Church-yard or Porch to shew that they are not presentable but would get in if they could the nineteenth Canon commands to drive them away 19. The Liturgy and Canon 22. c. bind all under the penalty of the Law to receive the Sacrament thrice every year If a secret Infidel Sadducee Hobbist Socinian or any Heretick say I am not able to change my Iudgment which is inconsistent with the Sacrament or if one whose Conscience tells him of the guilt of Adultery and that he is not resolved to confess and forsake it yet or one that by Melancholy causelessly feareth unworthy receiving to damnation I say if any of these will avoid the charge of Schism they must run upon worse till grace recover them which is not at their command And yet all notorious Offenders are prohibited it Canon 26. and particularly the Perjured And if the tenth part so many be perjured in England in City and Countrey as many fear it 's a very great number that are uncapable of Communion with the Church 20. By Canon twenty seventh on pain of Suspension no Minister must wittingly administer the Communion to any but such as Kneel or to any that refuse to be present at publick Prayers c. So that all that Kneel not in receiving are rejected and if they worship God elsewhere must be taken for Schismaticks as dangerous as adulterers or murderers 21. The twenty eighth Canon forbids admitting strangers to Communion and commands sending them home to their Parish Churches It 's disobedience to violate this 22. The twenty ninth Canon forbids urging Parents to be Present when their Children are baptized and admitting them to Answer as Godfathers for their own Children and any Godfather to make any other Answer or speech than the prescribed 23. The thirtieth Canon describeth the Cross as a Sacrament as seemeth to us 34. By the thirty sixth Canon no man must be a Minister that subscribeth not that the Book of Common Prayer and Ordination contains nothing in it contrary to the Word of God and that he himself will use no other form in publick Prayer and administration of the Sacraments By which all that refuse this or that use the forms made and imposed by the Bishops on occasions of publick Fasts and Thanksgivings seem all to be under disobedience to the Church 35. By Canon fourty ninth no Person not Licensed as a Preacher may in his Cure or elsewhere expound any Scripture or Matter or Doctrine but onely shall study to read plainly the Homilies So that all Ministers before Licence to preach all School-masters all Parents or Masters that do expound to their Schollars Children or Servants the meaning of Baptism or of any Article of the Creed any Petition of the Lords Prayer any one of the Ten Commandments to fit them for Confirmation or Salvation otherwise than by plain reading the Homilies or Church Catechism doth disobey the Law of the Church And so do all Tutors in the Universities that expound any Scripture matter or Doctrine to their Pupils before they are examined or approved by the Bishop or any Judge on the Bench or Justice that presumeth to do it to the hearers or any Friend or Neighbour in discourse For it is No Person whatsoever not examined and approved by the Bishop of the Diocess How few in England separate not from the Church as far as this disobedience amounts to If by no Persons be meant only no Ministers it 's hard enough that Ministers may not be allowed out of the Church what Lay-men are allowed 36. All those that deny not the validity of Baptism or the Lords Supper when they are done by an unpreaching Minister but yet think that a man utterly unable to Teach otherwise than by Reading may not lawfully be encouraged in so high a function any more than a man in Physick or School-teaching that hath not necessary skill or is utterly illiterate and thinks it a sin to consent to take such an Ignorant fellow for the Pastor of his Soul if he can have better If this man I say go to the next Parish Church for Sacraments he is to be suspended first and next excommunicate Specially if he should judge that Ignorant Reader no true Minister for want of necessary capacity 37. Surplices Hoods and Tippets are made the matter of Obedience Canon fifty eighth 38. By Canon thirty eighth no Minister must refuse or delay to Christen any Child without exception according to the form of the Common Prayer that 's brought to Church to him on Sundaies or Holy-daies though the Parents be both Iewes or Heathens or Atheists or Sadducees The Minister must be suspended that refuseth it 39. The seventy first Canon suspendeth all Ministers that Preach in any private house except to the sick or impotent in time of necessity By which had Paul here preached publickly and from house to house or Timothy in season and out of season as dreadfully adjured or Christ preacht as he oft did they must be suspended And every Minister that preacheth to his Family And no doubt repeating his Sermon is preaching the same again 40. All Ministers must be suspended and then excommunicate that without the Bishops Licence appoint or keep any solemn Fasts publickly or in private houses other than by Law appointed or be wittingly present at any Though it were in time of Plague or when divers of his Neighbours are sick or troubled in Conscience or in preparation to a Sacrament or on some great occasion in Noble-mens Houses and Chappels He is not to be trusted to fast and pray with his own Flock or Friends or come among them lest being excommunicate he be a damn'd Schismatick The same prohibition is for holding meetings for Sermons called Exercises Which Arch-Bishop Grindall was zealous to set up Q. Was he then a Schismatick or is the damning dangerous Engine made since 41. By Canon seventy third if any Ministers meet in any private house as many did by consent in 1660. and 1661. to do any thing that any way tends to impeach the Common 〈◊〉 or any part of the Government and Discipline e. g. to Petition King or Parliament for the least Reformation of it he is excommunicate ipso facto 42. Canon seventy fourth brings all Ministers apparel under Church Laws for the Shape 43. Canon seventy sixth Excommunicateth all that voluntarily relinquish their Ministry and use themselves as a Lay-men And man having free will that is done voluntarily which is done in Obedience to mens command And yet we are ruined in the World if we will not leave our Ministry at their Command 44. It 's tedious to go over all the rest I end at the end of them Canon 139. excommunicateth all them that affirm that the Synod is not the true Church of England by Representation that is 1. All that take it for the Church real and not Representative lest they make the diffused Church People and all to be Chief Church-governours while
Catholick Church representative must say that the Catholick Church separated from Christ and it self When another Council wrongfully deposed Chrysostome and separated from him and Cyril Alexandr perswaded the continuance of it did the universal Church separate from it self and Christ If a General Council which should be wisest be excusable from damning Schism whenever it misjudgeth and separateth from a rightful Bishop sure every Lay-man and woman that doth the same doth not separate from Christ. If it prove that a General Council deposed Nestorius as unjustly as David Derodon thought or Dioscorus as unjustly as others thought or Flavian as unjustly as the Orthodox think this proveth them Guilty of some Schism but not of separating from the universal Church When Menna of Constantinople and the Pope excommunicated each other when a Synod in Italy renounced Vigilius and all his Successors were an hundred years deposed from their Primacy and a Patriarch at Aquileia set up in his stead for a great part of Italy because Vigilius subscribed to a General Council de tribus Capitulis this was Schism somewhere but not separating from Christ. LXXII 22. If a man in England should think that all the old Councils were obligatory which decree that he shall be taken for no Bishop that comes in by the choice yea or Mediation of Courtiers Princes or great men or any that have not the true Consent of Clergy and People and thereupon should conclude that Bishops Deans Prebends c. so chosen and imposed are Lay-men and no true Bishops and Pastors this were a separating from those Persons but not from Christ and the Vniversal Church when as Mr. Thorndike saith that till the right of Electing Bishops by the Clergy and People be restored we need look no further for the reason of the Contempt of Episcopacy here So if a man think that God never trusted every Ignorant Wicked man that can but get Money and buy an Advowson to choose those Pastors to whose conduct all the People are bound to trust their Souls and the Bishop to admit them for fear of a Quare impedit if they have but a Certificate and can speak Latine This is not damning Separation LXXIII 23. If a Bishop set up a seeming Convert really a Papist e. g. Mr. Hutchinson alias Berry or one of them that lately Confessed themselves Papists the People that find by experience what the man is are not damned Schismaticks for not taking him for their Pastor or for going from him If Godfrey Goodman Bishop of Gloucester was a Papist did he separate from Christ that separated from the Diocesan Church of Gloucester while he was an Essential part Or that did not implicitely trust all the Priests that he ordained LXXIV 24. If in a Cathedral Church one withdraw from their Service because of their difference in singing Ceremonies c. from the Parish Churches thô it be the Bishops Church that he separateth from it is not as a Church nor from any thing essential to it e. g. Miles Smyth Bishop of Gloucester the famous Hebricâ—â—n and chief in our Bibles Translation declared and performed iâ— that he would never come more to his Cathedral because the Dean in Laud time kept up the Altar Qu. Whether he separated from himself or his Church Vbi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia Who were the Separatists They that followed the Bishop or they that separated from him and kept to the Cathedral The same I â—ay of Williams Bishop of Lincoln that wrote against Altars LXXV 25. If faithful Pastors and People are setled in concord and the higher Powers make a Law to depose and eject them without just cause as Multitudes were in many Emperours dayes and Multitudes by the Interim in Germany in Charles the fifths time and Multitudes in the Palatinate by Ludovicus and in too many other Countreys those that leave the Temples and Tythes to the Magistrate but cleave to their old Pastors in forbidden meetings called Conventicles supposing the Pastoral Relation not dissolved as the Ioannites clave to Chrysostom do not thereby separate from the Catholick Church Had the Power been lawful that set up another way when Dr. Gunning kept up his Meetings at Exeter House it had not been a Separation from Christ that he then made LXXVI 26. If the Law command all to take one man for his Pastor and a Parent command his Child or a Husband his Wife to take another and not that and the Child or Wife know not which should be obeyed and whether the choice belong more to the Domestick or the Publick Government it is not a separating from Christ which way ever such an one shall go LXXVII 27. Yea if I should think that self-Interest and self-Government bind me rather to choose a Pastor for my self than to stand to such a choice by Prince Patron or Prelate which I think intolerable as well as against their will I may choose a Wife or a Physician or a Tutor or a Book or my daily food this is not separating from the Universal Church LXXVIII 28. If owning the same Diocesan make them of one Church who differ more than Nonconformists and Conformists do then owning the same Christ Faith Scripture c. maketh them of one Catholick Church who differ less But c. Iesuites Dominicans Iansenists and all the Sects of Papists are taken for one Church because they own the Pope and Councils In England the Diocesan Conformists are taken for one Church thô some of them are as much for a Foreign Jurisdiction as Arch-bishop Laud Arch-bishop Bromhall Bishop Gunnings Chaplain Dr. Saywell Mr. Thorndike Dr. Heylin and many more have manifested in their words and writings And some that subscribe the Articles of General Councils erring in Faith and against Heathens Salvation and against free will and for Justification by Faith only c. do shew that they differ in the Doctrines of Religion unless the sound or syllables be its Religion while one and another take the words in contrary sences Some are for Diocesans being a distinct Order from Presbyters some as Vsher and many such deny it Some hold them to be of Divine Right and some but of humane some think the King must choose them some rather the Clergy and People some hold them Independent others rather subject to the Arch-bishops and Convocation some think all that bear Office in their Church Government are lawful others think Lay-Civilians Government by the Keyes unlawful and so are ipso facto excommunicate by their own Canons some that promise Canonical Obedience to their Ordinary take the Judges of the Ecclesiastical Courts for their Ordinaries and others only the Bishops some think they are sworn to obey their Ordinaries if they rule according to the Canons and so to pronounce all Excommunicate that the Canon excommunicates if commanded Others think otherwise that they are judges themselves whether the Canons command licita honesta some take the Pope to be Antichrist and the Church of
proper Authority but only in such matters as concern the Unity of the Episcopacy or the Peace and Communion of the Catholick Church If a Bishop be convicted of Heresie or Schism or some great wickedness or impiety they may depose him and forbid his people to communicate with him and ordain another in his stead because he subverts the Unity of the Faith or divides the Unity of the Church or is himself unfit for Communion Ans. 1. Either these are meant as acts of Government or not If yea then why do you so oft disclaim it and call it only Advice and Communion Then you place this governing Power in Forreigners when they are no further off than with ease and convenience we may confederate with them And whither this will lead I 'le not enquire If nay then it seems men may depose Bishops and set up or ordain others in their stead without any governing Power over them If so then by Authority you must mean Authoritatem Doctoris vel Nimcii and so I confess Pastors may in Christ's Name require other Churches to do their duty and not Authoritatem Regentis And if so it 's as true that when there is just cause a few may depose many as many depose a few But men use not to call it deposing and ordaining in his place when men do but charge others in Christ's Name to do their duty I find not thaâ— St. Martin excommunicated the Bishops and Synods in Ithacius and Idacius time but I find that he renounced Communion with them and so may Equals do § 43. P. 140. he saith The sensless imputation of Cassandrianism and French Popery is managed so knavishly by Mr. Lob and with such blind fury by Mr. Baxter with so much confusion c. Ans. The Terms I wonder not at but whatever we are for Knavery or blind Fury if this man help us against Confusion it 's strange § 44. P. 173. he grants that the Bishops are not the Governours of the Church as united in one common regent Head over the whole Church but as every Bishop governeth his own share And this of true Bishops who denieth him P. 183. It is but a voluntary combination and stricter associasion for preserving Unity by advice c. All this is good tho damned by him in the Independents if they would combine to rule according to the Laws of Christ and not make any of their own without authority nor so as to accuse Christ's Laws of insufficiency nor make dividing noxious snares § 45. Saith he p. 189. That this Church is Universal is founded on the Laws of Catholick Communion Ans. No Humane Laws make the Church Universal Men may make their own Subjects or Confederates unite in accidents either just as in one Translation of Scripture one time and place and meeting c. or unjust when it 's hurtful vain or belongs not to them but it is only he that maketh the Church a Church who thereby maketh it One Church in Essentials And in Integrals he that maketh it entire by institution or efficiency 2. This Union is founded in mens Unity in Christianity Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. § 46. P. 192. He saith The Association and Confederacy of Neighbour-Churches is founded on the Law of Catholick Communion and the Catholick Communion cannot be maintained without it Ans. Not without Baptismal Confederaâ—y in the necessary Duties commanded by Christ But as to your Confederacies in Humane new Church-Forms Patriarchal Metropolitan c. was not the Church One without them before they were invented Here he maketh voluntary Confederacies to make new Church-Canons or Laws of Discipline necessary to Unity and that Unity necessary to Salvation all being cut off from Christ that break it As if Christ had not made Laws enough necessary to salvation and he that only kept his Laws and not mens Canons could not be saved Can he tell us then where to fix our Religion On what Bishops and on what Canons I am certain that his Religion will not stand with certainty of salvation when no man can be certain what is necessary to salvation nor what de novo will by Bishops be made necessary the next year nor who those Bishops must be 2. See here again When he made it a renouncing our Christianity to confederate and associate to do mens duty in a particular Church he yet maketh it necessary to Unity and so to salvation by confederacy to make new Humane Church Forms All this is to bring all mens salvation opinionatively into the power of those that can get uppermost as if men could as easily damn others as themselves § 47. P. 200 201. saith he If the Church cannot be a Political Society without one constitutive Regent Head then the Church is not a Political Society for it neither has nor can have any such on Earth over the whole Ans. We thank you for that much But the Church is a Political Society and to deny it is to deny an Article of the Creed and to unchurch it quoad ipsam formam And Christ is its constitutive regent Head The whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named by him from whom the whole compacted body is increast and edified And it 's dangerous false Doctrine worse than breaking one of your Canons to hold that the Church cannot be a Political Society unless it have an Head on Earth § 48. He adds when I shewed that all Episcopal Writers as Hooker Spalatensis c. of Church Polity take the Church for one Body Politick But what is this to the purposo Does Hooker set up one Regent Head Ans. 1. Yes Christ. 2. Was it not directly to my purpose to prove it a Polity which was that which I alledged it for But saith he do any of them prove That Civil and Ecclesiastick Polity is the same thing Ans. Yes in genere Do they use the word equivocally Is not Polity or Government in Civils and Ecclesiasticks Polity in genere How can these else be distinct species of it Was this ever denied by Conformist before Saith he ' Do not the Civil and Ecclesiastick Commonwealth differ as much as the Church and the State Ans. And do not Church and State differ in specie as being both Politick Bodies sub uno genere He adds Therefore he must still prove That as one supreme Regent Head is necessary to the Unity of a State or Kingdom so it is to the Unity of the Church which will be a fair advance towards Popery Ans. 1. Every Christian holds That Christ is the Head over all things to his Church But every Christian says not That this is an advance to Popery Is Christianity Popery 2. Is one State and Kingdom all the World All that I have to prove is That as all the Earth is one Divine Kingdom God being the absolute Soveraign and each particular Kingdom is part of it a Political Body subordinate informed by its One Humane Soveraign even so the Universal Church is one Body
which they used in Catechising and in Baptism which were a great means to keep out Heresie and Church-Tyranny and Heresie were the Introducers of all their Alterations 10. The Lay-Christians of the first Aages were so full of Zeal that they would have taken it ill to have been forbâ—dden to speak their Answering and Consenting parts in the Church as the Iews before did and as now we would take it ill for the Minister to Sing alone and forbid the People And tho the scantness of History in the first two Ages tell us not what words were then used as a Liturgy and no doubt but praying by Habit was used chiefly yet some few Sentences that are recorded tell us that they used some Forms 11. Constantine himself made Prayers for his Soldiers and every Bishop then used what Prayers he thought best in his own Church and composed himself the Forms which he used constantly till Heresie and weakness of Ministers caused a Council to decree That every one should first shew his Form of Prayer to the Synods to be examined and approved before he used it 12. I do not read or hear of many Churches on earth at this dâ—y that used not a Liturgie except Nâ—w England and some Non confâ—rmists here Nor did I ever read that any one Church 〈…〉 for a 〈◊〉 Years after Christs time did ever scruple it or speak 〈…〉 remembrance so that it was for many Ages the 〈…〉 Church on earth At this day the Greeks Armâ—â—ians 〈…〉 Circassians Mâ—ngreliâ—ns Indian and Persian 〈◊〉 s the 〈…〉 Egyptians all the Countreys that have 〈…〉 Mâ—ronites beside the Papists have a Liturgie very 〈◊〉 more 〈…〉 Even those ascribed to Iames Mark 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 have one or divers in divers Countreys And thâ—se called 〈◊〉 Reâ—â—â—med have one tho a shorter and more simple 〈◊〉 France 〈◊〉 Hâ—lland the Palatinate Helvetia c. 13. The Nonconformists in England were generally for the Lawfulness of a Form or Liturgie and for Communion of the Parish Churches therein in the days of King Edward the Sixth Queen Elizabeth King Iames and King Charles the First And wrote more against Separation by far than the Bishops did as is yet visible in their Books specially Cartwright Hildersham Bradshaw Paget Gifford Brighâ—man Bayne Rathband Iohn Ball c. 14. Those then counted the Fathers of Independency were of the same mind for Parish Communion and against Separation Mr. Iacob Bradshaw Ames see his First and Second Manuduction 15. Yea those call'd Brownists or Separatists were for Communion in the Liturgie in the usual parts and for the truth of those Parish Churches that had good Ministers I have cited their own words before tho all of them were not of the same mind 16. The Martyrs in Queen Marys days had a chief hand in composing our Liturgie and rejoyced in it and worshipped God according to it And none that I read of separated for this from the rest as false Worshippers 17. When before 1639. there were but about one or two Nonconformable Ministers for each County if it had been unlawful to Communicate in the publick Churches with the Liturgy all England must have lived like Atheists without any Church Worship for want of Ministers except about thirty or fourty Yea those few kept up no usual Church Worship except those of them that by connivence had small Chappels or peculiars And of them most used much of the Liturgy 18. All the Congregations of the Nonconformists in England that I have heard save one now broken not counting such as Quakers c. have used and do use stinted imposed forms of Worship to this day and therefore judg it not unlawful meerly as forms or as imposed 1. Parents teach their Children a form of words in Catechisms in Prayers in giving Thanks for their Meat and impose these on them 2 Ministers impose on the Assemblies their own method and words in Prayer which are a form to the people yea and a form which they know not till they hear it and have no time to examine it while it floweth from the Speaker And their Sermons are imposed forms of Doctrine sometimes written also and read 3. Few men that retain any Sobriety in Religion are against the Creed to be used as a form of Confession of Faith 4. The Independents drew up at the Savor about 1658 or 1659. a form of Confession of their Faith and Discipline 5. They attempted Dr. Owen Mr. Nye Dr. Goodwin Mr. Sid. Sampson Dr. Cheynell and others by appontment of a Committee of Parliament to have drawn up a Catalogue of Fundamentals to have been imposed for consent on all that should be tolerated in the Land in Church-Worship they are yet to be seen in Print But Arch-bishop Usher being chosen for one and refusing and I being by his consent substituted in his room broke that attempt finding that their Fundamentals were lamentably composed and that Christianity was not an unknown thing and that Baptism the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue were a far better Catalogue of Fundamentals than theirs 6. We all constantly use an English form of Translation of the Scripture where all the English words the division of Chapters and Verses are mans invention imposed on all 7. We all use constantly forms of Confession Prayer Thanksgiving and Praise in the singing of Psalms where when Davids and the Iews Psalms are used the Translation or rather Paraphrase the rhime or meters and the tune are humane and imposed And the Separatists themselves make no question but other Psalms such as that of Ambrose c. more suted to the State of the Gospel Church may be fitly used as Paul requireth which must be composed by man and imposed on the Churches or never unanimously used Our common use of singing Psalms and Hymns is the use of stinted imposed forms 8. He that doth not celebrate Baptism and the Lords Supper often in words of the same signification shall corrupt those Sacraments by his affectation of variety of words the matter being the same 9. No man knoweth before-hand whether a Minister hath studied and sore compsed his Prayer or Sermon and yet all joyn with him 10. Many affect to compose all their Prayer in Scrpture Sentences which do but make up one form of many 19. When the King came in the Ministers of London were invited to attempt a Concord with the Bishops and they offered to joyn in the use of the Litugy if it were corrected And they offered Additional Forms or a Reformed Liturgy which they would have used I know it will be objected That I plead in this but for my own works But I answer 1. The Exceptions and Emendations of the old Liturgy offered was none of my work 2. And the new one which I drew up by their appoinment had their common review and consent It will be said That these were not all the then Nonconformists I answer It was the main Body of the London Ministers and it was as many as