A LETTER Concerning the present State OF RELIGION AMONGST US A Letter concerning the present State of Religion amongst us MY dear Brother in Christ no lesse then by birth I have perused the Ordinance for ejecting of Scandalous Ministers and finding it likely enough to send you a Pastor that shall have have no authority from the Church have thought it necessary for me to give you the reasons of that opinion which I declared unto you that in that case you ought not in conscience to acknowledge such a for one your Pastor by going tohear him preach and seeming to joyn in his Prayers much lesse to receive the Eucharist at his hands if such a one shall be so audacious as to celebrate it This that I may do I must first propose the Case as it is stated by those Acts which pretend to settle Religion among us For first the Act whereby the present Government is estaâ—â—â—shed declareth that the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures shall be held forth as the publick profession of these Nations And that such as profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ though differing from this profession in doctrine worship or discipline shal be protected in the exercise of their Religion excepting Popery and Prelacy and those who under the profession of Christ hold forth and practise licentiousnesse In prosecution hereof an Ordinance is issued forth giving commission to certain persons named in it to examine and try all that have come into possession of Churches since April 13. 1653. all that have augmentations from Parliament all that shall pretend to come into Churches that shall be void whether fit for the Office and Benefice by no other Rule then the Certificate of three godly Neighbours one at least a Minister concerning their conversation in godlinesse upon their own knowledge and the judgement of five Commissioners that the grace of God is in their hearts and that they are fit to preach In further prosecution hereof issues forth this Ordinance whereby no man is made scandalous for his judgement but he that is liable to the Act against Blasphemy of Aug. 9. 1653. And with him is ranked he who shall frequently and publickly have read the Service since Christmasse 1653. whereby it appeareth that those who have declared their perseverance in the Religion which they have hitherto professed by reading the Service are therefore counted scandalous But those that can obtain the certificate of such men as these Triers count godly men together with their own opinion that so they are and fit to Preach are thereby qualified in Law to be Pastors of Parishes And consequently to succeed those that adhere to the Christianity which hitherto they have professed being cast out by the Commissioners for ejecting of scandalous Ministers In the first place then I say that the effect of these Laws is to nullifie and make void one Article of tâ—e Creed which hitheâ—to to we professe To wit the belief of one holy Catholick and Apostolick Church This word Church may signifie two things First onely the whole number of Christians Secondly a Communion and corporation of those that professe true Christianity founded by the will of God and the ministery of our Lord Christ and his Apostles That Christians when they professe to beleeve the Catholick Church do not mean that they beleeve that there is in the world a number of men that professe to be Christians it is manifest because all Christians hope to be saved by their Faith but they cannot hope to be saved by beleeving that which they see Now all men see that there is such a company of men in the world therefore when they say they beleeve the Catholick Church as part of that Faith whereby they hope to be saved they do not professe to beleeve that there is such a company of men but that there is a Corporation of true Christians founded by our Lord Christ and his Apostles which Hereticks and Schismaticks cannot have Communion with and that they hope to be saved by this Faith as being members of it And this is that which the stile of the holy Catholick and Apostlick Church signifies as distinguishing the Body of true Christians to wit so far as profession goes from the Conventicles of Hereticks and Schismaticks For this title of Catholick would signifie nothing if Hereticks and Schismaticks were not barred the Communion of the Church And let no man imagine that the Schisme which the Reformation hath made between us and the Church of Rome hath dissolved the obligation of being members of the Church if that change which is called Reformation preserve not such a Church as ought to be acknowledged for a true member of the whole or Catholick Church it is no Reformation but the destruction of Christianity Now when these Laws inable Souldiers and Justices of the Peace as well as those that call themselves Ministers to make publick Preachers as well such as have received no Ordination from the Church as those that have It is manifest that all difference between Clergy and People is by them dissolved and made void And by consequence the Corporation of the Church which grounds and creates all the difference which hitherto by all Christians hath been received between these two qualities True it is that for the present as well those who have lawful authority to officiate the publick Service of God by Ordination from the Church are admitted or maintained in their Benefices by these Laws as those that have none Though it be wel enough known that those who have such authority do pretend to act by vertue of it and not by this Law further then as by submitting to it they remove that force which hinders their right otherwise gotten to take effect But it is as true that supposing this Law to continue an age none such can remain And when none such remains then there shall be no Church in England but by equivocation of words if the premises be be true And therefore those that acknowledge such as have â—o other authority but from this power for their Pastors cannot consequently professe to beleeve one Catholick Church nor hope for salvation by being members of it For supposing for the present though not granting that the power which makes these Laws is from God yet can it not be pretended to be from our Lord Christ and his Apostles And therefore this authority derived from it cannot be derived from any act of theirs constituting the Church and inabling it to give this authority by acknowledging whereof Christians presume that they are members of the Church Now that you may see why the belief of Christs Church is an Article of our Creed I say further that you cannot acknowledg such men for your Pastors because you are not secured by these Laws that they are not Hereticks For seeing the Act of Establishment pretends onely to hold forth the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and that all the Heresies that are this
day in the world do maintain themselves to professe the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures it is manifest that these Laws provide not that they shall not be Hereticks which are sent you for Pastors Here I must not complain that whereas all that professe Faith in God by Jesus Christ though differing from the profession held forth are protected in the exercise of their Religion Popâ—ry and Praelacy are excepted though it cannot be denied that both profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ Nor that those who hold the profession established by the Laws under which we were born are resused that protection which is tendred Socinians enemies of the Trinity and satisfaction of Christ who manifestly profess Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and Faith in God by Jesus Christ For my business is not to say what they that made these Lawes should have done by them but what you are to do now they are made But if it be answered that those that make these Lawes repose trust in them to whom they grant these Commissions that they will not take any to be godly men that are Hereticks To this I say that will not serve your turn for several reasons For those that professe all that the Law requires them to professe that is Faith in God through Jesus Christ and the Christian Religion Contained in the Scriptures cannot be judged ungodly for whatsoever they professe besides by any Power derived from this Law but by an arbitrary power to be exercised at the will of the Commissioners And how are you assured that no Heretick shall obtain a certificate of three Neighbours and so answer their demands that they shall have cause to think him in Gods grace However you are not warranted to trust your salvation and the salvation of those that depend on you either upon the judgement of these Commissioners or of them that make the laws If it be demanded why the secular Power and the Commissioners thereof are not as well to be trusted with the salvation of the people as those that may pretend authority from the Church the answer is ready That when you acknowledge a Pastor sent by the Church you neither trust his person nor the person of him that sends him but the Laws which the Church hath received from our Lord and his Apostles in as much as by professing Christianity so limited and according to them to exercise the function which he receiveth he becomes qualified for the charge in which you acknowledge him which Laws he that destroyes by dissolving the Corporation of the Church destroyes the trust you are to have in those whom you acknowledge your Pastors that they are not Hereticks And here I must not fail to give you notice that those Presbyterians and Independents who having departed from the Church of England upon pretence of erecting Presbyteries and Congregations do now make themselves Commissioners to execute these Laws which destroy both Presbyteries and Congregations have thereby destroyed the ground of all trust which the Church might have had in them for conduct in Christianity For what profession can it be presumed that they will hold when they hold not that for which they have destroyed the Unity of the Church which is the reason why Hereticks and Schismaticks though they may be re-admitted to the Communion of the Church upon repentance yet by the Rules of the Catholick Church cannot be re-admitted to be of the Clergie These Apostacies having made them uncapable of that trust which the Church must necessarily repose in the Clergy That you may see this is not for nothing I say further that there is among us a damnable Heresy of Antinomians or Libertines formerly when Puritans were not divided from the Church of England known by the name of Grindletonians and Etonists These do beleeve so to be saved by the free grace of God by which Christ died for the Elect that true faith is nothing but the revelation hereof and by consequence that all their sins past present and to come being remitted by this grace to repent of sin or to contend against it is the renouncing of Gods free grace and saving faith Another opinion there is which I cannot say the Presbyterians hold or require to be held but in regard their confession of Faith and Catechisme disclaimes it not and therefore allows them that hold it to be of their Faction may well be said to maintain it That for a man to beleeve that he is praedestinate to life and that Christ died for him is that faith which alone justifieth a Christian Whether of these opinions is the better or the worse or what is the difference between them let the parties dispute This I say that allowing the merits and satisfaction of Christ to the Elect for remission of sins and a title to everlasting life in no consideration but of their persons it is more reasonable to say that they can never become guilty of sin then that the remission of their sins and their right to life should depend upon the knowledge of their praedestination revealed by Faith seeing nothing is true because it is beleeved but beleeved because it is true And therefore I say that both of these opinions are destructive to the foundation of faith which the Church of England teacheth when in the Office of Baptisme and the beginning of the Catechisme it requireth all that are baptized not onely to profess the Faith of Christ but to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to fight with them till death for the keeping of Gods Commandments assuring them hereupon that they are regenerate and adopted Gods children by his Grace in Christ For he that is saved by undertaking and persevering in this cannoâ— be saved by beleeving that he is absolutely predestinate to life without it For I must say that it is one thing to be absolutely predestinate to life another thing to be predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere till death For he that is predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere in the Covenant of Grace till death is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace in which he is predestinate to persevere And whether a man can be absolutely predestinate to persevere in it of his own free-will and voluntary choice or not is that which remaines in dispute among Divines which I suppose not here to be either true or false But to say that a man is absolutely predestinate to life and to say that he is predestinate to life in consideration of his undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace which must be the act of his own free-will and choice is to say express contradictions and to destroy the Covenant of Grace into which by the Baptisme of the Church of England every man entreth and all hope of Salvation which is meerly imaginary if not grounded upon it Seeing then that the trial upon which these Commissioners proceed
is the marks of predestination whether true or false not distinguishing whether they suppose the Covenant of Grace the undertaking of it and persevering in it or not I say that you are no way secured by these Laws that the Triers themselves much lesse those whom they shall send you are not complices of this damnable Heresy I must not forget to advise you that Dell one so far of this Heresy that he hath written a Book against Baptisme it self is now and is acknowledged by these Commissioners master of a Colledge in the University whereof several fellows have been notorious Preachers of this Heresy who cannot be acknowledged a member of the Church by any good Christian The like I alledge in regard of the Sect of the Anabaptists In which point I must suppose two things First that the Christian Faith supposeth Original sin Secondly that without Baptisme there is no cure for it which depends upon the Premises that there is no absolute predestination without consideration of the Covenant of Grace which Baptisme executeth to cure it For whatsoever our Lord meant when he said unlesse ye be born again of water it is manifest that though no man can become a true Christian without the operation of the Holy Ghost yet the Grace of the Holy Ghost dwelling in a man is not granted but in consideration of his entring into the said covenant and that this onely is the cure of Original sin There is then no necessity of shewing an expresse precept in Scripturre that all Infants be baptized or that the Church from the Apostles time did Baptize all while they were Infants If the Christian Faith suppose Original sin if no cure for that but by the covenant of Grace if no execution of that Covenant but the Baptisme of the Church unlesse where the outward act is prevented by inevitable necessity after the inward desire thereof was sufficiently resolved and declared then is this necessity a constraining precept and hath been so reputed by the Church even since the Apostles which alwayes hath taken order not that all should be baptized Infants but that no Infant should die without being baptized For the diligent watch over all occasions that might carry Infants out of the world unbaptized observed by the Church from the beginning though neglected since demonstrateth no legal assurance of the salvation of such as should die unbaptized whatsoever might be presumed of Gods goodnesse over and above what he declareth But as for those that shall become obliged and engaged to the covenant of grace by being consecrated to God through the act of the Church thereby obliging it self to shew them the truth of Christianity which obligeth all to whom it is shown the necessity aforesaid together with the practice of the Church is a legal presumption of the cure of Original sin and the opening of Paradise which it onely shutteth If therefore our Anabaptists do not believe original sin they are Pelagian Hereticks If beleeving it they beleeve notwithstanding that it is cured by Predestination without the Covenant of Grace they fall into the damnable Heresy premised And seem to make not onely that Baptisme whereby they make void the Baptisme received in the Church of England a renouncing of the Christianity which they received and professed at their Baptisme but that also which they give those whom they will not have baptized while they are infants utterly void and ineffectual towards God as not pretending to bring them into Covenant of Gods Grace by Christ that is into the profession of the true Faith and of fighting against sin till death under the same which they that beleeve Salvation by Gods Predestination revealed by faith without undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace can by no means pretend to do Seeing then that the necessity of Baptisme cannot be denied but upon such a ground as voideth the Covenant of Grace and seeing the Triers are either Anabaptists themselves or complices in the same Commission with Anabaptists whereof there are in the Commission of Triers five or six that I hear of by name and how many more God knows and in the Commission for ejecting of scandalous Ministers in one County of Hertford nine of fifteen as I am credibly informed it is evident that by these Laws you are no wayes secured of having Anabaptists for your Pastors who are expressly Schismaticks forsaking the Church for that which the Church alwayes did and by consequence of the premised reasons Hereticks As the Baptisme of those men whom they pretend to send you for Pastors is by this reason void in point of right so the Eucharist which they may pretend to celebrate will be void of the effect of a Sacrament toward you but not void of the crime of Sacriledge towards God The reasons are two The first because those who have not received the Order of Priesthood shall pretend to celebrate it For the Scripture interpreted by the un-interrupted practise of the Church allows no man under the Order of a Priest to celebrate the Eucharist Not as if those who call themselves Ministers did commit this Sacriledge in consecrating the Eucharist Though the name of Ministers signifies no more then deacons and that it is truely Sacrilege for deacons to celebrate the Eucharist But because those whom the Church lawfully gives not the power of celebrating this Sacrament to though by mis-understanding those whom it gives it to may be called Ministers and ought to be called Priests their Eucharist is no Sacrament but Sacrilege The second because they know not nor acknowledge the Consecration that is requisite to the celebration and beeing of this Sacrament by the same Scriptures understood according to the un-interrupted custome and practice of the Church For the whole Church of God allowing the elements consecrated to be the Body and Bloud of Christ mystically or in the Sacrament alloweth this change to be made by the consecration before which they were onely Bread and Wine Not as if after the Consecration they were not so but because they are then become that which they were not afore to wit the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud or the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually and mystically that is in the Sacrament This Consecration being exactly maintained by the Church of England they that presume to celebrate the Eucharist without acknowledging the fame and pretending to destroy the Law by which it is exercised must be presumed not to acknowledge the necessity thereof to the being of this Sacrament And therefore they and their complices in the Communion thereof to be guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ as not distinguishing a signe of mans institution from a Sacrament of Gods appointment and Ordinance As for the Office of Preaching and Praying which they pretend to in behalf of the Church I will mark you out two monstrous Impostures in all the Sects of this time The first is this ground of the blessed Reformation of Religion in
England That the Church is not to assemble for the Service of God but when there is preaching This seems to stand upon a very grosse mistake of those passages of the Apostles writings which declare the necessary means of salvation to consist in hearing the Gospel preached As if they were meant of Sermons in the Pulpit which are onely made to those that are already Christians not of publishing the Gospel to those that knew it not afore convincing them that it is true and instructing them wherein it consists Or as if those that are already Christians wanted any thing necessary to Salvation supposing them to persevere in the Christianity which they have professed Not as if their Christianity did not oblige them to hear Sermons when the authority of the Church assures them to be without offence But because the Offices of publick Praiers and the Praises of God especially in celebrating the blessed Eucharist are the end of all that instruction in Christianity which Christians receive from the Church and therefore all Preaching subordinate to the same as the means to the End And because they may be daily so frequented without offence and to the increase of the reverence of Christianity as the experience of our time shows that Preaching cannot be The second is that the first day of the week called Sunday is the Sabbath by force of the fourth Commandement An Imposture so gross that it may well serve for an instance what Faction can do with men that are sober otherwise That God by commanding the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week to wit that day on which he ended the Creation of the world and for that very reason commanding it should be thought to command Christians to keep the first day of the week on which he began the Creation and our Lord Christ arose from the dead That is that the same words of the same Commandment in writing should oblige Jews to rest on the Saturday which oblige Christians to rest on the Sunday is a thing which when this fit of frensy shall be past us will scarse be beleeved that ever any man would beleeve True it is this first day hath been observed in and ever since the Apostles time but not by vertue of that Law which their office was to declare was expired and out of date but by the Act of their own authority whereby they gave Laws to Christs Church Let us now onely compare the daily morning and evening Sacrifice of Prayer and the Praises of God established by the Order of the Church of England together with the more solemn service of Lords dayes and Festivals with a bare Sermon upon Sundaies ushered in and out with a Prayer of every mans own conceit setting aside the Heresy and false doctrine the Faction Schism the blasphemy and slander the ridiculous follies which this Sermon and Prayer may and which we have known them contain I say comparing these together the blessed reformation pretended is and ought to be accounted the abomination of desolation in comparison of that Order which it destroyeth And therefore upon this account alone those who not being invested with that ordinary Power by which the Church is inabled to correct abuses in the Church shall usurp the Power of the Church to introduce this disorder are thereby Schismaticks themselves and those that acknowledge them for their Pastors complices of Schismaticks It will be said that these Laws will be amended as it was many times said awhile since that the Parliament would settle a Ministery To this I say that those that are sent you by virtue of these Laws have every way as good authority as any the Power that made these Laws joyned with a Parliament can give to them that are not otherwise qualified by the authority of the Church That is that this Power of a Parliament together though advising with divines how the qualities of those whom they make Ministers are to be limited can do no more then this Power with advise of those Divines it useth hath done Both being Secular and able to make men their Ministers to maintain the Interest of that Government which their Power constituteth but not Ministers of the Church to maintain the interest of that Faith and service of God which it is trusted with If it be said that at the Reformation those from whom the Ministry is propagated had not received by their Ordination Power to ordain others I answer that it is agreed among all that professe the Reformation that the abuses crept into the Church were so great that particular Churches that is part of the whole might and ought to reform themselves without consent or concurrence of the whole It is also agreed among them that maintain it that there is in the Church a succession of persons indued with authority in behalf of it as well as of doctrine and of the service of God Though the succession of persons be of less consideration as subordinate to the succession of doctrine as the means to the end In this case then I say that such inabilities in persons vested with Ecclesiastical Power by the Reformation as became unavoidable by the refusal of the rest of the Church to concur in it cannot make Churches so constituted no Churches nor void the effect of those Offices which persons so qualified shall minister unto Gods people But such inabilities as became unavoidable onely for want of due information in those that undertook to reform themselves as it would be malice in man to justifie so it may reasonably be presumed that the mercy of God excuses But supposing according to the premises and the sense of all that adhere to the Church of England that the Presbyterians Ordinations tend no more to maintain the primitive faith and service of God once delivered to the Church and established in it by the Apostles then they do to maintain that which is hitherto established in the Church of England I say supposing this to imagine that an Assembly of Divines by being lawfully ordained to the office of Priests or Deacons according to the Laws of the Church of England can by commission from the secular Power make ordinations which the Laws under which they were ordained forbid is to imagin that God can inable man to sin or that a Soveraign Power can authorize the subject to rebell against it self And therefore though the qualities of persons to be sent you for Pastors may be otherwise limited by Acts which Parliaments may make yet these qualities not being derived from the authority of the Apostles sounding the Church by any act of the Church but from secular Power and Commission issued from it make them no more Ministers of the Church that are made by Assemblies of Divines and Presbyteries then those that are made by commission of Triers and ejecting scandalous Ministers That is both of them being by their creation Schismaticks and their profession not clearing them of misprision of Heresy they