must not only exterminate Homoonsios Procession and eternal Generation but we must burn all our Bibles except the Greek and Hebrew because they are not properly the Word of God but Words that signifie by the Agreement of Men and if the original Words of Scripture may be Translated by Words of humane Institution why may not a Doctrine of Scripture be so expressed also Secondly as many of the Roman Church have absolved the Greeks from damnable Error in this Point so it is notorious that the Writers of our Church have always vindicated them from it and therefore it cannot be imagined that our Church in this Creed should pronounce them damn'd and it must be manifest injustice to put such Interpretations upon the Creeds of a Church as have heen ever disclaimed by the chiefest Writers of it Thirdly These damnatory Clauses must be understood to refer only to the Belief of the Doctrines contained in the Creed and not to every particular Word and Expression in it The great Fundamental Doctrine which in this Creel is called the Catholick Faith is this That we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity and of this Faith it is declared That they who keep it not shall perish everlastingly And they who believe this viz. That the Father Son and Holy Ghost are Three Persons and me God do believe all that follows in the Creed which contains nothing but what is Essential to the Unity and Distinction of the Three Persons and therefore however they who believe the Trinity may scruple some Words and Expressions in this Creed or understand nothing of them yet as long as they believe the Doctrines they are not included in the Sentence of perishing everlastingly Faith belongs not unto Words but Things and though no one shall be damn'd for a Word yet it is no uncharitableness to say after our Saviour that he who believeth not shall be damn'd neither is it any Popery to conclude that if the Belief of the Trinity be necessary to Baptism it is necessary to Salvation and if this Minister be of another mind let him answer the Arguments that have been * Dr. Sher. Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity lately urged for the necessity of that Belief and let him also satisfie the World if he can why the Athanasian Creed which the Presbyterians appointed to be read in Churches in their Directory drawn up at the Savoy an 1661 should be afterwards a Reason of their Nonconformity But he goes on with his Scruples about the Matter of Consent and declines to speak of the Ceremonies the Cross the Surplice and behold the Reason because all know they came from Rome and when Rome falls they will fall too This is an Art full of Venome to traduce by odious Insinuations that which cannot be opposed by just Objections It appears from * Orig. in Ps 38. Hom. 2. Origen and others that the Cross in Baptism and from †See Hooker lib. 5. rect 29. S. Chrysostome and S. Jerome that such a Garment as the Surplice were of Ancient Usage their Antiquity is far enough beyond Popery and they come no more from Rome than do our Creeds and our Bibles and if this Minister hath had a Revelation in his Patmos that they shall fall with Rome we are foretold that in the last Times false Prophets shall arise and must not take his Dream for Vision Next en passant he upbraids us with our praying for King James a profest Papist that he might persevere in the Faith but there is no such Prayer in our Liturgy and if there were seeing the Papists are Christians and believe all that is necessary to Salvation for I hope he will not leap into the Throne of Judgement and pronounce them damn'd why may we not pray for their Perseverance in the Faith not the Faith of a Papist but the Faith of a Christian that will suffice to save them And now after these little Skirmishes we enter into the Battel and must encounter the Reasons which he has mustered up against reading the imposed Form of Common Prayer And here pray judge between the Church of England and the Nonconformists First he affirms that during the Apostles Times and two or three Hundred Years after there was no Liturgy used nor imposed neither did they direct for the drawing up of any and inforcing it by Penal Laws Here are many things jumbled together which must be separated Penal Laws imposing set Forms Directions for them by the Apostles and the Primitive use of them As for Penal Laws the Presbyterians themselves allow them and their Directory is as accountable for them as our Liturgy imposing to be considered hereafter and as to Directions for composing Forms out of many that are urged I shall select these three Considerations 1. Seeing there is convincing * See Dr. Flammond's View of the Directory Selden on Eutichyus p. 83. Dr. Lightfoot Vol. 2. p. 158. and Dr. Comber's Scholastical History p. 3. the Examiner of Dr. Combet p. 4. does question the Solidity of their Proofs but yet declines to undertake them Evidence that the Jewish Church had a fixed Liturgy and therefore both our Saviour and his Apostles who frequented their Synagogues did certainly joyn in it and not one Iota is to be found in the Gospel that condemns it from this Silence and that Practice we may certainly conclude that the use of fixed Liturgies is lawful that the joyning in them is warranted by their Example and that separation from a Church upon that account is absolutely unlawful 2. Our Saviour himself composed a Form of Prayer for his Disciples and in so doing hath * See M. Mede on Matt. 6 9. commended a set Form of Prayer unto His Church He enjoyn'd them when they prayed to say Our Father c. which is as plain a Prescription of a Form as any Words can express It is †Clarkson 's Disc conc Liturgies p. 3. confessed that this Form was anciently used in the Church and this Primitive Use may be very reasonably ascribed to that Prescription especially when we have so plain a Testimony as that of * Tert. de Orat. ca. 1. Tertullian Novis Discipulis Christus novam Orationis Formam determinavit i. e. Christ hath prescribed a new Form of Prayer to his new Disciples And therefore from the Institution nay from the Use of that Prayer which is confessedly ancient we may certainly conclude that a Form of Prayer is lawful in it self that it is useful and edifying that a Prayor is not therefore unlawful or inexpedient because it is a Form and that the Prescription or Use of a Form in a Church will not justifie separation from it 3. All the Directions which our Saviour or His Apostles have given for the Performance of the Duty of Prayer may be apply'd to Forms of Prayer suppose a Prayer to be exactly composed according to those Directions may not such a Prayer
the Peace of the State or Church could permit Such were the Reasons of the Laws and Prosecutions against them in the happy Days of Queen Elizabeth And have not these Observations been since confirm'd by woful Experience Is it any wonder that at the Restoration of our Church and Covernment which had been destroy'd by a most unjustifiable Rebellion when the whole Kingdom had been turn'd into an Aceldama and the best of Kings was barbarously murdered the Law-givers should look back upon the Miseries they had felt and secure the King the Kingdom and the Church against the increase of those Sectaries that had so lately destroy'd them and yet it is notorious that these Laws were never rigorously executed but when necessity requir'd it Their Assemblies were ever tolerated or connived at when themselves were pleased to shew that favour to the Government but when they began to libel associate and plot against the King and it was evident that the ruin of Church and State was again attempted and all the Sectaries were ready to contribute their Strength and Power to effect it was it not then high time for the Government to oppose them to secure it self by the Execution of Laws and to prosecute those who were resolved to ruin it They had Liberty enough till it was made a Cloak of Maliciousness and the Government did never persecute them but when it was persecuted by them How impertinem then is it to clamour at the Church because the State made Laws for its own preservation How unjust to arraign their Governors as Tyrannical because they would not be destroyed and how impious to call suffering for Sedition I ersecution for the Gospel If these Ministers had any regard to the Judgment of St. * Aug. Tom. 2. Epist 48. contra Donat. Rogat devi Corrig Haeret. Augustine it would be to some purpose to ranscribe the essicacious Reasons with which he justifies the use of Temporal Penalties for the reducing of Dissenters but however they may deal with him the agreement of their chief Divines the declar'd Judgment of their infallible Assembly and their own undeniable practice when they had power will be enough to silence and condemn them The Dissenters of late have wearied the World with their outcries against Persecution they have magnified Liberty of Conscience as the Magna Charta of Mankind and cryed it up in their Addresses to K. James as the restoring of God himself to his Empire But nothing in the World that thinks and sees can possibly believe them for their own Writings both past and present do manifestly shew that they never condemn Persecution but when they cannot Persecute It may be prov'd by a vast cloud of witnesses That Toleration has been ever damn'd by the Presbyterians and therefore it unavoidably follows that Persecution has been ever approv'd by them I could make good this by a deduction from their first Apostle Mr. Cartwright to their present Patriarch Mr. Baxter but in a Matter so notorious so much labour is unnecessary I appeal to the Testimonies of * They were these Dr. Burgess Mr. Ward Mr. William Good Mr. Tho. Thorowgood Mr. Humf. Hardwick Arthur Salwey Will. Reynar Geo. Hughes Edm. Calamy Tho. Case John Lightfoot Tho. Watson R. Baxter Tho. Horton Lazarus Serman Matt. Newcomen Richard Vines Simeon Ash James Crauford Tho. Edwards Twenty of their most eminent Preachers who in the Reign of Presbytery did in their Sermons and Writings with great Zeal inveigh against Toleration as unlawful in it self and destructive unto Church and State I refer you likewise to a very pathetical Letter to the Assembly Subscribed by all the London Divines Ann. 16â—5 wherein they expresly Declare their abhorrence of Toleration and exhort the Assembly to allow no Liberty to the Independants as being notorious Schis maticks and both this Letter and that collection of Tostimonies are to be found in a Pamphlet Entituled Toleration disprov'd which was Printed at Oxford Ann. 1670. But hear the Divines of that Assembly it self expostulating with their Dissenting Brethren the Independants * Papers of Accommodation cited by Dr. Still in his Sermon about the mischief of Separation p. 41 42. They desire an Answer to this one thing Whether some must be denied Liberty of their Conscience in matter of Practice ctice or none If none then say they we must renounce our Covenant and let in Prelacp again and all other ways If a denial of Liberty unto some may be just then Vniformity may be selted without any Tyranny They charge them farther with * Cited out of the same Papers in his unreasonableness of Speararation p. 69. opening a gap for all Sects to challenge such a Liberty as their due And add That this Liberty was denied by the Churches of New England and they have as just grounds to deny it as tdey Thus we see that not the Presbyterians only but even the new Light of Independancy is against Toleration and that persecution of Dissenters was not only their Doctrine but their Vow and Covenant also In that Covenant they Swore to extirpate Prelacy and to endeavour after Vniformity in Doctrine Discipline and Worship and is it not a wonderful Confidence in this Minister to Arraign the Church for persecuting and at the same time to contend for the obligation of a persecuting Covenant to reckon Vniformity among the accursed Stuff and then Declare that they are bound by Oath to settle it But their practice at last is the clearest demonstration of their Doctrine Behold an * An Ordinance for putting in execution the Directory August 11. 1645. Ordinance of Parliament against the use of the Liturgy If any person hereafter shall at any time use or cause to be used the Book of Common Prayer in any Church or Publick place of Worship or in any Private place or Family within the Kingdom every person so offending for the first offence shall pay the sum of Five for the Second Ten pounds and for the Third shall suffer One whole years imprisonment without Bail or Mainprize Do any of our Laws forbid the dissenters to serve God in their own Families as they please or where is there such an abridgment of Liberty in our Statute Book But yet their proceedings were much more cruel than their Ordinances so far were they from allowing any indulgence to the Church of England that they would not allow Liberty of Conscience to the Supreme Head and Governor of it They refused to permit their King the use of the Common Prayer in his own Chappel and infisted to obtrude the Directory upon him against his Conscience so that he had reason to complain as he did Decl. of Jun. 18. after the Votes of Nun-Addresses of their offering violence to the Conscience of their Sovereign and to say If it be Liberty of Conscience they desire he who wants it is most ready to give it Nay those Prosbyterians when they had him in their custody were
the right and have witnessed to the Truth then ought the Church of England to hang down her head c. And thus as he states the case himself if the Dissenters have not witnessed to the Truth the Church of England is not guilty and all their Outcries about Persecution must pass for nothing Here then lies the stress of the dispute Whether the Nonconformists have Truth on their side and were therefore really persecuted for Righteousness-sake I proceed therefore to examine Q. The Reasons and Objections which he pleads for his Non conformity His first Stumbling block is the Subscription in the Act of Vniformity with the Oath in the Oxford Act in which are these Words I. A. B. do declare That it is unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King Again I do swear That it is not lawful c. He adds we refused thus to declare and swear and he requires three Things to be observed First A man may believe a Proposition to be true but would not be willing to swear it and this Objection is a perfect Cavil He that asserts a Proposition to be true does mean only that he is convinced of its Truth and he that swears it is true does only call God to witness that he is convinced of it Nothing is more obvious than that in all assertory Oaths when we swear to the Truth of Things we are understood to declare no more than our own Belief and Knowledge concerning them and thus when I swear that it is unlawful to resist nothing more can be understood than that I am fully satisfied of it if I believe it unlawful I may subscribe and declare that it is so and if I cam do that I may also swear it since in this Case an Oath superadded to a Declaration must follow the nature of the Principal and can be nothing else but a Sacred Confirmation of my sincerity in declaring and I am morally certain that no Magistrate in England would have refused to administer the Oath with this Interpretation Secondly he objects that Barclay Grotius and others who have written in favour of Kings do yet allow some Cases in which it is lawful to resist them and if a King does govern by his Will and not by Law he doth excidere de jure that is he forfeits his Right to Govern I answer that an Arbitrary King does forfeit his Right is affirmed by neither of these Authors but is contradicted by them and though it be true that Barelay Grotius and others whether Republicans Jesuits or Presbyterians have allowed Exceptions for resisting yet I am sure the Holy Ghost has made none in Scripture they that resist shall receive Damnation is denounced without any Limitation and how shall we limit where GOD hath not limited or distinguish where He hath not distinguished So was the Rule understood and practiced by the first and best of Christians so was it taught by the first Reformers of our Church and some of them with their Blood bore witness to it The Popes were the first Christians that taught Resistance but though an Augel from Heaven had taught it we have received another Doctrine and could not have departed from it Thirdly he adds That all the Nobility and Gentry of England and Scotland and all the Protestant Princes beyond Sea in their Proceedings against King James have justified the Nonconformists in refusing the Oath Now I have no Correspondence with all these Princes Nobility and Gentry and therefore know not their minds about it but I am sure he cannot make good his all without taking Sanctuary in Hyperbole There be many that think those Proceedings may be justified without justifying Resistance but I believe there are no Princes that will allow it against themselves and if the Majority of the Nobility and Gentry do justifie what they once condemn'd their Authority can be urged on neither side and though there he a Revolution of Opinions as well as Governments yet the nature of Things is immutable and Truth the same yesterday to day and for ever His Second scruple is about Reordination as tho' Ordination by Presbyters were not sufficient without the laying on of the hands of those we now call Bishops But first since this Minister hath now undertaken to argue he should have prov'd that Reordination implys a Nullity of their former Orders But as no Declaration of their insufficiency is requir'd so neither is it imply'd in the nature of the thing nor understood to be so by Construction of the Fact as appears from the Reordination of many French Ministers whose Orders have never been condemned by our Church who never intended to renource them by that Action nor are supposed to do so Secondly tho' the Ordination of Presbyters be granted to be sufficient yet this will not justify the Nonconformists Ordinations There is all evidnet difference betwixt the Case of these Ministers and the Presbyters of some Foreign Churches 1. Those Foreign Divines tho' their Churches are not under Episcopal Government yet they do not separate from Episcopal Communion but have all own'd Commun on with the Church of England Blondel their best Advocate for Presbyterian Parity does yet condemn Separation from Bishop as Schismatical and expresly * Praef. ad Apol. p. 59. declares that Aerius was therefore an Heretick because he asserted That separation was to be made from those who admitted any difference between Bishops and Presbyters But their approving of Episcopal Government and coadmning Separation from it as Schismatical has been so often so irrefragably * Ibid p. 47 and Bramhall's Replication to affirm the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 164 of his Works proved that there can be no longer any Controversie about it But on the other side the present Nonconformists do make Episcopal Government the chief reason of their Separation and condemn it as unlawful and Antichristian which no Resormed Church or Divine that we know did ever before them and this is certainly a very material difference between them 2. The Ordination of Presbyters withou Bishops in those Foreign Churches has been generally defended by the plea of Necessity thus it has been defended by some of the Foreign †Bishop Hall's and Mortons Bcoks in defence of Eiscopacy Archbishop Bramhall in his Sup. Dr. Durell's Church Government Saywell's Evangelical and Catholick Unity and lately in the Judgment of Foreign reformed Divines Divines themselves and thus by many * As Downham Mason Field Andrews and leately by Dr. Sherlock in his Vindication of the defence of Dr. Still Divines of our own Church As their circumstances were it was impossible for them to have Bishops and therefore they wanted them out of invincible necessity whereas our Presbyterians are uncapal le of that Plea they reject the Authority of Bishops and Ordain in opposition to them and therefore it is evident they are under no necessity and consequently their Orders may be thought in ufficient without impeaching the
Canons and Separation for them is alike unlawful He observes further that there were several Liturgies allowed even in the Roman Communion and that this Branch of the Churches Liberty was taken away by the Council of Trent and here in England by the Reformation And what was that Liberty which was thus abridged Not an Arbitrary Liberty in every Pastor of a Parish to use what Form he pleased but the use of different Rules of Prayer that were before prescribed and practiced in different National Churches and Dioceses The different Offices in England as those for instance after the use of Sarum and York did agree in Substance they had the same Forms of Prayer and differed for the most part in Rubricks and Ritualities only and when our first Reformers established an uniform Order it was not esteemed an Encroachment upon Christian Liberty neither are Unity Order and Uniformity the less valuable because Councils and Popes were for them 5. His next Reason is an Invective against the Introducers of Liturgies and in the midst of it he defines ex Cathedrd That the Liturgies which bear the great Names of S. James Peter Mark Basil and Chrysostome are known Forgeries That they are ent rely genuine as they are now extant is affirmed by no one but that they are Forgeries quite throughout and especially the Liturgy ascribed to St. James is so far from being known that we may safely affirm that it is impossible to know it And the contrary opinion of so Learned men as See Falkners Vindication p. 149. Baronius Ddurantus Leo Allatius Sixtus Senensis Possevinus Pamelius and others among the Romanists Dr. Hammond Thorudike Falkner Casaubon Salmotius Durel and some other Protestants will bear me out in affirming it But behold the Modesty Charity and Humility of this Minister 'T was the Ignorance Carnality Sloth and Laziness of the Clergy together with their Pride which first brought in and imposed Service-Books on the Churches When the Church began to be an Harlot when Bishops were not Silver Trumpets but tinkling Cymbals c. when in Councils as of Ephesus and Chalcedon they profest they did literas ignorare and could not write their own Names to confirm their Canons then came in our Liturgies Thus far the Son of Thunder but I take heart again for find it is brutum fulmen and our Prayer-Books are in no danger from it The Falshood and weakness of this Raillery is Schol. Hist part 2d p. 276. sufficiently exposed already and it is impossible such stuff should impose upon any but the greatest Bigots of Fanaticism Ignorance Carnality Pride and Laziness brought in Liturgies he might as well have said that Burglary or Vsury did introduce them if Pride and Ignorance brought in Liturgies why are they not read in Conventicles for In his Cure of Divisions Mr. Baxter hath complained to all the World that the People who frequent them for their Ignorance Injudiciousness Pride and Self-conceitedness are their Grief and their Shaine and certainly we may believe him But if Pride and Ignorance brought in Litugies we remember well then Entbusiasm Sacriledge and Rebellion did eject them We have Preface to Dr. Still Vnreasonableness of Separation had convincing Proofs that the Jesuits first brought extempore Prayers into England those Missionaries of Antichristian were the first Teachers of them and when Presbyterian Ministers were Trumpets to Rebellion when their Sermons and their Arms brought the best of Kings to the Scaffold when the Church was rent in pieces with damnable Doctrines when Jeroroham's Priests profaned the Pulpits and the Altars when the Stalls and the Shambles were the chief Schools of the Prophets when all Religion was vanished into Cant and Blasphemy and Nonsense were entitled to the Holy Spirit then were Liturgies first abolished and extempore Prayers first universally practised in any Christian Nation in the World But Liturgies he says were brought in when the Church began to be an Harlot Smectymnius * Answer to Remonst p. 7. derived their Pedigree from Three Canons of the Laodicean Carthaginian and Milevitan Councils and thus they are allowed to be in use about 1300 years since and has the Church been a Whore for so many Ages has she forsaken her Spouse so long has she renounced Christ Jesus for 13 Centuries together Yes and much longer too when we dispute about Episcopacy for when we come to that Controversie the Mystery of iniquity was working even in the times of the Apostles and the Church did then begin to be an Harlot also so little do some men care how they wound our common Christianity and condemn the whole Catholick Church of Christ so they may but vent their Malice against Liturgies and Bishops But because he cannot deny that Liturgies were introduced in the 4th and 5th Centuries he particularly Rallies upon the Ignorance of the Bishops of those Ages And were those ever reputed ignorant Ages when was the Church better enlightned with Learning than when Chrysostome Basil Nyssene Nahianhen Epiphanius the two Cyrills Lactantius Ambrose Jerome Augustine Isidore Pelus Theodoret Vincentius Gennadius and many others were the Luminaries of it But among these Gnosticks even the Mechanicks and the Women have been thought more able Divines than the Fathers and indeed if Ability is to be measured by the Gift of Prayer as they call it they may vye Learning even with their own Teachers for their most ignorant Zealots do often pray with as much fluency of words with as much pretence to the Spirit and which is the main Gift with as much Confidence as the ablest Ministers among them But the Bishops of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their Names and Mr. Clarkson indeed produces the Subscriptions of Three or four to prove it And to * Schol. Hist pt 2. p. 300. this it is replied That those Subscriptions are of no credit as being suspected of Forgery but suppose there were four Bishops among 830 in those Councils who were so illiterate is it not a very impudent Calumny to say indefinitely as he does That the Bishops of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their Names to confirm their Canons might it not as well be said that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster were Independants because there were Five of that Sect among them or that the Nonconformists Ministers of this Age have generally died as Traitors because Two or three were executed for being in Monmouths Rebellion His last Reason concerns the imposing of Liturgies and here he denies not the Lawfulness of them but after he has begged the belief of his Followers That they were not used in the Primitive times for many Hundred of years he pretends to prove the unlawfulness of imposing them Now one would think it a very plain Case that things lawful in themselves may be lawfully enjoyned by lawful Authority but this Minister is of another opinion and the only Reason he gives for the unlawfulness of prescribing Forms is this
That it is a restraint upon the Gifts of such Ministers as have Ability to compose better Prayers themselves and this he illustrates by the trite instances of Trespass Offering and of a Law obliging those who are not Lame and Impotent to make use of Crutches But 1. All this is impertinent to the Dispute before us for the Ministers in our Church are not restrained from the Exercise of their own Abilities in publick Prayers they may use their own conceived Prayers in the Pulpit and the Fifty fifth Canon as explained by the general Practise is an allowance of it and therefore if the Exercise of Abilities be not excluded in our Church the pretence of restraint can never justifie a Separation from it Secondly The Objection is grounded on these false Suppositions that God is better served by conceived Prayers than by a publick Liturgy that the Church is less difyed by it that it is unlawful to lay a restraint upon private Gifts and that it is lawful to separate for better Edification and unless all these Propositions here precariously supposed to be true and I think he will find it impossible to prove them then his whole reasoning and the Crutches he has brought to prop it and the Pidgeons Lambs and Bullocks which attend it are plainly unserviceable to him His Pidgeons and Crutches are designed to intimate that a Form of Prayer is a cheap impotent unedifying way of Worship in Comparison of their extempore Effusions but this he should have proved for he knows we assert the contrary we think that Prayers are not more acceptable because they are inconsiderate or of private Composure that the Framers of our Liturgy were as well gifted as Dissenters that the Church may be better edifyed by the Spirit of the Church than by the Spirit of a Member and that those Prayers are fittest for the People which they are before acquainted with and wherein they are secured from Presumption and Impertinence Blasphemy and Nonsense He should have proved likewise that the Exercise of private Gifts cannot lawfully be restrained by publick Authority we know that even the miraculous Gifts of the Spirit were subject to restraint and we have an express Rule That the Spirit of the Prophets must be subject to the Prophets There is no Law no Reason nor Revelation against such a restraint on the contrary both Reason and Religion do require that the use of private Abilities be regulated by publick Order and that the vain Ostentation of them be restrained * Epist 87. ad Prot. Aug. Calvin has expresly declared for the necessity of prescribing Forms To remedy the simplicity and unskilfulness of some to testifie the Consent of all the Churches in the same Prayers and to prevent the desultory Lightness of those who affect Novelty In short all the Foreign reformed Churches do either use or approve of prescribed Liturgies the old Nonconformists always allowed them and even the Presbyterian Directory prescribed every thing but Words and if private Spirits may be restrained to Sense and Matter why not to Form and Language also Lastly Admitting that such restraint is unlawful and that conceived Prayers are more edifying than Forms he should then have proved that it is lawful to separate for better Edification The antient Puritans thought otherwise and so did the Presbyterian Assembly in their Controversie with the Independents See Vnreasonableness of Separation pt 1. and so both Reason Experience and Revelation do convince us that the restraint of private Gifts will not justifie the dividing of Christ that the silenceing an able Minister is not so mischievous as Schism that the Pretences of better Edification is the fruitful Parent of endless Separations and that the Church which is in the House of the living God cannot be built or edified by being torn in pieces and destroyed Thus have I considered at large his Discourse about Liturgies it is the principal Fort and Bulwark of his Cause and the slight defences which remain will be easily demolished 4. The Point that follows next is the abjuring of the solemn League and Covenant as in it self an unlawful Oath and imposed on the Subjects of the Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom And is it not extreamly modest in these Men to Quarrel at the State for requiring them to renounce an Impious and Rebellious Covenant was it reasonable to admit such men into the Offices of the Church as were sworn and obstinately resolved to extirpate the whole Government of it But let us consider the Reasons which he urges against the abjurating that Covenant 1. There are many learned Preachers that never redd a Law Rook they know nothing of Manna Charta Bracton Littleton Cook Common Law or Statute Law is it reasonable then to require them to declare the Covenant is contrary to known Laws and Liberties which they are utterly unacquainted with Indeed there is no necessity that a good Preacher should be an able Lawyer and much less is it necessary to read over a Lawyers Library to be convinced that the Covenant was illegal can none but profound Lawyers know that Felony and Burglary are against our Laws and Liberties Does not every sensible man know that the impofit on of an Oath without Law to warrant it is contrary to it and that nothing is Law which has not the concurrence of King Lords and Commons to enact it have these Ministers never heard of the * 3 Car. 1. c. 1. S. 2. Petition of Right which declares all others without Law to be against our Laws and Liberties Or can they tell us by what Law the Covenant was established was it not imposed without the Concurrence of the King and against his express Command had they never heard of the Oaths and Laws about the Kings Supremacy and is not the * Vid. indicium Acad Oxoniensis de solrum Freder p. 8. 14. Cotenant plainly Contradictory to it and Lastly do they not know that this Abjuration is required by an Act of Parliament and what need then of consulting Law Books about a Covenant for which there is no President in them when the Legislative Power it self has declared the unlawfulness of it it is manifest this Ignorance is affected time was when they were so well acquainted with Laws and Liberties that they preached the People into a Rebellion for them in the Covenant it self they swore expresly * Artic. 3. to preserve the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom if then they knew those Liberties can they now be unacquainted with them or is it not as lawful to abjure as to swear without knowledge Article 1. They swore to preserve the Religion of the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government and was there one in a Thousand of the Covenanters that had a competent knowledge of these particulars How could it be imagined that he common People should know them and yet they never scrupled to exhort
to the Word of God and the same in effect which had been for 1500 Years in the Church of Christ and let any one now consider whether our first Reformers were not fully satisfied with the Liturgy But he adds they ingenuously confess they came short of the Primitive Discipline and that the Reformation should have been carried on higher if the Times would have given leave They confess they could not revive the ancient Discipline of Lent and they desired a higher Conformity to the Primitive Church not in relation to the Hierarchy and Liturgy but in the strictness of Mens Lives and the impartial severity of publick Penance Yet says he they had then their Government by Bishops Archbishops Chancellors Archdeacons c. as we have at this day They had so and were fully satisfied with it and there were no Protestants in that Age that separated from it Archdeacon Philpot Archbishop Cranmer and several Bishops our first Reformers and Martyrs approved that Government and lived and died in the Administration of it they did not permit it only as Moses did Divorces to the Jews because of the hardness of their Hearts as this Minister does falsely insinuate but they never intimated the least Suspition of its unlawfulness and they plainly * Preface to the Book of Ordin 〈◊〉 declared Episcopacy to be evidently founded upon Scripture and Apostolical Institution But these Reformers and Martyrs were ignorant of those things which are now known unto Women and Artificers poor Men they were under a dispensation of Darkness and the Gospel-Light of Separation was totally hidden from them Secondly he observes That it is more than 1â—00 Years since these good Men recorded their Desires of Restoring the said Discipline and is it enough say he that the Church carries her good Wishes with her through all Generations Enough certainly while the Restoring that Discipline is impossible Our first Reformers could not revive it because the universal and incorrigible Wickedness of that Age could not endure the Yoke of Primitive Penance and are scandalous Offenders now less numerous or loss incorrigible If the Reformers are excusable much more our present Governors by how much the present Age is more untractable and more obstinate against the Bands of Discipline Is it possible now to reduce Offenders to the Primitive Humiliations the Fastings and Watchings the Sackcloth and Ashes the Prostration at the Church Doors and the other Austerities of Ancient Penance Will any of the Dissenter's submit to this Discipline as a satisfaction for their Schism If such an impracticable Discipline were imposed these Ministers would presently cry out Popery encourage all Offenders to oppose it and set open the Doors of their Conventicles to receive them such an Imposition would be vain and pernicious it would scandalize the weak and alienate the obstinate and serve only to empty our Churches and crowd the Conventicles and though for that reason they may desire it yet the Church is not obliged to prescribe a Remedy that will make the Physician contemptible and the Patient incurable The restoring of that Salutary Discipline as the reviving of Primitive Piety may be always wish'd for but perhaps will never be attained but the licentious Wickedness of the present Times the general Contempt of all the Censure of the Church and the manifold Schisms with which it is rent in pieces do make it now impossible and if it were established it is not to be hoped that the obstinacy of the Dissenters would be subdued nor their Aversion to the Church be reconciled by it I intend not to follow this Minister through his tedious Digression about Reformation and much less to ramble with him as far as the Temple at Jerusalem to which forsaking his Text and his Purpose he undertakes a Pilgrimage and returns with these wise Observations * P. 22 23. That the Temple was built upon Ornan 's Barn that this Ornan was of Princely descent because he had a Princely Mind and that Temple-Work is hard Work 't is Threshing Thus after a long Journey he brings back nothing but Apes and Peacocks as himself observes of some who ramble into the Indies These are the Saving Doctrines for which this Thresher is admitted by his Hearers and since a Barn is his Delight may he never Thresh in the Houses of GOD nor profane those Sanctuaries that are consecrated to his Worship But I return to Reformation and in Answer to his Harrangue about it I desire it may be remembred 1. That this Minister does not seek the same Reformation which was sought by Christ and his Apostles for Presbytery is not the Gospel neither is Extirpation of Bishops the Propagation of Christianity 2 Reformation is very good in it self and the Churchmen are for it much more than the Dissenters but they cannot be convinced that the removing Decency Order and an Apostolical Government is Reformation they know that this is the usual Vizard to disguise Sacrilege Avarice and Ambition and that the Sectaries endeavour not to reform the Church but to destroy it that they may seize on its Inheritance and withall they cannot but reflect upon the experience which we have had of Sectarian Reformation when Prelatical Government was reformed into no Government and a sober Liturgy into Enthusiasm and 39 Articles into infinite Heresies that could scarce be parallell'd in all the ancient Catalogues and in stead of the Power of Godliness there ensued such an Inundation of Wickedness as no Age could parallel This was observed by the * For instance by Edwards in his Gangraina Presbyterians themselves and an ingenious Foreigner who then resided at London made this Observation upon those Times * A Letter of a Noble Venetian to Ca. Barbarino Translated and Printed 1648. p. 19. one of the Fruits says he of this Blessed Parliament and of these two Sectaries Presbyterians and Independants is that they have made more Atheists than I think there are in all Europe besides and if we judge of the Tree by its Fruits and desire to see no more such Reformations have they reason to blame us for it 3. It should be considered that no pretence of Reformation can justifie Separation from a Church in which no sinful Terms of Communion are imposed There is no Church in the World which is free from all Corruptions in Doctrine Worship Discipline or Manners and if the want of some Reformation be a just reason for Renouncing Communion the Unity of the Church is nothing but a Notion and it will be lawful for every Man to separate from all the Churches in the World for it is only the Triumphant Church in Heaven which is perfectly without spot and blemish Defect of Discipline and purer Communion were the pretences of the Donatist and Novatian Schisms but they were condemn'd by the Catholick Church and * Aug. con Parmen Epis lib. 2 3. Tom. 7. S. Austin proves at large against the Donatists that Corruption in Discipline or Manners