not savouring the things of God but of men for dissuading his Master from going up to Ierusalem The means as well as the intention must be good if we would have our actions pleasing to God We grant God may and doth often bring good out of evil but that is no thanks to those that doe it Evil can naturally produce nothing but evil It must be no lese than the infinite Wisdom and Almighty power of God that must over-rule it into good As good Ends cannot justifie Evil means so neither will evil beginnings ever bring forth good conclusions unless God by a miracle of mercy create light out of darkness order out of confusion and peace out of our passions And as he hath not allowed us to doe any evil for the obtaining or procuring of the greatest good so he needs it not Wilt thou speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for him q. d. his cause his glory needs not any â—in of ours to promote it He will never thank any man for seeking his honour by sinfull means he can get himself glory and save mens souls otherwise He will say as Achish Have I need of mad-men that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad-man in my presence The way God hath taught us to gorifie him by in seeking or procuring the salvation of our own or the souls of others is always to doe that which is good and though he can bring good out of evil yet he never Commands ordains or allows our evil for that end But such Preaching and Meetings as are in question are sinfull acts Which will appear as by other reasons which shall be shewed hereafter so in this place onely because they are done in disobedience and opposition to the known Laws of the Church and Kingdom wherein we live and which we stand bound in Conscience towards God to observe and obey I begin with the Laws of the Church The Eleventh Canon of the Church of England saith Whosoever shall affirm or maintain that there are in this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the King's born-subjects than by the Laws of this Realm are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the names of true and lawfull Churches Let him be excommunicated and not restored but by the Arch-bishop after his repentance and revocation of such his wicked errour The sense of this Canon is large and comprehensive and contains in it virtually a prohibition of all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations whatsoever which are not allowed by the Laws of the Land as the Meetings in question will and God willing shall be made appear to be Neither can it be restrained onely if at all to any other Meetings than such as are under pretence of joyning in religious worship not authorized by the Laws of the Land which according to the title of the Canon are called Conventicles for there can be no other unlawfull Meetings so called for any other end but onely these two viz. First for Ministers and Lay-men or either of them to joyn together to make Rules Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's authority And that is censured and forbidden as unlawfull in the twelfth Canon Or else Secondly to consult about a course to be taken to impeach or deprave the Doctrine of the Church of England the book of Common Prayer or any part of the Government or Discipline established in the Church And this is forbidden under pain of Excommunication in the 73 Canon Any other end for any other unlawfull Meeting or Assembly other than what is aforesaid cannot easily be imagined therefore unless we will make the Reverend Pious and Learned Authors and Composers of those Canons and Constitutions which are so solemnly established by Supreme authority guilty of a gross tautology this Canon flatly prohibits all Meetings Assemblies or Congregations except the publick which are commanded and allowed by the Laws of the Land of any manner of persons in private houses or elsewhere which under pretence of religious worship take upon them to be called Churches Besides it is expressed in such terms as are commonly competible to none but such Meetings as are under pretence of religious worship What other Meetings are commonly called Congregations or do challenge to themselves the name of Churches but such Meetings as are in question The place and order of the Canon do prove the same for immediately after the impugners of the King's Supremacy the publick worship of God Articles of Religion Rites and Ceremonies Government established in the Church of England the Authours of Schism and maintainers of Schismaticks in the Church are censured is subjoyned this Canon censuring Conventicles as being the Nursery of all the former In the 71 Canon all Ministers whatsoever are forbidden to preach or administer the holy Communion in any private house except in be in time of necessity when any is either so impotent as that he cannot go to the Church or very dangerously sick under pain of Excommunication In the 72 Canon it is ordained that no Minister whatsoever shall without licence from the Bishop of the Diocese first obtained and had under his hand and seal presume to appoint any meetings for Sermons or Exercises in Market-Towns or other places either publickly or in private houses under pain of Suspension for tho first fault Excommunication for the second and Deposition for the third Now if a Minister may not doe this in his own Parish but onely in a case of necessity much less may a stranger intrude himself into another man's Parish where there is a Preaching Ministry established by Law and there set up a course of private house-preaching administring of Sacraments and performance of all Ministerial acts where there can be no need of his so doing so much as pretended But is will be thought by some that the Laws and Constitutions of the Church are not so greatly to be regarded as that the breach of them should be sinfull and that her Canons lay no such obligation on Conscience as that the neglect of their observation and contrary practice should be criminal Nay such is the state and condition of our times that is is rather thought a vertue to despise them than any fault to disobey them And they are reputed most pure and holy who with greatest boldness quarrel and cavil against the Authority Government and Lawfull Precepts of the Church Yet certainly the judgment and practice of Christians in former ages was otherwise When vertue and true piety did more abound they made more conscience of observing the Precepts and Constitutions of the Church which were made for decency order and good government And if any frowardly wilfully or constantly lived in any opposition or contrariety thereunto they were adjudged as evil doers Nec his quisquam contradicit quisquis sane vel tenuiter expertus est quae sunt jura Ecclesiastica And truly I see not why the same regard and respect
safe for any to follow such a President The Apostle pronounceth a woe to them that walk in the way of Cain Those that walk in his way can expect no less than to arrive at the place whither he is gone before And if ye would know who they are that so walk the Apostle tells you these are they that separare themselves Pareus his gloss on the words are not unworthy observation Quia sibi ipsi fâ—â—gunt peculiarem cultum ideo sese segregant ab eorum Ecclesia ac coetu They feign to themselves a peculiar way and manner of worship therefore they will not joyn with us in ours but withdraw from our assemblies as if he had purposely described the humour of the men of our times However such may pretend to the Spirit as if they were more Sanctified than their Brethren yet the Apostle by infallible guidance pronounceth them Sensual not having the Spirit And that is the reason they keep the Unity of the Church no better For as Fulgentius saith Tales itaque faciles sunt ad divisionem quia spiritum non habent in quo uno membra Christi charam servant Spiritualiter unitatem Such persons are prone to all divisions because they have not that Spirit in whom alone all the Members of Christ do Spiritually keep Unity among themselves as a dear and pretious thing As the Soul in man's Body doth cease to quicken any Member sundred from the Body and the scattered bones in Ezekiel's Vision received no life till they were incorporated and knit together in one by Sinews Flesh and Skin so the Spirit of God which is the Soul of this mystical Body denies the derivation of Grace and Comfort to those that separate themselves from it If they say we are a true Church and that they and their Party separating from us and meeting in private assemblies are a Church also and so they do not separate and withdraw themselves from the Church Then I say that their Church in that case refusing Communion with ours is at least a distinct Church from ours and so there are two Churches of England in this Nation And so they make Christ to have two bodies distinct under one head which is contrary to sundry plain Texts of Scripture Though there be threescore Queens and fourscore Concubines and Virgins without number yet my Dove my undefiled is but one We being many are one body in Christ. And As the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so is Christ. Again There is one Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith c. And is Christ divided There cannot be two such opposite Churches in one Nation but one of them must needs be an Harlot and not the Spouse of Christ. And that their Church as they call it and not ours is so may easily be made to appear to any man that will vouchsafe to weigh matters in the balance of Reason and Judgment The whole World is divided betwixt God and the Devil there is not a third Party that can challenge any share in the Race of mankind All Societies and Companies of Men and Women in the world are either the Church of Christ or the Synagogue of Satan Rev. 3. 9. An assembly of Saints or a congregation of evil doers Psal. 26. 5. And that theirs is not the Church of Christ appears thus Those assemblies or congregations where there is no true and lawfull Pastor nor true and lawfull Flock are not the Churches of Christ but of Satan for as it hath been shewed before out of the Scriptures and Fathers a lawfull Minister and a Flock or Congregation of People lawfully committed to his charge make up a Church that is the definition of a particular Church But their Churches as they call them have neither true and lawfull Pastors nor Flocks therefore they are not the Churches of Christ but the Synagogues of Satan and Congregations of evil doers That they have no true and lawfull Pastors is â—lear 1. Because many of them that head those unlawfull meetings and assemblies were never ordained by Prayer and Imposition of hands as by Gospel-Rules they ought to be but are mere Lay-men that take upon them to preach and perform Ministerial Duties that were never called thereunto This is true not onely in the assemblies of the Quakers but of others also by what name soever they may be called that separate from our Churches I know it to be so in divers places 2. Those of them that were ordained are as to the execution of their Ministry committed to them in their Ordination during the time of their Non-conformity under a legal suspension by the highest and fullest Power and Authority of this Nation to which we are all bound in Conscience to be in Subjection 3. Suppose that neither of the former were true yet they are not true and lawfull Pastors of those that flock after them seeing they have not the Pastoral cure and care of the Souls of any of them committed to their charge by any that under God have Authority in the Church but are commanded to contain themselves in quietness and silence And that they have no true and lawfull Flocks in their Congregations appears in this that their Assemblies Congregations consist altogether of wandring Sheep that are gone astray from their own lawfull Pastors and sinfully separated from the Congregations and Flocks to which of right they belong and gathered together into a Schismatical and separate meeting and Society and so make up a Congregation of evil doers and Synagogue of Satan If this were rightly and seriously considered I think it would startle the minds and shake the confidence of many of them who bless themselves in their new-found way of Religion and Worship boast of their number and compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes that at least they might be equally the Children of Hell with themselves If they say our Church is corrupt we have that amongst us that we should not have or not that which we ought to have I say then First Suppose it be so which I think will yet require more pains than have yet been bestowed to prove yet let them consider what Peter Martyr judiciously saith Non ob quamcunque maculam Christi Ecclesiam ita Excidere ut Dei non amplius appelletur Every little blemish in the face of a Church cannot cast her off from being God's The Church in Canticles is said to be fair as the Moon which in the Hebrew Tongue is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lebanah for her whiteness and bright shining And yet the Moon is not so white but still some spots remain therein and even uncapable of illumination from the Sun Coelum ipsum nulla serenitas tam colata purgat ut non alicujus nubeculae flocculo resignetur In the clearest Heaven some specled
Name of God agreed on by Common-consent and without any Contradiction of the Scripture although they are not of the same Authority with the Scriptures Yet I beleive even those things to be from THE HOLY GHOST Hinc fit ut quae sunt hujusmodi c. Hence it comes to pass that those things which are of this nature I neither will disallow nor dare I with a good Conscience Quis enim ego sum c. For who am I that I should dissallow that which the whole Church approves of So far that worthy Authour The next whose judgment in this case I shall produce is Mr. Calvin in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Corinthians Quinetiam hinc colligere promptum est has posteriores scilicet Ecclesiae Leges non esse habendas pro humanis traditionibus quandoquidem fundatae sint in hoc generali mandato liquidam approbationem habent quasi ex ore CHRISTI IPSIVS Where shewing the difference betwixt the tyrannical Edicts of the Pope and the Laws of the true Church in which discipline and order are contained he saith Whence it is easie to be gathered that the Laws of the Church are not to be accounted humane traditions seeing they are founded upon the general precept of the Apostle and have as clear an approbation as if they had been delivered from the mouth of Christ Himself For saith he elsewhere Dico sic esse humanam traditionem ut simul sit divina It is so an humane tradition as that it is also divine Dei est quatenus est pars deeoris illius cujus cura observatio nobis per Apostolum commendatur hominum autem quatenus simpliciter designat quod in genere fuit indicatum magis quam expositum It is of God fo far forth as it is a part of that order and decency the care and observation whereof is commanded and commended to us by the Apostle It is of men so far forth as it simply names or signifies that which was in general uttered rather that particularly expounded Take a third testimony from that burning and shining Light of the French Church Licet quae a regia aliis Legitimis petestatibus rite praecipiuntur sunt de jure positivo quod tamen illis postquam ita constitutae sunt pareatur est de jure divino cum Legitimae potestates omnes a Deo sint Deique vices in suo ordine teneant dumque illis obedimus eorumque praecepta observamus Deo pariter in illis paremus Deique praeceptum voluntatem exequimur Although those things which are commanded by the King's Authority or other lawfull Powers under him are of positive right Yet it is of divine institution that we should obey them in those things which they command seeing all lawfull Powers are of God and supply the place of God in their several orders Therefore while we obey them and keep their Commandments we obey God in them and so fulfill the Will and Command of God Learned Beza shall be the next that shall give in his verdict to this truth Nam etsi Conscientias proprie solus Deus ligat c. For although God alone can properly bind the Conscience yet so far as the Church with respect to order and decency and thereby to Edification doth rightly enjoyn or make Laws those Laws are to be observed by all pious persons and they do so far bind the Conscience as that no man wittingly and willingly with a purpose to disobey can either doe what is so forbidden or omit what is so commanded without Sin To these above named add we in the last place the verdict of our own learned and judicious Mr. Hooker To the Laws saith he thus made id est according to the general Law of Nature and without contradiction to the positive Law of Scripture and received by a whole Church they which live within the bosome of that Church must not think it a matter of indifference either to yield or not to yield obedience Is it a small offence to despise the Church of God My son keep thy Father's Commandments saith Solomon and forget not thy Mothers instructions bind them both always about thine heart It doth not stand with the duty we owe to our heavenly Father that to the ordinance of our Mother the Church we should shew our selves disobedient Let us not say we keep the Commandments of one when we break the Laws of the other For unless we observe both we obey neither And what doth let but that we may observe both when they are not one to the other in any sort repugnant Yea which is more the Laws of the Church thus made God himself doth in such sort authorize that to despise them is to despise in them him Thus far that most judicious Authour Yea one of the reformed Churches have put it into their very Confession That those Laws of the Church deserve to be esteemed divine rather than humane Constitutions From all which it appears that Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions are not merely man's Laws but God's also both because they are composed and framed by those Fathers by divine Authority and have their general foundation in Scripture and also because they are ordained for the Glory of God for Edification order and decency of the Church and the better fulfilling and keeping the Laws of God For as we have a Command from Christ to tell the Church when any one is refractary and perverse So have they which are complained of to the Church that Command from Christ also to hear the Voice of God in the Church and in disobeying the Church they disobey God And if Children and Servants are bound by the Law of God to obey their Parents and Masters in all things that are reasonable honest and just and in their obedience they obey and serve God himself Eph. 6. 1. Col. 3. 20. 24. Tit. 2. 9. 10. then it can be no less pleasing to God that Christians who live in the bosome of the Church should be obedient and conformable unto the lawfull Precepts and Constitutions of their spiritual Mother the Church of Christ and the Rulers thereof It is very truly said by Calvin Semper nimia morositas est ambitiosa A frowardness and aptness to quarrell with the proceedings of the Church is accompanied with ambition and pride It is not because the Church takes too much power on her but because they would be under none It is ambition to have all Government in their own hands that is the Cause why some will not be subject to any All which hath been said of this matter is agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church of England who in her twentieth Article saith The Church hath power to decree and make Laws So in her 34th Article That whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the word of
God offendeth against the Common order of the Church hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Conscience of the weak Brethren Where by traditions I suppose is meant the Laws and Canons of the Church as the words following do intimate which speak of the Common order of the Church and Authority of the Magistrate Thus much of the Laws of the Church Neither are such meetings onely against the Laws of the Church but against sundry statute Laws of the Kingdom also in that behalf made and provided In the Statute of 35 Eliz. 1. It is provided that if any person or persons above 16 years old shall refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer to hear divine Service and receive the Communion or come to and be present at any Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes And if any person shall obstinately refuse to repair to some Church Chapel or usual place of Common-prayer or by any motion persuasion inticement or allurement of any other willingly joyn in or be present at any such Assemblies Conventicles or Meetings under Colour or pretence of any such Exercise of Religion contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as is aforesaid which refers to other Statutes formerly made and yet of force against Conventicles as well as this one shall be committed to prison and there remain without bail untill be conform and untill he make an open Submission in the words set down in the Statute viz. I. A. B. do humbly acknowledge and confess that I have grievously offended God in contemning her Majesties Godly and lawfull Government and Authority by absenting my self from Church and from hearing divine Service contrary to the godly Laws and Statutes of this Realm and in using and frequenting unlawfull and disorderly Conventicles and Assemblies under Colour and pretence of Exercise of Religion And I am heartily sorry for the same c. And I do promise and protest without any dissimulation that from henceforth I will from time to time obey and perform her Majesties Laws and Statutes in repairing to Church and hearing divine Service and doe my utmost endeavour to maintain and defend the same Neither can it be pretended as it is by some that this Statute was made or stands in force against any other sort of People than those in question viz. against Popish recusants onely and not against Protestant dissenters as they call themselves The answer is easie out of the words of the said Statute For in the beginning of the Statute the Persons that are concerned in obedience to it are expressed in these general and large words Any person or persons whatsoever above the Age of 16 which shall refuse to repair to Church and willingly join in and be present at any Conventicle or Meeting c. Which words comprehend and take in Persons of all Religions Sects and Persuasions whatsoever And whereas the penalty of the Statute to all that shall refuse Obedience and Conformity to it is abjuration of the Realm or to be proceeded against as Felons There is a Proviso toward the End of the Statute that sixeth the penalty altogether upon Protestant recusants and not on Popish In these words Provided that no Popish recusant or feme Covert shall be compelled or bound to abjure by virtue of this Act. And lest the Popish recusants should be the onely Persons therein meant or intended the Conventiclers of our Age make themselves more perfect Recusants than that Statute supposeth For whereas that makes absence from the Prayers of the Church for one Month together a Crime sufficient to render them obnoxious to the penalties of that Act these men for the most part withdraw themselves for many Years together and for ought I see if they are let alone resolve so to doe all the days of their lives In Anno 22. Caroli 2di Regis there was a Statute made to prevent and suppress seditious Conventicles as the Title of that Statute truly calls them wherein Every Person of the Age of 16 years and upward that shall be present at any Assembly Conventicle or Meeting under Colour or pretence of any Exercise of Religion in other manner that according to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England in any place within the Kingdom of England Dominion of Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed at which Conventicle or meeting there shall be 5 persons or more assembled together is made liable to suffer the penalties of 5 s for his first fault and for his second 10 s and so onward the Preacher to suffer the penalty of 20 ll And the owner of the house or ground that shall wittingly and willingly suffer such Conventicle Meeting or unlawfull Assembly to be held to suffer the penalty of 20 ll In the late Act for Uniformity all Non-conformist Ministers and disabled and prohibited from preaching any Sermon or Lecture indefinitely either publick or private And for as much as the King's Majesty by the Law of God and the Land of right is and ought to be master of all the assemblings together of any of his Subjects therefore what Meetings soever are not allowed and authorized by the Laws of the Realm are adjudged by the Learned in the Laws to fall within the compass of those Statutes that forbid and punish Riots and unlawfull Assemblies and are or may justly be presumed to be in terrorem populi and in the Event it is to be feared will prove to be contrary to the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King And by the Law all the King's Liege-people are commanded to assist in the suppressing of them upon pain of imprisonment and to make fine and ransome to the King Notwithstanding all which good Laws this practice hath continued in the Church these several years and still doth notwithstanding His Majesties reinforcement of their execution by his late Proclamation in open defiance and contempt of all Authority as if the Laws of the Church and Realm were but fulmen inane a shadow of a Cloud that vanisheth as soon as it is made and as if obedience to Magistracy were no part of Christian duty Concerning these Laws of the Realm to silence clamour I will touch lightly at five things I. That the King being next under God within his Dominions supreme in the Church on Earth hath Power and Authority over the Persons of Ministers as well as of any other his Subjects He being Custos utriusque tabulae having both tables committed to him as well the first that concerns our religious duties to God as the other that concerns our civil duties to men may and ought to make such laws as conduce as well to the peace and order in the Church as as godliness and honesty Pertinet hoc ad reges seculi Christianos ut temporibus suis pacatam velint matrem suam Ecclesiam unde
Ordinances of Christ in unity and uniformity as far as is possible Which our Liturgy sets up by prescribing the manner of it Whereas otherwise all will be left to the chance of mens wills which saith Doctour Hammond can no more be thought like to concur in one form than Democritus's Atomes to have met together into a world of beautifull Creatures without any kind of providence to dispose them For the Scriptures call for unity and uniformity as well as purity and verity And surely it is not impossible to obtain this so much desired unity and uniformity because that God hath promised that his Children shall serve him with one heart and with one way and with one shoulder And that in the days of the Gospel there shall be one Lord and his Name one And Christ hath prayed that we may be all one as the Father is in him and he in the Father And he adds a most prevalent reason That the World may believe that thou hast sent me Nothing hinders the propagation of the Gospel so much as the division and separation of Gospel-professours If it be God's promise and Christ's prayer it is certainly a thing possible to be obtained and a duty incumbent upon all good Christians to labour after Secondly as it cannot be denyed that the Civil Magistrate hath authority over the persons of Ministers so 't is as true that he hath power to act for the regulation of all their Ecclesiastical meetings and assemblies though not to act in sacris Yet circa sacra non ad docendum quod est sacerdotale yet ad jubendum quod est regale As Constantine the Emperour told the Bishops whom he invited to a banquet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ye are Bishops within the Church and I am ordained by God's Grace a Bishop without the Church That the King of England saith Sir Henry Spelman is persona mixta endowed as well with Ecclesiastical authority as with temporal is not onley a solid position of the Common Law of this Land but confirmed unto us by the continual practice of our ancient Kings ever since and before the Conquest even in hottest times of Popish fervency For this cause at their Coronation they are not onely Crowned with the Diadem of the Kingdom and girt with the Sword of justice to signisie their temporal authority but are anointed also with the oil of Priesthood and cloathed stola Sacerdotali and veste Dalmatica to demonstrate this their Ecclesiastical jurisdiction whereby the King is said to be in Law the Supremus ordinarius and in regard thereof among other Ecclesiastical rights and prerogatives belonging to him is to have all the tithes through the Kingdom in the places that are not of any Parish for some such there be and namely divers Forests Magistrates we grant can neither preach the word nor administer the Sacraments any more than Vzziah could burn incense or offer Sacrifice to God Yet they are nursing Fathers of the Church not to give the milk of the word and Sacraments but of disclipline and Government During the old Testament times the King's power extended to the instituting and commanding of such Religious meetings as do no where appear to be either instituted or commanded of God or his Servant Moses v. g. The solemnity of the Passover which was to be kept by the Law of Moses but seven days by a special Command of King Hezekiah with the consent of the people was commanded to be kept other seven days The Feast of Purim in Commemoration of the deliverance of the Nation of the Iews under Ahasuerus the Persian King was instituted by Hester and Mordecai Moses onely Commanded one day of Fasting to be yearly observed viz. in the seventh month But the Kings and Magistrates of the people instituted other yearly solemn Fasts So that in the times of the latter Prophets there were four yearly Fasts observed viz. besides that yearly in the seventh month three others in the fourth fifth and tenth month Now if they may by their authority institute and enlarge why not then as well abridge and restrain Provided the publick assembling together of God's people according to Divine appointment be no-way prejudiced or infringed If the Magistrate may appoint then he may forbid too Law reason and sense teach that appointing and forbidding belong to one power Thirdly neither can there be any ground of quarrell made against the justness of these Laws forbidding Conventicles For as it is well observed by a worthy Divine before me that Law is undoubtedly just in which there is a concurrence of the justice of these four causes of Law wherein the whole of a Law doth consist viz. the justice of the final efficient formal and material causes of Laws 1. The final Cause of End of a just Law is that it tend to the common and publick good And of this the Lawgivers are to be Judges and not the Subjects And most unreasonable it were that what the Lawgivers shall adjudge to be for the publick good should be made to yeild to private and particular mens interests 2. The efficient Cause of a just Law is the lawfull power of the person or persons in authority that made the Law Otherwise Laws are onely so in name and not indeed And as Aquinas Violentiae magis quam leges They are rather acts of violence than Laws And it is a sure rule in Logick Causa aequivoca non infert effectum a sentence passed by one that is no Judge binds not the party 3. The right form of a Law is that it be a rule of rectitude for humane actions according to the guidance of distributive justice giving to every one according to his demerits 4. The matter of a Law must be a thing that is good according to the rule of universal justice at leait indifferent A Law wherein these 4 things concur must needs be good and obligatory to all persons that are concerned in it Now in which of these the aforesaid Laws against Conventicles are faulty I know not Perhaps some will say in the latter the Matter of it is not good to lay a restraint on Religious Assemblies and Meetings It were so indeed if Religious Assemblies and Meetings were forbidden But I think it will appear in the sequel that these in question are not such whatsoever some conceive them to be It were so if all Religious Meetings or Assemblies were forbidden But blessed be God 't is otherwise We have still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the publick ancient lawfull and orderly assemblies allowed commanded and encouraged by Authority in all places of the Kingdom and onely such meetings by the Law forbidden as are private new and disorderly and tend to Faction and Schism and such other evils as are not without trembling to be mentioned Lastly I answer with that learned Casuist Dr. Sanderson that it is not necessarily requisite that whatsoever is established
to the Penalty of the Law is not that sufficient to discharge the Conscience from the guilt of disobedience Casuists that are of that Judgment say it holds true onely in those Laws whereof there are but very few in the World that are purely penal And the Laws which we now speak of are not such for these are partly Moral binding to doe or to leave undone some moral Act and partly Penal in case of Omission of what the Laws command or Commission of what the Laws forbid then to undergoe the Punishment the Laws inflict Now in these mixt Laws suffering the Penalty doth not discharge the Conscience from the guilt of sin For it is a rule of sure truth which Casuists give in such cases Omnis praeceptio obligat ad culpam Every just Command of those who have lawfull Authority to command leaves a guilt of sin upon those mens Consciences who do not obey The reason is because where a Law made by lawfull Authority requires active obedience and imposeth a Penalty in case of disobedience the Conscience of the subject stands bound primarily and intentionally to the performance of the duty therein enjoined As for the Penalty threatned that is a secondary and accidental thing to the Law added to keep up the reputation and esteem thereof in the minds of those who are concerned in it and to affright them from the neglect and disobedience of it So that though the suffering the Penalty of the Law in case of the transgression of it be as much as can be required of the Law-giver yet God by whom Kings reign and who requires subjection to Authority and that for Conscience sake will not hold such persons guiltless that doe not the things commanded in the Law The malefactour satisfies the Law at the time of his execution but who will say that without repentance of his fact the guilt of sin remains not still upon his Conscience or that he shall be acquitted at God's tribunal 5. Neither are they the Laws of the Church and Kingdom of England onely that are against such Meetings and Ministry as are in question But the godly Kings and Princes of the primitive Christian-Church have ever made the like Eusebius tells us that Constantine the Great made a Law that no Separatists or Schismaticks should meet in Conventicles and commanded that all such places where they were wont to keep their Meetings should be demolished and that they should not keep their factious Meetings either in publick places or private houses or remote places but that they should repair to their parochial Churches And in the next Chapter he saith that by that Law the memory of most of those Sectaries was forgotten and extinguished Sozomen reports that Theodosius the great decreed that the Sectaries whose petition for liberty he had first torn in pieces should not assemble together but all of them repair to their own publick Congregations otherwise to be banished their Country to be branded with some infamy and not to be partakers of Common privileges and favours with others And our neighbours and brethren of Scotland of the Presbyterian judgment did in one of their late general Assemblies since the enacting of their solemn League and Covenant make a special Canon against all private Meetings the direct tendency there of being to the overthrow of that Uniformity by them covenanted to be endeavoured in all the Churches of the three Kingdoms The very Heathens themselves by their Laws have made all such Assemblies illegitimate which the highest Authority did not cause to meet though they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to doe solemn Sacrifice to their Gods as may appear by Solon's Laws and in their practice they have shewed themselves ready to yeild obedience to their Governours in desisting from such irregular Conventions when they have been required Though Demetrius his Assembly came together disorderly and of their own heads rushed into the Theatre and there kept a shouting and Crying two hours together some one thing some another not knowing most of them wherefore they came together Yet when the Town-clark who had Authority did dismiss them they added not one fault to another but broke off their disorderly Meeting presently And they shew themselves more refractary than Demetrius himself who doe otherwise And if it be well considered the practice in question will be found to interfere with it self and to carry in the very face of it a convincing Testimony of its evil and unwarrantableness For if it be lawfull for these men to preach in private Meetings as they do and have a long time done why do they not take upon them to adventure to preach in the publick and Church-assemblies also What is it that makes them abstain from the latter and yet take liberty in the former Is it in obedience to the Law of the Land which forbids them to preach in publick The same Law forbids them to preach in private also It cannot be denied but that one is forbidden as well as the other Then this must needs be turned upon them why do they not obey in the one as well as in the other since they cannot but acknowledge that both are forbidden in the same Law surely if it were the Care and Conscience and desire to obey lawfull Authority according as Christian duty binds them that makes them silent in publick the same Conscience the same care and desire would make them sit down in silence in private also If it be said that they therefore abstain from publick preaching because it more exposeth them to the danger and penalty of the Law than private doth Then this must be retorted upon them also that their obedience is not such as God requireth for Conscience but for wrath Good men obey for Conscience but those that obey for wrath have not the fear of God before their Eyes For none contemns the power of man unless he hath first despised the Power of God And shall that be accounted by any sober Christian to be the ordinance of God or means of his appointment to beget grace in mens souls that is so repugnant to good Laws both of Church and State which we all stand bound in Conscience to observe and obey is contradictory to it self and hath in it that which proclaims to all that will open their Eyes to look into it its unlawfulness and sin God forbid ARGUMENT II. THAT cannot be the ordinance of God or means of grace that is contrary to that order which God himself by his word hath established in his Church For God is not the Authour of disorder and confusion But the Devil In the Church God's Command is for order in all things Let all things be done decently and in order And St. Paul did as well rejoice to see the order as the faith of the Church of Coloss. Onely Death and Hell have no order And it is a kind of death to a godly Christian to see
if any Person or Persons shall hereafter absent themselves from their own Congregations except in urgent Cases made known to and approved by the Presbytery the Ministers of these Congregations whereto they resort shall both in publick by Preaching and in private by admonition shew their dislike of their withdrawing from their own Minister that in so doing they may witness to all that hear them their due care to strengthen the hands of their fellow Labourers in the work of the Lord and their detestation of any thing that may tend to Separation or any of the above mentioned Evils hereby their own flock will be confirmed in their stedfastness and the unstable Spirits of others will be rectified Like as the Minister of that Congregation from which they do withdraw shall labour first by private admonition to reclaim them and if any after private admonition given by their own Pastour do not amend in that case the Pastour shall delate the aforesaid Persons to the Session who shall cite and censure them as Contemners of the comely order of the Kirk And if the matter be not taken order with there it is to be brought to the Presbytery For better observing whereof the Presbyteries at the several visitations of their Kirks and provincial Assemblies in their censure of the several Presbyteries shall enquire hereanent Which enquiry and report shall be registrate in the provincial Books that their deligence may be seen in the General Assembly The contrary course here amongst us of this age hath been taken notice of by godly Christians beyond the Seas as our great fault and contrary to the practice and custome of the reformed Churches of God abroad Honorius Reggius a learned man hath taken the pains to gather together out of Mr. Edwards his Gangrene and other Authours no less than 180 errours practised in England since the year of our Lord 1640. And hath divulged them to the whole World to the great shame of our nation and scandal to our Religion whereof this is the 125 th errour Partem Libertatis Christianae esse non audire proprium Ministrum sed ubi libeat a quo plus Commodi speretur That it is a part of Christian liberty for people not to hear their own Ministers but to attend that Ministry which they like best and from whom they hope to receive the most profit I never heard or read that this disorderly practice was tolerated or allowed in the Church of God in any part of Christendom but once and that was by virtue of a Licence and privilege granted by certain Popes to the Mendicant Fryers to intermeddle in matters of Parish Churches as to hear Confessions to preach and teach with power thereunto annexed to gather the benevolence of the people for their labour Which occasioned such a contention in France between the Prelates and the Fryers there An. Dom. 1354 that the Prelates of France convening and Assembling together in the City of Paris caused by the Bedles to be called together all the Students Masters and Bachelours of every Faculty with the chief Heads of all the Religious houses and Fryers in the University of Paris who being all congregated together in the Bishop of Paris his house where there were present 4 Archbishops 20 Bishops and all the rest of the Bishops throughout the whole Kingdom of France except those who were necessarily absent with full consent did send in under their hand-writing a complaint against the insolency Presumption of the Fryers The Bishop of Byters Preaching in that Assembly on that Text of St. Paul Eph. 3. 18. ut sciatis quae â—it longitudo latitudo altitudo profunditas charitatis took occasion to shew That by the vigour of true charity every man ought to hold himself content with that which was his own and not to intermeddle or busie himself farther than to him appertained or belonged to his Office For there saith he all order Ecclesiastical is dissolved whereas men not containing themselves in their own precincts presume in other mens charges where they have nothing to doe But this Charity saith he now-adays waxeth cold and all Ecclesiastical order is confounded and utterly out of order For many there be now-adays which presume to thrust in themselves where they have nothing to doe so that now the Church may seem a Monster For as in a natural body appeareth a Monster when one Member doeth the office of another so in the spiritual body which is the Church it may be thought like-wise Against the same evil and ungodly practice of the Fryers in our Land and Nation at the same time did that famous godly and learned Richard Armachanus Archbishop and Primate of Ireland inveigh in 7 or 8 Sermons preach'd on purpose in London For which being cited by the Fryers before Pope Innocent the Sixth to appear So he did and before the face of the Pope valiantly defended both in word and writing that it was better for the parishioners to leave the Fryers and to resort to their own Pastours for that the ordinary Pastour is properly appointed of God unto that Ministry which he exerciseth amongst them whereas the Fryers were but onely permitted of man thereunto and therein he stood constant unto the Death For these are the words of Iohn Wickliff as they are quoted by Mr. Fox Ab Anglorum Episcopis conductus Armachanus novem in Avione conclusiones coram Innocentio 6 suorum Cardinalium coetu contra fratrum mendicitatem audacter publicavit veiboque ac scriptis ad mortem usque defendit Now if this be the order which God hath established in his Church That People should be divided into flocks that every flock should have their own Pastour and that they should depend upon him then he can by no means endure to see a breach of that order in his service that he hath set How much it hath displeased him appears in that famous instance in 1 Chron. 15. 13. Because they sought him not according to the right order therefore God made a breach upon them And what that breach was both of order on the Peoples part and of punishment on God's part may be seen Cap. 13. 9 10. Vzzah out of a very good intention put forth his hand to stay the Ark when it was in danger of falling and therefore was smitten with sudden death according to the just threatning of God pronounced before They shall not touch any holy thing lest they dye God will be worshipped and served not onely in his own ordinances but in his own order also There are many duties quae cum bona sint opera perniciem pariunt cum non eo ordine quo sunt constituta peragantur which though they be good works yet the doers of them may be damned because they doe them not in that order they should Upon this account Mart. Luther sharply reprehended those of Wittenberge who in his absence had abrogated the
therefore though there is not that holiness affixed to places now since our Saviour's coming into the World as there was before yet our assembling together in the Church is as holy now as then and better than elsewhere And wheresoever the Scripture seems to take away all religious differences of places as if no place were holier than another as in Mal. 1. 11. Ioh. 4. 21. 1 Tim. 2. 8. It is true of inherent holiness but not of relative And this must be always remembred to prevent mistake that the Holy Ghost doth no where compare private and profane places with publick and consecrated as if the worship we doe to him were as much to his Glory or as good and profitable to our selves and others which we doe in those places as that which we doe in the Church But he compares publick places then with publick now and private with private and his meaning is that not onely at Ierusalem and among the Jews God shall have an house for his publick worship but in all Nations where he shall be pleased to bestow his Gospel God will not be worshipped in the Temple at Ierusalem onely nor shall his presence be tyed to that place more than to other such like houses of God elsewhere but he will have houses which shall be properly his own and set apart for his publick worship and service amongst all Nations It was a part of that heavy Yoke that was intolerable on the Necks of our Fathers that they must take long and tedious journeys to come from all Quarters of their Country to one place to worship and that they did not dare no not in case of absolute nenessity to perform publick service in any other place yea that their very private Devotions were to be performed either in or toward that place But now besides our Closets for our private Devotions we have Churches in our several Towns Parishes and Villages where we may be sure to have God present to hear accept and bless us if we can find honest and good hearts to resort to them Every place hath God's presence and therefore is in it self alike sanctified for his service but every place is not alike separated from common and profane use and dedicated and consecrated to God nor owned and accepted by him and therefore we have no reason to expect God's presence or to meet with the like blessing in one place as in another And therefore saith that holy and ancient Synod at Gangra in Paphlagonia under Constantine the Emperour Omnem locum aedificatum in nomine Dei honor amus Congregationem in Ecclesia factam ob utilitatem communem recipimus We do honour every place built in the Name of God and do reverence and receive the Congregation met in the Church for the Common advantage Churches then are holy and to be respected and frequented rather than other places because of their holy Use and for the holy Assemblies there made And therefore that same Council decreed Si quis docet domum Dei contemptibilem esse Conventus qui in ea celebantur anathema sit Cursed be he that shall teach that the House of God may be slighted or the Congregations that assemble therein And in the next Canon they think fit to ordain Si quis extra Ecclesiam seorsum Conventus celebrrat c. Cursed be he that shall keep any Convention out of the Church And the same Synod as History tells us condemned and deposed Eustathius Bishop of Sebastia in Armenia for perswading such as refrained the Church and publick Assemblies to raise Conventicles and Brotherhood in their private Houses And in the Civil Law it is decreed That the sacred Mystery or Mysteries be not done in private Houses but be celebrated in publick places lest thereby things be done contrary to the Catholick and Apostolick Faith unless they call to the celebrating of the same such Clerks of whose Faith and Conformity there is no doubt made or else that are deputed thereunto by the good will of the Bishop If any thing be done to the contrary the House wherein these things are done shall be confiscated and themselves shall be punished at the discretion of the Prince 'T is true St. Paul commands us Every where to lift up holy hands without wrath But those hands cannot be pure that are profane and they cannot have other than such who contemn the Church As therefore we exhort all men every where to worship God even so for the performance of this service by the People of God assembled we think not any place so good as the Church nor any Exhortation so fit as that of David O worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness But now alas we live to see those prophetique words uttered by a Learned and judicious Gentleman above 60 years agoe to be verified and fulfilled to the utmost He discerning then the great increase and growth of Sectaries in this Realm said That time would soon bring it to pass if it were not resisted that God would be turned out of Churches into Barns and from thence again into Fields and Mountains and under Hedges and the Office of the Ministry robbed of all dignity and respect be as contemptible as those places all Order Discipline and Church-government left to the newness of Opinion and Mens fancies yea and soon after as many kinds of Religions spring up as there are Parish Churches within England every contentious and ignorant Person cloathing his Fancy with the Spirit of God and his Imagination with the Gift of Revelation By all which hath been said wherein I hope the candid Reader will pardon my Prolixity in this plain Vindication of the languâ—shing Reputation of Church-assemblies it appears that the speciality of Divine promises are made to the publick Dispensation of God's ordinances and that we may expect a greater Blessing upon them in our Church-assemblies than elsewhere But I know no promise of God at all made to such Preaching and Meetings as are in question God hath not engaged himself for a Blessing to any People waiting on him as they count it in a way out of his appointment yea contrary to it But as he hath forbidden to hear Intruders Ier. 27. 14 15. So he hath expresly said there shall no Blessing at all accompany such a Ministry and such attendance on it Let that place in Ieremiah be noted I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profit this People at all saith the Lord. Sive vera praedicent sive falsa Saith a Presbyterian Divine Whether they preach that which is true or that which is false The question is not de facto but de jure not what they teach but by what warrant Thence it was as Tarnovius thinks that our Saviour Christ rebuked the Devil and commanded him silence not suffering him to speak when he confessed and declared the most necessary and Soul-saving
God stands upon Circumstances as well as Duties It shall be then our righteousness if we observe to doe all the Commandments before the Lord our God AS HE HATH COMMANDED VS Say we doe what is commanded yet if we doe it not as he commanded us it is not right in God's sight who requires that a thing be not onely good but also regularly performed It is not the material goodness of the work that will free us from sin but the Command we have out of God's word for the doing it Neither can we depend upon any promise for a blessing when we have not God's Precept for the action The promise of edification in faith knowledge and holiness is specially appropriated to the Ministry of that Person who is regularly and orderly in God's ways set over a Congregation Christians own pastours have a more special dispensation of the Grace of God given them to them-ward as St. Paul the Doctour of the Gentiles had towards that People of whom he was appointed the proper Minister And saith Mr. Baines If this were well considered it would cure in us that affectation of the confluence of strangers when our hearts do not so fervently embrace our own Pastours And it should instrâ—â—â— People to depend especially upon those who are set over them for these are they who are furnished from God in 〈◊〉 eminent manner with grace towards them They are foolish sheep that know not theâ— own shepherds voice and foolish People that know not their own Ministers And in reason whose Ministry may we think God will bless either his to whom the Flock is committed by himself who is over them in the Lordâ— whom God hath made their overseer who have the rule over them watching for their Souls as those that must give an account Or his who runs before he is sent who hath no lawfull call to the Congregation ordinary or extraordinary who hath no relation at all to the Flock whose own the sheep are not he having no charge of them nor any account to make for them other than for his irregular intrusion amongst them taking upon him to doe that he hath no right to doe and for seducing them away from their own Pastour be his parts and qulifications otherwise Angelical and his Doctrine never so Evangelical Pastours of Congregations are called Christ's Ambassadours to their People It is their Commission that makes their Embassie succesfull Another perhaps may be of equal or greater fitness for the Employment but he onely that hath deputation for the service is received and hath audience Those that have no lawfull mission to a Congregation but intrude themselves amongst them may speak the truth as well as they that have yet of him that acts by lawfull appointment we may say that he preacheth with Authority and not like those that come in by stealth and usurpation and have no other right there to preach than what themselves have made They are called overseers It is not for every man to oversee the estate of another they onely can do it who by some Deed or Commission are impowered to undertake it Nay which is a dreadfull Consideration they must so oversee the Flock that they may give an account for their Souls Is there any such charge given to or undertaken by those unsent teachers who love to be heard and seen in exercising their parts but not in taking cure or charge of Souls They are called Stewards It is not for any one to be a steward in another man's house to feed the Family but for him onely whom the master of that house shall appoint The ministerial parts performed by a lawfull Pastouâ— to his own Flock are like Iacob's blessing his Sons another man might have done it as rhetorically and perhaps as affectionately but not so effectually because none had that Rightâ— and Authority to doe it as he Of all acts those that are done ex officio by virtue of an office and from a lawfull designation and appointment for the execution of that office to or for such a Person or People are under a more solemn assurance of a blessing It is no Solecism to say God will hearâ— their Prayers and bless their Pains when he will neither hear nor bless the Prayers or Pains of any else My Servant Job shall pray for you saith God for him will I accept Eliphaz and his two friends were good men yet God would not give answer to them but to Iob onely See Gen. 20. 7. Es. 37. 4. Iam. 5. 14. If that place in Matthew be urged to prove a promise of a blessing to such preaching and meetings as are in question Where two or three are met together in my name there am I present in the midst of them I answer that although I conceive the primary and principal Intent and Scope of our Saviour in that place was not to speak of religious Meetings for the preaching and hearing of his word but of the Meetings of Ecclesiastical Judges of the Jewish Sanhedrin in their Consistory as the Context doth declare yet because all God's promises are great and pretious and we ought not to lose ought of them but improve them to the utmost for his Glory and our Comfort therefore suppose it be taken and to be understood of religious Meetings also as 't is so applied by the Church of England in her Liturgy yet to no other but our Church-assemblies yet I say that text annexeth a Promise onely to such Meetings as are in Christ's Name Now the meaning of that phrase is commonly expounded to be at my Command Nam in nomine Christi idem est quod eâ—â—authoritate So our Saviour himself useth the phrase I am come in my Father's Name id est at his Command as he expounds it himself This Commandment have I received from the Father So St. Paul useth the phrase Now we command you brethren in the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ id est by the Authority of our Lord Christ committed unto us by him as if Christ should command by us So every inferiour officer amongst us doth use the phrase I require you in the King's Name id est by Authority derived from him See Act. 4. 7. And should we extend the promise without restraint to other Meetings under pretence of religious Worship than such as are grounded on Christ's Authority 1. Then we should make our own wills fancies and affections masters of our actions and endeavour to bring down the presence of Christ to such irregular Conventions as are altogether disagreeing with yea contrary to his Will and Command which were not onely absurd but impious to attempt or think 2. Then also may a Congregation of 1000 People divide themselves contrary to good Laws of God his Church and the Realm into 500 Couples in so many several places and in so many several forms of worship and yet expect
of the bond of Charity is equally as dangerous and damnable as Apostasie from the Faith and as destructive and inconsistent to the nature and being of the Church one as the other 4. What sufficient convincing proof can our Church-forsakers make that they are not faln from the true Faith as well as from Christian Charity seeing they are subdivided into so many severall Parties and Sects some whereof and not the smallest number viz. the Quakers are totally apostatized from all Christianity others are faln in part as the Anabaptists Antinomians c. And those of them that do now and then come to Church perhaps because they cannot tell how to dispose of themselves otherwise studiously absent themselves from the profession of our Faith contained in the Creeds and if any of them chance to be there at that time yet they willfully refuse to observe and obey that godly and laudable command and custome of the Church grounded on good authority of God's word to stand up to their Belief 5. If they are not yet quite faln from the Faith yet their Schism and departure from the Church is a fair step towards it where are they likely to stay unless God marvellously stop them who are departed from his house The Prodigal Son 's leaving his Father's Family was the first step to all that lewd course of Life that afterwards he took The Donatists of old did not at first dissent in matters of Faith from the Catholick Church but their Schism did soon produce Heresie as an Ulcer or Wound being inflamed doth soon beget a Fever In the mean time whatever they esteem themselves or are esteemed of others to be they are indeed no more true Members of the Church than Tares or Chaff are part of the Wheat or than Mutineers are part of an Army Haeretici Schismatici non sunt ex vera Ecclesia sed tantummodo Ecclesiae immisti sicut excrementa sunt quidem in corpore sed non de corpore Alsted Lexic Theol. p. 359. Now whilst I write these things I weep mine eye mine eye runneth down with water I cannot refrain my self but must cry out alas alas for my dear mother the poor distressed distracted and divided Church of England I will bewail thee with the weeping of Iazer I will water thee with my tears my bowels shall sound like a harp for thee and my inward parts like pipes That thine own Children like Iacob and Esau should so jar and disagree in their Womb as to endanger the very life of her that bore them by their strugling What Brethren have we not all one God one Christ one Spirit one Baptism one Scripture one hope of Eternal Salvation And can we not close and communicate together in the Worship and Service of that one blessed Creator mercifull Saviour and most sweet Comforter Are our differences about I know not what grown to such an height that we cannot goe to Church together joyn in one confession of Sin profession of Faith Prayer each with and for other hear the same Scriptures read and preached and sit together at the same Table partake of that same heavenly Feast to which we are altogether most lovingly invited So great is the crime of our present Age in this that Posterity shall never be able to add to it Oh tell it not in Gath publish it not in the Streets of Ashcalon lest the Daughters of the Philistines rejoyce lest the Daughters of the uncircumcised triumph What will very Pagans say when they shall see Christians thus divided As Clemens Alexandrinus brings in the Heathen exprobrating our Religion for untrue Quia omnis secta Christianismi titulum sibi vendicat tamen alia aliam execratur condemnat because every Sect challengeth to it self the Title of true Christianity yet one curseth and condemneth another What can they otherwise think but that the God and Christ whom we all pretend to serve is what he abhors to be the authour of confusion Oh what Musick is this in the Ears of Papists to hear of our discords Did Herod and Pontius Pilate agree as friends to crucifie Christ and shall Christians that profess themselves to be his Members disagree as mortal Enemies about their Service of him Oh Religion Religion Hast thou not Enemies enough abroad in the World that seek thy destruction but thy deadliest wound must be received in the house of thy friendâ— Like Ioseph thou art basely sold by thine own Brethren when thou art bringing them necessary food like Sampson thou art betray'd into the hands of the Philistines by those that pretend zeal for thee and like thy blessed Master thou art delivered up to thy mortal Foes by thine own treacherous Disciples what Ocean can furnish mine eyes with tears enough to pour out for the scandal and matter of rejoycing that these things do give to thine adversaries and for thy much feared ruine that this portends Alas Alas that those who pretend much tenderness in lesser matters should make no Conscience at all of endeavouring thy Preservation and Prosperity by keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace What shall I say of those Men but as our Saviour of his Enemies Father forgive them for they know not what they doe The Lord open their eyes that they may see and perswade Japhet to dwell in the Tents of Shem. Oh all ye my Brethren that make an unchristian separation from the Society of your Christian Friends and Neighbours in the publick worship of God especially you to whom I stand nearest related I beseech you in the bowels of our common Saviour do not thus give advantage to the adversaries of our Religion to endeavour and hope for the speedy overthrow both of us and it and in the mean time to laugh in their sleeves at our divisions saying there there so would we have it I beseech you Brethren in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no Schisms amongst you that ye be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judgment If there be any Consolation in Christ if any comfort of Love if any fellowship of the Spirit if there be any bowels of Mercies fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord of one mind Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves It is promised as a blessed Fruit of the Gospel the envy of Ephraim shall cease and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off Ephraim shall not envy Judah and Judah shall not vex Ephraim but they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West they shall spoil them of the East together they shall lay their hands upon Edom and Moab and the Children of Ammon shall obey them Oh that all animosity and prejudice were banished from
quietness which Christians are to study a manifest breach of this great Gospel-command and consequently inconsistent with the ordinance of God A Third Evangelical precept is that of our blessed Saviour Whatsoever ye would that men should doe unto you doe ye even so to them It is a principle both natural and divine enjoyned by our heavenly Law-giver as a ground and rule of all equity amongst men Lactantius thus comments on it Radix omnis fundamentum aequitatis est illud vide ut ne facias ulli quod pati nolis sed alterius animum de tuo metieris This is the root and foundation of all equity for a man to be carefull no to doe that to another which he would not suffer himself but to measure another man's mind by his own Now I appeal to the hearts and consciences of those Ministers that thrust themselves now into other mens Congregations and Parishes and there in private houses gather together a company of disciples and followers of the more giddy and unstable sort of People for such they are for the most part that not content with the publick labours of their own Pastors flock to private Conventicles and set up a course of Preaching and other Ministerial Acts whether if they were Pastors of Congregations as sometimes they were and had a charge of a flock of God's People committed to them for whose Souls they and none else must be accountable they would take it well or permit it if they could otherwise help it that a stranger should thrust himself into their Parishes and lead away a number of their People to private Assemblies in corners to a dependence on them for teaching and other duties which they obtrude upon them as the worship and service of God even to the forsaking and loathing of that which is publickly established for waiting on them in private And whether when those men were in their Pastoral charges and in the late time Anabaptists Familists and other Sectaries did the like as they themselves now doe set up private Conventicles in several Towns and Parishes they did not account themselves much injured thereby and made their Pulpits sound loud against it nay oppose it by all means they possibly could Which is a truth sufficiently known to all that have been hearers of them or know their practices Neither will it suffice them to say those whom they then opposed were Persons heterodox in their judgments and corrupt in their opinions For 1. So may these House-creeping Preachers be also for ought any one knows If it be sound Divinity they Preach it is avowable and publication is a fair Argument of truth Truth seeks no corners it is onely ashamed to be hidden as the Sun to be clouded or eclipsed The desire of Secreâ—ie and Privacy renders their Doctrines suspicious of falshood and errour In the dark gross faults are not perceived and they are evil-doers onely that are said by our Saviour to hate the light While men doe nothing but well they need not conceal and hide their doings The very Heathen as a Divine of ours observes did worship their Gods sub dio without Roofs or Coverings in a free openness and where they could in Temples made with Specular Stone that was transparent as Cristal so as that they that walked without in the Streets might see all that was done within And even nature it self taught the natural man to make that an Argument of a man truly Religious aperto vivere voto that he durst pray aloud and let the world hear what he asked at God's hands which duty saith he is best performed when we joyn with the Congregation in publick Prayers St. Austin hath made that note upon the Donatists that they were clanculary clandestine Divines Divines in corners And in Photius we have such a note almost upon all Hereticks as the Nestorian was called Coluber a Snake because though he kept in the Garden in the Church he lurked and lay hid to doe mischief And truly so long as the Preaching of the Gospel is not persecuted and there is no prohibition to the contrary as sometimes there was it seems to me to be contrary to the very nature of it herein differing from the Law that it is not confined to any one Nation or Place nor is subject to bonds or restraint to be shut up in private houses and taught in secret and not rather to be published in Churches and open Places of free and common resort The command to the Apostles was Go stand and speak in the Temple to the People all the words of this Life And accordingly was their Practice Act. 9. 20. Act. 13. 14. 44. 'T is true the godly in times past had their private Meetings in Deserts Mountains Dens and Caves of the Earth But the case is not alike with us as with them The times then were of most bloudy Persecution when neither Preacher nor Professour escaped the Fire and therefore were enforced to conceal themselves and privately to enjoy those Comforts and discharge those Duties and Exercises of Religion which they could not publickly be suffered to doe But those who set up and frequent private Meetings now may enjoy the preaching and reading of the Word prayers to God confession of Sin profession of Faith and benefit of the Sacraments in the publick Assemblies of the Saints Yea they are not onely allowed but commanded by Authority so to doe but they will not Those Teachers then that in these Halcion days of the Gospel creep into corners to vent their Doctrines discover themselves to be either First Seditious and Schismatical seeking to make Parties and Divisions in the Church Or Secondly Proud and Arrogant preferring their own Opinions and Doctrines Assemblies and Persons before all other Or Thirdly False and Erroneous for all damnable Heresies and Doctrines of Perdition which pervert and destroy Souls are thus brought in underhand privily by such as creep into the Church of God by stealth At least they are destitute of that means of justification and defence of the truth which our Saviour Christ had and which all Christ's Ministers in a setled Church ought to have viz. to appeal to the publick Audience That which is publickly Preached may be proved and tryed but not so well that which is taught in obscurity 2. What the Judgments and Opinions of these Men have been and that in all those things wherein the Peace of the Church and the Salvation of Souls of Christians are concerned I mean the Doctrine Discipline and Worship as it stands established in the Church of England the World hath had sufficient knowledge and experience by the late bloudy Wars and Persecutions raised thereabout 3. Lastly The question is not as hath been said de facto what Doctrine these men deliver in their private Conventions but de jure what right they have to Preach any in other Mens Parishes as they doe Such a Person
preaching abroad out of his own precincts whether upon intreaty or otherwise we need not inquire seeing he had an Apostolical power which was of universal extent in it self and such as no Minister now can lay claim to His Commission was as the rest of the Apostles were general and originally not confined to any one place as other Ministers are but they were to teach all Nations Yet because every one of them could not travel and preach in every Countrey therefore it pleased the Lord afterwards in Wisedom for good Causes to order it as it were by a second Decree that Paul should specially have a care of and preach to the Gentiles Yet this did no way diminish his Apostolical Authority nor forbid him from preaching at all to the Iews or Peter to the Gentiles if occasion did serve for of Paul it is expresly said that he was to carry Christ's Name both to the Gentiles and to the Children of Israel And it is generally believed that he was the Authour of the Epistle to the Hebrews And of St. Peter it is not doubted that he both at Antioch and elsewhere preached the Gospel both to Iews and Gentiles The Apostolical power did extend to all Nations but the Conveniency of the Church did require that some of them should be fixed to one sort of People in one place and some to another 'T is true St. Paul saith he was troubled with the care of all the Churches i. e. as he was an Apostle so the care of all the Churches lay upon him quod ad jus attinet potestatem saith Camero he had right and power to take care of all the Churches as an Apostle and so differing from all Bishops and Presbyters now And doubtless as all good Ministers of Christ do he did take all the care that lawfully he might or could of the whole Church of Christ especially of all those within his own precincts and of his own planting which by an usual Synecdoche in Scripture are termed all Yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for order and peace sake it pleased God that their persons and labours should be appointed for several distinct parts of the World as in his infinite Wisedom he saw was most convenient for the better propagation of the Gospel of Christ in all the World And it is the observation of the Excellent Divine Martin Chemnitius in his Commentary on that temporary precept of our Saviour Christ to his Disciples Goe not into the way of the Gentiles c. Hoc temporarium praeceptum fideles verbi Dei ministros admonet ut singuli se intra metas legitimae suae vocationis ad pascendum illum Dei gregem qui ipsis commissus est 1 Pet. 5. 2. contineant nec latiùs evagentur aut falcem suam in alterius pastoris messem nisi speciali concessione vel vocatione mittant This temporary percept doth warn all the faithful Ministers of God's word that all of them should contain themselves within the bounds of their lawfull Calling to feed that flock of God that is committed unto them and not to wander abroad or thrust their hook into the harvest of another Pastour without his special leave or calling By all which it appears that a forcible or surreptitious entry of one Minister into another's charge is destitute of all Scripture president or allowance and therefore cannot be the Ordinance of God The Example of the Apostles meeting and preaching sometimes in private Houses I conceive cannot but most impertinently be urged to defend the practice I here dispute against For 1. 'T is not to the question which is of a setled constituted Church where a preaching Ministry is established by Law The Christian Church in the Apostles days was not â—etled and established as is ours but in a way to be so 2. The Magistrate was then heathen all the World over ours now Christian Publick preaching and Christian meetings were not then suffered our Church-Assemblies are not onely allowed and protected but commanded by Sovereign Authority 3. They had then either none at all or very few Christian-Churches erected and so were forced to meet where they could we want not Churches but hearts to resort to them 4. The Apostles had a general and extraordinary call to preach any where through all Coasts and Parts of the World where they were appointed to plant Churches so have not the Persons in question The office of an Apostle or Evangelist is now ceased 5. It can never be proved that the Apostles did or would have made use of their private meetings either in competition with or opposition to the publick Ordinances of God as our modern Conventicles are but in subserviency according as the necessity of those times did require to what publick and solemn Assemblies they could then or might in after-times enjoy For as our Saviour made use of all private Conferences and Meetings not in separation from competition with or opposition against but in professed subserviency to the Synagogue-service and Temple-worship of the Jewish Church so I am perswaded that the Apostles of Christ together with the primitive Christians would have done the like had the case in their time with respect to the publick exercise of Christian Religion been the same or the like to what it was in our Saviour Christ's time with respect to the publick exercise of the Religion of the Iews But forasmuch as there were no Conventions for publick exercise of Christian Religion permitted or commanded in those times untill the Roman Empire and other Kingdoms of the World became Christian it was therefore a thing impossible that the private Meetings of the Apostles and those primitive Christians should be so made use of in subordination to the publick Assemblies as were the private Meetings of our Saviour and his Disciples in the Jewish Church So that the case and condition of Christianity in the primitive times is so different from and contrary to what it is in the Church of England where the publick worship is protected and commanded by Authority that their private Meetings cannot possibly hold any proportion or similitude with ours So that to argue from private Meetings in those times of persecution of Christianity to private Meetings in England in these days is to take away the subject of the question and then to argue the case 6. Neither did one Apostle then thrust himself into the place where another was to labour but contained himself within the compass of his Line and portion of God's People that he was appointed to preach to But the matter in question is of a quite contrary nature viz. of a silenced Minister's intruding himself in amongst a People over whom there is a preaching Ministry established and there taking upon him to gather Conventions teach that People and perform ministerial Acts amongst them contrary to good Laws without the consent yea against the allowance of the Pastour of the place So that neither the
cannot be the Ordinance of God for the working of grace that is performed without any manner of Commission or Authority For the necessity of keeping that good order which God hath commanded in his Church requires that no man should attempt any thing of that important nature and high concernment upon his own head or by a power derived no higher than from himself Whosoever shall take upon him to preach God's word in order to the Conversion or saving of souls must be able to give a good answer to that question which the chief Priest and Elders of the People put to our Saviour Christ when he was teaching in the Temple By what Authority doest thou these things and who gave thee this Authority He that cannot make a sufficient and satisfactory reply to it and yet shall adventure upon the work may justly be accounted rash indiscreet and more hasty than needeth or than wisedom requireth But such is the Ministry in question undertaken without any Authority or Commission For all the Authority and Commission that a Minister hath in a constituted setled Church he receives in his ordination Before that he had no Authority or Warrant at all to preach the word or to perform any ministerial Act. Now all the Authority that a Minister of the Church of England hath delivered to him in his ordination is expressed in these words Take thou Authority to preach the word and to administer the Holy Sacraments in the Congregation where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto In which words it is plain that the exercise of his Ministry is restrained to lawfull appointment as to the place where it shall be exercised What that lawfull appointment is I need not trouble my self or the reader here to look into seeing the Ministry in question hath not the least colour of it or pretence to it for it is supposed to be in a place where there is another lawfully appointed to perform the same In the Council of Chalcedon where there were 630 Fathers met about the year of our Lord 451 It was thus decreed Neminem absolute ordinari jubemus Presbyterum aut Diaconum nec quemlibet in Ecclesiasticâ ordinatione constitutum Eos autem qui absolute ordinantur decrevit sancta synodus vacuam habere manûs impositionem That none should be ordained absolutely whether Presbyter or Deacon or any in Ecclesiastical orders and whosoever should be absolutely ordained the Holy Synod decreed his ordination void And the 33th Canon of the Church of England â—aith That it hath been long since provided by many Decrees of ancient Fathers that none should be admitted either Deacon or Priest who had not first some certain place where he might use his function For though in ordination the person ordained is made a Minister of the Catholick Church and being ordained to a function he may by the appointment of those that have Authority in the Church or with leave of the Pastour of the Congregation preach any where And although as Mr. Baines observes It is good for a Minister to be like a young Woman so full breasted that she can both feed her own Child and lend a draught upon intreaty to her Neighbours Yet he is not a Catholick Minister of the Church as the Apostles and Evangelists were whose office being extraordinary is long since ceased in the Church and therefore ought not to take upon himself to preach any where Neither yet did the Apostles themselves doe so as hath been proved though their Commission was without Limit as to place But kept within their Line measured forth by God to them It was never God's intention that the two Tribes of Levi and Gad should be confounded one with another nor is it any way agreeable with Scripture rules and order that a Minister should be a wandring star but fixed regularly in some Orb of the Church as a Pastour of some Flock or Congregation of his People Seeing therefore none is lawfully appointed to perform the ministerial function or any part of it in such a place as is in question but the Minister of that Congregation acts of the Ministry done by any other Person that shall intrude himself among them without and against his consent contrary to lawfull appointment and all good constitution that concern admission of Ministers to pastoral charges are done without any Authority Commission or effect and consequently cannot be God's Ordinance who doth not use to send any to preach in order to the working of grace in means hearts without any Power or Authority yea against both ARGUMENT VIII THAT cannot be the ordinance of God as instrumental to the work of grace that instead of building up People in Faith and Holiness demolisheth Christian Duty and in the natural tendency of it produceth sinfull and pernicious effects 'T is true these may accidentally follow through the Corruption of man's nature and Satan's suggestions upon the most right and purest dispensation of God's word and ordinances St. Peter speaks of some that stumble at the word And St. Paul saith to some we are the savour of death unto death as to other some the savour of life unto life The word preach'd like the water of jealousie when it is received into an honest and good heart it doeth it good and makes it fruitfull but when into a corrupt it doeth hurt and causeth it to rot Yet the most proper intent and genuine fruit and effect of it is to doe good to inlighten convince convert and save means souls But the Ministry in question doth directly produce sinfull and pernicious effects and such as a tender heart may tremble to think on I would not have the reader expect that I should here make a particular enumeration of every one of those sinfull fruits and effects that are produced by the Ministry of intruders and upholders of Conventicles for that is a thing no more possible for me to doe than it is for any man particularly to reckon up every one of the many thousands of absurdities that will unavoidably follow in dispute upon one that is granted or yielded to I will content my self therefore and let the reader doe the like with the mention of so many of them onely as I here use arguments against the practice which is the proper cause of them and thousands more First it tends to the breaking of that bond of near relation that is and ought to be betwixt a Pastour and his flock Though it be a truth well known to but a few in this age and little considered by any yet it is nevertheless certain and undoubted that there is a very intimate relation betwixt a lawfull Pastour and his People The Scripture seems to assert a kind of Matrimonial union betwixt them A Minister is after a sort married to that Congregation over whom he is lawfully set and they to him Our legal incumbency on a Church is our Marriage to that Church Hence is that phrase
are baptized into one body so by the other we are made to drink into one spirit And therefore the Apostle from our Communion together at the Lord's Table concludes our Union one with another incorporation into not the essential but the spiritual body of Christ. We being many are one bread and one body for we are all partakers of that one bread A Father thus comments on that place Omnes unum corpus sumus in Christo quia etsi multi sumus unum támen in eo sumus omnes enim de uno pane participamus We are therefore all one body in Christ because though we are many in our selves yet in him we are all one for we all partake of one bread Nam si in humanis mensoe salis communicatio amoris causa est signum quanto magis id erit in communione mensoe panis Domini If among men the communicating together at one table and in one dish is both a cause and sign of love how much more then would it be so in the communicating together at the Table and of the bread of the Lord Yea the very assembling of Christians together in the Church is by St. Chrysostome called the Communion of Saints That then which tends to make rents and parties in the Church and divides Christians each from other in external Conjunction of publick duties as well as internal concord of hearts and affections as the practice in question hath been proved and by experience is found to doe must needs hinder the Communion of Saints Union being broken there can be no Communion for it flows from Union and is no other in the Etymology of the word than common Union And as there is nothing that obstructs Christian Communion so much as divisions do so when once they are made there is nothing more hard to be composed again A Brother offended is harder to be won than a strong City and their contentions are like the barrs of a Castle For as no bond is so strong as that of Religion so no Hostility so cruel and outragious as that which difference in Religion occasioneth Think not saith our Saviour that I am come to send peace on the earth I came not to send peace but a sword for I am come to set a man at variance against his Father and the Daughter against her Mother and a man's foes shall be they of his own house This is commonly through the policy of Satan and malice of men the fruit of divisions in point of Religion amongst Brethren And if the bond of Communion betwixt the members be broken I see not but that the bond of Union with Christ their head must be broken also How can they exist as members of Christ's body which have left their coupling and conjunction with the other members of the same Neither they nor those that cause it can in the judgment of St. Austine Ii qui a compage corporis membra alia avellere conantur seipsos a Christi unitate separant They that draw the members from Communion one with the other do cut off themselves from their Union with Christ. Impium enim sacrilegum divortium est eos qui in Christi veritate consentiunt distrahere Saith Calvin It is an impious and sacrilegious divorce to divide those who would otherwise agree in the truth of Christ. The same is acknowledged by the Presbyterian Divines If we be the body of Christ do not they who separate from the body separate from the head also And by the unanimous consent of the ancient godly and learned Nonconformists in their grave and modest confutation of the errours of the Brownists and Separatists where in the first words of their Book they say That the Church of England is a true Church and such a one as from which whosoever wittingly and willingly separateth himself cutteth himself off from Christ. And they prove it at large by unanswerable arguments in the following pages of their Book A proesumptione igitur illicitâ excusari nequeunt qui nimis amando sententiam suam usque ad proecidendoe communionis audaciam perveniunt They are therefore no way to be excused from sinfull presumption who out of a fondness to their own opinion proceed to that boldness and hardiness as to interrupt Christian Communion Malunt nullam habere quam non suam They had rather there should be no Religion at all than that their own should not take place They that are any way instrumental to break unity that true-Lovers knot which every Christian should wear in his breast all days of his life will find at last by miserable experience that destruction will follow it if repentance precede not to prevent it For if the God whom we serve be the God of peace Iesus Christ our head and Saviour be the Prince of peace the spirit of Holiness the worker of peace the Blessed Trinity in Unity of Deity the authour of peace and lover of concord as our Church expresseth it how then can it join it self with the disturbers of both and not rather separate from those which separate from their Brethren and are instrumental to draw as many after them as they can Fourthly It gratifies at least two main sinfull Corruptions to which people are naturally prone both mentioned together by St. Paul in one place The first is their discontent with their own Pastors who are regularly and orderly sent of God to them After their own lusts they will heap to themselves teachers 1. The great fault here prophesied to be in the latter times was heaping up many teachers One will not serve a peoples turn but they must have a multitude A woman that forsakes her Husband's bed will be ready to pour out her fornications to every one that passeth by and not content her self with the embraces of one single stranger alone but be ready to prostitute her body to any one 2. And there is an Emphasis in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to themselves They will be their own chusers They will not accept nor submit to those who by the hands of the Rulers of the Church God shall place over them but take to themselves upon their own judgment and choice whom they please This is according to his opinion who expounding the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in this place by St. Paul saith quod sine judicio temere sunt collecturi doctores suos They shall rashly gather together teachers of their own 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Teachers as they esteem and use them in contradistinction to Pastours for they will not admit of any to have a pastoral rule and care over them but teachers to tickle their Ears and please their fancies And which is yet worse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to their own Lusts. Such as do best please their humours such as are of the same party with themselves that are in
opposition to that which themselves oppose Beza Interprets it thus prout hoc vel illud illis arriserit as this or that best pleafeth them The second is the itch of the ear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a disease very common yet never so Epidemical as in these days And there are two things that very much stir and provoke this humour 1. Novelty If the thing either for the matter or the manner of it be new and strange our Athenâ—an dispositions will soon incline us to spend our whole time in it Let a Physician be never so learned honest experienced and successfull in his place yet if but an Empirick or Mounteâ—ank come into the Country and set up his Stage though he doeth nothing but put off deceitfull and Sophisticate Drugs and takes mens money yet he shall not want at all times a full resort to him because he is a new-corner and his pretended method and means of cure are new and unusual In Religion also people are naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 apt to be led away with insatiable desire of hearing new men and new things and listen rather to fables than to wholesome words that are according to godliness rather admire and adore the new conceits of every Novellist than receive the great mysteries of Salvation in love of the truth from him whom God hath set to watch over their Souls Mitte quod scio dic quod nescio is their Motto we have heard this man long enough our Ears itch now to attend to some other what we know is stale things fresh and unheard do better please us It is not the word but the man they desire to hear And therein they shew themselves to be the most observant disciples of the great Masters of errour and deceipt the Papists For this is a Doctrine taught by Stapleton in the tenth of his quodlibets non quid loquitur sed quis à bono Catholico attendendum est A good Catholick ought not to regard what is spoken but who it is that speaks And if the speaker prove a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and stuff up his discourse with idle and impertinent stories how fabulous soever he shall find more attention and applause from such humorous hearers than he that with greatest evidence of the spirit and power makes known the Oracles of God But certainly that man is under a very great distemper of body that grows weary of his good ordinary food The stomach is very sickly when it cannot take in any solid meat but the fancy is still working after rarities And if ever that person recover his former health he will find that his body will never hold to be in better temper than when he keeps to his ordinary Diet. 2. Prohibition by Authority Things denied are always most desired and the enjoyment of them is therefore the sweeter because restrained by Law Audax omnia perpeti Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas Ever since our first parents transgressed in eating the forbidden fruit all the sinfull posterity of Adam are ready to run most dangerous adventures for a taste of that which they should not touch How just and reasonable soever the prohibition is yet it will allways be looked on with a jealous Eye by those that are concerned in it as if there were a more than ordinary excellency in the thing denyed and it were therefore kept from us by our Superiours though they mean us never so much good in it because they envy us the enjoyment of it Whence it comes to pass that as beasts though their own pasture be never so good yet if they are bounded in they cannot contain themselves but will adventure to leap the hedge that they may goe farther though they fare worse Were it so that the doors of our Churches were shut up by Authority People forbidden to resort thither or to attend the Ministry of their own Pastours any more and commanded to frequent the private meetings of strangers onely the would these People be soon weary of their restraint and pretend great zeal to God's house and the place where his honour dwells then would their Souls seem to long and even to faint within them for the Courts of the Lord to see his Power and his Glory so as they have seen it in his Sanctuary Then would they seem to account their own Ministers worthy of double honour to receive them in the Lord with all gladness and to hold them in reputation Oh the strange nature of the Sons of men to whom a Legal prohibition is a forcible invitation that know not the worth of Mercies but by the loss of them Fifthly it alienates the affections of People from the true worship of God established by Law in our Church shakes the minds of the weak and begets even in those who have professed they have not the least exception against it but suspect somewhat amiss in it onely upon this ground because they see others of whose judgments they have a good confidence withdraw from it and chuse rather to frequent private meetings than to serve God in the publick Congregations Who have not heard the railings and revilings that have proceeded out of the mouths of those who are the favourers and followers of these unlawfull Assemblies against the Book of Common-prayer And who may not observe their constant and studyed withdrawing from the use of it That book which 1. For the Authours and Compilers of it was composed by the most Learned and Holy Doctours Martyrs and Confessours that the Church of England ever had who spent their times studies and lives in opposing the Idolatry and Superstition of the Romish Church Set forth at first in the Reign and by the Authority of King Edward the Sixth who for his Piety Zeal Learning and Wisedom was accounted the miracle of nature Peter Martyr in an Oration of his at Argentine saith thus of his death Praeter omnem spem acerbâ luctuosâ morte sublatus est Edvardus Angliae Rex Monarcharum Christiani orbis candidum Lumen pietatis Legitimus alumnus Evangelii Christi propugnator acerrimus Besides all expectation Edward King of England is taken away by lamentable and cruel Death who was the clear light of all the Monarchs of the Christian World the true Son of Piety and the most zealous and earnest Defender and Maintainer of the Gospel of Christ. And in an Oration of his at Tigurum he gives this Testimony of him Obiit prohdolor obiit Edvardus ille sanctissimus Rex quo adolescente nescio an Sol doctiorem proâ—â—aetate sanctiorem atque prudentiorem usquam viderit The most Holy King Eward is dead and I know not whether the Sun ever saw a more Learned for his age and a more sanctified and wise Prince And again in an Epistle to Queen Elizabeth speaking of the zeal and care of several godly and religious Kings in reforming Religion and establishing the true Worship of God saith
Hoc frater tuus Edvardus Angliae Rex praeclarissimus pro viribus sane prae quam ejus aetas pateretur facere studuit cujus regnum diutius extrahi peccata nostra ingratitudo intolerabilis non siverâ—nt eximias illius adolescentis virtutes egregiam pietatem Deus orbi tantum ostendere voluit deinde ut nos quemadmodum mala nostra merita exigebant aliquantulum castigaret illum e terra citius ad se revocavit The same your brother Edward the most renowned King of England did study to the utmost of his Power and beyond what his age would permit to doe whose reign our sins and most intolerable ingratitude would not suffer to continue longer over us God onely would shew to the World the singular virtues and most excellent Piety of that young man and then to correct us as our evil deservings did require he soon recalled him from this World to himself Judicious Mr. Hooker calls him Edward the Saint in whom it pleased God righteous and just to let England see what a blessing sin and iniquity would not suffer it to enjoy This rare and most excellent person God raised up to see this Book composed to establish it by regal Authority and then he was taken to his Crown of Glory 2. For the matter contained in that Book Sober and Learned men have sufficiently vindicated it against the cavils and exceptions of those who thought it a part of Piety to make what prophane objections they could against it especially for Popery and Superstition Whereas no doubt the Liturgy was exactly conformed to the Doctrine of the Church of England and this by all reformed Churches is confessed to be most found and orthodox It casts out all false Doctrine and Worship and is of it self sufficient to confute a Papist and other the Enemies of the Protestant Religion It is fitted for all occasions and uses of the Church and comprehends the whole Duty of a Christian both for the credendis contained in the Confessions of Faith the faciendis in the ten Commandments and the petendis in the Lord's Prayer and others framed thereby 3. For the Confirmation of it it stands ratified and enjoined by the Laws Statutes and Sovereign Authority of five most prudent and pious Persons immediately Queen Mary a Papist onely interposing succeeding one the other on the English Throne sealed and confirmed by the bloud of so many Martyrs that suffered in those Marian days shortly after the composure of it and so written in the bloud of those that compiled it 4. For the approbation of it it is commended and allowed by the best Divines of the reformed Churches both at home and abroad Such as Cranmer Tayler Ridley Iewel Calvin Bucer and many others 5. Touching God's acceptance and owning of it the History of ages past and the strange providence of God in relation to the framing preserving blessing and restoring it do so evidently declare this that he seems to be very much darkned in his mind with prejudice that can deny or gainsay it Which grace and favour of Divine assistence having not in one thing or two shewed it self nor for some few days or years appeared but in such sort so long continued our manifold sins and transgressions striving to the contrary what can we less thereupon conclude than that God would at leastwise by tract of time teach the World that the thing which he blesseth defendeth keepeth so strongly cannot chuse but be of him Wherefore if any refuse to believe us disputing for it let him believe God himself thus miraculously working for it What I have said in commendation of this book amounts to no more than what the reverend Divines of the Presbyterian perswasion have been constrained to say of it even then when they were to make all the exceptions they could against it They say We have an high an honourable esteem of those Godly and Learned Bishops and others who were the Compilers of the publick Liturgy and do look on it as an excellent and worthy work 'T is true they add for that time But these words seem to me no way to abate or detract from the acknowledged excellency and worth of it For if it were an excellent and worthy work then what hinders but that it is so now Wherein doth the excellency and worthiness of any form of God's worship at any time consist but in its Conformity to the Scriptures which is the rule and measure of Divine worship at all times It could never be excellent and worthy that was at any time unlawfull and it could have been no otherwise had it been contrary to God's word And they that shall impartially reade the History and seriously consider the profound Learning clear Light admirable Piety incomparable Zeal Purity Patience Loyalty and all other Christian Graces and Virtues which did shine forth in those renowned Fathers and Martyrs the Compilers of that book cannot without blushing arrogate to themselves greaterâ— and higher attainments than they had Are the men of this age the onely Children of the light and were those Worthies one of whom prophetically said to his fellow-sufferer at the stake We shall this day light such a Candle by God's Grace in England as I trust shall never be put out but in the mist of Popish ignorance and superstition in comparison of us now Rather I think they ought to be acknowledged men extraordinarily filled with the Spirit of God Light and understanding and sound wisedom was found in them and in nothing did they come behind the very chiefest Servants of God in this generation We allow and confess them to have been men not onely profound in Learning but sound in the faith Orthodox in judgment yea the great assertours of the Protestant Religion and glorious instruments in the hands of God of causing that light of truth to break out of darkness by which we now walk and which we all profess How is it then that they who spent all their time studies and strength in opposing the Idolatry and Superstition of the Romish Church and loved not their lives unto death but were slain for the word of God and testimony which they hold should be thought to retain any thing of Popish superstition in worship What is this but to condemn the generation of God's Children which cannot be well pleasing to their Father But what if it should be proved that the Liturgy of our Church was for the substance of it in use in the very first and purest times of the Church of Christ before ever Popish Superstition came into the World Then I hope it will be acknowledged to be free from that whereof it is secretly and most ignorantly charged But Godly and Learned Cranmer in Queen Mary's days who knew well what he said and was well able to make his words good offers to enter the lists with any Papist living for it had no other Enemy in those days
neither hath it in these but such as fight with their weapons and sharpen their instruments against it at their forge And if the Queens Highness would grant thereunto prove against all that will say the contrary that all that is contained in the Holy Communion set out by the most innocent and godly King Edward VI. in his high Court of Parliament is conformable to that order which our Saviour Christ did both observe and command to be observed and which the Apostles and primitive Church used many years And that if he might be permitted to take to himself Peter Martyr and four or five others whom he should chuse they would by God's Grace take upon them to defend not onely the Common-prayers of the Church the ministration of the Sacraments and other the rites and ceremonies but also all the Doctrine and Religion set out by the said King Edward VI. to be more pure and according to God's word than any other that have been used in England these thousand years so that God's word may be judge And that the Order of the Church set out at that present in the Realm by Act of Parliament is the same that was in the Church fifteen hundred years past Neither saith he it alone but we have the several testimonies of particular Learned and judicious Saints of that and the following generation touching the excellency and worth of that Book such as Saunders Taylor Ridley Iewel c. We have a Noble Army of Martyrs standing together in vindication of the purity of it The whole blessed company of persecuted Preachers in Prison at the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign in a petition of theirs to the King Queen and Parliament say thus If your said Subjects be not able by the Testimony of Christ his Prophets Apostles and Godly Fathers of his Church to prove that the Doctrine of the Church Homilies and Service-book taught and set forth in the time of our late most godly Prince King Edward VI. is the true Doctrine of Christ's Catholick Church and most agreeable with the Articles of the Christian faith your said subjects offer themselves then to the most heavy punishment that it shall please your Majesty to appoint Should but one Nonconformist have said so much for the antiquity and purity of this Book it would sooner have been believed by the people of our age than from the mouths of so many learned and holy Fathers Take therefore the testimony of one of that way and a learned one Mr. Iohn Ball who having spent great pains in quitting it from the objections of Separatists lays down this conclusion Our Service-book is not a Translation of the Mass but a restitution of the ancient Liturgy wherein sundry Prayers are inserted used by the Fathers agreeable to the Scriptures And in the same Chapter in a few pages after he hath these words To the praise of God be it spoken our Liturgy for purity and soundness may compare with any Liturgy used in the third and fourth Ages of the Church Which was long before Popery came into the World Neither hath any of the several emendations that it hath admitted since its first composure been of that nature or moment as to give an occasion to charge it in the least with any thing that is or was sinfull or Superstitious However thus much I suppose may unquestionably be concluded from the abovesaid acknowledgment that if it were an excellent and worthy work then it is not sinfull now but the use of it being enjoyned by Authority may be conformed to with a good Conscience Especially considering that it is farther acknowledged by the Divines first named That what things soever are offensive to them in it and desired to be removed are not of the foundation of Religion nor the essentials of publick Worship and must therefore be but circumstantials Which ought to be the more easily born with in complyance with Lawfull Authority by all such as mind their own duty or tender the peace of the Church it being a good and safe rule which St. Augustine gives in such a case Quod neque contra Fidem neque contra bonos more 's injungitur indifferenter est habendum pro eorum inter quos vivitur societate servandum est Whatsoever is enjoined that is not contrary to Faith or Holiness ought to be observed for peace-sake with them among whom we live Yet how is this Book called to the stake by the upholders and frequenters of Conventicles and made to fill up what was behind of the sufferings of those holy Fathers that compiled it How often have I heard it call'd by some of them Popery Idolatry Superstition and what not How are they accounted the onely Virtuoso's in these days and to have attained to a very high pitch of Piety when they have onely arrived at such a measure of profaneness as to rail at it and carefully to shun their joining with us in the Worship of God by it and think that they have then done him a very acceptable service when they have done him none at all but onely afforded their presence at the Preaching of a Sermon And to the end that malice may leave nothing unattempted to render it contemptible I have observed that these sinfull Assemblies are studiously continued till the end of Common Prayer in the Church at least if not during the Sermon also Could it ever have been thought that men who pretend Religion and Conscience could have proceeded to such a monstrous extremity of wickedness as to prefer their own private humours and fancies before God's publick Worship And thus endeavour to undermine and destroy so godly and legal an Establishment If confession of Sin profession of Faith reading of the Scriptures Prayers and Praise to God which is the substance of this whole Book be any part of God's Ordinance or Worship then surely the practice of these men is contrary not onely to Gospel order and commands but even to those Rules of Worship which the principal men of their own way and perswasion have given For in the Directory composed by the late Assembly of Divines the first direction for publick Worship which they give is this When the Congregation is to meet for publick Worship the people having before prepared their hearts thereunto ought all to come and join therein not absenting themselves from the publick Ordinances through negligence or upon pretence of Private meetings How are the mouths of Papists hereby opened against us to justifie their own Recusancy and to condemn our Church as false and adulterate seeing that our own members do revile it as they of the Romish Church also do calling it an abominable Book very pestiâ—erous c. the service of Baal plain Idolatry separate themselves from it join hands with them to destroy it and are contented to hazard their Estates and fortunes rather than to conform to it Doth not this harden them in their