a true Bishop by vertue of Gods Law and if he have better Qualification and Election and Ordination to be of surer Authority than the Diocesan it 's his Communion that we must prefer 4. But indeed Baptism and Salvation are ordinarily given before Episcopal Communion of any sort 5. They that thought the Pope Antichrist as most Protestant Bishops long did thought it a duty to reject the Communion of the Bishops of the places where they lived And Denmark and other Countries set up others against them that were ordained by Bugenhagius and other Prsbyters 6. Parochial and Diocesan bounds are humane mutable institutions 7. If the Bishop of the place be a Schismatick the Communion of a better near is better b. II. 1. All causleless separation from any Christians or causleless disobedience to any Pastor or neglect of any Christian duty needful to the Churches peace and concord and every opinion and practice that is against them doth make a man guilty of sinful Division or Schism in some degree And while every Christian hath many errors and sins which all tend to some sinful breach as the least sore is solutio continui I cannot see but every man living hath some guilt of Schism nor that there is any Church on earth that hath not some such guilt But every degree of guilt denominateth not the man or Church a Schismatick in a predominant or mortal sense And in Charity I hope that even some of those heinous Schismaticks may be saved that divide the Churches by their usurpation obtrusion sinful impositions and worldly domination yea some that in blind zeal put down Parish-Bishops and smite and silence the Pastors and scatter the Flocks And if I must have Communion with none that 's guilty of Schism with what Church or Bishop should I joyn And if their Sacraments be invalid what a case is Italy Spain France yea and England in Must all be baptized again that they baptized 2. But it 's no schism but a duty for the people as far to forsake a sinful Bishop much more an usurper as Cyprian and that Council advised them to do in the case of Martial and Basilides 3. And after all this deceitful confusion note Reader that he denieth not our disobedience to be lawful in case of sinful conditions imposed And if we fully prove not this to be our case let our accusers silence us and let our guilt be our shame 4. And if people that had Parish-Bishops on the place where they lived lawfully called shall forsake them to obey a Diocesan that is not on the place but perhaps Forty or Fifty or Sixty Miles off and never saw them and was obtruded contrary to the ancient Canons which nullifie such and sets himself to silence faithful Pastors and persecute them and other godly Christians for not sinning heinously upon deliberate choice and covenant doth not even this man conclude such to be Schismaticks that are out of the ordinary way and hope of salvation CHAP. III. The consequence of Mr. Dodwell's foresaid doctrine 1. THOSE that live under the Popish Bishops in Italy Spain France c. must live in their communion and under their command in all unsinful things 2. The Protestant Churches that have not Episcopal Ordination are no true Churches and have no true Ministers or Sacraments nor any Covenant-right to salvation 3. The Protestant Churches are in the same unchurched damnable case that have Bishops if they have not an uninterrupted succession of such from the Apostles canonically ordained 4. Therefore the Churches of Denmark Germany c. that have Superintendents ordained at the Reformation by Bugenhagius Pomeranus a Presbyter and all the rest whose succession was interrupted are in the same case 5. It is Schism and rejecting Sacraments and Covenant-right to salvation in all the people that continue in such Protestant Churches and communicate with them 6. It is better for the Protestants in France to joyn with the Papists than to live as they do without Sacraments or Church-communion 7. Yet by self contradiction it will follow that certainly the Church of Rome and all that derive their ordination from that Church have no true Bishops Ministers Sacraments Churches nor Covenant-right to salvation for it 's certain their true succession hath been oft interrupted 1. By such utterly uncapable persons as all History describeth and even Baronius calleth Apostaticos non Apostolicos and such as divers General Councils judged Hereticks Infidels Simoniaks c. e g. Eugenius 4. who yet kept in 2. By such whose false ordination the Canons expresly null 3. By many Schisms two or three Popes at once of whom none can tell who had the right or whether any 4 By the Popes taking on him to be Christs Universal Vicar an Office in specie usurpt which he maketh his Episcopacy and as such giveth his orders And all his Presbyters have turned the true Ministry into the false one of Mass-Priests and being no true Ministers can give no true Sacraments by his rule 8. Yea it is certain that few if any Churches on earth can prove such an uninterrupted succession as he and the Papists describe and most it s known have no such thing 9. Therefore if any have such a succession they cannot know it it being a thing that cannot be proved and so cannot be sure that they are true Churches c. 10. For the certainty of any true Ministry Church Sacraments and Salvation dependeth on such knowledg of History as is not in the world viz. To know that this Bishop and his Ordainer and his Ordainer and his Ordainer and so up to the Apostles were every one true Bishops and truly Ordained which no mortal man can know 11. Men that by a Prince against even the Nullifying Canons can but get possession of Patriarchal and Diocesan Churches without the Clergy or peoples choice have thereby the power of damning men that fear God at their pleasure For 1. they must pass for the Bishops of the place 2. They may command any unsinful thing and excommunicate him that doth not obey 3. He is a Schismatick that suffers himself so to be Excommunicate and so is in a damnable state 4. He cannot hinder it not knowing the thing to be unsinful 12. For by this whoever will escape damnable schism must be one that knoweth the unsinfulness as he speaks of all things in the world that are such which a Prelate may command or else he must do any thing which he judgeth sin if a Prelate command it But that is wicked Idolizing man 13. And therefore by this rule no man living can be saved that a Prelate hath a mind to damn or from his damning impositions For no man living knoweth the lawfulness of all lawful things and therefore may take a commanded thing for sin that is not and then if he wilfully do that which he judgeth sin he rebelleth against God if he do it not the Prelate may excommunicate him and unresistibly make
from Popery are 1. That it cherisheth Ignorance and I am sure that is the soil of all wickedness God Christ the Spirit and Scripture are Light and Satan is the Prince of Darkness 2. That it liveth like the Leech on blood hating and destroying the most holy persons who differ from them To these my Soul is unreconcilable I hate cruelty to Papists or Infidels much more to godly faithful persons that do hurt to none And I think I have convinced Mr. Dodwell himself that I am not inclined for the avoiding of Popery to run into any contrary Extreme nor to imitate them thaâ— ignorantly call Truth or harmless things Antichristian or Popish The name of Popery doth not affright me from any truth of God What I have written in many Books especially in the last part of my Catholick Theology and what censures I have suffered for it which never moved me to comply with the Censurers I think prove it I again and again profess That if the Papists or such as I now deal with would but prove that God ever made or allowed such a Church as they plead for in the world that is an Vniversal Church constituted or unified by any one Head or Supreme Governing pâ—râ— Monarchical or Aristocratical under Christ the Dispute whether it be Pope or Council or Cardinals or Colledge of Bishops in all the world shall not hinder me from a chearful and joyful declaring my self a Papist without partiality fear or shame in the sense that the word Papist hath still signified with such as I converse with These things I have taken the boldness to ask some of the greatest that on the fore mentioned terms appropriate the name of the Church of England to their Sect or Party and I could get no answer from them viz. Whether they took the Councils of Constance and Basil for Papists And whether they now take the Bishops and Church of France for Papists And whether they took Gerson Cusanus Cassander Erasmus for Papists or not 2. If yea What is the difference between the said Papists Church-Form and Government and that which these call the Church Catholick and Dispute for 3. If not Then is not the Controversie de nomine Whether the French Bishops and Church and the said Councils being of the same Form and Religion with the Church of England as called by these men ought to be called Papists or not And for that I shall strive with none Let every man call them as he seeth cause or if he will as they will call themselves Let them be Papists in France and Protestants in England I contend not for names But I wonder not at these Church-men if they unchurch the French Protestants and condemn their Ministry and Sacraments as none How else could their Persecution be justified And O that they would tell us what Churches they be that they live in communion with Whether the French Spanish Italian Greeks Nestorians Jacobites Copties Abassines be in their Communion or not If yea Whether the Reformed Churches be not as worthy of their communion If not whether the Church of England be all the Catholick Church in their account O that we could long more for God's righteous final Iudgment to which we appeal though Mr. Dodwell be against it and for the world of perfect Light and Love and Union Dated Septemb. 2. 1681. appointed a Publick Fast for the burning of London I have not time to gather the Errata of the Press I cast my eye on these Pag. 9. l. 19. for natures r. names p. 10. l. antep dele and. p. 11. l. antep r. is in p. 17. l. 1. for or r. over p. 5. l. 29. after excommunicating r. Christ's servants for not forsaking their faithful Pastors p. 10. l. ult for of r. by p. 16. l. 32. for our r. one p. 90. l. 12 r. temerity p. 139. l. 17. for by r. to pag. 151. l. 4. for by r. my c. THE CONTENTS A Late Letter of Mr. Dodwell's with the Answer written since the rest was printed Chap. 1. Of Mr. Dodwell's displeasure against me as if I accused him to be a Papist and wronged the Councils of Bishops p. 1. Chap. 2. His schismatical Church-destroying Scheme the sum of his great schismatical book confuted p. 7 Chap. 3. The consequents of Mr. Dodwell's foresaid Doctrine p. 21 Chap. 4. My words of Gods Collation of Ministerial Authority vindicated from the forgeries and fallacies of Mr. Dodwell p. 27 What my assertion is of the cause of Church power p. 29. The contrary p. 32. The truth proved p 33 c. His objections answered p. 36. c. Bishops are of God p. 46. c. His sad qualification of Ministers p. 48. Preferring God is no wrong to Government p. 54. What succession we have p. 54. Of Aidan and Finans Episcopacy p. 57. His assertion of supreme Church-power from whom there is no appeal to Scripture to God or the life to come and whose intention is the measure of the power of all ordained by them examined p. 57 c. Whether the Church on earth be one visible society under one visible humane Government p. 59. Whether Divine Authority may not be pretended for practising contrary to some superiors p. 60 Chap. 5. Wherein Mr Dodwell's deceits and their danger lie p. 63. Whether there be but one sense of all terms which causes obliging men to mean all that have skill in causes are to understand p. 63. Twelve great doctrinal Articles in which we differ from Mr. Dodwell p. 65. Some questions put to him p. 68 His second Letter to me from Ireland p. 70. My Answer to it p. 75. proving the impossibtlity of just Discipline in the Diocesan way which I dissent from The short Answer to Mr. Dodwell's long Letter which Dr Sherlocke and Mr. Morrice extol which is fully answered in my Treatise of Episcopacy p. 90. A Letter sent to Mr. Dodwell Mar. 12 1681. A Letter to Mr. Dodwell Nov. 15. 1680. Anothâ—r to him of July 9. 1677. opening many of our chief differences p. 100. Another after a personal conference sent to him but returned because he was gone into the Country debating with him eleven of our great differences in which Mr. Dodwell may be known p. 118. An Account of my dissent from Dr. Sherlocke his Doctrine Accusations and Argumentation specially about the essence of the Universal a National and Single Church and the nature of Schism c. CHap. 1. The Historical Proem Chap. 2. My â—etter and Counsâ—l to Mr. Sherlocke many years ago advising him to expound or retract his words which seem to deny the three Articles of our Baptismal covenant our belief in God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost p. 162 His Answer p. 173 Chap. 3. Of the ill manner of these mens Confutations p. 174 Chap. 4. The main part of our difference viz. what is the essential form of the Catholick National and single Churches p. 182 Chap. 5. What is the
AN ANSWER TO Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlocke Confuting an Universal Humane Church-Supremacy Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church-Tyranny and Popery And defending Dr. Isaac Barrow's Treatise against it By Richard Baxter Preparatory to a fuller Treatise against such an Universal Soveraignty as contrary to Reason Christianity the Protestant Profession and the Church of England though the Corrupters usurp that Title LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1682. READER THough the difference between Mr. Dodwell and Mr. Thorndike and such others and those condemned by them be very great I would not have it seem greater than it is The sum of it is as followeth 1. Mr. Dodwell thinketh that there is no true Ministry Church-Sacraments nor Covenant-right to pardon and salvation but where there is a Ministry delivering the Sacraments who were ordained by Bishops in his sense of Bishops who had their Ordination from other Bishops and they from others by an uninterrupted chain of succession from the Apostles We know that by this Doctrine he condemneth or unchurcheth not only the Reformed Churches the Greeks and other Easterns but the Church of Rome it self and leaveth no certainty of the very being of any one Church on earth And we maintain that the sacred Scripture is the universal Law of Christ in which he hath described and instituted the office and work of the sacred Ministry and appointed the way of their continuance in the world by necessary Qualification Election Consent and ordinarily regular Ordination That as Presbyters now lay on hands with the Bishop so senior Pastors are the Ordainers as the Colledg of Physicians license Physicians and the Convocation of Doctors make Doctors and man generateth man But to avoid contention and division the Churches have used to make one of these Presbyters or Pastors a President and partly a Ruler in each Colledg and Church and given him a Negative voice in Ordinations against which we strive not but maintain 1. That his consent is not so necessary as that no one can be a true Presbyter that hath it not As the Clergy at Rome in Cyprian's days long governed when they had no Bishop so if the Bishop be dead or refuse to ordain or would ordain none but Hereâ—icks or uncapable men or would tyrannize and impose men not consented to the Ordination is valid that is made without him And 2. That the true chief Pastor of every particular formed Church is a true Bishop though Diocesans should deny it 3. And that even Ordination it self is necessary but for Order where it may be had and not to the Being of the Ministry where it cannot be had on lawful terms no more than Coronation to the King or publick solemnization to Marriage 4. And we are assured that if Regular Ordination were interrupted by death heresie refusal neglect e. g. at Antioch Alexandria Constantinople Jerusalem c. Christs Charter or Scripture-Law would presently restore it to persons duly qualified chosen and ordained by the fittest there that can be had 5. If this were not so as multitudes of schismatical and unlawful Popes Ordinations at Rome would be invalid e. g. John 13. and 21. and 23. and Eugenius 4th deposed as a Heretick by a General Council c. so every usurping Bishop that pretendeth falsly that he was himself lawfully ordained would nullifie Churches Ministry and Sacraments of all ordained by him And many have falsly pretended to Orders 6. And that if men must refuse the Government and Sacraments of all Bishops and Presbyters that do not prove to them a Regular Ordination uninterrupted for 1600. years all the Ministry on earth may be refused and none for so doing should be called Schismaticks I never yet heard or saw a Bishop prove such a succession nor ever knew one that would take his Oath on it that he was a true Bishop on such terms II. Mr. Dodwell thinks that the Presbyters yea and Bishops were not given by God Pag. 60. saith he But where do they find that God ever gave Bishops Presbyters and Deacons Where note that it is of the Office in specie that we speake But we think that God hath made or instituted the Office and its work And if he did not 1. Who did If men was it Clerg-ymen or Lay-men If Lay-men was it Christians or Infidels And by what Authority Do the children beget the fathers and yet may not Presbyters propagate their species If Clergy-men who were they If not Apostles or Prophets or Evangelists they were none If these then it seems the Apostles did it not as Bishops for it is the making of the first Bishops that we question And what the Apostles did not as Bishops but as commissioned Apostles Christ did by his Spirit And they that will do the like must have the like Office Authority and Spirit If God gave not Bishops because the Apostles made them then God gave us not the Scripture because the Apostles and Evangelists wrote it And is not this the same or worse Doctrine than that which the Italian Iesuits would have had pass at Trent against Gods making Bishops or their Office And if God gave not Bishops or Presbyters they that reject them reject no gift or institution of God And if men made them how come they to be essential to the Church Did not Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles institute so much as the Church-essentials And if men made Bishops and Presbyters in specie may not man unmake them III. Mr. Dodwell maintaineth that the power of Presbyters is to be measured by the intention of the Ordainers who give it them and not by any Scripture-institution charter or description We maintain the contrary that God having instituted and described the Office of Bishops Pastors Presbyters Gods Law in Scripture is the Rule by which the office-power and obligation and work in the essentials must be known Otherwise 1. It would be supposed that God made not the office of Bishops or Presbyters which is false 2. That Ordainers may make new Churches Bishops or Presbyters in specie yea as many species of them as they shall intend 3. That they may abrogate or change the ancient species They may make one office only for preaching another only for praying another only for Baptism another only for the Lords Supper and others for new work of their own The Papists themselves abhor this Doctrine 4. Then no man can know the measure of his Authority not knowing the intentions of the Ordainers Perhaps three or ten ordainihg Bishops may have three or ten several intents 5. Then the Bishop may put down Gods Worship or Sacraments by limiting the Priests power 6. It 's contrary to all Ministerial Investitures The Investing Minister is not the Owner or the Donor but delivereth possession of what the Owner and Donor contracted for or gave If the Archbishop Crowning the King would infringe his Prerogative it 's a
Nullity because he is not the Giver of it nor is his intention but the Kingdoms constitution the measure of it If the Priest would make the man whom he marrieth to a woman no governour of her it 's a Nullity for it is not his intent that makes the power 7. If this were otherwise I call and call again but in vain to Mr. Dodwell and all his party to tell me how the Bishops and Priests of the Church of England in the days of Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th and Queen Elizabeth came to have power to put down the Mass to set up the Liturgie to take down Images and to reform as they did when it was certainly contrary to the intention of their Ordainers 8. And setting this point together with the other that Ordination of Presbyters is null I ask them and ask again but all in vain 1. Do not Bishops generate their Species and make Bishops their equals 2. Who then can give his Office to the Archhishop if he have no Superior in England unless his Inferiors give it or you fly to a Forreign Iurisdiction 3. Whose Intention is it that giveth power to the Pope if he be greatest Or to the General Council if it be greatest If there be none above them either God or Inferiours give them their power 4. And what if these Inferiours that make Popes Primates or Councils by Intention would take down half their power Is it then done What self-contradiction and confusion would some men rather run into than grant Christ to be Christ that is the only Vniversal Head and Legislator to the Church on Earth IV. Accordingly Mr. D. holdeth that there is a supreme Authority in man over the Universal Church from whose intention and sense it is not lawful for us to appeal so much as to the Sacred Scripture no nor to the Day of Iudgment for any practice different from them See his Reply p. 80 81 82 83 84 85. Though we hold that no unjust Appeal should suspend the authorised Acts of a Governour this Doctrine seems to me to be worse than Antichristian and to put down God If God indeed be the Vniversal Soveraign Lawgiver and the final Iudge if God be God and man be man and not above him to say that we must not obey him before man and disobey man that commands what he forbids or that we must not appeal from mans subordinate Law to his supreme Law nor from mans judgment to his final judgment and to say as he and Thorndike do that to do so and practise accordingly is inconsistent with all Government are things that I had hoped my ears or eyes should never have seen or heard delivered by a sober Christian. Papists most commoâ—ly abhor it save some few Flatterers of the Pope If â—his be so a man must not only worship Images swear to the Pope and do all that Councils command but also curse Christ if the Turkish Rulers bid him blaspheme God if Heathen Rulers bid him and condemn all the Martyrs as Rebels that did subvert all Government by practising contrary to it and appealing to God And then man must be every where of the Rulers Religion and do whatever wickedness he commandeth Dan. 1. and 3.6 and the Church for three hundred years and more tell us of other kind of Examples V. Mr. D. holdeth this Absolute Destructive Power to be essentially necessary to the Vnity of the Catholick Church which is the sum of Thorndike's Book I would not go further from them or the French in the point of Vnity than I needs must I shall therefore tell you what is our judgment of it 1. We grant them that Christ's Church on earth is one and its Vnity is part of its very essence as the Vnity of the parts of a House Ship c. 2. We hold that this essential Vnity consisteth in the Vnion of all Christians with Christ the only unifying Vniversal Head and that the Vnity described Ephes. 4.4 5 6. sufficeth to it viz. One Body of Christ one Spirit one Hope of Grace and Glory one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father c. And that all this is prescribed in the Gospel and every true Christian hath all this 3. That all must endeavour to keep this Vnity in the bond of peace and to be in every lesser matter of one mind as far as they can And the Pastors of the Churches to beautifie and strengthen the Church by as much concord as they can well obtain 4. But that perfect concord being the fruit of personal perfection will never be had on earth And the differences of the infirm that cannot be cured must be tolerated in tender Brotherly Love And to persecute or destroy Christians who unite in Christ and the Essentials of Christianity because they are not of one size of knowledg and differ in lesser things is the work of Satan the Enemy of Love and the great Destroyer 5. We believe that Synods or Councils are so far good and useful as they are needful to the foresaid strength and concord of the Churches But that they are for Agreement and not for direct Regiment as Archbishop Usher was wont to say Councils are not for Government of the several Bishops by the Majority but for Consultation and Concord And they that cannot in all things consent to them in Accidentals or lesser matters are not therefore cut off from Christ's Vniversal Church But it is a fault peevishly and causelesly to dissent and be singular a breach of Christ's general Law of doing our work as much as we can in Love and Concord Plainly Reader do you know the difference between the Senate of Rome or Venice and the Assembly at Nimmegen Ratisbone or Frankford The said Senate is una persona Politica though plures naturales and hath the Supreme Government by Vote in Legislation and Iudgment and it is Rebellion there to disown their Power and a Crime not to obey it At Nimmegen Ratisbone c. many Princes or their Agents meet for Peace and Christian Concord It is a sin for any of them to be causelesly against any Vote that is useful to those ends But no one of them nor the major Vote is Governour of the rest nor is any one to be dispossest of his Dominion that seeth reason to dissent This is plain truth Though Dr. Sherlock find fault with the Learned and Iudicious Dr. Barrow for asserting it in his Treatise against the Papacy And it being not Regiment but Concord that is the end of Synods as over Bishops there is no more use than possibility of an Vniversal Council or one Vniversal Colledge But the necessity and aptitude of Councils for strengthning concord must measure their extent What Mr. D's opinion is of the degree of corporal punishment which he would have used to his ends I know not Mr. Thorndike is against Death and Banishment For my part the two greatest things that have alienated me
benefit I have considered your Books you are confident of my erring and wronging the Church and I am as confident of yours that you are a Misleader of an extraordinary size that would set up an Vniversal humane Supreme Government which Protestants have taken for Popery and Treason against Christ and who falsly unchurch the Reformed Churches and deny them all Covenant-right to Salvation while you tolâ— me your self that It is not for the Christian Interest to hold thâ—â— the Roman Bishops Ordination as you require it hath had an intercision Is it a crime to speak truth of you or a slander to say That the Doctrine of an Humane Absolute Vniversal Soveraignty is the most Fundamental part of Popery And is it no Sin or Slander for you to condemn so many Millions falsly even the purest and holiest of the Churches on Earth if not the whole by self-contradiction is it a damning sin not to feed cloath and visit in Prison one of Christ's little ones And is it a meritorious virtue in Mr. Dodwell to unchurch or unchristen or degrade if not condemn to Hell all the Reformed Churches nominally but not really excepting England Yea and to go about with a persecuting Spirit and Diligence to provoke Magistrates to lay them in Jayls with Rogues because they dare not give over Preaching the Gospel to which they were devoted in their Ordition Reproachâ—ng those Magistrates as Contemners of Religion who will not punish us as Deceivers as if it were not you that is the Deceiver Should I presume to judge that so many and such men through Christendom as you condemn were all so ignorant and so bad as not to know the common Verities necessary to the essence of the Ministry and to Salvation and that 't is I that can teach it them by such media as Mr Dodwell useth while he knoweth that Voetius hath answered a far abler Defender of his Cause I should sure be reputed a man so extremely proud as that no complemental humble deportment would excuse As for the Question Whether you are a Papist what obligation lieth on me to decide it Why should you expect that I should say you are none Do you not better know your self And is not your own word fitter to tell your minde I do but tell what your Doctrine is And I will speak so much plainer than I did as to say That 1. to hold a humane Universal Church-Supremacy Aristocratical or Monarchical 2. And that this Power is so absolute that there is no Appeal from it to Scripture or Gods Judgment 3. And that this Power doth make universal Laws for all the Church by General Councils 4. And that the Pope hath the Primacy or Presidentship in those Councils ordinarily 5. And that he is the Principium Vnitatis 6. And that it belongs to the President antecedently to call Councils and to him alone so that they are but unlawful Routs or rebellious if they assemble without his Call And that they are Schismaticks who dissent and disobey this Supremacy 8. And that the Reformed Churches for want of your Episcopal Ordination uninterrupted from the Apostles times are no true Churches have no true Ministry or Sacraments or Covenant-right to Salvation but by pretending them do sin against the Holy Ghost 9 But that the Church of Rome by vertue of an uninterrupted Episcopal Succession is a true Church hath a true Ministry and Sacraments and Covenant right to Salvation 10. And that the French-Church which we call Papists are safer than the Protestants there 11. And imply that the said French Clergy and the Councils of Constance and Basil were no Papists 12. And that the said Protestants being Schismaticks and sinning against the Holy Ghost the Magistrates that will not be Contemners of Religion are bound to punish them As if in England and France your bellows were needful to blow the fire These things asserted among you by Bishop Bramhall Heylin Mr. Thorndike and you and such others the Protestants have been hitherto used to call Popery But I will not dispute with you a mere question of the fitness of the name If you had rather call it Church Tyranny Cruelty or Diabolism And is all this a Virtue in you And is it a sin in me to defend Christ's flock and the true Unity of his Church and to detect such Deceivers and bear my testimony for Truth Love and Concord against such Dividers and Destroyers It 's a hard case then that such as â— are in that the more unfeignedly we desire to know God's Will and the more diligently and impartially we study it and the more it costeth us the greater sinners we are And no sins have been so loudly charged on me as Praying and Preaching the Gospel and laborious vindicating God's Truth and Servants It doth not follow if you hate them or would have them ruined that every man sinneth that doth not as you do And whereas you would get some countenance to your Writings by the name of Dr. Stillingfleet as having perused them c. Either he is or is not of your mind If not this doth but adde to your deceit If he be your Cause will do more against the Conscience and Reputation of Dr. Stillingfleet than far greater Parts and Reputation than his can do for your Cause And Sir what should I get should I give a Voluminous Answer to all your books When I have confuted you as far as I have done I have but lost my labour The Church-men that I hear from despise it and say What is Mr. Dodwell to us He is an unordained man he knoweth why and his book was rejected by the Bishop of London His opinions are odd and the Church of England is not of his mind Yea Mr. Cheny would perswade us that you are a singular contemned fellow But it 's a useful way to set such an one as you to do mens business and to boast as Dr Sherlocke and Mr. Morrice do of your performance and yet to disown you when their cause requireth it But it is an abuse of us that dissent from you to connive only at your published Books and then to boast of them as unanswerable And when we have lost our precious time in shewing their deceit and schismatical Love-destroying tendency then to say to us You have done nothing VVhat is this to us Mr. Dodwell is an odd disowned man and none of the English Clergy If God and Conscience would give me leave I could presently be a good man and a pardoned sinner with you It is but honouring you and saying as you say I could so be extoll'd by almost any Sect Papist Quaker c. But it must be but by one for all the rest would nevertheless revile accuse me and condemn me as you do the Protestant Churches And the Quakers like you say we sin against the Holy Ghost The old Sabbatarian Dr. before-named in his first Letter accused me as aforesaid and when I profest my self
be said for it as well as against it and I never met but with Two Objections which seemed to me worthy of much further search One was that seeing de facto Popery and high Prelacy have so far and long ruled in the Church whether it be credible that Christ would so permit it if he hated it and give his Church de facto no better government 2. Whether mens great proneness to discord make not Popery Italian or French a prudent course And to these 1. I am sure that Christ came to destroy the works of the Devil and save his people from their sins and make them holy a peculiar people zealous of good works and gather a Church of such out of the world and rule them in a Communion of Saints till he bring them to perfection Therefore I have great reason to suspect those men and that order and course of government which cherisheth ignorance and sin in Ministers and People and hunteth and silenceth faithful Ministers and suppresseth persecuteth tormenteth burneth the most conscionable Christians that for fear of offending God disobey them that turn serious Religion and spiriritual Worship of God into bodily exercises and meer Conformity to their wills and outward taking Sacraments and using commanded Ceremonies and words under the shadow whereof for 1000. years piety hath withered and impiety prospered Christ promised to be with his servants to the end of the world Mat 28.30 And I cannot but think that he is most with those that are most acquainted with his Gospel and most love him and obey him and are most holy and heavenly and walk not after the flesh but the spirit rather than with the ignorant fleshly worldly malignant Persecutors that set them against serious godliness and godly men § 3. And I take not any notices of the time present from any thing but certain experience nor of the Ages past from enemies or suspected but of the eldest times from all our common Church-history and of the last 1000 or 1200 years as to the worst part of their actions from their own greatest friends and flatterers such as Baronius Binnius Platina Petavius and others § 4. And the matter of fact I confess hath had much power on my judgment Had the Popes and Lording sort of Diocesans been promoters of love and holiness in the Church and not the woful scandal of it and the enemies of good men and serious piety I should have been stronglier tempted to own their form of government to be of God though I am assured that Nature maketh one man or one Council uncapable of proper government over all the earth I should never have opposed that which doth good But destruction silencing persecuting cruelties rebellions worldliness ignorance malignity and cherishing sin and suppressing piety and the very word of God I am sure are all the work of the Devil what name or titles soever are pretended for them § 5. And the fact being to me past dispute I quietly submit to the dreadful providence of God that permitteth it considering 1. The Church on Earth is no better than the Angels of Heaven were and if so many of the Angels kept not their first estate but fell by Pride what wonder if many Bishops do so 2. If Adam and Eve both fell from Innocency and that so soon it is not incredible that the Serpent should beguile some Bishops to depart from the simplicity that is in Christ. 3. And if the first born man Cain murdered his righteous brother by malignant envy for his true Religion it 's no wonder if some Clergy-men are such 4. And if the whole world so soon was drowned in wickedness that only Noah and his house were meet to be saved from the flood what wonder if the Church had too great a deluge of iniquity 5. And to be short if Noah himself fall after such deliverance and a Cham be cursed that had been saved and their posterity proved so bad that all the Canaanites c. must be destroyed if Sodom's flames too better warned Lot or his Wife and Children if Abraham have an Ismael and Isaac an Esau and Iacob envious Sons and two Murderers and two Adulterers If Israel sin and die in the Wilderness if Aaron after that he had seen make them an Idol if Nadab and Abihu die as they did if Eli's and Samuel's Sons proved all so bad and in the days of the Judges there were so many revolts and ruins if the first King Saul so soon revolted if David so fell and Absolom so sinned and Solomon himself If Ten Tribes so quickly broke off from David's house and left him but Two if those Two proved as bad as the Prophets tell us and went into Captivity And if the Nation rebelled against Christ and be cursed and scattered over the Earth what wonder if the Pope and proudest Prelate did corrupt the Church of God If Christs chosen Twelve had a Iudas among them if the rest strove who should be greatest if Peter denied him and they all forsook him and fled if Heresies swarmed in the Apostles days and Iewish Teachers would have subjected the Gentiles to Moses's Law if all forsook Paul in his Tryal and many accused him before and such as Diotrephes cast out the Brethren and prated maliciously against Iohn if Christ tell us of a little flock and not many Noble and great are called if it be as hard for the Rich to be saved as Christ saith if for Three hundred years the Church was a persecuted people and if the Patriarchs and Bishops themselves for many hundred years after accused one another in Councils and accused such Councils themselves of Heresies and other crimes as much as is yet visible they did why should I be scandalized at the badness of Bishops and Councils and the woful corruptions of the Church Especially considering 1. That it was chiefly but the worldly proud domineering sort that thus miscarried as the very Angels did 2. That God kept up still a great number of humble and holy Bishops and Presbyters that joined not in usurpations and pride with the rest 3. And that God blest their labours to the saving of so many Millions of souls and propagating true serious Religion to this day Yea some of the great Patriarchs themselves have been holy humble men 4. And when God preserved by an humble Ministry so many Christians as the Albigenses Waldenses and many among the Papists themselves from the liking and guilt of the Roman corruptions 5. And when God hath raised so learned humble and holy a Ministry to reform the Churches and blest their labours in Europe and specially in England as he hath done even those that Mr. Dodwell degradeth yea many pious Diocesans here and elsewhere who yet cannot prove their title by his pretended way of successive Canonical Ordinations nor durst have sworn that they had such a call § 6. I am sure that the work of Christ is the restoring of Gods Image holy
life and light and love and that the destroying of these by hiding the Scriptures unintelligible worships Imagery dead hypocrisie silencing and persecuting and killing Gods servants making dividing engines to tear and Canons to batter the peace of the Church and this by an ignorant ungodly worldly Ministry seeking not the things of God but of men all this is the Devils work and to do the Devils work against Christ is not a sign of Christs servants he bids us judg of our selves and others by the fruits His servants we are whom we obey If a Peter once give Christ such worldly fleshly counsel he shall hear worse than I said of Church-Tyrants get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of men Mat. 16.22 hating the good silencing thousands of faithful Ministers excommunicating and sinning against God in obedience to Prelates and for using the needful means of their own salvation and serving God but as Peter and Paul did this is the Devils work if he have any in the world And Mr. Dodwell must trust more to swords than words to keep it up for there is a spirit in true Christians that will never suffer them to believe that it is pleasing to God what name soever is pretended for it § 7. I will reverence the Iews visible Church to whom were committed the Oracles of God but will not say that they sinned not in persecuting Christ and his Apostles nor say that they are not now under their own curse and cut off from the Church who once cast out Christians from their Synagogues I will give due honour to Primogeniture and yet not equal Cain and Abel Ismael and Isaac Esau and Iacob c. but expect that as he that was born after the flesh did persecute him that was born after the spirit even so it will be now And the world was the world still when it was taken into the Church The Heathen Romans were less Persecutors than the Iews and so are the Turks than the Papists § 8. I shall in due place take notice of Mr. D's confining the Essence of the Ministry to transacting between God and man in covenanting requiring essentially no more skill than any man is capable of who is but capable of understanding the common dealings of the world p. 73 74. And that Immoralities of such mens Lives excuse us not from Schism for turning from such to better Teachers p. 72. contrary to the Epistle of the Carthage Council in the case of Martial and Basilides and even of Popes and Councils that forbid hearing Mass from a Fornicator And his denying the â—cripture to be intended or designed to be a Charter to appeal to for all future generations and for the extent of Offices and preventing litigious dispute about government and subjection p. 80 81. But that recourse ought now to be had to the intention of the Ordainers for these And what he saith p. 81. against appealing to Writings as he calls them against the sense of all the visible authority of this life as unreconcilable to the practice of any visible government on earth p. 81. And that subjects cannot preserve their subordination to their superiors if they practice differently and defend their practices and pretend Divine Authority for them where he speaketh indefinitely and excepteth no practices And if we may not appeal from man to God and Scripture we may appeal from Scripture to man And if mans Law be above Gods it is not from him for the inferior maketh not his superior And the root of all this iâ— p 82 That God hath made his Church and not only particular Churches that are parts of his Church a visible Society and constituted a visible Government in it Did I know what Mr. D. taketh this one visible Government to be whether General Council or Pope or all the Bishops of the world by a major vote or all the people of the Christian world or what I should know what to say to him But for this I must not hope § 9. But I shall after speak to his securing subterfuge p. 90. That there is but one sense of all terms which causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to skill in causes Which I am so defective in that I know not at all what his cause is till he tell me Nor know I among many senses of most of his chief terms which it is that he meaneth I know not what he meaneth by a Papist and whether he take those for Papists that are as the Councils of Constance and Basil and the French for the supremacy of a Council the Pope being President or Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch of us in the West I know not who he meaneth by the Supreme Church-power in the visible Universal Church I know not by what he essentiateth the very Episcopacy which he so much pleads for no nor their Ordination I know not what he taketh to be the Supreme Church-power over the Church of England And how can I know by the bare general name when Dr. Stillingfleet denieth any such thing CHAP. II. His Schiswatical Church destroying Scheme Confuted § 1. BEcause he dealeth so falsly with my Doctrine by pretence of putting it into his words and order I will deal better with him and deal with his Scheme word by word as he hath laid it down As for his exceptions thâ—t I refel not his charge of the sin against the Holy Ghost c. I am not yet so idle having formerly written a Treatise of that sin His wilful refusal to answer Voetius de desperata Causa Papalus when he knoweth that this Plea is the Papists chief strength and Iansenius is so fully answered is but a dishonourable tergiversation And it 's like he knoweth how Melancthon in his Epistles copiously shameth Mr. Dodwell's cause as trusted to by the Papists when yet the Protestants here plead Melancthon's judgment for their Reformation And though Mr. D. told me that it is not for the Christian Interest to hold that the Roman successive Ordination hath been interrupted I think they that believe their own most flattering Historians must believe that the intercision there hath been more notorious than in those Reformed Churches which Mr. Dodwell nulleth or than those German and Danish Bishops whom Bugenhagius a Presbyter ordained But I will briefly examine the words of his destructive deceiving Frame 1. That all are obliged to submit to all unsinful conditions of the Episcopal Communion where they live if imposed by the Ecclesiasiastical Governours thereof And 2. That the nature of this obligation is such as will make them who rather than they will submit to such conditions either separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from communion by such Governours for such a refusal of submission guilty of the sin of SCHISM Here are two parts a 1. That all are obliged to
the worst oft carried the possession and Councils themselves were for divers whih was the Episcopal communion 3. Is communion and subjection all one with him or divers If divers I have communion with many Bishops that I am not subject to If the same how many must each man be subject to and in what order and cases 4. Communion is 1. mental or local and the first 1. In essentials 2. Integrals 3. Accidents of Christianity I have communion with all Christians in Essentials with the best in most integrals with none in all nor in all accidents 4. I am more secure in the mental communion of many Bishops than of some one and of All in Essentials and certain things than of some one in suspected things especially in universal communion with Christ and his whole Church 2. He that hath no communion with any true Bishops of Gods institution in his judgment will and profession hath no communion with Christs Church But if they are 1. of a false species 2. incapable 3. unordained 4. obtruders not consented to by the Clergy and the Flock it 's safest to disown them 5. And â—f they turn wolves thorns and thistles or hereticks 2. It 's dangerous to refuse communion with the true Episcopi Gregis but not with such as depose them 3. And its doubtful as to the Episcopi Episcoporum 1. It 's but deceit to distinguish only ordinary and extraordinary in speaking of the necessity of means The Gospel written or preached is an ordinary means which to want is hazardous indeed so is meditation prayer and sacraments where they may well be had and Pastors to administer them But there are many lesser means that may be wanting or ignorantly refused where salvation is safe The Church of England thinks preaching to be such which forbiddeth men to go for Preaching and from a bare Reader in his own Parish And the Indians converted by Frumentius and Edesius might have certain salvation before they had any Pastor And so may they that cannot know among contenders which is the true Pastor either as to the species or individual But 2. Comunion in every lawful thing is no ordinary requisite means of salvation Mark Reader that he said that suffer themselves to be excluded from Communion by such Governours for refusing submission to unsinful things And Dr. Saywell Bishop Gunnings Chaplain and this man make such refusal and schism damnable Now mark here how they make all indifferent imposed things consequently necessary to salvation and make all such indifferences to be Articles of faith or necessary to salvation to be believed E.g. if Organs the Cross in Baptism Surplices Church-images Exorcisms and five hundred such be indifferent and commanded by the Bishop he that is excommunicated for not conforming to them or withdraweth for it is a damnable Schismatick Ergo it is necessary to salvation to conform to every one of them in that case Ergo it 's necessary to salvation to hold them to be lawful or else to use them while I verily take them to be sins To what a mass now have these men brought the Aâ—ticles or necessaries to salvation Doth any living man know all lawful things to be such 1. Then in Abassia where there is but one Abuna Bishop local Communion with him is impossible to most 2. And how is the Patriarch of Alexandria who ordaineth him of that Place that is another Kingdom 2. Then in one Place-Communion with Papists in another with Greeks Moscovites Abisines Armenians c. is necessary in unsinful things 3. Who will judg but the Excommunicator what is unsinful as to his act 4. What a case were men in at Rome under Formosus Stephen Sergius Eugenius 4. Iohn 12. and 22. c. and at Alexandria under Peter Meletius Paulinus Flavianus and so oft in other Schisms and Nullities 5. The Novatians and Ioannites had the ordinary means of salvation in Constantinople under separate Pastors But it 's true that the ordinary means are confined to the visible Church and its external Communion where it may be had Of which more anon 1. Some think that if God had only commanded men to love him call upon him hate sin seek life eternal without an express promise one might be sure it should not be done in vain 2 But God hath expresly promised salvation to all that truly love trust and obey him and seek first Gods Kingdom and are pure in heart holy and love all men though they were excommunicate for not crossing subscribing or thinking Diocesans unlawful Chap. 3. The Promises of God and his Covenant on his part are all one Those that God promiseth to save shall certainly be savâ—d who those are the Gospel fully tâ—lls us yea and told men before the particular Churches were fixed under their proper Pastors called Elders and Bishops in the Scripture 3 Transaction is an ambiguous word 1. It was transacted by making the promise by Christ on Earth 2. It is transacted by giving the consenting penitent Believer a Right before God to Christ and salvation when he first truly so consenteth 3. It is transacted by a solemn Mâ—nisterial Investiture sealing and delivering that Right for the fuller comfort of the consenter and in soro Ecclesiae to give the Right of external Communion as a Tessara when the person is baptizâ—d 4. It is transacted by renewed confirmation and for further grace daily in the Eucharist I love not to offend you but I must be true to truth and souls and therefore tell men that these Generals and Confusions are but Cheats 3. Would you have men believe that external solemnities are necessary to the Right of Heart Covenanters before God as to salvetion Or that all external solemnities are of the same necessity The Church of England takes Confirmation to de an external solemnity for assuring men of Gods favour by the sign of Imposition of a Diocesans hands and yet bind you to profess that it is not necessary to salvation but the baptized Infants are certainly and undoubtedly saved without it Litanies Processions and many external solemnities are not essential to external Communion with the visible Church Chap. 8 O tremendous Is it no other Is not the universal visible Church consisting of all professed Christians Headed only by Christ the only universal Church visible in the world Is there no Communion with this as such Had the baptized Eunuch by Philip the Evangelist no Communion with the visible Church nor promise of salvation nor the Iberians Indians and many others that were baptized before they knew or had a Bishop Do not baptizing Presbyters and Lay-men say Turtullian and the Papists assure men of salvation though they should not hear of a Bishop Why was not Diocesan Episcopacy in the Creed if the belief and obedience be necessary to salvation a 1. 1. Apostles and Evangelists took men into the visible Communion of the universal Church before they had particular Church-Bishops 2. Fixed Church-Communion was exercised universally under
ready to be Confirmed by learning the Catechism and recognizing the Covenant c. 25. Doth he not make the chief Bishops and Reformers of the Church of England to be the promoters of the Doctrine which he accounteth so damnable when Dr. Stillingfleet in his Irenicon recites the words of Cranmer and others of them at a Consultation down-right against not only the necessity of his uninterrupted succâ—ssion but also even of Episcopal Ordination it self And I have elsewhere cited about Fourteen of them for the validity of Ordination without Bishops And Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop Edw. Reignnolds and many more held that no Form of Government was of Divine determination Did all these plead for damning Schism against all title to salvation 26. And what could more directly contradict the main tenor of the Gospel which tells us of the saving power of the Word Preached how it converteth souls and promiseth salvation to all that truly believe and repent Insomuch that Paul thanks God that he baptizâ—d few of the Corinthians because God sent him not to baptize but to Preach the Gospel 27. But his Doctrine feigneth that God will damn them that truly believe repent love God forsake sin for want of the Sacrament or else that the Word converteth none but only Sacraments convert men 28. And then it will follow that none but unbelievers impenitent wicked men should be first admitted to the Sacrament for if that only converteth then it is only the unconverted that must first be received to it 29 When all 's done he doth but contradict his end for it 's hard to find a National Episcopacy on earth which imposeth no unlawful thing on Ministers or people And with all such he speaketh not for our Communion 30. Either Ordination and Collation of Church-power must be given by Superiors or by Equals if by Equals why may not Presbyters make Presbyters If by Superiors then who shall give the Pope his Power Or if you think any other be the highest who makes them such Who giveth the Archbishop of Canterbury his Power 31. In short as far as I can understand these men deny all Covenant-right to salvation to all men living and all true Sacraments and Church-Communion or at least all knowledg of any such thing seeing as it is certain that in most Churches such Ordination as they describe hath not had an uninterrupted succession so no man is sure that any one Church or man hath had such And they that silence us for not subscribing declaring and swearing obedience to our Diocesans and other Ordinaries are bold men if they dare swear themselves that they are true Bishops and have any Authority to rule and command us by an uninterrupted succession of a Canonical Episcopal Ordination down from the Apostles But I have already in my Book of Concord Part 3. Chap. 9. opened so many palpable and pernicious absurdities and ill consequents of Mr. Dodwell's Doctrine which he dare not undertake to answer but sâ—ly passeth by that I must expect the Reader will there peruse them who will judg uprightly between him and me and therefore will hear what both have said And those that will judg falsly upon partial trust to save themselves the labour of tryal are out of the reach of ordinary means to be saved from deceivers CHAP. IV. My words of Gods Collation of Ministerial Authority Vindicated from the forgeries and fallacies of Mr. Dodwell § 1. CHRIST hath taught me to judg of Prophets or Teachers by their fruits more than by their cloathing Mat. 7. And the fruits which are of God are those which express the Divine Nature and Image viz. holy Light and Truth holy Love and holy Life and Practice and the promoting of these in the world And Christ hath taught me that the Devil is 1. Against holy Light and Truth the Prince of Darkness and a Lyar and the Father of Lyes 2. Against holy Love accusing slandring and rendring as odious the servants and ways of Christ. 3. Against holy righteous and sober living and an opposer of it and a persecutor and murderer of the Saints And those that are likest Satan in these three parts of his Image and whose works are more certainly the works of these three Diabolical Principles I am taught by Christ to judg of by their fruits So much as there is in Mr. Dodwell's labours of holy Truth holy Love and helps to holy living so much sure is of God But so much as there is in his or any of his Parties cause of deceit and falshood and defence of ignorance so much as there is of Malignity Calumny or making odious the servants of Christ so much as there is of cruelty and destruction and silencing faithful Ministers and promoting ungodliness by upholding its defences I am obliged to resist as being from him against whom in my baptismal Covenant I was engaged § 2. He giveth his Reader the sum of my doctrine in this point p. 29 c. a chain of forgeries or putid falshoods Either he knew that he wrote falsly or he did not if yea then it seems he thinks that God or his Church needed his lyes if not how unfit is he to write against what he understandeth not But what made him devise a frame of his own words of above six pages to express my words by if he meant not to deceive those that would believe his writing without reading mine § 3. And whether it be from the Lord of love or the enemy of love that he goeth so far to the unchurching and damning of so many of the Reformed Churches besides the Churches of the Southern and Eastern parts of the world if not of all Churches on earth let the sons of Love consider § 4. And whether his endeavours to persuade all the Nonconformists to give over preaching Christs Gospel and all publick Worship of God till they can conscionably conform and his reasonings for that frame that hath long excluded true discipline and sheltered ignorance and ungodliness be of God and all his copious discourses to that end are to save souls or to starve and murder them I leave to mens impartial trial § 5. I so often and fully repeated my judgment of the Calling of the Ministry as leaveth his Forgeries inexcusable The sum is this 1. There is no power but of God 2. Gods universal Laws are the prime Laws and the only universal Laws of the Church or world 3. In his Laws God hath established or instituted the work and the species of that Ecclesiastical Ministry which he will have to teach and guide his Church to the end of the world And therein signified his owning of them as sent by him and promised them his help and blessing 4. In that Law he hath told us what men they are that he will thus own and bless and described the Essentials and the Integrals of their Receptive disposition or qualifications 5. He hath in that Law told us who shall be the tryers and
Christians Or whether the higher Sacrament do not eminently contain the lower as making a man a Bishop containeth making him a Presbyter and that containeth eminently his Deaconship as some say If they must be baptized yet it implieth the Nullity of their Sacramental Communion before And if so Mr. Dodwell must confess that Priestly exhibition or investiture is null to an uncapable Subject But I think most will say that he should not be baptized it being done interpretatively And if so is his Prelatical mode of Ordination more necessary than actual Baptism Besides that as is said they make Lay-mens or womens baptizing sufficient ad esse And yet the Church of England professeth that only the Two Sacramens Baptism and the Lords Supper are generally necessary to salvation § 38. Pag. 67 68. He would persuade us that the Imposition of hands in Ordination signifieth what he asserteth But he giveth us not one word of proof of it Was it the Holy Ghost which was in the imposing Apostle or Prelate that was given by him and out of him into the Ordained No he was never in Scripture said to be the Ownor Donor or efficient conveyer of the Holy Ghost But Gods will made the Imposition of the Apostles hand a conditional act to qualifie the recipient to receive the Holy Ghost immediately from God as the Texts before cited and many more prove What if it be once said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when many other Texts expound it It 's well known that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth many other causes mediums conditions as well as efficient conveying causes Is it like to signifie more here than in the Doctrine of Justification when it is so oft said that we are justified by faith And yet faith there is no efficient instrument conveying or giving us pardon and relative Justification but only a necessary qualification of the Recipient called by Dr. Twisse Causa dispositiva which is part of the Materialis upon which Gods Covenant immediately pardoneth and justifieth the believer so both there and here it is by or through the Act of man as a moral qualification of the Recipient made a condition by God § 39. After all this the man cometh himself pag. 72. to distinguish of Qualifications necessary to the being of the office and to the well-being yea and hath the face to say that I should have distinguished them as if I had not ever done it Is it not an unprofitable toil to dispute with such men that will pretend that a case by me constantly stated was not stated and then will long dispute himself for the unqualified without distinction and after all distinguish in the fag end This beseemeth not any man that will pretend to plead for truth But yet he will not be over-liberal to us he saith p. 13. All the skill that is requisite essentially is only in general to know the benefits to be peâ—formed on Gods part and the duties to be promised on mans and the nature and obligation of Covenants in general and the particular solemnities of Ecclesiastical Covenanting And of this how can any one be uncapable that is but capable of understanding the common dealings of the world Ans. 1. And yet must we have Universities and must the Holy Ghost be given by the Bishops for this And is there any need to open the Bible to know it and must so much riches and honour maintain this much and all be damned Schismaticks that turn to better 2. Set this qualified Ministry and his great zeal to perswade the Nonconformists to cease Preaching and his Unchurching the Reformed Churches altogether and it 's easie to see what this humble diligent man is labouring for 3. Do not many millions understand the common dealings of the world that understand not the Gospel The natural man receiveth not the things that be of God for they are spiritually discerned 4 Is not this a plain design to set up a carnal Kingdom of ignorant vicious Clergy-men such as St. Paul saith Rom. 8 neither are nor can be subject to Gods Law instead of a holy Catholick Church and Communion of Saints and to make Mahometans think that they are Saints in comparison of us and that Christians are an unholy sort of men 5. Either he includeth all that is necessary to the things named by him or not If not then his Priest must know the benefits of Gods Covenant without knowing what God is or that Christ is the Purchaser Covenanter c. If yea which I doubt not he will say then O what an excellent body of Theology is included in these few general words Then he must know all those Attributes of God and his Relations to man by which he is said to be our God He must know all the necessary articles of faith about the Person of Christ as God and man in two Natures and one Person his Incarnation Birth Life Sufferings Death Burial his Doctrine his Merits his Resurrection Ascension Glory Intercession Kingly and Prophetical office and last Judgment and Glorious Kingdom He must know what Covenant God formerly made and man broke and what sin original and actual and what curse and condemnation followed on mankind And Oh how many great and mysterious things are contained in Gods Covenant-benefits On Union with Christ Reconciliation Justification Adoption Sanctification The Doctrine of the Holy Ghost as the Third person in the Trinity and as the Inspirer of Prophets and Apostles and Inditer and confirmer of the Scriptures and the Witness of Christ and the Sanctifier and Comforter of the Elect besides Resurrection Glorification c. And what a deal is contained in mans necessary qualification Faith Repentance and promised duty And the true nature and use of the Sacraments themselves And is all this such a small or easie matter as he seems to intimate 6. But hath he yet proved that a true Minister of Christ hath no necessary work but thus to administer Sacraments I will yet believe 2 Tim. 4.1 2. that he must preach the Word in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort partly to convert the unconverted partly to confirm and guide believers and that the people should ask the Law at his mouth as being the messenger of the Lord of Hosts And that the very essence of his office is to be a Minister under the Teaching Priestly and Ruling office of Christ. 7. And if he had proved that a sorry Priest hath all that is essential to his office that proveth not that I must take him for my Pastor no not though the Diocesan command me Souls are more worth than to be wilfully made the Priests and Prelates merchandize If a man have all essential to a Physician and no more I will not trust my life to his skill which is less than my soul though the Bishop bid me If a woman have all that 's essential to a woman he is a fool that will take her for his wife because the Bishop bids him
there is no certainty that any Subject Presbyters were made by the Apostles in Scripture times So that the very species of their Clergy hath no such succession as distinct from ours 4. And he that will read the Church-History and Councils declaring the multitude of doleful intercisions in East and West by Heresies the Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch Constantinople Ierusalem and Rome and most of the chief Seats of Bishops having been judged Hereticks Simoniacks or no Bishops by General Councils yea Roman Bishops judged some of them Infidels and Diabolical by the Councils of Constance Basâ—l c. I say he that knoweth this History must know that the Diocesans that from these derive their succession have certainly had frequent and notorious intercisions § 46. And this leads me to another part of Mr. Dodwell's work viz. his proof that Aidan and Finan were Bishops As if this had been a great part of his Cause Such diverting noise is a great part of the art of deceiving Because I had said that Aiden and Finan were not Bishops but Presbyters that is when they came out of Scotland into Northumberland I apprehended that some men of his gâ—â—ius and design would be willing to mistake me and therefore Printed an Explication of the Words in the end of my first Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet But Mr. D would have men think that I said that they were never made and called Bishops at all and that I read not Beda from whom alone near Five and Thirty years ago I took almost all that I assert concerning them Let the Reader see my foresaid Explication If Mr. Dodwell will give us more than noise and mist about this matter 1. Let him prove that it was Diocesan Bishops that Ordained these Scots before they came into England when Beda saith they were sent from those Monasteries that were ruled by Presbyters and which would not so much as eat or communicate with the Roman Bishops 2. Let him prove that any Bishops in England Consecrated hem or made them Bishops here when Beda tells us that they were the first in the North and therefore had none here to Ordain them 3. Let him prove that they were here made true Diocesan Bishops of our species When 1. they had no Presbyters at first under them and therefore ruled none and had but one Congregation for one man can be but in one place at once 2. Their Church in Lindisfarne was not made of stone but of wood covered or thatcht with reeds and they are not said to have any other Church under them 3. They went indeed to preach all over the Country but not as to a Church but as to Heathens to convert them 4. Let him prove that ever they took themselves to be of a distinct order from Presbyters 5. At a Synod Bed c. 25. we find no more but the King and his Son and Hilda a woman-Abbess and three or four of this sort of Bishops far below our Ordaining City-Presbyters and their Synods But unlearned men that value Books by interest and preconceived opinions may think that by such talk Mr. Dodwell hath done some great matter § 47. But saith he p. 81 82. Our Hypothesis obliging inferiour Governours to prove their title to their office and the extent of it from the intention of their supream Governours does oblige all to a strict dependance on the supreme visible power so as to leave no place for appeal concerning the practice of such Government which as it lasts only for this life so it ought not to admit of disputes more lasting than its practice c. Ans. Alas for the poor world and Church that will be cheated at so gross a rate 1. Did you not know that the grand error that Protestants charge Papists with is the asserting of any such thing as a supreme visible power over the Church universal besides Christ. And did you think that your roteing over the name to them that deny the thing would make a wise man change his Religion 2. By your Hypothesis then no man can prove his title to his Office who either believeth not that there is any such universal Supreme or that knoweth not who it is I know no Competitors but the Pope and General Councils unless the Patriarch of Constantinople be one 3. And he that knoweth not the intention of this Supreme power is still unable to prove his office 4. And he that knoweth the intention of the Ordaining Diocesan is never the better if he know not the intention of the Supreme And what if the intention of the Supreme and of the Diocesan are contrary 5. But by your Hypothesis the Governours may alter the very species of the Priesthood as they please and what ever God saith of it in his Institution or Law it must be to us no other in kind or extent than the Governours intend If they say I ordain thee to baptize but not to teach or to do both but not to celebrate the Lords-Supper or to do that but not to pray or praise God or not to use the Keys of the Church our power is limited accordingly Then if the Prelates make Mass-Priests their intention is the measure of their power Answer the Papists then that ask Was it ever the intention of the Pope and his Prelates that the English Bishops should disclaim the Pope or the Mass or reform without them as they did 6. Seeing the English Bishops by you derive their succession from Willfred and Augustine and Rome is not the Church of Rome the â—ittest Judg of the extent of their power as knowing their own intentions Nay if they were so blind as to intend them power to pull down themselves may they not recall it 7. Did ever Protestant preach this Doctrine That there is no appeal from the supreme Prelates to God O dreadful what may men come to and what error so great that a former may not introduce Disgrace not the Church of England so much as thus to intimate that they set up themselves so as that there is no appeal to Scripture or God himself from them God hath commanded Preaching Praying Praises Baptism the Lords-Supper holy assemblies c. if the supreme Prelates interdict and forbid all these is there no appeal to God I have told you how much Robert Grosthead abhor'd this Doctrine and so told Pope Innocent the 4 th What absolute blind obedience to Prelates is this 8. And what a reason brings he That the practice lasteth only for this life and therefore c Doth any of our actions here last longer than while they are doing Praying Praise Sacraments obeying the King doing good to the poor c. and so swearing cursing adultery rebellion atheism blasphemy here last only for this life Must we therefore obey men without appeal to God if they forbid us all duty and command all sin 9. And what did the man mean when he said That it ought not to admit of disputes more lasting than its
Clergy will but forbid them See I beseech you worthy Country-men what sort of men and Doctrine you have to do with § 52. And why doth the man talk only against different practice Doth he not know that Government commandeth duty as well as forbiddeth the contrary Is not Omission against Government as well as Commission If the King command Taxes Military service c. may we disobey and call it Passive obedience What if the Bishops only forbid us to confess Christ to come to Church to Pray to give Alms to do any good May we forbear sobeit we do not the contrary Doubtless if Gods Word and Authority may not be pleaded for any duty which God commandeth and the Prelates forbid neither may it be pleaded for the Omission of any Villany commanded by Prelates no not Inquisition Torments or Massacres which God forbids But this man hath the Gramatical skill to call Omissive obedience by the name of Passive § 53. It 's like he will next say that I make odious suppositions That the supreme Church-power may command any Villanies and forbid Christian duties Ans. 1. I despair of getting any of these designers to tell me which is the Supreme Universal Church-power so as to be well understood I never heard of any pretenders but Pope and General Councils and as Bishop Guning holds the Colledg of all the Bishops in the world And certainly Pope and Councils have set up Heresies and decreed even the exterminating of all that will not dis-believe all their senses and deny Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine They have decreed deposing Kings absolving Subjects from their Allegiance adoring Images c. And what is it that yet they may not do If they say with Peter If all men deny thee I will not how shall I know that they say true Doth not the Church of England tell us that Councils have erred c § 54. And be not these very honest Sons of the Church of England that affirm it irreconcilable to Government to alledg Divine Authority of any different practices without exception and at the same time to Subscribe to Art 21.19.6.18 of the sufficiency of Scripture That the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome have erred in matters of Faith That the Church may not Ordain any thing contrary to Gods Written Word That General Councils may err and have erred and that things Ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the holy Scripture And those are accursed that presume to say that every man may be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth And why not if he must do all that the Governours require or nothing divers to them § 55. My Reason forbids me to trace such a Writer as this any further To tell men of every vain Harangue and confident discourse that 's full of gross error or false report is work unworthy of time and labour but I will a little more open the Coar of his deceit CHAP. V. Wherein Mr. Dodwell's deceits and the danger of them do consist § 1. AS to his Method of disputing that you may detect his fallacies he hath got this absurd ptetence p. 90. That there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to have skill in Causes Ans. Would you have thought that ever a man should publickly use such a Cothurnus among the Learned What a man is obliged to mean is one thing and what he doth mean is another And is there any one that knoweth what humane Language is that knoweth not that almost all words have various significations Doth he not know by how good reason the Schools oblige Disputants first to explain their Terms And what need there is of Definition to explain them He instanceth in the words Bishops and the Church of England And might have added the Catholick Church And doth he not know that it is the species of Bishops that we differ about and will the general name here explain each parties sense When we are for one sort of Bishops and against another And is it not such fraud as souls should not be abused by to refuse wilfully to define the Episcopacy that he meaneth and then plead that all should understand him And why is it not as much ignorance in him not to understand me as in me not to understand him when I use distinct explication which he obstinately refuseth And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet's case shame what he saith of the Church of England who was hardly brought to explain it and at last denieth the very being of the Church in Mr. Dodwell's sense which of you was to blame to meddle with the Word till you had skill in Causes to understand it without a Definition And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet take it as the Introduction of Popery to hold a Constitutive Regent Church-Government National or Catholick and so he and Mr. Dodwell mean not the same thing by the Church Catholick nor Bishop Guning Mr. Thorndike or the Church of Rome who are all for an Universal humane Supreme power And who is he that hath read Dr. Challoners Credo Eccles. Cathol Chillingworth Bishop Mortons Grand Imposture Bishop Bilson Dr. White Dr. Whitaker Dr. Sutliffe Bishop Andrews Bishop Carlton c. Chamier Sadeel Melancthon Bucer c. who knoweth not that the Papists and Prorestants by the name of the Catholick Church do mean several things and that we deny the very being of any such Church as they call the Catholick And is this the bold and happy Disputant that will save the Schools and World the labour of explaining Terms and foreagreeing of the sense and put men on disputing where the Subjâ—ct is denied and fill a Book with tedious confident Harangues and then hide all the fraud by saying that there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige mâ—n to mean and that every one ought to know who pretend to have skill in Causes When the Cause disputed is only managed by words as they signifie the minds of the Speakers about the real matters § 2. And as to the material fundamental difference between Mr. Dodwell's party and us it lyeth in these following things I. We totally differ about the nature of Gods Government of man II. And about the use of the Holy Scripture and Gods Laws III. About the nature and extent of all humane Government IV. About the form of moral good and evil V. About the essential form of the Catholick Church VI. About Gods ordinary means of saving Grace VII About the use of Preaching VIII About the duty of worshipping God in Sacred Assemblies or the Communion of Saints IX About the difference of Apostles and the office of the Bishops X. About the office of a Presbyter or Parish-Pastor XI About the Necessaries to Ministry Churches Christianity and ordinary title to Salvation XII And
I swore to obey them but in licitis honestis And I do not know that ever I therein disobeyed those that I sware to no nor the latter reduced stock Either I have proved the degenerate sort described in this Treatise to be a heinously sinful depravation of the Church and its Government and an injury against Christ by deposing his Church Form Discipline and Officers or not if not evince it and I will thank you if yea to comply with such sin or in any calling to forbear detecting it by writing is an Omission which is not licitum vel honestum An unlawful Oath against a thing indifferent will not bind me if the King do but command that indifferent thing much less will an ignorant Oath to obey Church-Usurpers and corrupters oblige me against Christs commands Nor do I think it licitum vel honestum to renounce my Ministry sacrilegiously and perfidiously break my Ordination-Vow to God and forbear Preaching Christs Gospel to needy souls because they forbid me In a word Sir I unfeignedly thank you for your desire to save me from dying in sin I have great reason to make it my greatest care Constant pain and languor call to me neither to dissemble nor delay When I cannot know my own heart so well as you do I may come to believe you that it is unruly Pride Till then I am past doubt that could any abasement any labour any cost help me to know that you are in the right and I in the wrong I would most joyfully undertake it But such warnings as your's awaken my Conscience so that I dare not die in the guilt of active or omissive compliance with those men 1. Whose degenerate state I confidently judg to be the dangerous Malady of the Church and destructive to a right Church-state Church-Officers and Government 2. Whose Canons of Government are such as they are 3. Who have since I had any understanding done that against serious godliness in England which they did and these near Twenty years done what they have done procuring the silencing and outward ruin of about Two thousand such Ministers of Christ as I know to have been the most pious faithful and successful in true Ministerial work of any that ever I could know and such as I am fully perswaded no Nation under Heaven have Two thousand better And yours or other mens accusations or contrary judgment cannot make me ignorant of this which experience and great acquaintance have told me 4. And Church-History which tells me what such have done in former Ages increase my fear of dying in the guilt of participating of their sin I know of no other Motives that I have The sum of my request to you is That instead of telling me what the Pope or any Usurper may say that I should be humble and obedient you will but tell me what means I should use which I have omitted to get my judgment informed if I err and to become of your mind and as wise as you I again intreat you to tell me the way and I shall give you most hearty thanks Did I not know your judgment and mine to be so distant as puts me out of hope of attaining my end I would have sent you Nine or Ten Proposals for the meer reducing of the Parish Churches to their necessary state without altering any thing of the Diocesans power or grandure save only their power of the Sword which yet as they are Magistrates we submit to That your former Letters brought me not to your judgment you may see by the book which I send you cometh not to pass by hasty judging nor without that which seemeth Reason to me after my long and best consideration I am fully assured not byassed hereto by worldly interest which hath long lain on the other side Accept this Account from Nov. 15. 1680. Your unfeigned though dissenting Friend Ri. Baxter July 9. 1677 For my much honoured Friend Mr. Henry Dodwell SIR SINCE the writing of my last to you your own words have acquainted me 1. That you take my Principles to have some inconsistence or contradiction 2. That you think I have not yet told you what Church-Government it is that I would have or how it can attain its end 3. That you suppose that denying men the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a coercive power sufficient to force unwilling men to obey Church-Governours 4. That you hold that all Religious Assemblies not allowed by the Bishops are unlawful and therefore that we must rather use none than such I. As to the first no reason obligeth me to believe you till you prove it which must be by citing the inconsistent words How easie is it to tell you or any man that you speak contradictions Is accusing proving And you have told me by experience that mistaking Hearers and Readers understand not mens words so well as the Speakers or Writers do When you so widely mistook a speech of mine when I had told you that as far as I could learn by my own acquaintance and the report of the Members themselves there was but one known Presbyterian in the House of Commons when the Wars began I named you a credible witness yet living and you report that I said there was but one Presbyterian in the Assembly of Divines May not my writing be as much mistaken by you Prove your Charge and I will confeâ—s my contradictions and give you thanks II. As to the second I was afraid I had used more words than needs if all that I have said tell you not what I mean you may excuse me from adding more which are like to be no more significant you must name me the particulars that you are unsatisfied in before I can know what is needful to be added One particular you did name viz. whether I hold a power in the Church to deny men the Sacrament that would have it I left you no reason to make a doubt of it If this be it pardon the repetitions which you make me guilty of and I shall renew my account 1. I believe that Christ hath instituted the office of the Sacred Ministry which the Ancients called Sacerdotium as subordinate to his Teaching Ruling and Sacerdotal office and that being obliged to Disciple and baptize the Nations and to teach them Christs commands and to guide them in holy Doctrine Worship and Discipline they are authorized to all that they are obliged to and that it is their office-work to administer Baptism and the Lords Supper and that they have the Church-Keys to judg whom to take in by Baptism what food to feed the children of the Church with and whom to cast out of its Communion 2. I believe that this power is limited and regulated by Christs own universal Laws and that they are not lawless or arbitrary but he hath bound them by a just description whom to take in what food to give them and whom to cast out And that he hath given them
the Antecedent True Pastors have but the power to promote and order Gods worship but not to exclude or forbid it to any much less to all or 1000. without necessary cause 2. And then if Preaching and Hearing and Sacraments be ordinarily necessary to mens salvation then God hath left it to the will or power of the Bishops whether any of the people shall be ordinarily saved But that is not so 3. And then if the King should license or command us to Preach Pray and Communicate and the Bishop forbid it it were sin But that I will not believe unless the Cause more than the Authority make the difference To cooclude I hold that just use of the Keys is very necessary and that it is the great sin of England to reject it But that a false usurped use of excomunication hath been the incendiary of the Christian world which hath broken it to pieces caused horrid Schisms Rebellions Treasons Murders and bloody Wars I. The just use is 1. When a scandalous or great sinner is with convincing evidence told of his error and with seriousness yet with love and compassion intreated to repent and either prevailed with and so absolved or after due patience Authoritatively pronounced uncapable of Church-Communion and bound over to answer it at the Bar of Christ in terror if he repent not and this by the Pastor of that particular Church which either statedly or pro tempore he belongeth to 2. And when this is duly notified to such Neighbour-Pastors as he may seek Communion with and they agree not to receive any justly cast out by others but to receive and relieve the injured and falsly condemned 3. And when the King and his Justices permit not the ejected violently to intrude and take the Sacrament or joyn with the Church by force but preserveth forcibly the Peace and Priviledges of the Churches II. The excommunication that hath turned the Church into Factions and undone almost East and West is 1. When a Bishop because of his humane Superiory as Patriark Primate or Pope claimeth the power of excommunicating other Bishops as his Subjects whose Sentence must stand because of his Regent power 2. Or at least gathering a Council where he shall preside and that Council shall take themselves to have a Governing power of the Keys over the particular Bishop not only to renounce Communion with them themselves but to oblige all others to stand to their judicial Sentence 3. When Bishops shall meddle causelesly in other Bishops Churches and make themseves Judges either of distant unknown persons and cases or of such as they have nothing to do to try Yea judg men of other Countries or so distant as the Witnesses and Causes cannot without oppression be brought to their Bar. 4. When they disgrace Gods universal Laws of Communion as insâ—fficiâ—nt and make a multitude of unnecessary ensnaring dividing Laws of their own according to which they must be mens Judges 5. When these Laws are not made only for their own flocks and selves but for all the Christian world or for absent or dissenting persons 6. When men excommunicate others for hard words not understood that deserve it not as to real matter 7. Or do it to keep up an unlawful usurped power over those Churches that never consented to take them for their Pastors and to rule where they have no true Authority but such as standeth on a forcing strength 8. When Lay-Chancellors use the Keys of the Church 9. When men excommunicate others wickedly for doing their duty to God and man or unjustly without sufficient Cause 10. When unjust excommunicators force Ministers against their Consciences to publish their condemnations against those that they know to be not worthy of that Sentence if not the best of their flocks 11. And when they damn all as Hereticks Schismaticks c. that communicate with any that they thus unjustly damn 12. When they dishonour Kings and higher Pwers by disgracing excommunications much more when they depose them 13. When they tell Princes that it is their duty to banish imprison or destroy men because excommunicate and not reconciled and make Kings their Executioners And so of old when a Bishop was excommunicate he must presently be banished And they say the Scots horning is of the same nature If all had been either banished or imprisoned that were excommunicate aâ—d unreconciled in the pursuit of the General Councils of old how great a diminution would it have made of the free Subjects of the Empire And if Princes must strike with the Sword all that stand excommunicate without trying and judging the persons themselves it is no wonder if such Prelates as can first so debase them to be their Lictors can next depose them He is like to be a great Persecuter that will imprison or banish all that a proud contentious Clergy will excommunicate As corruptio optimi est pessima I doubt not but a wise humble holy spiritual loving heavenly zealous patient exemplary sort of Pastors is the means of continuing Christs Kingdom in the World and such are the Pillars and Basis of Truth in the House of God as it is said of Timothy not of the Church as is commonly mistaken So an ignorant worldly carnal proud usurping domineering hypocritical sort of Pastors have been the great plagues and causes of Schism confusion and common calamity And that when Satan can be the chuser of Pastors for Christs Church he will and too oft hath ever chuse such as shall most succesfully serve him in Christs Name And I doubt not but such holy Discipline as shall keep clean the Church of Christ and keep off the reproach of wickedness and uncleanness from the Christian Religion and manifest duly to the flock the difference between the precious and the vile is a great Ordinance of God which one man cannot exercise over many hundred Parishes and unknown people But an usurped domineering use of excommunication to subdue Kings Princes Nobles and people to the Jurisdiction Opinions and Canons of Popes Patriarchs Prelates or their Councils I think hath done not the least part of Satans work in the world And I must tell you that I have lived now near 62. now near 66. years and I never saw one man or woman reformed or converted by excommunication and I hope I have known thousands converted from their sin by Preaching even by some that are now forbidden to Preach All that ever I knew excommunicate were of two sorts 1. Dissenters from the Opinions of the Bishops or conscientious refusers of their commands And these all rejoice in their sufferings applying Blessed are ye when they cast out your names c. say all evil of you falsly c. or they take their censure for wicked persecution The Papists laugh at their Excommunicators and say What an odd conditioned Church have you that will cast us out that never came in and because we will not come in 2. Ungodly impenitent sinners And these hate
the excommunicators for disgracing them and are driven further off from godliness than before But they will say they repent at any time rather than go to the Gaol I never saw one person brought to publick confession in the Assembly by the Bishops Discipline but I heard I was young of one or two that for Adultery stood in a White Sheet in the Church laughing at the sport or hating the imposers When there were no Bishops among us about 1650. many Episcopal Presbyterians c. agreed where I lived to exercise so much Discipline as we were all agreed belonged to Presbyters Hereupon I found good success in bringing some to repentance by admonition but never of any one that stood it out to an excommunication so far as we went which was only to admonish and pray for their repentance publickly and after to declare them unmeet for Christian Communion and to require the people to avoid them accordingly till they repent After this they hated us more than before and one of them laid hands on me in the Church-Yard to have killed me And I am sure that they reverenced those Ministers more than now Lay-Chancellors if not Bishops are by such reverenced So that experience convinced me that the penalty of excommunication is much more beneficial to others than to the excommunicate And how many thousands in your Parish do now voluntarily excommunicate themselves from the Sacrament and Church-Assemblies and find no Remorse or Reformation by it And if all of both sorts conscientious Dissenters and prophane despisers and sinners were excommunicated now by the Church of England without any corporal penalty adjoyned what do you think it would do upon them Would they not laugh at you or pity you Do not the Bishops believe this and therefore will not trust to their excommunications at all without the Sword I cannot magnifie the Discipline of such men as count themselves the Power of the Keys to be but a Leaden Sword a vain thing without the annexed enforcement of corporal penalties If it be but outward obedience to their commands which they drive men to without the heart 1. Men of no Conscience will soonest obey them as forced against their Consciences 2. And why do they abuse the name of the Keys as if it were the cause of that which it is no cause of but is done only by the Magistrates Sword It is the Writ De excom cap. that doth it and not the Keys And they that think unwilling persons have right to the great benefit of Church Communion yea all that had rather come â—o Church than lie in Gaol shall never have my assent If really your meaning be to set up the power of the Keys by themselves to do their proper work and not expect that Magistrates must joyn their forcing power to punish a man meerly because he beareth the Bishops punishment patiently without changing his mind Let it prevail as far as it can prevail who will fear it save for the Schism that it may cause But if it be your meaning all this while that under the name of denying the Sacrament it is Confiscation or the Gaol that must do the work I should wish for more of the Spirit of Christianity and less inclination to the Inquisition-way Persecution never yet escaped its due odium or penalty by disowning its proper name I am more of St. Martin's mind than of Ithacius's V. One word more I add That I like not your making so light as you seem to me to do of the badness of some Ministers and People that are in the allowed Churches I know that the Papists speak much of the holiness of a Pope when perhaps a General Council saith he is a Murderer Adulterer Heretick c. and so call their Church Relatively holy I deny not that Relative holiness which is founded in meer profession But I believe that Christ came to gather a people to another sort of Godliness and by his Spirit to fill them with Divine and Heavenly Life Light and Love to God and man And I believe that all that have this though excommunicate shall be glorified And that without this all the obedience to Bishops that they give will never keep them out of Hell And I take it to be no great priviledg to march in an orderly Army to damnation or to be at peace in Satans power Hell will be Hell which way ever we come to it I confess were these Bishops in the right that Sancta Clara citeth that say The ignorant people might merit by hating God as an act of obedience if their Pastors should tell them it is their duty then this external obedience to them were more considerable But I had rather go in the Company that goeth to Heaven as all do that are true Lovers of God and man than in that which goeth to Hell as do the most Regular of the ungodly And yet I account true obedience and regularity a great duty of the godly and a great help to godliness And therefore I value the Means for the End Concord for Piety and salvation And I cannot think that there is not now in London a very laudable degree of Concord among all those that though in different Assemblies and with difference of opinions about small matters do hold one Body one Spirit one Lord one Faith one Baptism one Celestial hope and one God and Father of all and live in Love and Peace and Patience towards each other This is far greater Concord than the thousands of people that deserving excommunication for their wicked lives do hold in the bosom of the Church which receiveth them as children thereof And O! were it not for that uncharitable impatience which an ill selfish Spirit doth contain why should it seem to us a matter of such odium envy or out-cry for men to hear the same Gospel from another man which for some differing opinion they will not hear from us Or for men to communicate e. g. standing or sitting in a Congregation of that mind that weakly scruple to kneel at it with others the old Canons countenancing their gesture of standing more than kneeling What harm will it do me if under the strictest Laws of Peace men worshipped God by themselves that scruple some word or action in our worship E. g. a Nestorian that should think that it is improper to say that the Virgin Mary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the denomination should be a ratione formali rather than a materiali Would Liberty in such matters with Love and Peace do more hurt to the Churches than Schismatical excommunications have done And indeed it is hard to make people able to reconcile a Conjunct earnâ—stness in driving the same men into the Church and casting them out yea of excommunicating them ipso facto by divers Canons sine sententia and accusing them for not communicating If it be for not repenting 1. Can you bring all the sinners about us to repentance by
Church-ruin to be devised than to suppose a more extensive Concord to be possible and necessary than indeed is and so to set up an impossible End and Means and to deny Concord and Peace to all that cannot have it on those terms If all should be denied to be the Kings Subjects who dare not profess Assent Consent and approbation of every law and part or word of the laws or that agree not of the meaning of every law or that differ in any matters of Religion what a Schism Confusion and Ruine would it unavoidably make in the Kingdom and how few Subjects would it leave the King Even as if none but men of the same stature visage or wit should be Subjects 4 The necessary Union and Concord of Christians is a matter of so great importance that it cannot be supposed that Christ is the sole Universal Lawgiver and yet hath not ordained or determined what shall be the terms of necessary Christian Unity and Concord And indeed he hath determined it Viz. I. He hath ordained Baptism himself to be our Christning or our visible Investiture in the Church Universal that is our Relation to Christ as the Head of his Universal Kingdom or Body And every rightfully baptized person till by violating that Covenant he forfeit his benefits is to be taken by us as a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Heir of Heaven and we are bound to love him as a brother and use him accordingly in all due Offices of Love And because the Church into which Baptism entereth us consists of Christian Pastors and People Apostles and Prophets having been as Foundations infallibly delivering us now recorded in Scripture the Word of Life and ordinary Pastors being appointed to teach and guide the people in holy Doctrine Worship and Conversation therefore it is implied that the baptized person at Age understandeth this and consenteth thereunto that is to receive as infallible the recorded sacred Doctrine of the infallible persons Apostles and Prophets and the ordinary Ministry of such ordinary Pastors and Teachers as he shall discern to be set over him by the Word and Spirit of Christ. Whether this consent to the Pastoral-Office be necessary to the Being of a Christian or only to the Well-being is a controversie with which I need not stop or lengthâ—n in this account But Baptism as such doth not enter us into any particular Church II. 1. Christ by himself and his â—pirit in the Apostles hath ordained that Christians shall be associated into particular Churches consisting of the aforesaid Ordinary Pastors and their Flocks for Personal Communion in holy Dâ—ctrine Worship and Conversation in all which these Pastors are their Guides according to the Laws or Word of Christ already delivered by the inâ—allible Ministry of the Apostles and Prophets against or beyond which Christ hath given them no power Their Office is of his own making and describing and their power to determine undetermined useful circumstances in Gods Worship and Church-discipline is but a power to obey Christs general commands to do all thingâ— in Love Peace Order Decency and to Edification which they may not violate 2. Every Christian that hath opportunity should be a Member of some such particular Church Statedly if it may be if not yet transiently But some may want such opportunity as single persons converted or cast among Infidels Travellers Embassadors Factors and other Merchants among Infidels or where Christianity is so corrupted by the Pâ—stors as that they will not allow men Communion without sinful Oaths Covenants Professions Words or Practices 3. No one at Age can be a Member of the Universal or of any particular Church and so the Subjâ—ct of that Pastor against his will or without his own consent however Antecedent Obligations may bind men to consent 4. Every such Church should have its proper Bishop and in Ignatius's time its Unity was describâ—d by One Altar and One Bishop with his fellow Presbyters and Deacons 5. Such Bâ—shops or Pastors were to be ordained by Senior Bishops or Pâ—stors and received by the Eâ—ection or Consent of the whole Church and for many hundred years no Churches received their Bishops on any other terms The Ordainers and the People or Church receiving him having each a necessary consent as a double Key for the security of the Church to which afterwards the Christian Magiâ—â—rates consent was added according to Gods word so far as protecting and countenancing of the Bishop did require The senior Bishops must consent to his Ordination the people must consent to him as formally related to themselves as their Pastor and the Magistrate as to one to be protected by him 6 As without mutual consent the relation of Pastor and flock is not founded so Gods Providence must direct every man to know what particular Church he should be of and whom by consent to take for the guide of his soul. In England men may freely chuse what Church and Pastor they will stand related to every man having liberty to dwell in what Parish or Diocess he please without asking leave of the Bishop to remove 7. The individuating or distinguâ—shing of particular Churches by peculiar Circuits or proper spaces of ground is no further of Gods institution than it is the performance of the general commands of doing all in order to edification c. And as in prosperous times under godly peaceable Princes it is greatly convenient and desirable so in several cases of Division Church-corruption by Heresie or Tyranny Persecution c. it is inconvenient and it becomes a necessary duty to gather Churches in the same space of ground where only some other Pastor had a Church before The cases in which this is lawful and the cases in which Separation is unlawful having written largely in another paper I shall offer it to you when you desire it 8. It is not of absolute necessity that all the members of a particular Church do always or usually meet in one place though it be very convenient and desirable where it may be done for Persecution may prohibit it or want of a large capacious place or the great dâ—stance of some of the Inhabitants or the age or weakness of others and therefore in the ancient Churches though at first they usually were all assembled in one place yet after when they encreased the Canons required all the people to assemble with the Bishop but at certain chief Festivals in the year having Chappels or Oratories in the Villages where they mâ—t on other days And with us many Parishes of great extent have many Chappels of ease 9. But that the end of the Association be not only for distanâ— communion by Delegates or Letters or meer relation to one common Ruler as all the Empire had to the Emperour but for PERSONAL COMMVNION of Pastor and Flock so that they may at least per vices meet together or live within the reach of each others personal notice and converse and Communion in
of Salvation such could not be brought to Faith Holiness and Salvation for want of teaching it is yet my sin to preach to them and my duty to let them rather be damned if I have not the Bishops consent to teach them and that because it is the Bishop and not I that shall answer for their damnation VIII That it is disputable with you whether those to whom Church power is given viz. Diocesans may not change not only the local temporary circumstances but the very Church-forms and suspend Laws of Christ. IX That Baptism entreth the Baptized into some particular Church and consequently under this fore-described Church-Government X. That in the case of Preaching the Gospel Ministers may in many cases do it though Emperours and Kings forbid them as in the days of Constantius Valens yea and better men but not if the Bishop forbid them or consent not XI That circa Sacra if the King command the Churches for Uniformity one Translation of the Bible one Version or Meter of the Psalms one Liturgy one Time or Place of Worship c. and the Bishop another we ought to obey the Bishop against the command of the King XII That the required Subscriptions Declarations Rubricks and Canons are primarily the Laws of the Church which the King and Parliament do confirm by their Sanction and therefore the Church is the Expounder of them These are some of your Assertions which I cannot yet receive I. My Reasons against the first are these 1. Because this maketh Gods of men and so is Idolatry giving them Gods proper Power and Prerogative 2. Yea it taketh down God or his Laws and setteth them above him For there cannot be two Absolute Governors that have not one Will. If I must not appeal from them to God then I must appeal from God to them that is I must break his Law if they bid me or else they are not Absolute 3. This maketh all Gods Laws at the will of maâ— as alterable or dispensible Man may forbid all that God commandeth and I must obey 4. Then all Villanies may be made Virtues or Duties at the will of man If they command us to curse God or Blaspheme or be perjured or commit Fornication Murder or Idolatry it would become a Duty 5. Then the Power and Lives of Kings would be at the Clergies mercy For if their power be Absolute they may make Treason and Rebellion a Duty 6. And all Family-Societies and Civil Converse migbt be overthrown while an Absolute Clergy may disoblige men from all duty to one another 7. Then the Council at Lateran which you have excellently proved in your Considerations to be the Author of its Canons doth or did oblige Princes to exterminate their Reformed Subjects and disoblige Subjects from their Allegiance to Princes that obey not the Pope herein and are excommunicate So of Greg. 7 th's Council Rom. 8. Then did the Church or Kingdom of England well to disobey or forsake the Roman Power that was over them 9. Were not our Martyrs rather Rebels that died for disobeying an Absolute Power 10. How should two contradicting Absolute Powers viz. General Councils be both obeyed E. g Nicen. 1. and Arimini Sirm. and Tyr. or Ephes. 2 and Calced 11. How will this stand with the Judgment and practice of the Apostles that said Whether it be meet that we obey God or man judg ye 12. How will it stand with Conformity to the Church of England that in the Articles saith that General Councils may err and have erred in matter of Faith c. 13. Is it not against the sense of all mankind even the common Light of Nature where utter Atheism hath not prevailed Say not that I wrong you by laying all this odium on your self I lay it but on your words And I doubt not but though disputing Interest draw such words from you on consideration you will re-call them by some limitations II. My Reasons against your second must pre-suppose that we understand one another as to the sense of the word Diocesan Church which being your â—erm had I been with you I must have desired you first to explain The word Diocess of old you know signified a part of the Empire larger than a Province and that had many Metropolitans in it I suppose that is not your sense Sometimes now it is taken for that space of ground which we call a Diocess sometimes for all the people in that space And with us a Diocesan Church is a Church of the lowest Order containing in it a multitude of fixed Parochial Congregations which have every one their stated Presbyter who is no Bishop and Vnum altare and are no Churches but parts of a Church and which is individuated by one Bishop and the measuring-space of ground whose inhabitants are its Members Till you tell me the contrary I must take this for your sense For you profess to me that you speak of such Diocesan Churches as ours and they have some above a thousand others many hundred Parishes and you say our Parishes are not Churches but Parts of a Church and so Families are 2. Either you mean that a Diocesan Church is the first in order of Execution and Existence or else in order of Intention and so last in Existence and Execution I know not your meaning and therefore must speak to both I. That a Diocesan Church is first in Intention is denied by me and disproved though it belong to you to prove it 1. Intentions no where declared of God in mature or supernatural Revelations are not to be asserted of him as Truths But a prime intention of a Diocesan Church is no where declared of God Ergo not to be asserted of him as truth 2. It is the end or ultimum rei complementum which is first in intention where there is ordo intentionis But a Diocesan Church is not the end or ultimum rei complementum Ergo not first intended The Major is not deniable The Minor hath the consent as far I as know of all the world For they are all either for the Hierarchy or against it They that are for it say that a Metropolitan is above a Diocesan and a Provincial above a Metropolitan and a Patriarchal above a Provincial and a National which hath Patriarchs as the Empire had above that and â—ay the new Catholicks an humane universal above a National Church as the complement or perfection and therefore must be first intended But those that are against the Hierarchy think that all these are Church-corruptions or humane policies set up by Usurpation and therefore not of prime Divine Intention 3. If you should go this way I would first debate the question with you how far there is such a thing as ordo intentionis to be ascribed to God For though St. Thomas as you use to call him assert such intentions it is with many limitations and others deny it and all confess that it needeth much Explication to be
the ruin of their worldly Estates and the hazard of their lives in the Common Goals endeavour nothing but to Preach Christs Gospel to save mens souls from ignorance unbelief sensuality worldliness c. in case of the peoples undeniable necessity I say when such meet with men of the same profession who think not the Common Goals among Rogues and the forfeiture of Forty pound a Sermon as Enacted by Law to be enough to restrain them but also as in the name of Christ they will charge us with heinous sin unless we will perfidiously break our obligations to Christ and sacrilegiously alienate our selves from the work which we are devoted to many of us under the Bishops hands and unless we will be cruel to miserable souls and shut up the bowels of our compassion from them while we see them in need and in danger of damnation what fortitude do we need against such kind of Tempters and such Temptations If Drunkards and boys in the street only scorn'd me as a Puritan or Precisian it were less If Turkish Rulers did persecute me for my Preaching Christ it were less If mistaken Christian Rulers made me the scorn of the Nation and stript me of all my worldly maintenance and laid me with Malefactors in Prisons it were a less temptation than for a man to come in the name of Christ to tell me that I sin against him unless I will forsake my Calling break my Vows cease Preaching his Gospel betray thousands of souls to Satan and damnation and encourage all that endeavour it by yielding to all their temptations and giving them success But as Christ must be accused of sin as well as crucified and not allowed the honour of suffering as innocent so must his servants I will venture upon one argument on the by that may be somewhat by others though nothing to you for the invalidating of your accusation I saw from the hands of a Noble Lord an excellent truly Learned Manuscript said by him to be the Bishop of Lincolns to satisfie you who are said to judg it unlawful to subscribe to Athanasius's Creed What else you refuse I know not but by that much I perceive you are a strange kind of Nonconformist Now if it be unlawful for you to subscribe and conform or unlawful for me which I here undertake to prove before any equal competent Judges then it is unlawful for all the Ministers of England for none of them may do evil that good may come by it And then all the Ministers in England ought to cease Preaching if I ought to cease when they are forbidden The consequence will be denied by others though not by you And by the way How can you take the Bishops for Absolute from whom there is no appeal to an invisible power and yet disobey them if they bid you subscribe Athanasius Creed If it be a sin in me not to cease Preaching when I am silenced for Nonconformity and yet Nonconformity be a duty then it is a sin in all the Ministers of England not to be Nonformists and so not to cease Preaching But the latter part of the consequent is false Ergo so is the Antecedent 2. Yea directly your assertion puts it in the power of one superior to put down the Preaching of the Gospel and all Gods publick Worship in whole Countries or Kingdoms if not in the world and so Christ must be at their mercy whether he shall have any Church and so whether he shall be Christ and God whether he shall have any publick Worship In Ethiopia though Brierwood saith that yet after the decay of the Abassine Empire it is as big as Italy Germany France and Spain they have but one Bishop called their Abuna And if he forbad all Preaching or publick Worship in the Empire it is a sin to obey him And it is a great duty to gather Churches within his Church It is a sin in the Empire of Muscovie that all their Clergy obey their Patriarch and Prince in forbearing to Preach If all the Bishops of England should agree to reduce the Kingdom to one only Bishoprick and one Church and turn all the rest into Parish-Chappels it were a duty to disobey them and gather Churches in that one Church If the Patriarch of Alexandria Antioch or Constantinople had forbidden all in their limits to Preach and worship God publickly it had been a wickedness to obey them When Severus Antioch the Eutychian forbad the Orthodox to Preach in his Patriarchate it had been their sin to obey him yea or if Theodosius or Anastasius the Emperours had done it yea though a General Council of Ephes. 2. if not Ephes. 1. was on his side If the Pope whether as Pope or as Patriarch of the West Interdict all the Preachers and Churches in Venice or in Britain it were a sin to obey him The reasons are because their power is derived and limited to pass by the no power of Usurpers the greatest have it for edification and not for destruction None of them have power to make void the least continued Law of God by their Doctrines Precepts or Traditions All men must take heed of the leven of their false Doctrine and must beware of false Prophets and must prove all things and hold fast that which is good There is no true power but of God and therefore none against him It is better to obey God than men But of this you may in season have larger proof if you desire it VI. Your excluding us from Salvation that will not cease Preaching the Gospel of Salvation and worshipping God remembreth us 1. What a mercy it is that neither Pope nor any such condemner is made our final Judg. 2. How most Sects agree Papists Quakers c. in damning those that dance not after their Pipe 3. What various wiles of temptations Satan useth to hinder Christs Gospel and mens Salvation At once I have 1. A backward flesh that is the worst of all that saith Favour thy self and expose not thy self to all this labour obloquie hatred suffering loss and danger of death for nothing but that work which thy superiours think needless and forbid 2. I feel Satan setting in with the flesh and saying the same 3. Carnal and worldly friends say the same as Peter to Christ Mat. 16. 4. Displeased Sinners and Sectaries wish me silent 5. What Superiors say and do I need not mention 6. And to perfect all some Preachers in Press and Pulpit and you in Discourse declare us in danger of damnation as Schismaticks unless we will give over Preaching the Gospel O how easie were it to me to avoid that damnation And if I incur it how dearly do I purchase it It is a sad case that such poor souls as we are in that would fain know Gods will whatever study or suffering it cost us and after our most earnest search and prayers believe that if we forsook our trust and office and the peoples souls we
perceive from whom they come when the damnation of poor people must be so easily submitted to if the Bishop do but command the means Methinks you wrong the Bishops by such odious Suppositions and Assertions as if you would make men believe that they are the Grievous Wolves that spare not the flock and the thorns and thistles that are made to prick and rend the people But I believe that the Bishops faultiness in mens damnation would be no exeuse to me if I be accessory 4. And I doubt not but if you unjustly ipso facto Excommunicate men it neither depriveth them of the right nor absolveth them from the duty of publick Worship and Church-Communion And I am ashamed to read and hear Preachers publickly reproaching them for not holding constant Communion with the Parish-Churches when it 's notorious that the Canon hath thus Excommunicated them yea though it were their duty sometime to intrude And I beseech you judg as a Christian or a man whether you can think such Arguments should draw the people themselves to be of your mind Go to them and speak out Neighbours I confess that while you live in ignorance and sin for want of teaching and publick worship you are in the way to damnation but it is the Bishop and not the silenced Preacher that shall answer for it Will they not reply And shall not the Bishop then he damned instead of us as well as instead of the silenced Preacher VIII Your doubt about mens power to change Christs setled form of Church-government is but a consequent of your first of mens absolute power But 1. if they change Gods Laws or instituted Church-forms or Government may they not change their own And if so there is some hope of a Reformation But why then did the Canons of 1640. in the Et caetera Oath swear the Clergy never to consent to change And why are we now to swear in the Oxford Oath That we will never endeavour any alteration of Church-Government tho' the keys be in the power of Lay-Chancellors and tho' the King may command us to endeavour it must the Nation or Clergy swear never in their own places to endeavour any alteration of the Bishops Institutions as you take them and yet may the Bishops alter the very Form of Government and Churches made by our Universal King 2. What an uncertain mutable thing may Christs Laws or Church-Government prove while mutable men may change it at their pleasure 3. To what purpose is Antiquity and Tradition so much pleaded by Hierarchical Divines as if that were the Test to know the right Government and Church if the Bishops may alter it 4. If thus much of Christs Laws and Institutions may be altered by Prelates how shall we be sure that all the rest is not also at their will and mercy or which is it that they may alter and which not 5. Doth not this set man so far above God or equal with him as will still tempt men to think that more are Antichristian than the Pope If you say that it is by Gods own grant I wait for your proof that God granteth power to any man above his Laws Those that he made but Local or Temporary himself are not abrogated or changed by man where they bind not for they never bound any but their proper subjects e. g. The Iewish Laws as such never bound the Gentile world and the command of washing feet bound only thâ—se where the use of going bare-leg'd with Sandals in a hot Country made it an office of kindness and so of other Temporary precepts 6. How contrary is this to the common Christian Doctrine that we must obey none that command us to sin against God For by the first assertion and this it seemeth that it cannot be a sin which the Bishops command 7. I pray you put in an exception for the Power and Lives of Kings and the Laws of the Land and the Property and Liberty of the Subjects and one word for the Protestant Religion For we English-men think God to be greater than the King or St. Patrick and Gods Laws to be firmer than the Statutes of King and Parliament And yet I doubt that the King and some Parliament will be angry if you do but say that the Bishops by consent may change their Statutes or lawful Officers and Powers And Bishops if you say that Episcopacy may be changed IX Baptism as such entereth not the Baptized into any particular Church but only into the Vniversal headed by Christ yet a man may at the same time be entered into the Vniversal and into a particular Church but that is by a double consent and not by Baptism as such In this I know none that agree with you but some few of the Independents in new-New-England and some of the Papists I confess Bellarmine saith That by Baptism we are virtually obliged to the Pope being baptized by a Ministry and into a Church of which he is the Head But the contrary is proved 1. From the express form of the Baptismal Covenant which only tyeth us to Christ and his Universal Church and maketh us Christians But to be a Christian dedicated to the Father Son and Holy Ghost is one thing and to be a part of the Pastoral Charge of A. B. or N. N. is another thing 2. What particular Church was the Eunuch Act. 8. baptized into Not that of Ierusalem for he was going from it never like to see it more Not that in Ethiopia for there was none till he began it If you say of Philips Church 1. I pray you where was that 2. And how prove you it 3. Specially if it was Philip the Deacon that had no Church being no Bishop 3. May not men be baptized in Turkey or among other Infidels or Indians where there is no Church And is the first baptized man among them a Church himself Paul thanketh God that he baptized no more of the Corinthians lest they should think that he baptized into his own name And doth every Baptizer baptize to himself or to his Bishop A man may baptize out of all Diocesses or in another's X. As to your next Assertion I grant that when a Bishop or a beggar speaketh the Commands of God and a King speaketh against it we must follow that Bishop or beggar rather than the King because this is but obeying God before men But supposing that it is a thing indifferent and but circa sacra and not a proper part of the Agent Pastors Office I confess to you I will obey the King before the Bishop 1. Because it is a thing that is under the Power of the King to command and if so the King is the Supreme and not the Bishop 2. Bishops themselves are Subjects of the King and owe him obedience Therefore rule not over or before him in matters belonging to his Office 3. Bishops are chosen by the King for I suppose no man takes the Dean and Chapters choice for