speak there as dedicating his own Child to God and forbid us to urge him to be present Yet are they utterly disagreed of the Child's title Some say it is from God's Covenant only and that all Children on Earth have title and want but one to offer them to Baptism as he may take in an exposed Orphan Some say that the God-fathers Act is his Title to Baptism Some say it is the Churches Faith And by the Church some mean the Ministers some mean that Parish some mean the Diocesan Church some the National Church and some the Universal Church But you seem to think the title is from the Parent but you speak it not out nor much meddle with the case and the Church seemeth not to be of that mind though St. Paul say Else were your Children unclean but now are they holy § 2. But you say The Parent is not excluded nor forbid to be present Ans. But 1. No man in the Town is forbid to be present Doth it follow that any man giveth title to the Child who may but be present if he will If the Parents Faith were thought necessary to the Title or a Pro-parents the Book would require it and require the Minister to take account of it or at least would suffer the Parent to be one of the Sponsors or to speak one word of Sponsion all which is expresly forbidden by the Canon and by the Book appropriated to others § 3. But you say If he will he may profess and Covenant for his Child yea the Minister may and ought to urge and require him Ans. What and yet Conform When he is forbid and the Minister forbid to suffer it § 4. But say you The Canon is no part of the Liturgy nor are we bound to it wherein it is against the Liturgy and good Order Ans. 1. By the Can. 36. we are all to subscribe to use no other form in Administring the Sacraments but the Liturgy And you shall be no Minister here if you subscribe not to that Canon though you should say It is against good Order 2. The Liturgy it self appropriateth the whole Sponsion to the God-Fathers 3. Our question is of the Churches sense herein And it is the same Church the made the Canons and still owneth them Therefore in the Canon the Church expoundeth her sense more obligingly than you or any Bishop can expound it So that for you to assent and consent to the form of Baptism in the Churches sense and when you have done to say that you may and must go against it because the Canon binds not is a method of Conforming which I will not follow you in § 5. What you tell me of my Decision in my Directory is nothing to our present Case But you say The Canon supposeth the Parents as present or Consenting and Principal for he procureth the God-Fathers and the Sureties are his Deputies or Seconds and yet undertakes not the Parents duty Ans. I have proved to you that the Canon or Church neither foundeth the Title in the Parent nor permitteth him any Sponsion and professedly layeth it all on the God-Fathers saying That it is by that the Child believeth and promiseth performeth c. And no such word of the Parents Faith Nay all Children of Infidels or Atheists must be thus Baptized This therefore is your meer disproved Fiction Secondly That the Parent must procure the God-Fathers no way proveth that he is supposed to be a Christian or Consent or that he is the Principal Sponsor For it is for the Child's sake that the Law bindeth him to get Sponsors and all Atheists and Infidels among us are bound to send their Children with Sponsors to be Baptized as well as Christians § 6. You say The Sureties undertake not to do the Duties of a Parent nor more than they can do c. Ans. Then it is not undertaken at all For all that is to be undertaken is by them and nothing at all required of the Parents § 7. As to the Interrogatories and Profession that the Child is said to Repent Believe forsake the Devil Consent c. and not only to be the Child of one that Repenteth Believeth which is his Title you say it is but to oblige the Infant But professing to Believe and Repent at present and promising to do it hereafter are different things But you say These words may be submitted to till better may be had Ans. And why may you not say so of any Untruth But the question is whether they may be Consented to and approved § 8. As to the great Question Whether it be the Intention of the Book that we deny Baptism to such as cannot procure God-Fathers and God-Mothers or to such as out of Conscience scruple and refuse to procure them and will stand as Undertakers themselves You say No surely Ans. Alas how little know you what the Conformity is which you defend 1. Are not all Ministers to subscribe to Administer the Sacraments in no other Form than the Liturgy Canon 36. 2. Doth not the Liturgy make the God-Fathers Office necessary and a great part of the Baptismal Office is the Ministers Speech to them and their Answer and the Charge laid on them Can you say all these words if no Sponsor be there Or can you have such Answers 3. Doth not the Church Command that no Parent be God-Father to his own Child and no Questions or Answers be used but the words of the Liturgy 4. And did you ever know a Child Baptized without any Sponsor You rightly call your self The Non-conforming Conformist for you plead for it and against it in the same Lines Your contradiction meeteth through all your Book § 9. You add If it be lawful to violate a Divine Command to save the life of a Beast the Sabbath sure it is lawful to violate a Humane Rule or Order rather than cast Infants out of the Church and deny them Christian Baptism Ans. It is so And therefore it is unlawful to Consent to that which I must not do and to Covenant to use that which I must not use If I must not obey it I must not Covenant to obey it But perhaps you mean that the Law-makers intended that in such cases the Ministers have leave to violate it and admit Men to the Communion that will not have God-Fathers for God intended such liberty in his Law Ans. God's Law was not violated by David the Priests or the Disciples in the instanced cases of the Sabbath For he never forbad them what they did in those Circumstances Yea his Law had been violated I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice had they done otherwise and he hath no Contradictory Laws It is said that the Priests in the Temple brake the Sabbath and are blameless that is They violate materially the outward rest of the Sabbath but they violate not God's Law else they were not blameless But you can prove no such things by the Church Laws in question as that
to approve of all things contained in the Book whatever you shall say or do I would have done as Iohn Fox the Martyrologist did saith Heylin who brought a Greek Testament supposing the Hebrew old Testament and said to them I am ready to subscribe this If that will not serve your turn take my Prebendship of Salisbury which is all the Preferment that ever I had of you and much good may it do you § 2. And you tell us without proof that when at Christmas we are bid say As on this day Christ was born for divers Days it intends not that we shall use the words this Day but on one Day and so at Whitsuntide c. That is It expresly imposeth the very words that we shall read forbidding us by the Canon to alter or diminish and yet it meaneth not that we should use them May you not then say what you list which you think should have been commanded you and suppose it the meaning of the Command You say This is but a favourable interpretation You should have said truly It was their oversight which if they had seen they had amended And I do not say that they meant amiss But if they speak amiss and our humble Prelates that are Servi servorum Dei come after them and command me on pain of Silence to Assent Consent to and Approve the words they shall take my Liberty and Life if they will but I will not Approve them It is all things in the Book that we must Consent to whatever was in their Minds If they bid me Approve the saying that Christ's Body and Blood is really present under the forms of Bread and Wine and mean as well by it as Cousins Heylin c. did I will not Approve it though you should Though Luther de Conciliis Dav. Derodon say that Nestorius meant soundly yet the Councils condemned him for a Heretick and owned not his words whatever he meant § 3. But you say It is not that the old Book was faultless but that They were fully persuaded in their judgments that it was so Ans. You think this but a favourable Interpretation too But by your leave If they had said that we are fully persuaded in our judgment that the Council of Trent hath nothing contrary to the Word of God and then required me to declare my Assent and Consent to all things contained in that Book I should not have done it If you understand the words so others will not CHAP. XXVI § 1. YOu next undertake to prove that the Act of Uniformity is no part of the Book to be Consented to The Contents say it is You say it is not Are these Contents part of the Book If so Then they are false If not How shall we know what is or is not part of the Book Your Proofs are no Proofs 1. You say The Act it self nameth the Book as distinct from the Law Ans. And what then No more followeth but that the word Book is sometime taken in the full sense and sometime more narrowly So the Body is oft distinguished from the Head and the Kingdom from the King Will you therefore infer that the Head is no part of the Body nor the King of the Kingdom fully taken The Preface is usually distinguished from the Book and so is the Index or Contents Margin Title c. And yet Preface Index Contents Title Margin of the Book are all parts of the Book Your second Proof is of the same sort § 2. Your third saith The Book must rather if either be a part of the Act because it is subjoined Would you by this rate of Argument convince us Is the Book part of the Preface or Contents or Index if these go first Is the House part of the Porch or the Porch part of the House Is the Body part of the Head or the Kingdom part of the King or the Family part of the Porter But you say It is absurd to say that the thing to which the Appendix is annexed is part of the Appendix It is so therefore say not so your self But is not the Appendix part of the Book And doth the Acts being placed first make it no Appendix And were it put in the end were it not the same thing § 3. Your Fourth is no better viz. The Old Act of Uniformity is a declared part of the Contents and bound up with the Book and if this be part we must subscribe contradictions to use two Common-Prayer-Books Ans. Is that old Act the old Book Is subscribing to that Act subscribing to the old Book Why obtrude you on us such things unproved 2. Do you not know that the New Act not only confirmeth the Old but also altereth the sense of it and tells you that henceforth it shall be understood as meaning this New Book And as Bishop Taylor truly tells you Laws are not the Laws of the dead but of the living who therefore give them what sense they please And yet shall so sober a man tell us That subscribing the Old Act is subscribing the Old Book I begin to be weary answering such reasonings as these § 4. Your fifth and sixth Reasons are from the general sense and opinion of all Divines as for you And you say Never any to this day did think that the 36th Canon and Subscription included the Act. Ans. You now practice what you plead for Can you tell what every Subscriber to this day thought He is yet living that at the Savoy undertook to prove it an Act of Mercy to them to put all from the Sacrament that did not receive it kneeling And you know that All the Bishops in the Lords House had their part in making that Act of Uniformity with all its penalties And as certainly they did consent to the making and imposing of it so what should make you sure that they never meant no not one of them that any others should be bound to the same when they put it into the Book and put in the words All things contained and when it is so natural to such men to desire that all men approve of what they do I should think it ten to one that they that think it their duty to do such a thing as the silencing of two thousand Ministers on those terms or five thousand if they had not conformed will be very much concerned to have their act approved And that they that will not endure us to speak in the praying Desk or at either Sacrament to God in any one word but what they write down for us to say are likely to desire that we may be also bound to approve of their Sanctions of this Law But I am sure you speak that which you know not to be true § 5. To your Seventh I answer What would have plainer than the express Assertion of the Contents themselves § 6. In your Eighth you say Many Conformable men think Nothing in the Book is to be assented to but what is
cohabit or dwell near The confutation is I conceive he is out Ans. What is he against Parish Churches after all this No He only denieth it of a transient Member pro tempore as a Traveller and granteth it as to a stated Member And yet I am out Many and many a time have I written of Churches and use to distinguish first of the Equivocal Name saying That an occasional meeting of Christians for Worship may be called a Church and a transient Christian pro tempore a Member I have written more this way than ever he did But declared that it is a settled Political Society that I defined when I speak of what he now accuseth And why should a wise and good Man thus hastily trouble the World and make discord by pretending because he cannot have leisure to know what he speaks against § 3. My third Error is That to the being of a particular Church there is necessary a mutual Covenant or exprest consent between Pastor and People even every Member and the more express the better And I define a Church to be a Society of Christians consisting of Pastor and People associated by consent The force of the Confutation is I conceive he is out But wherein is it We have here such work as I never met with before 1. He granteth that none are to each other Pastor and People against their Wills Good still And yet do I err But saith he as Christ is Christ and a Saviour by Office whether Sinners will or not So faithful Ministers are Pastors by Office whether the People accept them or no. Reader it is not the least blemish of my Writings that on divers occasions I oft repeat the same things And many a time have I distinctly said 1. That the Ordainers judge who shall be a Minister of Christ in general 2. The Magistrate is judge whom he will Countenance Maintain or Tolerate 3. And the People must be consenting judges to whom they will trust the conduct of their Souls As it 's one thing to be a Licensed Physician and another to be Physician to this Hospital or Person If this Brother mean otherwise what meant he by saying that No Man can be a Pastor to a People against their will Doth he say and unsay in the next Lines Is Christ any Man's actual Saviour whether they believe in him and accept him or not I have oft said that in divers Cases the People may be bound in duty to Consent as all are bound to be Christians But they are no Christians or Church-members till they do Consent What then is it that he meaneth as our Difference § 4. Yes He saith No more is necessary to the being or well-being of a particular Church than this A company of Christians met together in publick for the Solemn Worship of God by Iesus Christ having a Pastor or Minister with them to guide and govern the Congregation and edifie himself and them by the Word and Sacraments where there is no Assembly of Pastor and People there is no Church and no longer than the Assembly lasteth are they a Church Ans. Did the World ever here this Doctrine before When the Church at Ierusalem Corinth Cenchrea Colosse Laodicea c. and the Churches in Iudea Galatia c. are mentioned when the Apostles ordained them Elders in every Church Acts 14. 23. Tit. 1. 3 5. c. Is the word Church here taken for no Christians longer than they are Assembled Doth not Scripture Canons Fathers and all Writers speak of Churches as Associated Christians remaining Churches all the Day and Year and not only while Assembled If the word Church may be taken for a Transient Assembly doth it follow that there is no other Have we so many Books of Ecclesiastical Policie if there be no Political Society that is a particular Church What an unpleasing talk is it to be put on a defence against such an Opponent § 5. Saith he I would but ask Mr. Baxter what is it that you mean by Associated by consent Ans. Have I in the Books cited by you so largely told you what I mean and must you print the Question before you will take an Answer Saith he Either you mean bare Assembling or some other thing Ans. Will you better understand me if I write it again than you did before When I told you at large in what Cases express consent by words or other signs is meet and that where the Laws settle Parish Churches ordinary attendance and submission to the Pastor's Office must be taken for express Consent But then I do hold that there is such a Church as I describe and that the Parish is not Unchurcht when the Assembly is dismist § 6. He saith When the Assembly breaks up the Church for that time ceaseth till the Meeting be renewed till which time they remain Christian Inhabitants Neighbours Families Parishioners or Sojourners the Pastor of the place dwelling among them Ans. In your Equivocal sense of a Church this is true In the Political sense they are a Church still as the Parliament Citizens Souldiers are a Parliament City Army when they Assemble not If your wrangle be de re do you deny their continued Relation If it be de nomine let the Scripture and all Nations judge whether the name Church belong to them no longer than they are Assembled 1. Then all that stay at Home or are Sick are no Church-members 2. Then the Bishop or Pastor hath no Church but while Assembled And he hath no Duty to perform for his Church but while Assembled 3. This is quite contrary to our Diocesans who say as honest Mr. Cawdry himself that a Diocess is the first particular Church and that it is no matter how many Assemblies it consist of and that there is no Church without a Bishop and so that we have no more Churches than Bishops 4. If a Bishop build a Temple on London Road where Travellers shall be his ordinary Hearers whom he shall never see again this is a Temporary Transient Church but verily it is another sort Church that is described in Scripture and by Ignatius Cyprian and all Church-writers And when the Bishop was to visit the Sick and take care of the Poor and to exhort from House to House it was as for a Church and not meerly as for Christian Neighbours And do you think no more consent was necessary to his special Duty to these more than to others and theirs to him than bare Assembling Atheists Infidels Hereticks may Assemble with the rest and Catechumens ordinarily did so and were never made themselves the judges whether and when they should be Baptized and admitted to Communion but the Pastors were the judges § 7. As to your oft mentioning the words Covenants and Oaths for such Church Associations as if I had written for Oaths or had not written against all needless Covenants which though you say not your words would make the Reader believe whilst over and over it is