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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B03688	An account of Mr. Edward Sclater's return to the communion of the Church of England and of the recantation he made at the Church of St. Mary Savoy, the fifth of May, 1689. Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Sarum, preaching the sermon there that forenoon. / By Anthony Horneck D.D.	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1689 (1689)	Wing H2816; ESTC R178249	11,650	15

overtaken in a Fault ye which are Spiritual restore such a one in the Spirit of Meekness considering thy self least thou also be tempted Gal. 6 1. This was the Rule the Apostle gave to Churches of Galatia and it would look very strange in us if we should not follow that direction especially when our great Master hath charged us Take heed to your selves it thy Brother trespass against thee rebuke him and if he repent forgive him and if he trespass against thee 7 times in a day and 7 times in a day turn again to thee saying I repent thou shalt forgive him Luk. 17. 3. Were it so that the Ancient Discipline especially that of the African Church had been kept up the Penitent who appears before you have submitted to a far more more rigorous Task even the Religious Hardships of some years before he could have been admitted to the Holy Eucharist but the reviving of these Ancient Severities being rather an Object of our pious Wishes than a thing practicable in this Iron Age a publick Retractation Confession Acknowledgment Declaration and Protestation before an All-seing Eye and in the Face of a whole Congregation is as much as can be rationally desired And now Mr. Sclater having thus told your Case to the Congregation I do intreat desire and admonish you to confirm what I have said by your own free deliberat and considerate Profession before many witnesses Mr. Sclater the degrees of your Sin ought to be answered by the degrees of your Sorrow and Contrition your Apostacy hath been publick and your Repentance ought to be so too And may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who sent his Son into the World to save Sinners and to call them to Repentance give you a Repentance never to be repented of that your future Conversation and blameless Life may do as much good in the World as your former example hath done harm After this Preliminary Discourse Mr. Sclater read in the hearing of the whole Assembly this following Retractation I Edward Sclater late Curate of Putney being unfeignedly sorrowful for the Sin I have committed and the Scandal I have given by my late shameful forsaking of the Communion of the Church of England and joyning myself to that of Rome and having made my most earnest and repealed suplications to the most Reverend Father in God the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury for his Permission to make the best reparation I am able for the great injuries done to the Church by that my Scandalous Defection in hopes of being again admitted to Communion in her Holy Offices Do here in the presence of the All-seeing God and under most serious Apprehensions of Judgment to come heartily and freely make the following Acknowledgement First As to the Romish Doctrines concerning the Infallibility and Supremacy of the Pope or Church of Rome and that Salvation cannot be had out of that Communion I do utterly Renounce them as contrary to the Word and Truth of God. And I do unfeignedly Assent to the Doctrine of the Church of England set forth in her 39 Articles of Religion Moreover I utterly Disown all those many false and scandalous passages contained in that unhappy Book which I styled Consensus veterum heartily wishing I had never published it More particularly I Renounce those disparaging and false Expressions concerning the Rule of Faith and the Use of it in the Church of England For whereas I there wrote That the Canon of Scripture in the Church of England was no other but what her own Members were pleased to allow that the Private Spirit was the Support of the Protestant Faith and that I myself whilst in that Church might have Choice of an hundred Faiths in Her. I am now fully convinced That the Church of England does receive the very same Canon of Scripture and the same Creeds which have in all Ages of the Church been most Universally received as containing all things Necessary to Salvation And that She has due recourse to the Ancient Fathers and the Authority of the Church as the most effectual Means for repressing the Extravagancies of each Man 's private Spirit and for the maintaining of Truth and Peace and good Order in the Church And having now more seriously considered these Things I sincerely think the Testimonies of the first six Centuries to be most fairly interpreted by the Divines of the Church of England and must own That I myself did alledge them very partially and corruptly in behalf of Transubstantiation and other Errors of the Church of Rome Secondly Whereas the usual Boastings of the Romish Emissaries had made me hope to find an Eminent Piety in that Communion I most freely profess and I speak it from my own Observation of two years and upwards that That Religion has approved it self to me utterly contrary to my Expectations My own Devotion was so effectually checked that altho' Mass was said most days in the Week in my House yet I did not Receive for several Months together nor found any I clination to do it Because I could never believe that there was neither Bread nor Wine remaining after Consecration Nay the oftner I saw the Elements after Consecration the less I could believe it tho' I confess I strove my utmost My whole Family frequently complained that they were nothing bettered by the Service it being performed in Latin. And do I what I could they could not understand what was meant nor what themselves were to do while the Priests were to Officiate I found the Priests very zealous for gaining Proselytes but very negligent of their proper Charge They would spend hours every day upon Wavering Protestants But scarce Catechise Children once a fortnight and then too not above half a quarter of an hour and without any Exposition I found what I did not believe before that Confession was practised by them as a means to gain Awe and Authority over the Laity the Priests pretending a Right to know every thing that was said or done in the Family And yet it was neglected by themselves For they would celebrate Mass without it altho' to my knowledge they were guilty of very heinous Sins So that my Expectations of an extraordinary Piety in that Communion were very far from being answered Thirdly I do sorrowfully and with Shame acknowledge That my seeking and accepting a Royal Dispensation to receive the Profits of Ecclesiastical Perferments when I knew my self incapable by Law and was perswaded in my Judgement that I ought not to Officiate and yet at the same time paid another for doing what I thought He ought not to have done was a just occasion of very great Scandal and might have proved fatal to the Church and Kingdom if many had followed my wicked example My best Pleais if I may mention any That I did not then discern the secret Intrigues of that mischievous Faction But I hope no Pious and charitable Heart will conceive I can now be so blind as not

to see what every Man sees viz. That their Aim and practices tended to the Subversion of All that was either Law or Religion After All I am sadly sensible That what I have heretofore said written and done may justly render my Sincerity suspected even in these my Confessions But if a diligent search into the Secrets of my own Soul If a deep affliction of Spirit for what is past If the strongest Desire of being reconciled to that Communion I have so wickedly forsaken If the firmest Purposes of evidencing all these by suitable Actions for the future be Proofs of being sincere I am sure I am so and I desire your Charity in Praying for me and may the Almighty graciously answer your Prayers and mine that as the Church does compassionatly receive me into her Communion so God will be pleased in Mercy to ratifie her Act and Receive me a Returning Penitent to his Pardon And grant that I may recover his Favour and the Assistances of his Holy Spirit that my Repentance bearing some proportion to my Crime the remainig part of my Life short as it is like to be may be spent in his True Faith and Fear and to his Glory And I do here in the presence of God his holy Angels and this Congregation protest that I have done all this freely without Equivocation or Reservation and do solemnly promise and Oblige my self to continue in sincere and constant Communion with the Church of England to my Life's End. EDWARD SCLATER ADVERTISEMENT TO give Light to some Passages in the Historical Part of these Papers and to let all Men see with what Earnestness Mr. Sclater sued for a Reconciliation and what Arguments he went upon to convince himself of a necessity of returning to the Church of England it is thought fit to add some of his letters written with his own Hand both to his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and others who were known to him in order to his being Re-admitted to our Communion LETTER I. To Mr. Hutchins Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Danby Dear Friend WHen my Observations for two Years and upward below mentioned had made me reflect upon the Doctrine of Infallibility so wounded mortally by their own practices I found I must needs lower the Notion or be engaged in impossible Work of making Contradictions true I think it cannot be denied but the Church in every Nation is so far irrefragable that it is Unchristian to contradict Her in the least undecent manner but am perfectly convinc'd by the present Bishop of Lincoln's Book that the Romish Church has infallibly allowed and approved of many not only Errors but Unchristian ones That I did not see this so well before was perhaps in the Providence of God that I might see it the better now I shall be highly to blame if I ever cease to be truly sorrowful for the unhappy Want of his Informations Yet that I left the Church of England for Interest I utterly disclaim and assure you That I was not so short sighted nor so little vers'd in their practices to be any thing dazled with that prospect I knew several Instances long ago of their not only neglecting but avoiding those they thought they had secured for fear of Applications of that sort Besides I have declared to several that it were not at all prudential in them to encourage proselytes upon that account for so they might have many Converts and few Christians many for the Loaves and few for the Bread of Life Nay so far have I been from making any such Application that a Noble Lord of that Communion can be my Witness I assured him I never would make any and I am sure I have been as good as my word it is some small comfort to me in the midst of my hearty Sorrows for my Fault that my Fault is I think so much the less 'T was not Gain I aimed at but their Piety as I was mis informed surpassing all other Communions in the World. The name of a Church of that extent pretended to be so united in all the Truths of the Holy Jesus and withal so full of Piety as all their Writers boasted of methought was as glorious a prospect as this World could yield and well it were if there were such an Heaven upon Earth Who would not be glad to see it Who would not be more glad to be in it But I now conceive it must be our prayers because as yet it can be no more than our Hopes for in my own House I have had one Priest at one time so eager for the Pope's Infallibility even extra Cathedram that he has plainly assured me I should beyond Seas be Burnt for an Heretick for my contesting against it And another as eagerly at another condemning the former for his fierce insisting upon a Point that might give disgust and impede their progress in making Proselytes Having too rashly swallowed the Doctrine of Infallibity God of his infinite Mercy Pardon my Rashness my main inquiry was the Eucharist a point of all the most difficult that I was Dazled with its sublimity will not be a wonder to any Man That it is mysterious every good Christian will say nay that it is Tremendum Mysterium Now that one Man highly distasted at the low Expressions of some Protestants should fly too far from them is just as natural as that another equally distasted with the Doctrine of Transubstantiation should fly as far from it This I humbly conceive states my Case Nor was it long before I found I had taken too far a flight I could with ease believe as Real a Presence as they would have me if they will call this Transubstantiation I should not disbelieve it but I could not give over my Faith to the annihilating the Elements nay the oftner I saw it after Consecration the less I could believe it thô I confess I strove my utmost to force my Faith up to it but it would not do Here I began to condemn my own Rashness and inconsiderat Precipitancy nay to think must at last become an Infidel and believe little more that there is a God which even Nature it self would teach me when I must believe God bids me believe what I began to find every day more and more impossible for me to believe Here I began to mistrust I had mistaken Zeal and fervent Expressions of some of the Fathers concerning this high Mystery quoted in an unhappy Book for the ancient Doctrine of the Church and that must lower their high Raptures to a more intelligible and rational Sense So that since Whitsontide last thô Mass was said most dayes of the Week in my House yet I have never Received and more than that could not find in my self much inclination to Receive Antecedent to which you know is Confession which I began very much to mistrust was a mere piece of Formality as practised by them especially as to my own particular

with whom it was not enough to confess many idle Words many angry Expressions to my Boys when unruly or undiligent but I must name a particular Sin or I could not be absolved one at least I suppose he expected a huge matter but any one served turn and then the business might be done I could not well tell the Hearts of them but it seemed to me either a way of giving Absolution very easily or else the squeezing out a particular they might if they please make use of toward the obtaining the greater Power over us and keeping us by consequence in more Awe especially when I also considered That two other Priests guilty to my knowledge of more heinous sins than I bless God I had any to confess received every day without Confession or Absolution unless they could confess and absolve themselves however I could not but account their so officiating rather a Desecration than a Consecration To tell you that I was never throughly satisfyed in the Points of Liturgy in an unknown Tongue and non participation of the Cup is but to tell the plain Truth I must confess I huddled them both into the Power and Authority of the Church and so their Arguments went the easier down But as to the first I found manifest ill Consequences from it my whole Family besides my self not only totally Ignorant of what was meant all the while the Priest was officiating but do what I could at a loss in what they had to do themselves and still complaining my Wife especially that she was nothing satisfyed or bettered But one thing I cannot ommit She was visited with the violent Pain of the Sciatica we both of us desired the Priest to pray for ease of her Pain which he refused with this uncomfortable Reply That she must bear what God was pleased to lay upon her I could not but think Counsel tho' very good without Prayers of the Church very uncomfortable Perhaps his Breviary had no such provision in it Tho' at the same time the little Children would frequently go to their Manuals and Beads in her behalf A third Observation I made was of their almost utter neglect of informing and instructing those under their Charge it was enough it seems they were so seldom sometimes not once a fortnight Catetechising tender little Ones and when they did it a short foddering not above half a quarter of an hour serv'd the turn and that without any Explanation either of Question or Answer But yet to give them their due if they could find one abroad that would so listen to their discourses as gave them any small hopes they were to be prevailed upon they would spend hours every day with them but this methought look'd like stealing of Sheep and starving of Lambs To back this their Negligence was altogether as great in other Duties of a Family for even on Sundays not one word but the Mass and then all their Work was totally done Not so much as calling us to Prayers in the Afternoon nay rather signifying to us the no necessity of them by their continual Absence from us at the time we were at them but frequently taking a walk at that time A fourth Grievance was That in our Discourses especially the Subject of Praying for the Dead I told the Priest That every time I said Requiescant in pace I could not for my Heart forget my dead Mother He asked me If she was a Catholick I told him No. He replyed I must not by any means use that Prayer for her 'T was very harsh I thought and so much uncharitable that it seemed to me unnatural I am sure she led a better Life than he more Just more Devout and believe her Ignorance will plead for her before the great Tribunal more effectually than all the Sanctity he had in him Nor was their Carriage in my House less troublesom and unhandsom as this single instance among many may sufficiently make appear One of them finds one of the School boys very fit for his purpose and his Office was When this Priest at any time should be absent to observe all the Family without exception and to give him an account when he came home of all that had passed or had been spoken Which my Wife chiding the Boy for the Priest managed him in it in these words Why is there any thing to be said or done in this House and I must not know it This was a Yoak upon me I never so much as dream'd of for till then I thought my self Master of my own House and my House my Castle thô never after so long as I had such an overtopping Dominion over me That these Particulars can be reconcileable with that Piety I expected to find in that Church I shall for ever think impossible So that as to the Unity of the Church I must conclude it must consist Pardon the newness of the Expression in being Nerv'd and Sinew'd to Dissenting Members in Fundamental Points and Charity And I can now easily conceive how Errors and Ignorance might creep into the Church whilst the ancient Governours of that Church were more eager of Dominion than careful of Doctrine and their Inferiors aimed more at Gain than Godliness Sir These as I told you in my last are but Personal Observations in my own Family but ex pede Herculem whatsoever the Learned Writers of the Church of England have Writ of their more publick Exorbitancies will now easily find belief with me upon the score of these which my own experience has found too true When his Grace shall according to his wonted Candour receive this unfeigned account of my Disgusts I hope he will assure himself that my Repentance is as unfeigned and sincere as these are so true that I can safely take my Oath of before any Judicature in the whole World a thousand times over In the mean time I do assure him I condemn my self greatly and cannot enough for my unadvised and rash embracing that Religion that has approv'd it self to me so utterly contrary to my expctation I have nothing to assure him of my unfeigned Sorrow for my Fault but the words of my Mouth God only knows the Heart upon all the Examination I can make I am unfeignedly sorrowful for it None but our Saviour knew the Hearts of Enemies yet his Church by his command have alwayes forgiven Penitents I presume none will be a greater follower of his Example and Precepts than my Mother the Church of England whose Pardon I as comfortably hope for as I humbly beg it I never yet heard her Clemency deny'd it I humbly beg her to admit me to her Communion upon the Terms the Primitive Church admitted the ancient Lapsi whether of the Clergy or Laity LETTER II. To His Grace the Lord Archbishop of CANTERBURY May it please Your Grace ACcording to what you have been pleas'd to Command I have sent You my unhappy Book and also my firm Resolution to retract all