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church_n	hand_n	imposition_n	ordination_n	2,839	5	9.9482	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44308	The non-conformists champion, his challenge accepted, or, An answer to Mr. Baxter's Petition for peace written long since, but now first published upon his repeated provocations and importune clamors, that it was never answered : whereunto is prefixed an epistle to Mr. Baxter with some remarks upon his Holy Common-wealth, upon his Sermon to the House of Commons, upon his Non-conformists plea for peace and upon his Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet. / by Ri. Hooke.	R. H. (Richard Hooke); Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Petition for peace.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Holy commonwealth.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Sermon of repentance.	1682 (1682)	Wing H2608; ESTC R28683	62,409	170

Hath Christ given such Laws Open our eyes shew us and let us see them Hath he not then not the Governours of the Church but you who judge he ought do accuse Christ's Laws as insufficient In their fifth Reason they say Suppose they be mistaken in thinking the things to be so displeasing to God yet it is commendable in them to be fearfull in displeasing him and carefull to obey him Ans We see be they right or wrong whatever they opine and act is commendable Suppose they mistook in preaching us into Rebellion in pulling down Bishops in taking away the Liturgy in overturning the Foundations of Church and State yet their Zeal is commendable May not all Zealots plead thus Suppose the Papists were mistaken in their Fiery Zeal to blow up the King and Parliament and in the Irish Massacre yet their Zeal was commendable in designing to destroy those they judged the Enemies of their Church Suppose they be mistaken in worshipping the Saints and their Images and Reliques yet since they think they please God 't is commendable Suppose the Quakers mistaken in denying Magistrates and Ministers and all Authority in Church and State yet in that they think they should displease God in owning those Powers 't is in them commendable to disown them Is this the Counsel you would give to one who doubts and seeks your Resolution Will this satisfie and deliver him from doubting to tell him Suppose you were mistaken yet if you think you are in the right pursue your opion 't is commendable Saint Paul is a better Casuist and gives other Counsel Prove all things hold fast that which is good abstain from all appearance of evil 7. That because men are forbidden to preach unless they conform they are tempted to infer that Preaching being necessary to Salvation and those things called Indifferent being made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it therefore they are made necessary to Salvation and preferred before that which God hath made necessary Ans The Accusation is most untrue those Indifferent things are not made necessary to Preaching much less preferred before it and those who are tempted thus to infer because men are forbidden to preach unless they dare subscribe and use those things therefore those things called Indifferent are made necessary to Preaching and preferred before it are very weak Logicians Every thing that is required is not required as necessary as you have been often told Many things are required as expedient as decent as comely as orderly so are our Ceremonies Ministers are forbidden to reade Prayers without the Surplice to preach without a Gown The Judges are forbidden to sit in Judgment till they reade their Commission and are required to sit in their Scarlet will any hence be tempted to infer that the Surplice and Gown are made necessary to and preferred before Prayer and Preaching and reading a Commission and wearing Scarlet Robes are made necessary to and preferred before doing Justice 2. Every thing that is made necessary to any End or Action is not thereby preferred before it Methinks so many Learned Divines should know that though these Indifferent things should be made necessary by the Command of the Church to Preaching yet it no way follows they are preffered before it The Means sure is made necessary to the obtaining the End yet is not preffered before it 'T is you will confess justly forbidden that Ordination should be given to any without Examination and Imposition of hands or that any should preached without Ordination yet I think you are not tempted to infer that Examination Imposition of hands and Ordination it self though necessary are to be preffered before Preaching Follows their 8. R. which implies we lay our Religion upon our particular Liturgy and so teach the Papists to insult Where was our Religion 200 years ago the Common-prayer-book as differing from the Mass-book being not so old 1. We thank you for your ingenuous Acknowledgment that our Common-prayer-book differs from the Mass-book A Mass-priest now yours turning from Popery to Presbyterianism most impudently affirms them to be the same 2. Religion is made up of Doctrine Worship and Government our Liturgy is our Form of Publick Worship and so a part of our Religion and being agreeable to God's Word nor Papists nor your selves can justly except against it For their Question Where was our Religion 200 years ago You might know they make it not so much upon the change of our Liturgy themselves in Queen Elizabeth's time for many years joining in it as upon pretence we have changed our Doctrine and the Question as it hath been oft ad ravim usque by them asked it hath been by us as oft and satisfactorily answered and if we should as we do not lay our Religion upon our Liturgy 't is most agreeable to the Scriptures where our Religion is and contains all the Fundamentals of Religion and your Mr. Calvin doth witness it for us That the Common-prayer-book doth excellently contain the chief heads of our Religion The 9. is A Request for Liberty upon on an Insinuation That no Liturgical Forms were imposed on any Church in the primitive times Ans 1. Then sure the now named your much Reverend Mr. Calvin was either ignorant of the Constitutions of the primitive times or had other Sentiments of them then you who declares his Judgment contrary to you Quoad formulam Precum Rituum Ecclesiasticorum valde probo ut certa illa exstet à qua Pastoribus discedere in functione sua non liceat As to the Form of Prayers and Ecclesiastical Rights I greatly approve that it be settled from which it may not be lawfull for the Pastors in their Function to vary or depart 2. You have surely heard of the Liturgies of S. Peter S. James and S. Mark and that of S. Mark S. Cyril owns and comments upon in his Catechism and S. Cyril was a Bishop in the primitive times living about the year of Christ 350. and S. Basil a famous and primitive Bishop too was deeply censured and put to make painfull Apologies for a little Change he made in the usual Church-liturgy It was thought in him saith our Authour an unpardonable Offence to alter any thing in us as intolerable that we suffer any thing unaltered in the Liturgy R. 10. And if you should reject which God forbid the moderate Proposals which now and formerly we have made we humbly crave leave to offer it to your consideration what Judgment all the Protestant Churches are likely to pass on your Proceedings and how your Cause and ours will stand represented to them and to all succeeding ages Answ Their moderate Proposals we have heard which they now make that they may be free from the established Government and Liturgy of the Church and they as Able and Godly continued in the choicest Livings they had invaded and the Episcopal kept out as Scandalous Negligent and Insufficient What moderate Proposals they made

saying The Romans hated the name of a King as the Party you sided with did and that it was neither the intent of Paul or Peter to determine whether the Emperour or Senate was supreme But where the King is supreme it is the will of God that the people should obey him May I remind you that St. Paul did determine it when he appealead not to the Senate but to Caesar and St. Peter did determine it when he calls the King supreme and other Governours those who are sent by him You challenge any man to let you know now one Nation upon all the Earth that hath better Governours in Sovereign Power as to Wisedom and Holiness conjunct than the Powers last laid by that have been resisted and deposed in England and you tell us who you mean when you say The Lord Protector prudently piously faithfully to his immortal Honour did exercise the Government But how he came in you say not Blessed be God he went out soon his Goverment was not immortal and thanks to the King not mortal to himself against his Piousness I have nothing to object but that he was Protectour his Prudence I readily with you acknowledge and his Honesty too in acknowledging the King his father's Land-lord and his own and being ready to remove when the Land-lord demanded possession which saved him his head he being wiser than you not to offer it so rashly As for your Challenge of the Wisedom and Holiness of your Governours above all upon Earth please you to send it into Holland or Geneva it will doubtless be accepted but though it displease you I must tell you the Earth never saw more wicked and cruel Vsurpers than they nor a more vain and idle Challenge than yours shall leave you and Mr. Harrington to argue whether the Army or Richard and his Senate were the wiser or holier Governours and passing by Centuries shall onely remind you of a few of your Theses which speak your Loyalty If Providence statedly disable him that was the Sovereign from executing the Laws protecting the Just it maketh him an uncapable subject of the Power and so deposeth him for a Governour so impotent is none and if the People disable him sinfully by deserting him yet he is dismissed and disobliged from the Charge of Government and Innocent members are disobliged from being governed by him though through the Sin of others When Providence thus maketh any uncapable or indisposed it destroyeth the Power as in such 'T is the duty of a very weak though tolerable Governour for the Common Good to resign his Place to one that is every way more fit and liker to obtain the ends of Government in a more excellent degree If the person dispossest though it were unjustly do after become uncapable of Government 't is not the duty of his Subjects to seek his Restoration If an Army of Neighbours or Inhabitants or whoever Turk or Pope do though injuriously expell the Sovereign and resolve to ruine the Common-wealth rather than he shall be restored and if the Common-wealth may prosper without his Restoration 't is the duty of such an injured Prince for the Common Good to resign his Government and if he will not the People ought to judge him as made uncapable by Providence and not to seek his Restoration To the apparent Ruin of the Common-wealth a Prince must give up his Government rather than fight for his Right to the spilling of Bloud A rare Encouragement to Rebellion 'T is Mr. B's Divinity the longest Sword must carry it right or wrong and Rebels may spill Bloud to destroy their King but a lawfull King may not to preserve himself and his Kingdom It seems David was to blame to fight with Absalom for the recovery of his Crown and Kingdom What horrid Theses are these Onely the Common-wealth and Common-good of which the Common people are Judges comes in ever as a Salvo Name me a Jesuite that ever wrote at a higher rate When a People are without a Governour it may be the duty of such as have most strength ex charitate to protect the rest from injury Just Protectour Oliver's case he found out a way that the People should be without a Governour and then his most strength was a mighty impulse to this great Charity to protect the People Providence by Conquest and other means doth use so to qualifie some persons above others for the Government when the place is void that no other persons shall be capable Competitours and the persons shall be as good as named by Providence whom the people are bound by God to choose or consent to Examples Massianello The Rump Oliver Richard Multitudes of wicked criminous persons how rich soever should much rather be excluded from choosing Governours than honest Beggars This this this is the great Point that the welfare of most Common-wealths doth depend upon This this this will set Kingdoms and Common-wealths all on fire he who is wicked to one Party is godly to another and to be rich when your Party reigned was to be criminous and malignant if loyal But to prevent contention and injustice your high wisdom hath found out an excellent Law Let all Pastours in England that are approved or tolerated have an Instrument of approbation or toleration and let no man be a Chuser or Ruler who is not signified under the Pastour's hand to be a Member of his Church or that shall be cast out Let every Parish have one or two of the wisest men by the superiour Rulers made Church-Justices or Censours to meet with the Church-Officers and to take cognizance of the Cause and let all that are cast out by the Church-Justices and Churches consent be registred and disabled to vote If a People that by oath and duty are obliged to a Sovereign shall sinfully dispossess him and contrary to their Covenants choose and covenant with another they may be obliged by their later Covenants notwithstanding the former and particular Subjects that consented not with them in the breaking of their former Covenants may yet be obliged by occasion of their later choice to the person whom they choose when men by contrary Covenants have cast themselves into a necessity of sinning it may be a duty to choose the lesser Sin Though a Nation wrong their King yet may he not lawfully war against the Publick good on that account nor any help him in such a War Princes if their Injuries by their Subjects are too great to be born they may lay down their Crowns at their pleasure If a Nation injuriously deprive themselves of a worthy Prince the hurt will be their own and they punish themselves But if it be necessary to their welfare it is no injury to him Was ever any thing more seditious wild and contradictious to it self Horresco referens 'T is no Injury saith Mr. Baxter to a Prince to deprive him though worthy 'T is no Sin

of God serving him with one mind and with one mouth having the same Doctrine the same Worship the same Government Now consider who they are which hinder this Peace You need not petition the Bishops 't is in your own power to grant your own Petition and truly a Petition for Peace though it have a pleasing Sound yet carries a sad Supposition it suposes 1. That you are not in Peace with the Church and 2. it implicitly accuses his Majesty of Persecution But to come to the matter of your Petition two things you pray 1. That the Bishops will grant what you have in your Preface proposed and craved their Consent unto the Alterations and Additions to the Liturgy now tendred unto them that being inserted as you have expressed It may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other at his discretion upon his Majestie 's Approbation according to his gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs Here they desire That it may be left to the Ministers choice to use one or other the new or the old Form and 't is not hard to judge which will be chosen the old by all who are Episcopal the new by all the Presbyterians So shall we have Altar against Altar Common-prayer-book against Common-prayer-book confusion in all Parishes and Division those who are for the old if the new be read will leave their Minister and go where the old is read and the like will they doe who are for the new So shall there be endless Contestations between Ministers and Ministers People and People one pleading for the old Form and exploding the new the other arguing for the new and despising the old Is this to petition for Peace nothing can be more against Peace Certainly we shall ever be two and the Church divided if we have two Liturgies And whereas they appeal to his Majestie 's Declaration his Majesty speaks plainly enough his meaning and more plainly in his Commission that he intends not two Liturgies be established but onely some Alterations in one and the same Liturgy some additional Forms to be left unto the Ministers choice to use one or the other at his discretion and these Alterations and additional Forms not to be made by the one Part separately as yours are but by those of both Persuasions You farther Petition since we cannot obtain the Form of Episcopal Government described by the late Reverend Primate Ireland and approved by many Episcopal Divines we may at least enjoy those Benefits of Reformation in Discipline and that Freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies which are granted in the said Declaration by the means of your charitable Mediation and Request Answ 1. Why did you not then when it was in your Power and the Staff in your hands hearken to Bishop Vsher and those Episcopal Divines did you not covenant against Episcopacy do you not still judge your selves obliged to keep your Covenant did not a prime Leader of your Party in his Sermon at the Treaty at Vxbridge call Episcopacy and the Common-prayer-book The Plague-soars of the Nation did not his late Majesty of blessed memory offer as great condescentions as could be desired to your Divines at the Isle of Wight and did they not oppose and disown all Episcopal Government Hear his Majesty I was willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with reason or discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the authority of that ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church and State Behold what his Majesty was willing to doe in yieldance to Presbytery so as Episcopacy might not be abrogated Behold what the Presbyterians will doe they will goe no lower than to abrogate Episcopacy and since they could not doe it by the Word they will doe it by the Sword But 2. Have you now really changed your minds are you in good earnest do you speak Verbo Sacerdotum when you make us believe you desire to obtain an Episcopacy How doth this consist with your Profession in your Grand Debate There you utterly disclaim all Episcopacy These are your words We doubt whether men in the same Order do by Divine appointment owe obedience unto those that gradually goe before them and they may scruple whether such making themselves the Governours of their Brethren make not themselves indeed of a different Order or Office and so incroach not upon the Authority of Christ who onely maketh Officers purely Ecclesiastical and whether it be no disloyalty to Christ to own such Officers Again 't is a matter of very great doubt whether a fixed Diocesan being the Pastor of many hundred Churches be indeed a Governour of Christ 's appointment or approbation and whether Christ will give us any more thanks for owning them as such than the King will gives us for owning an Vsurper He who can reconcile their Petition for Peace with their Grand Debate the one pretending for Episcopacy the other renouncing all Episcopacy Erit mihi magnus Apollo But the Instance you might have let alone of owning an Vsurper Did you not own and set up an Usurping Parliament against the King and will you not disown the most Lawfull King that shall deny your Will and Way and own the Greatest Usurper that will set up and yield his Neck to your Presbyterian Government But if you cannot gain your own you would be free from Obedience to any other That we may at least enjoy freedom from Subscription Oaths and Ceremonies by the means of your charitable Mediation A modest and merry Request That the Bishops will mediate with his Majesty that the Presbyterians may be free from Obedience to Episcopal Government Were your Presbyterian Government set up would you allow the Freedom you ask You have preached and printed against Toleration you would bind Kings with your Chains and Nobles with Links of Iron you would be very shy to give the Indulgencies and Dispensations your selves desire Nay you refuse them to your Independent Brethren Your second Petition is Seeing some hundreds of able holy and faithfull Ministers are of late cast out and abundance of Congregations in England Ireland and Wales are overspread with lamentable ignorance and are destitute of able faithfull Teachers and seeing too many that are insufficient negligent or scandalous are over the flocks we take this opportunity earnestly to beseech you that will contribute your endeavours to the removal of those that are the shame and burthens of the Churches and to the Restoration of such as may be an honour and blessing unto them and to that end that it be not imputed unto them as their unpardonable Crime that they were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by parochial Pastors without Diocesans Ans 1. Is not this a Pharisaical strain through all your Papers To cry

the Church of England to be the best and well knows the Reverence the most or at least the most Learned in the Reformed Churches have for it he heartily wishes and desires until it be reviewed and some Alterations and Additional Forms made the Ministers who dislike some Clauses and Expressions would not therefore totally lay aside the use of the Book of Common-prayer but reade those parts against which there can be no exception which would be the best instance of declyning those marks of distinction which his Majesty so much labours and desires to remove Have you herein submitted to his Majestie 's Declaration Have you read any thing of the Common Prayers and thereby instanced your desire in compliance with his Majestie 's to remove and decline those marks of distinction What you can lay hold of to your purpose in his Declaration you greedily catch at the rest you pass by However you pretend to submit to his Majestie 's Declaration he therein complains your Party of which you are the Leaders have not dealt candidly with him that there are amongst them unquiet and restless Spirits who continue their Bitterness against the Church and indeavour to raise Jealousies against his Majesty and have unseasonably printed published and dispersed a Declaration to his Majestie 's Reproach and since the printing this Declaration you say you submit to several seditious Pamphlets and Quaeries have been published and scattered abroad to infuse Dislike and Jealousies into the Hearts of the People Behold your Submission to his Majestie 's Declaration You next tell us of your own Proposals of the Primitive Episcopacy and your own Liturgy What your Primitive Episcopacy is your Jus Divinum Ministrii Anglicani speaks That there is no Bishop in the sense of our Church no Episcopus Pastorum but all Presbyters are equally and in a parity Episcopi Gregis and what your own Liturgy is you have let us see such a one as you would have for your selves in opposition to that of the Church and yet though you would have it you will not be bound to use it neither which is as much as to say If you may not have your own fancied frame of Government and publick Worship and that with Liberty too to throw them off when your fancie changeth you receive mighty wrong and as you said before all the Protestant Churches so you say now all the World will think it strange Bishop Vsher you mentioned before you now bring him in again after Bishop Hall and give them the Titles of Reverend Learned and Moderate 'T is well Bishop Hall now he is at rest hath from you so kind a Character Time was when your combined Forces were bent singly against him you fought neither with small nor great but onely with Bishop Hall and when Smectymnuus was not able to dispute him down your Rabshakeh railed him down and however you now complement him you have shewn your present Esteem of him and of the Primitive Episcopacy in reprinting your Smectymnuus now since his Majestie 's Restoration and if as you say he and Bishop Vsher have published to the World that much less than that would have served to a fraternal Peace you publish to the World you have been obstinate and averse to Peace and Unity who when you had the Law in your hands would not hearken to those by you confessed Moderate Terms of Unity and Peace and your own Pens will bear witness against you that you are now justly repulsed who would not yield when fair means of Accommodation were offered as to Re-ordination which you often mention and here it comes in again 1. We deny your Presbyterian and Independent so called Ordination to be really and indeed any Ordination at all and till you prove it such you charge the Bishops falsely wih requiring Re-ordination 2. Many who have been under your hands have of themselves without being required judging your pretended Ordination a Nullity desired Ordination from the Bishops 3. The Canon supposed of the Apostles toucheth not this Case nor our Bishops who neither do re-ordain nor allow it Re-ordaining rightly so called being the Ordaining again of a Deacon or Priest by a Bishop who was by him known to have been by a Bishop before ordained 4. Bishop Bancrost speaks of those who were ordained by Presbyters where were no Bishops to ordain them as in many of the Reformed Churches abroad But we had Bishops till you pull'd them down Nay blessed be God we had Bishops after you had pull'd them down and till his Majesty set them up again and those who would in all the late times might have had and very many had Ordination from their hands 't is therefore a most gross Untruth and 't is strange such Godly men as you should dare to utter and publish it That your young Preachers by the old Presbyters sent were born in an Age and Countrey which required Ordination by Parochial Pastors without Diocesans if there had been no Bishops you might then have said the Age and Countrey required lest the Church should fail Ordination from Parochial Pastors but I say and you to your Sorrow know there were Bishops all that time divers English and also Scotish and Irish Bishops who though many of them were latent yet were and might be addressed to and did all along confer holy Orders there are at least five English Bishops living to my knowledge and you may know more having the Honour to be joyned with them in Commission which all good men are sorry is not on your part managed temperately and humbly prudently and piously to the Peace of the Church by your selves chiefly but for all our sins long and lamentably divided R. 11. Is a repeated Complaint of their Afflictions and an Accusation of the Bishops as their Afflictors which is already answered The Twelfth and Fourteenth are the same and shall be considered together The 13 th is hammered on the same Anvil with the 11 th That they are the Godly party and afflicted the Episcopal are cruel and persecute them for the Cause of Christ How will Christ take it of you to cast out from the Ministery or Communion of the Church or to grieve and punish all that dare not conform to you in these Matters Ans How will Christ take it from you to cast out all Bishops and Episcopal men who durst not conform to you in your Matters The Bishops Proceedings are by gentle methods 1. They Admonish 2. Suspend 3. Silence before they deprive any and none are deprived but for foul and incorrigible Crimes but you eject at first and totally for no Crime for no Breach of the Laws and Orders but even for that the Episcopal persons stand for the Laws and Orders established You trod down the Stars of Christ's planting as the Stones in the street All those places of Scripture misapplied by you may against you be rightly applied And whereas elsewhere they say to this purpose Sad Experience tels