King and Parliament left to the judgment of the Convocation the present Settlement proveth what was the Convocations judgment who are the present Church of England's representative They that are against Reordaining and yet call men to be ordained certainly judge them unordained before And you are to take your Ordination and speak the words in the known sense of the Imposers or else you equivocate And what Reasons have you to deceive them At least it is notorious scandal to seem to do it in an ill sense And when you pretend that your Ministry else must be forsaken we say No It is but to save you from suffering for your Ministration as long as you can use it on suffering terms And you have not escaped suffering nor saved your Ministry by Conforming If you would rather suffer than not Preach to Non-Conformists when you had an allowed Church of Conformists should not we rather suffer than by our Reordination submit to that which is the Churches or Laws publick professing that we were no Ordained Ministers of Christ before when after that we have never the more liberty for our Ministry unless we conform to all the rest I remember three Worthy men re-ordained one fourteen and two seventeen years ago that had never the more liberty to Preach § 5. You say that Ordination by eminent and Senior Presbyters is Episcopal Ordination though not in the vulgar sense For a Bishop and Presbyter in the sense of Scripture are the same Ans. Remember this when you subscribe to the distinction of Order And I believe you cannot name two Bishops in England if one that had a Vote in Parliament and Convocation for making the imposing Laws that were of your mind Nor two that will now say that it is lawful to be twice ordained Presbyter And remember 1. That it is the Act of Uniformity that requireth this last Ordination 2. That the Bishop of London of Lincoln of Hereford came into their places since and were none of the Legislators § 6. You say If the Presbyters excel those Bishops Ordination by them is more excellent than by these Ans. And yet can you assert that they are distinct Orders when the Power of Ordaining is made the chief part of the Bishops Order I that am against you stick at this somewhat more than you when the Law and Canon make the Bishop of the Quorum And as I was ordained by a Bishop so I never joyned with Presbyters in ordaining any man nor did venture to lay hands on any in an Ordination CHAP. III. § 1. YOur second Section is of our Assent to the words in the Book of Ordination of the Notoreity of the Antiquity of the three distinct Orders And 1. You justifie it by telling us that difference of Holiness Wisdom Usefulness may be said to make different Orders But this is too lusory in a serious business Words of Art or Science are to be understood according to the use of the men of that Art or Science And the many old School Disputes and Controversal Writers tell us long ago how they understood the word Orders as Offices in Specie differing from Degrees in the same Species In your equivocal sense you say true that there are more than three Orders or threescore Yea in the usual sense of old they had seven Orders and yet they held Bishops and Presbyters to be but one of the seven as I shewed you out of Spelman in Aelfrick's Canons of this Church of England in the very times of Popery § 2. You say you make it not an Article of your Faith that this sense of Episcopacy is evident to all men that diligently read Scripture and Antient Writers But the question is Whether you Assent to it or more If not how can you say you do The Bishop of Hereford in Naked Truth hath given you some reasons of dissent and Bishop Usher and many such have done so before him § 3. Whether you hit their sense or not gather by what I said to your former Point of Re-ordaining CHAP. IV. § 1. YOu next choose to speak of our Assent and Consent to the Bishop's Oath to subject himself in obedience to the Arch-Bishop and to his Seat or Metropolitan Church and to his Successors And you tell us that all men are bound to subject themselves one to another This again is too gross equivocating Do you believe that this is the Species of subjection which is meant in the Book and Oath § 2. You better tell us that being Episcopus primae sedis he may be reverenced as the Fore-man of a Iury. But is this obeying him and his Church and Successors Is not this also Equivocation Do they swear Obedience to the Fore-man and his Successors § 3. Your best answer is It is enjoyned by Authority And if it were but obeying them in Civils or circa sacra in matters determinable by the King this answer had much in it Bâ—â— when it is intended to be in the exercise of the Word and Keys and Matters which Christ hath predetermined those Non-Conformists that are not for the Divine Right of Arch-Bishops cannot assent and consent to it And those of them that are for it do with you hold that there should be Parochial Bishops or to every Church and that those that you call Diocesans are indeed Arch-Bishops And they are not for Arch-Bishops over Arch-Bishops lest it lead you to a Pope as he was in the Empire at least § 4. And Successions so often prove unhappy that we like not setting up one Church over another to the end of the world when we cannot justifie it at all They that are contrary to the Carthage Fathers for a Bishop of Bishops would yet have him their Ruler but as an Arch-Bishop as General Officers in an Army over the Colonels but not that our Church shall be set over many others much less to swear to unknown Successors § 5. And I told you divers old Councils condemned Bishops swearing inferiours to them as the cause of many mischiefs and sad experience taught them to make that Canon CHAP. V. § 1. NExt you speak of the Oath or Covenant of Canonical Obedience And you 1. Doubt whether it be an Oath In the Act of Ordination it is but a Covenant But what they do now I know not but heretofore it was also imposed as an Oath You tell me of my Concessions I grant that â—o far as they exercise but such power as belongeth to Officers of the King we may obey him in covenanting to obey them But it is in the exercise of the Keys proper to Christ's special Officers that the Book meaneth which you assent to even in matters of sacred Guidance Excommunication and Absolution And you say nothing to satisfie 1. Those that are under obtruded and unlawful Bishops that come in so contrary to Christ's and the Old Churches Order as that the Old Canons decree them to be no Bishops 2. Nor to satisfie those that think
Chancellors use of the Keys to be unlawful 3. Nor those that think that Officials Surrogates Commissaries Arch-Deacons being no Bishops have no just power but what the King may give them and not a superior Power of the Keys see Dr. Hammond's Explication of it § 2. But after you think that none but the Bishop is the Ordinary but the Church-Laws and common use contradict you and call all these when Judges of the Court your Ordinaries § 3. And I told you which you pass over that this is condemned by the Decrees of Antient Councils as a mischievous thing § 4. You say It binds us not to obey the Canons else the Oath of Allegiance would bind us to it and all the Statute-Laws Answ. This hath more seeming strength than the rest But 1. If it did hold it removeth but one branch of the difficulty 2. And indeed he that sweareth Obedience to the King doth swear to obey him according to the Law And so he that sweareth Obedience to the Bishop may mean more and include Mandates but he cannot reasonably mean less and exclude the Governing Laws But yet as we never meant that the King's Laws are all blameless or that we will obey them if they command us to sin against God but only will shew our submission by suffering So I confess our Oath to Bishops as such can mean no more But then were I under a King whose very frame of Laws were unlawful as tending to extirpate Piety I should doubt whether I might simply swear to obey him as my Governor How far the Canons are more unmeet instruments for true Church-Government than our Laws are for Civil Government I will not here enquire CHAP. VI. § 1. YOur fifth Section is about the words Receive the Holy Ghost c. in Ordination 1. Two things you include in the sense 1. Inward Qualifications 2. Investiture But I told you 1. Inward Qualifications are presupposed and the person examined accordingly 2. I never heard or knew of any that received them by Ordination 3. By Investiture it is the Ministerial Office that is given them To none of this do you answer But you say Christ used the words and no extraordinary thing then conferred c. Ans. 1. If Christ intended their after-reception of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost it followeth not that we must use such words that can promise or give no such spirit 2. There were five several sorts of Mission or Commission then given to Christ's Ministers 1. Christ sent out the twelve and seventy temporarily to Preach do Miracles and return and gifted and blessed them accordingly 2. He chose twelve as related to the number of the Tribes and ordained them stated Apostles to the Jews or Circumcision and he qualified them accordingly by his Spirit 3. He ordained them Apostles to all the world indefinitely and accordingly renewed their Commission For this he qualified them with ordinary gifts of his Spirit initially now at his resurrection together with their new Commission and more fully and miraculously at Pentecost You know how ignorant the Apostles were of Christ's Death Sacrifice Resurrection Ascension c. till he was risen And then Christ opened their understandings in these Articles and gave more Faith and answerably we must conceive other grace was given than they had before This cannot be denyed And is not this giving of the Holy Ghost more than man must now pretend to imitate 4. Besides these there were after-missions of particular Apostles as Paul and Barnabas or particular messages in particular Provinces 5. And there was the Ordaining of Bishops or Elders as fixed Guides of particular Churches And these being ordinary Officers were ordinarily to be qualified before they were ordained and not to receive their Abilities by their Ordination And this is the Ordination that we have to do with CHAP. VII § 1. YOur sixth Section requireth pity rather than reply The Church that a Bishop is ordained to is many hundred Parishes the Bishop of Lincoln hath many Counties You know by whom the Bishops are Chosen and where Consecrated The words were originally used to the Church over which the Bishop was placed And is it serious dealing to send word to none of them of your Time or Place and then call to Men in a Church in London or a private Chappel to come forth and speak their Exceptions If you can prove that this may be Assented and Consented to you have a stronger proving Faculty than I have CHAP VIII § 1. I See nothing satisfactory to the Objections which I made about the Damnatory Passages in Athanasius's Creed And I had reference much to a Manuscript in which Mr. Dodwel is the Objector and the Bishop of Lincoln supposed the Answerer which he doth with great Learning and Impartiality But to his Argument That we are not to Assent to the truth of the Passages excepted against because we read the Apocrypha and yet the Church intendeth not to bind us to believe some Untruths in it which he nameth I Answered that Athanasius's Creed is part of the Book which we must assent to but the Apocrypha is not I make less my self of this Scruple than the rest because I have reason to believe Athanasius meant it well when I have not the same assurance of the meaning of the Authors of some late Impositions CHAP. IX § 1. YOur Sect. 8 about the certainty of Baptized Infants Salvation being made here an Article of Faith I have much more to say against But you answer not to any of the strength of my Objections 1. And how strange is it that you saw a Manuscript of Bishop Usher's telling us of this Clause coming surreptitiously into the Book whereas he was Dead two Years before the Book was altered or that Clause put in Indeed there was another in that sounded almost like it which meant no more than that A Baptized Child hath all that is necessary to Salvation supposing his right ex parte Ecclesiae though he die without Confirmation or the Eucharist which were formerly given to Infants But this never said what the new Article saith § 2. You say many Conformists say It is no part of Assent and Consent because it is not used as part of the Church Service and they subscribe to no more Answ. Name not those Conformists lest you Dishonour them Do they declare their Assent to all things contained in the Book and mean only the Service which they must say Or do they Consent to the use of all and take an Article of Faith to be put in for no use Intreat them not to take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy with that Latitude and Exceptiousness § 3. You say you can Assent to it in a sound sense And it's more than you can prove that all Infants are saved but all that have right before God are saved but not those that have no right before God Answ. 1. But you were told that the Church signifies her sense by
so far to lay it by your self as 1. To omit answering a great part of it especially which justifieth our Preaching and Assemblies yea I think you plead for them and my large Answer to the Charge of Schism you seem to approve which we accept and so that is no part of our Controversie § 5. 2. But you also avoid the Defence of the Corporation Declaration which is a matter of so great importance to all the Cities and Corporations of England as perhaps may prove more considerable than the silencing of a thousand of the best Preachers among us for Non-conformity But I blame you not for not doing more than you are able § 6. 3. But why did you avoid the Order of my Book 's Objections and also the answering of any chief intimated reasons while yet I did but intimate some few disclaiming argumentations why do you tell us that you take them as you remember them without the Book and satisfie your own conscience while you seem to answer the Book And what drew you to begin with Reordination which none of the Antient Non-Conformists are put upon But your disclaiming to defend the Oxford-Oath and your profession that some part of the Subscriptions and Declarations by the Law enjoyned to Ministers you never made your self doth bid us to believe you that it is to draw men to think mildly of conscientious Conformists that you write if not to judge Conformity lawful and a duty in case of silencing c. And I doubt not but you will so far prevail But when you tell us of a Noble man impeached of Treason that made it his business only to put by that charge you may remember that when the Great and Good Duke of Sommerset had so done and the shout was made for his being found not guilty he was yet though the King's Uncle and Protector beheaded as a Felon Such a justification doth little good And you say truly I am not to yield to the smallest Sin to save my Life § 7. I see not how this agreeth with what you say After that Mens weakness and ignorance may make it their duty of two perceived Sins proposed to them to take the safer side and that is to avoid the greater Answ. Doubtless it is a gross Contradiction to say It is a duty to choose or not avoid the least Sin For that is no Sin which a Man is not bound to avoid and undoubtedly when two Sins are proposed every Man is bound to avoid both though not as equal with equal Zeal And God never necessitateth Man to choose either or not to avoid both But if our own Badness disable us from avoiding both we must be most careful to avoid the greater I cannot pray without sinful dulness or imperfection of Faith But I must rather avoid a total Omission than imperfect performance for all the Faults are eminently in this No Sin is to be done on pretence of avoiding a greater Sin But sometime the avoiding of a great Sin may make another thing e.g. the omission of that which else would have been a Duty to be then no Sin that else would have been a Sin Negative Commands bind ad semper § 8. You say If the Non-conformist err it is on many accounts a safe Error because it is confessedly a refusal to Subscribe and Conform to a number of things in their own nature indifferent Rigid Conformists confess them to be but Trifles comparatively the Church might be without them and yet do well And Moderate Conformists confess them to be burdensom and the Church might be and do better without them or if they were left to each Man's choice and will Answ. But if we prove them far from indifferent Non-conformity will prove a necessary and great Duty However I doubt the Imposers will give you as little thanks for this description of the Case as they do us for Non-conformity Specially when you add that for this We are thought Seditious Factious Schismatical worthy to be Silenced Imprisoned Anathematized and used as Intolerable They will not love the Glass that sheweth them such a Face as you dislikingly describe Especially when you tell them that you Are satisfied that it is in it self a great and dreadful Sin to Silence the Non-conformists and do by them as hath been for these many Years And Blame those loose Conscienced Men who think that their Humours Opinions Lusts and proud and imperious Wills are fit to be the standard of Unity Uniformity and Edification to all the Churches This is but cold pleading for Conformity CHAP. II. § 1. YOu begin with Reordination And 1st I told you how the Church in all Ages hath commonly abhorred it The Canons called the Apostles depose both the Ordainer that doth it and the Ordained Gregory Magnus equalleth it with twice Baptism which perhaps you may think lawful too you are for it upon reason Toties quoties You tell us how loth we should be as to Condemn that which so many worthy Men held as were the old Conformists And may not I tell you that you should be more Cautelous how you contradict all Ages of the Church even to this Day § 2. Had you heard as great a Man as I have done declare that he could not take them for Ministers or take the Sacrament of them that had not Episcopal Ordination and had you heard my L. Chancellor Hide give such Reasons openly for Re-ordination as I did and had you seen the Writings of so Learned a Bishop as I have seen to prove such no Ministers as are Ordained but by Presbyters and heard such Men and so many Argue for it as I have done you could not have thought that the judgment of those that impose Reordination was or is that Men are true Ministers of Christ that are Ordained by Presbyters only So that your sense of the Imposition is feigned § 3. It is a known thing that the Church of England is not of your singular opinion for Reordination You may as well feign them to be for Rebaptizing They all renounce it with our Consent Therefore they that require Men to be Ordained by Bishops must needs hold that they had no true Ordination before or else they should be for that which they abhor So that it 's past doubt you talk of you know not what when you make this to be but the singular Opinion of one Mr. Dodwel disowned by all though much in his Book besides be by most disowned And it is not every later Bishop that made the Law or altered the Liturgy § 4. You say that Ordination once validly done by eminent Presbyters and grave substantial Ministers it doth to all intents and purposes make him a compleat Minister And elsewhere you maintain the Validity of Presbyters Ordination and say That it is a taking God's Name in vain when it is done without urgent Reasons I have moved to you that the present Imposers suppose the contrary and I think considering how much the