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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31349	Catholicon, the expediency of an explicit stipulation betwixt the parochial ministers and their congregations, or, An essay to prove that the intervention of solemn mutual promises betwixt the parochial ministers and their people (faithfully to discharge their relative duties to one another) would be useful and expedient for these ends to promote in clergy-men regularity of life, and diligence in their ministerial function, to increase in the lay parishioners, Christian knowledge, sincere godliness, with a free and friendly conversation, to give a stop to separation, and reduct dissenters to the communion of the church without using secular compulsion, to secure the peace of the nation, to inlarge trade, and make provision for the poor, and that all may be effected without the least innovation, or alteration of the present legal establishment of the Church of England humbly tendred to the consideration of all English Protestants / by a parochial minister.	Parochial minister.	1674 (1674)	Wing C1498; ESTC R17127	21,417	32

by the Spirit of God who alone gives the increase whoever endeavours to plant or water be Conversion Multitudes to the praise of the Glory of the Grace of God have been and are daily Converted by the Ministry of the Church of England But yet I apprehend and shall endeavour to make it good in this present Essay that not only the more immediate ends of the Ministry would probably be more effectually promoted by such an explicit Confeederation intervening betwixt the Parochial Ministers and their people but many other appendant advantages would thence refult to the whole body of the Nation as I have insinuated in my Title-page I presume that all knowing Christians will grant that the ends wherefore Christ by his Apostles did institute Ministers in the Churches I mean amongst persons already converted to the faith were at least these following That they might watch over the souls of their flocks that they might administer to them the Word and Sacraments that they might in the name of their people assembled with them and with the concurrence of their peoples hearts and mouths also at least in saying Amen offer up Confession of Sins Prayers Praises and Thanksgivings in the publick Assemblies That they might Instruct Admonish Reprove and Comfort their People as their condition should require and that not only in publick Preaching and Catechising but in Personal Conference and by teaching from House to House That they might visit the Sick and promote the due relief and maintenance of the Poor of the Flock That they might baptize the Children of Believers and Adult Persons duly qualified and that they might receive to the full Communion of the Church in the Eucharist such Minor Members as being baptized in their Infancy are grown up to a due measure of the knowledge of God and Christ and his Gospel and are of unblameable lives and do make solemn profession to stand to their vow made in Baptism That all these are duties incumbent upon Ministers even under the Parochial Form I hope will be granted and shall not trouble my Reader with a proof of them till they are contradicted And that no Law of the Land or Ecclesiastical Constitution restrains any Parochial Minister from the faithful discharge of all those duties is undeniably evident in that those Laws confirm to Ministers their setled Maintenance for this very cause that they might be encouraged to be faithful in the service of God and of his Church in the premised duties And it is evident also that the most Reverend Fathers of the Church the Bishops would not only encourage Ministers to be faithful herein as some of us have found by address to our pious and learned Diocesans but that they would also rejoyce over such diligent and faithful Ministers and thank God for them and make mention of them in their prayers without ceasing So that upon an impartial search I believe it will be found that one of the chiefest reasons why this work is not done more effectually is to be laid to the charge of Parochial Ministers and their People And the greatest hindrance of them in doing mutually their duties herein will I presume be found to be this Because Ministers enter upon their charge with so little of solemnity and without such particular application to the people at their entrance as might advantage them in their future work For if we consult common experience we shall find that when any Persons enter upon any Office of Trust for others benefit the want of due solemnity at their entrance doth not only render them less careful to consider and discharge their duty but also those for whose benefit Officers are intrusted are both less inclined to submit to them in the discharge of their Office and more prone contumaciously to oppose and discourage their Officers when they attempt faithfully to do their duty Now it is but a little engine that I propose as likely to remove this and other great weights and mischiefs with Namely that at every Ministers entrance upon his charge there should pass a solemn Stipulation and Promise betwixt him and his People and the same should also with all convenient speed be solemnly made betwixt those Ministers who are already setled in Parishes and their People I shall not be so presumptuous as to impose upon any of my Brethren any forms of my own devising But yet that my Reader may clearly understand what I aim at it is necessary that I set down some form of words which might be suitable for the transaction of that solemnity Though I know that abler persons will easily find more apt and more comprehensive terms than mine are I will therefore suppose that some such forms as these following may conveniently be devised for this business I N. N. legally presented instituted and inducted into the Rectory or Vicaridge of N. in the Diocess of N. do solemnly promise in the presence of God to the Parishioners of the said Parish of N. That during my legal imcumbency and possession of the said Rectory or Vicaridge I will through the Grace of God endeavour faithfully to discharge amongst them and for their benefit the Ministry which I have received of the Lord I will declare to them the Gospel of the Grace of God in Jesus Christ and instruct them in the saving truths thereof both by publick Preaching and Catechising and by private conference as I have opportunity I will labour to secure them from those that would pervert them to either sins or errors I will endeavour to establish the weak to comfort the disconsolate and to reform the disorderly by admonition and reproof or if any continue obstinate after my private reproof I will proceed in my endeavours for their reformation in such effectual ways as the Gospel of Christ and the Laws of the Land do warrant me to pursue I will visit their sick and endeavour that due provision be made for the Poor of the Parish I will constantly at due periods of time unless hindred by sickness or other lawful impediments administer amongst them the Sacraments and other parts of publick worship according to the authorized forms of the Church of England I will prepare their Children by Catechising that they may be confirmed by the Bishop of the Diocess where such confirmation can with due solemnity and conveniency be obtained or that they may be admitted to full communion with the Church in the Sacrament commonly called the Lords Supper upon their serious profession to stand to the Covenant which they made in Baptism And in my discharge of all this I shall submit my self to the oversight and guidance of the Lord Bishop of the Diocess Witness my Hand The Parishioners may subscribe some such form as this I N. N. Inhabitant of the Parish of N. in the Diocess of N. do promise by the Grace of God to live as becomes the Gospel in charity with all men and unity of more special love with the visible Catholick

Catholicon THE EXPEDIENCY OF AN EXPLICIT STIPULATION BETWIXT THE Parochial Ministers AND THEIR CONGREGATIONS OR An ESSAY to prove that the Intervention of Solemn Mutual Promises betwixt the Parochial Ministers and their people Faithfully to discharge their Relative Duties to one another would be useful and expedient for these ends To promote in Clergy-men Regularity of Life and Diligence in their Ministerial Function To increase in the Lay Parishioners Christian Knowledge Sincere Godliness with a Free and Friendly Conversation To give a Stop to Separation and Reduce Dissenters to the Communion of the Church without using Secular Compulsion To secure the Peace of the Nation To inlarge Trade and make Provision for the Poor And that all this may be effected without the least Innovation or alteration of the present Legal Establishment of the Church of England Humbly tendred to the Consideration of all English Protestants by a Parochial Minister London Printed 1674. THE PREFACE I Intend not in this Treatise to give Rules to any of my Brethren much less to prescribe to Authority But I presume that so far as the Holy Scriptures and the Laws of the Land and sound Prudence appear on the side of my undertaking it will find peaceable reception with all who adhere yet to the Protestant Church of England and I desire no man to admit it further than that warranty is annexed And it being designed only to promote the good ends mentioned in the Title-page I may expect that it will not find a bitter Adversary if any amongst the Dissenters from the Order of Worship and Discipline legally established amongst us For no man hath just reason to be angry if Consenters to that Order endeavour to promote amongst themselves Christian knowledge with an holy Conversation by building upon the antient Foundations namely the Holy Scriptures and Sound Antiquity with their Primitive most prudent Reformation I do not disown it that my endeavours in this discourse are in part collined at the stopping the growth of rigid Separation But the means I use is only such as many consist with Sincere and Christian Charity to all Dissenting Brethren and a real desire of their Peace And that which put me upon this undertaking was a firm perswasion that keeping up the Parochial Assemblies of the Church of England in that good Order and Unity which the Gospel of Christ and the Laws of the Kingdom require is one of our strongest Fences and Securities against Prophaneness Strife Uncharitableness and other enemies of Sincere and Solid Christianity and that the Dissipation and breaking of the Parochial Churches will prove the pulling down our walls to bring in that Trojan Horse which our Gates are not wide enough to admit But yet I freely declare if the declaration of so mean a person be worth taking notice of by any that it was far from my intendment in this work to endeavour to obstruct any favours and relaxations which may be thought to be intended by our Governours to Pious and Peaceable Dissenters in order to their bringing them in with fair salvoes to their Consciences to help with us to do the work of our Great Master with one heart and in one way And certainly the breaking in of the Floods of ungodliness upon the Age and Nation calls aloud for the uniting their and our strengths to bear up with arms and breasts against them And I am confident that my Proposals in this Paper will not be found to inlarge the distances amongst Brethren For the removal of which by pouring out upon us all a Spirit of Meekness Love and mutual Forbearance I daily pray to the God of Mercy and Peace which I beseech him to grant even in our days if it be his blessed will according to the unspeakable riches of his mercy towards Sinners in Christ Jesus our only Mediator and Saviour Amen CAP. I. An Account of the Nature of the Explicit Stipulation proposed THE Laws of this Land as well as the Institutions of the Church do suppose some Relation to intervene betwixt the Parochial Ministers and the people of their several Parishes committed to their Charge By a Parish I mean a compass of Ground containing in it such a number of Christian Inhabitants as may Ordinarily assemble at one place for publick worship and who are if duly qualified obliged by Law so to Assemble for the celebration of all parts of publick worship And not only by Law but by Scripture also in which there is not one example to be found of a Christian who did cohabit with and among Christians and yet ordinarily at times of worship did separate from them to go and assemble with other Christians elsewhere So that all Gospel Assemblies for worship were Coetus Parochianorum or Cohabitantium who might be ready to observe and help one another in relation both to temporal and spiritual wants and necessities This Relation of the Ministers of such Parochial Congregations to their people both obligeth and impowereth every such Minister to dispence the Word and Sacraments and perform other Ministerial duties to all the People of his Parish who are willing and duly qualified to receive them And the same Relation inableth such Parishioners to challenge at his hands the dispensation of the said Ordinances to them and obligeth them ordinarily to receive the same from him And it is far from me to intimate by these Papers that all or the greatest part of the present Parish Ministers of the Church of England are unsuccessful in their work assigned to them by the Word of God and the Laws of the Land For there are multitudes of Christians who are ready to come forth and own it That God made use of the Ministry of Conformists to awaken them to a serious consideration of the spiritual and eternal concernments of their souls and to bring them to a right understanding and practice of Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ and to a constant exercise of Mortification both of carnal and worldly lusts and to consecrate themselves intirely to live to the Glory of God their Maker and Saviour and to devote themselves to do or suffer any thing that may promote in themselves or others the knowledge and acknowledgement the fear trust and love of God with delight in him as our sufficient portion and submission to him as our Soveraign with Faith and Hope in our Lord Jesus Christ who of God is made unto us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption And they will further testifie that by the Preaching and Example of the Conforming Clergy they were brought to imbrace an universal Charity towards all men even enemies and to take up a more special Love and Delight in all those who own the fear of God and adorn the Gospel of Christ by an holy humble and useful conversation yea though such should dissent from them in the present minute differences about things Indifferent c. If to be wrought up to this frame

are already entred upon our imployments as that which is Preliminary would do to them that enter with it And that also it would make our Ministry more acceptable and successful for the future is not to be doubted Besides that this would influence the whole body of the Ministers to make them regular and exemplary in their conversation is a presumption so rational that I need not stay to prove it For no doubt Ministers thus solemnly obliging themselves to walk as Examples to their Flocks in all manner of holy Conversation would both in Conscience and prudence set a strict guard both over their lives and languages remembring the wo due to them by whom offences do come But I must further let my Reader know that my projection is not only that this Stipulation should once be solemny made and never after be publickly Recognized so that the Subscriptions of Ministers and People being locked up in the Parish-Chest should so remain till Worms and Moths had consumed the Parchment or Paper But this I think may prudently and piously be done further namely that on the Lords day before the day of the Celebration of the Communion whether monthly or quarterly or after celebrated the Minister should after Evening Prayers recount before the people the promises mutually given exhorting them to remember and faithfully to fulfil the same both towards him and towards one another and the whole Church of God and that he should promise on his part with all fidelity through the Grace of God to look to his discharge of his duty to them Next let us consider what are likely to be the effects of this Covenant amongst the people First That it would promote holiness of Conversation amongst them is warrantably inferred both because the Ministers oblige themselves to a more special and particular care of every single person of their Flock and they of the Flock are obliged to a mutual care of one another and every one by this Covenant obligeth himself sincerely to endeavour to walk as becomes the Gospel And this particularity of relation by solemn promise interceeding betwixt the Minister and them would put the Minister on to personal and private applications by way of instruction or admonition which have their effect ordinarily beyond the general declarations of the truths of the Gospel in Catechising or Preaching or general reprehensions of vices in such publick discourses Besides they would be under a constant expectancy that upon their irregularity they should be dealt with after our Saviours Method Matth. 18.15 And that when they had been personally and privately admonished and did not reform they should be notified to the Congregation and upon further obstinacy be presented to those publick Ecclesiastical Officers who are impowred by Law to take congnizance of the same And that such Presentments would not end only in paying the fees of the Court and some Commutation mony there Nor could they imagine that the Parochial Congregation to whom the Offence and Scandal was given should never inquire what is done upon the presentment or require satisfaction from the offending party before they received them to Communion again And we may reasonably presume that all the pious Fathers of the Church the Bishops with the Ecclesiastical Officers under them would take care that such satisfaction should be given by the Delinquent And none of this would bring any 〈◊〉 innovation or alteration in Church affairs And further that hereby the people would be spirited to a free and Christian Nieghbourhood amongst themselves is not at all to be 〈◊〉 seeing it is the Ordinary Consequence of Combinations to give to the Combined a mutual kindness and confidence to and in one another Nay more whereas all other combinations that are made on the principles of universal and Catholick recusancy of Communion with other Christians and there are more Catholick Recusants in England than Papists do narrow mens affections towards others and cause them to malign censure damn and despise those who are not of their own bran and leaven it may justly be hoped that this coalition and combinement founded on the truly Catholick Principles of the Church of England which unchurcheth not nor reprobateth Christians of any form that hold repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ would give such an impression of humility and charity to all the Parishioners as that the Dissenters themselves should find the blessed and benevolent warmth and influence of it whilst we endeavour to live in the exercise of Charity and mutual good offices with all conscientious Dissenters and follow peace both amongst our selves and with all men One thing more I hope I may mention without raising the scorn of any sorts of Readers namely That in process of time this procedure would not only reform scandalous Ministers but scandalous Livings also I mean those poor Livings as they are called upon which even a frugal person cannot live and provide things honest in the sight of all men for himself and for his family Which were not indeed so poorly endowed Originally but first by the Popes Appropriations of the great Tithes to Orders of Monks and Nuns and after by the Impropriations of the same by King Henry the 8th to Lay-men and by other incroachments of the Laiety both in pretended Prescriptions and several other wayes not proper here to be reckoned up many Parish-Church is especially in Cities and Corporations are d prived of a due maintenance for the Ministers And Religion thereby receives as much damage as by almost any one of Satans later projects against the same Against which I propose this Parochial Stipulation as a Remedy very probable to be effectual for undoubtedly the Combined Parishioners would by the permission of those in Authority and by the assistance of pious Patrons either buy in Impropriated Tithes or raise an honourable maintenance for their Minister some other way I will add further That whereas now upon the decay of strength in aged Ministers the People are left too oft only to the guidance of a Curate that is of small abilities and small allowance because many Livings will not afford better Salaries if a competency be cantinued to them who have spent their time and strength amongst the People We may warrantably hope that the people of the Parochial Combination will neither be so ungrateful to him who hath faithfully laboured amongst them as to urge a larger allowance from him than his income will bear nor will they be so unconcerned for their own souls as to forbear to raise by contribution a fit allowance for an able Assistant I will add this further That it cannot be feared that People thus ingaged will permit that the Parish Clarks should be licentious Ale-Drapers or otherwise loose or vain persons But they will require that they be of a prudent and inoffensive Conversation The like care we may hope that the Parishoners and Ministers would take about the Election of persons prudent and conscientious

us or soon admit the suspicion instilled by deceitful workers that we seek theirs not them But after this mutual contract hath made them secure that it is our care of them only that calls us to their help we may more easily perswade them impartially to consider both our arguments and the discourses written by pious and learned men in vindication of communion with us and for the cure of Church Divisions Add to this that it is more than probable that all the Parishioners of the league would be very careful to study how to defend their own Conformity to the Orders and Constitutions Ecclesiastical by Law established and would stand more zealously for the Credit of the same than now many of them think themselves obliged to do For it is obvious to observe that scarce a Separatist can be met with but is taught like one brought up in the School of War and Contention to say more by way of cavilling against the publick Settlement and our Communion therein than one in twenty of our Lay-Conformists can say for it because indeed they do not concern themselves in the study of those truths by which our Communion in the setled Order is justified But this explicit Covenant would make them think they are concerned in honour to be able to plead for their way And besides it would urge Ministers to maintain both publick and private conferences with their people about Church Order and other matters of Religion and Conferences are but Catechising the Elder sort as Catechising is conference with the Younger In short if either this or some other course be not taken to excite and quicken the Parochial Ministers and their Congregations jointly to endeavour either the reforming or else the putting away from among themselves the scandalous and notoriously vitious persons and to unite those who do yet own the setled Order and to fortifie them in the truth and obedience to the same we shall soon find that not only the Sectarian Catholick Recusant on the one side and the Popish Catholick Recusant on the other will daily get upon us and if our banks and shores be not better fortified those two working Seas will eat our Island quite through but also that prophaness will prevail and overspread us as a Leprosie which is most of all to be dreaded And whether of those two Catholick Recusants I mean whether the Romish or the complicated Sectarian will prevail against the other and keep the field if once the Church of England be diffolved which hath always been terrible to the Romanists as an Army with Banners is not difficult to foresee For how can the several little bodies and sects into which the other Dissenters from the English Protestantism will be crumbled by division upon division be able long to bear up against that united interest which the fine and subtile Romanists will obtain in this Nation acting in part under the Vizor of other Sects partly wearing their own profession openly For it is easie to observe how their Emissaries according to instructions seek another manner of Quarry fly at another sort of Game when they appear as Romanists than that which some of the other sects do follow They strive not so much to ingage Meticulous Scrupulous Women and Mechanicks or narrow spirited Melancholists or Opinionative Burgers and Traders these the Romish Fishermen seek not after but if any such come to their Net they cast them not away But their most taking Arts are laid out for the inveigling young and pregnant Wits in the Universities or elsewhere who may be trained up to write Polemicks and practise Politicks and to ingage Persons of Honour and Interest amongst the Nobility and Gentry not mattering what their Morals are who are likely to be of great importance in the legal alteration or settlement of a Nation and those whom they have gained in their concealed and by-trade as Undertakers and Brokers for other Sects they will easily turn over into their great bank when they find it seasonable to unmask themselves And this Mystery of iniquity hath been and is still working only that which hath letted will lett till it is taken out of the way namely the legal establishment of the Church of England owned by his sacred Majesty and the Laws CAP. IV. The Expediency of the Explicit Promises to secure publick Peace THat the publick Peace of Nations is the most valuable temporal blessing that men enjoy is without dispute And that the peace of England would be in a great measure secured by this Parochial Covenant may easily be evidenced For first the Doctrine of the Church of England doth so influence all that are Genuine Sons thereof as renders them the best Subjects in the World and makes them obey the King and the Laws for Conscience sake in all lawful things and restrains from resistance on any account civil or religious lest they should receive to themselves damnation Whether any of the Catholick Recusants whether Romish or otherwise Sectarians be so disposed to Obedience to Authority let their own Writings and Practises witness in the Gate for it is not agreeable to the peaceable design of these Papers to question other mens Loyalty who own Religion under any form But the Sons of the Church of England have givne sufficient evidence that in Conscience of their Allegiance by Law required they will not only not resist but if occasion be they will fight for their Soveraign and the established Laws and venture life and estate in that just Service And if their own sins and the sins of the Nation render their arms succesless they will not only pray still for their Soveraign but suffer with him yea though they should know beforehand that Zibah the false Informer should keep half sequestred Mephibosheths estate even after our Lord the King was returned in peace So that his Majesty might be assured that this Parochial Combination would give the Royal Interest the strongest ●ooting in the hearts of his subjects But besides this way of securing publick peace by right principling the Subjects the Parochial Covenant would do much also towards prevention of rebellion For it is no small advantage to Governours in order to the preventing of seditions to know beforehand from what quarter they are most likely to rise and blow And without all doubt it a new Civil War should spring up in England in our daies which God in mercy prevent his Majesty might have the Muster-roles of his Enemies by requiring the Catalogues of them who in the several Parishes because of their prophaness are refused or through other pretences do refuse to combine in Conformity But yet far be it from me to design to intimate that the Scrupulous Dissenters would make the main body and bulk of any Rebellious Army or would be the head and contrivers of the War there are amongst them unquestionably many who fear God and the King But we have rather reason to suspect that as it was in

measure now manifested to be like to produce such a general benefit may be objected against as impracticable by reason of the weakness of the present Ministry of the Church of England few of which are equal as to parts and prudence for the management of such a work as this is Answ My answer is very short and peremptory if I only say then let them be deprived of their places and more able Persons put in their rooms But I rather answer that notwithstanding the slanderous insinuations of some prophane Droles and other malignants I am confident to assert That there are not many of the Clergy of England and indeed it is not fit there should be any who are not able from the Scriptures of the New and Old Testament to prove unto the People their misery both of guilt and impotency in their lapsed state And that God hath sealed a New Covenant in the blood of Christ wherein he hath promised through the propitiation of that blood to forgive and blot out the sins of the penitent believer and to give grace and power to resist corruption on those that are sincere and humble and smother not or stifle their convictions and to increase Grace from Christs fulness to the sincere and diligent and to secure by his Grace the humble and the watchful that they shall not fall away and that finally he will give to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for honour and glory and immortality eternal life I doubt not also but that they are able from the Scriptures to prove the contrary threatnings namely That they who resist Gods Spirit in its motions and convictions sinning against their light are in danger to be given over to a reprobate sense and to be estranged wholly from the life of God through a blinded mind and hardned heart and that the Impenitent and Unbelievers continuing such shall perish in their sins and that he who useth not his talents is like to lose them and that he who trusts to an old age repentance or a death-bed change is in danger to be cut off in his sins for combring the ground And that there is unsupportable and everlasting indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish certainly to come on all those who obey not the truth but obey unrighteousness and die in a state of impenitency and unbelief I do not question also but that most of the English Clergy are furnished with ability to prove the equity beauty and real pleasure and benefit of all the holy precepts of the Gospel and obedience to them not only from the direct testimony and assertion of the Scriptures but also by rational appeals to the light and experience of those of their Auditors who have not lost that dignoscitive power of their souls whereby their spiritual sense discerns betwixt good and evil which power whoever hath lost is not far from the condition of the damned spirits for he also is reserved in the chains of darkness to the judgement of the great day if God do not in a miracle of mercy break through that darkness wherein the resolved sinner hath shut up himself Such duties are these to love God with all our heart and to delight our selves in the manifestation of his glory by Jesus Christ and to love our Neighbour as our selves to forgive injuries to compassionate and help them who are miserable either by reason of sin or outward affliction to delight in those who are holy upon earth and to mortifie and crucifie worldly and carnal lusts and chearfully to bear the Cross when we suffer for righteousness sake I doubt not also but they can from Scripture and from the like rational applications and appeals prove the real danger unseemliness and unprofitableness of every sin with the real damage that sinners suffer by sin especially in their souls being thereby estranged from the life of God and more indisposed than before the perpetration of it to the reverence love and delight and confidence in God which is the life and happiness of all rational spirits I doubt not I say but most Ministers can prove this also to the conviction of them who will ponder and consider the sad influences of their own sins and have not sinned away the ability of tasting the good word of God and the powers of the world to come I do not know that I have set down either in the promises precepts or threatnings any but what is necessary to be known by all who live under the means of grace even by Lay-men And if a Parochial Minister hath a competent knowledge of these truths and can make them out to the conviction and instruction of honest plain men who desire to know what they must do to be saved and if withal the Teacher himself be of an holy humble and sober conversation he is not to be judged unfit for the Ministry because he hath not studied the Mathematicks or Modern Politicks or cannot humour his Discourses to the pleasing of their Gusto who go to the Theater with greater devotion than they do to the Church and prefer a modern and modish Play stuft with that they call wit namely interlardings of prophaness and scurrility far before a serious and seasonable but plane Sermon Object If it be objected further that every Minister that is able to Preach and instruct plain men is not able to manage the guidance of a Parochial Congregation wherein may be persons of great learning and parts and quality the Nobility Gentry Lawyers and Physicians of the Nation and can any imagine that these will subject themselves by explicit Promise to the oversight of the Parochial Clergy many of which want both experience and prudence to rule their own Houses well how shall they then take care of the House of God Answ I Answer that supposing those Persons of great abilities and qualities to be Christians and Protestants they will think it agreeable to Scripture and reason to put themselves into the society of those Christians amongst whom they do cohabit for the celebration of publick worship administred by some person set apart to that office according to the Order of the Gospel If then they own themselves for members of the Church of England in their particular Parish Assemblies their quality and abilities do not exempt them from owning the Parish Minister as their immediate Pastor But on the contrary their better abilities oblige them to give so much more assistance and incouragement to him in his work And so the Minister who was not equal to the guidance of a Parish in the single strength of his own prudence will by the advice and countenance of such helps in Government be rendred more able and successful in his work And an humble and modest Minister cannot want help sufficient from God to make his work prosperous if he be sincere in aiming at Gods Glory and the good of his people And if through pride and self-willedness any balk the advice of