Learned and Worthy Man Mr. Shaw another Silenc'd Miâ—ister and his Brother in Law who being shut up gave God Thanks for his Deliverance in a very Learned and Profitable Treatise which he Published thereupon And since being found not only very Learned but moderate and holding Communion in the Publick Assemblies and a peaceable Man hath got connivance to Teach a Publick School a great favour in these Times 3. Mr. Roberts a Godly Welsh Minister who also flying from the Plague fell Sick as far off as between Shrewsbury and Oswestry and died on a little Straw while none durst entertain him § 4. It is scarce possible for People that live in a time of Health and Security to apprehend the dreadfulness of that Pestilence How fearful People were thirty or forty if not an hundred Miles from London of any thing that they bought from any Mercer's or Draper's Shop or of any Goods that were brought to them or of any Person that came to their Houses How they would shut their Doors against their Friends and if a Man passed over the Fields how one would avoid another as we did in the time of Wars and how every Man was a Terrour to another O how sinfully unthankful are we for our quiet Societies Habitations and Health § 5. Not far from the place where I sojourned at Mrs. Fleetwood's three Ministers of extraordinary worth were together in one House Mr. Clearkson Mr. Sam. Cradock and Mr. Terry Men of singular Judgment Piety and Moderation and the Plague came into the House where they were one Person dying of it which caused many that they knew not of earnestly to pray for their Deliverance and it pleased God that no other Person dyed § 6. But one great Benefit the Plague brought to the City that is it occasioned the Silenc'd Ministers more openly and laboriously to Preach the Gospel to the exceeding comfort and profit of the People insomuch that to this Day the freedom of Preaching which this occasioned cannot by the daily Guards of Soldiers nor by the Imprisonments of Multitudes be restrained The Ministers that were Silenced for Nonconformity had ever since 1662. done their Work very privately and to a few not so much through their timorousness as their loathness to offend the King and in hope still that their forbearance might procure them some Liberty and through some timorousness of the People that should hear them And when the Plague grew hot most of the Conformable Ministers fled and left their Flocks in the time of their Extremity whereupon divers Non-comformists pitying the dying and distressed People that had none to call the impenitent to Repentance noâ— to help Men to prepare for another World nor to comfort them in their Terrors when about Ten Thousand dyed in a Week resolved that no obedience to the Laws of any mortal Men whosoever could justifie them for neglecting of Men's Souls and Bodies in such extremities no more than they can justifie Parents for fanishing their Children to death And that when Christ shall say Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these ye did it not to me It will be a poor excuse to say Lord I was forbidden by the Law Therefore they resolved to stay with the People and to go in to the forsaken Pulpits though prohibited and to preach to the poor People before they dyed and also to visit the Sick and get what relief they could for the Poor especially those that were shut up Those that set upon this work were Mr. Thomas Vincent late Minister in Milk-street with some Strangers that came thither since they were Silenced as Mr. Chester Mr. Ianeway Mr. Turner Mr. Grimes Mr. Franklin and some others Those heard them one Day oft that were sick the next and quickly dyed The Face of Death did so awaken both the Preachers and the Hearers that Preachers exceeded themselves in lively fervent Preaching and the People crowded constantly to hear them and all was done with so great Seriousness as that through the Blessing of God abundance were converted from their Carelesness Impenitency and youthful Lusts and Vanities and Religion took that hold on the Peoples Hearts as could never afterward be loosed § 7. And at the same time whilst God was consuming the People by these Judgments and the Nonconformists were labouring to save Men's Souls the Parliament which sate at Oxford whither the King removed from the danger of the Plague was busie in making an Act of Confinement to make the Silenc'd Ministers Case incomparably harder than it was before by putting upon them a certain Oath which if they refused they must not come except the Road within five Miles of any City or of any Corporation or any place that sendeth Burgesses to the Parliament or of any place where-ever they had been Ministers or had preached since the Act of Oblivion So little did the Sense of God's terrible Judgments or of the necessities of many hundred thousand ignorant Souls or the Groans of the poor People for the Teaching which they had lost or the fear of the great and final Reckoning affect the Hearts of the Prelatists or stop them in their way The chief Promoters of this among the Clergy were said to be the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Seth-Ward the Bishop of Salisbury And one of the greatest Adversaries of it in the Lord's House was the very Honourable Earl of Southampton Lord Treasurer of England a Man that had ever adhered to the King but understood the interest of his Country and of Humanity It is without Contradiction Reported that he said No honest Man would take that Oath The Lord Chancellor Hide also and the rest of the Leaders of that mind and way promoted it and easily procured it to pass the Houses notwithstanding all that was said against it § 8. By this Act the Case of the Ministers was made so hard that many thought themselves necessitated to break it not only by the necessity of their office but by a natural impossibility of keeping it unless they should murder themselves and their Families As to a moral Necessity as they durst not be so Sacrilegious as to desert the Sacred Office wholly to which they were consecrated which would be worse than Ananias and Sapphird's Alienating their devoted Money so they could hardly exercise any part of their Office if they did obey this Act. For 1. The Cities and Corporations are the most considerable part of the Kingdom and also had for the most part the greatest need of help partly because of the numerousness of the People For in many Parishes in London the fourth part nay in some the tenth part cannot be contained in the publick Temples if they came so as to hear what is said Partly also because most Corporations having smaller Maintenance than the Rural Parishes are worse provided for by the Conformists And every where the private Work of Over-sight and Ministerial Help is through their Numbers greater than many
inconveniences he asked me whether I thought the inconveniences of Extemporary Prayer were not rather to be avoided than those of imposed Forms I told him that we should do our best to avoid the evils or abuse of both He asked me how that should be I answered him not by disclaiming the use of Forms or of conceived Prayer but using both in their proper seasons And as I was going on the Company fell into a laughter at me as if I had spoken for some foolish thing when I spoke but for that which the Ministers of England have used ever since the Reformation and most that have any Zeal do use by their allowance to this day praying Extempore in the Pulpit § 200. I oft made it my earnest request to them but that we might have our proper turns in speaking and that we might not interrupt one another but stay the end but I could never prevail especially with Bishop Morley who when any thing was spoken which he would not have to be spoken out would presently interrupt me and go on in his way I told them that if they took this Course I judged all our Conference fruitless to the hearers for my Speeches were not incoherent but the end and middle must be joyned to the beginning to make up the sence and that as the End is first in the intention but last in execution so I usually reserved the chief part of what I had to say to the last to which the beginning was but preparatory And therefore I had rather they forbad me to speak any more◠than let me begin and then not suffer me to go on any further The Bishop answered that I spake so long and had so many things that their memories could not retain them all and should lose the first if they stayed till the last and that I spake more than any other I told him that as to my speaking more than others it was my duty yea to speak as much as all the rest except when my Brethren saved me that labour If they thought I spake too much they would tell me so And for others one side was to speak as oft as the other side If we had consented that they should fill the room when we were but Three and then every one in the Room should speak as much as one of us we had made a fair bout of it I cared not how many of them spake if they were but willing to be answered But if five of them must speak and but one of them be answered they would say that all the rest were unanswerable And for my length I told him that we consented that one of themselves should be always in the Chair as they had been and whenever the Chair-man interrupted me and told me I had spoken long enough I was willing to be silent but that was never done or let us turn the Quarter-Glass and see that one speak no longer than the other And for the weakness of their memories I supposed they were on equal Terms It was as hard for us to remember what they said and if we could not we would either take Notes or ask another or pass by what we forgot rather than overthrow all Order in Discourse and speak in Confusion like People in a Fair. And for my part I thought that a continued Speech without vain words doth best spare time seeing that when I may thus set all the parts of my sence together when the broken parcels signifie nothing I can better make known my meaning in a Speech of half a quarter of an hour than in two days rambling Discourses where Interruptions and Interlocutions toss us up and down from thing to thing and never let us see the sence and reason of each others in that Connexion and Harmony which is its Light and Strength But all these words were cast away and they had seldom Patience to forbear an Interruption § 201. One learned Doctor behind me that was no Commissioner desired to be heard as if he had some unanswerable Argument And it was a Question Whether all that scrupled Conformity whom we pleaded for were not such as had been against the King I answered him 1. That the King himself had given sufficient Testimony of many of them 2. That there is not one Minister of twenty that we plead for that had ever any thing to do in the Wars or against the King most of them being then Boys at School or in the University 3. That Men on both sides had been against the King Hereupon Bishop Morley asked me whether ever I knew a conformable Man for the Parliament against the King Yes my Lord quoth I many a one Name one quoth some of them Yes a Bishop yea an Archbishop quoth I At which they all hearkened as at a wonder Do you not know quoth I that the Archbishop of York Dr. Williams sometime Lord Keeper of England was a Commander of the Forces for the Parliament in Wales At which they were silent and that Argument was at an end § 202. When I told them that if they cast out all the Non-conformits there would not be tolerable Ministers enow to supply the Congregations Bishop Morley answered that so it was in the late Times and that some Places had no Ministers at all through all those Times of Usurpation and named Aylesbury which he knew to have had none upon his own knowledge I told him that I never knew any such and therefore I knew there were not many such in England And if it were so I hoped that he would not plead for such a Mischief by the Example of the Usurpers But since I have enquired of the Inhabitants about Aylesbury and they unamously professed that it was notoriously false and named me the Ministers that had been there successively and usually two at once § 203. Also the said Bishop when I talkt of silencing Ministers for things indifferent told me That we should remember how we did by them and that we talkt not then as now we do I answered him That I was confident there was no Man there present that had ever a hand in silencing any of them For my own parts I had been in Judgment for casting out the utterly Insufficient and notoriously Scandalous indifferently of what Opinion or Side foever but I had publickly written against the silencing or displacing any worthy Man for being against the Parliament And if it had been otherwise he should take warning by others Faults and not imitate them and do evil because Cromwell did so § 204. Upon this Dr. Walton Bishop of Chester said Indeed Mr. Baxter did write against the Casting of us out But Mr. Baxter did not you say That if our Churches had no more than bare Liberty as others had without the compulsion of the Sword that none but Drunkards would joyn in them I answered No my Lord I did not I only said that as they had been ordered if they had but
against him 3. Lest they encourage Usurpers in these insolent Novelties and Corruptions which the ancient Churches never knew and came not into the Church till the Roman Papacy grew to some degree of Impudency in their Usurpations § 398. Yet these two things the Non-conformists are contented readily to do 1. To obey the Bishops Chancellors c. by meer Submission without an Oath in all things lawful To appear at their Courts and answer them with due reverence For they think that Subjection and Submission towards Usurpers greatly differ and that as in the late Cromwellian Usurpation in England many submitted as they would have done to a Robber whom they could not resist who yet would not swear Subjection nor do any thing which seemed to justifie his Usurpation or Title So here though they dare not state themselves by an Oath in the relation of Subjects to the Prelates yet they can obey them materially in lawful things 2. And they are willing to swear Obedience to them as they are the King's Officers commissioned by him to exercise such Coercive Power as belongeth to the Magistrate about Church Matters But not as they exercise the Power of the Keys in Absolving Excommunicating c. § 399. Object 1. It is but in licitis honestis that you swear to obey them And who will refuse things lawful and honest Answ. 1. But it is in the relation of our lawful Ordinaries that we are required to swear this Obedience to them It may be lawful and honest to do the things commanded when it is neither lawful nor honest to subject my self to the Commander as his Subject The most just Authority that is can command us nothing but licita honesta And if Cromwell or the Engaging piece of the Parliament had required me to swear Obedience to them in licitis honestis I think to have done it had been a subjecting my self to them as my Governours which had neither been licitum nor honestum If a Rebel now should usurp Authority against the King's will for the Government of Ireland or Scotland he that would go swear Obedience to him in licitis honestis I think would be disloyal 2. And it is Obedience according to the Canon which is their in licitis honestis And this is to Lay-Chancellors Exercise of the Keys and many other things which are supposed licita honesta but not yet proved to be so § 400. Object 2. What a Man may do he may swear to do But licita honesta a Man may do Ergo Answ. 1. I deny the Major as universally taken There is many a thing that may be done which may not be sworn Else you might swear to speak every word before you speak it and to do every trivial Action that you do 2. Some time the Oath reacheth further than the Act to be done even to the Relation in which it is done and the reason for which and this is the Case here So that here is a feigning of a false state of the Question which is not Whether we may swear to do licita honesta but whether we may swear to obey them as our lawful Ordinaries in licitis honestis 3. The Conclusion therefore might be granted without any Decision of the Controversie For the Question is not Whether we may swear to do such things but whether we may swear to obey those Men in that relation and to do those things sub formali ratione obedientiae Which their Loyalty to Christ their King they think prohibiteth What if you lived in a Popish Country would you swear to obey the Pope in licitis honestis If not you may see our Reasons while you give your own § 401. Object 3. The Scripture commandeth all Men to subject themselves one to another Answ. There is an Equivocation in the word subject The Text speaketh only of private submission and yielding to others voluntarily carrying our selves with that lowliness as Subjects do to their Rulers But this is nothing to publick relative stated subjection of which the Controversie is He would be but an ill Subject to the King or an ill Member of the Church who would make every man his King or his Pastor on this pretence that we must all subject our selves to each other § 402. Object 4. You are to swear Obedience to them only as Church-Magistrates appointed by the King Answ. That cannot be true because it is as our Ordinaries who have the power of Ordination Excommunication and Absolution and in the exercise of this power But the power of the Keys is not Magistratical § 403. V. The fifth Controversie is about Re-ordination Now in this the Nonconformists are the more shie 1. Because in our most Publick Meetings before the King and the Lords and the Bishops some of them as Dr. Gunning oft have openly declared that the Ordination which hath been in England without Bishops is null and those that were so Ordained without them are no Ministers but Lay-men And his Majesty himself hath signified openly his own Judgment accordingly that he would no more take the Sacrament from such then from Lay-men So that it being thus openly declared to be their sence and no one of their Bishops or Doctors contradicting it we have reason to think that by submitting to be Re-ordained Men do interpretatively confess the nullity of their former Ordination 2. And it is a new thing contrary to the Judgment and Practice of all the Reformed Churches 3. And there is a Canon among those called the Apostles which is express against it commanding the Deposition of the Ordainers and Ordained 4. I have fully proved in my Disputation of Church Government That the said Ordination without Diocesans is valid and better than the Prelates and was performed by such Bishops as were in Ignatius's days viz. City-Pastors who had Presbyters under them And no Man hath attempted to answer what I have there said 5. And at best to be Re-ordained seemeth but a taking of God's Name in vain and a solemn praying to God for that which they have already and a pretending de novo to receive that Authority which they had before And to come as upon a Stage thus ludicrously to play with holy Things to fulfil the Humours and confirm the claim of Usurpers is somewhat hard § 404. VI. The sixth Controversie is about the first Declaration I do here declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book entituled c. Here the Non-conformists have to do with two sorts the willing and the unwilling Conformists The first say that this Declaration may be lawfully made in its proper sence The Non-conformists refer you for the Answer of this to all their foregoing Exceptions against the Book besides what they have said against our Order of Diocesans and so against the Book of Ordination which asserteth three Orders as of Divine Institution And besides
received as gifts of Bounty from any whosoever since I was silenced till after An. 1672. amount not in the whole to 20 l. besides ten Pouud per Annum which I received from Serjeant Fountain till he died and when I was in Prison twenty pieces from Sir Iohn Bernard ten from the Countess of Exeter and five from Alderman Bard and no more which just paid the Lawyers and my Prison Charge but the expences of removing my Habitation was greater And had the Bishop's Family no more than this In sum I told the Bishop that he that cried out so vehemently against schism had got the Spirit of a Sectary and as those that by Prisons and other sufferings were too much exasperated against the Bishops could hardly think or speak well of them so his cross Interests had so notoriously spoiled him of his Charity that he had plainly the same temper with the bitterest of the Sectaries whom he so much reviled Our Doctrinal Discourse I overpass § 236. This May a Book was Printed and cried about describing the horrid Murther of one 〈◊〉 Baxter in New-England by the Anabaptists and how they tore his Flesh and flead him alive and persons and time and place were named And when Mr. Kiffen sensible of the Injury to the Anabaptists searcht it out it proved all a studied Forgery Printed by a Papist and the Book Licensed by Dr. Sam. Paâ—ker the Arch-bishop's Chaplain there were no such Persons in being as the Book mentioned nor any such thing ever done Mr. â—issen accused Dr. Parker to the Kiug and Council The King made him confess his Fault and so it ended § 237. In Iune was the second great Fight with the Dutch where again many were killed on both sides and to this day it is not known which Paâ—ty had the greater Loss § 238. The Parliament grew into great Jealousies of the prevalency of Popery There was an Army raised which lay upon Black-Heath encamped as for Service against the Dutch They said that so many of the Commanders were Papists as made Men fear the design was worse Men feared not to talk openly that the Papists having no hope of getting the Parliament to set up their Religion by Law did design to take down Parliaments and reduce the Government to the French Model and Religion to their State by a standing Army These Thoughts put Men into dismal Expectations and many wish that the Army at any rate might be disbanded The Duke of York was General The Parliament made an Act that no man should be in any office of Trust who would not take the Oaths of Supremacy aud Allegiance and receive the Sacrament according to Order of the Church of England and renounee Transubstanstiation Many supposed Papists received the Sacrament and renounced Transubstantiation and took the Oaths Some that were known sold or laid down their Places The Duke of York and the new Lord Treasurer Clifford laid down all It was said they did it on supposition that the Act left the King impowered to renew their Commissions when they had laid them down But the Lord Chancellor told the King that it was not so and so they were put out by themselves This settled Men in the full belief that the Duke of York and the Lord Clifford were Papists and the Londoners had before a special hatred against the Duke since the burning of London commonly saying that divers were taken casting Fire-balls and brought to his Guards of Soldiers to be secured and he let them go and both secured and concealed them 239. The great Counsellors that were said to do all with the King in all great matters were the Duke of York the Lord Clifford the Duke of Lauderdaile the Lord Arlington the Duke of Buckingham the Lord Chancellor that is Sr. Anthony Ashley-Cooper Earl of Shaftsbury and after them the Earl of Anglesey lately Mr. Annesley Among all these the Lord Chanchellor declared so much Jealosie of Popery and set himself so openly to secure the Protestant Religion that it was wondered how he kept in as he did but whatever were his Principles or Motives it is certain he did very much plead the Protestant Cause § 240. In Iune Mastricht was taken by the French but with much loss where the Duke of Monmouth with the English had great Honour for their Valour § 241. In August four of the Dutch East-India Ships fell into our Hands and we had the third great Sea-fight with them under the Command of Prince Rupert where we again killed each other with equal Loss But the Dutch said they had the Victory now sand before and kept days of Thanksgiving for it Sir Edward Sprag was killed whose death the Papists much lamented hoping to have got the Sea-power into his Hands But Prince Rupert who declared himself openly against Popery and had got great Interest in the Hearts of the Soldiers complained sharply of the French Admiral as deserting him to say no worse And the success of these Fights was such as hindered the Transportation of the Army against the Dutch and greatly divided the Court-Party and discouraged the Grandees and Commanding Papists c. § 242. In September I being out of Town my House was broken by Thieves who broke open my Study-Doors Closets Locks searcht near 40 Tills and Boxes and found them all full of nothing but Papers and miss'd that little Money I had though very near them They took only three small pieces of Plate and medled not considerably with any of my Papers which I would not have lost for many hundred Pounds Which made me sensible of Divine Protection and what a Convenience it is to have such a kind of Treasure as other men have no mind to rob us of or cannot § 343. The Duke of York was now married to the Duke of Modena's Daughter by Proxy the Earl of Peterborough being sent over to that end § 244. The Lady Clinton having a Kinswoman wife to Edward Wray Esq who was a Protestant aâ—d her Husband a Papist throughly studied in all their Controversies and oft provoking his Wife to bring any one to dispute with him desired me to perform that office of Conference They differed about the Education of their Children he had promised her as she said at Marriage that she should have the Education of them all and now would not let her have the Education of one but would make them Papists I desired that either our Conference might be publick to avoid mis-reports or else utterly secret before no one but his Wife that so we might not seem to strive for the Honour of Victory nor by dishonour be exasperated and made less capable of benefit The latter way was chosen but the Lady Clinton and Mr. Goodwin the Lady Worsep's Chaplain prevailed to be present by his consent He began upon the point of Transubstantion and in Veron's Method would have put me to prove the Words of the Article of the Church of England by express Words of
and also how the Plot was laid to Kill the King Thus Oates's Testimony seconded by Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey's Murder and Bedlow and Pranse's Testimonies became to be generally believed Ireland a Jesuit and Two more were Condemned as designing to Kill the King Hill Berry and Green were Condemned for the murder of Godfrey and Executed But Pranse was by a Papist first terrified into a Denyal again of the Plot to Kill the King and took on him to be Distracted But quickly Recanted of this and had no Quiet till he told how he was so Affrighted and Renewed all his Testimony and Confession After this came in one Mr. Dugdale a Papist and confessed the same Plot and especially the Lord Stafford's interest in it And after him more and more Evidence daily was added â—â—â—man the Dutchess of York's Secretary and one of the Papists great Plotters and Disputers being surprized though he made away all his later Papers was hanged by the Old Ones that were remaining and by Oates his Teâ—â—imony But the Parliament kept off all Aspersions from the Duke The Hopes of some and the Fears of others of his Succession prevailed with many § 28. At last the Lord Treasurer Sir Thomas Osborne made Earl of Danby came upon the stage having been before the object of the Parliament and People's jealousy and hard thoughts He being afraid that somewhat would be done against him knowing that Mr. Montague his Kinsman late Ambassadour in France had some Letters of his in his keeping which he thought might endanger him got an order from the King to seize on all Mr. Montagues Letters who suspecting some such usage had conveyed away the chief Letters and telling the Parliament where they were they sent and fetcht them and upon the reading of them were so instigated against the Lord Treasurer they impeached him in the Lords House of High Treason But not long after the King disolved the long Parliament which he had kept up about 17 or 18 years But a new Parliament is promised § 29. Above 40 Scots men of which 3 Preachers were by their Council sentenced to be not only banished but sold as servants called slaves to the American Plantations They were brought by ship to London Divers Citizens offered to pay their ransom The King was petitioned for them I went to the D. of Lauderdale but none of us could prevail for one man At last the Ship-Master was told that by a Statute it was a Capital crime to Transport any of the King's Subjects out of England where now they were without their consent and so he set them on shoar and they all escaped for nothing § 30. A great number of Hungarian Ministers had before been sold for Gally slaves by the Emperour's Agents but were released by the Dutch Admiral 's Request and some of them largely relieved by Collections in London § 31. The long and grievous Parliament that silenced about 2000 Ministers and did many works of such a nature being dissolved as aforesaid on Ian. 25. 1678. A new one was chosen and met on March 6 following And the King refusing their chosen speaker Mr. Segmore raised in them a greater displeasure against the Lord Treasurer thinking him the cause and after some days they chose Serjeant Gregory § 32. The Duke of York a little before removed out of England by the King's Command who yet stands to maintain his Succession § 33. The Parliament first impeached the foresaid Papist Lords for the Plot or Conspiracy the Lord Bellasis Lord Arundel Lord of Powis Lord Scafford and Lord Peter and after them the Lord Treasurer 34. New fires breaking out enrage the People against the Papists A great part of Southwark was before burnt and the Papists strongly suspected the cause Near half the buildings of the Temple were burnt And it was greatly suspected to be done by the Papists One Mr. Bifeild's house in Holbourn and Divers others so fired but quenched as made it very probable to be by their Conspiracy And at last in Fitter-Lane it fell on the house of Mr. Robert Bird a Man employed in Law of great Judgment and Piety who having more wit than many others to search it out found that it was done by a new Servant Maid who confessed it first to him and then to a Justice and after to the Lords that one Nicholas Stubbes a Papist having first made her promise to be a Papist next promised her 5 l. to set fire on her Master's house telling her that many others were to do the like and the Protestant Hereticks to be killed by the middle of Iune and that it was no more sin to do it than to kill a Dog Stubbes was taken and at first vehemently denyed but after confessed all and told them that one Giffard a Priest and his Confessor engaged him in it and Divers others and told them all as aforesaid how the Firing and Plot went on and what hope they had of a French Invasion The House of Commons desired the King to pardon the woman Eliz. Oxley and Stubbes § 35. If the Papists have not Confidence in the French Invasion God leaveth them to utter madness to hasten their ruine They were in full junctness through the Land and the noise of rage was by their design turned against the Nonconformists But their hopes did cast them into such an impatience of delay that they could no longer stay but must presently Reign by rage of blood Had they studied to make themselves odious to the Land they could have found out no more effectual way than by Firing Murder and Plotting to kill the King All London at this day is in such fear of them that they are fain to keep up private Watches in all streets besides the Common ones to save their houses from firing Yea while they find that it increaseth a hatred of them and while many of them are already hanged they still go on which sheweth either their confidence in Foreign Aid or their utter infatuation § 36. Upon Easter day the King dissolved his privy Council and settled it a new consisting of 30 men most of the old ones the Earl of Shaftsbury being President to the great joy of the People then tho since all is changed § 37. On the 27th of April 1679. Tho it was the Lord's Day the Parliament State excited by Stubbes his Confession that the Firing Plot went on and the French were to invade us and the Protestants to be murdered by Iune 28 and they voted that the Duke of York's declaring himself a Papist was the cause of all our dangers by these Plots and sent to the Lords to concur in the same Vote § 38. But the King that week by himself and the Chancellour acquainted them that he should consent to any thing reasonable to secure the Protestant Religion not alienating the Crown from the Line of Succession and Particularly that he would consent that till the Successour should take the Test he should exercise
Worship to be unlawful to them that have not Liberty to do better Discipline I wanted in the Church and saw the sad Effects of its neglect But I did not then understand that the very Frame of Dioceâ—â—n Prelacy excluded it but thought it had been only the Bishops personal neglects Subscription I began to judge unlawful and saw that I sinned by temerity in what I did For though I could still use the Common Prayer and was not yet against Diocesans yet to Subscribe Ex Animo That there is nothing in the three Books contrary to the Word of God was that which if it had been to do again I durst not do So that Subscription and the Cross in Baptism and the promâ—â—â—â— giving of the Lord's Supper to all Drunkards Swearers Fornicators Scorners at Godliness c. that are not Excommunicate by a Bishop or Chancellor that is out of their Acquaintance These three were all that I now became a Nonconformist to But most of this I kept to my self I daily disputed against the Nonconformists for I found their Censoriousness and Inclinations towards Seperation in the weaker sort of them to be a Threatning Evil and contrary to Christian Charity on one side as Persecution is on the other Some of them that pretended to much Learning engaged me in Writing to dispute the Case of Kneeling at the Sacraments which I followed till they gave it over I laboured continually to repress their Censoriousness and the boldness and bitterness of their Language against the Bishops and to reduce them to greater Patience and Charity But I found that their Sufferings from the Bishops were the great Impediment of my Success and that he that will blow the Coals must not wonder if some Sparks do fly in his face and that to persecute Men and then call them to Charity is like whipping Children to make them give over Crying The stronger sort of Christians can bear Mulcts and Imprisonments and Reproaches for obeying God and Conscienceâ— without abating their Charity or their Weakness to their Persecutors but to expect this from all the weak and injudicious the young and passionate is against all Reason and Experience I saw that he that will be loved must love and he that rather chooseth to be more feared than loved must expect to be hated or loved but diminutively And he that will have Children must be a Father and he that will be a Tyrant must be contented with Slaves § 20. In this Town of Dudley I lived not a Twelve-month in much comfort amongst a poor tractable People lately famous for Drunkenness but commonly more ready to hear God's Word with submission and reformation than most Places where I have come so that having since the Wars set up a Monthly Lecture there the Church was usually as much crowded within and at the Windows as ever I saw any London Congregations Partly through the great willingness of the People and partly by the exceeding populousness of the Country where the Woods and Commons are planted with Nailers Scithe-Smiths and other Iron-Labourers like a continued Village And here in my weakness I was obliged to thankfulness to God for a convenient Habitation and the tender care of Mr. R. Foley's Wife a Genlewoman of such extraordinary Meekness and Patience with sincere Piety as will not easily be believed by those that knew her not who died about two years after § 21. When I had been but three quarters of a year at Dudley I was by God's very gracious Providence invited to Bridgnorth the second Town of Shropshire to preach there as Assistant to the worthy Pastor of that place As soon as I heard the place described I perceived it was the fittest for me for there was just such Employment as I desired and could submit to without that which I scrupled and with some probability of peace and quietness The Minister of the place was Mr. William Madstard a grave and severe Ancient Divine very honest and conscionable and an excellent Preacher but somewhat afflicted with want of Maintenance and much more with a dead-hearted unprofitable People The Town Maintenance being inconsiderable he took the Parsonage of Oldbury near the Town a Village of scarce twenty Houses and so desired me to be one half day in the Town and the other at the Village but my Lot after fell out to be mostly in the Town The place is priviledged from all Episcopal Jurisdiction except the Archbishop's Triennial Visitation There are six Parishes together two in the Town and four in the Country that have all this Priviledge At Bridgnorth they have an Ordinary of their own who as an Official keepeth a constant Ecclesiastical Court having the Jurisdiction of those six Parishes This reverend and good man Mr. Madstard was both Pastor and Official the Place usually going along with that of the Preacher of that Town though separable By which means I had a very full Congregation to preach to and a freedom from all those things which I scrupled or thought unlawful I often read the Common Prayer before I preached both on the Lord's-days and Holy-days but I never administred the Lord's Supper nor ever Baptized any Child with the Sign of the Cross nor ever wore the Surplice nor was ever put to appear at any Bishop's Court. But the People proved a very ignorant dead-hearted People the Town consisting too much of Inns and Alehouses and having no general Trade to imploy the Inhabitants in which is the undoing of great Towns so that though through the great Mercy of God my first Labours were not without Success to the Conversion of some ignorant careless Sinners unto God and were over-valued by those that were already regardful of the Concernments of their Souls yet were they not so successful as they proved afterwards in other places Though I was in the fervour of my Affections and never any where preached with more vehement desires of Mens Conversion and I account my Liberty with that measure of Success which I there had to be a Mercy which I can never be sufficiently thankful for yet with the generality an Applause of the Preacher was most of the success of the Sermon which I could hear of and their tipling and ill company and dead-heartedness quickly drowned all § 22. Whilst I here exercised the first Labours of my Ministry two several Assaults did threaten my Expulsion The one was a new Oath which was made by the Convocation commonly called The Et caetera Oath For it was to swear us all That we would never Consent to the Alteration of the present Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops Deans Arch-deacons c. This cast the Ministers throughout England into a Division and new Disputes Some would take the Oath and some would not Those that were for it said That Episcopacy was Iure Divino and also settled by a Law and therefore if the Sovereign Power required it we might well swear that we would never consent to
Church the bowing to Altars the Book for Sports on Sundays the Casting out of Ministers the troubling of the People by the High-Commission Court the Pilloring and Cutting off Mens Ears Mr. Burtons Mr. Prins and Dr. Bastwicks for speaking against the Bishops the putting down Lectures and Afternoon Sermons and Expositions on the Lord's Days with such other things which they thought of greater weight than Ship-money But because these later agreed with the former in the Vindication of the Peoples Propriety and Liberties the former did the easilier concur with them against the Proceedings of the Bishops and High Commission Court And as soon as their Inclination was known to the People all Countreys sent in their Complaints and Petitions It was presently known how many Ministers Bishop Wren and others of them had suspended and silenced how many thousand Families had been driven to flie into Holland and how many thousand into new-New-England Scarce a Minister had been Silenced that was alive but it was put into a Petition Mr. Peter Smart of Durham and Dr. Layton a Scotch Physician who wrote a Book called Sion's Plea against the Prelates were released out of their long Imprisonment Mr. Burton Mr. Prin and Dr. Bastwick who as is said had been pillored and their Ears cut off and they sent into a supposed perpetual Imprisonment into the distant Castles of Gernsey Iersey and Carnarvon were all set free and Damages voted them for their wrong And when they came back to London they were met out of the City by abundance of the Citizens with such Acclamations as could not but seem a great Affront to the King and be much displeasing to him The Lord Keeper Finch and Secretary Windebank fled beyond Sea and saved themselves The guilty Judges were deeply accused and some of them imprisoned for the Cause of Ship-money But the great Displeasure was against the Lord Deputy Wentworth and Archbishop Laud Both these were sent to the Tower and a Charge drawn up against them and managed presently against the Lord Deputy by the ablest Lawyers and Gentlemen of the House This held them work a considerable time The King was exceeding unwilling to consent unto his death and therefore used all his skill to have drawn off the Parliament from so hot a Prosecution of him And now began the first Breach among themselves For the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby and divers other able Men were for the sparing of his Life and gratifying the King and not putting him on a thing so much displeasing to him The rest said If after the Attempt of Subverting the Fundamental Laws and Liberties no one Man shall suffer Death it will encourage others hereafter to the like The Londoners petitioned for Iustice And too great numbers of Apprentices and others being imboldened by the Proceedings of the Parliament and not fore-knowing what a Fire the Sparks of their temerity would kindle did too triumphingly and disorderly urge the Parliament crying Iustice Iustice. And it is not unlikely that some of the Parliament-men did encourage them to this as thinking that some backward Members would be quickned by Popular Applause And withal to work on the Members also by disgrace some insolent Painter did seditiously draw the Pictures of the chief of them that were for saving the Lord Deputy and called them the Straffordians he being Earl of Strafford and hang'd them with their Heels upward on the Exchange Though it cannot be expected that in so great a City there should be no Persons so indiscreet as to commit such disorderly Actions as these yet no sober Men should countenance them or take part with them whatever ends might be pretended or intended The King called these Tumults the Parliament called them the Cities Petitioning Those that connived at them were glad to see the People of their mind in the main and thought it would do much to facilitate their Work and hold the looser Members to their Cause For though the House was unanimous enough in condemning Ship-money and the Et caetera Oath and the Bishops Innovations c. yet it was long doubtful which side would have the major Vote in the matter of the Earl of Strafford's Death and such other Acts as were most highly displeasing to the King But disorderly means do generally bring forth more Disorders and seldom attain any good end for which they are used § 28. The Parliament also had procured the King to consent to several Acts which were of great importance and emboldened the People by confirming their Authority As an Act against the High Commission Court and Church-mens Secular or Civil Power and an Act that this Parliament should not be dissolved till its own Consent alledging that the dissolving of Parliaments emboldened Delinquents and that Debts and Disorders were so great that they could not be overcome by them in a little time Also an Act for Triennial Parliaments And the People being confident that all these were signed by the King full sore against his will and that he abhorred what was done did think that the Parliament which had constrained him to this much could carry it still in what they pleased and so grew much more regardful of the Parliament and sided with them not only for their Cause and their own Interest but also as supposing them the stronger side which the Vulgar are still apt to follow § 29. But to return to my own matters This Parliament among other parts of their Reformation resolved to reform the corrupted Clergy and appointed a Committee to receive Petitions and Complaints against them which was no sooner understood but multitudes in all Countreys came up with Petitions against their Ministers The King and Parliament were not yet divided but concurred and so no partaking in their Differences was any part of the Accusation of these Ministers till long after when the Wars had given the occasion and then that also came into their Articles but before it was only matter of Insufficiency false Doctrine illegal Innovations or Scandal that was brought in against them Mr. Iohn White being the Chair-man of the Committee for Scandalous Ministers as it was called published in print one Century first of Scandalous Ministers with their Names Places and the Articles proved against them where so much ignorance insufficiency drunkenness filthiness c. was charged on them that many moderate men could have wished that their Nakedness had been rather hid and not exposed to the Worlds derision and that they had remembred that the Papists did stand by and would make sport of it Another Century also was after published Among all these Complainers the Town of Kederminster in Worcestershire drew up a Petition against their Ministers The Vicar of the place they Articled against as one that was utterly insufficient for the Ministry presented by a Papist unlearned preached but once a quarter which was so weakly as exposed him to laughter and perswaded them that he understood not the very Substantial Articles of
and silly Preachers whose Performances were so mean that they had better kept to the Reading of the Homilies and many of these were of Scandalous Lives Hereupon the Disciplinarians cried out of the ignorant scandalous Ministers and almost all the scandalous Ministers and all that studied Preferment cried out of the Nonconformists The name Puritan was put upon them and by that they were commonly known when they had been called by that name awhile the vicious Multitude of the Ungodly called all Puritans that were strict and serious in a Holy Life were they ever so conformable So that the same name in a Bishops mouth signified a Nonconformist and in an ignorant Drunkards or Swearers mouth a godly obedient Christian. But the People being the greater number became among themselves the Masters of the Sense And in Spalatensi's time when he was decrying Calvinism he devised the name of Doctrinal Puritans which comprehended all that were against Arminianism Now the ignorant Rabble hearing that the Bishops were against the Puritans not having wit enough to know whom they meant were emboldened the more against all those whom they called Puritans themselves and their Rage against the Godly was increased and they cried up the Bishops partly because they were against the Puritans and partly because they were earnest for that way of Worship which they found most consistent with their Ignorance Carelesness and Sins And thus the Interest of the Diocesans and of the Prophane and Ignorant sort of People were unhappily twisted together in England And then on the other side as all the Nonconformists were against the Prelates so other of the most serious godly People were alienated from them on all these foresaid conjunct Accounts 1. Because they were derided and abused by the Name of Puritans 2. Because the Malignant Sort were permitted to make Religious Persons their common Scorn 3. Because they saw so many insufficient and vicious Men among the Conformable Clergy 4. Because they had a high esteem of the Parts and Piety of most of the Nonconformable Ministers 5. Because they grieved to see so many Excellent Men silenced while so many Thousand were perishing in Ignorance and Sin 6. Because though they took the Liturgy to be lawful yet a more orderly serious Scriptural way of Worship was much more pleasing to them 7. Because Fasting and Praying and other Exercises which they found much benefit by were so strictly lookt after that the High Commission and the Bishops Courts did make it much more perillous than common Swearing and Drunkenness proved to the Ungodly 8. Because the Book that was published for Recreations on the Lord's Day made them think that the Bishops concurred with the Prophane 9. Because Afternoon Sermons and Lectures though by Conformable Men began to be put down in divers Counties 10. Because so great a number of Conformable Ministers were suspended or punished for not reading the Book of Sports on Sundays or about Altars or such like and so many Thousand Families and many worthy Ministers driven out of the Land 11. Because when they saw Bowing towards Altars and the other Innovations added they feared worse and knew not where they would end 12. And lastly Because they saw that the Bishops proceeded so far as to swear Men to their whole Government by the Et caetera Oath and that they approved of Ship-money and other such incroachments on their Civil Interests All these upon my own knowledge were the true Causes why so great a number of those Persons who were counted most Religious fell in with the Parliament in England insomuch that the generality of the stricter diligent sort of Preachers joyned with them though not in medling with Arms yet in Judgment and in flying to their Garrisons and almost all those afterwards called Presbyterians were before Conformists Very few of all that Learned and Pious Synod at Westminster were Nonconformists before and yet were for the Parliament supposing that the Interest of Religion lay on that side Yet did they still keep up an honourable esteem of all that they thought Religious on the other side such as Bishop Davenant Bishop Hall Bishop Morton Archbishop Usher c. But as to the generality they went so unanimously the other way that upon my knowledge many that were not wise enough to understand the Truth about the Cause of the King and Parliament did yet run into the Parliaments Armies or take their part as Sheep go together for Company moved by this Argument Sure God will not suffer almost all his most Religious Servants to err in so great a matter And If all these should perish what will become of Religion But these were insufficient Grounds to go upon And abundance of the ignorant sort of the Country who were Civil did flock in to the Parliament and filled up their Armies afterward meerly because they heard Men swear for the Common Prayer and Bishops and heard others pray that were against them and because they heard the King's Soldiers with horrid Oaths abuse the name of God and saw them live in Debauchery and the Parliaments Soldiers flock to Sermons and talking of Religion and praying and singing Psalms together on their Guards And all the sober Men that I was acquainted with who were against the Parliament were wont to say The King hath the better Cause but the Parliament hath the better Men Aud indeed this unhappy Complication of the Interest of Prelacie and Prophaneness and Opposition of the Interest of Prelacie to the Temper of the generality of the Religious Party was the visible Cause of the overthrow of the King in the Eye of all the understanding World that ever was capable of observing it § 50. And whereas the King's Party usually say that it was the seditious Preachers that stirred up the People and were the Cause of all this I answer 1. It is partly true and partly not It is not true that they stirred them up to War except an inconsiderable Number of them one perhaps in a County if so much But it is true that they discovered their dislike of the Book of Sports and bowing to Altars and diminishing Preaching and silencing Ministers and such like and were glad that the Parliament attempted a Reformation of them 2. But then it is as true that almost all these were conformable Ministers the Laws and Bishops having cast out the Nonconformists long enough before insomuch that I know not of two Nonconformists in a County But those that made up the Assembly at Westminster and that through the Land were the Honour of the Parliaments Party were almost all such as had till then conformed and took those things to be lawful in case of necessity but longed to have that necessity removed § 51. When the War was beginning the Parties set Names of Contempt upon each other and also took such Titles to themselves and their own Cause as might be the fittest means for that which they designed The old Names of Puritans
the several Articles which I did in a small Book called Christian Concord In which I gave the reasons why the Episcopal Presbyterians and Independants might and should unite on such Terms without any change of any of their Principles But I confess that the new Episcopal Party that follow Grotius too far and deny the very being of all the Ministers and Churches that have not Diocesan Bishops are not capable of Union with the rest upon such Terms And hereby I gave notice to the Gentry and others of the Royalists in England of the great danger they were in of changing their Ecclesiastical Cause by following new Leaders that were for Grotianism But this Admonition did greatly offend the Guilty who now began to get the Reins though the old Episcopal Protestants confessed it to be all true There is nothing bringeth greater hatred and sufferings on a Man than to foreknow the mischief that Men in power are doing and intend and to warn the World of it For while they are resolutely going on with it they will proclain him a Slanderer that revealeth it and use him accordingly and never be ashamed when they have done it and thereby declared all which he foretold to be true § 170. 15. Having in the Postscript of my True Catholick given a short touch against a bitter Book of Mr. Thomas Pierce's against the Puritans and me it pleased him to write another Volume against Mr. Hickman and me just like the Man full of malignant bitterness against Godly men that were not of his Opinion and breathing out blood-thirsty malice in a very Rhetorical fluent style Abundance of Lies also are in it against the old Puritans as well as against me and in particular in charging Hacket's Villany upon Cartwright as a Confederate which I instance in because I have out of old Mr. Ash's Library a Manuscript of Mr. Cartwright's containing his full Vindication against that Calumny which some would fain have fastened on him in his time But Mr. Pierce's principal business was to defend Grotius In answer to which I wrote a little Treatise called The Grotian Religion discovered at the Invitation of Mr. Thomas Pierce In which I cited his own words especially out of his Discussio Apologetici Rivetaini wherein he openeth his Terms of Reconciliation with Rome viz. That it be acknowledged the Mistress Church and the Pope have his Supream Government but not Arbitrary but only according to the Canons To which end he defendeth the Council of Trent it self Pope Pius's Oath and all the Councils which is no other than the French sort of Popery I had not then heard of the Book written in France called Grotius Papizans nor of Sarravius's Epistles in which he witnesseth it from his own mouth But the very words which I cited contain an open Profession of Popery This Book the Printer abused printing every Section so distant to fill up Paper as if they had been several Chapters And in a Preface before it I vindicated the Synod of Dort where the Divines of England were chief Members from the abusive virulent Accusations of one that called himself Tilenus junior Hereupon Pierce wrote a much more railing malicious Volume than the former the liveliest Express of Satan's Image malignity bloody malice and falshood covered in handsome railing Rhetorick that ever I have seen from any that called himself a Protestant And the Preface was answered just in the same manner by one that stiled himself Philo-Tilenus Three such Men as this Tilenus junior Pierce and Gunning I have not heard of besides in England Of the Jesuites Opinion in Doctrinals and of the old Dominican Complexion the ablest Men that their Party hath in all the Land of great diligence in study and reading of excellent Oratory especially Tilenus junior and Pierce of temperate Lives but all their Parts so sharpened with furious persecuting Zeal against those that dislike Arminianism high Prelacy or full Conformity that they are like the Briars and Thorns which are not to be handled but by a fenced hand and breathe out Tereatnings against God's Servants better than themselves and seem unsatisfied with blood and ruines and still cry Give Give bidding as lowd defiance to Christian Charity as ever Arrius or any Heretick did to Faith This Book of mine of the Grotian Religion greatly offended many others but none of them could speak any Sence against it the Citations for Matter of Fact being unanswerable And it was only the Matter of Fact which I undertook viz. To prove that Grotius profest himself a moderate Papist But for his fault in so doing I little medled with it § 171. 16. Mr. Blake having replye to some things in my Apology especially about Right to Sacraments or the just subject of Baptism and the Lord's Supper I wrote five Disputations on those Points proving that it is not the reality of a Dogmatical or Justifying Faith nor yet the Profession of bare Assent called a Dogmatical Faith by many but only the Profession of a Saving Faith which is the Condition of Mens title to Church-Communion Coram Ecclèsiâ and that Hypocrites are but Analogically or Equivocally called Christians and Believers and Saints c. with much more to decide the most troublesome Controversie of that Time which was about the Necessary Qualification and Title of Church-Members and Communicants Many men have been perplexed about that Point and that Book Some think it cometh too near the Independants and some that it is too far from them and many think it very hard that A Credible Profession of True Faith and Repentance should be made the stated Qualification because they think it incredible that all the Jewish Members were such But I have sifted this Point more exactly and diligently in my thoughts than almost any Controversie whatsoever And fain I would have found some other Qualification to take up with 1. Either the Profession of some lower Faith than that which hath the Promise of Salvation 2. Or at least such a Profession of Saving Faith as needeth not to be credible at all c. But the Evidence of Truth hath forced me from all other ways and suffered me to rest no where but here That Profession should be made necessary without any respect at all to Credibility and consequently to the verity of the Faith professed is incredible and a Contradiction and the very word Profession signifieth more And I was forced to observe that those that in Charity would belive another Profession to be the title to Church-Communion do greatly cross their own design of Charity And while they would not be bound to believe men to be what they profess for fear of excluding many whom they cannot believe they do leave themselves and all others as not obliged to love any Church-Member as such with the love which is due to a True Christian but only with such a Love as they owe to the Members of the Devil and so deny them the Kernel of Charity by giving
prosecute them or cast them out as it is against the nature of the body to dismember it self by cutting off any of the parts And it is easie to bring such Persons to Agreement at least to live in Charitable Communion But on the other side the Carnal Selfish and Unsanctified of what Party or Opinion soever have a Nature that is quite against holy Concord and Peace They want that love which is the natural Balsom for the Churches wounds They are every one Selfish and ruled by Self-Interest and have as many Ends and Centres of their Desires and Actions as they are individual Men. They are easily deceived and led into Errour especially in Practicals and against Spiritual Truths for want of Divine Illumination and Experience of the Things of God and a Nature suitable thereto Their Designs are Carnal Ambitious Covetous as Worldly Felicity is their Idol and their End God is not taken for their highest Governour his Laws must give place to the Desires of their Flesh Their very Religion is but Pride and Worldliness or subject to it They have a secret Enmity against a holy spiritual Life and therefore against the People that are holy They love not them that are serious in their own Religion and that go beyond their dead Formality This Enmity provoked by Self-interest or Reproof doth easily make them Persecutors of the Godly if they have but power And their carnal worldly hearts incline them to the carnal worldly side in any Controversies about Religion and to corrupt it and make it a carnal thing These Hypocrites in the Church do betray its Purity and Peace and â—ell Christ's Interest and the Gospel for as small a price as Iudas sold his Lord for And though in a time when God's Providence setteth his own Cause on the higher ground and giveth it the advantage of holy Governours these Men may possibly be serviceable to its welfare as finding it to serve their carnal Ends yet ordinarily they will â—ell the Peace of the Church for Preferment and are either imposing persecuting Dividers or discontented humourous Dividers and hardly brought to the necessary terms of a just and holy and durable Peace of whom I have more largely written in my Book called Catholick Unity These and many more Impediments do rise up against all conciliatory endeavours § 22. But I found not all these alike in all the disagreeing Parties though some of both Sorts in every Party The Erastian Party is most composed of Lawyers and other Secular Persons who better understand the Nature of Civil Covernment than the Nature Form and Ends of the Church and of those Offices appointed by Christ for Men's Spiritual Edification and Salvation The Diocesan Party with us consisted of some grave learned godly Bishops and some sober godly People of their mind and withal of almost all the carnal Politicians Temporizers Prophane and Haters of Godliness in the Land and all the Rabble of the ignorant ungodly Vulgar Whether this came to pafs from any thing in the Nature of their Diocesan Government or from their accommodating the ungodly Sort by the formal way of their Publick Worship or from their heading and pleasing them by running down the stricter sort of People whom they hated or all these together and also because the worst and most do always fall in with the Party that is uppermost I leave to the Judgment of the considerate Reader The Presbyterian Party consisted of grave orthodox godly Ministers together with the hopefullest of the Students and young Ministers and the soberest godly ancient Christians who were equally averse to Persecution and to Schism and of those young ones who were educated and ruled by these As also in those places where they most prevailed of the soberest sort of the well-meaning Vulgar who liked a godly Life though they had no great knowledge of it And this Party was most desirous of Peace The Independant Party had many very godly Ministers and People but with them many young injudicious Persons inclined much to Novelties and Separations and abounding more in Zeal than Knowledge usually doing more for Subdivisions than the few sober Persons among them could do for unity and Peace too much mistaking the Terms of Church Communion and the difference between the Regenerate invisible and the Congregate or visible Church The Anabaptists Party consisted of some but fewer sober peaceable Persons and orthodox in other Points but withal of abundance of young transported Zealots and a medley of Opinionists who all hasted directly to Enthusiasm and Subdivisions and by the Temptation of Prosperity and Success in Arms and the Policy of some Commanders were led into Rebellions and hot Endeavours against the Ministry and other Ioandalous Crimes and brought forth the horrid Sects of Ranters Seekers and Quakers in the Land § 23. But the greatest Advantage which I found for Concord and Pacification was among a great number of Ministers and People who had addicted themselves to no Sect or Party at all though the Vulgar called them by the Name of Presbyterians And the truth is as far as I could discover this was the Case of the greatest number of the godly Ministers and People throughout England For though Presbytery generally took in Scotland yet it was but a stranger here And it found some Ministers that lived in conformity to the Bishops Liturgies and Ceremonies however they wisht for Reformation and the most that quickly after were ordained were but young Students in the Universities at the time of the change of Church Government and had never well studied the Point on either side And though most of the Ministers then in England saw nothing in the Presbyterian way of practice which they could not cheerfully concur in yet it was but few that had resolved on their Principles And when I came to try it I found that most that ever I could meet with were against the Ius Divinum of Lay Elders and for the moderate Primitive Episcopacy and for a narrow Congregational or Parochial Extent of ordinary Churches and for an accommodation of all Parties in order to Concord as well as my self I am sure as soon as I proposed it to them I found most inclined to this way and therefore I suppose it was their Judgment before Yea multitudes whom I had no converse with I understood to be of this mind so that this moderate Number I am loth to call them a Party because they were for Catholicism against Parties being no way pre-engaged made the Work of Concord much more hopeful than else it would have been or than I thought it to be when I first attempted it § 24. Things being in this Case I stood still some years as a looker on and contented my self to wish and pray for Peace and only drop now and then a word for it in my practical Writings which hath since been none of my smallest troubles The Reasons were 1. Because I was taken up in Practicals and in such
may read them After this I received from Sir Ralph Clare these ensuing Papers as from some Courtiers which are of the same Strain with Dr. Gunning's which with my brief Answer I adjoin SIR THE Influence and Power you have in the present Pastor of your Church who is much famed abroad and had in a reverend Esteem as well for Piety of Life as for his Learning Moderation and desiring the Peace of the Church gives Encouragement to your old Acquaintance and Associate in that One-glorious Court of England to desire the Favour that this inclosed Paper may be presented to his Christian View and Consideration presuming so great is his Charity that he will not leave any wounded Soul unhealed wherein he is able to bestow his Balm In this he extends not his Charity alone as to a single Person but in me there are many more of your Friends included who would have appeared in Person or met in Conference were is not our Mansions are at too great a distance and the Malignity and Iealousy of Times challenges Retirements rather than Assemblies It is not civil in us to chalk the Method of Answering the Queries yet for Easement Sake and Brevity it will be satisfactory his free Concession of any Proposals in the Affirmative to be true without any Enlargement of Reasons and for those Queries which may and must admit Divisions Distinctions and Discourse on the Case let the reverend Gentleman use his own Form Iudgment and Discretion as believing he will proceed with such Candor and Impartiality as becometh a Man of his Calling and Eminency waving all By-Interests and Relations to any Party or Faction either regnant or eclipst which Act will deservedly heighten the high Esteem he is valued at and your self by this Honour done engage me and many more of your old Friends in me to subscribe our selves Your Servants Theophilus Church A feigned Name April 20. 1655. Certain Queries and Scruples of Conscience offered to some Learned Divines for Resolution and Satisfaction 1. WHETHER may a Christian Magistrate tolerate Liberty of Conscience in Religion and Church Discipline without Scandal 2. Whether may and ought a tender Conscience exercise and use his Liberty and Freedom without Violence inforced by Superiors 3. Whether in Matters of Government Ecclesiastical depending only of Fact the general and perpetual Practice of the Church from Age to Age be not a sufficient Evidence and Warrant of the Right Truth and certainty of the thing 4. Whether the Vocation of Bishops be an Order Lawful in it self 5. Whether the Regiment Ecclesiastical by Bishops hath not continued throughout the Christian Church ever since the Apostles untill Calvin's days No Church Orthodox dissenting 6. Whether was there ever since the Apostle's days so much as one national Church governed by a Presbytery without a Bishop untill Calvin's Days If so where was the Original in what Place by what Persons of what continuance and how was it lost or changed into Episcopacy and upon what Grounds or Motives 7. Whether the present Ministry in the Church of England as it now separated from their lawful Superiors or Bishops be not Schismatical 8. Whether all these Ministers that have taken the Oath of Canonical Obedience to their Bishops and have backsliden and submitted to those Powers that violently deprived the said Bishops of their legal Powers and Iurisdictions by yielding a voluntary Obedience to their Ordinances are not under a high Censure of Perjury and Schism 9. Whether those Ministers now pretended to be made and ordained in the Church of England only by their Fellow Ministers without a Bishop be true Ministers or no or else meer Lay Persons and bold Usurpers of the Sacred Function and Order like Corah and his Complices 10. Whether all those Ministers which are now in actual possession of the late Incumbents Parsonages and Cures of Souls and deprived for their only adhering and assisting their late lawful Prince and their Governour and also their Bishops to whom they owed all Canonical Obedience without and beside any Legal Induction or Admission may not be reputed as Intruders and false Shepherds 11. Whether it had not been an excellent part of Christian Perfection rather to endure passively lost of Liberty Estate and even of Life it self for the maintenance and defence of the Iust and Legal Rights invested in the Church and the Bishops it 's Superintendent Pastors and the Liturgy and Service of the Church than carnally for Self-interest and Ends to comply and submit even against their knowing Consciences to a violent and meer prevailing power and force in the abolishing of Episcopal Power and the daily Prayers and Service used in the Church 12. Whether all such Persons be not guilty of Schism and of Scandal given which Communicate and be present in such Ministers Congregations and Assemblies whether in Church or in private Meetings to hear their Prayers or Sermons or receive their Sacraments according to the now present mode and form more especially in the participation with them in the Sacrament of the Eucharist Or how far may a good Christian Communicate with such without just Scandal given or taken 13. Whether it be lawful and just for any Orthodox Minister or Episcoparian to accept of any Benefice with Cure of Souls as the state of the English Church now standeth visible and ruling without guilt of Schism by compliance to their Form 14. Whether as the Condition of the present Church of England is The Ministers thereof may not legally and so justifiably exercise and use against the late Liturgy of the Church there being no Statute Law prohibiting the same And whether those that continue the Observation of the late Directory be not perturbers of the Peace of the Church especially since the limitation of trial by a pretended Legality and Command for its observance is expired and not reconfirmed 15. Whether the old Iewish Church had not set Forms of Prayer whether St. John the Raptist our Saviour's Praecursor and our blessed Saviour himself taught not their Disciples set Forms of Prayers and whether the Christian Church especially since the time of Peace from the violence of Heathenish Persecution had not nor generally used set Forms of Prayer And whether the Ministers now ex tempore Prayers in the Church be not as well a set Form of Prayers to the Auditors whose Spirits are therein bounded as any set Form of Prayer used in the Church 16. Whether may a Christian without Scandal given appear to be a Godfather or Godmother to a Child in these New Assemblies where the Minister useth his own Dictates and Prayers and not of the ancient Liturgy except the Words of Baptism I Baptize thee A. B. in the Name of the Father c. 17. Whether any Supream Earthly Power or Powers Spiritual or Temporal joint or separate can alienate and convert to secular uses or imployments any Houses Lands Goods or Things once devoted offered and dedicated to God and his Church
without grand Sacriledge and Prophaneness although by Corruption of Persons and Times they have been either superstitiously abused or too prophanely employed but rather to reduce them to their primitive Use and Donation 18. Whether the ancient Fasting Days of the Week and Festivals of the Church setled both by Provincial Synods in the Year 1562. and 1640. and confirmed by the then Regal Power and also by several Statutes and Laws ought not by all persons in Conscience to be still observed until they be abrogated by the like Powers again or how far the Liberty of Conscience therein may be used in observing or not observing them the like for the usage of the Cross in Baptism and the humble posture of Kneeling at the receiving of the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper 19. Which way of security and peace of Conscience may a quiet Christian order and dispose himself his Wife Children and Family in his Duty and Service towards God and enjoy the right use and benefit of the Sacraments and other holy Duties as long as that part of the Catholick Church wherein he lives is under persecution and the visible Ruling Church therein is faln Schismatical if not in many particulare Heretical April 20th 1655. May 14th 1655. An Answer to the foregoing Questions sent to Sir R. Clare Ad Quest. 1m. EIther that Conscience owneth the right Religion and Discipline only or the right with some tolerable accidental Errours or a wrong Religion and Discipline in the Substance The first the Magistrate must not only tolerate but promote The second he must tolerate rather than do worse by suppressing it The third he must suppress by all lawful means and tolerate when he cannot help it without a greater Evil. I suppose no Judicious Man will expect an exact Solution of so Comprehensive a Question in few words And I find not that a large Discussion is now expected from me There are four or five Sheets of my Manuscripts in some hands abroad on this Point which may do more towards a satisfactory Solution than these few words Ad 2m. Either the tender Conscience is in the right or in the wrong If in the wrong the Magistrates Liberty will not make a Sin to be no Sin but the Party is bound by God to rectifie his Judgment and thereby his Practice If in the right it is a strange Question Whether a Man may obey God that hath the Magistrates leave till he be enforced by Mens violence Doth any doubt of it Ad 3m. Matter of Government depending only on Fact is a Contradiction Seeing Government consisteth in a Right and the Exercise of it I am not able therefore to understand this Question Yet if this may afford any help toward the Solution I affirm That the general and perpetual practice of the Church from Age to Age of a thing not forbidden by the Word of God will warrant our imitation I say of a thing not forbidden because it hath been the general and perpetual practice of the Church to Sin by vain Thoughts Words imperfect Duties c. wherein our imitation is not warrantable The general and perpetual practice includeth the Apostles and that Age. But what is meant by Evidencing the Right of a thing that dependeth only of Fact or by Evidencing the Truth and Certainty of a Fact by general and perpetual practice which is to prove idem per idem I will not presume that I understand Ad 4m. I know not what Bishops you mean A Congregational Bishop overseeing the People is undoubtedly lawful so is a Congregational Bishop being President of a Presbytery which is over that Congregation Where many Congregational Officers are associated I do not think that a President for a time or during his fitness standing and fixed is unlawful The like I may say of a President of many of those Associations again associated as in a Province or Diocess And I believe it were a very easie work for wise godly moderate men to agree about his Power And I would not seem so censorious as to proclaim that England wanteth such further than the actual want of such Agreement or just endeavours thereto doth proclaim it I am satisfied also that the Apostles themselves have de jure Successors in all that part of their work which is to be perpetuated or continued till now though not in their extraordinary Endowments and Priviledges But if the sence of your Question be Whether one Man may be the standing chief Governour of many particular Churches with their Officers having either sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction as some would have or a Negative Voice in both as others it would seem great arrogancy in me to be the confident Determiner of such a Question which so wise learned godly sober Men have said so much of on both sides already Ad 5m. 1. He that knows how short Church History is in these Matters for the first Age after the Apostles at least and hath read impartially what Gersom Bucerus Parker Blondellus Salmasius Altare Damascen have said on one side and Saravia Downham Dr. Hammond c. on the other would sure never expect that I should presume to pass any confident Sentence in the Point And it 's like he would be somewhat moderate himself 2. I say as before I know not what you mean by Bishops I am confident that the Church was not of many Hundred years after Christ governed as ours was lately in England by a Diocesan Bishop and a Chancellor excluding almost all the Presbyters 3. Why do you say Since the Apostles days when you before spoke of the General and perpetual practice of the Church Ad 6m. The word National Church admits of divers sences As it was usually understood in England I think there was none for divers hundred years after Christ either governed by Bishops or without them They that will look after the most encouraging Presidents must look higher than National Churches Ad 7m. The Question seems not to mean any particular truly-schismatical Party of Ministers but the generality that live not under the Bishops and so I answer negatively waiting for the Accusers proof Ad 8m. 1. I know not what the Oath of Canonical Obedience is therefore cannot give a full Answer I know multitudes of Ministers ordained by Bishops that never took any such Oath 2. The Powers that violently took down the Bishops were the Secular Powers None else could use violence And it were a strange Oath for a Man to swear that he would never obey the Secular Powers if they took down the Bishops when the Holy Ghost would have us obey Heathen Persecutors 3. If it were so great a Sin to obey those Powers I conceive it must be so to the Laity as well as the Ministry And I knew but few of the Episcopal Gentry or others called to it that did refuse to take the Engagement to be true and faithful to that Power when the Presbyters here accused durst not take it
a sober Christian hath the least reason to scruple Communion in Will you have a Pastor that shall not speak in the Name of the People to God or will you call his Prayers his own which he puts up by Virtue of his Office according to God's Word Ad 17m. I think they cannot without Sacriledge make such Alienation except where God's Consent can be proved For Example if the Ministers of the Church have full as much means given as is fit for the Ends to which it is given and yet the People will give more and more to the Burden and ensnaring of the Church and the impoverishing or ruin of the Common-wealth here I think God consents not to accept that Gift and therefore it was but an Offer and not plenarily a Gift for want of Acceptance for he accepts not that which he prohibits Here therefore the Magistrate may restore this to its proper use But whether this were any of the Case of these Sacrilegious Alienations too lately made in this Land is a farther Question I apprehend a deep Guilt of Sacriledge upon some Ad 18m. The Particulars here mentioned must be distinctly considered 1. About Fasts and Feasts the Question as referring to the Obligation of the Laws of the Land is of the same Resolution as all other Questions respecting those Laws which being a Case more out of my way I shall not presume to determine without a clearer Call Only I must say that I see little Reason why those Men should think themselves bound in this who yet suppose themselves loose from many other Laws and who obey many of the Laws or Ordinances of the present Powers 2. I much fear that not only the Querist but many more are much ensnared in their Consciences by misunderstanding the Nature and use of Synods It 's one thing for an Assembly of Bishops to have a superior Governing Power directly over all particular Churches and Bishops and another thing for such an Assembly to have a Power of determining of things necessary for the Concord of the several Churches I never yet saw it proved that Synods are over Bishops in a direct Governing Order nor are called for such Ends but properly in ordine ad Unitatem and so oblige only more than single Bishops by Virtue of the General Precept of maintaining Unity and Concord This is the Opinion of the most learned Bishop and famous antiquary that I am acquainted with 3. And then when the end ceases the Obligation is at an End So that this can now be no Law of Unity with us 4. All human Laws die with the Legislator farther than the surviving Rulers shall continue them The Reason is drawn from the Nature of a Law which is to be jussum Majestatis in the Common wealth and every where to be a sign of the Rectors Will de debito vel constituendo vel confirmando Or his Authoritative Determination of what shall be due from us and to us Therefore no Rector no Law and the Law that is though made by the deceased Rector is not his Law but the present Rector's Law formally it being the signifier of his Will And it is his Will for the continuance of it that gives it a new Life In all this I speak of the whole Summa potestas that hath the absolute Legislative Power If therefore the Church Governors be dead that made these Laws and no sufficient Power succeeds them to continue these Laws and make them theirs then they are dead with their Authors 5. The present Pastors of the Church though but Presbyters are the true Guides of it while Bishops are absent and the true Guides conjunctly with the Bishops if they were present according to the Judgment of your own side Whoever is the sole existent governing Powerâ— may govern and must be obeyed in things Lawful Therefore you must for all your unproved Accusation of Schism obey them The Death or Deposition of the Bishops depriveth not the Presbyters of that Power which they had before 6. Former Church Governors have not Power to bind all that shall come after them where they were before free But their Followers are as free as they were 7. The Nature of Church Canons is to determine of Circumstances only for a present time place or occasion and not to be universal standing Laws to all Ages of the Church For if such Determinations had been fit God would have made them himself and they would have been contained in his perfect Word He gives not his Legislative Power to Synods or Bishops 8. Yet if your Conscience will needs persuade you to use those Ceremonies you have no ground to separate from all that will not be of your Opinion 9. For the Cross the Canons require only the Minister to use it and not you and if he do not that 's nothing to you 10. Have you impartially read what is written against the Lawfulness of it by Amesius's fresh Suit Bradshaw Parker and others If you have you may at least see this that it 's no fit matter to place the Churches Unity or Uniformity in and they that will make such Laws for Unity go beyond their Commission Church Governors are to determine the Circumstances pro loco tempore in particular which God hath in Word or Nature made necessary in genere and left to their Determination But when Men will presume beyond this to determine of things not indeed circumstantial or no way necessary in genere nor left to their Determination as to institute new standing Symbols in and with God's Symbols or Sacraments to be engaging Signs to engage us to Christ and to Work Grace on the Soul as the Word and Sacraments do that is by a moral Operation and then will needs make these the Cement of Unity this is it that hath been the Bane of Unity and Cause of Divions 11. Kneeling at the Sacrament is a Novelty introduced many hundred years after Christ and contrary to such Canons and Customs of the Church to which for Antiquiâ—y and Universality you owe much more respect than to the Canons of the late Bishops in England 12. If your General Rule hold that you stand bound by all Canons not repealed by equal Power you have a greater burden on your back than you are aware of which if you bore indeed you would know how little this usurped Legislative Power befriends the Church And among others you are bound not to kneel in the Church on any Lord's Day in Sacrament or Prayer Grotius de Imperio Sumpotest would teach much more Moderation in these Matters than I here perceive Ad Q. 19m. 1. It 's too much Self-conceitedness and Uncharitableness to pass so bold a Censure as your Supposition doth contain of the visible ruling Church being Schismatical and so Heretical Which is the ruling Church I know none in England besides Bishops that pretend to rule any but their own Provinces and but few that pretend Order to Regiment Perhaps when the
whom we have to do that our Business is to request you of the Clergy not to provoke the Law-givers to make any Law against this That it may not become a Crime to Men to pray together and provoke one another to Love and to good Works when it is no Crime to talk and play and drink and feast together And that it may be no Crime to repeat a Sermon together unless you resolve that they shall hear none which is worth their repeating and remembring And whereas you speak of opening a Gap to Sectaries for private Conventicles and the evil Consequents to the State we only desire you to avoid also the cherishing of Ignorance and Prophaneness and suppress all Sectaries and spare not in a way that will not suppress the means of Knowledge and Godliness As you will not forbid all praying or preaching lest we should have Sectarian Prayers or Sermons so let not all the People of the Land be prohibited such Assistance to each others Souls as Nature and Scripture oblige them to and all for fear of the Meetings of Sectaries We thought the Cautions in our Petition were sufficient when we confined it Subjectively to those of our Flocks and Objectively to their Duties of exhorting and provoking one another to Love and to good Works and of building up one another in their most holy Faith And only by religious peaceable means of furthering each other in the ways of eternal Life And for the Order They being not opposite to Church-Assemblies but subordinate nor refusing the Guidance and Inspection of their Pastors who may be sometime with them and prescribe them their Work and Way and direct their Actions and being responsible for what they do or say their Doors being open there will not want Witnesses against them if they do amiss And is not all this enough to secure you against the Fear of Sectaries unless all such Helps and mutual Comforts be forbidden to all that are no Sectaries This is but as the Papists do in another Case when they deny People Liberty to read the Scriptures lest they make Men Hereticks or Sectaries And for the Danger of the State cannot Men plot against it in Ale-houses or Taverns or Fields or under Pretence of Horse-Races Hunting Bowles or other Occasions but only under pretence of Worshipping God If they may why are not all Men forbidden to feast or bowl or hunt c. lest Sectaries make advantage of such Meetings as well as to fast and pray God and wise Men know that there is something more in all such Jealousies of Religious Duties § 4. Do you really desire that every Congregation may have an able godly Minister Then cast not out those many Hundreds or Thousands that are approved such for want of Re-ordination or for doubting whether Diocesans with their Chancellors c. may be subscribed to and set not up ignorant ungodly ones in their Places Otherwise the poor undone Churches of Christ will no more believe you in such Professions than we believed that those Men intended the King's just Power and Greatness who took away his Life But you know not what we mean by Residence nor how far we will extend that Word The Word is so plain that it 's easily understood by those that are willing But he that would not know cannot understand as King Charles told Mr. Henderson I doubt the People will quickly find that you did not understand us And yet I more fear lest many a Parish will be glad of Non-residence even if Priest and Curate and all were far enough from them through whose Fault I say not § 5. Two Remedies you give us instead of what we desired for the Reformation of Church-Communion 1. You say Confirmation if rightly and solemnly performed will alone be sufficient as to the point of Instruction Answ. But what we desired was necessary to the right and solemn Performance of it Doth not any Man that knoweth what hath been done in England and what People dwell there know that there are not more ignorant People in this Land than such as have had and such as desire Episcopal Confirmation Is it Sufficient in point of Instruction for a Bishop to come among a company of little Children and other People whom he he never saw before and of whom he never heard a Word and of whom he never asketh a Question which may inform him of their Knowledge or Life and presently to lay his Hands on them in order and hastily say over a few Lines of Prayer and so dismiss them I was confirmed by honest Bishop Morton with a multitude more who all went to it as a May-game and kneeled down and he dispatched us with that short Prayer so fast that I scarce understood one word he said much less did he receive any Certificate concerning us or ask us any thing which might tell him whether we were Christians and I never saw nor heard of much more done by any English Bishop in his course of Confirmation If you say that more is required in the Rubrick I say then it is no Crime for us to desire it 2. And for your Provision in the other Rubrick again scandalous Communicants it enableth not the Minister to put away any one of them all save only the malicious that will not just then be reconciled Be not angry with us if in sorrow of Heart we pray to God that his Churches may have experienced Pastors who have spent much time in serious dealing with every one of their Parishes personally and know what they are and what they need instead of Men that have conversed only with Books and the Houses of great Men or when they do sometimes stoop to speak to the ignorant do but talk to them of the Market or the Weather or ask them what is their Name § 6. To your Answer we reply Those Laws may be well made stricter They hindred not the Imposition of a Book to be read by all Ministers in the Churches for the Peoples Liberty for Dancing and other such Sports on the Lord's Day and this in the King's Name to the ejecting or suspending of those Ministers that durst not read it And those Laws which we have may be more carefully executed If you are ignorant how commonly the Lord's Day is prophaned in England by Sporting Drinking Revelling and Idleness you are sad Pastors that no better know the Flock If you know it and desire not the Reformation of it you are yet worse Religion never prospered any where so much as where the Lord's Days have been most carefully spent in holy Exercises Concerning Church-Government § 7. Had you well read but Gersom Bucer Didoclavius Parker Baynes Salmasius Blondell c. yea of the few Lines in Bishop Usher's Reduction which we have offered you or what I have written of it in Disp. 1. of Church-Government you would have seen just Reason given for our Dissent from the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy as stated in England and have known
the things granted should be reverst which God forbid I must profess to your Lordship that I am utterly against accepting of a Bishoprick as because I am conscious that it will over-match my sufficiency and afright me with the remembrance of my Account for so great an Undertaking c. so specially because it will very much disable me from an effectual promoting of the Churches Peace As Men will question all my Argumentations and Persuasives when they see me in the Dignity which I plead for but will take me to speak my Conscience impartially when I am but as one of them so I must profess to your Lordship that it will stop my own Mouth so that I cannot for Shame speak half so freely as now I can and will if God enable me for Obedience and Peace while I know that the Hearers will be thinking I am pleading for my self Therefore I humbly crave 1. That your Lordship will put some able Man of our perswasion into the place which you intend me Though I now think that Dr. Reignolds and Mr. Calamy may better accept of a Bishoprick than I which I hope your Lordship will promote I shall presume to offer some Choice to your Consideration Dr. Francis Roberts of Wrington in Somersetshire known by his Works Mr. Froyzal of Clun in Shropshire and Hereford Drocess a Man of great worth and good interest Mr. Daniel Cawdrey of Biiling in Northamptonshire Mr. Anthony Burgess of Sutton-Coldfield in Warwickshire all known by their printed Works Mr. John Trap of Glocestershire Mr. Ford of Exeter Mr. Hughes of Plymouth Mr. Bampfield of Sherborne Mr. Woodbridge of Newbury Dr. Chambers Dr. Bryan and Dr. Grew both of Coventry Mr. Brinsley of Yarmouth Mr. Porter of Whitchurch in Shropshire Mr. Gilpin of Cumberland Mr. Bowles of Your Dr. Temple of Brampston in Warwickshire I need name no more 2. That you will believe that I as thankfully acknowledge your Lordship's Favour as if I were by it possessed of a Bishoprick And if your Lordship continue in those Intentions I shall thankfully accept it in any other state or relation that may further my Service to the Church and to his Majesty But I desire for the forementioned Reasons that it may be no Cathedral Relation And whereas the Vicar of the Parish where I have lived will not resign but accept me only as his Curate if your Lordship would procure him some Prehendary or other place of Competent Profit for I dare not motion him to any Pastoral Charge or Place that requireth preaching that so he might resign that Vicaridge to me without his Loss according to the late Act before December for the sake of that Town of Kidderminster I should take it as a very great favour But if there be any great Inconvenience or Difficulties in the way I can well be content to be his Curate I crave your Lordship's pardon of this trouble which your own Condescension hath drawn upon you and remain Your Lordships much obliged Servant Rich. Baxter Nov. 1. 1660. I have presumed to tender you the inclosed List of desired Members of the Indian Corporation supposing your Lordship will Name what Persons of higher Quality you see meet And also the French Project with this of London for a Corporation for the Poor that by such Generals you may be prepared to receive the Londoner's Petition when it is offered § 124. Mr. Calamy blamed me for giving in my Denial alone before we had resolved together what to do But I told him the truth that being upon other necessary Business with the Lord Chancellour he put me to it on the sudden so that I could not conveniently delay my Answer § 125. And Dr. Regnolds almost as suddenly accepted it saying That some Friend had taken out the Conge d'eslier for him without his knowledge But he read to me a Profession directed to the King which he had written wherein he professed that he took a Bishop and Presbyter to differ not ordine but gradu and that a Bishop was but the Chief Presbyter and that he was not to Ordain or Govern but with his Presbyter's Assistance and Consent and that thus he accepted of the place and as described in the King's Declaration and not as it stood before in England and that he would no longer hold or exercise it than he could do it on these terms To this sence it was and he told me that he would offer it the King when he accepted of the place but whether he did or not I cannot tell He dy'd in the Bishoprick of Norwich An. 1676. § 126. On Friday Novemb. 2. being All-Souls-day the Queen came in And there were that day on the Thames three Tydes in about Twelve hours to the common admiration of the People § 127. Mr. Calamy long suspended his Answer so that that Bishoprick was long undisposed of till he saw the issue of all our Treaty which easily resolved him And Dr. Manton was offered the Deanery of Rochester and Dr. Bates the Deanery of Coventry and Lichfield which they both after some time refused And as I heard Mr. Edward Bowles was offered the Deanery of York at least which he refused and not long after died of the stone § 128. When the King's Declaration was passed we had a Meeting with the Ministers of London called Presbyterian that is all that were neither Prelatical nor of any other Sect to consult with them about their returning Thanks to the King for his gracious Declaration that so it might appear that those that were not with us were thankful for it as well as we At the first Meeting the City Ministers first voted their Thanks to be given to us for our Labours in procuring it Nemine contradicente But old Mr. Arthur Iackson a very worthy Man and Mr. Crofton spake against returning Thanks to the King Not that they were not truly thankful but because their Thanks would signifie an approbation of Bishops and Archbishops which they had covenanted against This I undertook to confute by proving that the Bishops and Archbishops in the King's Declaration are not ejusdem speciei with what they were before And that there is the same Name but not the same Thing and withal by proving that the Covenant did not meddle against all Bishops and Archbishops but only those of the English Diocesan Species And that there was a Specifical Difference I proved in that by the King's Declaration the Essentials at least of Church-Government is restored to the Pastors whereas before the Pastors had no Government and this altereth all the Frame as much as if you let the Foundation Walls and Roof of your House stand and all that is visible without but within you pull down the Partitions and turn it into a Church For before every Bishop was the lowest and sole Governour with his Court and Consistory of many hundred Churches and now every Pastor is the lowest Governour of his Flock and the Bishop is but the Superiour
Consecrated Bread and Wine which is here omitted The Minister is causelesly tied to meet the Corps just at the Church Style and to use the oft-repeated Lord have Mercy upon us Christ have Mercy upon us Lord have Mercy upon us And it is a Confusion perilous to the living that we are to presume that all we bury be of one sort viz. Elect and Saved when contrarily we see multitudes die without any such Signs of Repentance as rational Charity can judge sincere It is disorder that Women be not at all required beforehand to desire any publick Prayers for their safe Deliverance and yet when they are delivered that a Thanksgiving on the Lord's Days such as is for other great Deliverances will not serve the turn without a special Office which if performed on the Lord's Day will be an Impediment or Disturbance to the publick Worship And while an inconvenient Psalms and Repetitions and Responds be used the Prayer is defective as will appear by comparing it with what we offer It is a perilous Disorder that Penance as it is called be used by notorious Sinners at a stated time the beginning of Lent which should be used rightly to restore the Person whenever he is fallen And this is not to be wished in this Disorder to be restored again no more than that Physick be given only at Lent in acute Diseases which must be medicated out of Hand In the repeating of the Curses the People should be better taught to know the difference of the Law and Gospel and then that excellent dehortation may be well used But this pertaineth to the ordinary preaching of the Word Of the Responds and the doubtful Phrase thou hatest nothing tâ—at thou hast made we have spoke before Other Omissions and Disorders appear by comparing it with what we offer We only add upon the whole these further general Remarks 1. It is a great Disorder that we have so many Prayers instead of many Petitions in one Prayer The Gravity and Seriousness requisite in our Prayers to God and the Examples left on Record in Scripture do persuade us when we have many Petitions at once to put up to God which all have a Connexion in Nature and Necessity that there should be such a Connexion of our Desires and Requests and many of them should constitute one Prayer whereas the Common-Prayer-Book in its numerous Collects doth make oft times as many Prayers as Petitions and we undecently begin with a solemn Preface and as Solemnly conclude and then begin again as if before every Petition of the Lord's Prayer we should repeat Our Father which art in Heaven and after every Petition For thine is the Kingdom the Power and the Glory Yet we deny not that when we have but some one Particular Request to put up without Connexion with others we may then make a Prayer of that alone 2. Hence it comes to pass that the holy and reverend Name of God is made the matter of unnecessary Tautologies while half the Prayer is made up of his Attributes and Addresses to him and with Conclusions containing the Mention of his Name and Kingdom and the Merits of his Son even in holy Worship we should fear using God's Name unreverently and in vain 3. And it is a great Disorder that so much of the publick Prayers should be uttered by the People as in the Responds and that they only should put up the petitioning part while the Minister doth but suggest to them or recite the Matter of the Petitions as in the Litany seeing the Minister is by Office to be the Mouth of the People and God and Scripture intimateth that ordinarily their Part was but to say Amen and it seemeth to many sober People who are much offended at it to be a very confused and unseeâ—â— Murmur that is caused in most Congregations by the Peoples speaking Especially when in reading the Psalms the People say every second Verse which cannot be heard and understood by such as cannot read or have no Books and then the other Verse which the Minister saith is not understood because we hear not the annexed Verse which containeth part of the Sense And so the whole reading Psalms are almost as in Latin to them that cannot read themselves And that all this is really Disorder and contrary to Edification appeareth both in the Reason of the thing and in that the Prayers mentioned in Scripture are of another Order and in that they are not according to the Method of the Lord's Prayer which is the perfect Rule of Prayer in all universal Prayers which consists not of occasional Particulars and in that the most sensible experienced praying Christians find it by Experience to hinder their Edification and their Testimony should be preferred before that of ignorant unexperienced partial or ungodly Men or at least a Course taken which is agreeable to both sorts and hindereth the Edification of neither And lastly those very Men that will not reform any of this Disorder in the Liturgy do nauseate and condemn the Prayers of a weak Minister or private Christian if they have but the fourth part of the very like Disorders Repetitions Tautologies or Defects as the Liturgy hath For these Reasons a proportionable Reformation is desired Besides all forementioned there is in two months space no less than one hundred and nine Chapters of the Apocrypha appointed to be read as Lessons just in the time manner and Title as the Chapter of the holy Scriptures be even the Stories of Tobit and Iudith being part and also of Bel and the Dragon and Susanna which Protestants hold to be but Fables But those Exceptions which we actually offered to the Bishops were as follows The Exceptions against the Book of Common-Prayer ACknowledging with all humility and thankfulness his Majesty's most Princely Condescention and Indulgence to very many of his Loyal Subjects as well in his Majesty's most gracious Declaration as particularly in this present Commission issued forth in pursuance thereof we doubt not but the right Reverend Bishops and all the rest of his Majesty's Commissioners intrusted in this Work will in imitation of his Majesty's most prudent and Christian Moderation and Clemency judge it their Duty what we find to be the Apostles own Practice in a special manner to be tender of the Churches Peace to bear with the Infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves nor to measure the Consciences of other Men by the Light and Latitude of their own but seriously and readily to consider and advise of such Expedients as may most conduce to the healing of our Breaches and uniting those that differ And albeit we have an high and honourable esteem of those godly and learned Bishops and others who were the first Compilers of the publick Liturgy and do look upon it as an excellent and worthy Work for that time when the Church of England made her first step out of such a Mist of Popish Ignorance and Superstition wherein
for my fear that he symbolized with the Papists was abated now I perceived that he knew not what they held And Dr. Gunning answered against him and said that the Papists do so use the Word I went on and told him That I also granted that a Man for a certainspace might he without any Act of Sin end as I was proceeding here Bishop Morley interrupted me according to his manner with vehemency crying out what can any Man be for any time without Sin And he founded out his Aggravations of this Doctrine and then cryed to Dr. Bates what say you Dr. Bates is this your Opinion Saith Dr. Bates I believe that we are all Sinners but I pray my Lord give him leave to speak I began to go on to the rest of my Sentence where I lest to shew the Sense and Truth of my Words and the Bishop whether in Passion or Design I know not interrupted me again and mouthed out the odiousness of my Doctrine again and again I attempted to speak and still he interrupted me in the same manner Upon that I sat down and told him that this was neither agreeable to our Commission nor the common Laws of Disputation nor the Civil Usage of Men in common Converse and that if he prohibited me to speak I desired him to do it plainly and I would â—â—sist and not by that way of interruption He told me I had speaking enough if that were good for I spake more than any one in the Company And thus he kept me so long from uttering the rest of my Sentence that I sat down and gave over and told him I took it for his Prohibition At last I let him talk and spake to those nearer me which would hear me and told them that this was it that I was going to say That I granted Bishop Lany that it was possible to be free from acting Sin for a certain time that so he might have no matter of Objection against me and that the Instances of my Concession were these 1. In the time of absolute Infancy 2. In the time of total Fatuity or Madness as natural Ideots that never had the use of Reason 3. In the time of a Lethargy Carus or Apoplexy or Epilepsie 4. In the time of lawful sleep when a Man doth not so much as dream amiss And whether any other Instances might be given I determined not But as I talked thus Bishop Morley went on talking louder than I and would neither hear me nor willingly have had me to have been heard Behind me at the lower end of the Table stood Dr. Crowther and he would consute me and I defended Dr. Lany in that Ieroboam made Israel to Sin What gather you thence quoth I that they had no Sin but that or never sumed before He answered yes and with a little Nonsence would defend it that Israel sinned not till then When I had proved the contrary to him in the general Acceptation of the Word Sin I told him that if he took the Word Figuratively the Genus for a Species I granted him that they sinned not that Species of Sin which Ieroboam taught them which is in the Text emphatically called Sin If he meant that they sinned no Sin of Idolatry or no National Sin till then It was not true and if it were it was nothing to our Question which was about Sin in the General or indefinitely He told me they Sinned no National Sin till then I asked him whether the Idolatry the Unbelief the Murmuring c. by which all the Nation save Caleb and Ioshua fell in the Wilderness and the Idolatry for which in the time of the Judges the Nation was conquered and captivated were none of them National Sins I give the Reader the Instance if this Odious kind of Talk to shew him what kind of Men we talkt with and what a kind of Task we had § 196. And a little further touch of it I shall give you When I beg'd their Compassion on the Souls of their Brethren and that they would not unnecessarily cast so many out of the Ministry and their Communion Bishop Cosins told me that we threatned them with Numbers and for his part he thought the King should do well to make us name them all A charitable and wise Motion To name all the Thousands of England that dissented from them and that had sworn the Covenant and whom they would after Persecute § 197. When I read in the Preface to our Exceptions against the Liturgy That after twenty years Calamity they would not yield to that which several Bishops voluntarily offered twenty Years before meaning the Corrections of the Liturgy offered by Archbishop Usher Archbishop Williams Bishop Morton Dr. Prideaux and many others Bishop Cosins answered me That we threatned them with a new War and it was time for the King to look to us I had no shelter from the Fury of the Bishop but to name Dr. Hammond and tell him that I remembred Dr. Hammond insisted on the same Argument that twenty Years Calamity should have taught Men more Charity and brought them to repentance and Brotherly Love and that it is an Aggravation of their Sin to be unmerciful after so long and heavy Warnings from God's Hand He told me if that were our meaning it was all well And these were the most logical Discourses of that Bishop § 198. Among all the Bishops there was none who had so promising a Face as Dr. Sterne the Bishop of Carlisle He look'd so honestly and gravely and soberly that I scarce thought such a Face could have deceived me and when I was intreating them not to cast out so many of their Brethren through the Nation as scrupeled a Ceremony which they confess'd indifferent he turn'd to the rest of the Reverend Bishops and noted me for saying in the Nation He will not say in the Kingdom saith he lest he own a King This was all that ever I heard that worthy Prelate say But with grief I told him that half the Charity which became so grave a Bishop might have sufficed to have helpt him to a better Exposition of the Word Nation from the Mouths of such who have to lately taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and sworn Fidelity to the King as his Chaplains and had such Testimonies from him as we have had and that our case was sad if we could plead by the King's Commission for Accommodation upon no no better Terms than to be noted as Traytors every time we used such a Word as the Nation which all monarchical Writers use § 199. Bishop Morley earnestly pleaded my own Book with me my fifth Disput. as he had done before the King And I still told him I went not from any thing in it He vehemently aggravated the mischiefs of Conceived Prayer in the Church and when I told him that all the Action of Men would be imperfect while Men were imperfect and that the other side also had its
seeing it is but supposing them to be Men not yet in Heaven and this may be impured to every one that differeth in Opinion from another And we beseech your Majesty to believe that as we seek no greater Matters in the World than our daily bread with Liberty to preach the Gospel and Worship God according to his Word and the practise of the Primitive purest Church so we hope it is not through pusillanimity and overmuch tenderness of Suffering that we have pleaded so much for the avoiding of Suffering to our Selves or others May none of our Sufferings hinder the Prosperity of the Church and the good of Souls of Men May not our dread Soveraign the Breath of our Nostrils be tempted by mis-representations to distast such as are faithful and unawares to wrong the interest of Christ and put forth his hand to afflict those that Christ would have him cherist left their Head should be provoked to jealousie and offence May not the Land of our Nativity languish in Divisions nor be filled with the Groans of those that are shut out of the holy Assemblies and those that want the necessary breaking of the Bread of Life Nor be disappointed of its expected Peace and Ioy Let not these things befall us and we have enough And we suppose those that think the Persons inconsiderable in number and quality for whom we plead will not themselves believe that we have done this for Popular Applause This were not so much to seek the Reward of Hypocrites as to play the Game of Fools seeing the Applause of inconsiderable Men can be but inconsiderable and we know our selves that we are like thus to offend those that are not inconsiderable The Lord that searcheth hearts doth know that it is not so much the avoiding of Suffering to our selves or any particular Persons that is the end of our Endeavours though this were no ambitious end as the Peace and Welfare of the Church and Kingdoms under your Majesty's Government We know that supposing them that are for the Ceremonies to be as pious and charitable as the rest it cannot so much offend them that another Man forbeareth them as it must offend that other to be forced to use them and we know that consciencious Men will not consent to the practice of things in their Judgments unlawful when those may yield that count the Matters but indifferent And for the management of this Treaty it being agreed at our first meeting that nothing be reported as the Words or Sence of either Part but what is by them delivered in writing we humbly crave that your Majesty receive no more as ours and that where is charged on any particular Person he may be answerable for himself And though the Reverend Bishops have not had time to consider of our Additions to the Liturgy and of our Reply that yet they may be considered before a Determination be made And though we seem to have laboured in vain we shall yet lay this Work of Reconciliation and Peace at the feet of your Majesty beseeching you to prosecute such a blessed Resolution till it attain success We must needs believe that when your Majesty took our Consent to a Liturgy to be a Foundation that would infer our Concord you meant not that we should have no Concord but by consenting to this Liturgy without any considerable Alteration And when you comforted us with your Resolution to draw us together by yielding on both sides in what we could you meant not that we should be the Boat and they the Bank that must not stir And when your Majesty commanded us by your Letters Patents to treat about such Alterations as are needful or expedient for giving Satisfaction to tender Consciences and the restoring and continuance of Peace and Unity we rest assured that it was not your sence that those render Consciences were to be forced to practise all which they judged unlawful and not so much as a Ceremony abated them Or that our Treaty was only to convert either part to the Opinion of the other and that all our Hopes of Concord or Liberty consisted only in Disputing the Bishops into Nonconformity or coming in every Ceremony to their minds Finally as your Majesty under God is the Protection whereto your People flie and as the same Necessities still remain which drew forth your gracious Declaration we most humbly and earnestly beseech your Majesty that the Benefits of the said Declaration may be continued to your People and in particular That none be punished or troubled for not using the Common Prayer till it be effectually reformed and the Additions made as there expressed We crave your Majesty's pardon for the tediousness of this Address and shall wait in hope that so great a Calamity of your People as would follow the loss of so many able faithful Ministers as rigorous Impositions would cast out shall never be Recorded in the History of your Reign but than these Impediments of Concord being forborn your Kingdoms may flourish in Piety and Peace and this may be the signal Honour of your happy Government and your Joy in the Day of your Accounts Which is the Prayer of Your Majesty's Faithful and Obedient Subjects § 240. And in the Conclusion of this Business seeing we could prevail with these Prelates and Prelatical Men after so many Calamities by Divisions and when they pretended Desires of Unity to make no considerable Alterations at all the Reason of it seeming unsearchable to some was by others confidently conjectured to be these 1. They extremly prejudic'd the Persons that sought this Peace and therefore were glad of means to cast them out and ruin them 2. The Effects of the Parliament's Conquest had exasperated them to the height 3. They would not have any Reformation or Change to occasion Men to think that ever they were in an Errour or that their Adversaries had reasonably desired or had procured a Reformation 4. Some confidently thought that a secret Resolution to unite with the Papists at least as high as the old Design which Heylin owneth in Laud's Life was the greatest cause of all And that they would never have lost so great a Party as they did but to gain a greater at home and abroad together § 241. And here because they would abate us nothing at all considerable but made things far harder and heavier than before I will annex the Concessions of Archbishop Usher Archbishop Williams Bishop Morton Bishop Holdsworth and many others in a Committee at Westminster before mentioned 1641. A Copy of the Proceedings of some Worthy and Learned Divines touching Innovations in the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England Together with Considerations upon the Common Prayer Book Innovations in Doctrine 1. Quaere WHether in the Twentieth Article these Words are not inserted Habet Ecclesia authoritatem in Controversiis fidei 2. It appears by Stetfords and the approbation of the Licensers that some do teach and preach That Good
to put up to God in all which they are meer Executioners of other Mens Judgments as a Cryer or such other Messenger § 316. 2. The second Charge against this Diocesan Prelacy is That it introduceth a New Humane Species or Presbyters or Spiritual Officers instead of Christ's which it destroyeth that is a sort of meer Subject Presbyters that have no power of Government but meerly to Teach and Worship That this is a distinct Species is proved in that 1. It wanteth an essential part which the other Species hath 2. From the Bishop's own profession who in the beginning of the Book of Ordination Subscribed to do declare it plainly determined in Scripture viz. That Bishops Priests and Deacons are three distinct Orderâ— which word Orders is the common term to signifie a Species of Church Officers distinct from a meer degree in the same Order or Species That this Office is New is proved 1. In that Scripture or Antiquity never knew it 2. Dr. Hammond Annot. in Act. 11. and in his Latin Book against Blondell Dissertat professeth that it cannot be proved that the word Bishop Presbyter or Pastor signifieth in all the Scripture any other than a proper Bishop or that there was any such as we now all Presbyters in Scripture times And in his Answer to the London Ministers he saith That for ought he knoweth all his Brethren of the Church of England are of his mind So that Presbyters that had no Governing Power were not in Scripture times And though he says that the other sort came in before Ignatiu's time yet 1. He saith not that this sort had no Government of the Flock but that they were under the Bishop in Government so that yet they are not the sort that we are speaking of 2. And he doth not prove any more § 317. 3. A third Charge which they bring against our Prelacy is That it destroyeth the Species or Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ The Churches which Christ instituted are Holy Societies associated for Personal holy Communion under their particular Pastors But all such Societies are destroyed by the Diocesan Frame Ergo it is destructive of the Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ. The distinguish between Personal Local Communion of Saints by Pastors and their Flocks and Communion of hearts only and Communion by Delegation or Deputies 1. We have Heart-Communion with all the Catholick Church through the World 2. Particular Churches have Communion for Concord and mutual Strength in Synods by their Pastors or Deputies 3. But a holy Communion of Souls or individual Persons as Members of the same particular Church for publick Worship and a holy Life is specifically distinct from both the former as is apparent 1. By the distinct end 2. The distinct manner of Communion yea and the matter of it And that this Form of Churches or Species is overthrown by this Prelacy they prove The Churches of Christ's institution were constituted of Governing Pastors and a Flock governed by them in Personal holy Communion every Church having its proper Pastor or Pastors But such Churches as are thus constituted are destroyed by our Frame of Prelacy Ergo The Major is confessed de facto by Dr. Hammond ubi supra as to Scripture times and sufficiently cleared in my Treatise of Episcopacy Ignatius his Testimony alone might suffice who saith That to every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons his Fellow Servants A Church of one Altar and of a thousand Altars A Church that is for Personal Communion and a Church that hath no Personal Communion with her Pastor or Bishop or with one of a hundred of her Fellow-Members a Church which is a Church indeed and that which is no Church but only a part of a Church are more than specifically distinct for indeed the Name is but equivoeally applied to them as distinct Natures or Societies Every Church univocally so called in sensu politico as a governed Society hath its pars gubernaâ—s and pars gubernata to constitute it But so have not our Parish Churches as such indeed as Oratories and Schools as instructed and worshipping Societies they have their Parochial Heads but as governed Societies they have no Heads proper to themselves nor any at all as Churches but as parts of a Church For the Diocesan is Head of the Diocesan Church as such and not of a Parochial Church as such but only as a part of the Diocesan Church And as it is no Kingdom which hath no King so it is no Political Church which hath no Governour or Pastor So that Diocesans destroy particular Churches as much as in them lyeth Unless any will say that as one King as he is persona naturalis may be three or twenty Kings as persona civilis as related to several Kingdoms and so one Bishop as persona naturalis may yet be a thousand Ecclesiastical Persons as Pastor of so many Churches But this being ridiculous and yet said by none that I have heard of I shall not stand to confute it But were it so yet a Pastor that never seeth or speaketh to his People nor hath any personal Communion in Worship with them and this according to the Constitution it self is not of the same sort with a Scripture Pastor 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. Hebr. 13. 17 c. which labour among them and preach to them the Word of God and watch for their Souls c. And consequently the Churches constituted by them are not of the same Species It is one Office personally to Teach Oversee Rule and Worship with them and another to do none of these to one of a thousand but to send the Churchwardens a Book of Articles § 318. 4. A fourth Charge is That it setteth up a New Church-Form which is unlawful instead of that of Christ's institution that is a Diocesan Church consisting of many hundred Parishes which none of them are Churches according to the Diocesan Frame but parts of one Church It hath been shewed that this Diocesan Church is of another Species than the Parochial one being for personal Communion which the other is uncapable of the far greatest part of the Members never seeing their Pastor nor knowing one another any more than if they lived in several parts of the World And that this Church Form is new is proved already that is that there was no Diocesan Church having many stated Congregations and Altars much less many hundreds and all under one only Bishop or Governour either in Scripture time or two hundred years after excepting only that in Alexandria and Rome some shew of more Assemblies than one under one Bishop appeared a little sooner Here note That it is not an Archbishop's Church that we are speaking of who is but the General Pastor or Bishop having other Bishops and Churches under him but it is a Church infimae Speciei commonly called a particular Church which hath no other Churches or Bishops under it
him 3. That executively it is to be done by every one in their places the Pastors giving or denying the Sacraments c. and the People holding or refusing Communion or Company with Men according as they are judged by the Church I think there is no Controversie among us about these § 325. 3. And therefore the Work will resolve us of the place viz. That the Execution must be in that place where he had or desired Communion or was capable of it And therefore that the Iudgment should be by those that being upon the place have fullest opportunity to know the Persons and the Case Even by those Pastors who labour amongst the People that are over them in the Lord 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. who have the rule over them and preach to them the Word of God Hebr. 13. 7 17 24. and not by those that are strangers to them § 326. 4. And as to the Manner all Divines are agreed That it is not to be like the proceedings of a Civil Court where there is no more to be done but examine the Cause and pass the Sentence and execute it by Corporal Penalties and Mulcts But 1. That it is to be managed by grave Divines the Physicians of Souls for the saving of the Sinner if it may be with great seriousness and light and weight of Scripture Argument convincing the Erroneous terrifying the Secure with the terrours of the Lord reproving and admonishing and perswading the penitent Offender and all this with Love and Compassion and due Patience and restoring the Penitent with Tenderness and Consolation and necessary Caution From all which it is evident That one single Person thus dealt with in case of Heresie may hold the Pastor or Bishop many days time and one gross Sinner may hold him many hours time before this Work can be done as the Nature and Ends of it do require 2. And it is to be done by the meer Keys of the Kingdom of Christ by managing God's Word by particular Application to the Case and Conscience of the Sinner and not by outward Force of Penalties § 327. 5. And all this is apparent in the Ends of it which is 1. That Churchâ—Communion may be a Communion of Saints 2. That the Sinner may be saved and converted to that end 3. Or however that others may be warned by his sad Example 4. And that the unbelieving and ungodly World may see the Excellency of Christian Religion and not be hardened in their Infidelity and Impietyâ— 5. And so that Christ and the Father by him may be honoured in his holiness among the Sons of Men These are the Ends of Church-Discipline § 328. 3. And as you see what the Discipline is that is to be Exercised so the Number of Persons on whom it is to be exercised may be gathered from what is said in the beginning where is shewed 1. How many hundred Parishes are in a Diocess 2. How many hundred or thousand Souls in a Parish unless the very smallest 3. And how many Hereticks Atheists Papists Infidels or Swearers Cursers Railers Drunkards Fornicators and other scandalous Sinners there are proportionably in most Parishes I leave to the judgment of every faithful Pastor that ever tried it by a particular knowledge of his Flock § 329. 4. And lastly who they be that are to Exercise all this Discipline I have shewed before even one Court or Consistory in a whole Diocess with the inconsiderable subserviency of the Arch-Deacon's Court For the Rural Deans do nothing in it and are themselves scarce known and the Pastor and Churchwardens do nothing but present Men to the Courts and execute part of their Sentences § 330. All this being laid together the impossibility of Christ's Discipline in our Churches is undeniable 1. Because by this Computation there must stand at once before the Court many thousand Persons to be at once examined convinced reproved exhorted or a great Multitude at least whenas they can speak but to one at once 2. Because the second Admonition which should be before two or three is there before an open Judicature which is not suited to the appointed End so that really our Controversie with the Diocesans is the same in effect as if it were controverted whether a thousand or six hundred Schools shall have as many governing School-masters or whether one only shall govern all these Schools and the rest of the School-masters have only power to â—each and not to govern were it only whether one should have a general Inspection over the rest that they may be punished for Malc-administration we should not be so far disagreed for though we might question whether Christ ever made or allowed any such Officer besides the Magistrate yet if the Work were but done by any we should judge it more tolerable Or the Controversie is as if it were questioned whether all the Diocess should have any more than one Physician that should have any power to prescribe any Government to the Patients and all the rest should only read general Lectures of Physick to them and be his Apothecaries to carry them his Prescripts and Medicines which were to question whether most shall have any Physician or none and whether the People shall have their Lives sacrificed to the mad Ambition of some one Man that would be their only Physician Shifting may deceive the unexperienced but let any Minister in England be but so faithful as to know all his Flock and regard their Souls and he can never deny that this is the true Case For my own part the Lord knoweth that I did with too much remisness exercise some Discipline a few years when I had liberty in one Country Parish upon one of the most Reformed People in the Land and that with the help of many Fellow-Ministers and of many of the People in their places and the countenance and presence of three Justices of the Peace and yet I found the burden too great for me and that one half of that Parish would have been enough It is in this as in Military Discipline or Navigation The Judgment of that Man that never tried it is of very little value in the Case Do but try the Government of one Parish in the Scripture way and we shall not differ § 331. And the Nonconformists further prove that our Prelacy maketh this Discipline morally impossible thus Were it not morally impossible some one godly Bishop in England would have executed it as Christ appointeth But no one godly Bishop in England doth or ever did so execute it Ergo The Major will not be denied of a Moral Impossibility or at least of a difficulty next it That which no one Man no not the wisest or the best ever did may well be called morally impossible or neer it And that England hath had some such Bishops we are not so uncharitable as to question when we remember Hooper Farrar Latimer Cranmer Ridley Iewel Grindall Hall and many more And I never met with
Name of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Government And so by the Name they seduce Mens minds to think that this is indeed the use of the Keys which God hath put into the Churches Hands 3. Hereby they greatly encourage the Usurpation of the Pope and his Clergy who set up such Courts for probate of Wills and Causes of Matrimony and rule the Church in a Secular manner though many of them confess that directly the Church hath no forcing Power And this they call the Churches Power and Spiritual Government and Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction and say that it belongeth not to Kings and that no King can in Conscience restrain them of it but must protect them in it And so they set up Imperium in Imperio and as Bishop Bedle said of Ireland The Pope hath a Kingdom there in the Kingdom greater than the Kings Against which Ludov. Molinaeus hath written at large in two or three Treatises So that when the Papal Power in England was cast down and their Courts subjected to the King and the Oath of Supremacy formed it was under the Name of Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Power that it was acknowledged to be in the King who yet claimeth no proper Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power so greatly were these Terms abused and so are they still as applied to our Bishops Courts so that the King is said by us to be Chief Governour in all Causes Ecclesiastical because Coercive Power in Church Matters which is proper to the Magistrate was possessed and claimed by the Clergy And in all Popish Kingdoms the Kings are but half Kings through these Usurpations of the Clergy And for us to Exercise the same kind of Power mixt with the Exercise of the Keys and that by the same Name is greatly to countenance the Usurpers § 352. If it be said That the Church claimeth no Coercive Power but as granted them by the King or that it is the Magistrate that annexeth Mulcts and Penalties and not the Church I answer 1. They perswade the Magistrate that he ought to do so 2. Force is not a meer Accident but confessed by them to be the very Life of their Government It is that which bringeth People to their Courts and enforceth all their Precepts and causeth Obedience to them so that it is part of the very Constitution of their Government And as to Fees and Commutation of Penance Pecuniary Mulcts are thus imposed by themselves 3. Their very Courts and Officers are of a Secular Form 4. The Magistrate is but the Executioner of their Sentence He must grant out a Writ and imprison a Man quatenus excommunicate without sitting in Judgment upon the Cause himself and trying the Person according to his Accusation And what a dishonour do these Men put on Magistrates that make them their Executioners to imprison those whom they condemn inuudita causa at a venture be it right or wrong So much of the Nonconformists Charges against the English Prelacy § 353. By this you may see what they Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists As 1. To the willing Conformists who plead a Iur Divinum they say That if all that Gersom Bucer Didoclavius Blondell Salmasius Parker Baines c. have said against Episcopacy it self were certainly confuted yet it is quite another thing that is called Episcopacy by them that plead it Iure Divino If 1. Bishops of single Churches with a Presbytery under them 2. and General Bishops over these Bishops were both proved Iure Divine yet our Diocesans are proved to be contra jus Divinum 2. To the Latitudinarians and involuntary Conformists who plead that no Church-Government as to the form is of Divine Institution they answer 1. This is to condemn themselves and say Because no Form is of God's Institution therefore I will declare that the Episcopal Form is of Divine Institution for this is part of their Subscription or Declaration when they Profess Assent and Confent to all things in the Book of Common Prayer and Ordination And one thing in it is in these words with which the Book beginneth It is evident to all Men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church Bishops Priests and Deacons which Offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation c. So that here they declare that Bishops and Priests are not only distinct Degrees but distinct Orders and Offices and that since the Apostles time as evident by Scripture c. when yet many of the very Papists Schoolmen do deny it And the Collect in the Ordering of Priests runs thus Almighty God giver of all good things who by the holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church So that in plain English they declare That Episcopacy even as a distinct Order Office and Function for all these words are there is appointed by the Spirit of God because they believe that no Form is so appointed 2. That which Mr. Stillingfleet calleth A Form is none of the Substance of the Government it self nor the Offices in the Church He granteth that 1. Worshipping Assemblies are of Divine appointment 2. That every one of these must have one or more Pastors who have power in their Order to teach them and go before them in Worship and spiritually guide or govern them But 1. Whether a Church shall have one Pastor or more 2. Whether one of them shall be in some things subject to another 3. Whether constant Synods shall be held for concord of Associated Churches 4. Whether in these Synods one shall be Moderator and how long and with what Authority not unreasonable these he thinks are left undetermined And I am of his mind supposing General Rules to guide them by as he doth But the Matter and Manner of Church-Discipline being of God's appointment and the Nature and Ends of a particular Church and the Office of Pastors as well as the Form of the Church Universal it is past doubt that nothing which subverteth any of these is lawful And indeed if properly no Form of Government be instituted by God then no Form of a Church neither for the Form of Government is the Form of a Church considered in sensu politico and not as a meer Community And then the Church of England is not of God's making Quest. Who then made it Either another Church made this Church and then what was that Church and who made its Form and so ad Originem or no Church made it If no Church made the Church of England quo jure or what is its Authority and Honour If the King made it was he a Member of a Church or not If yea 1. There was then a Church-Form before the Church of England And who made that Church usque ad Originem If the King that made it was no Member of a Church then he that is no Member of a Church may institute a Church Form but quo jure and with what
only to the Holy Canonical Scriptures in general and to the Creeds and 36 Articles in particular And no Oath Promise or Consent he required save only the renewing of the Covenant which in Baptism we made to God and a promise of Fidelity in our Ministry and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to the King And for all lesser matters let it suffice that the Laws may restrain us from preaching against any Established Doctrine or against Episcopacy Liturgy or Ceremonies and from all Male-Administrations or Church-Tyranny or Injustice about the Sacraments and that we be punishable according to the quality of the Offence II. The Fire having now caused a Necessity of many more publick Assemblies for God's Worship besides those in the yet standing Parish-Churches we humbly conceive that it would much conduce to the re-edifying of the Churches and City and the contenting of many and the drawing off the people from more private Meetings if a competent Number of the Ruin'd Cnurches be allowed to such sober Protestants as will repair them with the same liberty and Security for possession as the French and Dutch in London have their Churches the people chusing their Pastors and maintaining them Or if his Majesty's Bounty allow them any Stipend that none have that Stipend whom his Majesty approveth not And that the Pastors be not suffered to introdâ—ce there any Heresie or Idolatry but shall preach the Doctrine of the sacred Scriptures not opposing the Doctrines or Orders of the Church and shall worship God according to the Liturgy or the Assembly's Directory or the Reformed Liturgy offered by the Commissioners 1660. as they desire III. That all such be capable of Benefices who subscribe and swear as is aforesaid and being of Competent Abilities shall be lawfully Ordained or if already ordained are confirmed by the late Act or shall be confirmed by any Commissioned by his Majesty they being obliged some time to read the Liturgy and sometimes to administer the Sacrament according to it abating the Ceremonies And to be often present when it is read which shall be ordinarily or constantly done and the Sacrament administred as oft as is required by Law by himself or some other allowed Minister And that those who will only subscribe and swear as is abovesaid being ordained also as aforesaid but cannot so far conform to the Liturgy may be allowed to preach and Catechize publickly as Lecturers or Assistants to some others and to have such further Liberty about the Sacraments as by just Regulations shall be made safe to Religion and the publick peace There is another way which would satisfie almost all by allowing each party such a Minister whose Ordination and Ministration they do make no scruple at which would prevent all private Churches and perhaps all Face of Schism among us which is if in every Parish where any party dissenteth from the Established way the Dissenters be left at liberty either to communicate with any Neighbour-Parish or to chuse an Assistant for the Incumbent which Assistant shall be maintained by themselves unless the Incumbent will voluntarily contribute And shall officiaâ—e one half of the Day as the Incumbent doth the other having leave to do it according to the foresaid Directory or the Additional Liturgy offered 1660. or at least to have the use of the Church at such Hours as the Incumbent doth not there officiate The people receiving the Communion from each according to their several Iudgments And though so great a Rupture as ours is cannot be cured without some inconveniences which may be here objected yet such Laws may be made for the Regulation of this Liberty as may restrain all Faction Contention and Mutual Contempt or Injuries and even the Naming themselves Members of distinct Churches as might be shewed § 66. The Copy of the Lord Keeper's or Dr. Wilkins's Proposals In order to Comprehension it is Humbly Offered 1. That such persons as in the late times of disorder have been ordained by Presbyters shall be admitted to the Exercise of the Ministerial Function by the Imposition of the Hands of the Bishop with this or the like Form of Words Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and to Minister the Sacraments in any Congregation of the Church oâ— England where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto An Expedient much of this Nature was practised and allowed of in the Case of the Catharists and Melesians Vid. 8th Canon Concil Nic. â—ynodical Epistle of the same to the Churches of Egypt Gelasius Cyzicenus Hist. Con. Nic. 2d part 2. That all persons to be admitted to any Ecclesiastical Function or Dignity or the Employment of a School-master after the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy shall instead of all former Subscriptions be required to subscribe this or the like Form of Words I A. B. do hereby profess and declare That I do approve the Doctrines Worship and Government Established in the Church of England as containing all things necessary to Salvation and that I will not endeavour by my self or any other directly or indirectly to bring in any Doctrine contrary to that which is so Established And I do hereby promise That I will continue in the Communion of the Church of England and will not do any thing to disturb the Peace thereof 3. That the Gesture of Kneeling at the Sacrament and the use of the Cross in Baptism and bowing at the Name of Iesus may be left indifferent or may be taken away as shall be thought most expedient 4. That in Case it be thought fit to review and alter the Liturgy and Canons for the satisfaction of Dissenters that then every person to be admitted to preach shall upon his Institution or Admission to preach upon some Lord's Day within a time to be limited publickly and solemnly read the said Liturgy and openly declare his Assent to the Lawfulness of the use of it and shall promise That it shall be constantly used at the time and place accustomed In order to Indulgence of such Protestants as cannot be comprehended under the publick Establishment it is Humbly offered 1. That such Protestants may have liberty for the Exercise of thâ—r Religion in publick and at 〈◊〉 Charges to build or procure places for their publick Worship either within or near Tâ—â—s as shall be thought most Expedient 2. That the Names of all such persons who are to have this Liberty be Registred together with the Congregations to which they belong and the Names of their Teachers 3. That every one admitted to this liberty be disabled to bear any publick Office but shall fine for Officers of Burden 4. And that upon shewing a Certificate of their being listed among those who are indulged they shall be freed from such legal penalties as are to be inflicted on those who do not frequent their Parish-Churches 5. And such persons so indulged shall not for their meeting in Conventicles be punished by Confiscation of Estates 6. Provided that they be
Voice of the multitude is seldom intelligible Let the shorter confession and the general Prayer offered by the Commissioners 1660. be inserted as alias'es with the Confession and Litany and liberty granted some time to use them All things in the Canon contrary to any thing in this Act to be void and null And all things repeated in any former Law that is contrary to this Act. § 73. We inserted these Rubricks and Orders because they gave us more hope that the Alterations of the Liturgy would be granted than the rest And therefore we thought best to get that way as much as we could And yet we insisted most on the other part because therein it was desired that till the Liturgy was satisfactorily reformed we should not be constrained to read it but only sometimes the greater part of it Which words I offered my self lest else the whole should have been frustrate and because the very words of the Scripture the Psalms Sentences Hymns Chapters Epistles Gospels c. are the far greater part of the Liturgy so that by this we should not have been forced to use any more or any thing scrupled § 74. Before we concluded any thing it was desired that seeing the Earl of Manchester Lord Chamberlain had been our closest Friend we should not conclude without his notice And so at a Meeting at his House these Two more Articles or Proposals were agreed to be added Viz. I. Whereas the Sentence of Excommunication may be passed upon very light Occasions it is humbly desired that no Minister shall be compelled to pronounce such sentence against his conscience but that some other be thereunto appointed by the Bishop or the Court. II. That no person shall be punished for not repairing to his own Parish-church who goeth to any other Parish-church or Chappel within the Diocess For by the Bishop's Doctrine it is the Diocesan Church that is the lowest Political Church and the Parishes are but parts of a Church For there is no Bishop below the Diocesan Therefore we go not from our own Church if we go not out of the Diocess § 75. When these Proposals were offered to Dr. Wilkins and the Reasons of them 1. He would not consent to the clause in the first Propos. Provided that those who desire it have leave to give in their Profession that they renounce not their Ordination c. Where was our greatest stop and disagreement 2. He would not have had subscription to the Scriptures put in because the same is in the Articles to which we subscribe I answer'd that we subscribed to the Articles because they were materially contained in the Scripture and not to the Scriptures because they were not in the Articles I thought it needful for Order sake and for the right description of our Religion that we subscribe to the Scriptures first And to this at last he consented 3. He refused the last part of the fifth for Appeals to Civil Courts saying there was a way of Appeals already and the other would not be endured 4. The two next the 6th and 7th he was not forward to but at last agreed to them leaving out the Clause in the 6th for Registring Names 5. The two last added Articles also were excepted against But in the end it was agreed as they said by the the Lord keeper's Consent that Sir Matthew Hale Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer should draw up what we agreed on into the form of an Act to be offered to the Parliament And therefore Dr. Wilkins and I were to bring our Papers to him and to advise farther with him for the wordingof it because of his eminent Wisdom and Sincerity § 76. Accordingly we went to him and on Consultation with him our proposals were accepted with the alterations following 1. Instead of the Liberty to declare the validity of our ordination which would not be endured it was agreed that the terms of Collation should be these Take thou Legal Authority to preach the Word of God and administer the Holy Sacraments in â—y Congregation of England where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto That so the word Legal might shew that it was only a general License from the King that we received by what Minister soever he pleased to deliver it And if it were 〈◊〉 a Bishop we declared that we should take it from him but as from the King's Minister For the Paper which I gave in against Re-ordination convinced Judge Hales and Dr. Wilkins that the renunciation of former Ordination in England was by ho means to be exacted or done 2. Our Form of Subscription remained unaltered 3. The Clause of Appeals we left out 4. The Fourth Fifth and Seventh passed leaving out the Clause of Registring Names 5. The first of the added Articles they thought reasonable but put it out only leâ—t by overdoing we should clog the rest and frustrate all with those that we were to deal with 6. The other added Article they laid by for the same reason and also lest it should be a shelter to Recusant Papists And thus it was agreed That the Papers should be all delivered to the Lord Chief Baron to draw them up into an Act. And because I lived near him he was pleased to shew me the Copy of his Draught which was done according to all our Sense but secretly lest the noise of a prepared Act should be displeasing to the Parliament But it was never more called for and so I believe he burnt it § 77. Because they objected That by the last Article we should befriend the Papist and especially by a Clause that we offered to be inserted in the Rubrick of the Liturgy That the Sacrament is to be given to none that are unwilling of it and I stood very much upon that with them that we must not corrupt Christ's Sacrament and all our Churches and Discipline and injure many hundred thousand Souls only to have the better advantage against Papists and that there were fairer and better means to be used against them Upon their Enquiry what means might be substituted I told them that besides some others a subscription for all the Tolerated Congregation or Ministers distinct from that of the Established Ministry as followeth might discover them § 78. The Subscription of the Established Ministry I do hereby profess and declare my unfeigned belief of the Holy Canonical Scriptures as the infallible intire and perfect Rule of Divine Faith and Holy Living supposing the Laws of Nature and also my belief of all the Articles of the Creed and of the 36 Articles of the Doctrine and Sacraments of the Church of England Or else the Subscription before agreed on though this be much better supposing the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy also be taken The Subscription of all that have Toleration I A. B. do hereby profess and declare without equivocation and deceit That I believe Iesus Christ to be the only Governing Head of the Vniversal Church and the Holy Canonical
required but I think it should be the Congregation's And what if the Elders dissent Shall that hinder the Relation or not 93. The number of chosen Ministers in National Synods will be inconsiderable as to the rest 96. The use of a National Synod where all Bishops and Moderators are chosen by the King and the Commissioner ruleth being before-hand resolved to be to Compile a Liturgy and Rules for all Points of Divine Worship with the Methods Circumstances and Rites to be observed therein Many knowing what Liturgy Subscriptions Declarations and Rites are pleasing to Authority in England will imagine them in fierâ— if not virtually set up already in Scotland when these Rules are set up 107. Publick Pennance And why not and Suspension from Communion till penitent Confession be made But I know not why Compensations should serve instead of Confession and Promise of Reformation without which Money will not make a Man a Christian nor fit for Church-Communion But for any other Pennance besides one penitent Confession and Promise of Amendment and desire of the Churches Prayers for Pardon I know nothing of it and therefore meddle not with it 132. No Act Order nor Constitution may be Expounded to reach to Scripture Constitutions and Orders and the proper Acts of the Ministerial Office if not better explained 133. The Word Ecclesiastical Meeting may be interpreted of particular Synaxes or Congregations of a Parish for Worship if not limited which Convocating of the People is part of the Pastor's proper Office and for a thousand Years was so accounted by the Catholick Church And if in case of Discord or Heresie a few Neighbour Ministers meet for a Friendly Conference to cure it it seemeth hard to charge them with Sedition 140. If the Parties be able to come 143. Many of these Faults should be Corrected by Mulcts before Men be forbidden to Preach the Gospel If every Man be Suspended which I suppose is prohibiting him to Preach and Endeavour Mens Salvation who useth unsound Speeches Flattery or Lightness I doubt so many will talk themselves into Silence that a sharp Prosecution will leave many Churches desolate 145. But what if there be no Preachers to be had May not the Suspended Preach 146. Disobedience to some of the small Ecclesiastical Rules may be punished with Mulcts without absolute Silencing especially when able Preachers are wanting Shall the instructing of the Peoples Souls so much depend on every Word in all these Canons But oh that you would make that good in Practice that Labouring to get Ecclesiastical Preferment should be punished if it were with less than Deposition It would be a happy Canon 147. But shall the Synod or Presbytery carry by Vote or not 149. If every Church-Session have this power of Suspension with power but to say We declare you unfit for Communion of this particular Church till you repent it would give me great Satisfaction were I in Scotland For to speak freely I take these two Things to be of Divine Appointment 1. That each particular Church have its proper Pastor who have the Ministerial Power of Teaching Worship Sacraments Prayer Praise and Discipline and I desire no more Discipline than you here grant that is Suspension from Communion in that particular Church if also the Person may be declared unfit for it till he Repent 2. That these Pastors hold such Correspondency as is necessary to the Union of the Churches in Faith and Love And 3. For all the rest I take them to be Circumstances of such prudential Determination that I would easily submit to the Magistrates determination of them so they be not destructive to the Ends and would not have Ministers take too much of the trouble of them upon themselves without necessity 152. But then you seem here to retract the particular Churches Power again For if a Man may be debarred the Communion for once sinning by Fornication Drunkenness c. why not much more for doing again after Repentance I differ more from this than all the rest Is it not enough that the Party may Appeal to the Presbytery And that the Sessions or Pastor be responsible for Male-Administration or Injury if proved This one Canon would drive me out of the Ministry in Scotland I would never be a Pastor where I must after the first Crime ever after give the Sacrament to every flagitioâ—s Offender till the Presbytery suspend him unless they do it very quickly which perhaps they may never do 153 154. No doubt but Iure Divino every true particular Church hath the Power of Excommunicating its own Members out of that particular Church-Communion Delivering up to Satan is a doubtful Phrase which I shall not stand on But an Excommunication which shall bind many Churches to avoid the Sinner must be done or Consented to by those many Churches Therefore Excommunication should be distinguished 156. Sure some few Ecclesiastical Rules and Proceedings may be so low as that a Contempt of them may be easilyer punished than with this terrible Excommunication Impenitency must be joyned with Scandalous Sins or else they make not the Person Excommunicable as is implyed in what followeth 162. No doubt but every Church may absolve its own Members from that sort of Excommunication which it self may pass And so may a Presbytery But if the Magistrate will have a more formidable Diocesane or National Excommunication and an answerable Absolution those Circumstances are to be left to his Prudence so be it he deprive not each particular Pastor and Church of their proper Power and Priviledge plainly found in Scripture and used many hundred Years through the Catholick Church Honourable Sir The Copy which you sent me goeth no further than to the Visitation of the Sick viz. to Can. 176. And so much according as I was desired I have freely and faithfully Animadverted And in general here are many excellent Canons though of many things I cannot Judge and those few Exceptions I humbly offer to your Consideration craving your Pardon for this boldness which I should not have been guilty of if the worthy Messenger had not told me that it was your desire Sir I rest Your Humble Servant Rich. Baxter Iuly 22. 1670. § 173. I had forgotten one passage in the former War of great remark which put me into an amazemeut The Duke of Ormond and Council had the cause of the Marquess of Antrim before them who had been one of the Irish Rebels in the beginning of that War when in the horrid Massacre two hundred thousand Protestants were murthered His Estate being sequestred he sought his restitution of it when King Charles II. was restored Ormond and the Council judged against him as one of the Rebels He brought his cause over to the King and affirmed that what he did was by his Father's Consent and Authority The King referred it to some very worthy Members of his Privy-Council to examine what he had to shew Upon Examination they reported that they found that he had
Sorrow but such as tendeth to raise us to a high Estimation of Christ and to the magnifying of Grace and a sweeter taste of the Love of God and to the firmer Resolution against Sin And that Tears and Grief be not commended inordinately for themselves nor as meer Signs of a Converted Person And that we call Men more to look after Duty than after Signs as such â—â—t Self-love on Work and spare not so you will call them much more to the Love of God and let them know that that Love is their best sign but yet to be exercised on a higher Reason than as a sign of our own Hopes for that Motive alone will not produce true Love to God And as the Antinomians too much exclude Humiliation and signs of Grace so too many of late have made their Religion to consist too much in the seeking of these out of their proper time and place without referring them to that Obedience Love and Joy in which true Religion doth principally consist Reader I do but transcribe these three Counsels for thee from a Multitude of Melancholy Persons sad Experiences § 185. This Year Salisbury-Diocess was more fiercely driven on to Conformity by Dr. Seth Ward their Bishop than any place else or than all the Bishops in England besides did in theirs Many Hundreds were Prosecuted by him with great Industry And among others that learned humble holy Gentleman Mr. Thomas Grove an Ancient Parliament-Man of as great Sincerity and Integrity as almost any Man I ever knew He stood it out a while in a Law-Suit but was overthrown and fain to forsake his Countrey as many Hundreds more are quickly like to do § 186. And his Name remembreth me that Ingenuity obligeth me to Record my Benefactor A Brother's Son of his Mr. Rob. Grove is one of the Bishop of London's Chaplains who is the only Man that Licenseth my Writings for the Press supposing them not to be against Law which else I could not expect And besides him alone I could get no Licenser to do it And because being Silenced Writing is the far greatest part of my remaining Service to God for his Church and without the Press my Writings would be in vain I acknowledge that I owe much to this Man and one Mr. Cook the Arch-bishop's Chaplain heretofore that I live not more in vain § 187. And while I am acknowledging my Benefactors I add that this Year died Serjeant Iohn Fountain the only Person from whom I received an Annual Sum of Money which though through God's Mercy I needed not yet I could not in Civility refuse He gave me 10 l. per Ann. from the time of my Silencing 'till his Death I was a Stranger to him before the King's Return save that when he was Judge before he was one of the Keepers of the Great Seal he did our Countrey great Service against Vice He was a Man of a quick and sound Understanding an upright impartial Mind and Life of too much testiness in his weakness but of a most believing serious Fervency towards God and open zealous owning of true Piety and Holiness without owning the little Partialities of Sects as most Men that ever I came near in Sickness When he lay sick which was almost a Year he sent to the Judges and Lawyers that sent to visit him such Answers as these I thank your Lord or Master for his kindness Present my Service to him and tell him It is a great Work to Die well his time is near all worldly Glory must come down intreat him to keep his Integrity over-come Temptations and please God and prepare to Die He deeply bewailed the great Sins of the Times and the Prognosticks of dreadful things which he thought we were in danger of And though in the Wars he suffered Imprisonment for the King's Cause towards the end he came from them and he greatly feared an inundation of Poverty Enemies Popery and Infidelity § 188. The great Talk this Year was of the King 's Adjourning the Parliament again for about a Year longer and whether we should break the Triple League and desert the Hollanders c. § 189. Before they were Adjourned I secretly directed some Letters to the best of the Conforming Ministers telling them how much it would conduce to their own and the Churches Interest if they that might be heard would become Petitioners for such Abatements in Conformity as might let in the Non-conformists and unite us seeing two things would do it 1. The removal of Oaths and Subscriptions save our Subscription to Christianity the Scriptures and the 39 Articles and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy 2. To give leave to them that cannot use all the Liturgy and Ceremonies to be but Preachers in those Churches where they are used by others submitting to Penalties if ever they be proved to Preach against the Doctrine Government or Worship of the Church or to do any thing against Peace or the Honour of the King and Governours But I could get none to offer such a Petition And when I did but mention our own petitioning the Parliament those that were among them and familiar with them still laught at me for imagining that they were reasonable Creatures or that Reason signified any thing with them in such Matters And thus we were Silenced every way § 190. During the Mayoralty of Sir Samuel Sterling many Jury's Men in London were Fined and Imprisoned by the Judge for not finding certain Quakers guilty of violating the Act against Conventicles They Appealed and sought remedy The Judges remained about a Year in suspense and then by the Lord Chief Justice Vaughan delivered their Resolution against the Judge for the Subject's Freedom from such force of Fines that when he had in a Speech of two or three Hours long spoke vehemently to that purpose never thing since the King's Return was received with greater Joy and Applause by the People and the Judges still taken for the Pillars of Law and Liberty § 191. The Parliament having made the Laws against Nonconformists Preaching and private Religious Meetings c. so grinding and terrible as aforesaid the King who consented to those Laws became the sole Patron of the Nonconformist's Liberties not by any Abatements by Law but by his own Connivance as to the Execution the Magistrates for the most part doing what they perceived to be his Will So that Sir Rich. Ford all the time of his Mayoralty in London though supposed one of their greatest and most knowing Adversaries never disturbed them The Ministers in several Parties were oft encouraged to make their Addresses to the King only to acknowledge his Clemency by which they held their Liberties and to profess their Loyalty Sir Iohn Babor introduced Dr. Manton and some with him Mr. Ennis a Scotch Non-conformist by Sir Rob. Murray introduced Mr. Whittakers Dr. Annesley Mr. Watson and Mr. Vincent's The King as they say themselves told them That though such Acts were made He was against
Persecution and hoped ere long to stand on his own Legs and then they should see how much he was against it By this means many score Nonconformable Ministers in London kept up Preaching in private Houses Some 50 some 100 many 300 and many 1000 or 2000 at a Meeting by which for the present the City's Necessities were much supplied For very few burnt Churches were yet built up again about 3 or 4 in the City which yet never moved the Bishops to relent and give any Favour to the Preaching of Nonconformists And though the best of England of the Conformists for the most part were got up to London alas they were but few And the most of the Religious People were more and more alienated from the Prelates and their Churches § 192. Those that from the beginning thought they saw plainly what was doing lamented all this They thought that it was not without great Wit that seeing only a Parliament was trusted before the King with the People's Liberties and could raise a War against him Interest ruling the World it was contrived that this Parliament should make the severest Laws against the Nonconformists to grind them to dust and that the King should allay the Execution at his pleasure and become their Protector against Parliaments and they that would not consent to this should suffer And indeed the Ministers themselves seemed to make little doubt of this But they thought 1. That if Papists shall have liberty it is as good for them also to take theirs as to be shut out 2. And that it is not lawful for them to refuse their present Liberty though they were sure that Evil were design'd in granting it 3. And that before Men's desigâ—s can come to ripeness God hath many ways to frustrate them and by drawing one Pin can let fall the best contrived Fabrick But still remember that all Attempts to get any Comprehension as it was then called or abatement of the Rigour of the Laws or Legal Liberty and Union were most effectually made void § 193. At this time there was Printed in Holland the Thesis or Exercise Performed at the Commencement for the Degree of Dr. of Law by one of the King's Subjects a Scots-Man Rob. Hamilton In which he largely proveth the Necessity of a standing Treasury in a Kingdom and the power of the King to raise it and impose Tributes without the People's Consent and Dedicating it to the King and largely applying it to England he sheweth that Parliaments have no Legislative Power but what the King giveth them who may take it from them when He seeth Cause and put them down and raise Taxes according to his own Discretion without them And that Parliaments and Mâ—gna Charta are no impediments to him but Toys and that what Charter the former Kings did grant could be no Band on their Successors forgetting that so he would also disoblige the People from the Agreements made by their Predecessors as e. g. that this Family successively shall rule them c. with much more Whom Fame made to be the Animater of this Tractate I pass by § 194. There was this Year a Man much talk'd of for his Enterprises one Major Blood an English-man of Ireland This Man had been a Soldier in the old King's Army against the Parliament and seeing the Cause lost he betook himself towards Ireland to live upon his own Estate In his way he fell in Company with the Lancashire Ministers who were then Writing against the Army and against all violence to King or Parliament Blood being of an extraordinary Wit falls acquainted with them and not thinking that the Presbyterians had been so true to the King he is made the more capable of their Counsel so that in short he became a Convert and married the Daughter of an honest Parliament Man of that Countrey And after this in Ireland he was a Justice of Peace and Famous for his great Parts and upright Life and success in turning many from Popery When the King was Restored and he saw the old Ministers Silenced in the Three Kingdoms and those that had Surprized Dublin-Castle for the King from the Anabaptists cast aside and all things go contrary to his Judgment and Expectation being of a most bold and resolute Spirit he was one that plotted the Surprizing of the D. of Ormond and of Dublin Castle But being deâ—ected and prevented he fled into England There he lived disguised practising Physick called Dr. Clarke at Rumford When some Prisoners were carried to be put to Death at York for a Plot he followed and Rescued them and set them free At last it was found to be He with his Son and three or four more that attempted to Surprize the D. of Ormond and to have carried him to Holland where he had a Bank of Money and to have made him there to pay his Arrears Missing of that Exploit he made a bolder Attempt even to fetch the King's Crown and Jewels out of the Tower where pretending Friendship to the Keeper of it He with two more his Son and one Perrot suddenly Gagg'd the old Man and when he cryed out he struck him on the Head but would not kill him and so went away with the Crown But as soon as ever they were gone the Keeper's Son cometh in and finds his Father and heareth the Cafe and runs out after them and Blood and his Son and Perrot were taken Blood was brought to the King and expected Death but he spake so boldly that all admired him telling the King How many of his Subjects were disobliged and that he was one that took himself to be in a State of Hostility and that he took not the Crown as a Thief but an Enemy thinking that lawful which was lawful in a War and that he could many a time have had the King in his power but that he thought his Life was better for them than his Death lest a worse succeed him and that the number of Resolute Men disobliged were so great as that if his Life were taken away it would be revenged That he intended no hurt to the Person of the D. of Ormond but because he had taken his Estate from him he would have forced him to restore the value in Money and that he never Robb'd nor shed Blood which if he would have done he could easily have kill'd Ormond and easily have carried away the Crown In a word he so behaved himself that the King did not only release and pardon him but admit him frequently to his presence Some say because his Gallantry took much with the King having been a Soldier of his Father's Most say That he put the King in fear of his Life and came off upon Condition that he would endeavour to keep the discontented Party quiet § 195. Mr. Bagshaw in his rash and ignorant Zeal thinking it a Sin to hear a Conformist and that the way to deal with the Persecutors was to draw all the People as far from
intend only Bishops and King by Church and State 1. It would suppose that King and Parliament do take Bishops and King for two coordinate Heads in governing the Kingdom 2. And that they set the Bishops before the King which is not to be supposed 5. And to put all out of question the Oath is but Conform to former Statutes Oaths Articles of Religion and Canons 1. The Statutes which declare the King to be only Supreme Governour of the Church I need not cite 2. The Oath of Supremacy is well known of all 3. The very first Canon is that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and all Bishops c. shall faithfully keep and observe all the Laws for the King's Supremacy over the Church of England in causes Ecclesiastical And the 2d Canon is to condemn the dangers of it And the 36. Canon obligeth all Ministers to subscribe that the King's Majesty under God is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm as well in all spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal And as the Parliament are called the Representative of the People or Kingdom as distinct from the Head so the 139. Canon excommunicateth all them that affirm that the Sacred Synod of this Nation in the Name of Christ and by the King's Authority Aslembled is not the true Church of England by Representation So that they claim to be but the Representative of the Church as it is the Body distinct from the Head Christ aud the King as their chief Governour 4. And all that are Ordained are likewise to take the Oath of Supremacy I do utterly testify and declare in my Conscience that the King's Highness is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as Temporal 5. And It is also inserted in the Articles of Religion Art 35. And it is added expositorily Where we attribute to the Queen's Majesty the Chief Government by which title we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended we give not to our Princes the Ministring either of God's Word or of the Sacraments but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastcal or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the Stubborn and evil Doers Here it is to be noted that though no doubt but the Keys of Excommunication and absolution belong to the Pastors and to the Civil Magistrate yet the Law and this Article by the word Government mean only Coercive Government by the Sword and do include the power of the Keys under the title of Ministring the Word and Sacraments Church Guidance being indeed nothing else but the Explication and Application of God's word to Cases and Consciences and administring the Sacraments accordingly So that as in the very Article of Religion Supreme Government appropriated to the King only is contradistinguish'd from Ministring the Word and Sacraments which is not called Government there so are we to understand this Law and Oath And many Learned Men think that Guidance is a fitter name than Government for the Pastor's Office And therefore Grotius de Imper. Sum. Pot. would rather have the Name Canons or Rulers used than Laws as to their Determinations Though no doubt but the name Government may be well applyed to the Pastor's Part so we distinguish as Bilston and other judicious men use to do calling one Government by God's Word upon the Conscience and the other Government by the sword as seconding Precepts with enforcing penalties and Mulcts § 301. While this Test was carrying on in the house of Lords and 500 pounds Voted to be the penalty of the Refusers before it could come to the Commons a difference fell between the Lords and Commons about their priviledges by occasion of two Suits that were brought before the Lords in which two Members of the Commons were parties which occasioned the Commons to send to the Tower Sir Iohn Fagg one of their Members for appearing at the Lords Bar without their consent and four Counsellours Sir Iohn Churchill Sergeant Pemberton Sergeant Pecke and another for pleading there And the Lords Voted it Illegal and that they should be released Sir Iohn Robinson Lieutenant of the Tower obeyed the Commons for which the Lords Voted him a Delinquent And so far went they in daily Voting at each other that the King was fain to Prorogue the Parliament Iune 9. till October 13. there appearing no hope of Reconciling them Which rejoiced many that they rose without doing any further harm § 302. Iune 9. Keting the Informer being commonly detested for prosecuting me was cast in Gaol for Debt and wrote to me to endeavour his Deliverance which I did and in his Letters saith Sir I assure you I do verily believe that God hath bestowed all this affliction on me because I was so vile a wretch as to trouble you And I assure you I never did a thing in my Life that hath so much troubled my self as that did I pray God forgive me And truly I do not think of any that went that way to work that ever God would favour him with his mercy And truly without a great deal of mercy from God I do not think that ever I shall thrive or prosper And I hope you will be pleased to pray to God for me c. § 303. A while before another of the chief Informers of the City and my Accuser Marishall died in the Counter where his Creditors laid him to keep him from doing more harm Yet did not the Bishops change or cease Two more Informers were set on work who first assaulted Mr. Case's Meeting and next got in as hearers into Mr. Read's Meeting where I was Preaching And when they would have gone out to fetch Justices for they were known the doors were lockt to keep them in till I had done and one of them supposed to be sent from Fullum stayed weeping Yet went they straight to the Justices and the week following heard me again as Informers at my Lectures but I have not yet heard of their Accusation § 304. But this week Iune 9. Sir Thamas Davis notwithstanding all his foresaid Warnings and Confessions sent his Warrants to a Justice of the Division where I dwell to distrein on me upon two Judgments for 50 pounds for Preaching my Lecture in New-street Some Conformists are paid to the value of 20 pounds a Sermon for their Preaching and I must pay 20 pounds and 40 pounds a Sermon for Preaching for nothing O what Pastors hath the Church of England who think it worth all their unwearied Labours and all the odium which they contract from the People to keep such as I am from Preaching the Gospel of Christ and to undo us for it as far as they are able though these many years they do not for they cannot
excepting Lay-Chancellor's use of the Keys ipso facto Excommunicateth all Nobility Gentry Clergy and Commons that say That it is repugnant to the Word of God And it 's time to take heed what we Swear when the Act of Uniformity the Oxford-Act the Corporation Act the Vestry Act the Militia Act and the Oath of Supremacy do bind all the Nation by Solemn Oath not to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State And yet most Reverend Fathers who most sharply call us to Conformity do Write for a Foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction under the Name of an Universal Colledge of Bishops or Council having such power as other Courts even Commanding Pretorian Legislative and Judicial to all the Church on Earth and that obedience to this Foreign Jurisdiction is the necessary way to escape Schism and Damnation And if it be no alteration of Government to bring King and Kingom to be subject to a Foreign Jurisdiction this Oath and the Oath of Supremacy and the 39 Articles and Canons and several Statutes which renounced it are all unintelligible to us We renounce all subjection to any Foreign Church or Power but not Communion We have Communion with the Church of Rome and all others in Christianity but not in their sin and we are not yet so dull as to know no difference between Foreigners Government of us and their Communion nor to think that Separation from a Usurped Government is Separation from Christian Communion Nor can we possibly believe the Capacity of Pope or Council or Colledge of Bishops as a Monarchy or Aristocracy to Govern all the World in one Soveraignty Ecclesiastical till we see one Civil Monarchy or Aristocracy rule all the Earth And we dread the Doctrine and Example of such Men as would introduce any Foreign Jurisdiction while they are for Swearing all the Land against any alteration of Church-Government And we must deliberate before we thus Conform while so Great Men do render the Oath so doubtful to us I appeal to the fore-cited Profession of my Loyalty published many years ago as being far more full and satisfactory to any that questioneth it than the taking of this doubtful controverted Oath would be A true Copy of the Iudgment of Mr. Saunders now Lord Chief Iustice of the King's-Bench given me March the 22d 1674 5. 1. IF he hath the Bishop's License and be not a Curate Lecturer or other Promoted Ecclesiastical Person mentioned in the Act I conceive he may Preach Occasional Sermons without Conforming and not incure any Penalty within this Act. The due Order of Law requires that the Delinquent if he be forth-coming ought to be summon'd to appear to Answer for himself if he pleases before he be Convicted But in case of his withdrawing himself or not appearing he may be regularly Convicted Convictions may be accumulated before the Appeal be determined but not unduely nor is it to be supposed that any undue Convictions will be made As I Conceive Edm. Saunders M. day 22. 167â— Mr. Polixfen's Iudgment for my Preaching Occasionally A. B. before the Thirteenth of this King being Episcopally Ordained and at the time of the Act of Uniformity made Car. 2. not being Incumbent in any Living or having any Ecclesiastical Preferment before the Act of Uniformity viz. 25 Feb. 13 Car. 2. obtains a License of the then Bishop of London under his Seal to Preach in any part of his Diocess aud at the same time subscribes the 39 Articles of the Church of England Quest. Whether Licenses Preceding the Act be within the meaning of the Act I conceive they are For if Licensed at the time of the Act made what need any new License That were but actum agere and the Clause in the Act unless he be Iacensed c. in the manner of penning shews that Licenses that then were were sufficient and within the Provision And the followiug Clause as to the Lecturers is Express now is or shall be Licensed The former part of the Act as well as that extends to Licenses that then were For the same License that enables a man to Preach a Lecture must enable a man to Preach Q. Whether he be restrained by the Act of Vniformity to Preach a Funeral Sermon or other occasional Sermon I Conceiâ—e that he is not restrained by this Act to Preach any Occasional Sermon so as it be within the Diocess wherein he is Licensed Hen. Pollexfen Decemb. 19. 1682. § 77. While I continue night and day under constant pain and often strong and under the sentence of approaching death by an uncurable disease which age and great debility yields to I found great need of the constant exercise of patience by obedient submission to God and writing a small Tractate of it for my own use I saw reason to yield to them that desired it might be publick there being especially so common need of obedient patience § 78. Having long ago written a Treatise against Coalition with Papists by introducing a Foreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Councils I was urged by the Writings of Mr. Dogwel and Dr. Saywell to publish it but the Printers dare not Print it Entitled England not to be perjured by receiving a Foreign Jurisdiction It is in two Parts The first Historical shewing who have endeavoured to introduce a Foreign Jurisdiction citing Papists Grotius Arch-Bishop Bromball Arch-Bishop Laud Thorndike Dr. Saywell Dodwell four Letters to Bishop Guning and others The 2d part strictly Stating the Controversy and Confuting a Foreign Jurisdiction against which Change of Government all the Land is Sworn I may not Print it § 79. When I saw the storm of Persecution arising by the Agitators Hilton Shad Buck and such other and saw what the Justices were at least in present danger of and especially how Le Strange and other weekly Pamphleteers bent all their wit and power to make others odious and prepared for destruction and to draw as many as possibly they could to hate and ruine faithful men and how Conscience and serious piety grew with many into such hatred and reproach that no men were so much abhorred that many gloried to be called Tories tho they knew it was the name of the Irish common murdering Thieves I wrote a small Book called Cain and Abel in two parts The first against malignant Enmity to serious Godliness with abundant Reasons to convince Malignants The second against Persecution by way of Quaere's I wrote a third part as Impartial to tell Dissenters why while I was able I went oft to the Parish Church and there Communicated and why they should not suffer as Separatists or Recusants lest they suffer as evil doers But wise men would not let me publish it And the two first the Booksellers and Printers durst not print but twice refused them § 80. But the third part the Reasons of my Communion with Parish Churches that have honest able Ministers I sent to one friend who telling others of it a Bookseller after two
am sure if not all quiet in their Habitations even in the Kings Quarters not so much as taking the Covenant so that I know not how you can except against them as casting out the Bishops What tell you them of other Mens Actions could they help it what if it be in a time when Bishops were so Ejected when you cannot prove them guilty of it 4. The Covenant it self doth not reject all Bishops but only such as stood in England and so concatenated to Chancellors Deans c. and with such an Explication Mr. Coleman gave it to the House of Lords If therefore you could prove that the Associated Ministers have taken the Covenant which you have not done yet that proves not that they were the Ejectors of the Bishops 6. There is no Bishop that we know of over this Diocese 7. You cannot prove that those that were Ordained by meer Presbyters might have had Episcopal Ordination of which more anon 8. It is not the Regularity of the Ordination that we desire you to acknowledge but only its being so that it is not a nullity So that you may see how unfaithfully you stated the case which is rather this Whether when the Bishop of this Diocess is dead and the rest taken down by the Reigning Power and we know not where to have Episcopal Ordination or at least without the great suffering of the Bishops on whom the present Powers will inflict so great a penalty if they Ordain if in this case any be Ordained by meer Presbyters are we bound to judge them no Ministers yea and to refuse Associating with others for their sakes Whether our Church doors must be shut up and Gods publick Worship thrown away till the Rulers will permit and the Presbyters and People admit Bishops again and Ministers and Churches all be null yea I do no find you prove that our Agreement requires any such acknowledgment as your self intimateth of which next Except Sect. 3. Mr. Baxter himself I name for one a Principal of this Association and protesting it one end of this Association that they may be acknowledged for true Presbyters and Pastors of their Churches by all who enter into this Agreement vid. p. 14. and the two last lines and p. 15. for eight lines also p. 14. Reas. 11. and Reas. 12. p. 47. mid and p. 49. fin Reply to Sect. 3. For my self I think you have more against me than any other Man in your Association But yet 1. you have not proved that I had not Episcopal Ordination which indeed I had 2. Nor that I consented to the removal of their Calling If I did so yet till you can know it you have no just ground for your alienation 3. If I did consent yet that nulleth not my former Call 4. You know not if I did whether I repent or not 5. No man must be rejected for a fault supposed without a just Tryal in all Equity you should hear me speak for my self I have publickly offered satisfaction to any that are offended with me 6. What if I only were faulty would that warrant you to separate from all the rest for my sake 7. But what do you alledge against me That I would have an acknowledgment that we are true Presbyters and Pastors A heinous Crime that I will not yield to have Gods Church among us unchurched by the Papists and his Worship cast aside for want of true Ministers 8. But what are all these Words of mine to the Agreement Those are but mine own Thoughts which none are desired to consent to You should have produced somewhat from our Articles of Concord and not from my Words Except to Sect. 4. Do they take in your acknowledged Grounds of all parts Episcopal and all who would have us acknowledge them Presbyters ordained in this Church without Bishops not by necessity as in the Churches wherein no Protestant Bishop could be had unless their Christian Charity can take Countenance to say that none of our Bishops were Protestants and that then they must have had no Ordination at all or Ordination by Papists requiring of them the Acknowledging the Popes Ecclesiastial Supremacy which was the confessed Case of those Protestants beyond Seas from whence they would fain borrow a Cloak for their Fact but the Covering is too short though they argue while the World endures there is a vast difference betwixt necessity and voluntary Engaging by Covenant and relinquishing casting off and laying by true Catholick Protestant Bishops Reply to Sect. 4. Yes Sir I am confident I take in the Grounds of the Episcopal Protestants But I dare not say yours for I do not know you nor are you able to manifest the contrary 1. Necessity may justify some things that else were unjustifiable and the absence of such Necessity may prove them sinful But if Presbyters may justly ordain in case of necessity then you will hardly prove our Ordination null for want of that Necessity though you should prove it irregular It seems you think that Lay Men may baptize in case of necessity if so you may prove it sinful but hardly null where Necessity is not 2. It is an incredible Assertion against the Sun that all those Protestants beyond Sea had such a Necessity and could not have Protestant Bishops Put out Mens Eyes and then tell them this Were the Low Countries so far from England that they could not possibly have borrowed a Bishop to Ordain Was not Bishop Carleton at the Synod of Dort with them why did not that Synod desire this Curtesy It is said he protested for Bishops in the open Synod and that he took their Silence for Consent and also that some after told him that they would have them if they could as if Silence were any Sign of Consent against their own established Discipline Who knows not that their loathness to displease King Iames of whom they had then so much need might well cause them to keep Silence about that which was not the Business of the Assembly as long as they held their present Government and if some said they would have Bishops if they could it is plain it was but few for if most had been willing what hindered them If you say the Civil Powers I answer 1. The Ecclesiasticks so taught them and desired the Presbyterian Government of them 2. They might have run the hazard of a Persecution as well as we and the civil Rulers of this Nation are as much at least against it as theirs So some gather from Moulin's Word to Bishop Andrews and some few other Mens that the French Churches would fain have Bishops as also they are said to have offered Obedience to the Papist Bishops if they would turn Protestants when as it is known they are against Bishops and if any particular Persons are for it it is against the Establishment of their Churches Perhaps they might think their Form of Government not of such Moment as to reject Episcopacy if it might come
in with such an Advantage as the turning of the Papist Bishops would have brought But what is that to prove that they would have Bishops and could not Grotius knew France as well as you whoever you are and he tells us another Story of them Discus Apologet. Rivet That they wilfully cast out the Order of Bishops as far as their Authority could reach what impossibility hath their been these hundred Years for France Belgia Helvetia Geneva with the rest of the Protestant Churches to have had Bishops if they had been willing They had Hermannus of Colen Vergerius of Iustinop came among them Spalatensis would have ordained some in his Passage if no English Bishop could have been got thither how easy had it been to have sent one to receive Episcopal Consecration here and then to have gone home and ordained more It may be you would make us believe the like of the Church of Scotland too that they would fain have Bishops and could not If you alledge 〈◊〉 Inconvenience that necessitates all these Protestant Churches to continue without Bishops even to this Day I say 3. Our Necessity is as great as any of theirs for ought you can manifest to the contrary for 1. Our Rulers are as much against them 2. We cannot exercise publickly our Ministerial Office unless we be ordained according to the Laws of the present Rulers 3. There is a heavy Penalty ordained to all Ordainers that do otherwise 4. We have no Bishop in our Diocess 5. We read Canons that null Bishops Ordination out of their Diocesses 6. We know not of above two Bishops in England nor where to find the rest that are latent and we hear those two will not ordain 7. Divers of them were justly ejected for destroying the Church and we cannot take them for Bishops 8. We are but Subjects and a small part of the Ministry and cannot set up Bishops among our selves if we were of that Judgment as much as others But Nations Commonwealths and Free-cities might if they would The Cloak which you say is too short is indeed much larger than our Case requires If our Nation or any part of it did voluntarily cast off Bishops so did the Protestant Churches and continue to keep them out to this Day But you cannot prove that the Ministers of this Association did cast them off And for your surmise of the Countenance of our Christian Charity I answer we never yet gave you Cause to suppose that we distinguish not between Protestant Bishops and Papists Except to Sect. 5. An Argument a Fortiori all Logick admits of but I never heard a Suspicion of any Firmness in concluding ab Imbecilliori thus Perhaps perhaps I say and as many Moderns would charitably think they may be true Presbyters who were ordained by Presbyters where morally to speak and as to consciential possibility there was an impossibility of procuring Orders from any Bishops but such as would oblige them to betray both Presbyters and Bishops Authority to Papal Usurpation and arrogated Supremacy therefore we also who might have had Ordination by Bishops and those such who have as well as we oft hindred that papal Usurpation yea had renued that Duration by an Oath in Synod a little before these late sad Schisms and this new attempted Ordination and chose to be ordained without them contrary to all the Canons of the Church Universal of all Ages till these last Ages of this Cotroversy We I say also for all that are true Pastors and Presbyters and we will be acknowledged for such in this Agreement and others to be Popish Divines lurking under the Name of Episcopal Divines Lo here a goodly Consequence and a Christian Presbyterian Charity Reply to Sect. 5. 1. Our Argument is not only a pari but a fortiori as is manifested 2. You give us reason here to fear that your self are one of those Persons whom we except against and that it is your own Cause that you strive for and that your Guilt is it that makes you angry for you seem to me to intimate to us that you own not their Opinion that make the Protestant Ministers to be Ministers indeed and consequently their Churches true organized Churches for all the necessity which you pretend they had for you make it but a perhaps and your double that perhaps that we may see you own it not and you say it is as many would think as if it were but their Thought and as if you were none of those many And it is but the Moderns that so think as if you intimated that Antiquity iudged otherwise which doubtless you prefer before the Moderns and you say they would think it intimating that Will prevails against Judgment or Judgment follows not that Will yea it is charitably that they would think it as if Affection misled them and other Passages afterward do yet further reveal your Mind in this though you are loath I perceive to speak out because of the harshness of it to Protestants Ears I therefore again say 1. Those churches were not nor are to this Day under any impossibility of having Bishops if they judged them necessary 2. That you prove not what you say that they in this Country might have had Ordination by a Bishop who were ordained by Presbyters only We leave therefore our Consequence and our Christian Presbyterian Charity to a more equal Judge whether that Man be like to be a Protestant that taketh the Church of Rome for a true Church and all the reformed Churches except the Episcopal for no true Churches and that taketh their Priests for Lawful Ministers and all the Protestant Ministers for none except those that were ordained by Bishops nay that argue as here you do to have us and consequently all so ordained disclaimed by Pastors and People and consequently all our Churches nullified and publick Worship forsaken Are we so blind as not to see that you thus not only prefer the Papists before us as much as a true Ministry before no Ministry and a true Church before no Church but hereby would deliver us up into their Hands If we dispute with them in the hearing of the People and confess that their Church is true and ours is not may not the People easily see that it 's better join with them than with us and would not you your self rather submit to a Mass Priest than to those whom you take for no Ministers at all If you say you would have us submit to neither but to the Episcopal yet 1. It follows nevértheless that the Papists of the two are to be preferred as true Ministers before them that are none 2. And if we dispute with the Papist which is the true Church and set against them only Eleven or Twelve for so many you reckon on English Bishops and if there be any Irish or Scotish with those of the Clergy that adhere to them Quality and Number considered whom the People know not where to find nor can
enjoy what Success is such a Dispute like to have either with the People or with the Adversary will they not tell us our Church is invisible especially when these few Bishops are dead Except to Sect. 6. 2. Whether in this Worcestershire Association whosoever will enter into it doth not therein oblige himself to acknowledge that Presbyters while there remain alive fourteen or thirteen or twelve Catholick Protestant Bishops may proceed to publick Excommunications and Absolutions in foro Ecclesiastico without asking those Bishops Consent allowance or taking any notice of them See Resolution 12 13 14 15. and the Scope of the whole Book Reply to Sect. 6. To your second Question I answer The Term Excommunication we use not This Term is used to signify sometimes a delivering up to Satan and casting out of the Catholick Church sometimes only a Ministerial Declaration that such a Person should be avoided by the People acquainting them with their Duty and requiring them to perform it sometimes it signifies the Peoples actual Avoidance In the former Sense we have let it alone and that which you call your Excommunicatio Major we meddle not with much less do we usurp a compelling Power for the Execution The other we know to be consistent with the Principles of Episcopal Protestants if not also with Papists yea even when there is a Bishop resident in the Diocess it being but part of our teaching and guiding Office as Presbyters of that Congregation but I have said enough of this in my Explications already 2. But what if there be twelve latent Bishops in England when for my part I I hear not of above two or three have they Power not only to ordain but also to govern other Diocesses which have no Bishops Yea must they needs govern them 1. Woe then to the Churches of England that must live under such Guilt devoid of all Government 2. Woe to the Sinners themselves that must be left without Christ's Remedy 3. Woe to particular Christians that must live in the continual Breach of God's known Law that saith with such go not to eat c. for want of a Bishop to Execute it 4. Woe to the few Bishops that be for it all the Authority be in them then the Duty and Charge of executing it is only on them and then they are bound to Impossibilities one Bishop must Excommunicate all the Offenders in a great part of the Land when he is not sufficient to the hundredth part of the Work Then when all the Bishops in England are dead save one or two they are the sole Pastors of England and all Discipline must be cast away for want of their Sufficiency Then it seems the Death of one Bishop or two or three doth actually devolve their Charge to another and who knoweth which other This is new Canon Not only Protestant Bishops but some Papists confess that when a Bishop is dead the Government remains in the Presbyters till another be chosen sure they that govern the People at least with him whilst he is living as is confessed need not look on it as an alien supereminent transcendent Work when he is dead Bishop Bromhall against Mil. p. 127. gives People a Judgment of Discretion and Pastors a Judgment of Direction and to the chief Pastors a Judgment of Jurisdiction You may go well allow us by a Judgment of Direction to tell the People that they should avoid Communion with an open wicked Man even while a Bishop is over us Selden de Syne c. 8 9 10. and will tell you another Tale of the way of Antiquity in Excommunication and Absolution than you do hear But of this enough in the Books Except to Sect. 7. 3. Doth not he oblige himself also to acknowledge that not only Presbyters incommuni governing but one single one of them may proceed to Excommunicatiand Absolution in foro Ecclesiastico Reply to Sect. 7. Your third Question I answer by a Denial There is no such Obligation The Declaration of the Peoples Duty to avoid such an one is by one so is every Sermon so is your Episcopal Excommunication Doth not one and that a Presbyter declare or publish it But for advising and determining of it we have tyed our selves not to do it alone though for mine own private Opinion I doubt not easily to prove that one single Bishop or Pastor hath the Power of the Keys and may do all that we agree to do Except to Sect. 8. 4. That not only one single Presbyter but one whose Ordination was never by any Bishop to be Presbyter where also Bishops were that might have been sought unto hath that Power also of Excommunication c. Reply to Sect. 8. Your fourth is answered in the rest if his Ordination have only in the Judgment of Episcopal Protestants yea of some Papists an Irregularity but not a Nullity then he hath Power to do so much as we agree on Your Exception is as much against his other Ministrations Except to Sect. 9. I speak only of the Essence of their Association not insisting on what Mr. Baxter declares to the World that in some Cases the People not satisfied with the Bishops or Presbyters Ordination may accept or take a Man of themselves without any Ordination by Bishops or Presbyters to be their Pastor and Presbyter with Power of Excommunication and Absolution in himself alone without the People see p. 83. Reply to Sect. 9. That this may be done in some Cases I have lately disputed it with a learned Man of your Party and convinced him And methinks Nature should teach you if you were unordained but qualified by Gifts cast among the Indians that you should not let them perish for want of that publick constant teaching which is Ministerial or of Sacraments and Discipline only for want of Ordination that the Substance of Duty should not be thrown by for want of that Order which was instituted for its Preservation and not for its Destruction You dare scarce openly and plainly deny that Necessity warrants the Presbyters of the Reformed Churches to ordain And I doubt you allow it them then on no other grounds then what would warrant this that I am now pleading for Except to Sect. 10. And for any Votum or desire of Bishops Protest Bishops if they might have them or access unto them which was so oft the publick avowed Desire of the chiefest Reformers and Protestants beyond Sea much unlike the Spirit of our Presbyterians see what Mr. Baxter gives us to know p. 85. where comparing our present Bishops with a Leader in an Army he faith Nay it is hard trusting that Man again that hath betrayed us and the Church ibid. These have so apparently falsified their Trust that if we were fully resolved for Bishops yet we cannot submit to them for Ordination or Jurisdiction and then he proves it by Canon he thinks that the Presbyters now should not submit to the present Bishops by Canon Concilii Rbegien ut
perversi ordinatores nullis denuo ordinationibus intersunt and least you may reply that he speaks not this of all our present Bishops he immediately subjoins these Words Where then shall we have a Bishop to ordain of the old accused Tribe Is not this Christian Filial Duty of Presbyters toward the Bishops their Fathers Reply to Sect. 10. 1. For that Desire you again mention of Bishops in the Reformed Churches it is an unproved vain Assertion against full Evidence It is only of a few particular Persons in those Churches that you can prove it If so many Writings against Bishops and Constitutions and actual Practice will not prove them willing to be without them or at least not necessitated there is no Proof of any Man's Will or Necessity 2. What I said I must needs maintain till you say somewhat to change my Judgment I am past doubt it 's ill trusting the Betrayers and Destroyers of the Church with the Government of it And this I did prove and can with great Ease and Evidence prove it more fully 3. I pray you do not persuade Men that by the old accused Tribe I meant all the late English Bishops they were not all accused of destroying or betraying the Church that I ever heard of Where be the Articles that were put in against Usher Hall Davenant Potter Westfield Prideaux c. All those that I call the accused Tribe you may find Articles against in Parliament for their Devastations or Abuses Should the Arrians or other Heretick Bishops say to those that forsook them as you do of me is not this Christian Filial Duty of Presbyters towards the Bishops their Fathers There is no Duty to any Episcopal Father that will hold against God and his Church Take heed of making their Sins your own Except Sect. 11. And elsewhere by Irony he adds O what a rash thing it was to imprison though when he was imprisoned I believe it was by the Name of Dr. Wren or Bishop Wren for excommunicating depriving c. p. 51. and p. 68. To begin at home it is most certain according to many ancient Canons which are their Laws our English Bishops were incapable of ordaining for they lost their Authority by involving themselves in secular and publick Administrations Canon 80. Apostolig N B. That Canon is 30. beyond the Canons Apostolical for even the Papists themselves admit but of fifty genuine and he would eject all our Bishops by the 80th Canon Apostolical Lost their Authority also for neglect of instructing their Floâ—â— most or many of them and many more for non Residence c. Reply to Sect. 11. And why not Wren without any further Title as well as Calvin Luther Beza Zanchy Grotius c. 2. Let the indifferent Reader peruse all my words and blame me if he can What seems it so small a matter in your eyes to expel so many thousand Christian Families and silence and suspend and deprive so many able Ministers in so small a room and so short a time as that it is disobedience to our Fathers not to consent to their punishment It seems then these silly Lambs must be devoured not only without resistance but without complaint or accusing the Wolves because they say they were our Fathers God never set such Saturnine Fathers over his Church so as to authorize them in this or to prohibite a just remedy He never gave them power for Destruction but for Edification 3. What I said of our Bishops incapacity upon that reason was expresly ad hominem against mine own Judgement viz. upon supposition that those Canons are of such force as those imagine against whom I dispute 4. The Canon 80 Apost was also brought ad hominem for though it be confessed not of equal Antiquity with the rest yet for that Antiquity they have it is known how much use those men make of their supposed Authority But are there not enough others that may evince the point in hand besides that you may easily know it and in many Canons that null their Office who come in by the Magistracy Exception to Sect. 12. And whereas we are ready to make good against all the Papists in the world that our English Protestant Bishops had due Ordination in Queen Eliz. and King Edwards time by such who had been Ordained in King Henry the Eighths time Mr. Baxter tells us the Popish Bishops who Ordained in the days of Hen. 8. and many Ages before had no power of Ordination and this he speaks as his own judgment not only from the consequences of his Adversaries for he adds this I prove in that they received their Ordination from no other Bishops of the Province nor Metropolitan but only from the Pope singly yet this is all the Argument he hath to overthrow consequentially upon our objections the Ordination of those Protestant Bishops which himself acknowledges Learned Pious Reverend Men and all that Ordained or were Ordained in Hen. 8. 7. and many Ages before as he saith And indeed if his Discourse were of any force not only in our English Church but also in all the Churches of the West France Spain Polonia Swedland Denmark and throughout the Empire of Germany for these and those many Ages before which he speaks of and all this that our new Presbyterians of Enngland Volunteers in Ordaining and being Ordained without Bishops without pretence of necessity yea or difficulty or colour of difficulty except what themselves had created wherein they have as little Communion with the Protestants beyond seas as they have with the Episcopal Protestants of the true Reformed Church of England may be acknowledged good and lawful Presbyters and Pastors with power conjunctim divisim any one of them alone as Mr. Baxter thinks to Excommunicate and Absolve in foro Ecclesiastico Reply to Sect. 12. The word Due may signifie either such as is not null or else such as is fully regular or else such as they had Authority to perform who did ordain though they might have some Faults or Irregularities If you take it in the first Sense many will yield it who yet deny it in the last as supposing in some Cases Ordination Passive may be valid and so due in the Receiver when yet Ordination Active is without all just Authority in the Ordainer Though this may seem strange I am ready to give some Reasons for it It must be in the last Sense conjunct with the first that you must take the Word Due if you will speak to the point in Hand 2. I do expresly say there that it is according to the Doctrine of the Objectors consequentially that I affirm this not affirming or denying it to be mine own Judgment and to that end bring the Proof which is mentioned And yet you are pleased to affirm that I speak it as my own Judgment and not only from the Consequences of Adversaries Supposing your Grounds which I confidently deny that an uninterrupted Succession of due Authoritative Ordination
is necessary absolutely to the Being of the Ministerial Calling I doubt not but all the unhappy Consequences will be unavoidable which you mention concerning the Churches of all the West But whether it be you or I that is to be blamed for those Consequences it is not your Word only that must determine and I am willing to try by weight of Reasons Except to Sect. 13. And now for the Proof of all this the whole weight is laid by this Book 1. Upon an Argument a comparatis If they the Protestants beyond Seas are lawful Pastors and Presbyters whose Necessity and Plea of Necessity publickly to have been made by those these our new Presbyterians cannot deny then our new ordained ones by Presbyters are Presbyters also though they want all such Pretence all colour of Necessity for themselves were the first Authors of it to those that ejected them which yet did not bring a Necessity neither which we all know If Necessity be pleaded to be above Ecclesiastical Laws as sometimes it hath dispensed even with divine positive Laws themselves then they pro imperio will be above them by their own Magisterial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by Consequence if they will take this to themselves that whatsoever is lawful to others upon necessity is and shall be lawful to themselves without Necessity they may in the next place Pope-like take to themselves to dispense with divine positive Laws also because necessity has sometimes dispensed with them Reply to Sect. 13. 1. You may as well say we dare not say the Sun Shineth as that we dare not deny the Protestant Churches to have been without Bishops to this day through necessity against their Wills when in almost all of them the full Power Civil and Ecclesiastical is supposed to be among themselves though I deny not but some particular Persons among them would fain have Bishops yet I think very few in comparison of those that were willing to be rid of them when they were received here 2. You boldly affirm without Proof that the Ministers of this County who were not ordained by Bishops were Ejectors of them or Authors of the Necessity 3. I shewed you before we have more Necessity than you mention and besides a Necessity whereof we are not guilty there may be a culpable Necessity which yet may free our calling from a nullity though not our selves from Sin What if God should permit all the Churches of Ethiopia or the Greeks to deny the Ius Divinum of Episcopacy which is possible as well as to permit the Reformed Churches to do i◠aud so to set up Ordination by meer Presbyters while I speak to you on your own Grounds I suppose this to be their Error and so their Sin yet would you presently unchurch them all and rather have God's Worship forborn as to the Publick There be many among us who are against Diocesan Bishops who give us good testimony of a sincere Heart impartial studying of the Point with as much self-denial and earnest Prayer for God's Direction as any Episcopal Man that ever I knew and yet remain against Episcopacy This kind of Necessity may sure free their Calling from the Charge of Nullity which needs not this Plea though it could not free them from the Charge of Error Except to Sect. 14. Instead of answering one Word to Ignatius God's Holy Saint and Martyr his renowned Epistles which he knew lately vindicated or to all the ancient Fathers avowing in terminis the jus divinum of Bishops above Presbyters and the Bishops sole Power of ordaining or producing any to the contrary he fills up his Books with Citations of modern Mens Writings which they all wrote charitably for the Patronage of those poor afflicted Protestants who had no Bishops because they could have none So that as well his Authorities as his Reasons are all drawn a loco comparatorum arguing weakly from the Priviledge of necessity to their licentiousness with or without Necessity which is one continued Sophism Reply to Sect. 14. 1. Though Ignatius were both a Saint and Holy yet I know not what call I had in those Papers to meddle with him Unless I must needs dispute the point of Episcopacy which I did disclaim 2. As I would not undervalue the late Vindicacation of Ignatius so I would not have you so far overvalue it as to think it should so easily and potently prevail 1. With all those that see not any Cogency in the Arguments or sufficiency in the Answers to the contrary Objections 2. Or with hose that will take Scripture only for the Test of this Cause 3. Or with those that are confident that you can never prove that Ignatius speaks of Diocesan Bishops but only of the Bishops of particular Churches 3. Your talk of all the Ancient Fathers avowing in terminis the Bishops sole Power of ordaining doth but discredit the rest of your Words You suppose us utter Strangers both to those Fathers and the English Bishops who maintain that Presbyters must be their Coadjutors in Ordination 4. What if I should grant that all the Fathers would have Bishops to have the sole Power of Ordaining ordinarily and for Order Sake And that it is a Sin of Disorder where unnecessarily it is done otherwise that 's nothing to the Question that I had in hand which is whether such Ordination by Presbyters be not only irregular but null and whether an uninterrupted Succession be necessary to our Office 5. I plainly perceive here again that you are loath to speak out your Mind but you seem to dissent from these charitable Maintainers of the Protestants Why else do you set Ignatius and the ancient Fathers as the Party that I should have respected instead of these if you did not think that the Fathers and these Men were contrary 6. My Business was to prove that according to the Principles of the Protestant Bishops in England our Ordination was not null eo Nomine because without a Bishop now I am blamed for proving this by Modern Writers and not Fathers If you will disclaim the Modern Protestant Bishops do not pretend to be of their Party but speak plainly If I fill up my Book with such Citations then I hope I was not deficient in bringing the Testimonies of the Protestant Episcopal Divines and yet many more I could cite to that end 7. To that of the Protestants Necessity enough is said till your Words are canonical or your Proof stronger I do not think but there are some Protestant Bishops so called at least in France and Holland now that went out of Britain and Ireland why cannot they ordain them Bishops in their extream Necessity Why did the angry Bishops so revile poor Calvin Beza the Churches of Geneva Scotland and many others for casting out Bishops and setting up Presbytery if all were done on a justifiable Necessity But enough of this Except to Sect. 15. But that these Authors cited by him may be authentical all the
Protestant Divines of England are branded as Popish that since the Reformation have defended against the Pope that Bishops are jure Divino for so I say it was direct Popery that first denied Bishops to be jure Divino witness the Pope's and Papelins canvassing in the Council of Trent to oppress by Force and Tyranny the far major and more learned part of the Council that contended for so many Months with Suffrages Arguments and Protestations Protestant like to have it defined that Bishops were jure Divino and only the Pope and his Titulars and Courtiers suffered it not to be propounded least it should be as certainly it would have been defined for then Popes and Presbyterians could not have lorded it so Thus the chiefest and most pious and learned Bishops of our English Church must be branded for Popish Bishop Andrews Mountague White c. Reply to Sect. 15. 1. If you deny the Authors cited by me to be authentick pretend not to adhere to the Episcopal Protestants for sure these are such 2. You do not well to say that all the Protestant Bishops are branded as Popish that since the Reformation have defended against the Pope that Bishops are jure Divino either shew the Words where I so brand them or else do not tell us that your Words are true though in a matter of Fact before your Eyes we may well question your Argument when we find you so untrue in reporting a plain Writing Indeed our late Bishops and those most that were most suspected to be Popish did stand most upon the jus Divinum which many of the first did either disclaim or not maintain But it never came into my Thoughts to brand all for Papists that did own it Do I not cite Downame and others as Protestant Bishops who yet maintain it yea Bishop Andrews whom you name this is not fair 3. As for the Trent Quarrel about Bishops I say but this if the Spanish Bishops and the rest that stood for the jus Divinum of Episcopacy there were no Papists then those that I spoke of in England were none much less And I must cry you mercy for so esteeming them Except to Sect. 16. The 3d Argument is from the uncertainty of Succession which might have done the Hereticks good Service in the old times when St. Irenaeus and Tertullian muster up against them Successions of Catholick Bishops that ever taught as the Church then taught against the Hereticks Reply to Sect. 16. 1. It seems you are confident of an uninterrupted Succession of authoritative Ordination though you seem to think none authoritative but Episcopal But so were not the Protestant Bishops who took the Reformed Churches to have true Ministers and to be true Churches when yet Episcopal Ordination is interrupted with them Such are all those with whose Words you say I fill my Book to whom I may add Men which is strange that were thought nearer your own way As Bishop Bromhall in his late Answer to Militerius who yet would have the Pope to be the Principium Unitatis to the Church and the Answer to Fontanus's Letter said to be Dr. Stewards besides Dr. Fern yea if you were one of those that would yield that Presbyters may ordain yet I am still unpersuaded that you are able to prove an uninterrupted Succession of Authoritative Ordination and if you are able I should heartily thank you if you would perform it and seeing it is so Necessary it is not well that no Episcopal Divine will perform it If you are not able methinks you should not judge it so necessary at least except you know them that are able If you cast it on us to disprove that Succession I refer you to our Answer to Bellarmine and others in those Papers as to that point 2. As for Tertullian and Irenaeus and others of the primitive Ages pleading such Succession I answer 1. It is one thing to maintain an uninterrupted Succession then when and where it was certain and another to maintain it now when it is not 2. It is one thing then to maintain that such a Succession was de facto and another to affirm that it must be or would be to the end of the World which those Fathers did not It was the Scope of Irenaeus and Tertullian not to make an uninterrupted Succession of standing absolute necessity ad esse Officii nor to prophecy that so it should still be and the Church should never want it but from the present certainty of such a Succession de facto to prove that the Orthodox Churches had better Evidence of the Soundness of their Faith than the Hereticks had If this be not their meaning I cannot understand them it was easy then to prove the Succession and therefore it might be made a Medium against Hereticks to prove that the Churches had better Evidence than they But now the Case is altered both through time and Sin It might have been proved by Tradition without Scripture what was sound Doctrine and what not before the Scripture was written An Heretick might have been confuted in the Days of the Apostles without their Writings and perhaps in a great measure some time after but it follows not that they may be so to the End of the World Those that heard it from the Mouth of the Apostles could tell the Church what Doctrine they taught but how uncertain a way Tradition would have been to acquaint the World with God's Mind by that time it had passed through the puddle of depraved Ages even to 1653. God well knew and therefore provided us a more certain way So is it also in this Case of Succession as the Fathers pleaded it against the Hereticks to prove the Soundness of the Tradition of those Churches Except to Sect. 17. Against all which a Quirk it seems lay that if secretly any of them had had but a secret Canonical Irregularity all the following Successions were null But the evident Truth is much otherwise that the Church never anulled the Acts or Ordinations made by Bishops which the Catholick Church then had accepted and reputed Catholick Bishops though afterwards they came to know of any Secret Irregularities or canonical Disablings had they then been urged or prosecuted by any against those Bishops and then they should have been accepted for Bishops by the Church no longer Reply to Sect. 17. 1. I have proved and more can do open and not only secret Irregularities in the Church of Rome's Ordinations known a Priâ—re and not only after the Ordinations The Multitude of Protestant Writers even English Bishops have made that evident enough against the Pope which you call a Querk general Councils have condemned Popes as Hereticks and Infidels and yet they have ordained more 2. If it were otherwise yet all your Answer would only prove that we must sometimes take them for Bishops who were none when the Nullity is secret but not that they are Bishops indeed or have Authority It is one thing to
to leave God unworshipped Publickly and our People untaught and set Satan raign and Souls perish by Thousands for fear of saving them without Episcopal Ordination If you still say that we should be of your Mind and be ordained by Bishops we again say our judgments are not at our Command we cannot believe what we list I know multitudes of Anti-Episcopal Men that study as faithfully and seek God's Direction as heartily as any of you all and yet cannot see the Justness of your Cause though whether it be just or not I purposely forbear to pass my Censure if still you say it is our Wilfulness or Peevishness I leave you as Usurpers of God's Prerogative and pretending to that Knowledge of our Hearts which is a step above the Papal Arrogation of Infallability Nay seeing I have gone so far I will add this do you not imitate the Papists in the main Point of Recusansy by which we were wont to know them in England Nay we had many Church Papists that went not so far must not you as they have People disclaim our Ministry and Assemblies and not join in them for fear of owning unordained Men. Be not too angry with us I pray you if we call not such Protestants or at least if we take it for impossible to have Concord with them 2. I must also tell you that are offended at my Saying that those particular Bishops named deserved to be cast out that if you be one that dare own them in their Ways or would have the Church have such as they yea that do not detest and lament their Miscarriages seem to your self as Pious as you will you are no Man for our Company and Concord Do you complain of me for want of Christian Charity and yet would you have the Church have such Bishops as would cast out such Men as Aims Parker Baines Bradshaw Dod Hildersham with Multitudes of as painful able Godly Men as the World knew and leave so many drunken reading Sots some thereabouts Faggot Makers or Rope Makers many that did and that lately whether we will or not till the late Act get their Living by unlawful Marriages and such Courses as is a Shame to Mention yea would you have Bishops that would do as your Bishop Wren Pierce and the others did whose Accusations are upon Record For my part I think such Mens destroying the Church was the cause of all our wars and Misery and he that dare own them in it after all this is no Man for our Association I love no Man the worse for being for Bishops but for being for such Bishops and such Practices I do They are yet alive enquire what Men Mr. Dance and Mr. Turner are who were the Teachers of this Parish and what the People were then and what they are now Grant but Piety Love and Concord to be better than Ignorance and Debauchery and then judge of them Except to Sect. 22. Page 64. Speaking of Episcopal Divines he saith and if Liberty of Sects and Separations be publickly granted and confirmed to all you shall soon find that the Party that I am now dealing with will soon by their Numbers obscure all other Parties that now trouble our Peace ibid. pag. 64. n. 13. Reply to Sect. 22. It was my necessary care to distinguish between Protestant Bishops and Popish of Cassender's strain and it is your Care with all subtilty to obscure the Distinction that you may involve the honest Party in your Guilt and Snares That which I there spoke only of Popish Bishops and their Party you would intimate that I spake of the Episcopal Protestants then which nothing less is true as my Words fully shew I tell you plainly such Bishops as Usher Hall Morton Iewel c. are twenty fold nearer me in Judgment than they are to you if you be one of the Cassandrian Papists that there I speak against why then should they not sooner join with us than with you If ever God set up Episcopal Government where I live yea though I wer unsatisfied of its right I will obey them in all things not against the Word of God were it but for Peace and Unity Except to Sect. 23. They would have all the People take us for no Ministers c. and so all God's Worship be neglected in publick where no Bishops and their Missionaries are and so when all others are diseased or turned out the Papists may freely enter there being none but these few faithful Friends of their own to keep them out which how well they will do you may by these conjecture and n. 15. of the same Page But it is a higher Charge than Popery that these Episcopal Doctors that I now speak of are liable to c. Reply to Sect. 23. Is not this true How much of it do you plainly maintain in this Writing I had rather you had freed your selves of the Charge then called it Uncharitable Excep to Sect. 24. Pag. 66. N. 5. Speaking to those same Men he saith You must be certain that those same Men had Intentionem Ordinationis if you be right Papists indeed did ever any one ever hear and read any one single English Episcopal Doctor require Intention as necessary to Ordination If not call you that Speech of Mr. Baxter's Christian Charity Reply to Sect. 24. Remember this that no Protestants say Presbyters have no more Power than the Ordainer intended them You may see by that that I speak to Papists why then would you intimate that it was to Protestant Bishops Except to Sect. 25. Pag. 67. Do not these Mens Grounds leave it certain that Christ hath no true Church or Ministry or Ordinances or Baptized Christians in England nay in all the Western Church and perhaps not in the whole World and then see whether these Popish Divines must not prove Seekers Reply to Sect. 25. O that you would vindicate them from that Charge though heavy by proving the uninterrupted canonical Succession from the Apostles Except to Sect. 26. Pag. 47. Speaking of some under the Name of Episcopal Divines saith that they withdraw the People from obeying their Pastors by pretending a Necessity of Episcopacy c. and partly instil into them such Principles as may prepare them for flat Popery and yet in the next Page 48. saith that those same Men do themselves viz. Mr. Chisenhall against Vane Mr. Waterhouse for Learning Zealous Men for Episcopacy publish to the World what a pack of notorious ignorant silly Souls or wicked unclean Persons those are that are turned Papists How now can Mr. Baxter call those Men that so publish c. faithful Friends to Rome pag. 64. See how Uncharitableness betrays and accuses it self in its busy Accusations of others and must justify them per Force of Truth when it would condemn Reply to Sect 26. Why what is the Scope of this your Writing but to prove that we are not Pasters and would you not then draw the People from acknowledging us such
to prevail with them 2. The Protestants whom I spoke to may be prevailed with for ought you know All be not of one Spirit If they be not I have Confort in following Peace as far as I could which they will never find in flying from it While every Man must be a Pope and reduce all the World to his infallible Judgment as the only means to Peace and will agree with none but Men of his own Principles no wonder if Pacificatory Attempts are frustrate Duroeus Acontius Davenant Hall Melancthon c. found that better Labours than mine have been frustrate for Unity I bless God my Success is far more than ever I did expect but it is with the Sons of Peace Excep to Sect. 30. These things shall be defended against him through God's Grace 1. That if there be no Bishop in any Diocess yet in a National Church where many Bishops had united themselves to govern parts of one National Church they ought to have recourse to some neighbour Bishop 2. That if Presbyters in defect of Bishops might Ordain Excommunicate yet not one single Presbyter 3. That such as were never Ordained by Bishops where they might are none of of these Presbyters none at all Reply to Sect. 30. I am of as quarrelsom a Nature as others but yet I will not be provoked to turn a conciliatory Design into a Contention and if I would your Questions are ill fitted to our use 1. The First will necessarily carry us to dispute the Ius Divinum of Bishops which I purposely avoid and it should be after the last 2. The Secoônd if I yield it you is nothing against our Agreement 3. The Third I cannot dispute well till I know what you will yield in the excepted Case I would desire you as a more orderly and effectual way to our Ends to do these three Things 1. Tell me plainly whether you take the Reformed Churches of Holland France Scotland Helvetia Geneva c. for true organized Churches and their Pastors for true Pastors and Presbyters and Ordination by Presbyters to be valid in their Case 2. seeing you plainly seem to take an uninterrupted Succession of authoritative Ordination to be of flat Necessity to the being of the Ministry will you give us a clear Proof of such a Succession de Facto either to your self or any Man now living I earnestly intreat you deny me not this nor say it is needless I have told you the need of it in those Papers Again I pray you put it not off 3. Seeing you prosess to be for Concord and yet reject our Terms as a Schismatical Combination will you propound your own Terms the lowest condescending Terms which you can possibly yield to which may tend to our Closure If you only contend against our Way and will not find a better nor use any Endeavours of your own in its stead what Man of Reason will believe your Profession of the strong Inclination of the Heart to Concord and Peace I again intreat you instead of contending to perform these Three things which will exceedingly further the much desired Work And for my part though you and Millions of Men oppose it I am resolved by the Grace of God to desire pray and labour for Peace and the Unity of the Church upon Honest and Possible not Romish or Sinful Terms while I am Rich. Baxter Dec. 23. 1653. No. II. Mr. Johnson's First Letter to Mr. Baxter about the Point of Ordination SIR BEING very much unsatisfied in the reading of your late Discourse concerning the Interruption of the Succession of the Ministry I thought good to take Advantage from your own Offer friendly and freely to debate the Question with you And I shall lay out my Thoughts to you in this Method 1. I will give you the Reasons which makes me if it be Papistical to abet the Papists in pleading for an uninterrupted Succession 2. I will reply to your Arguments whereby you dispute the Succession of the Ministry of England to be interrupted 3. I will offer you some Reasons why an infallible Proof of the Point is not necessary in the Case 4. I will produce such Arguments as shall put it beyond doubting and so shall leave indubitable though not infallible Proof of the Question in your Hands 1. First I shall give you the Reasons why I plead so seriously for the uninterrupted Succession and I shall do this in the first place because all the rest will be Supervacaneous if it be a Matter of no great Consequence whether there be a Succession or not If therefore you can satisfy my Arguments whereby I plead for the Necessity and give me Reason enough to understand that an Uninterruption of the Succession is not much material I will save my self the Trouble of Confuting what you have said against it and you some Trouble of making a needless Repl. Now the first Reason which induceth me to believe that it is a matter of much more Cosequence than you talk of is the Seriousness of our Divines in their Endeavours to prove that the Bishops in Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth's Days were Ordained by Bishops against the Calumnies of Sanders Kellison Chalmney and other Jesuits who in their Writings would have bore the World in Hand that the Succession of the Ministry of England had been interrupted at the Reformation because there were none but Popish Bishops to Ordain them and they would not and so none did But as you know had devised a Story of the Nag's-Head Ordination Now you also know there hath been much Endeavour made by searching the Archiva at Lambeth to clear up the Ordination of our first Reformers that thereby they might invalidate the Papists Calumny of our Succession◠being interrupted But if Succession in Office for Succession in Doctrine I neither speak of neither did they plead for be a matter of so small a Consequence our learned Country-Men might have saved themselves much Labour and Trouble and in a few Words have told the Jesuits that an Uninterruption of Succession was a thing not worth pleading for But on the other side we see them acknowledge Succession in Office to be necessary and contend that there hath been no such Interruption in our Ministry II. The Second Argument which persuades me to believe that the pleading for a Succession is of great Moment is this viz. That without this I do not understand how we that are now Ministers can be said to have our Authority from Christ For we must have it from him either mediately or immediately But we cannot have it mediately from him if the Succession be interrupted for if we have it mediately from him we must have it by the Mediation of some Person who at length had it immediately from him But if the Succession be interrupted we cannot have it from any Person that had it immediately from him or his Apostles This is a kind of Contradiction in adjecto and therefore we cannot have it
grant the Necessity of such Succession yet we need not grant the Nullity of our Calling 2. I deny that the English Bishops much less the Church of England did ever judge it necessary any farther than ad Hominem 1. Because it is apparent that they do ordinarily in their Writings speak against the Papists supposed Necessity of Ordination as I instanced out of some of them in my Book It is known to be a Point wherein the Protestants have commonly opposed the Papists 2. It is known to be but the later declining Generation of Bishops such at Montague Laud and their Confederates most in King Charles his Days very few in King Iames's and scarce any at all in Queen Elizabeth's that do join with the Papists in pleading the Necessity of Succession Even such Men as were as zealous against Queen Elizabeth's Episcopal Protestants as against the Papists at least many of them 3. The rest do expresly mention Succession and confute the Fâ—ble of the Nag's-Head Ordination in Cheapside to prove the Papists Slanderers So much to your Minor 3. If that will not serve I deny your Major All is not necessary that they thought necessary Protestants pretend not to Infallability in Controversals Many more perhaps ten to one at least of the English Clergy held it not necessary unless as aforesaid Ad 2 um Your second Argument hath all the Strength in it or rather shew of Strength â— first we must needs distinguish of your Terms Mediately and Immediately A Constitution may be said to be from Christ mediately either in Respect to a mediating Person or to some mediating Sign only Also it may be said to be mediante persona 1. when the Person is the cause totalâ—â— subordinata constituendi as having himself received the Power from God and being as from himself to convey it unto Man 2. Or when the Person is but Causa per accidens 3. Or when he is only Causa sive qua non vel quatenus impedementa â—emovit vel quatenus ejus Actiones sunt conditiones necessarie And so I answer 1. Immediately in the first absolute Sense excludendo personâ—â— res no Man ever had any Right communicated or Duty imposed on him by God unless perhaps the immediate Impress or supernatural Revelation of the Holy Ghost to some Peophet or Apostle might be said to do this Moses himself had the Ten Commandments written in Stone which were signa mediantia Those that heard God speak if any immediately without Angelical Interposition did receive God's Commands mediante verborum signo So did the Apostles that which they had from the Mouth of Christ. 2. God is so absolutely the Fountain of all Power that no Man can either have or give any Power but derivatively from him and by his Commission Man being no farther the Efficient of Power than he is so constituted of God the general way of his giving it must be by the Signification of God's Will and so far as that can be sufficiently discovered there needs no more to the Conveyance of Power Whether Men be properly efficient Causes of Church Power at all is a very hard Question especially as to those over whom they have no superior governing Power As Spalatensis hath taken great pains to prove that Kings or other Sovereigns of the Common-wealth have their Commission and Power immediately from God though the People sometimes may choose the Man for the Power was not given to the People first and then they give it the King but God lets them name the Man on whom he will immediately confer it so possibly may it be in Ordination of Church-Officers Three ways do Men mediate in the Nomination of the Person 1. When they have Authority of Regiment over others and explenitudine potestatis do convey efficiently to inferior Officers the Power that these have Thus doth the supream Rector of the Commonwealth to his Officers and Ergo they are caled the Kings Officers and he hath the choice of the very Species as well as of the individual Officers Now this way of mediating is not always if at all necessary or possible in the Church for the Papists themselves confess that the Pope is Ordained or authorized without this way of Efficiency for none have a Papal Power to convey to him His Ordination cannot be Actus Superioris And the Council of Trent could not agree whether it were not the Case of all Bishops to hold their Office immediately from Christ though under the Pope or whether they had their Power immediately from the Pope as the prime Seat on Earth of all Church Power who is to convey their Parts to others How the Spanish Bishops held up their Cause is known And it was the old Doctrine of the Church that all Bishops were equal and had no Power one over another but all held their Power directly from Christ as Cyprian told them in the Council of Carthage Add to this that the true old Apostolical Episcopacy was in each particular Church and not over many Churches together I speak of fixed Bishops till the matter becoming too big to be capable of the old Form Corruptio unius fuit generatio alterius and they that upon the increase of Christians should have helpt the Swarm into a new Hive did through natural Ambition of ruling over many retaine divers Churches under their Charge and then ceased to be of the Primitive sort of Bishops Non eadem fuit res non munus idem etiamsi idem nomen retinerent So that truly our Parish Ministers who are sole or chief Pastors of that Church are the old sort of Bishops for as Ambrose and after him Grotius argues qui ante se alterum non habebat Episcopus er at That is in eadem Ecclesia qui superiorem non habet So that not only all Diocesan Bishops but also all Parochial Bishops are Ordained per pares and so not by a governing Communication of Power which is that second way of Ordination when men that are of equal Authority have the Nomination of the Person Now whether or no he that ordaineth an Inferior as a Deacon or any other do convey Authority by a proper Efficiency as having that first in himself which he doth Convey yet in the Ordination of Equals it seems not to be so for they have no Government over the particular Persons whom they Ordain or Churches to whom they Ordain them nor could they themselves exercise that governing Power over that other Congregation which they appoint another to so that they seem to be but Causae Morales or sine quibus non as he that sets the Wood to the Fire is of its burning or as he that openeth you the Door is of your bringing any thing into the House So that if you will call the Ordainer of an Inferior causam equivocam and the Ordainer of an Equal causam univocam yet it is but as they morally and improperly cause The Third way of Mediating in the
that Power which they convey to others first in themselves to convey at least in ordinando pares but are only media applicandi legem ad personam Ad 3 um To your Third Argument I answer Invaders of the Ministerial Office may unjustly take Encouragement hence but no just Encouragement is given them The best things are Occasions of encouraging Men in Sin e. g. God's Mercifulness Christ's Satisfaction the Preaching of Free-Grace c. To your Question if this be sufficient why do we not give them the Right Hand of Fellowship I answer They despise or neglect God's Order and therefore deserve not the Hand of Fellowship If God bid them go and work in his Vineyard but for Order's sake go in at this Door he that will not go in at this Door is a disobedient Servant and not to be owned till he reform But if God himself do nail up this Door there needs no express Dispensation for our not going in at it for nemo tenetur ad impossibile nisi ipse sit Causa culpabilis impossibilitatis Nor is it necessary that it be expressed that we go in at another Door for the Command of going to labour in the Vineyard is not abrogated by the locking up of that Door seeing as it was opened non ut fiat opus directly sed ut sic fiat so it is nailed up non ne fiat sed ne sic fiat and therefore the Command requires us to go in at another If by Law every Physician that Practiceth in London must be approved by the Colledge he deserves to be punisht and not taken for a Physician that will profess and practice it without the Approbation of the Colledge and every wise Patient will fear least he be Conscious of such Unworthiness as that he dares not venture a Tryal or at the best he is a disobedient Subject But if the Colledge of Physicians be dead or dissolved any worthy Man may profess and practice without their Approbation and as the law of Nature binds him to do Good so the Obligation that limited him is ipso facto dissolved cessante materia where you say that this extream necessity is their Case I answer Nothing more untrue They slight and despise Ordination they may be ordained if they would submit themselves to tryal if they be found fit But they will not Their false Imaginations create no necessity but a necessity of laying them by and receiving the Truth which is imposed on them by God or if they will call it a Necessity that is imposed on them by their Error it is but a Necessity of not being ordained while they judge it sinful which yet is none because they are still bound to lay by that Conceit but not a Necessity of being Ministers in the mean time without it Besides that as it is a Necessity of Suspension 〈◊〉 Forbearance and not of Acting so it is themselves that are the culpable Cause 〈◊〉 it and exculpa propria nemini debetur commodum If Vaux think he must blow up the Parliament and Ravailliack that he must stab a King doth this necessitate them Such a Necessity as every wicked Man brings on himself of sinning by a Custom in Sin which aggravates and not excuseth his Fault which is evident when the Case is made plain by God and only their Negligence or sinful Prejudice hindereth them from Recovery out of their Error For the Grant that you desire I say I am loath to yield that Christ hath no known Ministry on Earth that I may keep out Invaders To your Case about Apostacy I answer There are many other Cases that may necessitate an Entrance into the Ministry without Ordination besides universal Apostacy 1. So great an Apostacy as was in the Arrian Prevalency 2. Such unlawful Ingredients as are in the Romish Ordination 3. The Death or the violent Proscription of the Ordainers in one Kingdom For if all that are found to work in the Vineyard to exercise the Ministry must but go to another Land for it Poverty Weakness Magistrates Prohibition may so restrain them that not one of a Hundred could enter when God doth by the Churches Necessity call to it Much less could all the World travail for Ordaination to some Corner of the Earth As for the Churches Officers which you mention that went along in Reformation it 's true of Presbyters they were the Leaders but so few Bishops out of England that the Reformed Churches were forced to go on without their Ordination But to this Day there is a necessity of Preaching without Ordination by legitimate Church Guides in many Parts of the World and I doubt not but it is the great Sin of many that it is neglected I suppose did you consider well but the Sence of the Law Natural and Supernaturally revealed you would not be so inclinable to turn Seeker nor to expect new Miracles Apostles or Revelations upon the Supposition you make and for all your Words if it came to the Practice I do not believe that you have so hard a Heart so unmerciful a Nature as to leave this one Nation much less all the World to that apparent danger of Everlasting Damnation and God's publick Worship to be utterly cast out if I can but prove that the Succession of Legitimate Church Ordination is interrupted Ad 4 um To your Fourth Argument I answer I am as far from believing Imposition of Hands essential to Ordination as any of the rest The Bishop that was last save one in this Diocess was so lame of the Gout that he could not move his Hand to ones Head and though his Chaplain did his best to help him yet I could not well tell whether I might call it Imposition of Hands when I saw it Yet I never heard any on that Ground suspect a nullity in his Ordination Nor do I think that a Bishop loseth all his Power of Ordination if he loss his Hands or the Motion of them 1. Imposition of Hands was an old Custom in a Superiors Act of Benediction or setting a part to Office and conveying Power and not newly instituted by Christ but continued as a well known Sign and therefore not of such Necessity as you imagin 2. The End will shew much the degree of Necessity If it be evident that the End was but the Solemnizing of the Work by a convenient Ceremony then it is not essential to Ordination or Authorizing But c. Ergo 3. God did not lay such a stress on Ceremonies no not under the Ceremonial Law no not on the great initiating Sign and Seal of Circumcision without which Men were entered and continued in his Church for Forty Years in the Wilderness Your Argument is Christ hath revealed to his Church that it is his Mind or Will that his Church's Officers be set apart by Imposition of Hands Ergo It followeth that Imposition of Hands is necessary and essential to their Seperation Answ. Negatur sequela It follows a praecepto only
either take it upon himself or the People may be the Judges to call him out to it or the Magistrate either Then they have the same Authority which we must have if the Succession be interrupted and the Door of the Vineyard nailed up by Providence and so their Authority seems built upon your own Principles Now to all this if you say that it is their Error to be Anabaptists and it is their Error to Judge the visible Ministry of England to be no Church-Offices and that it is their Duty to quit themselves of these Errors that they may be in a Capacity to receive Ordinations and the Presbytery in a Capacity to Ordain them as you do in effect say To this I answer that I think as well as you that these are their Errors and that these Errors ought to be laid aside But yet this being said doth not absolve them from the case of extream Necessity which I speak of An erroneous Conscience binding as strongly as a sound and an Error appearing Truth lays as great a Necessity upon the Party to frame his Practise to it as Truth And so the Necessity becomes still as importunate Methinks this Answer which you give may be made â—y Papists to us Protestants and by the Episcopal Party to you Presbyteries when we tell the Papists that we dare not take Orders from them or the Presbyterian tells the Episcopacy that they dare not take Orders from them How easily may the Papists say to us it is our Error how seriously may the Episcopal say to the Presbyterian it is your Error You create Impossibilities and Necessities upon your selves by your erronious Consciences But if we Protestants cannot reject that Necessity which lies upon us of refusing Orders from the Papists or if the Presbyterian cannot reject the Impossibility that lies before them of taking Orders from the Prelates whilst their Conciences tells them they may not Why may not the Sectary upon as good Ground and as justifiable Principles refuse Orders from the Presbyterian and plead as strongly a moral Impossibility and a nailing up the Vineyards Door by Providence whilst their Consciences tells them they may not and so baulking those that we call Church Officers enter as regularly into the Ministry or at least as inconfutably as any other Men if the Succession be interrupted And therefore I cannot think that you have answered this Argument except the two first Lines contains it where you say That the best things may be made use of as Occasions to encourage Men in Sin c. because I think that there is much Truth in that and that the Inconvenience which this Argument hath hanged upon that Assertion is but incommodum per accidens which may be fastened upon most of the Truths of God I supersede likewise in that Answer to my third Argument As for my Fourth Argument I confess it was frivolously urged to the present Question and I have wondered at my self how I came to hoole it in under the present Debate and therefore I will return you nothing to what you have said against it But giving you many Thanks for that Help which you have held out to my Understanding towards that weighty Question of justifying the Calling of the Ministry I beseech the Almighty long continue your Life to the Advantage of his Church And this done without further Ceremony I bid you farewell and rest Your Fellow Labourer in the Gospel of Christâ— M. Johnson Wamborne Nov. 9. 1653. For my Reverend c. very worthy Friend Mr. Baxter Minister of the Word at Kidderminister These Mr. Baxter's Second Letter to Mr. Johnson Reverend Brother I Know not whether I am more glad of your Satisfaction or sorrowful that you will needs supercede the Task which you undertook I confess it is a Labour which I apprehend would be useful to me many ways but a strong Conceit of the Impossibility of performing it did slack my Desires But now you tantalize me expressing here a higher Confidence of the Feaseableness of your Work than before in your defying all the World on the contrary So that I must again renew my suit to you that you would perform that Work and prove de facto an uninterrupted Succession I profess it is for my own Edification that I desire it and if you suspect whether it be to cavil or enter a Quarrel with you mistake me Such a Discovery would dispatch several Difficulties with me in several Controversies As for your Animadversions last sent I shall reply to the substance of them in brief 1. The First I conceive little worth the insisting on because first you confess it is but a Motive to induce you to think there is weight in the Point 2. Because if there were any thing in it the contrary Judgments of all the Learned Divines of France Belgia upper Germany Helvetia Denmark Sweeden Scotland Transilvania Hungary with a great part of the English who are against the necessity of an uninterrupted Succession is as strong a motive to an unprejudiced Man as is the Judgment of the Bishops of England alone But 2. It is a known Case past all doubt that the English Bishops opposed the Papists in this Point till of later Years and to name you more what need I when you know I named you so many in my Book To all which add That even the late exasperated Episcopal Divines whereof some have been suspected of halting do yet confess the Truth of the Reformed Churches and Ministry that have no Bishops as doth Dr. Fern Dr. Stewart's Answer to Fountain's Letter Bishop Bromhall against Militerius who yet would have the Pope to be principium Unitatis to all the Church I do not think you can find one of twenty that wrote against the Papists before the late King's Reign or the Treaty of the Spanish Match but were all against the Papists in this Point of the necessity of uninterrupted Succession if they medled with the Point Ad 2 um The Reason why you saw not a Formal Answer in my Words I conceive was your Oversight you took no notice of the Force of my Answer You required this Proposition to be proved from Scripture They that are thus and thus qualified may preach the Word I told you it is contained in this which is in Scripture Men thus and thus qualified shall be appointed to preach the Word Here you overlook the Strength of my Answer which is in the Word shall and you not only obscure the Emphasis but change the Word and put may for shall Here is contained a Precept comprehensive both of the Preacher's Work and the Ordainers conjunctly Now all my Business was to shew you that as in this there are more Precepts than one so that secundum materiam subjectam they have not the same Degree of Obligation and that though God do lay down together his Law both de re de modo of the Work and the Order of entring on it yet that the
Conformists and Nonconformists The Episcopal Conformists are of Two Sorts some lately sprung up that follow Archbishop Laud and Dr. Hammond hold that there are no Political Churches lower than Diocesan because there are no Bishops under them and so that the Parish-Churches are no Churches properly but part of Churches nor the Incumbants true Bishops but Curates under Bishops nor the Foreigners true Ministers or Churches that have no Diocesan Bishops This Party called themselves the Church of England 1658 1659. When we knew but of Four or Five Bishops left alive who Dr. Hammond said with that Party of the Clergy were of his Mind And these seemed uppermost in 1660 and 1661. and were the men whom I disputed with in my Treatise of Episcopacy The other Episcopal Conformists are they that follow the Reformers and hold the Doctrine of the Scripture as only sufficient to Salvation and as explicatory of it the Thirty Nine Articles the Homilies Liturgy Book of Ordination Apology c. These take the Parish-Pastors for true Rectors and the Parish-Churches for true Churches but subordinate to the Diocesans and to be ruled by them But the Laws have imposed on them some Declarations and Subscriptions which they think they may put a good Sense on though by stretching the Words from their usual Signification The Bishops and Deans are chosen by the King indeed and by the Prebends in shew The Incumbant are chosen by Patrons ordained by Diocesans with Presbyters and accepted by Consent of the Communicants of the Parish The Episcopal Government is managed partly by the Bishops and partly by Lay-Civilians and Surrogates The Episcopal Nonconformists are for true Parish-Churches and Ministers reformed without swearing promising declaring or subscribing to any but sure clear necessary things desiring that the Scripture may be their Canons disowning all persecuting Canons taking the capable in each Parish for the Communicant and Church and the rest for Hearers and Catechized Persons desiring that the Magistrate be Judge whom he will maintain approve and tolerate and the Ordainers Judges whom they will ordain and the People be free Consenters to whose Pastoral Care they will trust their Souls desiring that every Presbyter be an Overseer of the Flock and every Church that hath many Elders have one Incumbent President for Unity and Order and that Godly Diocesans may without the Sword or Force have the Oversight of many Ministers and Churches and all these be confederate and under the Government of a Christian King but under no Foreign Jurisdiction though in as much Concord as is possible with all the Christian World And they would have the Keys of Excommunication and Absolution taken out of the Hands of Lay-Men Chancellors or Lay Brethren and the Diocesans to judge in the Synods of the Presbyters in Cases above Parochial Power That this was the Judgment of the Nonconformists that treated for Peace in 1660. and 1661. is to be seen in their printed Proposals in which they desired Archbishop Usher's Model of the Primitive Episcopacy joined with the Synods of Presbyters II. The Presbyterians are for Parish-Churches as aforesaid guided by Elders some teaching and some only ruling and these under Synods of the like Class without Diocesan or Parochial Superiors and all under a National Assembly of the same as the Supreme Church Power III. The Independants are for every Congregation to have all Church Power in it self without any superior Church-Government over them whether Bishops or Synods yet owning Synods for voluntary Concord Of these some are against local Communion with the aforesaid Churches and for avoiding them by Separation some as if they were no Churches and had no true Ministers some for Forms of Prayer some for faulty Communicants some for Episcopal Ordination and some for subscibing and some for all these and many other pretended Reasons But some Independants are for occasional Communion with the other Churches and some also for stated Communion in the Parish-Churches for which you may read Mr. Tomes's the chief of the Anabaptists in a full Treatise and Dr. Thomas Goodwin on the first of the Ephesians earnest against Separation as the old Nonconformists were Now which of all these should you join with I affirm that all these except the Separatists are parts of the Church of England as it is truly essentiated by a Christian Magistracy and confederate Christian particular Churches All are not equally sound and pure but all are parts of the Church of England Liturgies and Ceremonies and Canons and Chancellors are not essential to it as a Church or Christian Kingdom But it is now a Medly less concordant than is desirable but you are not put upon any such Disputes whether you will call the present Church of England Roman as denominated from the King that is the Head or whether you will say that King and Parliament conjunct are that Head and so it is yet Protestant because the Laws are so or whether you will denominate it materially Protestant because the Clergy and Flocks are so your Doubt is only what Congregation to join with I answer That which all your Circumstances set together make it most convenient to the publick good and your own Though I hold not Ministerial Conformity lawful I take Lay-Communion in any of these except the Separatists to be lawful to some Persons whose case maketh it fittest But I judge it unlawful for you to confine your Communion to any one of them so as to refuse occasional Communion with all save them 1. The Parish-Churches have the Advantage of Authority Order and Confederacy and the Protestant Interest is chiefly cast upon them therefore I will not separate from Lay-Communion with them though they need much Reformation 2. You must not go against your Father's Will no nor divide the Family without necessity The same I say of your Husband when you are married 3. The Nonconforming Episcopal and Presbyterians have not such Churches as they desire but only temporarily keep Meetings like to Chappels as Assistants to others till Parishes are reformed 4. I think it a stated sinful Schism to fix as a Member of such a Church and Pastor as is of the Principles of the Writing which you shewed me I. Because they grievously slander the Parish-Churches and Ministers as none and their Worship and Government as far worse than it is II. Because they Renounce local Communion with almost all the Body or Church of Christ on Earth by renouncing it on a Reason common to almost all III. Because they separate from such Churches as Christ and his Apostles joined with and so seem to condemn Christ and his Apostles as Sinners Christ ordinarily joined with the Iews Church in Synagogues and Temple-Offices when the High-Priest bought the Place of Heathens and the Priests Pharisees and Rulers were wicked Persecutors and the Sadduces Hereticks or worse he sent Iudas as an Apostle when he knew him to be a Theif or a Devil The Apostles neither separated nor allowed Separation from
and perswading all the Families House by House they saw the Body of Town and Parish in love with serious Religion they told me they had been undone if I had followed their Counsel William Allen who with Mr. Lamb were Pastors of an Anabaptist Arminian Church first separated from the Parish-Churches and next from the Independents was turned from Independency much by seeing being our Kidderminster Factor that Parish-Churches may be made as holy as separated ones and the People not left by lazy Separatists to the Devil So that this Experience made him and his Companion more against Independency than I am 11. They abuse the People in indulging them in works that they were never called to nor are capable of nor can give any comfortable account of to God that is To be the Judges of Persons admitted to Communion and of Mens Repentance and Fitness for the Sacrament c. whenas God hath put this Power called The Church Keys into the Pastors and Rulers hands the not over-forced Men but Voluntiers Baptism is the true Churches Entrance and the Baptizer is the Judge of the Capacity of the Baptized no more but Consent to particular Church Relation and Duty is necessary to Membership of Neighbour Christians in particular Churches And nothing but proved nullifying the Baptismal Covenant by Heresie or Sin impenitently maintained or contained in doth forfeit their visible right to Communion And if the People must judge of all these they must have their Callings to examine every Person and they must grow wiser and abler then many of their Leaders are 12. Their Churches have among them no probable way of Concord but they are as a heap of Sand that upon every Commotion fall in pieces The Experience of it in Holland broke them to nothing And it so affected the Sober in New-England that in 1660. or 1661. Mr. Ash and I were fain to disswade Mr. Norton and Mr. Broadstreet whom they sent hither as Commissioners from inclining to our English Episcopacy foretelling them what was doing and we have seen so deeply were they afraid of being received by that Peoples uncurable Separation from their ablest Pastors whenever any earnest erroneous Teachers would seduce them Their Building wanteth Cement 13. God hath so wonderfully by his Providences disowned the way of Schism and Separation on how good pretences soever that I should be too like Pharaoh in hardness if I should despise his warnings For Instance 1. In the Apostles days all are condemned that separated from the setled Churches even when those Churches had many heinous Scandals and St. Paul saith That all they in Asia were turned from him The Authority and Miracles of the Apostles did not serve to keep Men from Separation and raising Schisms 2. Even when the Church lay under Heathen Persecutors for 294 years yet Swarms of Condemned Sects arose to so great a number as that the naming and confuting them filleth great Volumes to the great Reproach of the Christian Churches and Scandal of the Heathens 3. As soon as Constantine delivered the Churches from the Flames of cruel Persecution and set up Christians in Power and Wealth separating Sects grew greater than before each Party crying up their several Bishops and Teachers and grew worse by Divisions till thereby they tempted the Papal Clergy to unite Men carnally by force 4. At Luther's Reformation Swarms of Separatists arose in Germany Holland Poland c. to the great dishonour of the Protestant Cause 5. Here in England it hath been ill in Queen Elizabeth's time by the Familists and Separatists and far worse since It was such as Quarterman and Lilburn and other Separatists that drew Tumults and Crowds down to Westminster to draw the Parliament to go beyond their own Judgment and thereby divided the Parliament-men and drove away the King which was the beginning of our odious War It was the Separating Party that all over the Land set up Anti-Churches in the Towns that had able godly Ministers when they had nothing imposed on them to excuse it neither Bishops Liturgies nor Ceremonies So that Churches became like Cockpits or Fencing-Schools to draw asunder the Body of Christ. It was the Separating Party that got under Cromwell into the Army and became the common Scorners of a godly able Ministry by the Names of the Priest-byters the Driviners the Westminster-sinners the Dissembly-men as Malignant Drunkards did and worse It was these that thought Success had made them Rulers of the Land that caused the disbanding of all the Soldiers that disliked their Spirit and Way and then pull'd down first eleven and then the major part of the Parliament imprisoning and turning out Men of eminent Piety and Worth and making a Parliament of the minor part and their killing the King and afterward with scorn turning out that minor part that had done their work and to whom they had oft profest themselves Servants It was these Men that set up a Usurper that made a thing called a Parliament all of his and his Armies nomination If this should ever be imitated whom may we thank It was these Men that set up the Military Government of Major-Generals It was they that set up and pull'd down so many feigned Supream Powers in a few years as made themselves the Scorn of the World and by a dreadful warning of Divine Justice all their victorious Army and Power dropt in pieces like Sand as they would have used the Church and was dissolved without one Battle or drop of Blood save the after-Blood of their Leaders that were hang'd drawn and quarter'd by Parliament Sentence It is these Men and these doings that have hardened thousands against Reformation and turned all that was done for it O what did it cost and what raised hopes had many of the Success into Reproach quieted the Consciences of those that have thought they served God by silencing hating and persecuting those that they thought had been of this guilty Sect. In a word the spirit and way of causeless Separation whether by violent Prelatists Pursuits and Excommunications or by self-conceited Sectaries was never owned or blest by God If any say truly or falsly You have had a hand in some such thing your self I answer If I had I will hate it and write against it so much the more To thrust ones self into a way so disowned by God by such a course of fearful warnings is to run with Pharaoh into the Red-Sea especially when Impenitence so fixeth the guilt on them that cannot endure to hear of it as may make us fear that the worst 〈◊〉 behind and Sin and Judgments yet continue The Sum of what is said to you on the other side is that the Church of England and the Parish Churches have no true Ministry and therefore are no true Churches That they confess there is no Church without a Bishop and no Bishop below the Diocesan and so no Church below the Diocesan Church That those are no Scripture Bishops and Churches
and Men cannot be Pastors against their wills and the will of their Diocesans That I contradict my Treatise of Episcopacy in denying this With more like this To which I say I. If the Parish Congregation were but part of a Church you might joyn with it as a part as well as with part of an Independent Church And they that can hear a Lay-man with the Separatists might hear the Ministers thereâ— II. Whether I contradict my self or not is nothing to your Cause and Conscience I undertook not when I wrote that none should wilfully or ignorantly misunderstand me The formal Notion of a National Church is nothing but a Christian Kingdom The Matter is Christian Rulers and Subjects and as ordered Confederate particular Churches England hath been such for many Ages Here from the Reformation they owned the Sovereign Power as the Head of the Political National Church as Christ is of the Universal under him They owned Parish-Churches under Diocesans and true Ministers therein Their Books shew their Judgment their Articles Apology Homelies Liturgy Ordination Canons c. These Books are still owned by the Church But at last a new sort of Bishops rose up that would have made the Parish Churches to be no proper Churches but like Chappels under the Diocesan These called themselves the Church of England when there were but about four or five Bishops left alive who Dr. Hammond said were of his mind Some such domineered afterward and would have set up that way but never prevailed either to retract the Churches Books and Laws nor to get the major part of the Clergy to own them Now all the vain question here is Which of these two Parties shall be called The Church of England Neither of them alone They are two disagreeing parts of it I argued against the last professing not to do it against the first which your Counseller would take no notice of And what 's all this to you If you will not be of the National or Diocesan Church you may be of a Parish Church III. I proved that if all the Bishops and Parliament had said The Parish Ministers are no true Pastors this would not have made them none though they might be guilty of deposing them as far as they could no more than it would make the Nonconforming Ministers and Churches to be none Because we all take the Office as instituted by Christ and Men to be but investing Servants to him having no power to alter it And as in the Marriage the Husband shall have power over the Wife though he that marry them say Nay so shall an ordained Elder be a true Pastor though the Ordainer say Nay IV. I proved that the old Church Books and Doctrine are in force still by Law and the Kingdom and Church are sworn or bound not to endeavour any alteration in the Government of the Church Therefore not to put down the Parish Ministry and Churches Therefore this is the Sence of the Church of England though not of the new Faction that usurped that Name V. Though a Man cannot be a Pastor against his will yet he may be one without his knowledge if by Errour he think he is none For he may consent to all the Office while he thinks it is not all and denieth the Name If a Man think that a Deacon may do all essential to a Pastor and so that he is but a Deacon he is nevertheless a Pastor if he consented to the Work Many thousands are Christians that think they are not and do truly consent to Christianity while they think they do not And why may it not be so also to the Ministry VI. But our Case needeth none of these Reasons For where there is all that is essential to true Pastors and Churches there are true Pastors and Churches But by God's great mercy in many thousand Parishes in England there is all that is essential to true Pastors and Churches Therefore they are such When you will call me to dispute it with any Denier I will fully prove to you That there is great need of Reformation 1. That the Church of England as it is a Christian Kingdom containing Confederate Churches under a Christian King and Laws is that very Form that Christ offered to settle in Iudea and did settle by Constantine 2. That if the Diocesans be good Men and lawfully chosen as they are meer Successours of Timothy and Titus and others that had the oversight of many Churches and Pastors by the Word they are righter than the Opposers 3. That the Incumbents of the Parish-Churches have a valid Ordination by such Bishops and Presbyters righter than the Dividers 4. That many thousands of such Pastors are Men of competent Abilities and many of greater Ministerial Abilities than most of us Nonconformists yea that no known Nation under Heaven hath in so small a compass so many able Ministers as England And that to deny it and separate is great ingratitude towards God 5. That Parish Bounds are a laudable Distribution of Churches the capable Members being Communicants and the rest Catechumens 6. That the ordinary Communicants in multitudes of Parishes are Membrs that have all that is essential to Church-Membership 7. That the Pastors have power from God for all their Work and Mens denial even the Ordainers nullifieth not that Power when they are in general ordained Presbyters 8. That by the Law of the Land they have all Power essential to Pastors They may keep from Communion all that are not Confirmed and there have owned their Baptismal Covenant or are ready and desirous so to do and therefore may try their readiness This is required by the Liturgy And they may deny the Sacrament to all that live in scandalous Sin And they must prosecute such to the Bishops Courts The Law calleth them Rectors Rulers and they own themselves for such And even the Canons that are their worst restraints do own the same and so do the rest of the Church-Books and Laws that they all subscribe to and promise not to alter Ask them whether they take not themselves for true Pastors if you would know whether they consent to be such 9. Though some late Innovators that called themselves The Church of England would as far as they could have nullified in some part the Parish Ministry and Churches and the Canons themselves do sinfully limit the Exercise of their Power the Cause of our Calamities yet this nullifieth not the Office and Churches the Essential Power being setled both by God's Laws and the Churches and the restraint of Exercise nulleth not the Power 10. That to Exclude any from Communion that are Baptized and at Age have owned their Christianity and are not proved by sufficient witnesses to have nullified that Profession by Apostasie Heresie or a wicked or scandalous Life is Church Tyranny and Injustice of which all are guilty that do it or desire it 11. That if this Discipline be neglected by the Ministers sinful Sloth or by the
Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy Long suffering be an occasion to increase their Tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. The Homilies have many Passages liable to hard Interpretations The use of none of these is Sedition XXIV From 1650. to 1660. I had Controversies by Manuscript with some great Doctors that took up with Dr. Hammond's and Petavius's new singular way of Pleading for Episcopacy which utterly betrayed it They held that in Scripture time all called Presbyters were Diocesan Bishops and that there was no such thing as our Subject Presbyters and yet that every Congregation had a Diocesan Bishop and that it was no Church that had not such a Bishop and that there are no more Churches than there are such Bishops And so when Diocesses were enlarged as ours the Parishes were no Churches for no Bishop had more than one And that Subject Presbyters are since made and are but Curates that have no more power than the Bishop pleaseth to give them Dr. Hammond in his Vindication saith That as far as he knoweth all that owned the same Cause with him against the Presbyterians were come to be of his mind herein And we know not of four Bishops then in England And the Et caetera Oath and Canons of 1640. and the Writers that nullified the Reformed Churches Ordination and Ministry and pleaded for a Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and for our Re-ordination all looking the same way I thought they knew the Judgment of the few remaining Bishops better than I did and sometime called it The Iudgment of the present Church here that is of these Church-men and the English Diocesans but proved that the Laws and Doctrine still owned as the Churches was contrary to them and took the Parishes for true Churches and the Incumbents true Pastors and the Diocesans to be over many Churches and not one alone whereas the Men that I gainsayed overthrew the whole Sacred Ministry among us and all our Churches as of Divine Institution for our Presbyters they say were not in Scripture times Our Parishes are no Churches for want of Bishops our Diocesans are no Successors of such Apostolick Men as were over many Churches ours having but one And they are not like those that they call the Scripture Diocesans for they say these Doctors had but single Assemblies These Men I confuted in my Treatise of Episcopacy and other Books But the Scribe or Printer omitting my Direction to put still The fore-described Prelacy and Church instead of The English Prelacy and Church I was put to number it with the Errata and give the Reader notice of it in the Preface and Title Page and have since vindicated the Church of England hereform XXV I hear the angry Protestant Recusants say It is just with God that he that hath done more than all others to draw Men to the Parish-Churches and hath these Thirty years been Reconciling us to the Papists in Doctrinals and is now called Bellarminus junior for his Arguments for Liturgies and Forms and in his Paraphrase hath so largely and earnestly pleaded for Charity to Papists as not Babylonish or Antichristian should be the first that should suffer by them and that for this very Book that so extraordinarily doth serve their Interest To which I say take heed of mis-expounding Providence that Errour hath cost England dear If I be put to doath by them I shall not repent of any of those Conciliatory Doctrines and Endeavours I have reviewed my Writings and am greatly satisfied that I suffer not for running into either Extream nor for any false Doctrine Rebellion Treason or gross Sin but that I have spent my Labour and Life against both Persecuting and causeless Separating And that I shall leave my Testimony against both to Posterity and for what could I more comfortably suffer It is by decrying their Persecution and Cruelty that I have angred the hurtful Papists and by confuting their gross undoubted Crimes more effectually than you do by the Name of Antichrist Babylon and the Whore And if their Cruelty on me should prove my Charge against them true I shall not be guilty of it Nor will their Sin abrogate God's great Law of Love even to Enemies and if it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men follow peace with all men blessed are the peace-makers c. The disorderly tumultuous Cries and Petitions of such ignorant Zealots for Extreams under the Name of Reformation and crying down all moderate Motions about Episcopacy and Liturgies and rushing fiercely into a War and young Lads and Apprentices and their like pricking forward Parliament Men had so great a part in our Sin and Misery from 1641. till 1660. as I must give warning to Posterity to avoid the like and love Moderation I repent that I no more discouraged ignorant Rashness in 1662. and 1663. but I repent not of any of my Motions for Peace XXVI I am sure that my Writings besides Humane Imperfection have no guilt of what they are accused unless other Men put their sense on my words and call it mine and say I meant the Rulers when I spake of Popish Interdicts Silencings and Persecutions And by that measure no Minister must speak against any Sin till he be sure that the Rulers are neither guilty nor defamed of it lest he be thought to mean them and so our Office is at an end If the Text and the general Corruption of the World lead me to speak against Fornication Perjury Calumny Lying Murder Cruelty or any Vice must I tell Men whom I mean by Name I mean all in the World that are guilty And why must my meaning be any more confined when I with the Text speak against Persecution and unjust Silencing the faithful Ministers of Christ while I say that Rulers may justly Silence all that forfeit their Commission and do more hurt than good XXVII Can any Man that hath read Church-History Fathers and Councils be ignorant how dolefully Satan hath corrupted and torn the Church by the Ambition and Tyranny of many Popes Patriarchs and Metropolitans while the humble fort of Bishops and Pastors have kept up the Life and Power of Christianity Or can any Man that maketh not Christ and his Church a meer Servant to Worldly Interest think that this should not by all true Christians be lamented Let such read Nazianzen's sad Description of the Bishops of his time in striving for the highest Seats and his wish that they were equal And the same wish of Isidore Pelusiota and the sharp Reproof hereof by Chrysostom Great Grotius expoundeth Matth. 24. 29. of the Powers of Heaven shaken thus It is the Christian Laity who after the Apostles times began to be marvellously shaken by the Tyranny of the Prelates who loved Pre-eminence and to Lord it oyer the Clergy by rash Excommunications and a daily increase of Schisms He that will