Sabbath as I have proved in a peculiar Treatise Men may set apart one day in a year for special Thanksgivings or Commemorations and one day in a week e. g. in a time of Plague and danger to fast and pray c. But if any should make another weekly day of holy observance to commemorate the same work of Christ's Resurrection or our Redemption which Christ did separate that day to commemorate I think he would be both an unjust accuser of Christ's Law as insufficient and an unjust usurper of his Prerogative 4. And it is considerable to me that though Christ so extraordinarily Commissioned and Qualified his Apostles to record his Words and Acts in Scripture and settle Church-Orders and Inferiour Offices and teach the Nations to observe all that he had Commanded them yet even them did did he never Commission to make a new Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace nor did they ever make one but contrarily rebuked those that would but have kept up some of the old Ceremonies Divine or Humane And was not the Cross a stumbling and foolishness to the World in the Apostles Days and yet they never made such a Sacrament And who hath equal Power with them § 2. If any say the Church doth not make it a Sacrament I answer 1. It is not the Name that we contend about but the thing 2. I have before proved it by the Constitutive parts which you answer not 3. If Christ had Instituted the Cross as the Church doth as a Badg of our Christianity dedicating the Child to God as a solemn Covenanting Figure by which the Minister in God's Name and in the Persons pronounceth him Consecrated and engaged as signifying both God's part or Grace of the Covenant and Mans part or Duty I ask Whether you would not have câ—â—led this a Sacrament And if it want but Divine Institution and Benediction it wanteth indeed a due Efficient but it is still a Humane Sacrament though not a Divine and therefore an unlawful Sacrament I would but know whether Men may make New Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace or not If yea how many and Quo jure § 3. And God's Prohibition Deut. 12. of adding or diminishing is not washt away so easily as your words would make Men believe You say It reacheth to the whole Duty of Man and Government of the Church c. Ans. There be some things in the Duty of Man and Church-Matters that God hath left to Man To do those is no addition to God's Laws But to do the like work that God by his Law hath done which he never left to Man seemeth to me the Addition there forbidden e.g. If Men had made another Tabernacle another Ark of the Covenant another holy Vestment for Aaron another Sacrament like Circumcision or the Passeover he that so reproved their worshiping in the High Places would have reproved these § 4. But the sum of your defence is ad Hominem to my self for granting the lawfulness of humane private professing Signs and of the Cross as such It 's strange to me that you that are so judicious can discern no more difference between 1. Private and publick Church-actions And 2. Between a bare professing Sign in genere and a Sacramental Covenanting-dedicating Symbolical Sign in specie 1. Every Sacramental Symbol is a professing Sign But every professing Sign is not a Sacramental Symbol a solemn Sacramental Celebration of a Mutual Covenant by an investing signification of the parts of both the Covenants Doth it follow then that because Men yea any Man may make a professing Sign of his Mind that Man yea every Man may make a new Sacrament An Israelite might have lift up his Hand to signifie consent to a Duty or to answer a Question But might he therefore have imitated Circumcision or the Passeover When a Man is Baptized if you ask him whether he consent he may signifie it by Bowing lifting up his Hand by Writing which are all but to the same use as Speech But he must Sacramentally signifie it by the reception of Baptism as the instituted solemn Covenanting Symbol of his Religion But for any to make to the Church of Christ a new Sacramental Symbol for such a Covenanting use is another Matter A Man that at the Lord's Supper is asked whether he consent to Christ's Covenant may signifie it as aforesaid But he may not therefore joyn to the Sacrament such another Covenanting Symbol of Christianity e. g. To make or consent to and approve and use a Law that all Christians shall solemnly after the Eucharist have their Heads anointed with Oyl to signifie that they are Members of Christ and hereby Covenant with him and the Holy Ghost as signifying his Grace received and their Duty performed and promised and this applied by a Minister Officiating as by his Commission § 4. I perceive by your mistaking Inferences that you understood not my distinction of Private and Publick and thought I had meant Secret or Open or before Few or Many Whereas I speak in the sense that these words are commonly used in Politicks e. g. When they distinguish Index publicus privatus Res publicae privatae Actiones publicae privatae c. Publick is that which either belongeth to the Society or a Publick Officer as such As a meer Subject is Homo privatus so his Actions and Affairs meerly as his are private The Aerarium of the Commonwealth though kept secretly is the publick Treasure The judgment of a publick Judge when few are present in his Chamber is Iudicium publicum and the judgment of a meer Arbitrator before thousands is Iudicium privatum A private Man's arbitrary Words or Actions in Westminster-Hall at the Bar are Actiones privatae § 5. I have more reverence for the Ancient Christians than to be a bold condemner of all their Actions which I wish they had not done and had they foreseen the Consequents they would not have done And I must Fide humanâ give some credit to those ancient Writers specially such as Augustine who tells us of Miracles adjoyned to some use of the Cross And considering how they used it I find it was when those things were done as a private arbitrary professing Sign such as it would have been to say by words I am a Christian or I trust in Christ or I am not ashamed of a Crucified Saviour And if when one asked them of their Faith or derided them for trusting in a Crucified Man they answered by crossing I judge them not for so doing The occasions and Persons might excuse such a private professing Action But if they would turn this into a publick Church-Ordinance by a Law and into a Humane Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace requiring all to receive it as the common Badge of Christianity I reproach not the approvers but I dare not approve it or so use it § 6. You say We must reduce what is said in the Canon to the words in the
Administration of the Sacraments and no other IX And the Can. 27. saith No Minister when he celebrates the Communion shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel under pain of suspension Can the Church more plainly speak the sense of her Liturgy You say It is against Schismaticks Yes 1. That is the end and the words express the means 2. And it is expository calling those Schismaticks that scruple and refuse to kneel X. Those that say the Liturgy hath any thing contrary to the Scripture or that the Ceremonies are such as he may not use approve c. are excommunicate ipso facto And therefore as Schismaticks not to be admitted to the Sacrament till they repent of that their wicked Errour Can. 4 5 6 7. XI Can. 14. All Ministers shall observe the Orders Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer as well in reading the holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers as in administration of the Sacraments without either diminishing in regard of Preaching or in any other respect note that or adding any thing in the matter or form thereof XII Can. 29. No Parent shall be urged to be present nor be admitted to answer as God-father for his own Child nor any God-father or God-mother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech than by the Book of Common-Prayer is prescribed in that behalf If yet the Church have not declared her sense of the Liturgy but that I may Baptize without Cross or God-fathers and give the Sacrament to them that sit rather than refuse them I can understand no mans words And what can constrain an unwilling person to understand XIII Yet I say again If I practice on any pretence of mercy according to your Rule the Judges will condemn me the Justices will send me to the common Gaol among Rogues to lie six months and will fine me twenty pound and forty pound a Sermon as I have tryed and the Bishops or their Courts will excommunicate me and prosecute me to lay me in Gaol as you have tryed who fly to escape it And are not these made Judges of the sense of the Law and will not all this convince us what it meaneth Because you have put three of the chief matters of my Non-conformity here together I have answered all together If you will prefer the judgment of the Bishops before all this I pray you do not pretend that some honest Bishop that had no hand in our Changes and Silencing saith to you in private but get it us under the hands of many of them if you can that because mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice we may Baptize without the Cross and God-fathers and may give the Sacrament to them that kneel not if they dissent through consciencious fear of living CHAP. XVII § 1. IN your sixteenth Section you profess your liking of sitting at the Lord's Supper rather than kneeling How then can you declare Assent Consent and Approbation to the Liturgy expounded by the Canons which in plain words and by sharp penalties on Dissenters so much preferreth kneeling before sitting § 2. Your preferring the preaching and hearing of the Word and Prayer and Praise as more excellent than the carnal you mean the outward part in the Lord's Supper is very far from Conformity to the common sense of the Bishops who ordered the Altaring of the Communion Tables and commended bowing towards them and suspended so many Ministers on such accounts even far from the sense of Arch-Bishop Laud expressed in his life by Dr. Heylin and of the whole Church of England expressed in the Canons of 1640. § 3. I answered before your conceit that the Liturgy alloweth you to give the Sacrament to them that kneel not and your distorting the Canon because the Title is against Schismaticks when they mean that those that kneel not shall be taken and excluded as Schismaticks and so excommunicated as I have proved and not that the word is distinguishing and limiting allowing you to admit those to sit that are not Schimaticks The Bishops will deride that Exposition They that heard us at the Savoy can tell you who that Dr. now a Dean was who craved leave to have disputed the Case against me and to have proved That it is an Act of mercy to those that scruple and refuse to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny them the Communion of the Church therein CHAP. XVIII § 1. YOur seventeenth Section is for the Cross in Baptism I distinctly proved that the Church imposeth it As a Symbol of our Christian Profession and as a consecrating dedicating sign by which 1. God's part of the Covenant is signified even the Grace by him given and the duty by him imposed on us 2. And the Receiver's part is signified and by solemn Engagement there professed even his Faith in Christ crucified and his resolution and self-obliging Consent or Covenant to be the Lords as dedicated to him and to perform all the future duties of the Covenant And that this is the true description of a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace The word Sacrament larglier taken may signifie no more than man may institute But a Sacrament strictly taken as thus described I suppose man may not institute 1. Because Christ hath instituted two as an act of his Royal Prerogative And if any Institution be proper to his Kingly and Priestly Power it must be such No other can be named excluding this And if none be proper what is it for him to be Great and One Law-giver to his Church If Legislation the chief part of Supreme Government be common to him and Bishops why is not that Royally Common 2. And if Christ would have had any more Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace he would have somewhere expressed his Commands and Directions to his Ministers to make them But he that hath given them full Commands and Directions for Preaching Prayer Baptizing and his Supper and for their other duties for the Flocks hath not said a word to them of this either biding them make new Sacraments or telling them how many or directing them what or how to do it nor how to use them when made nor promising to bless them 3. To make more seemeth to accuse Christ's Law or Institution of Imperfection Subordinate actions do not so But to make Ordinances ejusdem generis with those which he made not as a meer man nor as a meer Minister but as Mediator or King of the Church doth seem to say That Christ left half his work undone Did he institute Baptism and his Supper as a meer Man or a meer Minister then à quatenus ad omne any Man or any Minister may do the like and make more Sacraments But if as King of the Church and as Saviour then none but our King of the Chuch and Saviour may do the like Christ hath instituted one day of each week to commemorate his Resurrection as God the Creator instituted a weekly
dare or if his saying he repenteth satisfie the Judge that knoweth him not while the Minister that is his neighbour heareth no sign of it but contrarily of his malice against him for accusing him he must still give him the Sacrament if the Chancellor acquits him VII Nay if he be excommunicated first and by friends fees or saying I repent get the Chancellor's Absolution he must be received to Communion though the Minister see not the least sign of his repentance but the contrary VIII If Ignorance be so common in the Parish that we have reason to judge that of twenty or thirty thousand Parishioners more or fewer one half of them understand not the very Essentials of Christianity and of the Sacrament yet the Minister must refuse none I that have but three servants can seldom have all three such as with my plain teaching will be brought while they are with me to understand all the Essentials and be capable of the Sacrament And though in general experience telleth us of the great numbers of such yet the Minister cannot know them He that knoweth not their faces much less ever catechized half And commonly children and ignorant people will say the words of the Creed and Lord's Prayer when they are grosly ignorant of the sense 2. And if the Minister know such an one to be so grosly ignorant the Law giveth him not power to deny him the Sacrament IX How should the Minister have power to excommunicate one out of a particular Church when his Parish is not a particular Church but a part of a Diocesan Church only It 's known now it is maintained by Bishops That the Diocesan is the particular Church That it is no Church that hath not a Bishop of its own That Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata and therefore the name of Pastor is usually appropriated to the Bishop and in most places of the Liturgy where Bishops Pastors and Curates were joyntly named one of the two first is put out of the New Book and only Bishops and Curates or Pastors and Curates mentioned And who can cast out of a Church that is no Church in the Rulers sense X. I have had many Parishioners that have made me know that they take me for none of their Pastor nor will do nor themselves for any of my Flock and yet to satisfie the Law or fame or humour they will demand the Sacrament A Minister cannot refuse such a one but must do the one part of a Pastor's Office to them that disclaim the relation XI If I upon strong suspicion of gross Ignorance would desire my neighbours aged or young to come and speak with me and would try them and instruct them or if I desire to confer with them on a just private suspicion of Heresie or Atheism or accusation or fame of wicked living and if they refuse to speak with me or give me any answer or account but shut their doors against me and bid me meddle with my own business I have no power to refuse them the Sacrament XII I have known many persons that for fear of being guilty of the body and blood of Christ would be in danger of desperation or distraction should they receive it Yet if for fear of an Excommunication such unwilling ones come I must give it them And I know too many that let me know that though they will have the Sacrament they do not consent to the Essentials of the Sacramental Covenant but think Christ's terms too hard till they have sinned longer yet these must I admit to the Sacrament XIII On the other side I must give it none that dare not take it kneeling nor any that think Conformity unlawful nor that the Canon calleth Schismaticks XIV I must give it to none of the most worthy of my Flock whom the Bishop or Lay-Chancellor will excommunicate if it be but for not paying fees or not appearing at his Court. XV. The Priest must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Excommunication if against the most conscionable of his Flock XVI And he must publish the Chancellor's or Bishop's Absolution though he know the party to be most unworthy XVII He hath no power to judge whom to take into the Church by Baptism but must Baptize any Child of Atheists Brutists Heathens Infidels or Hereticks that have but God-fathers who never take them for their own though his conscience be against it as is aforesaid XVIII He hath no power to forbear pronouncing Absolution from all sin in absolute terms to any sick man that will say he repenteth and desire it though by never so much evidence the Priest judge it to be either counterfeit or from meer attrition or fear without love XIX I have proved that he hath no power to forbear pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Brutists Adulterers Drunkards worldlings c. saved at their Burial except the unbaptized excommunicate and self-murderers XX. In a word the Priest is so far from having the power of excommunicating out of a particular Church that he hath no power to do the necessary previous acts 1. If he would tell him his fault privately the sinner may refuse to speak with him as is said 2. If he would take two or three witnesses he may refuse yet to speak with him or hear him 3. If he would tell the Church where he hath Communion and would publickly admonish him before them all and pray for him by name that he may repent he doth more than he can answer and the man may have his Action against him accordingly at Law XXI If a Minister will prosecute at the Bishops Court all that he hath cause to keep from the Sacrament as he must do within fourteen daies 1. It will take him off all his Ministerial studies almost in many great and wicked Parishes It will be work enough to travel long journeys as an Informer 2. It will spend all his Benefice in the charge of journeys Proctors and bringing witnesses so far 3. He shall but get the hatred of sinners and never be like more to do them good Whereas had he power to use true Pastoral Discipline with them his love and tenderness might possibly melt them into repentance which a Chancellor's Court so like a Civil Judicature and putting them to great expences and danger is unlike to do Nor did I ever in my whole life know one sinner brought to Repentance seemingly serious by their Courts XXII To conclude If the Minister have power to keep any from the Sacrament for fourteen daies till he prosecute them they will as members have all other Communion with that Church even in Prayer Praise and Thanksgiving and the Baptizing of his Child c. Albaspineus that great and notable describer of the Churches Customs tells us that the Old Excommunication did shut them out of all other Church-Communion as well as the Sacrament even their oblations were not accepted If I understand the Case of the Parish-Priests and their Power of Discipline this
the Ordinary will do but what the Law and Canon bind him and you to do CHAP. XXI § 1. YOu entitle the next Section of the Chancellor and his Office and reading Excommunications and the Order and Discipline in the Church of England And 1. You tell us of them that would have Unordained Ruling Elders in every Parish But 1. If that be ill how will it justifie Lay-Chancellors 2. Cannot many with the Pastor better govern one Parish than one Chancellor can many Scores or Hundreds 3. Some give Lay-Elders only a part of the Magistrates work and some only to be Delegates for the People to do but what they may do who cannot be oft present and to be occasional Arbitrators and some that give them any use of the Keys take them not for Lay-men but Ministers separated to that Ecclesiastical Office § 2. You tell us of thirteen parts of Discipline among us To which I said enough before 1. No Atheists Infidels or Pagans then must be refused Baptism if communicating God-Fathers how bad soever present him who never take him for their own and we doubt can neither give or prove his Title And that we are disabled to keep the unworthy from the Communion I have proved and the Excellent Learned Pious Parish Priests of London tell you by Practice 2. Few Communicants are Confirmed and Sacramental Capacity is not required to Confirmation And if it be not used or worse by Bishops who only have the power what satisfaction is that to the Parish Priest and Church 3. There is no sufficient means to Convict and keep away scandalous Sinners 4. The Sinner hath power to forbid you private Admonition by refusing to speak with you or come near you 5. What is Family Power to the Church We thank you for nothing But were not Parents formerly disabled from keeping Children and Servants from spending much of the Lord's Day in Dancing c. And doth not the Canon yet disable them from bringing them to hear a Sermon at the next Parish Church when they have none at Home 6. The Lawyers that I speak with take all for meer Falshood that you say of the Priests power of publick admonition of sinners by name not censured by the Ordinary You say Where is it forbidden I ask you Where is the Priest authorized to do it If not the Man will have his Action against him and Ruine him and the Bishop may suspend him for Usurpation And 2. Of all the worthy Parish Incumbents in London who did you ever hear once do it I never one heard one do it nor heard of one that did it in my life except a Non-conformist or a hot Parson point at a Puritan in the Church for some Non-conformity in a Circumstance Reverse then your charge of Hypocrisie if you find it must fall on all the worthy London Incumbents For they all speak for Discipline though not for more 7. If there be half as many bad Ministers as the Country saith there is it 's a small honour to the Church to reproach the Fathers that admit them as sinning against Church Law and Conscience and a small relief to Peoples Souls to tell that some Body had power to have provided better But the People had no such power to save themselves from a bad one though the Church for 700 if not more Years took him to be no Bishop but an Usurper that came not in by the consent of the Flock and election of the Clergy of which more elsewhere 8. Do or can Bishops by Visitations know the People and their Cases of a thousand or many hundred Parishes so as to hear and judge them Would they not have ten thousand scandalous Sinners sometime to try and exhort to Repentance in one or few Days 9. and 10. We are glad that the old prohibitions of Afternoon Sermons and Lectures are not yet revived But how few Parishes have such Lectures comparatively and how few have Catechizing And they that have none may not go to another If you think that it will save the Peoples Souls that the Priest might have instructed them if he could and would and that the Bishop should have made him do it I dissent 11. I have seen no Visitation Articles of late but in the old ones of 1634 1635 36 37 38 39. the Church-wardens were to swear to persecute Men for so many things which they thought their Duty as the foresaid going from a Non-preaching Minister keeping private Fasts and such like that many Men that feared an Oath and Persecution suffered because they durst not be Church-wardens 12. I confess more manners of Church-censures are in use among us than we desire The Canons will tell them to you Else so many hundred Non-Conformists formerly and lately had not been forbid to Preach nor all forbid to admit Non-conforming Christians to Communion nor had they been ipso facto excommunicate though Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis say so much to make odious all excommunicating ipso facto who they say first devised the name of a Doctrinal Penitence And Bishop Ier. Taylor saith so much against it And I confess that there is the Magistrate's sword to back all this by which about two thousand of us were silenced and you fly out of your Country from the Writ de excommunicato capiendo § 3. My belief of your unfeigned honesty makes one at last pity you and wonder when you add What more would you have what it was that could tempt you to contract the guilt of defending things of such publick and sad an Aspect and prospect against such light and after such experience of the effects and in such a time 1. Do you believe in your conscience that the Bishop of York Norwich Lincoln London or the rest with a Chancellor and his Officials and Arch-Deacons can possibly exercise that Discipline or the hundredth part of it which Christ hath appointed were they never so honest 2. Do you believe that a Lay-Chancellor who you confess hath not the power of the Keys doth or can well execute them 3. Do you not know how little of the Parish-Government against scandals is exercised by the Bishop and how almost is done by this Chancellor and Officials 4. Do you not know how unlike their Courts are to fit a sinner for absolution by true Repetance 5. Did you ever in your life know a sinner brought to a repentance seemingly unfeigned by them 6. Did you ever hear such worthy men of greatest honesty and Learning as Dr. Lloyd Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Mr. Sharp c. name any in the Pulpit or Church by way of publick admonition and invitation to repentance who was not first censured by the Ordinary 7. Do you think none of them would do it if they thought it a duty and the lawful and safe way of Discipline 8. Do you think their Parishes have no scores or hundreds of Brutists Atheists Drunkards Fornicators or other scandalous sinners 9. Do you think they can possibly
that if the same were done here we may enter into a solemn Covenant never to endeavour to reform it No were it but the high places in Iudaea 2. Submitting is either by Obedience or meer Patience Under Papists and Turks Men must submit by Patience But if you say We hold that we must obey all that they command our practice tells you It is not true But the question is Whether there be no one thing but what we may covenant never to endeavour to alter and subscribe that no Parliament Man or any other in England is bound by that Oath which they took to endeavour it The Law forbids me to say They are and therefore I say it not But if you say They are not Dare you undertake to answer for them You say Their Office binds them to no evil That is None of the things fore-mentioned are evil Which you said were so Again you say All the while Excommunications and Church Censures are soundly done it 's the the less matter by whom they are done Ans. 1. Do not say so to the King about Kingly Government Nor to the Judges if an intruder invade the Tribunal 2. Make the Bishops believe this if you can of any that should usurp their Office 3. Make the Parish Priests believe it if you can who are so angry with us for helping them at a distance though we invade not Places 4. Make any sober Ministers believe if you can that if the Word be well Preacht and Sacraments soundly Administred it is no matter who doth it 5. Make any Master of a Family or Husband believe it as to their Offices that it 's no matter who doth it so it be soundly done If the Wife do believe it 's two to one the Husband will not § 4. Again you say By the Government of Church and State whatsoever is absolutely sinful is forbidden the Laws declare it Null c. Ans. This is before answered You say Silencing and Excommunicating the Non-conformists here are sinful Instead of this impertinent talk go try your Oratory on the Judges and Bishops if you can persuade them that the Law forbids them all to fine Imprison or Silence us or Excommunicate us Why did you not use this pretty Argument for your self 2. And do not Papists and Turks say that No Law against God is in force And doth their Government therefore contain no evil Or will you tell them that swear to amend it that it 's well enough already You tell us what to say to the Bishops and Judges for our selves But if by this Medium I would prove that I am conformable to the Law and they are the Non-conformists that punish me because they break the Law of God I doubt they would Laugh at me first and send me to Gaol next § 5. But in answer to Where read we in Scripture of the Chancellor's Office You repeat again If soundly done no Man may reprove them I will not repeat my Answer But I add If so No Man may reprove the Boys if they soundly Whip their Master when he deserveth it nor a Cobler that will send Offenders to Prison as the Lord Mayor doth Nor a Justice yea or a Tinker that will step up in the Chancery or King's-Bench to do Justice § 6. But though I will not Laugh at your Writing I should hardly forbear if I heard you do what page 95 you say you would do viz. If a Bishop or Arch-Bishop or Chancellor live where you are Pastor and be a Member of your Congregation you must needs look on your self as obliged by the Laws and Canons of the Church and State by the Word of God and by the Rules of the Common-prayer-Book publickly to admonish him if he grosly misdemean himself and do a scandalous crime and if he shall not by open confession give satisfaction to the Church bar him from the Sacrament and declare him Disorderly and Contumacious and that if he do not repent he shall perish and warn the People to beware of such evil Courses and to have no more to do with him than they needs must And this I maintain to be part of the Discipline and Government of the Church of England Ans. I would I could see this bout I doubt he will have something to do with you Your Chancellor had the wit to begin with you first I pray you forget not this Case when you go to the Bishop for his sense of the Liturgy and tell us his answer when you come Home I must profess this is an edifying Passage As when I read in Saltmarsh that Christ repented and believed for us it let in more Light against Libertinism than I had before So doth this Passage raise up some useful doubts in me about our Churches which I thought not on till now Q. 1. Whether are the Bishops that dwell in the London Parishes or others Members of the Parish Church where they dwell Q. 2. If they are not Whether dwelling in the Parish make a Christian a Member of the Parish Church Q. 3. If not what is it that makes a Member and how are the Pastors special Flock truly known to him from others Q. 4. If they be Members to whom shall we present the Bishop for not coming to Church or for his Crimes Is it to himself Q. 5. Whether is the Bishop or the Parish Priest there the higher Power or Governor and which must obey Q. 6. Doth the Canon that forbids Men to go from their own Parish Churches extend to the Bishop Q. 7. How is the Bishop one of the Parson's Flock and the Parson one of the Bishop's Flock both at once Q. 8. Whether the Bishop that is Excommunicated by the Parson out of the Parish Church be cast out of the Universal or other Churches may have Communion with him or not Q. 9. What if the Parson Excommunicate the Bishop and the Bishop the Parson both at once what a Case are they in And which shall stand one or both and how far Q. 10. How will the Parson practice his Conformity who consenteth when he putteth any one from the Sacrament to certifie the Ordinary within fourteen Days will he prosecute the Bishop to himself or to his Chancellor Q. 11. Doth not this Instance prove Mr. Cheyney to be a mistaking Expositor of the Church-Government the Bishops themselves being Judges and would not one days practice of any such thing convince him by Experience that the Church of England now take not Parish Parsons for Parish Bishops Q. 12. Is he in the right page 96. that this Course would make Bishops and Arch-Bishops and Chancellors stand in awe of the Priests why then did you not thus awe your Bishop and Chancellor CHAP. XXIX YOur 28th Section hath nothing in it that requireth many words for Answer That Oaths and Laws must be charitably expounded no one denieth so they be truly expounded In this we stand to Bishop Sanderson's Rules which are far better stated than any
sincerely Penitent thy Sin is pardoned and thou hast right to Salvation and mayst come to the Lord's Table Ans. And doth not this imply that else he should not come And is such a Man Unconverted It is too irksome to rake up the rest of your Contradictions and examine your slight words of the Parable of the Tares But that rooting up the Tares forbidden is Excommunicating or denying Sacramental Communion to any Parishioner of your Description who will believe that knoweth 1. What Christ saith Mat. 18. 15. c. and Paul 1 Cor. 5. and 2 Thess. 3. Tit. 3. 10 11 c. 2. Or he that knoweth that the Universal Church of Christ in all Ages hath been of another mind and indeed went at last too far against it having no punishment for Christians but Suspension and Excommunication 3. And that the Christian World at this day is of another mind though the Helvetians are too remiss in the Principles and most in the Practice 4. And that the Canons of this Church requireth the Minister to deny the Sacrament to some such as you describe And in your former Book you pleaded this as for Conformity And are you changed already And shall any Wise Man follow such quick Changes 5. The Church of England forbids us to give the Sacrament to any that are not Confirmed and desire it not or are not ready But such are many of your Description 6. If the power of Excommunicating over a thousand or many hundred Churches be confined to the Bishop and the Chancellor or Officials and so all the Parish Ministers denied it and disabled all these Churches must be Prophaned and Confounded at the will of one Man or because he cannot do an Impossibility And the reasons why Christ would have his Church to be visibly Holy and a Communion of Saints and openly differenced from the notoriously ungodly are so many and so great that I will not here attempt the opening of them having often elsewhere done it QUEST IV. WHether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by Penal Excommunications and used as Excommunicate ones You say I conceive not Ans. Would any one that pretended to confute our Errors no better open the case in question 1. In your sense they are Christians that never professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant but only took the Water in order to Conversion hereafter These are no visible Christians And I suppose by parity of Reason the Council of Nice which decreed the Rebaptizing of the Paulmists would have been for Rebaptizing these 2. Is the Ordinariness the satisfying Character who is not to be Excommunicated In one Country those are ordinary that are extraordinary in others In some places Arrians are ordinary in some Socinians in some Papists in some open Scorners of the Scripture Christianity and Religion In some ignorant Persons that know not the Essentials of Christianity nor will learn or let the Minister instruct them any where but in the Pulpit in many Parishes here not one of many their Neighbours say go to Church about once or twice a Year 1 Cor. 5. 13. Put away from among you that wicked Person ver 11. If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or on Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat Do not ye judg them that are within 2 Thess. 3. It is the idle and disorderly And these are ordinary in some places But we easily grant that Excommunications are not to be used Tyranically or when they do more hurt than good And if the Body of a Church turn e. g. Socinians or professedly ungodly and will not be Reformed the Excommunication which we plead for is but withdrawing from them and renouncing their Communion declaredly § 2. I have oft said that Perfidious Covenant-breakers who live in gross Sin and still tell the Minister they repent and will not be persuaded to leave their Sin e. g. Whoredom Drunkenness Stealing Perjury Blasphemy have so far forfeited the credit of their bare word that the Pastor should see their actual amendment before he Absolve them And now your Hand is in the World must be saved from this Doctrine too But because it is a common principle in Nature and in all Church Canons and the common judgment of Divines I will not stay to dispute it with you But when you are a Master of a Family if you think Family Discipline a Duty Experience will cure your credulity If your Servant or Son beat you or spit in your Face or Rob you once a Day or Week but for one Year together and say still after it I repent But what will not Men talk for QUEST V. WHether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and Principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good And you confute them Ans. 1. Those that read them are in no danger by them And those that do may be confirmed by so slight a confutation as I said 2. As for my Book of Universal Concord of all Christian Churches I know that the Devil hateth it so much that I expect some far more subtile Assault than yours or else I shall think that the Devil wanteth wit or power more than is commonly believed But I am sorry that he hath drawn so good a Man to be his instrument § 1. My first mentioned Error is That a particular Church is a regular part of the Universal Church as a City is of a Kingdom The confutation is In this I conceive he is out A particular Church is to the Church Universal with a single Town consisting of a Magistrate Governing and People governed according to the general Rules and Principles of Society is to all the World Ans. The proof is I conceive he is out and an Assertion in other words of the same that is denied and so we are out both or neither 1. I used the Name and he the Definition It may be he thought that by City I had meant only such Towns as are so called in England But methinks he should know that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth all such Towns as he defineth and that it is the common definition of Civitas which he giveth us as all Politicks speak de Civitate It is therefore the same subject in the Similitude which we both speak of 2. The difference then must be between the words Kingdom and World I say A Church is such a part of the Universal as a City is of a Kingdom He saith no but as a City is of the World What a dangerous Error hath he detected But All the World is God's Kingdom And as it hath but one King so I thought I might liken it to a Kingdom that hath one King but a multitude of Corporations without stretching the Similitude to intend that This Kingdom is not a part of the World § 2. My second Error is He that will be a Member of a particular Church must
cohabit or dwell near The confutation is I conceive he is out Ans. What is he against Parish Churches after all this No He only denieth it of a transient Member pro tempore as a Traveller and granteth it as to a stated Member And yet I am out Many and many a time have I written of Churches and use to distinguish first of the Equivocal Name saying That an occasional meeting of Christians for Worship may be called a Church and a transient Christian pro tempore a Member I have written more this way than ever he did But declared that it is a settled Political Society that I defined when I speak of what he now accuseth And why should a wise and good Man thus hastily trouble the World and make discord by pretending because he cannot have leisure to know what he speaks against § 3. My third Error is That to the being of a particular Church there is necessary a mutual Covenant or exprest consent between Pastor and People even every Member and the more express the better And I define a Church to be a Society of Christians consisting of Pastor and People associated by consent The force of the Confutation is I conceive he is out But wherein is it We have here such work as I never met with before 1. He granteth that none are to each other Pastor and People against their Wills Good still And yet do I err But saith he as Christ is Christ and a Saviour by Office whether Sinners will or not So faithful Ministers are Pastors by Office whether the People accept them or no. Reader it is not the least blemish of my Writings that on divers occasions I oft repeat the same things And many a time have I distinctly said 1. That the Ordainers judge who shall be a Minister of Christ in general 2. The Magistrate is judge whom he will Countenance Maintain or Tolerate 3. And the People must be consenting judges to whom they will trust the conduct of their Souls As it 's one thing to be a Licensed Physician and another to be Physician to this Hospital or Person If this Brother mean otherwise what meant he by saying that No Man can be a Pastor to a People against their will Doth he say and unsay in the next Lines Is Christ any Man's actual Saviour whether they believe in him and accept him or not I have oft said that in divers Cases the People may be bound in duty to Consent as all are bound to be Christians But they are no Christians or Church-members till they do Consent What then is it that he meaneth as our Difference § 4. Yes He saith No more is necessary to the being or well-being of a particular Church than this A company of Christians met together in publick for the Solemn Worship of God by Iesus Christ having a Pastor or Minister with them to guide and govern the Congregation and edifie himself and them by the Word and Sacraments where there is no Assembly of Pastor and People there is no Church and no longer than the Assembly lasteth are they a Church Ans. Did the World ever here this Doctrine before When the Church at Ierusalem Corinth Cenchrea Colosse Laodicea c. and the Churches in Iudea Galatia c. are mentioned when the Apostles ordained them Elders in every Church Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 3 5. c. Is the word Church here taken for no Christians longer than they are Assembled Doth not Scripture Canons Fathers and all Writers speak of Churches as Associated Christians remaining Churches all the Day and Year and not only while Assembled If the word Church may be taken for a Transient Assembly doth it follow that there is no other Have we so many Books of Ecclesiastical Policie if there be no Political Society that is a particular Church What an unpleasing talk is it to be put on a defence against such an Opponent § 5. Saith he I would but ask Mr. Baxter what is it that you mean by Associated by consent Ans. Have I in the Books cited by you so largely told you what I mean and must you print the Question before you will take an Answer Saith he Either you mean bare Assembling or some other thing Ans. Will you better understand me if I write it again than you did before When I told you at large in what Cases express consent by words or other signs is meet and that where the Laws settle Parish Churches ordinary attendance and submission to the Pastor's Office must be taken for express Consent But then I do hold that there is such a Church as I describe and that the Parish is not Unchurcht when the Assembly is dismist § 6. He saith When the Assembly breaks up the Church for that time ceaseth till the Meeting be renewed till which time they remain Christian Inhabitants Neighbours Families Parishioners or Sojourners the Pastor of the place dwelling among them Ans. In your Equivocal sense of a Church this is true In the Political sense they are a Church still as the Parliament Citizens Souldiers are a Parliament City Army when they Assemble not If your wrangle be de re do you deny their continued Relation If it be de nomine let the Scripture and all Nations judge whether the name Church belong to them no longer than they are Assembled 1. Then all that stay at Home or are Sick are no Church-members 2. Then the Bishop or Pastor hath no Church but while Assembled And he hath no Duty to perform for his Church but while Assembled 3. This is quite contrary to our Diocesans who say as honest Mr. Cawdry himself that a Diocess is the first particular Church and that it is no matter how many Assemblies it consist of and that there is no Church without a Bishop and so that we have no more Churches than Bishops 4. If a Bishop build a Temple on London Road where Travellers shall be his ordinary Hearers whom he shall never see again this is a Temporary Transient Church but verily it is another sort Church that is described in Scripture and by Ignatius Cyprian and all Church-writers And when the Bishop was to visit the Sick and take care of the Poor and to exhort from House to House it was as for a Church and not meerly as for Christian Neighbours And do you think no more consent was necessary to his special Duty to these more than to others and theirs to him than bare Assembling Atheists Infidels Hereticks may Assemble with the rest and Catechumens ordinarily did so and were never made themselves the judges whether and when they should be Baptized and admitted to Communion but the Pastors were the judges § 7. As to your oft mentioning the words Covenants and Oaths for such Church Associations as if I had written for Oaths or had not written against all needless Covenants which though you say not your words would make the Reader believe whilst over and over it is
a Man disown only the Pastor of that Church 2. What if he will not joyn with them in the Liturgy or Mode of Worship there used 3. What if that Church be Nestorians or Eutychians or Papists and he separates from them or they cast him out 4. What if he remove his Dwelling § 15. Next I am censured for demanding the People of Kederminster ' s consent to my Ministry and their Church Relation And he will now be distinct and maketh Answers to `distinct Questions for them But never tells us whether such Answers had been true or false if they had given them His first Question is Do we take you to have the just qualifications of a Pastor And the Answer is Learning is one qualification of which the Ignorant are incompetent Iudges And for Wisdom Holiness and Ministerial skill of Fidelity you are to make proof of them This is to be answered some Years after and not ask before-hand And so under Papists Socinians prophane Imposers you are to take all as Wise Holy Faithful till some Years after you find them otherwise Here he expoundeth his former words for rejecting the unqualified and unfaithful But who shall be judge at some Years after His second Question is Do we take you to be duly ordained And the Answer is We are bound to judge those to be justly Ordained which are so reputed and we have no reason to suspect Ans. 1. But whose reputation is it that you rest on Half the Parish say you are not justly ordained but by a Bishop The other half say you are justly ordained by Presbyters You falsifie if you feign them all of a mind 2. And who knows how to define and bound your Reasons of Suspicion 3. The Canons and Bishops say you have sorfeited your License if you conform not and without a License you may not Preach 4. And if you will question no mens orders you will have many Lay-Pastors To his 3d Quest. he answereth We question not your presentation Ans. And yet it is the Magistrate that must impose Ministers and in times of Usurpation he feigneth them to be unquestioned The sum hitherto is We must take any Man for our Pastor that is Ordained and presented But what if I knew that multitudes do not so doth it make them of that Church because they should consent and do not Of 1800 or 2000 only 600 would come to the Sacrament though they usually heard unless all the rest would receive it kneeling and administred by the Liturgy though they were left free to use that Gesture themselves and withal they were told that we had not a Bishops license The 4th Quest. is If we take you alone for our Pastor And it 's answered We know of no other in view but you Ans. All these are Fictions 1. I never desired nor consented to be their Pastor but to be one of three 2. I agreed with them in the Town-Hall publickly in writing to undertake only a Lecture which I had before the War in conjunction with another that should have the Presentation or Sequestration And yet honest Mr. Durel tells the World that it was a rich Benefice given me for my Service under Cromwel who would never endure me to speak to him 3. There were three Competitors One an old Vicar that somehow preacht once a Quarter that had the Presentation and was Sequestred 1. I will not tell you here for what 2. His Curate sequestred and removed 3. An old Chappel Curate grosly ignorant and vicious that lived by unlawful Marrying 4. And by all this you determine that of three of us none was Pastor but only that one that had the Presentation and so you depose all other Curates not presented And yet the Chappels that have such Curates put in only by the Parsons are true Churches such are your frequent Contradictions Sect. 16. Next as a meek Questioner he askt me Why I will not baptize their Infants if I take them for Christians and Parishioners He saith after If they make not a tolerable profession of Christianity in the publick Assembly they produce no valid claim we are not to admit them Ans. I suppose there are in the three next Parishes here 80000 Persons whom the Pastors never had any other account of as to their knowledg but by their coming to Church and half of them that rarely come And those of us that have talkt with almost all our Parishioners find that multitudes know not what Christianity or a Sacrament is A man about 80 years old in Kederminster said Christ was the Sun and the Holy Ghost the Moon Is standing up at the Creed then or sitting in the Church a tolerable profession Hobbes and his followers would do the same 2. But what obligation is on me to baptize all the Children of those that take me for none of their Pastor The Parish may have 20000 more than I am able to do the Pastoral Office for I cannot tell whether they come to Church or not If they do they are strangers to me some come into the Parish and others go out and many are Lodgers And he that as a Pastor is to Baptize is also to do abundance more to Catechize visit the Sick the Poor c. Am I bound to impossibilities for every stranger that I never knew Nor can I know so much as whether he be Christened or be indeed a Parishioner Yea a Church with you is only a present Assembly What if these persons assemble not or but twice or thrice a Year What if Travellers be that day of the Church Bishop Taylor saith Pref. of Repen No one can give account of those that he knoweth not Sect. 17. His talk of the Tares again deserveth no answer but read Expositors His repeated insinuation by the word Oaths and Covenants tell us that a good man may become un insinuater of Calumnies His two Conclusions pag. 55. from my words are 1. That they are no Churches that want this cementing Covenant Ans. They are none that are not so related by consent expressed by one way or other If you turn this into cementing Covenant when you had newly cited my express denial that express Covenanting was necessary ad esse it 's worse than Ceremony which you are already come to think lawful The 2d Concl. is The Churches that have it not in the most plain obliging way are defective spotted and ill-favoured because I said that the more express way is laudable ad bene esse As if all were called spotted and ill-favoured that want any thing laudable ad bene esse And will Christ take away his Churches spots and wrinkles Ephes. 6. when there were none And he saith This he calls the true and only way of the Churches Concord As if every word in the Book were called the true and onely Way It rather tendeth saith he to Discord and to make every single Minister a Pope or Church-tyrant and to make Churches Schismatical and traiterous Combinations dividing themselves from all other Churches and Christians c. Ans. 1. And yet he before said himself that the unwilling cannot be Pastor and Flock And is not this the same 2. Thus all Christ's Churches that ever I read of for 300 yea a 1000 Years are Stigmatized who still made expressed consent necessary 3. A Pope is one that claimeth Soveraignty over all the Church on Earth Doth he do so that taketh none for his Flock but Consenters 4. Which is liker Tyranny not to pretend to Government over any but Volunteers or to say I will Govern you whether you will or not 5. Is it Dividing and Schism to know my Flock as Consenters and not to take other Mens Flocks Sine literis Communicatâ—riis as oft as they will dwell or lodg in my Parish The words Oaths and Covenants are oft again so mentioned by him and his profession that he hath the Episcopal and Presbyterian on his side and other untruths so rashly uttered that I am heartily grieved for the success of his Temptation And whether he or I be Schismatical and differ from the Ancient Churches I refer the Reader to my Abridg. of Church History and to my Citations in my Book of Right to Sacraments My Preface to Mr. Rawlet's Book of the Sacrament confutes some of his Intimations I thank God that I am going to a more peaceable World FINIS