion And if so 1. They consent to be Members of the Universal Church and as such I shall give them the Sacrament and Communion though I were no Pastor of any particular stated Church 2. They consent to a Transient Temporary Communion with me as a Minister in the Catholick Church And 3. They consent to transient temporary Communion with that particular Church and transient temporary Communion I will give them yea and may call them transient Members of that Church but no further any of these than they consent A Christian giving evidence of his Christianity hath right to transient Communion in all Churches in the world where he cometh yea all are not bound to live in stated Churches some are Travellers some unsetled Embassadors some Factors amongst Heathens some of no Habitation Beggars Pedlars Tinkers and such wandring Trades some live where is no Church with whom they may hold lawful Communion c. Now we have a new Divine risen up in the end of the world that seems to make all the setled Churches of Christ in the world for many hundred years to be all Traitors to Christ because these wanderers must not consent to their special relations nor enjoy their proper Priviledges and because they consent themselves to a more setled relation and Communion than these wanderers or refusers are capable of What would all the old Church that made so many Canons about their proper Communion have thought of this mans Doctrine if he had come among them at their Elections Discipline Distributions to the Widows and Poor and said Hold Sirs You are all destroying Baptism and Christianity by consenting to more towards one another than you owe to every unknown wanderer or refuser of a setled Church-state As if with our new Politician all Cities and Corporations are Traytors or deny or wrong the King because all Subjects are not Citizens some being Vagrants some in Villages some Souldiers some in odde Houses c. and because Cities consent to a special sort of Government which the rest have not Between the Anathematizers and these over-wise Censurers there are few Christians in the world that are not condemned as no Christians for being sound Christians § 18. XIV He was aware that we say that every one that may come into the Temple is not a part of my special Charge as a Pastor which I
cannot do for all And he saith It 's all one to your Doctrine if he refuse your Church-covenant The Minister all this while is no Minister the People all this while are no Christians They are no more lawful Pastor and People than Whoremonger and Whore going together and committing acts of filthiness and living in Fornication all their days Ans Continued Calumny as to me Is no modesty or tender fear of sinning against the Ninth Commandment left 1. He that refuseth Consent to be a stated Member is none such But is he therefore no Christian Awake Conscience Do any Independents say that none are Christians but their special charge yea or stated Members of particular Churches If there be any such what 's that to me 2. Such persons may be Members of the Universal Church and I am a Pastor in the Universal Church and as such may communicate with them 3. If he desire temporary Communion he consents to as much as he desireth and that he may have If he desire more he shall have more § 19. But saith the Accuser what speak you of Literae Communicatoriae These are nothing to yourcase he saith it ergo he proveth it It shuts him out of all particular Churches and Congregations under Heaven except c. Ans Putares of me it 's thus true or false 1. He that consents not to be a stated Member of any Church none because he would be none and it 's blind self-contradiction to say that I shut him out because he will not come in 2. He that consenteth to be a Member of the Universal Church shall not be shut out 3. He that by literas Communicatorias or any good testimony sheweth himself a Christian and desireth onely one days temporary Communion with a stated particular Church shall not be denied that which he desireth nor will we urge him to more § 19. XV. He adds It layeth waste Parish-bounds leaving people to go to what Church they will Intimating that being a godly man and a Parishioner doth not make him a Member of the Parish-Church Teaching people to be disorderly Ans 1. A quatenus ad omne valet consequentia I said enough before to prove the falsehood of your Church-estate 1. Then there were no Church till there were Parish-bounds 2. Then if Papists Anabaptists c. be godly and dwell in the Parish they are Members against their wills 3. And they are Members of two particular Churches one in despight of them and of the other as Consenters 4. There are some Houses that are in no Parish that I have known Alas these must be of no Church 5. Some parts of one Parish are in the middle of another The truth is Parish-bounds are ordinarily of good use for Order and Order is for Edification and to promote the thing ordered and he layeth it not waste 1. That giveth it no more than its due as a humane mutable circumstance and not as essential 2. Nor he that refuseth it when it is turned against the end and the res ordinanda § 20. XVI He addes Then if the Pastor set over them be a son of Belial and sinfully tolerated by the Magistrate the people of the Parish who can neither remove him nor sit under a more edifying Minister must covenant to him c. Ans Strange who would have thought but this was neerer your opinion than theirs Briefly if the man be tolerable they must rather accept of him than have none If he be intolerable in the Ministry they may use such common gifts as he hath as we read even a Cicero but they must be of no particular Church till they can be so on lawful terms Even a Council of the Popes decreed that till men can have lawful Pastors they must forbear that Communion that supposeth such And who can doubt of it § 21. XVII Next he quibbles onely with a Question How long shall it last Answ How long will you be of the Parish-Priests or the Diocesans Flock or of a Physicians Hospital We cannot secure men from providential changes a day and therefore would not have them to binde themselves but on such suppositions He that means to go to morrow to another Countrey should consent but to this days Communion He that intendeth here to dwell must consent to the relation of a stated Member of that Flock till he remove or till God shew him just cause to change that relation till then he should know his proper Pastors § 22. XVIII Next he questioneth Who shall degrade them that prove Heretical or Scandalous c. Ans The Ordainers made him a Minister by Investiture c. and yet without our consent he was not related to us as our Pastor or we to him as part of that Church And so we may withdraw our consent and become none of his special Church-flock and leave it to the Ordainers to degrade him if he must be degraded as to the world and Church Universal One would think this Answer should be undeniable But he goeth on with his dismal accusations p. 116. The particular Church-covenant is a thing of mans invention no where required of God it is destructive to the Church and Souls should it be practised Ans Seeing Covenanting and known Consenting are all one with him what a dreadful damning sin doth the man make it for to consent to be under our Pastors Office Then he that would escape damnation must not consent to the office of the Parish-priest much less of the Bishop much less swear obedience to the Bishop And least of all say or swear never to endeavour any alteration We have need to bless us from Conformity if Consenting be so damnable But what meant he to say should it be practised Doth he not know that it is practised by them all and so that this Judge doth damn them all § 23. XIX He next answereth two of our pretences 1. From the Election of Ministers by the people And saith Election is quite another thing till they are ordained they are no men in office but persons designed Ans Alas that the man that hath all this while been damning others should not see that he hath so damned himself yea and quite exceeded my damning errour This it is to print with the zeal described Jam. 3. before men know what it is that they talk of Note that he is not against the peoples election if he be intelligible and yet elsewhere They are Rebels and no Christians that stand not to the King and Parliaments election 2. Note that he talks of one election to the Office of the Ministry as such and I talk of another election even to be our particular Pastor For this Physician to be my Physician 3. Note that the mans bare word must against all common use and reason perswade us that Consent which I require is more than Election which is much less The Elector nominateth and first determineth of the person Consent may come after even in obedience
I am sure to play with Oaths is a mark of the contrary God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain All things by temptation may go for lawful to him to whom Perjury deliberate studied Perjury seems lawful yea and a duty And avoiding the name is no avoiding of the thing He that will commit Murder Adultery Theft c. and then prove it to be no Murder c. doth not thereby escape the guilt And he that is not willing to know Sin to be sin that he may leave it is wilful and wicked as well as he that will not leave it when he knoweth it We do search the Scripture to know what is Perjury as well as we can And we are the less likely to be partial when our judgment loseth us the favour of so many and our Maintenance and Liberty and in Prisons hazardeth our Lives besides our Ministry the most of all Few men will take this way for the flesh yet this is no proof that our Cause is good But let the Evidence shew whether in fearing Perjury we fear a Serpent under every Leaf or a Gorgons head in every Bush and bring this Woe upon our selves or not If we do it is not for worldy ends nor is it by a superstitious fear of things indifferent If so many in Queen Maries days were burnt for denying the Real Presence c. Shall I not fear Perjury § 44. Next p. 20. you come to the Liturgies Confession that our Discipline is imperfect and think that should satisfie me Ans So it doth satisfie me not to assent and consent to all things contained in and prescribed by the Book of Ordination and the Liturgie and not to forswear all lawful endeavours of a Reformation it seeming unmeet for me whatever others do to give so plenary assent and consent thus to swear to that which in the same Book is confest imperfect I can live in Communion with a Church that hath imperfections and keep its peace but not assent consent or swear to its Imperfections 2. An you give me no reason yet why a Confession the imperfection of Discipline should satisfie uâ— that all things in the Church Government or all Church-Government is both lawful and necessary and unalterable For if it be alterable by King and Parliament I wil â—â—â—â— swear never to endeavour an alteration though they command me Nor will I believe you if you say that this Case of their command is excepted while the terms are universal without exception Remembring that the long Parliament long before the Wars when the Lord Falkland Lord Digby and the rest joyned with them did exagitate the Et caetera Oath for the word Not consent as establishing Prelacy as an unalterable thing whereas they knew not but the King and Parliament might be brought to see cause for some alteration And this Parliament hath not restored that Oath and Canons Ib. § 44. My Consutation of your horned Reasoning and of the common peralium I perceive offendeth you as triumphant It is natural for men that see plain truth to be guilty of calling it truth In this if we cannot be pardoned we must be patient Truth it self is our reward and satisfaction The force of my Reply you indeed leave intire and untoucht For when you say that you break my Chain at the first Link you do but repeat what I replyed to and put me but to say over again what I said You say that Lay-Chancellors excommunicate neither as Lay-men or as Clergy-men formally or by any proper Causality but from the Surrogates Answ And were you willing here to be understood Either they do Excommunicate by proper Causality without causality no Act is done or they do not If you mean that indeed they do not why would you not say so and deal plainly If you mean they Excommunicate but â—â—â—â— by Causality why would you not say so which â—â—most absurd If they do it they do it formally as some persons and in some capacity and by some power or right whatever it is That they do Excommunicate and Absolve decretively as the stated publick Judges is notorious to the Land That the Person in which they do it is formally Lay or Clergy I thought had been past doubt and the enumeration had been sufficient But you do dare tertium find out a third Mumber He is formally neither Lay nor Clergy but doth it from the Surrogates See you not how you change the Question In what person he doth it into from whom he doth it or make that from to signifie a third Species which you could not or would not name And when I say that if he do it from the Surrogate yet he doth it either as a Lay-man or a Clergy-man you answer me as neither but from the Surrogate You might have said as well As neither but from the King But who ever it is from tell us of what Species that man is in acting who is neither formally a Lay-man nor a Clergy-man whereas in our present sence as a Clergy-man signifieth One in the Priesthood or Deaconship dedicated to the Sacred Church-Offices I easily prove that in the World there is no third sort because the terms signifie Opposita contradicentia contradictio est omnium oppositionum maxima prima reliquarum mensura For to be a Lay-man is to be one that is not devoted and separated as aforesaid And Devotus non devotus separatus ad sacra non separatus vel persona sacrata non sacrata are contradicentia And if you allow me not to swear or conform till you prove that some men are neither Lay nor Clergy you will be no succesful Pithanalogist with me But I desired to know who this Surrogate is that you mean and you will not tell me If you mean any one that is absent and no Member of the Court. 1. The Chancellor hath his power from no such man as is notorious 2. You might better say that he had it from the Bishop But still I should ask in what person he acted and whether as a Lay or a Clergy-man But if you mean the Priest present who pronounceth the sentence I never heard that he was called the Surrogate till now But call him how you will 1. It is notorious that he giveth not the Chancellor his power at all 2. And as notorious that he hath not nor exerciseth the power himself But to judge any man to Excommunication or Absolution is the Chancellors part and the present Priest is but like the Parish Priest who readeth or speaketh as a Cryer what the Chancellor judgeth and ordereth And whether such Priest be any Member of the Court or constantly used I leave to your Enquiry but certainly he is no Judge at all nor doth any thing but pronounce as he is bid And still my Arguing is unanswered For had this Presbyter the power it would be either as a Presbyter or as a Bishop Not as a Presbyter
Excommunicating Kings offered us as a Test or why was there never any such difference between us and the Prelatists pretended Try us whether we will not subscribe in this to as much as the Prelatists ever did agree on or ordinarily hold and lay our Liberty upon it and spare not But I remember you nibled before at my words in Differ of Magist and Pastors power Thes 60. p. 38. as if I had said That unless perhaps in some rare Case Kings may not be Excommunicated A Calumny when I annexed those words of exception only to the Excommunicating of Parents But your ways are still equal And I gave even Moral Reasons against Excommunicating Kings and Parents But when you in swearing will put who knows how many Exceptions to express Universals must I after all this be at your mercy unless I will say that In no rare case a Pastor may Excommunicate his own Parents What if the rare Case were 1. That he were but one in a Presbytery subject to a Bishop and his Parents were as open Apostates as Julian and the Bishop and the rest of the Presbytery required him to concur in their Excommunication 2. What if the King command a Bishop to Excommunicate a Magistrate or Parent for Treason Must he needs be disobeyed 3. What if God should send an Angel or Prophet with a particular Message so to do I am sure that Case is rare enough and I durst not disobey But it s hard pleasing some men § 45. Semper idem 1. But will you give it under your hand as a Lesson to your Flock That a Minister may not gainsay another for slandering Christians who in any thing differ from him that doth gainsay him nor may defend the Innocency of a Presbyterian unless he be one himself And that all men are bound to stand to the Opinions of all Christians in all other points whom they seek to vindicate against publick slanders What a pack of Doctrines do the Reasonings of these your Writings imply if they were but set together If I write almost twenty years ago and still against Lay Elders a Conformist may equally charge that upon me which I write against if I do but plead against slandering those that hold what I dissent from Yea he knoweth not where to have us so little do our Writings signifie our minds in these mens account The first Epist to Kederm in the first Book that ever I wrote disclaims them But that 's nothing to you And I must be taken for the Achilles of the Party and accountable for their Opinions if I do but say to a Printing Conformist Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour May I not say so to you for a Heathen or a Papist Dr. Heylin tells us in the Life of Archbishop Laud That the Kings Printers were censured sorely for Printing the Seventh Commandment Thou shalt commit Adultery But I never yet met with the Ninth Commandment so transmuted to give you any excuse If you think it lawful to say any thing how unjust soever against a man that is not for your Discipline which you as much wish amended your self I am of another mind When Lamprid tells us that Alex Severus borrowed his Motto of the Christians Quod tibi fieri non vis c. He never said that therefore he was a Christian I had got no Lawyer to plead for me at the Bar if they had known that they were accountable for all my Opinions I am sure the Lord Chief Justice when he acquit me thought fit to declare his different judgment from mine in point of Preaching privately Yet here your terms of Logick are Into how many shapes and Hecatetriformis Fish flesh Mermaid Episcopal Presbyterian Independent yet none of these when you please an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes in the water sometimes out I wish you were hot or cold All this set together would make a Syllogism of a new Mood and Figure But 1. For ought I know most of the Nonconformists are such are your bungling description intimateth And whatever men hold take it as it is and feign them not to hold what they do not Do not you in Print proclaim men to be flesh or fish hot or cold that are not so But lay our Error where it lieth even as I must not take your Chancellors for Clergy-men or Lay-men 2. And did not all my tedious writings convince you before now that I therefore take that for an honour which you take for my disgrace because I take that for plain and certain truth which you reproach You could not except a Catholick Christian have trulier called me than an Episcopal Presbyterian-Independent I have oft enough told the World that I am very confident that each of the three Parties have some Truths and some Errors appropriate to themselves or which the rest have not I never found in Scripture any Obligation that I must needs be of a Faction in a time when Faction hath bred Wars troubled Kingdoms silenced Preachers by the hundreds c. and when I have seen and felt the Effects and not been always innocent of the Cause Nor yet that I must either refuse all the good or receive all the bad and feed on the excrements of any Faction whatsoever I am for no such heats or cold I am no such fish or flesh I will neither persecute as Paul did nor separate as Peter did Gal. 2. nor comply as Barnabas did nor reject the Brethren as Diotrephes did nor condemn others as the Weak did nor despise them as the strong did Rom. 14. 1 2 c. But be such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he that became a Jew a Greek all things to all men that he might win some When I offended the Bishops in Conference I openly told them I had ever taken kneeling at the Sacrament to be lawful but I never took it to be lawful to cast honest Christians out of the Communion of the Church of Christ that dare not do it Did this prove me to be neither fish nor flesh Is no man of your Religion that is not for Excommunication or Prisons Swords or Flames for every Child of God that cryeth or wrangleth with the Breast Again I will say were they Priscillianists I am more for Martin's Spirit than the Ithacian Bishops And Sir that factious fury and uncharitableness keepeth up but a present violent kind of honour the Instance now once again named may tell you that when all the Bishops thereabouts in their Synods did but seek to the Magistrate to use the Sword against such gross Hereticks as the Priscillianists who as Severus saith that knew them were Gnosticks and but one poor ragged unlearned godly Bishop Martin with one other only in all France did dissent from them reprove them and separate for it from their Synods and Communion Godly people accidentally falling under the Vulgars reproach for the Hereticks sake as lately by the word Puritans here yet this one
poor Bishop that renounced all their Communions for it is Canonized a Saint while Hooker himself justly reproacheth Ignatius And it made me marvail to read in Bellarmine de Scriptor Ecles pag. 100. this great Lie that Ithacius whom he falsly makes the same with Idacius who was one of the same Synod and Author of the Chron. in Jos Scaliger de emend temp In eo reprehensus punitus ab Episcopis fuit quod Priscillianum apud seculares judices accusaverit occidi cur averit Whenas 1. The Bishops never punished him for it 2. The Synod of Bishops joyned with him 3. Martin was despised as an unlearned Hypocrite and Favourer of the Hereticks that did renounce their way and Communion 4. Ithacius and Idacius because of the common Odium would have pretended that they put not on the Magistrate hereunto And that Bellarmine one of the Tribe that is for burning Hereticks should yet leave this blot on Idacius and seek by untruths to excuse the rest of the Bishops of it whence is it but that the Memory of the just shall be blessed and the Name of the wicked the cruel especially shall rot I digress only to tell you that the honour of violence will end in shame and he be odious to Posterity who may be set up as high as Gardiner or Bonner to serve the turn in some present Execution And I had rather be luke-warm than have a destroying or slandering heat To what you say of Beza and Selden I answer 1. Did I or the present Nonconformists ever subscribe to Beza or Geneva 2. Is it not palpably against your self that cry down Lay Elders though many with Ministers have power but in one Presbytery or Synod when our Lay Chancellor hath the power over hundreds of Ministers and Churches You that cry up or keep up Lay-mens Church Discipline may worse speak against Lay-mens Church Discipline than we that are against it in all whomsoever 3. But Beza and Geneva do not take them for Lay Elders nor the Scots neither but for Church Elders and part of the Clergy of Divine Institution none of which is pretended for Lay Chancellors And is that no difference For Selden as I know what he saith against the Diocesan Church Bishops in Eutychius Alexandr So I know what he saith against all of us for Erastianism de Synedriis better than by any Citations out of Heylin And I know he was one of the Long Parliament that raised the War whom even now you had possessed with the Spirit of Presbytery And you may judge of many of the rest by Selden And must you or I be Erastians because Selden and other Lawyers in the Parliament were so § 46. The Quibble in this Section is Content without an Answer § 47. I judged but of your Words and judge you of my Motives for refusing a Bishoprick no worse than I give you cause I answer you it intimated no Ingratitude to His Majesty nor did I ever repent And that I did it not to keep up a Party or Interest in them the Lord Chancellor had Evidence and my voluntary endeavours against all Faction and casting away my Reputation with all such declareth when I could as easily have kept it as you with yours and had no outward interest to move me to renounce it I say this because you seem suspectingly to talk of my Motives § 48. Our Question is Whether a Church of One Altar as they spake of old Associated for personal Communion and a Church of never so many Altars or Congregations Associated for other ends and not for personal Communion be ejusdem speciei And so whether the word Church here signifies but one Species You hold the Affirmative of both and I the Negative My reason is 1. Because it being a Relative which is in question The ends of the Society specifically differing make the Societies specifically to differ the Terminus being essential to the Relation But here are different sorts of ends Ergo here are different sorts of Relations I use the word ends to signifie the nearest end which specifieth and not the remote And to avoid the ambiguity of the word Terminus which as Finis cujus finis cui are distinguished so they use variously sometimes for the Correlate and sometimes for the nearest end and so I now use it As a Master to teach a Grammar-school and a Master to rule a Family or to guide a Ship are Relations specifically distinct à fine And so is a Magistrate and a Pastor and a Physician c. This is clear And for the Minor That these Churches in question have different nearest ends is evident For the end of a particular Church is personal â—ummunion in God's publick Worship and holy living to their mutual assistance But the ends of Churches that never know each other but live an 100 or 1000 Miles asunder They say some of our Islands and Plantations are parts of some English Diocesan Church can be no such thing but only a distant communion in the same Faith Love and Obedience The end of a single Church is the personal Communion of Christians in that one Society The end of an Association of many Churches is the Communion of those many Churches in distant mental Concord or by Delegates or Synods sometimes in â—ase of need And who ever thought that a particular Church a Patriarchal Church and a Pabal or the Universal Church were ejusdem speâ—iâ—i when they agree only in remote ends and differ in the Terminus vel finis proximus As a Kingdom and a Corporation differ Ex differentia â—inium because though both are Societies for Ciâ—il Communion and Government and so agree â—n genere yet the end of one is Kingdom government and Communion and the end of the other is â—ut Corporation-government and Communion 2. Where there are different sorts of Relates corâ—elates there are different sorts of Relations But â—â— a particular Church and a Patriarchal Dioceâ—n or other Combination of many Churches â—here are different sorts of Relates correlates Ergo there are different sorts of Relations The â—hing supposed in the major is undeniable that â—â—e Relate correlate enter the definition â—â—erefore the major is undeniable The minorâ—pposeth â—pposeth a Church to be Constituted of the â—ars dirigens vel regens and the pars subdita as relate correlate which is undeniable And â—en it is proved per partes 1. The Pastor of a â—â—gle Church and a Patriarch Pope or Dioceâ—n of a multitude of combined Churches are not the same Relate for they have not the same Relation I suppose the Relation of a Church to be thus Constitute of the two Complicate Relations as well the Church subjectively of the two Relates For 1. The different Work 2. And the different Correlate prove these Pastors to be two sorts of Relation however agreeing inâ—genere 1. It is not the same sort of Works personally to guide a present people in Doctrine Worship and Discipline
under Christ as Prophet Priest King all essential to the Office as to send others as his Curates to do this For the King may send others or to exercise some degree of Discipline himself over many Churches where he is none of their Teacher not Mouth nor Guide in Worship Prayer Praise Sacraments c. Nor is it the same work to be an unusual Teacher as one may be in another Church or School and to be the stated ordinary Teacher and Worshipper of that Churrh which is the end of the particular Pastors Office 2. And the Correlate proveth the difference For it iâ— not the same Relation to be a Ruler of a Family and of a Kingdom and so here which bring me to the proof of the Minor by the second part And that the Correlates are various is evident no only from the magnitude but the end also ther included For the subject of Political Society Civitatis vel Ecclesiae is a Community not an multitude of men Because that which Aristatâ—calleth Privatio and is better called Disposuâ—materiae is necessary as a kind of Principle to thâ— reception of the Form As in Physicks so quianalogum in Relations And therefore it must bâ— a Community Now Communities themselves are first specified by their various ends As a Company of men combined for Merchandize and a Company combined for Literature or for Souldiery c. are not the same So a Company combined for Personal Communion and helps in holy Worship and living are not the same with those combined for other ends as aforesaid Therefore neither the Pastors nor Peoples Relation and consequently the Churches is not of the same sort 3. Where there are distinct Fundamenta vel rationes fundandi there are distinct Relations But here are distinct fundamenta c. The fundamentum is 1. Principall which is Institution Divine or Humane 2. Subordinate which is Consent Viz. 1. Of a Minister to gather Churches Consensus duplex Dei Ministri 2. Of a Minister to guide Churches gathered Consensus triplex plerumque quadruplex viz. 1. Dei 2. Ordinati 3. Populi 4. Plerumque Ordinantis If any of these vary the Fundamentum relations doth so far vary were it not tedious I would shew you how much difference there is in all these But it is the first Reason that being most edent I most insist on Now your Reason to the contrary for your Affirmative is that Gradus non variat speciem To which my Answer being that Quando variat aut finem proximum seu terminum vel fundamentum vel relatum correlatum variat relationis speciem But frequently Gradus materiae variat finem proximum fundamentum c. Ergo speciem The Major needeth no proof the Minor I cleared by the instance of a Ship a Church a Spoon c. where magnitude or parvity can make this difference You tell me Relatives do not suscipere magis minus Answ The clean contrary is an usual Maxim with Logicians But that is so plain that it needs no dispute viz. Quoad subjectum fundamentum aliquando materiam correlati It may be found in divers degrees but not in degrees of matter uncapable of the End and Form But the forma Relativa doth not so vary one is not magis vel minus haec relatio than another But if you will extend this to the Matter of the Subject which is our Case you do but though mistakingly give away your Cause For then every new Member maketh a new Church in specie when you say This is only in respect of quantity You know that Aristotle saith That Quantity non suscipit magis minus and so his Interpreters say speaking strictly and not laxly Therefore it 's this you must mean as I do while you would say something that we may seem to differ I told you that different quantities in the subject may change the relations which I think never man denied that understood what a Relation was And you feign me to say simply That Magis minus variant speciem in relatives That you may have occasion to say as I said under pretence of contradicting the same thing But to my Instances you say That it is enough for your purpose that there is not a specifick difference between a little Spoon or Diocess and a great one Answ Say you so our Question is Whether different Degrees in the subject may vary the species of Relations Either you deny it or you do not If you do common Experience and Reason will shame your denial I instanced in a Spoon a Church a Troop Regiment Army a Ship c. Wheresoever the finis proximus as in all Offices and Societies is essential to the Relation there no man of Logical acquaintance can make a doubt of it but that certain Quantities or Degrees in the Subject may be so over great or over small as to be uncapable of that End and consequently of the Relation I will not censure you to be so ignorant as to doubt of it and if I do not you force me to judge you so heedless or partial as to say something towards the hiding of that truth which you do not doubt of I say that Degrees in the Subject or Correlate vary not the Species but when they vary the specifying end some Relations are founded only in Actions past as Pater filius in Generation Creator creaturae in Creation And there the end following is not essential But it is otherwise with those Relations which consist in an Authority Obligation undertaking of a future work as a Teacher Physician c. where the Work as undertaken is the essential end And you had here no better a shift then to dissemble in silence the other Instances and to tell me that a great Spoon and a little one differ not specie But doth that prove that it may be in specie a Spoon if if be as big as a Ship or in specie a Ship if it be no bigger than a Spoon Since you perceive your own deceit which is by transferring the Question are ad nomen and then by choosing Instances de nomine where the Name is never used generically but only for one species The name of a Spoon is never taken for a Ship contra And therefore to say that a little Spoon and a greater differ not speeie is but to say that the same species is the same as being found in a capable degree of subject But a Society a Church yea a Diocess are names generical or analogous which may be and are applyed to various Species The universal Church headed by Christ is no more of the same species with a particular Church than a Kingdom and a Corporation in that Kingdom are I use not words to hide things but to render them intelligible A thousand Schools combined under a general Schoolmaster or an hundred Colledges making up one Academy are not of the same species with one School and one
only to the Ministry in general but in settled Churches it is usually inconvenient And he that is ordained to a fixed Church doth at once become a Minister in the universal Church and may act as a Minister and not as a Layman when called elsewhere and also a fixed Minister of a particular Church even as he that is baptized into a particular Church is a member of both Though Baptism and Ordination qua tales enter but into the Universal XXXVII It is not this or that mode of signification of consent that is necessary to either relation of Pastor or Flock but Consent signified intelligibly where Laws and Custome order it that actual ordinary attendance in publick worship and communion and submission to necessary ministration shall be the signification all that so do express consent by it And therefore our ordinary Parish-Assembling and Communion being express consent to the mutual relation have that which is necessary ad esse to true Churches and they slander them that say they are not such But ad melius esse more may oft-times be profitable 1. Because that is the best means which is best fitted to the end But the end of Signes being Notification that is caeteris paribus the best which is most notifying as that is the best Language which is most significant and intelligible Why should playing in the dark or dealing under-board be preferred in the greatest things 2. It oft falls out that some that live in the Parish are known Church-Papists Church-Atheists Infidels will tell in their meetings to their companions I believe not the words of the Parish-Priest It is his Trade to talk for gain I will do what the Law requires of me for my safety but I will have no more to do with him nor do I take him for a true Pastor that hath any Authority but by Law nor for any Pastor to me And 3. there are many Hereticks and Schismaticks engaged Members of other Churches who yet to avoid suffering will do that in the Parish-Church which the Law requireth 4. And the Antient Churches used express Consent yea and Election So for the Minister he is no Pastor without his signified consent but actual Ministration may be such a signification This is enough to reconcile the difference about Church-covenants XXXVIII They that rail against a more express consent in cases truly dubious as if it were tyranny and destructive to Christianity do suppose that if the King and Law commanded such a thing they commanded Tyrannically that which destroyeth Christianity and contradict themselves when they say that Rulers may make various orders of Church-governours and determine of undetermined Modes XXXIX As it is not needful and usual to set up a Coordinate Imperium artificum vel Philosophorum in Imperio Civili so it seemeth also of an Imperium Religiosum The first Question is whether Christ hath Instituted such The second whether he hath given power to Men to make it There is not in any Kingdom that I hear of but somewhat towards it in China such a Society of Physicians Astronomers Navigators Lawyers Schoolmasters Philosophers c. who set up a Co-ordinate Empire or Government that shall have all degrees of self-governing power as a National Socity with one Supreme either Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical Head according to the order of Civil-government Nor doth any reproach Schools Colledges Hospitals or any trading Societies that they are confused Independent and ungoverned because they have no common Governour but God and the King nor any particular Governour but the Principal or Master and Fellows of the Society nor any National association besides their subjection to one King and their voluntary correspondence for concord and mutual assistance with one another And much less is there any Co-ordinate Political Regiment of any of these through all the world under one visible humane Head personal or collective And yet many think that there is such a Society and Regiment for Religion National say some Universal say others That all that will serve God and be saved must be under one Co-ordinate power over all the Kingdom or World besides Christ and the Supreme Magistrate and they contend whether this power be Monarchical or Aristocratical c. I am so far Independent as to think that Christ hath Instituted no such Universal or National Power and Head of Religion but that 1. his own Universal Kingdom 2. And particular Churches under their several Bishops and Teachers 3. And Synods for concord and mutual help 4. And Christian Magistrates to rule all by the Sword 5. With the improvement of Mens eminent gifts and opportunities that these be Instituted by Christ I doubt not 6. And whether some should succeed the Apostles excepting their extraordinary powers in having a visiting instructing ordering care of many Churches and their Bishops and Teachers I confess my self uncertain and therefore will never strive against such nor deny due obedience to them who shew a true call to such an employment Nay if Christ have made no such Institution yet 1. if the Christian Magistrate 2. or the Churches by consent choose some faithful Ministers to such a power onely to direct instruct guide admonish reprove exhort the Bishops and Teachers of the particular Churches without any other force than the Apostles used and not destroying any of their proper power and duty or that Church-order which the Apostles setled I am no opposer of any such though my uncertainty disables me from subscribing and swearing to the right of their Authority The Scots themselves even by Knox's consent set up Super-intendents over many Churches John Spotswood Super-intendent of Lothian and so others And the power of a President Principal or Rector of a Colledge of Physicians Philosophers or Divines doth not make him of any other Order or species of Office and Profession than the rest But if any affirm more than this I will learn but cannot yet swear or subscribe it XL. Those that are for the obligation of the Jewish order I have fully spoke to in my first Plea for Peace Those that are only for the power of man to make such several Orders or Ranks of Governours in the Church as are in Armies and Kingdoms 1. Must tell us what sort of power may be given them 2. And who must give it And 1. No men can Institute a power of the same species or another species from that which we call the Sacred Ministry or as the Fathers the Sacerdotal but what is subordinate about the Accidentals of Religion and the Church 1. Not the same species because it is Instituted by God already No Man can create a creature already created 2. Not of another supra-ordinate or co-ordinate for 1. they can prove no power given them to do it 2. And that were to accuse Christ of insufficient doing his undertaken work and being less faithful in his house than Moses 3. And it will infer Mans introduction of a new co-ordinate
Doctrine Worship or Religious Ministration for the Ministration of the word and Sacraments and Keys is already appointed by Christ And the Office or Order is specified by the work and terminus and a new Office hath new work But in the same species of Religious Ministration there are abundance of accidentals and circumstances and Princes or consenting Churches may give men power in those accordingly But not to forbid what Christ commanded nor destroy the works and power of his Institution And if they that are for other superiour or co-ordinate species of Church-power besides what is afore-granted say that it is a lawful humane Ordinance 1. Those that say Princes only may make it confess the Church had none that was lawful for three hundred years And they must prove the Commission 2. Those that say the Inferiour Bishops made it by consent 1. feign Inferiours to have power to make a power above their own which is more than for Presbyters to ordain their like 2. Why may not Archbishops then make Patriarks and they a Pope ad summum ascendendo 3. They must prove their power and that they are so far equal to Apostles who yet were but to teach the Nations what Christ commanded them which these Men know not but by the Scripture 4. What Man maketh Man may unmake And how came we to be less free than our Ancestors that made such Offices XLI In my Book of Concord where this is granted yet I say that let Church-Patriarchs Metropolitans Primates Archbishops or Diocesans like ours that have no Bishops under them be never so probably maintained to be lawful yea and desirable yet the uniting in them by consent and approbation will never become the terms or way of Universal Concord which I have fully proved even all that is true and good will never be the terms of Universal Concord nor just Christian Communion much less that which hath so much matter of doubt and great suspition of evil But I will live in Christian love peace and submission my self on terms uncapable of common concord or my own approbation of the things as imposed or done by all others XLII Lay-Chancellours may do what belongeth to a Magistrate but not use the Church-Keyes nor be the Church-Judges of Mens Communion because Christ hath Instituted the Sacred Office for it XLIII A Church is Ens Politicum in the sense in hand and the form of it is Relative in the predicament of Relation XLIV The parts of the Universal Church are similar and dissimilar more simple or more compound And the word whole applyed to a part disproveth not its being a part of the whole Christian world or Church A whole hand foot head c. is part of a whole Body and a whole Body part of a whole Man and a whole Man part of a whole Family and a whole Family part of a whole street and that of a whole City and that of a whole County or Kingdom A whole Colledge of a whole University c. All Members save Souls and Atomes are compounds XLV When we call all the Christian world The Catholick Church and call e. g. Hippo A or the Catholick Church the word Catholick and The are not univocal In the later we mean only The Church at Hippo which holds the true Catholick Faith and is a true part of the Catholick Church in the first sense Penuria nominum necessaria reddit aequivoca XLVI Particular Churches are Visible in the Regent and Governed parts The Universal Church is Visible in the Governed part and in the Head only so far as he was once on Earth and is now visible in Heaven his Court and will be visible at last to all and ruleth by visible Laws but not as a Head now visible on Earth nor is this any deformity to his Church nor any reason why it may not be called Visible as I have fully proved in two Books against W. Johnson alias Terret XLVII Those that deny an Universal Visible Church differ only de nowine not de re They only deny any Universal Regent power Monarchical or Aristocratical or Democratical under Christ but I know no Christian that ever denyed the fore-described XLVIII Forma dat esse Divers constitutive forms or specifying differences make divers Essences Therefore the form of a Troop being the Captains Government differs from the form of a Regiment which is the Colonels Governing Relation and both from the forms of the Army which is the Generals The formal Essence of a Colledge is divers from that of an University and of a Family from a Corporation or City and that from a Kingdom And as forma dat nomen they have divers names A Family quatalis is not a Kingdom c. Reader forgive the mention of these things which Children know and till now I never read or heard any man deny or question In that which followeth you shall see the Reasons that excuse me CHAP. III. What Mr. Cheyney saith against these things And 1. Of Church-Forms and Essence § 1. THough it tempt me not to Conformity as the way of Concord where I see the great difference of such as plead for it amongst themselves yet I must do that right to the Conformists as to tell the world that they must not be judged of by Mr. Ch 's opinions and that I know no other Conformist or Non-conformist of his mind about Church-Forms § 2. But I must add that his Case doth increase my Conviction against himself and them that their Conformity is so far from being the necessary Cement that it is utterly destructive of it as so imposed and that it must be on few plain necessary things that common concord must be held or we must have none Mr. Ch. thinks me one who may be endured in the Ministry and I think so by him and yet how far easier and plainer than our Controversies of Conformity are those things in which we differ to the height of his following Accusations If none should be endured that cannot Covenant Swear Subscribe Declare and Practice as is required how much less can such as he and I be endured in one Church if we differ as he saith we do O what pardon and forbearance doth our peace require § 3. Of Church-Forms and Essence hear some of his Judgment Pag. 3. The several Congregations and Assemblies of Pastors and People throughout the Kingdom are not limbs and parcels of a Church but they are so many Churches consisting of a Pastor Governing and people governed joyning together in publick worship It is called the Church of England as all the Christian Pastors and people throughout the world are called the Universal Church One Church of which Christ is the transcendent Head I do not see but it is proper to call all the Christian Pastors and people of England One Church P. 6. Christ is the Head of the Church of England and under Christ all the Parish-Ministers are subordinate Guides and Rulers of their Flocks
an Universal Head or Government over all the Pastors Churches and Christians in the world besides Christ and you say this is of Divine Institution and you lay the concord of all the Churches upon it Do but grant the Papists this one assertion that particular Churches as headed by their respective Pastors are parts and members of the Universal Church as a City is of a Kingdom and overthrow the Popes headship over all if you can It will follow that there must be besides Christ an Universal Ecclesiastical Monarch on Earth either personal or collective who must have the Supreme power P. 96. But indeed you have gone beyond Bellarmine in seting up Papal Monarchy Your other assertion sets up Atheism by making the Holy God the Author and Founder of two essentially different Churches or Church-Forms According to Bellarmines assertion for the Pope there would be Pastors c. But according to your assertion all the world must be Atheists of no Religion at all P. 224 225. Your division of the Church into Universal and particular is plainly against that Rule in Logick Membra omnis bonae divisionis debent esse inter se opposita But in this your division the Membra dividentia are not inter se opposita you oppose the same thing against itself You make the Church at Corinth a particular Church The whole or the Universal Church at Corinth is sound and good You plainly leave out of your description the differencing Form or token of that which you call a particular Church and that is Neighbourhood or dwelling or abiding in this or that place you make a new essential of Church-Membership and church-Church-Communion and lay the peace of all the Churches on it and say it is Divine sure harmless fitted to the interest of all good men This startles me I strive to be silent and cannot The more I strive the more I am overcome Mr. Cawdrey was lately with me and we had Conference about this point suspecting mine own judgment I have conferred with divers about your other Notions two Churches or two Church-Forms differing essentially and they cannot apprehend how it can stand you make the Universal Church-Form and the particular Church-Form to differ essentially and this by Divine Law I prove to you from the nature of the thing it self and the express word of God that the Universal Church of God at Corinth and the particular Church of God at Corinth are one and the same To oppose the Universal and particular Church and say they differ essentially is to oppose the same thing against itself and make the Lord Jesus Christ the Authour and Founder of selfsubverting Principles P. 226 227. As for that other point of the Church particular being part of the Church Universal it is to say that the whole Church at Corinth is a part of the whole Church which is absurd Reader I must not Transcribe the whole Book the rest is too like this exercise your patience in receiving a short Answer to the several parts which seemeth needful CHAP. IV. A Defence against the foresaid Accusations § 1. WHat Christians heart can choose but mourn for the Church of God and the puzzling confounding temptations of the ignorant that must hear men charged thus publickly with Atheism and the overthrow of all Religion for that which the Christian world agreeth in and this by Preachers of professed humility sincerity and zeal How shall the unlearned know when they are safe yea what snares are thus laid to rob men of their time as well as their Faith and Charity I must not give such lines their proper names but I will say that it remembreth me of Isa 1. 6. and it cryeth out unclean unclean How few words of Truth and soberness and soundness can you number among all these Had he written and published it in his sleep as some talk and walk it were some excuse But for a Man a Minister awake and after publick admonition deliberately on consultation a second time to talk at this rate in the Press And yet cannot we be endured without their Ceremonies c. When the Friendly Debater and Mr. Shurlocke have compared such Books as this with those that they reprehended perhaps they will say Iliacos intramuros c. To begin at the end I am sorry to read what he saith of the Divers he Conferred with c. 1. I never till now read or heard Papist Protestant or any Christian of his mind And alas are divers of it now Are Conformists come to that Either they were at Manhood or in breeches at least or not If not he should have chosen other Counsellers If yea were they Laymen or Clergymen He was to blame if he took up with the former alone in such a case If the later he greatly disgraceth them But we must say somewhat of our Atheistical Errours The beginning of his words which say the same thing which he so abominateth I will not charge with contradiction in sence from the rest for if he mean the same thing by One and Two A Church and no Church A part and no part Yea and Nay they are no contradictions in sence And indeed I cannot perceive that he understandeth what he readeth and answereth nor well what he saith And therefore I am not sure when I understand him but I will review some of the things that his words seem to accuse in order § I. The Universal Church as I defined it is a True Church Proved Where there is a true Church-Head and a Body of all Christians on earth united and subjected to that Head by mutual consent and Covenant there is a true Universal Church but such is that which I named and defined as the Church Universal Ergo. The Major is from the definition to the thing denominated As to the Minor 1. That Christ is the True Head 2. And all Christians the Universal true body visible as Baptized and mystical as Heart-Covenanters 3. And that mutual Covenanting is a sufficient bond for this Church-union the Christian Reader will chide me if I stay to prove § 11. Particular Churches existent are true Churches in Essence Proved to him 1. He oft confesseth this and the former 2. A true pars dirigens pars subdita necessarily qualified ad esse and united in those relations for Church-ends are a true particular Church But such are many existent particular Churches and all that I defined Ergo. 1. That a true Bishop at least with his Presbyters is a true pars dirigens 2. And a qualified flock a true pars subdita 3. And that such are found united in these relations I will take for granted with the Reader except Mr. Ch. And the Major is the definition § III. That the Relative union of the governing Part or nearest Head to the Governed body is the specifying form The proof being de Ente politico notione Logicâ is the consent of all Politicks Logicks and use of speech by the professours
their own principle in baptizing the Infants of Non-Confederates p. 129. I do utterly withstand it as Wickedness and Abomination in Gods Church I am to die and burn at a stake before I yield to any such thing This is Mr. Baxters way He offers it to Bishop Morley and Bishop Gunning in his Preface to his last Book of Concord that posterity may see what it is that he would have had and laboured to set up in all the Churches And accordingly let both the present and future Ages see and know p. 130. Your way is not so innocent as that of re-baptizing For the very matter and terms of your Church-Covenant are unsafe and plainly Schismatical As if Constables and people of each Town must Confederate to be a Corporation an Independent body having all jurisdiction within themselves and such as will not enter into this Confederacy must be counted none of the Kings Subjects To say there are no Churches in the world but a few Independent Churches were to go beyond Brownism It were rather to teach Infidelity such an opinion would be abhorred by all Now Mr. Baxter and the Independents Doctrine saith it Their errour should they hold it habitually predominantly and practically would be certainly their damnation p. 141 I see not but Pagans gross Hereticks Apostates Thieves and Robbers might combine together and say I take thee for my Pastor and I take you for my people Doth not your Doctrine infer it p. 143. If I yield to their assertion I must subvert the office of Christ and his Apostles and all his faithful Ministers and all the Churches to this day which I will not do for fear of the censure of any man living no nor of a whole Council of men p. 57. The way that Mr. Baxter offers seems to be a worse way It is the way of rigid Independencie Indeed Mr. B. in all his Writings seems to be against the Office of Lay-Elders But that he is not for them under another notion as Heads and delegates of the people mutually chosen by the Pastor and people for assistance in Discipline may be doubted He seems to hint at it c. § 2. How little truth is in all this and abundance such 1. either it is truth that I am for rigid Independency or not If not if yea I am glad that the Independent way is no worse I am not much acquainted with them But if this man say true 1. They are for no Covenanting but consent to the relation signifyed 2. They are not for binding any to continue in that relation 3. They are not for binding any from a regular use of any other Minister or Churches Communion 4. In places where Parishes are divided by Law and the ordinary attendance on the Pastors Ministration goeth for a sign of consent they are true Churches and Members that thus signifie it and ad esse it is usually enough though ad bene esse in doubtful cases the more express as more intelligible caeteris paribus is best 5. They are against an Office of Lay-Elders distinct from Ministers of the Word and Sacraments as of Gods institution for Church-government 6. They are against Democracie or the Church-governing power of the People 7. They take reformed Parish-Churches for the best Order not taking all for Members that are in the Parish but all the capable 8. They are against gathering Churches out of such Parish-Churches without great necessity 9. They are greatly against requiring any qualification as necessary to Communion in point of holiness but express consent to the Baptismal Covenant or profession of Christianity not disproved 10. They make not the peoples Election of their Pastors necessary ad esse but meer consent though the Patron or others Elect them 11. They suppose that the peoples Election or consent is not necessary to make a man a Minister in the Universal Church but only to make him their Pastor As to make a Physician and to make him my Physician differ 12. They suppose that a true Minister officiateth as such where ever he doth it 13. They suppose that associations or correspondencies of Churches for concord and help and Synods to that end and dependencie on such Synods is usually a duty where it can well be had and needless discord a fault 14. They refuse not to submit in practice to the instructions or admonitions of any general Visiter or Overseer of many Churches called by some Archbishops 15. They refuse not the precedency of one Pastor in every particular Church over the rest of the Presbyters 16. They refuse him not the name of the Bishop nor yet to submit to his negative voice as of the Quorum or the Archbishops either in Ordinations and all great publick matters 17. They are for separating from no Christians further than they separate from Christ or would force them to sin but are for universal Love and Concord 18. They are for obeying the Magistrate in all lawful things belonging to his function 19. They take the most extensive Love Peace and Concord for the most desirable and best 20. It is next their obedience to Christ and his sufficient Laws the great reason why they are against the terms imposed in most places of the Christian world where things unnecessary and suspected are made necessary to Communion Reader Mr. Ch. is so honest a man that it were unjust to take him for a deliberate studied Lyar. Therefore seeing he saith that my way is rigid Independency and oft maketh me a downright Independent I that know my own Judgement and knew not theirs so well as he seems to do am glad to hear that they are no worse and that they are wronged by such as accuse them of denying any of those Twenty points § 3. And supposing that he saith true and that they hold but my way as he calls it I will now try the force and honesty of his charge against them And first it savours of a spirit worse than his own that when he had before used the word Oath as owned by me and then said he repented of it that he still useth the word Covenant here as mine instead of Consent which is the word which I use and over and over say that I own no Covenant but any signification of Consent to the relation onely because I said that not ad esse but ad bene esse plain or express Consent in doubtful cases is best This smells of an ill intention and now I will try his arguments against this Consent § 4. P. 101. he saith Mr. B. acts contrary to his own Principles in baptizing the Children of No◠confederates The Universal and Particular Church make but one Church of God He that refuseth one Essential of Church-communion is no Christian and is to be debarred the Priviledges of Christians But according to you Non-confederates refuse one essential of church-Church-communion I may not baptize you you are to me a Pagan Ans Putares sed calumniaris Here is
fallacia aequivocationis and so quatuour termini This parish-Parish-Church and the Universal are not the same The word Church in the Major signifieth one thing and in the Minor another All is not essential to Communion in the Church Universal which is essential to Communion with this or that or any particular political Church To the later there must be you say Neighbourhood and I say proper Pastors and Flocks for personal Communion But the Eunuch Acts 8. was baptized into the Universal Church and not into any Neighbourhood Parish Diocess Assembly or had any stated Pastor He came into no Church-meeting Philip the Deacon supposed was snatcht away from him in the open field c. Baptism as such enters us into no particular Church Your words you are a Pagan to me are too false for a Christian to have used He that believeth with all his heart is no Pagan I am a Minister of Christ to the world but Infidels are not my Flock or a Church Catechizers should teach Children all this plain truth § 5. II. P. 102. Ask Mr. Baxter saith he Whom do you mean by the word Church and at last he must come to one man the Pastor as the Papist◠the Pope He that covenanteth first covenantet◠with none but the Pastor You change your terms What Church must he covenant with that was first baptized Ans Christ was baptized and his first baptized Disciple and he were the Embryo of the Universal Church if you can prove that one was baptized alone And as to a particular Church the Gatherer at first is onely a Minister in the Church Universal and authorized to that gathering which shall be the Foundation of his future relation And the first person that consenteth and he are not a proper Church for it is an Embryo and in fieri as a Troop when the Captain hath listed the first man But usually many are made Christians first and then they are materia disposita and Consent maketh the Pastors and them to be particular Churches Acts 14. 23. They ordained them Elders in every Church Elders of their own Acts 20. the Elders of the Church of Ephesus and so of the rest of the Churches are mentioned And is the Captain a Troop or the Pastor a Church if he be the gatherer of it § 6. III. You name not Christ saith he but the Pastor Ans When we say Captain A. B's Troop we name not the General When we say the Bishop of London 's Diocess the King's Dominion c. we name not Christ or God For onely the Genus proximum is to be in definitions The Superiour are supposed they are Christians first § 7. IV. You say saith he that before this Covenant men are but hewed stones that is all the faithful are Pagans Ans Putares To be prepared for Baptism is somewhat more than to be Pagans But till consent Christians are not Members of any particular Church The Eunuch was but a hewn stone as you call it as to a formed Congregation but he was no Pagan but a Member of the Body of Christ § 8. V. This saith he makes the most excellent Ministers Apostles c. mere Lay-men such as go up and down preaching to Pagans where Christ is not known plainly subverts the Gospel c. Ans They are Christ's Ministers and not Lay-men while they convert Pagans and yet Pagans are no Church And till they are a Church no Apostle is a Pastor of them as a Church The Gospel standeth for all this § 9. But saith he may not a man be a Shepherd by calling and occupation unless he have a Flock as well as a Physician c. Ans Either you quarrel de re or de nomine If de re do you mean any more than that he is authorized to gather and rule a Flock If more what is it If not you calumniate if you pretend that I deny this but if it be onely de nomine whether the name of a Pastor may be given him that yet hath no Flock or of a Captain to him that hath no Troop I answer 1. When you wrangle but about Names try once more to stay that list of laying the overthrow of the Gospel on your Names 2. Titles of Relation may be given aptitudinally ex intentione de futuro But if one may be called a Pastor by relation to an intended Flock much more to an actual Flock and still it is a Relative to such a Flock intended 3. Try in Scripture and Councils and all Church-writers whether the title Pastor be not usually given onely to those that have actual Flocks But to avoid your quarrel call you them by what name you list if that will ease or please you § 10. VI. According to this Doctrine a Minister hath no Office or Authority but just to those of his own charge he preacheth elsewhere but as a gifted man Ans Still false as to me of whom you speak what a strange Chain of Calumnies can you make A Minister is 1. Christ's Officer to the world to convert them 2. To gather a Church in fieri 3. To officiate pro tempore in any other Church as a Licensed Physician to others even to Physicians doth his office § 11. VII It maketh void saith he Gods Ordinance of Ordination for either they are Ministers by Ordination or not If yea this Doctrine is erroneous Ans Unproved Ordination sine titulo maketh a man a Minister to the World and to the Church indefinitely Ordination with Institution doth that and more viz. it tieth a Minister to a consenting people Your Writings are all stigmatized with the shame of naked affirmations without proof and then forgetfully you oft say I have proved Why may not Consent and Ordination and Institution and Induction too be all needful Is a man and womans Consent needless unless the Ministers marrying them be needless May not a Town Hospital or Person chuse a Physician as theirs if he were licensed be-before If a Captain have commission to raise a Troop is consent of the Listed needless So of a Major a Pilot or any relation which requires Consent § 12. VIII It inferreth saith he that the Church is before the Officers viz. Pagans a Church Ans All fictions as to me to whom he speaks I said before they are as the Heart to the Body the punctum saliens is the first organical part to make the rest but not a part of the Body till the Body be made They are Ministers to gather Churches and then Pastors of Churches onely by consent And when Churches are gathered and the Pastor dead the people are Intentionally a Society but actually but a Community till a Pastor related to them make them a politick society And then relata sunt simul § 13. IX This Doctrine puts a new clause into Baptism which Christ never put in and altereth Christianity saith he Before I baptize you I must have an antecedent Covenant or signified Consent from you to submit to
the Scripture and Canons 1. A constant publick Teaching them which they owe not to all others or any 2. Constant Government by the Keys 3. Constant Administration of the Lords Supper 4. Constant leading them in publick Worship Prayer Praise c. 5. A special care of the Poor 6. Ordinary Visitation of the Sick 7. Comforting the Afflicted admonishing Offenders watching over all The Canons will tell you much which every man oweth more to his own Charge than to others V. It is certain that this Flock oweth a more special attendance and account and obedience to these Pastors than to Strangers or others of other Churches 1. To hear them 2. To receive the Communion ordinarily of them 3. To maintain them and so in the rest V. I. It is certain that none of this was done or can be done without mutual Consent VII It is certain that this Church-state Office and Duty was setled by Christ's Apostles and continued by the common consent of the Churches on Earth from age to age § 28. That it was an Apostolical Establishment is plain in Acts 14. 23. They ordained them Elders in every Church To omit the sence of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the most usual sence includeth Suffrages it is evident that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implieth the fixing of the several Elders to their several Churches so as to make them the stated Elders of those Churches as their Flock in pepeculiar Acts 20. 17. Are they called the Elders of that Church over which as their Flock the Holy Ghost had made them Overseers to feed the Church of God to imitate Paul that taught them publickly and from house to house and was this no peculiar pastoral relation or were any but Consenters Members of that Church Tit. 1. 5. when Titus was to ordain Elders in every City it is equal to every Church And it stated them as their peculiar Pastors even Bishops as Gods Stewards over them in particular v. 7. more than others Jam. 5. 14. the sick that must call for the Elders of the Church were their proper Flock as is supposed The Angels of the seven Churches Rev. 2 and 3. were not equally the Angels of other Churches Phil. 1. 1. the Bishops and Deacons of the Church at Philippi had a fixed peculiar relation to them as theirs Archippus had a proper Ministry at Colosse Col. 4. 17. And Laodicea had a peculiar Church v. 16. 1 Thess 5. 12 13. sheweth the common state of the Christian Churches Know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their works sake And be at peace among your selves Here Pastors to labour and admonish and be over them are to be known owned esteemed beloved persons dwelling among them and knowing their own Flock and the peoples duty to them and one another laid down And shall a Christian Minister say O but do not promise no nor signifie any consent to do it for that is to be rebaptized and is damning to the practisers The Bishops and Elders that Timothy is instructed about were such as had their proper Flocks and took care of them as the Church of God that were to rule them well and labour in the Word and Doctrine to preach the word in season and out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and Doctrine c. 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. the Elders that Peter writeth to were to feed the Flock of God which was among them taking the oversight of them more than of all the world not by constrain but willingly and may they not signifie willingness not as Lords but Examples to their Flocks and Shepherds under the chief Shepherd Heb. 13. 7 17 24. fully expresseth it Obey them that have the rule over you they watch for your Souls as those that must give account not of all the world but of that Flock that they oversee The same Church had Bishops that had Deacons and some Deaconesses Widows c. but it was never known that Deacons were to be indefinite Overseers of the poor of all Churches but they had ever relation to particular Churches This is the ordering of the Churches appointed by the Holy Ghost Tit. 1. 5. And yet this man maketh it an abuse or injury against Christ and overthrow of the Gospel § 29. II. As for the constant judgement and practice of all Churches I am ashamed that such usage should put me to such a work as to prove that they ever held and practised that which this man condemneth in me He knoweth nothing of the Churches state and History and Canons that knoeth not 1. That all Churches were Societies of Christians united under their proper known Bishops or Pastors fixed to those Flocks by proper relation though also related to the World and the Church Universal 2. That the people did not onely Consent but Chuse their Pastors and he was to be no Bishop that had not their consent 3. That the Laity of other Churches promiscuously had no power to chuse them but onely those whom they were set over 4. That the Bishops as Ignatius speaks were to know the particular Members of their Churches and see that they came constantly to the Assemblies even to enquire after Maids and Servants saith he by name 5. That they made multitudes of Canons for exercising particular Discipline on each person that needed it by long suspending some from Communion restoring others taking care of the poor and of all 6. That they took not the Catechumens for the Church but Candidates and prepared and tried them before admittance 7. That it was not mere baptizing that made them of that Flock for they preached and baptized in other places 8. That it was not mere neighbourhood of Christians for there were sometime divers Churches in one City as in Meletius case at Alexandria and Dr. Hammond thinks the Jewish and Gentile Christians at first had several Bishops and Churches in the same Cities ordinarily And the Audians Luciferians Donatists and others that were of the same Religion had divers Churches besides such as the Novatians that had some little Doctrinal differences and none till now ever thought that these were all the same Pastors special Flocks and the same particular Churches Yea I have elsewhere cited that Council that decreed that if any Bishop neglected to convert the Hereticks c. he that converted them should have them as his Flock or Church In a word all Church-history and Canons describing their particular Churches and their Elections Orders Offices Priviledges Discipline c. and limiting them that strove for the greatest from encroaching one on another tell us so fully that they were so many incorporate Christian Societies consisting by mutual Consent of their proper Pastors and Flocks that Et pudet piget that such a task as the proofs should be thus imposed on me by a Minister § 30. The same is still continued even
by the Conformists 1. The Ministers are even to swear Obedience to the Diocesane and the Diocesane promise it to the Arch-Bishop And this is a Covenant and more 2. They are to attend him at Visitations and otherwise to express their consent to his Government which they do not to the Bishop of the Neighbour-diocesses 3. The Parishioners signifie their consent to their Relation to that particular Church and Incumbent by their constant Attendance Submission Communion c. 4. The Law and Canon command their Consent yea to keep their own Parishes though the Minister preach not at all suspending Neighbour-ministers that receive such to their Communion that come from such a Reader to them And the Conformists say that men are bound to obey these Canons § 31. Either Parishioners are supposed thus to signifie Relation-consent to that particular Pastor and Church or not If yea this Accuser falsly supposeth that no Church but the Independents do so If not then he giveth up most of their Cause to the Brownists that say the Parish-Churches are none For it 's easie proved that Non-consenters are none Thus rash men confute themselves Nay we are all silenced for not Covenanting to the present frame of Diocesane Churches and never to endeavour an alteration Yet saith this man It is not in any of the Churches unless Independents neither explicite nor implicite Then none should so much as implicitely shew Consent to the Relation to his Diocesane or Parish-pastor or Church § 32. But saith he to me with gross falsehood Your Covenant is to this effect you shall not onely submit to me as your Pastor but binde your self by a particular antecedent Covenant so to do You shall dwell in the Parish and Covenant so to do c. Ans I wish that though design brought the word Covenant infread of Consent into his mouth it might not so long stick there as to choak his Conscience to think that any use of it is lawful Where and when did I engage any to dwell in the Parish If they dwell there I never hindred any from removing 2. But the Consent required is beforehand very true The Liturgie bids men come tell the Ministers before-hand that they desire the Communion Shall I ask them to consent to their duty when it is past Or can I know who are capable till I know who consenteth But saith he Why not à Church-Covenant for all other Duties Ans Why not a Marriage-covenant to make one a Priest c. Why not an Oath of Allegiance to make one a Coblar c. Consent necessary to the being of a Relation is one thing and Consent to every Duty is another which yet in general all Christians should promise sincerely to perform Must we write Books against such things as these § 33. To the Objection I am not bound to take every one that comes into the Parish for one of my Charge he hath no better answer than to tell us of Parish-bounds setled by law and binding me to do my best for all Ans Deceitfully confounding Charge the Genus with Church As if Heathens and Atheists and Papists and Refusers are of that Church because I have a Charge to seek their Conversion Or as if I had no special Charge of that Church 2. He did not see that he confuteth himself implying that we must consent because of the Law 3. And he forgot the many hundred years before Parish-divisions § 34. His zeal at last thus swelleth p. 129. I do utterly withstand it as wickedness and abomination in Gods Church I am to die and burn at a Stake before I yield to any such thing You make two Churches two Church-forms as two Baptisms p. 130. to teach Infidelity c. Ans Let him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall Alas for the Church whose Guides are no wiser and better men and tenderer Conscienced than he or I which ever is in the wrong 1. You will make me think you are deeply melancholy Is it so frightful a thing for me to say I will be no Pastor to any that consent not as to put you into talk of dying and burning at a Stake Had the Martyrs been burnt if men had been of this minde Did you ever know any put to death or burnt at a Stake for your Opinion Which is liker to be the burning party they that say We will rule none but Consenters or Volunteers or they that call this wickedness and abomination and so are for the contrary course Which Party hath killed more for Religion Reader you see my wickedness and abomination CHAP. V. I Had thought to have gone thus over the rest of his Book but it is such stuff that my Reason and Conscience bid me spare my own and the Readers time I. He begins with telling me what the Church of England is and all is worse than nothing Instead of telling me what is the Constitutive Formal Regent part he tells me of Bishops Pastors Convocation King c. as if he defined a Man to be one that hath a Head Eyes Liver Stomack c. II. It grieveth me to read what he saith of Popery 1. His Supposition that Popery is sound if the Particular Church be a part of the Universal having its subordinate form of Government under Christ's 2. His Supposition of the Emperour of Constantinople's turning Christian and becoming the Universal Prince and Bishop of his Empire as a lawful thing 3. His Supposition of the Pope's resigning his Place to St. Peter if he were alive c. 4. His Note that to claim but St. Peter's Place is not to claim Christ's with more such are unwise Temptations to Strangers to fear lest London-Air have done him hurt III. His many words about the Princes power to chuse Pastors for all his Subjects and that if faithful he is no Christian that refuseth to accept them 1. Is all a bare saying over what he thinketh taking little or no notice of my Discourse on that subject in my first Plea where all that 's against us is answered before and I will not repeat it 2. And it shamefully condemneth his foresaid Condemnations Is not Consent then necessary to the imposed Pastor if not consenting Unchristen men 3. It supposeth that the political Controversie Whether the King be authorized by God to chuse what pastoral Guide all the Subjects shall trust their Souls with any more than what Tutor Physician Wife Diet they shall take is an essential of Christianity and yet it is not in the Creed c. When yet it is notorious that all Churches for most Ages since Christ if not almost all in the world to this day were and are of the contrary minde and so are all unchristened by him 4. And though I urge him he will not answer what I said of the Question Who shall judge whether the Minister be faithful 5. If the Patron present a weak ignorant man that is faithful but of little use comparatively and
and are hunted and laid in Jayls with Rogues 2. Can I expect that men that never were studious or bookish especially in matters of Divinity and Holiness but have been bred up in fulness and pleasure in courtship and converse with such as themselves who will take him for a Fanatick that doth but talk much and seriously of Heaven or Scripture or things Divine that scarce ever heard what a Nonconformist hath to say for himself nor ever seriously examined the cause or read a Book which openeth their case in all their lives I say can I expect that such should be able or willing to understand us I mean not as if All were such but it hath been my hard hap to meet with few persons even of Gentile Education who ask me Why do you not Conform that do not presently shew me in Conference that they are quite out of their Element when they meddle with such matters and talk of things which they never studied or understood and indeed do not think it belongeth to them but to the Church And that is to those Church-men that the King and the Patron please to chuse which maketh the Papists say the Laity of the Church of England cry down our believing as the Church believeth when they do the same by their own Church-men The Question is but whether it be our Church-men or theirs that are to be believed And when Kings were on out side it was our Church-men that were to be believed and when they are on their side it is theirs And Mr. Hutchinson alias Berry spake harshly when he said in Print that there was so little of conscionable Religion in the people of the Church of England that if one were but toucht with the Conscience of Religion he turned Puritan o◠Papist I shewed him the injury of his Speech but I would he had much less occasion for it Dr. Stillingfleet told me that there was scarce an◠of his Hearers or Readers how mean soever ther◠capacities were but could discern the weakness of no Evasions I dwell near the Verge of his Parish I have talkt with some of his Auditors and enquired of many others and I think verily he is more in the right than I at first believed For I finde that abundance of his Auditors hear him some once some twice some thrice a year and some of them know not whether Christ be God or man or both or whether he had a humane Soul or what a man differs from a Beast nor what is the true sence of many if any Articles of the Creed And I am perswaded these whom he calleth of the meanest capacity are the likeliest men to discern the weakness of My Arguments I have talked also with divers of his Readers and I found that they understood this much that Dr. Stillingfleet wrote his Sermon against the Nonconformists and that he is a Dean and may be greater and is a man that can talk with any of us It may be some that I have not met with know more as being of a higher Form and some few I have met with that indeed know more and those lament the Doctor 's undertaking and when they have read my Answer or Account confess that they cannot justifie his Charge Could I but tell how to get most of the Church of England to know what Religion is and to be seriously of any Religion and to understand Baptism and the Lords Supper the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments how boldly should I expect their Christian sense and candour in our Cause But till then I confess that the Accusers have the advantage of us and their Books unread will do more than ours § 5. And it is a great advantage which they have got by the Oxford-Act of banishing above five Miles from Cities and Corporations all that swear not as is there required For though the King's Wisdome and Clemency have let down he Floud-gates and somewhat stopt the impetus of the Clergy-stream yet it was many years before Nonconformists durst be openly seen in Cities or Corporations much less at Court or among great Men and modesty and prudence yet obligeth them to abstain from the presence of their Superiours where the Law forbids it so that the Ears of Country-Nobles and most of our Rulers hear but what our Accusers say and have no knowledge of our Cause but as described by them whose descriptions are many of them no more credible than if they said that we are Turks § 6. And their Art hath got us to such a straight that whether we speak or are silent we are guilty and whatever we do except swearing saying and doing as they require it shall turn to our Accusation For instance Do some think that Dr. Stillingfleet is in the right that pronouneeth Damnation without Repentance against them that prefer not the purest Church and thereupon come not to the Parish-Assemblies Against such they cry out Separatists Schismaticks preparing for Rebellion away with them execute the Laws But if others do as I do who daily joyn with the Parish-Church in all their Worship and Communicate in their Sacrament and oppose Separation Some say Such are like Ap◠that are the ugliest Creatures though likest unto men while they are not men And others say We know not what to make of Mr. B. he is neither Flo◠nor Fish He is like one that will go one step on one side the Hedge and another on the other side to avoid Uniformity And the men are not altogether mistaken I profess that I once made it the most earnest action of my life to have prevented the building of a separating Wall or a dividing Thorny-hedge in the midst of this part of the Vineyard of Christ to separate one part of the faithful Ministers and people from the rest And that I earnestly desire to see that Wall or Hedge pull'd down that Christ's Flock among us may be one And I will do the best I can whilst I live to get it down that there may be no such separation And seeing this is a work above my power I will go sometime on both sides the Hedge though by so doing I be scratcht and a Thorn in the Flesh by a buffetting Messenger of Satan reprehend me But reverend Doctors hear my Reasons It is not to avoid Uniformity but Separation I am a Catholick and not a Sectary I am for Communion with the Universal Church If you will hedge in one corner and the Anabaptists another and the Separatists another and so other Sects that must have their peculiars and turn Christ's house into your several Chambers and his Common-field into your little Inclosures and then say Keep onely in our Room and go into no other Keep onely in our Enclosure and go not on the other side of the Hedge I shall tell you that I abhor your separation I have business on both sides I believe the holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints and not onely your
Enclosure and the Communion of your Conformists I have some business on your side the Hedge the Law and your own expectation will tell you part of it I see some of my Fathers Family with you I have busines on the other side the Hedge There are as good as you and such as I am neerly related to and commanded to love as my self and to receive as Christ received us and not to doubtful disputations to prove or approve all your Jurisdictions Assumptions Oaths Covenants Subscriptions Reordinations Formalities and Ceremonies Your thorn-hedge hath enclosed but one corner of Christs Vineyard and I have business in the rest It hath separated Parents from Children Husbands from Wives as to Church-communion Masters and Servants Brethren from Brethren Neighbours from Neighbours If they that made the hedge can justifie it let them do it it will be tryed before a jealous God ere long if those of you that in learned Books and Sermons exhort us with somewhat hissing Rhetorick to separate from those on the other side the hedge can prove that themselves are all Christs Church and that God would have us separate from all save them and give over Preaching and all publick Worship of God till we can conscionably conform to all their Impositions I say if all these silencing Preachers can make good their accusation of the Brethren and their conclusions let them that undertake it speed as they perform it but for my part I will not separate from Father Mother Brother Friend and all good Christians save a domineering Sect because that Sect will else call me Separatist I was wont to draw the Map of the Church Universal as one Body or Field or Vineyard of Christ hedged in indeed round about from Infidels and distributed into thousands of particular Churches as Streets and Families in one City But if any will say Hold Communion with one Street or Family and separate from the rest and then say that you are a Schismatick for not being for that odious Schism I will hear such as I do the people that talk through the windows on the west side of Moor-fields when they say that all are mad or Schismatical that are not in their Cubs and Chains Mr. Cheney was never there I think and yet it was per album an atrum nescio revealed to him that I am downright for an Independant Covenant which hath twenty Arguments extant to batter it and prove it guilty of irreligiousness or somewhat worse And they say for I am not acquainted much with their practice that the Independent bind their flock to hold Communion with none but their own Sect nor to depart without leave from their particular Churches I am apt to believe that they are slandered for whoever falls sick I will first fear the most epidemical or common disease but if it be no slander I profess that I will never be of a particular Church which claims to be the universal and will forbid me Communion with all save them And if in this the Prelatists agree with the Independents I am against the separating Sectarian Schismatical presumption of them both I take the Kitching and Cole-house to be parts of the house and I have sometimes business in them both But I am most in my Study and Chamber and I will take both Chamber and Colehouse for Schismticks if ever I hear either of them say I am all the house or it is lawful to be in no other room Lord pull up the separating Schismatical Thorn-hedge which hath cursedly divided thy family and flock CHAP. II. The Impleaders Truth examined § 1. CHrist saith that the Devil is the Father of Lies and doubtless he hath subtilty to excuse them and improve them and it is a great advantage to them that they are so disowned by humane nature that it is taken for an injury to humanity to charge any man to be a Lyar and a Ruffian will say it deserveth a challenge or a stab You will think it a paradox that natural dislike should be turned to the advantage of a sin But it is but natural light convincing the understanding not changing or fortifying the will against it And therefore it is but pride of reputation and impenitency that is indeed the fortress of the sin § 2. Accordingly it hath many times been my hard hap to have such Books written against me and that by men whose Reputation is not undervalued by themselves or their followers as were to be answered chiefly by a Mentiris from end to end if it would not seem by custom to be uncivil And to tire the Reader by turning a Mintiris into a civil long Parenthesis and this as frequently as gross falshoods are openly said or intimated is tedious even when necessary With one I was put to use my Arithmetick and to answer him by numbring the untruths asserted But I have forborn it with others far more guilty lest their reverence and power should make truth intolerable whose passion or interest or errour had made gross Lies seem true and necessary § 3. This Impleader hath been taught too much by the same Master and had he not spent part of his Book on Doctrinals where his Errata are but mendae but been all Historical where there are too many Mendacia I might have been put to the way of answering before-mentioned But be they Mendae or Mendacia they need aniendment and the Reader may need an antidote against them § 4. Some beginning we have on the Title-page pretending to shew the Reasons of the sinfulness of Conformity Mend. 1. I pretend in my Plea to shew but the matter of Nonconformity and Historical Narrative of our judgment and matters of fact passing by the Reasons or Arguments that must prove the things unlawful though Reason may be gathered by the Reader from the matter or History itself § 5. The same is repeated p. 1. He pretends to give Reasons for the sinfulness of Conformity M. 2. And he overpasseth the chief part of my Book in which I state the case of Government and Separation on pretence that it is a dark and dirty way in which I have lost my self M. 3. And a little will satisfie him that regards such an easie dark and dirty answer § 6. He guesseth that kneeling at the Sacrament for that was then discourst of was one and the chief of those many heinous sins of Conformity Mend. 4. It seems the man was present Reader look to thy belief when thou art among such men 1. There was not a word spoken then against the lawfulness of Kneeling at the Sacrament 2. I openly declared that I held it lawful and none of my Brethren contradicted 3. The thing which we proved unlawful then was Casting those faithful Christians out of the Church-Communion in that Sacrament who dare not take it kneeling for the reasons which cause them to think it sinful § 7. Impl. He will not urge the case but barely mention matters of fact 〈…〉 much
that they are ruined if we be but suffered to Preach Christ's Gospel and to live out of a Jayl and think that if we offer to refel the Slanders that render us odious to them and do but speak for our Ministry and Liberties as every Malefactor is allowed by the Judges to speak for himself we seek the ruine of our Clergy-Accusers Do not Heathens abhor such Injustice as this My Purse is less to me than my Ministry and all that any man can take from me will be much less than Fourty Pound a Sermon And yet if any men on the High-way or in my House should not only take away all that I had but afterward prefer a Bill against me as seeking their ruine because by Reason I intreated them to forbear and that in vain it would be one of the oddest Cases that hath come into Westminster-Hall I was once neighbour to a valiant Knight who yet was so gentle that when the Hookers in a Moonshine-night were hooking his Cloaths and Goods through the window and he lay in Bed and saw them he lay still and mildly told them Gentlemen This is not well done These things are not yours If you are taken you may be hanged for it And by that time his Sermon to them was done they had got what they came for and were gone But I never heard that they entred a Suit against him for seeking to ruine their Trade by his reprehension But if any of you have such a trade as will not endure the Plea of innocent Sufferers for Peace or Mercy without your ruine I would some one that you have more regard for would perswade you quickly to lay by that trade lest when Christ is Judge and saith Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these you did it to me your Clergy will not save you from his Sentence were it but the devouring of Widows houses it is not the longest Liturgy that will excuse you by a Legit nor will you escape with Burning in the Hand unless Repentance now prevent it The evil Servant that stuffs his guts and beats his Fellows presuming on his Lords delay you know is threatned with a sharper penalty § 11. Impl. p. 4. No person of any Note that I have heard of in all that Party who were in places of Trust and Publick Employment did on the late Test refuse to communicate with the Church of England Answ 1. How far doth your hearing reach 2. How many of that Party have you known in such places of Trust I suppose you know when the Test in the Corporation-Act was imposed that Party were then turned out of all Corporation-power In some places not two of the old staid in And is it any wonder then if none of that Party be in such Power 3. And is Communicating in the Lords Supper all the Conformity that is scrupled And what 's all this to our Controversie § 12. Impl. When all our United strength is too little to withstand the attempts of our common Adversaries it is a wonder to me with what Confidence and what Designe he should not only proclaim Conformity on the Ministers part to be impossible but endeavour also with all his might to withdraw the Laity from our Communion m. 14. Answ 1. Is it a Truth that one that holdeth Communion with your Church and speaketh and writeth for it and disswadeth none from it doth endeavour with all his might to withdraw the Laity from it Can you not forbear this ill custome a few Lines together 2. Ex ore tuo See Reader the man confesses the need of our United strength Hold him to that word And I repeat If he and the rest of that Tribe do believe that it was morally possible that the two Thousand Silenc'd Ministers and all that came after them should believe all the things which I named in my Plea for Peace and all the rest which many scruple are lawful for them to do I wonder not at any Confusion Calamity or Corruption that shall befal a Church that is conducted by such men Who would have thought that there had been such men among Christians and Pastors of a Reformed Church But I do not believe that there are many such that think it morally possible that we should all believe all Conformity lawful they would never else have trusted so much to Mulcts and Jails as to think their Church undone without those Helps They are not such strangers to Sence and Conscience It is the wearing out of the present Generation of Non-Conformists and alluring or affrighting Youth from following them which the men of any Brains have trusted to Judge by these Evidences of this mans Wit and wondering 1. By the great number of the things which we judge sinful They might dispute men into their Opinion in some few differences that cannot in so many 2. The Sins feared are so heynous as that Conscience will not quickly universally swallow them 3. The number of the Dissenters To dispute a few men out of their Judgments in difficult cases proveth hard much more many hundreds or thousands 4. Consider the quality of the silenced Ministers Could they think that such men as Anthony Burges Sam. Hildersham Mr. Hughes Dr. Manton Dr. Seaman c. did not consider what they did neither in their Health nor before their Death Did they never read or hear what might be said for the New-Conformity Had they not Learning or Wit enough to understand it Or had they no Conscience living or dying So many hundreds that after their best enquiries and hearing all remain Non-Conformists are unlike to be all brought to Conform 5. Judge by old experience Were old Hildersham Ames Dod and hundreds like them brought to Conformity heretofore Mr. Sprint Dr. Burges and some others were but more were not Did not even the Westminster-Assembly of old Conformists forsake it assoon as they could 6. Judge by the change of the Case and the Writings even of the old Conformists Such things are put into the New-Conformity as Bilson Hooker Usher and other old Conformists have written against And would they also repent and change their minds if they were alive I again profess that I am bound in Charity and Reason fully to conclude that had Usher Bilson Hooker Jewel Preston Sibbes Whately Bolton and all such yea Dr. Jo. Burges Sprint and such others of their minde that writ for the old Conformity bin alive they would all have bin Nonconformists to our new Impositions 7. Judge by the means that are used to convince us Is there any thing said that hath such cogent Evidence as to convert so many hundred men to your Opinions Did such men as Dr. Twisse Mr. Herle Mr. Gataker Mr. Vines c. want the Instruction of our present Lords to make them wise enough to Conform When I know none of the Conformists writings that have so much as named some of the things that we think worst of 8. Judge by present
think the Imposers meant that all men should stay away till they had a full trust and quiet Conscience But that 's the plain importance of the words Here therefore it is more ill words than ill meaning which I do deny Assent and Consent to § 27. X. Pag. 38. About compelling each Communicant to receive thrice a year he saith 1. It is the Statute not the Minister 2. It is only the duely qualified Answ 1. The Bishops are Statute-makers 2. Nothing more common with the Canoneers than to call to Magistrates to execute such Laws 3. The Canons and Liturgy require it 4. It is not true that it 's only the duely qualified It is all that are not Naturally but Morally unfit that is that are at Age and have Reason and Health If the Priest should put away any as unfit he must accuse them to the Chancellor and they must be Excommunicate and lie in Jayl while they live unless they Communicate So that here is a plain Exposition 4. There are multitudes unfit to Communicate whom the Minister cannot put away that were they not constrained would keep away themselves as secret Atheists Infidels Sadduces Socinians Arians Seekers secret Fornicators Thieves Drunkards c. that are conscious of their Sin and Impenitence But rather than lie in Jayl will all Communicate § 28. Impl. What deplorable times are we fallen into that our highest Priviledge should be counted a great grievance c. Answ Still deceit 1. Is it our highest Priviledge to have unfit men constreined to prophane holy things and profess themselves what they are not and the dogs forced in that should lie without Is Christ's Discipline against our highest Priviledges 2. Who knoweth not that Infidels Sadduces and wicked men do account these Priviledges to be none Cure them of their Contempt and you need not force them by a Jayl Till then is it the Pastors that refuse such till they voluntary seek it or the Contemners of these Priviledges that are to be reproved Christ giveth pardon and life to none but desirous Consenters and if you will seal and deliver the promise of it to those that will but prefer it to a Jayl and make up your Churches on such terms we dare not imitate you The Church-Keys exercised are as Tertullian speaketh Praejudicium futuri judicii and should intimate to men who they be that shall be let into Heaven or shut out And to say Come all and take Christ Pardon and Life who will rather take the Sacrament than lye in a Jayl is like another Gospel § 29. XI The pronouncing Salvation to all that they bury save the three excepted sorts Unbaptized Excommunicate and Self-murderers is the next And 1. he will not have the words to signifie Salvation The words are Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great Mercy to take to himself the Soul of our dear Brother here departed And we give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world And That we may rest in Him Christ as our hope is this our brother doth If all this signifie not Salvation in your judgment it doth in ours We accuse not you of deceiving Souls at a time when it will take the deepest impression but we only tell you we dare not Assent and Consent to that which to us would be false Equivocation and that in so serious a thing And if the difference be but Grammatical doth it deserve our Silencing and ruine to believe that those words import Salvation § 30. But 2. he saith Christian Charity teacheth us to hope the best of all that die in the Communion of the Church Answ It is not Christian Charity which is contrary to the Christian Verity and Covenant Nor that which tendeth to undo the living by false hopes Hobbes and such others as oppose Fundamentals deride Christianity or the Immortality of the Soul some by Writing some by common Talk do die in the Church of England I have heard Preachers lament their Numbers Impudence and Increase but never heard one of them Excommunicate nor brought to publick Repentance All die in the Church that Communicate rather than lie in Jayl and be ruined yea thousands that will not Communicate notwithstanding such Severities When in a Parish of 8000 or 10000 Communicants no more even on a Whitsunday than about 100 Communitate though the Minister be one of the best yet the rest are still in your Church We desire the highest degree of Charity But such a judgment of mens future state though called Charitable seemeth to us so fearfully uncharitable that it is one of the greatest things in which we seem to differ And I will not shew the rise and the import and tendency of it lest Dr. Fullwood and the Reflecter on Sacril Desert say again that I gather too hard Consequences from our Difference But nobis non licet Must we be Silenced and ruined for want of such Charity § 31. XII Silencing such as think the Surplice unlawful is the next pag. 42. And he saith If any man against such Authority and Arguments should think the Surplice unlawful it is better he should be Silenced than that the Churches Peace and Order be disturbed or antient Laws abrogated Answ You have owned it If it be well done you may partake of the Reward If ill of the Punishment Qu. Whether consenting so to Silence 2000 and 9000 if they had not Conformed will not make your Reward greater than if you had consented and subscribed to the Silencing but of one His blood be on us and on our Children were the words of Factious Zeal that escaped not without punishment Paul that consented to the death of Stephen and hunted others saith He was mad yea exceeding mad against them Christ never laid the Order and Peace of the Church nor the Preaching of the Gospel on such things nor ever encouraged any to do it Of which see Bishop Jer. Tailor in the words largely cited in my Second Plea § 32. XIII Though Athanasius Creed as to the damnatory part was that which Mr. Dodwell scrupled I will not answer this mans equivocating Exposition of it lest I be thought to tempt others to blame the Creed itself which I honour Where he saith p. 43. I frequently and falsely accuse the Conformists of Socinian or Antitrinitarian Doctrine Let him tell us where or else I accuse him as a false Accuser But it 's his mode § 33. XIV Whereas all must Assent and Consent to read the Common-Prayer every day of the year if not specially hindred he tells us what reason there is for it But 1. will it not necessitate the omission in many places of more necessary works 2. What encouragement have we to embody with that Tribe who all Consent to this and not one of multitudes of them do it Is such Conformity tolerable and our Preaching intolerable without it § 34. XV. Pag. 46. He calls
may see that his Charity and his Veracity are proportionable he hence inferrs p. 57. Did ever any Bishop aspire to such Tyranny as this the Pope only excepted Is not the King and whole Nation greatly culpable not to trust themselves with the ingenuity of this people c. Answ Reader which is liker to be guilty of Tyranny 1. We that desire no power but to plead God's Law to mens Consciences 2. And that but with one Congregation And 3. with no constrained unwilling persons but only voluntary Consenters 4. And to rule over none of our Fellow-Ministers 5. And only to be but Freemen as Schoolmasters and Philosophers be in their Schools of Volunteers that we may not against our Consciences be the Pastors of the unwilling or such as we judge uncapable according to God's Laws but to use the Keys of Admission and Exclusion as to that particular Church 6. And to do all under the Government of the Magistrate who may punish us as he may do Physicians Schoolmasters or others for proved mal-administration and drive us not from but to our Duty 7. And to be ready to give an account of our Actions to any Synod or Brethren that demand it and to hear their Admonitions and Advice Yea and to live in peaceable submission where Archbishops or General-Visitors are set over us and upon any Appeals or Complaints to hear and obey them in any lawful thing belonging to their Trust and Power 9. And if we be judged to have worngfully denied our Ministerial help and Communion to any we pretend to no power to hinder any other Church or Pastor from receiving him 10. And if we be by Magistrates cast out or afficted for our Duty we shall quietly give up the Temples and publick Church-maintenance of which the Magistrate may dispose and without resisting or dishonouring him endure what he shall inflict upon us for our obedience to God This is our odious Tyranny 2. On the other side our Accusers 1. Some of them are for power in themselves to force men by the Sword that is by Mulcts and corporal Penalties to be subject to them or be of their Church and Communion 2. Others are for the Magistrate thus forcing them when the Bishop Excommunicates them 3. They thus make the Church like a prison when no man knoweth whether the people be willing Members or only seem so to escape the Jail 4. They would be such forcing Rulers over many score or hundred Parishes 5. They would have power to Rule Suspend and Silence the Pastors of all these Parishes when they think meet 6. They hinder the Pastors of the Parish-Churches from that exercise of the Keys aforesaid in their own Parish-Churches which belongs to the Pastors Office 7. They would compel the Parish-Ministers to Admit Absolve or Excommunicate at least as declaring other mens Sentences when it is against their Consciences 8. They would make Ministers swear Obedience to them and Bishops swear Obedience to Archbishops 9. Some of them are for their power to Excommunicate Princes and greatest Magistrates though contrary to the fifth Commandment it dishonour them 10. Some of them say that if the King command one Church-Order or Form or Ceremony and the Bishop another the Bishop is to be obeyed before the King As also if the King bid us Preach and the Bishop forbid us 11. And they say that their Censures even Clave errante must be obeyed 12. And that he whom a Bishop cuts off from one Church is thereby cut off from all and none may receive him 13. And that it is lawful to set up Patriarchs Metropolitans c. to rule the Church according to the state and distribution of Civil Government Look over these two Cases and judge which party is liker to Church-Tyrants and then judge what Credit is due to such Accusers of the Non-Conformists in this Age. § 43. II. As to Reordination I have answer'd to Mr. Cheny what he saith He deceitfully avoideth determining the first Question whether they intend a Reordination or not Whereas I have proved 1. That the Church of England is against twice Ordaining 2. That they call it and take it for a true Ordination which is to be received from them by such as Presbyters had Ordained 3. And therefore that they suppose the former Null 4. And this is much of the reason of mens doubting whether they should receive the second which is given on such a Supposition But this man is little concerned in the true stating of the case § 44. III. What he saith of the Ministers power for Discipline is answered already to Mr. Cheney that hath the same § 45. About the Covenant 1. he falsly makes me say that the King took it Whereas whether he did or not I only say that he was injuriously and unlawfully drawn to seem to owne it and declare for it 2. Next he aggravates this Injury And who contradicteth him 3. He pleadeth That the King is not obliged by it to make any alteration in the Government of the Church Answ I will not examine your Reasons The King never made me his Confessor nor put the question to me Why then should I make my self a Judge of it And why must my Ministry lie on a thing beyond my knowledge But am I sure that no Parliament-man that took that Vow is bound there in his place to endeavour a Reforming Alteration when I am past doubt that much is needful He would 1. make it doubtful Whether it was a Vow to God I think it not worth the labour to prove it to him that doubteth of it after deliberate reading it 2. He saith Any lawful endeavours are not denied Answ But the Obligation to lawful endeavours are denied Are not the words universal 3. He saith The Covenant condemned as unlawful cannot lay an Obligation Answ A Vow to God unlawfully imposed and taken may binde to a Lawful Act. 4. He calls it unnecessary alterations against the Law of the Land Answ I suppose I shall prove some reforming alteration necessary And it is not against Law for a Subject to petition for it or a Parliament-man to speak for it Yet when the man seems to me to be pleading Conscience out of the Land he saith Would not this cause the Christian Religion in a short time to be exploded out of all Kingdoms Alas poor people what uncertain Guides have you 5. He concludes that the power of Reforming being in the King the Vow was null Answ The Regal Power of Reforming is only in the King To change Laws without him is Usurpation But Parliament-men may speak for it and Subjects petition and on just causes write and speak for needful Reformation And I speak for no other § 45. IV. About not taking Arms against those Commissioned by the King He plainly professeth that we must not distinguish where the Law doth not And if it be an unlimited Universal Negative it will quite go beyond Mainwaring or Sibthorpe And for all