Ministers may break them by admitting such Persons to the Sacrament as it excludeth For 1. You Covenant to Administer only according to the Liturgy 2. The Canon punisheth all Ministers that give it against the Prohibition 3. And the Rubrick excludeth your supposed power of Dispensation Can you believe your self that the meaning of the Liturgy and Canon is None shall be admitted that desire not God-Fathers except such as will not out of an Erring Conscience Are those then admitted that through Prophaneness desire not God-Fathers If so then you make the sense to be Those that have not God-Fathers shall not be admitted to that Sacrament except all that will not viz. Conscienciously or Prophanely If not then the sense must be You shall admit none to that Sacrament that have no God-Fathers through Parents Prophaneness but all that have none through scruple of Conscience And who cannot pretend such scruple And who will not pretend it when that will justifie them And how would the Bishops reproach such an Exposition which either maketh every Priest a judge of Mens Hearts whether their pretence be true or not or else admitteth all that will not have God-Fathers while the admission of any of them is expresly forbidden It is a stretching Exposition indeed which is against the whole form of the Office and the express words of the Churches Canon No Parent shall be God-Father to his own Child Try whether any two Bishops in England will allow you any such Exposition If such be allowed in this Case why not in all other like it And so the meaning of Law Canons and Rubrick be You shall do thus except when you have Moral Reason against it such as is Mercy which must be preferred Do you know how many have been Fined and sent to Goal for Preaching though they pleaded for it Mercy to Mens Souls Do you believe that it was the meaning of the Parliament and Bishops You shall keep no Conventicles nor omit the Liturgy or Ceremonies or Subscription c. unless when Mercy is to be preferred They that have Auditors that cannot bear the Liturgy when they omit it in mercy to the Flock I pray you get us an authentick signification of this Sense The words cited by you in the Preface to the Articles of 1604 are impertinent to our business It followeth not that you have leave to break the Laws when you think mercy requireth it because they are not equivalent to the Eternal Word of God nor bind conscience as of necessity in the nature of them considered in themselves and not in the Authority of the Commander Again I ask Shall any man escape punishement by such a plea of mercy Are not two thousand Ministers silenced and more that pleaded Mercy to themselves and others for the reason of their Non-conformity Did your Learned Pious Moderate Bishop excuse you for that plea Doth not the express words of the Law and Canon and Rubrick and the sentence and execution of all Judges to this day confute your exposition and exception You truly say It is a sin to make a false construction of the Law But if against the express words and scope and common judgment and execution you will presume to put your sense which is merciful because Charity thinketh no evil Any thing almost may be so said consented to and sworn I have spoken with a Papist that hath taken the Oath of Supremacy and wrote for it because it is to be supposed that it is only the spiritual power called Pastoral which the Pope claimeth over England or such give him and only the Power of the Sword which the King claimeth and denyeth to him and Foreigners And he citeth a fairer pretence for his exposition than you do here for yours And thus all may take up the Oath of Supremacy that hold but the Popes Spiritual Supremacy over us and all the world What words can be so bad that a man may not feign in Charity a good sense of § 9. You say the Liturgy alloweth private Baptism without the Cross and God-fathers Ans. 1. Thence I must gather that it doth not so allow publick Baptism no not on pretence of necessity and mercy else why had they not exprest their allowance of one as well as of the other 2. And even there it must be repeated after in the Congregation with God-fathers that believe and promise in the Name of the Child And in the house there is nothing named or required of the Parent but some one whoever is only to name the child § 10. In the Margin you say There is no express prohibition in all the Liturgy tying Ministers in no case to baptize without the Cross and to give the Sacrament to kneelers only and to baptize none without Sureties Ans. I am glad that your whole writing favoureth of that spirit of Love and Christian Peace and Forbearance as your dislike of these things signifieth And while we agree about the sense of God's Law we shall not break Charity for our differing of the sense of the Laws of man But seeing you put these great points of my Non-conformity here together I shall briefly repeat the reasons of my exposition against yours Words are to signifie the mind and the matter If the Book speak intelligibly so as to oblige us to one sense it 's nothing to our case whether the prohibition be express I. The Liturgy-Rubrick saith There shall be for every male-child to be baptized two God-fathers and one God-mother and for every female one God-father and two God-mothers II. The whole transaction beside prayer to God and the act of Baptizing is mainly speech to the God-fathers and demands of them and their answer by professing Abrenunciation Faith desire to be Baptized resolved Obedience They must name the Child They are exhorted to see that the Child be taught what a solemn Vow Promise and Profession he made by them c. and to be brought up to the Bishop to be confirmed III. In the Baptism of the Adult the God-fathers are called but Witnesses as not giving the person Title to Baptism But in the Baptism of Infants they do profess and covenant in the Child's name and he doth it by them as his very Title IV. The Catechism saith That Repentance and Faith are required of persons to be Baptized and as the old Book said They perform them by their Sureties so the new one saith They promise them by their Sureties and therefore are Baptized V. For the Cross the Liturgy saith Here the Priest shall make a Cross on the Child's fore-head And it referreth us to the Canon for the sense and reasons VI. The Communion-Rubrick saith He shall deliver it into their hands All meekly kneeling VII The last Rubrick saith It is ordained in this Office that the Communicants shall receive the same kneeling VIII The same Church by Can. 36. requireth every Minister to subscribe that he will use the Form in that Book prescribed in Publick Prayer and
know any thing of their peoples gross Ignorance Infidelity Atheism yea or Scandal who can know so few of the persons much less can the Bishop 10. Do you think that it is exercise enough of this Discipline when about 5000 in a year only communicate to leave 20000 or 30000 more as members of the Church in that Parish that use not to communicate or else may come when they will extraordinarily to save them from the Law though utterly unknown to the Minister And so proportionably in Parishes half as big And how is it possible this can be amended rebus sic stantibus And would not so many good men amend it were it possible Oh draw not the guilt of so many and such things on your self without cause Were it as small a thing as the Israelites High Places if you cannot amend it do not become the open defender of it Iudas himself at last accused the Pharisees and High Priests and justified Christ. I do not think he would have written a Confutation of Christ's reproofs recited in Matt. 15. and 23 c. How can you pray for a Reformation of that which you think needeth none And hath the Church and Cause of holy Discipline lost so much of your prayers too If you say to God as you do to us What more would we have I am glad that God hath a firmer people that will pray for more § 4. You say As to the Chancellor and his Office it is less matter by whom Excommunication be done so it be honestly and soundly done He is a Christian he is a man of Knowledge and Learning he is authorized by the Laws of the Kingdom his Office is incorporate into the Government of the Nation Though he may not bind and loose as a Pastor he may as a Christian authorized by the King See Matth. 18. 15 c. Ans. This is a great business 1. Why said you before that the Power of the Keys belongs to the Pastors c But you meant not only to them 2. Is it the same sort of Excommunication and Absolution which belongs to the Pastor and to a Lay-man If not you say nothing to our business For our Laws Canons and Church pretend here no difference I confess that there are three acts of separation which the Magistrate may do 1. He may command Bishops and Pastors to do their Office faithfully in excommunicating notorious impenitent criminals 2. When they are excommunicated he may forbid them intruding into the Church 3. He may judge the flagitious to be stigmatized or be taken as out-lawed and forbid men to be familiar with them But the Power of the Church is a power of judging what individual persons are fit or unfit for Baptism the Eucharist Church Entrance and Church Communion is the Church is the Porch of Heaven and as a preparation to the final judgment And it is not another sort but this sort which the Lay-Chancellor pretendeth to exercise in the Bishop's name I have been thought by some to give my self too much to Magistrates in Church-matters But I am far from your mind for the reasons following 1. It is notorious that in Scripture Christ hath instituted a special Office to use these Keys and do this work which he would not have done had he left it common to any others 2. The Power of the Keys is so much of the essential comprehensive title of that Office as that it is nullified when it is made common 3. If this part may be done by the Lay-men or Magistrate no man can give a reason why any of the rest may not even not only to be the stated Teachers of the Church and their Guides in Worship but also Baptizing and administring the Lord's Supper As it is more to be the Law-makers than the Cryers and the Judge than the Marshal so it is more to decree who shall have the Sacraments than barely to deliver it them which the Deacon may do And so we shall have not only Lay-Baptizers but Lay-Preachers Lay-Administers of the Lord's Supper or by contradiction Lay-Priests 4. You plead for Conformity and may easily know that the Church of England abhorreth this Opinion 5. When King Henry the Eighth was called Head of the Church to avoid the Papists calumnies Queen Elizabeth and King Iames have published their disclaiming of that power of Word and Sacraments called that of the Keys and if my Ears deceived me not I have heard our present King profess the same 6. The judgment and practice of the Churches of all Ages and places since Christ is against you I think Helvetia it self not excepted And should this be nothing to you who call on us to reverence the Old Conformists 7. The reason of the Institution fully satisfies me It was not meet so great a trust should be placed in unfit men As in case of Ordination it must be men that are able to try the persons as to skill and life that must be trusted with so weighty a business and also such that can have leisure to attend it and therefore as an Office are empowered for it and separated to it lest it miscarry so as to Baptism Absolution Excommunication it must be done by men 1. That are capable of full acquaintance with the person witnesses and cause 2. And that can try and judge of it 3. And especially of the persons Faith and Repentance for it is on these that the sentence must pass No Baptism without Faith No Excommunication without obstinate Impenitence No Absolution without Repentance 4. It must be by men fit to exhort them to Faith and Repentance and confute their Errours and pray for them that God would give them Faith and Repentance 5. And it is so great a part of the world and all the Church of Christ that this or much of this must be done for that reason shewed it needful that it be made the work of a great and special Office And if so then those men that do it 1. Must be tryed as Ordained Ministers be 2. And Ordained to the Office of doing it 3. And profess to do it as such Officers 4. And not lacerate that Office and change it by taking a part of it and leaving the rest And so they must be no Lay-men I could with that you had studied and consulted better before with such more than Erastian singularity you had pleaded for so dangerous a thing as Church-Levelling or so much overthrow of the necessary sacred Office and set your self against the judgment and practice of the Christian Church But all men have their hour of temptation and all do not overcome § 5. You say The Excommunication is of no force till published by the Parish-Minister who hath power if he please to make it his Text and declare the nature use and ends c. Ans. 1. I had rather have a better Text. 2. It is of force if another publish it 3. It 's part of the true Charge of the Minister himself
and the English sort of God-Fathers you may refuse to say the words of Prayer which imply his Salvation over the Dead who were Excommunicable though not Excommunicated You may understand the Article which professeth the certainty of Baptized Infants salvation of those only that are the Children of faithful Parents or Pro-parents you may say you Assent to all in the Book and mean not all but some part and that not as true but as usable You may profess Consent to use it all and yet not mean to use the Calendar or Rubricks or to Administer the Sacraments otherwise than as aforesaid You may Say or Subscribe or Swear that it is on any pretence whatsoever unlawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King and mean only such as are lawfully Commissioned You may subscribe that no one in England that sware it is bound by the solemn Vow and Oath to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State and mean only that he must not endeavour it by Sedition or Rebellion And so on to the end But other Bishops will say the clean contrary viz. That the Bishop is the only Pastor and the Parish Priest hath none of the power here named and so of all the rest And what Uniformity then will there be Know you not how they write against such different Administrations as destructive and intolerable 7. And know you not that a Bishop hath no power against the Canons The Canons are their own Laws and Judgment and bind them And when the Canon saith e. g. He shall be suspended that giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or that the Non-conformists are ipso facto Excommunicate c. Hath the Bishop authority to say the contrary 8. And you know that I wrote not to accuse you or any Man for Conforming but to tell them that judge us worthy to be Silenced and Ruined what our Non-conformity is And what use then is your own Latitude to me or such as I though I went your own way For I have askt and heard the Opinion of divers Bishops already and they have said clean contrary to you I have heard him that first forbad me Preaching in his Diocess say that The Liturgy forbiddeth delivering the Sacrament to any that Kneel not I can shew it you under his Hand that the Priest must not be Judge when to omit the forementioned words at the burial of the Dead nor tolerated in such Liberty as you presume on I have been told by a Bishop That seeing Christ died for all the Children of any Parents in the World have right to Baptism and any Man hath as good right to present to it an Infidel's Child as to take in an exposed Infidel's Child to his House in Charity I told you that Bishop Sanderson publickly before the Bishops Nemine contradicente told me That I need not question Baptizing any Infidel's Child if God-Fathers presented him according to the Order of the Church of England Are we not then concluded against Conformity by the Bishop's judgment by your own Rule And must not you be a Non-conformist in the Diocess of any such Bishop as these 9. And by your Rule a Man must be a Conformist in one Bishop's Diocess and a Non-conformist in another's and change his mode of Religion as he Travelleth or doth change his Dwelling I imagine that by your Rule I might partly Conform in the Diocess of London or Lincoln Hereford or Carlisle but I should be as Non-conformable as I am in the Diocess of Winchester Ely York Norwich and any other as far as I yet know I conclude that your Catholicon may purge your self from all Non-conformity but it is utterly unprofitable to me Facile credimus quod volumus I have had as much reason as you to be willing to find Conformity lawful if it be so I have lost many thousand Pounds more by Non-conformity than you have got by Conformity But I have no such Byas on my Will as should set all my Wit on work to find or buy a Rope for my Conscience And I find nothing better that you offer me herein § 4. When you have told us Where no God-Fathers can be had we must Christen without and such like You say And this is the common sense put upon the Law by the Law-makers themselves that is by the Bishops Ans. What reason did you think we have in such an Historical Assertion to believe your bare word In what Synod did they declare it Why did you neither name the Bishops nor the Time or Place or Witness by which it might be proved the common sense But could you think this should convince me that know it to be false § 5. You tell us pag. 119. If it were a part of Assent and Consent that Ordination by good and substantial Presbyters were null it would be a hard point indeed to Unchurch Churches and Unbaptize the Baptized and plead the cause of Satan the Pope and all Malignants of the Ministry in the Name of Christ. Ans. Excuse us then for not Conforming I before gave you this Proof that it is the sense of the Law-makers or Bishops They that abhor Reordination or twice ordaining to the Priesthood and yet require those to be ordained by Bishops who were before ordained by Presbyters must be judged to hold the said Ordination by Presbyters to be null But c. Ergo. § 6. 1. You say No Man that I know of takes the Silenced Ministers and those ordained by Presbyters only for no Ministers at all unless one Mr. Dodwel a high-flown Man whom Conformists themselves do utterly dissent from in this Ans. Your ignorance is no good reason for my Conformity If you know of no more I do Read Mr. Thâ—rndike of Forbearance of Penalties Ask Bishop Gunning his judgment c. If your acquaintance be so small you should not write of that which you know not § 7. 2. But you say All both Rulers and People Conformists themselves do own them for Ministers otherwise they would take some course for the Rebaptizing of all Baptized by them Ans. Did you ever read the Conference at Hampton Court Did you dream that all these take Laymens Baptizing for null Or do you conclude that all think what you think § 8. 3. You prove it from the toleration of the Foreigners Churches in London Ans. How will you prove that they judge all true Ministers whom they Tolerate § 9. 4. You say the Acts against Conventicles and the Five Mile Act prove it 5. The King's Proclamation for Indulgence proveth it 6. The Fines and Imprisonments for Conventicles prove it 7. The allowing four Persons to meet in private proveth it 8. The common sense of Bishops Divines and People of the Church of England prove it Ans. You may next say That any thing that you see or hear proveth it It 's liker these prove the contrary than this By this Men may see how little satisfaction we may expect
is it And is this the Power of the Keys or Excommunication If you ask me How I would have all this remedied I have oft enough answered it and will not here repeat it Only I would have a Minister have some such freedom as a School-master or Philosopher hath in his School and not a meer slave or Agent of others to take in and use and exclude and say as strangers to the Flock command him against his conscience and knowledge of the Case till it be proved that it shall justifie him at judgment for all such actions to say The Law Bishop or Chancellor commanded me § 2. You tell us as by your many Years Experience that private repelling by Counsel and Persuasion may serve with most And 1. I wonder that you that had but a small Country Chappel and no Church at all where near Neighbours might easily be spoken with should talk of your Experience as an argument against that which is of notorious matter of Fact 1. Shew me where Law Canon or Rubrick giveth power to the Priest to refuse a Parishioner that saith I take you not for my Pastor nor to have any authority over me but as the Bishop's Curate to do what the Law bids you and I will not speak with you 2. Do you not now dwell in London where Parishes are so great that the Parson can do no such thing on one of a Multitude nor doth so much as know them And know you not that de facto there are Multitudes that will refuse and scorn to give you any account or hear you or come to you or admit you to any such discourse with them I had the most obedient tractable People to deal with that ever I knew And yet I had some that attempted by present violence to Murder me for Admonishing them and forbidding them the Sacrament and many that would give me no other account of themselves but demand of me to deliver them the Sacrament as the Canon and Liturgy order it whenever they appear at Church and require it Hundreds and Thousands will stoop to no other Terms in the great Parishes of England § 3. I confess if ever I had been thought tolerable under our Prelates and had thought my self able as I do not for the care of some of the smaller Parishes I should have most trusted to the New Liturgy for my power to keep away some of the grosly Ignorant as being not ready to be Confirmed because they know not the Catechism But now I perceive by you this were not like to serve my turn for you say It is only for those that never yet Communicated when as multitudes of the Aged are grosly ignorant of the Essentials that have long Communicated 2. And divers of these grosly ignorant Persons are Confirmed long ago Bishop Morton was one of the Learnedst and best Bishops that ever I knew And when I was fourteen or fifteen Years old I and my School-fellows and abundance of Boys and Girls when he came into the Country went as to some Spectacle and without any certificate or question to us or instruction of us we all kneeled in a long row in a Church-yard in the Path-way and as he went by he laid his Hands on every one and huddled over a short Collect of which I scarce understood one sentence that he said and I was never the wiser nor fitter for the Sacrament that I perceived § 4. But you say that The Order binds to a Repelling by publick Admonition and Church Power notifying to the Congregation such a Man's Crimes and Scandals as a Fornicator c. and warn him not to come to the Sacrament till he have made open confession of his Sins and reformed his Life Ans. What Order is it that binds us to this If you mean Christ's Order we must do it If you mean the Churches where shall we find it This is like the Rubrick new Article of Faith which will Silence us all who are not certain by God's Word that Baptized Infants without exception are undoubtedly saved and yet that Charity was wanting that should but once have cited the Text that maketh it undoubtedly certain A short labour for so great an End So when you might know how very far it would go to reconcile me to our Prelacy could I but prove what here you say yet you will not so much as tell me where to find it Nay if you that have studied the Law would but have told me how to escape when I am accused for doing it § 5. But your next is too apt to provoke Laughter viz. Suppose you honestly tell the Ordinary that the uncapable are too many to be presented lest Violence make them worse and Excommunicating them signifie nothing but endanger them to rise in Rebellion or Mutiny and turn you and us out of Place that reason is considerable or quite leave our Assemblies and turn Quakers Papists Infidels and precipitate Souls to Hell by Obstinacy and Viciousness But if you will leave it to me I will Christen their Children and keep them within the Church Is that Excommunicating them as Hearers and Learners and Candidates c. Do I not then honestly perform the Law Ans. Your honesty I shall commend And Christ's Law you may much perform But what Law of the Church is it that you thus perform What is the Law that giveth you any such power What Law forbids it you I have shewed Let the Rejected sue you and let the Judges tell you whether you have kept the Law The issue will answer you better than I can But you say It is the Intention of the Law that you perform Ans. You have proved me also and all of us Conformists before we were aware The end of the Law is to edifie and save Men and to prefer Mercy before Sacrifice But all this I do or endeavour in my Preaching Dwelling and Practice Ergo I am a Conformist and perform the Law But that did not keep me out of the common Gaol nor save my Library And must we be punished for Conforming Break the Law and Canon and say you did it in Mercy and kept it and try whether you will pass for a Conformist Did you not thus keep the end of the Law when you Preacht at Warrington and did your Excommunicators call it Conformity § 6. But you say All that are accused are not Excommunicate nor laid in Gaols it is to be hoped that the Ordinary will do them Iustice. Ans. 1. As they did you 2. They may escape the Gaol by flying their Country as you do But what shall they do with their Wives and Children 3. But we grant you all this If 500 in a great Parish should be accused by the Minister as uncapable of the Sacrament by gross Ignorance Infidelity Heresie or Crimes and as you say they be not Excommunicate when they come home acquit the Minister must give them the Sacrament the next time 4. But our question is not what
sincerely Penitent thy Sin is pardoned and thou hast right to Salvation and mayst come to the Lord's Table Ans. And doth not this imply that else he should not come And is such a Man Unconverted It is too irksome to rake up the rest of your Contradictions and examine your slight words of the Parable of the Tares But that rooting up the Tares forbidden is Excommunicating or denying Sacramental Communion to any Parishioner of your Description who will believe that knoweth 1. What Christ saith Mat. 18. 15. c. and Paul 1 Cor. 5. and 2 Thess. 3. Tit. 3. 10 11 c. 2. Or he that knoweth that the Universal Church of Christ in all Ages hath been of another mind and indeed went at last too far against it having no punishment for Christians but Suspension and Excommunication 3. And that the Christian World at this day is of another mind though the Helvetians are too remiss in the Principles and most in the Practice 4. And that the Canons of this Church requireth the Minister to deny the Sacrament to some such as you describe And in your former Book you pleaded this as for Conformity And are you changed already And shall any Wise Man follow such quick Changes 5. The Church of England forbids us to give the Sacrament to any that are not Confirmed and desire it not or are not ready But such are many of your Description 6. If the power of Excommunicating over a thousand or many hundred Churches be confined to the Bishop and the Chancellor or Officials and so all the Parish Ministers denied it and disabled all these Churches must be Prophaned and Confounded at the will of one Man or because he cannot do an Impossibility And the reasons why Christ would have his Church to be visibly Holy and a Communion of Saints and openly differenced from the notoriously ungodly are so many and so great that I will not here attempt the opening of them having often elsewhere done it QUEST IV. WHether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by Penal Excommunications and used as Excommunicate ones You say I conceive not Ans. Would any one that pretended to confute our Errors no better open the case in question 1. In your sense they are Christians that never professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant but only took the Water in order to Conversion hereafter These are no visible Christians And I suppose by parity of Reason the Council of Nice which decreed the Rebaptizing of the Paulmists would have been for Rebaptizing these 2. Is the Ordinariness the satisfying Character who is not to be Excommunicated In one Country those are ordinary that are extraordinary in others In some places Arrians are ordinary in some Socinians in some Papists in some open Scorners of the Scripture Christianity and Religion In some ignorant Persons that know not the Essentials of Christianity nor will learn or let the Minister instruct them any where but in the Pulpit in many Parishes here not one of many their Neighbours say go to Church about once or twice a Year 1 Cor. 5. 13. Put away from among you that wicked Person ver 11. If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or on Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat Do not ye judg them that are within 2 Thess. 3. It is the idle and disorderly And these are ordinary in some places But we easily grant that Excommunications are not to be used Tyranically or when they do more hurt than good And if the Body of a Church turn e. g. Socinians or professedly ungodly and will not be Reformed the Excommunication which we plead for is but withdrawing from them and renouncing their Communion declaredly § 2. I have oft said that Perfidious Covenant-breakers who live in gross Sin and still tell the Minister they repent and will not be persuaded to leave their Sin e. g. Whoredom Drunkenness Stealing Perjury Blasphemy have so far forfeited the credit of their bare word that the Pastor should see their actual amendment before he Absolve them And now your Hand is in the World must be saved from this Doctrine too But because it is a common principle in Nature and in all Church Canons and the common judgment of Divines I will not stay to dispute it with you But when you are a Master of a Family if you think Family Discipline a Duty Experience will cure your credulity If your Servant or Son beat you or spit in your Face or Rob you once a Day or Week but for one Year together and say still after it I repent But what will not Men talk for QUEST V. WHether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and Principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good And you confute them Ans. 1. Those that read them are in no danger by them And those that do may be confirmed by so slight a confutation as I said 2. As for my Book of Universal Concord of all Christian Churches I know that the Devil hateth it so much that I expect some far more subtile Assault than yours or else I shall think that the Devil wanteth wit or power more than is commonly believed But I am sorry that he hath drawn so good a Man to be his instrument § 1. My first mentioned Error is That a particular Church is a regular part of the Universal Church as a City is of a Kingdom The confutation is In this I conceive he is out A particular Church is to the Church Universal with a single Town consisting of a Magistrate Governing and People governed according to the general Rules and Principles of Society is to all the World Ans. The proof is I conceive he is out and an Assertion in other words of the same that is denied and so we are out both or neither 1. I used the Name and he the Definition It may be he thought that by City I had meant only such Towns as are so called in England But methinks he should know that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth all such Towns as he defineth and that it is the common definition of Civitas which he giveth us as all Politicks speak de Civitate It is therefore the same subject in the Similitude which we both speak of 2. The difference then must be between the words Kingdom and World I say A Church is such a part of the Universal as a City is of a Kingdom He saith no but as a City is of the World What a dangerous Error hath he detected But All the World is God's Kingdom And as it hath but one King so I thought I might liken it to a Kingdom that hath one King but a multitude of Corporations without stretching the Similitude to intend that This Kingdom is not a part of the World § 2. My second Error is He that will be a Member of a particular Church must
from your arguing You greatly wrong the King Parliament and Bishops if you think they take all for Ministers Men Women or Children whose meeting they tolerate You leave out the Argument from the Act of Uniformity which punisheth all by a hundred Pound a time that Administer the Sacrament being not ordained by a Bishop Doth that prove them Ministers too § 10. You say As to the Peoples Conformity I know no one thing required of them to Conform to but what they may do with a good Conscience Ans. Why then did you pass by the answering of my Book concerning their part Particularly about the Corporation-Declaration Should they be in the right that think all the Cities and Corporations in England to be under that which I am loth to name and that Plagues Flames and Poverty are God's Revenge Oh! what a thing would it be for a Servant of Christ to say to them in Print O England repent not CHAP. XXXI § 1. YOur Conclusion is also a bundle of Mistakes and Impertinencies 1. It is more than three or four points that the new Conformity addeth to the old 2. If the number or goodness of the old Conformists did prove their Cause good many things would have a far stronger Proof of that kind from the ancient Churches which yet you judge to be unlawful and in other Countries the same Argument will be turned against you 3. Such Men as you call The main Body of the best Divines were very few in comparison of the Ignorant bad Clergy 4. It is not true that Mr. Knewstubs was a Conformist nor Dr. Reynolds neither unless I be one The Petition of the Non-conformists to King Iames was called Millenary because it had a thousand Hands in a little compass 5. That some then did and now do scruple more than others is impertinent to our Business and it were a wonder if it were not so till Men are arrived at scrupling nothing 6. The 36th Canon was the chief point of the old Non-conformity and will receive no justification by the worth of any Subscribers I doubt not but Bernard Gerson c. were holy Men that subscribed far worse 7. Sponsors of an ill sort are never the better because there was a better sort of old nor because these were before the new Liturgy 8. Page 125. You could wish Ministers would make the Parents to be present chief Undertakers that is to be Non-conformists called Conformists The rest needeth but the repetition of what is said before which would rather tire than edifie the Reader CHAP. XXXII SInce the writing of my Answer to your Book you were with me and when I gave you two or three Objections which I published not you gave me no Reply to them but went from me and Printed an Answer to them in a Supplement Seeing your judgment is most for that way I crave your patience while I use the way you choose I confess my judgment is that you have unavoidably made me a great Temptation to you For if you be not a Man of great Humility you will 1. Be offended to find all your Labour proved to be hurtful and your Reasoning vain and you will think that the disgracing of them by a just Confutation falleth on your self 2. And you will be tempted to turn your thoughts too partially to justifie what once you have so publickly said and so to run further into the Extream But my persuasion of your great sincerity maketh me hope that you will overcome the temptation which you have chosen I. I thought that the word Use of all did much aggravate and not extenuate the burden of the Declaration as added to Assent But to them that thought otherwise I thought that when both Lords and Commons at a Conference upon Reasons given had rejected that Exposition which confineth the sense of the words to Use it had been a more satisfactory notice of the Law-givers sense than either your private Conceit or any Bishops Exposition could be But you tell us That this Conference was no Law or repeal of the Law Ans. Impertinent It is an Exposition of the meaning of the Law-makers only that we are enquiring of and not the repealing or making of a Law It is the Law-makers part to be the publick obliging Interpreters of the Law to the whole Kingdom We are enquiring in point of Conscience how we must understand them And you will not believe them it seems unless they make a new Law to tell you the sense of the old one II. Every one may know that it 's usual for the Means to have somewhat in it for the End besides the intending of the End it self and that usually Laws and Canons command many Means for one End And therefore to make your full and constant usage of Conformity to be the End and the Assenting and Consenting to all things in the Book to be the Means even in that form of words are no contradiction And it 's usual to be stricter in prescribing forms of Words for Oaths Covenants or Confessions than in the other integral parts of a Law And it is a great wrong to a Parliament of England to say either that in such a form imposed on the Learned and Consciencious Tribe they knew not how to speak intelligibly according to the common use of words or that they were so mischievously Malignant as seventeen or eighteen Years to refuse to open their sense for the healing of so distracted and endangered a Church and Nation if they meant not as their words do signifie according to common use It 's no vanity to say I have known the Men Bishops and Commons better than you have done and heard more of them and their Debates than you have done and I am satisfied in my Conscience to conclude that they meant plainly as they speak and no better Even that no Man's promise to use the Liturgy shall be taken for trusty and satisfactory that will not declare that he Assenteth and Consenteth to all things contained in it and prescribed by it And this plainly Ex animo without uncouth Exposition Equivocations or Jesuitical mental Reservations § 2. I have not wit enough to find out sense in your Quibble that If the later words the Form do import more than the former for the Use then there is something added and altered which possibly may inconsist and be contradiction Ans. Is not all prescript of Means an addition to the Precept De fine Doth the prescript of the Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance impose no more than to be Loyal Yes It requireth a particular test of Loyalty Doth the Command of subscribing the thirty nine Articles contain no more but to be Orthodox Yes It enjoineth us by this means to profess those particulars in which our Orthodoxness consisteth § 3. Assent when thus distinguished purposely from Consent signifieth Assenting to some Truth and Consent respecteth the Good So that when you make Assent to be but the same as Consent to Use