Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	church_n	doctrine_n	homily_n	2,580	5	12.0475	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65556	The Protestant peace-maker, or, A seasonable persuasive to all serious Christians who call themselves Protestants that laying aside calumnies, and all exasperating disputes, they would pursue charity, peace, and union, as the only means (now left us) of safety and reformation of the publick manners : with a postscript, or notes on Mr. Baxter's and some others late writings for peace / by Edward, Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1682 (1682)	Wing W1513; ESTC R38252	74,674	136

will call that Solitude which you call Concord Vniformity Peace c. I am weary of transcribing such Language and sorry to find men who would take it very ill not to be thought Conscientious against their Consciences to impute that to their Brethren which themselves do not believe they would ever attempt nay which they abhor in the least to desire Good Lord forgive 4. I must needs look upon his aggravating his own and the Dissenters sufferings beyond truth I am sure beyond Probabilities to have proceeded from the same want of temper Pag. 142. He tells us Some of the ejected Ministers are so reduced and find so little succour that they live upon brown bread and water I will only in Answer hereunto make and I do hereby make a solemn and serious Invitation of all those Protestant Ministers in my Diocese nay of all of them in the whole Province who are thus low I invite them I say hereby to my Table every day in the year They shall freely eat as I do and Wellcome in God's Name But it is yet an higher strain which we have pag. 153. Some have died through the effects of want I have heard so indeed of divers of our own Churches Clergy ejected in the days of Vsurpation and I have reason from some I knew to believe it But Mr. Baxter must pardon me if I tell him I am very sure there is more Liberality and Charity amongst the Brethren than that any such things could come to pass except men were resolved wilfully to conceal their own Conditions and throw themselves away in some discontented Humour But this I take only for a Figure which he uses beyond the Rule in Oratory usque ad nauseam We have it again pag. 210. Having told us after his use of the Two thousand silenced Ministers of late he adds to that Sum and the many that have died in and by Imprisonment which we are told of again pag. 180. as if besides that vast number silenced there were many others that fared much worse We must profess all these things are new to us never heard of before and as Mr. Baxter says well upon a like indefinite Accusation pag. 145. All proof in such cases must be of individuals so till such proof be brought he must excuse our Faith as we are content herein to excuse his Charity Again pag. 194. We will be thankful to be under no severer usage than Colliers and Bargemen and Seamen than begging Rogues and Vagabonds have Ficta voluptatis causâ sint proxima veris. 5. Of the same nature are his Altitudes touching the Conformity by Law required Pag. 189. Subscribe That we have not mistaken a word in all the●e three Books c. We will suppose by the three Books he means the Liturgy Canons and Homilies but what by the c. in which we pretend to be infallible as he insinuates we know not unless it be a litt●● Art to make ignorant People furmise more than he durst affirm Or else you shall not preach the Gospe● of Salvation nor labour to save Peoples Souls n●● perswade them to think on another life Yes in pravate as much of this as you please or not to above five at a time that are not of the Family The same in sense we have again pag. 219. We cannot subscribe that your three Books are inf●llible to a word c. I doubt not but Mr. Baxer knows a man may subscribe with good Conscience to that which he does not know infallibly to be true There are many things which both he and I verily believe yet we are not infallibly sure we are not mistaken If I have a fair and clear perswasion or satisfaction grounded hereon That though there be Arguments on the contrary side yet they are such which I judge honestly answered but on the side I take the Arguments are far the stronger and not satisfactorily answerable as I see I say I may subscribe with very good Conscience that I receive such Doctrine Lubens ex animo for I do so though perhaps I receive it not as of strictness necessary to Salvation or as an Article of Faith But neither is that assent required in the Subscription We subscribe only with a design of Peace and Union The very Articles are intitled Articles agreed upon for the avoiding of diversities of Opinions I could tell Mr. Baxter that somewhere in this his Book if my memory mistake not he says he durst not reject such an one who should not subscribe he believed every Book of the Old Testament as perhaps a Chapter of Ecclesiastes or the Book of Canticles or some other like piece to be infallibly Canonical yet I doubt not but he subscribed and can in Conscience subcribe the sixth amongst the 39 Articles Nay pag. 167. The Nonconformists offer to subscribe I fear with some exception the same Doctrine of the Church of England as the Conformists do in the 39 Articles and the Book of Homilies Yet neither do the Conformists nor Nonconformists believe every word in those Books to be infallible but they judge them a wholsome mean of Peace and by their subscription are bound not to teach contrary What needed then those terms subscribe we have not mistaken a word Did any one ever say so that these three Books are infallible to a word c. These heights serve only to conciliate hatred and the reputation of cruelty to us and so to blast Peace 6. I will only ask Mr. Baxter himself whether he thinks that imputing to men gross ignorance of their Office unbelief of Religion obdurateness beyond Examples and the like are apt terms to gain mens hearts and unite us and them Yet all these and worse than these as far as worse can be we have abundantly from his hand Pag. 2. He accuses the Clergy at the Savoy that is those Bishops Doctors and diverse the Learnedest men in the three Kingdoms perhaps in Europe with whom he there treated of having spoiled the work at that season for want of skill But this is Modesty in Mr. Baxter yet Pag. 89. Alas that England must suffer so much while the Bishops are learning to rule and do their Office yea learning what weaker persons i. e. himself lin 15. easily perceive Alas that so many thousand souls must pay so dear for a few mens experience Pag. 195. I shall give you reasons that will make you know it if you have but the understanding of ordinary men This as to the ignorance and sottishness yea even of those of our Party who are ablest such I say as were those at the Savoy Poor Dr. Sanderson Dr. Morley Dr. Gunning Dr. Pierson c. that had not the understanding of Ordinary men Then as to our Atheistical Irreligious Temper pag. 190. O! what a plague it is to the Church and World to have Ministers that when they read of the necessity of Knowledge Holiness and Salvation do neither believe Christ nor themselve Lastly

and much worse as far as worse can be amongst such an Heterogeneous Body as this Should we yield to any one of these we were yet as far from gaining the rest as we are now from uniting all Take those two which I called the Elder Parties of the Dissenters How impossible a thing is it for them to agree what will satisfie them They had a numerous Assembly gathered together of themselves mostly which sate many years Did they agree then upon any common terms of Union betwixt themselves Or are they agreed since Let any produce the Accommodation if they can and if not let it be confest that there is Schism amongst even these Again take either of the Parties single Let them shew us what Christian Church upon the face of the Earth owns them as they are broken off from the Establisht Church of England and as indeed they broke down its Order Form of Worship Discipline and whole Frame to their Power Let them shew us I say what Protestant Church owns them as such for a Church or as such holds Communion with them If one of the Parties should answer The Kirk of Scotland the Reply is obvious The Establisht Church of Scotland was the same in effect with that of England and fell by the same hands And as to what the Answerers mean by the Kirk 't was only a Member of the Pars rea a very guilty part of themselves or of the accused Body It is well known there is extant an Harmony of the Confessions of all the Reformed Churches throughout Europe to shew the World their Christian Agreement and Communion In that Collection are extant with universal Approbation two Confessions of the Church of England as by Law it then stood and blessed be God now stands establisht two I say because different in Form but of the same Substance and very near of the same date We can some of us remember the time when the forementioned Assembly compiled also a Confession of Faith and a good Latinist excellently translated it and in that form it was sent abroad with a desire and design to have it inserted in the then new Edition of the Harmony of Confessions But the Foreign Churches stood constant to the Two old ones and rejected the new Judge hence what Church of England they own and whether they hold Communion with that People as a Church whose Confession they would not admit They well saw the Admission of it had destroyed the Harmony that is as well rendred the Collection contradictious in it self as brought too just an imputation of Schism upon the Reformation Further in a word What security can there be from partaking in Schism and indeed as it may happen Heresie too in the Communion of that Church the Form and Order of whose Worship and Administration of Sacraments is not certainly known nay according to their very Constitution is no where twice the same all being left to the gifts and discretion of the Minister who is declared unfit for his Office if he need and consequently will use a constant Form What man can say with any other than an Implicite Faith and therefore what Church will ever declare that they hold Communion or agree in Worship with such a People Herein this Generation of men has departed even from all the Foreign Presbyterian Churches themselves who all have their certain Orders and Forms of Publick Worship It were tedious to pursue more Particulars give me leave to sum up what has bee said on this Head Can it be expected and much less demanded by men of reason that we should relinquish and renounce a Constitution which has made us famous amongst Forreign Reformed Churches and has past their Approbation from the beginning to unite with men who are at a greater distance from one another if you respect at least the several Sects than perhaps we are from them all the very soberest Party of all whom as they would be thought if we would go about to agree to we shall not find as far as I can see one Protestant Church would recommend them to our Fellowship by having first owned them as a Church or having held Communion with them nay we are not sure that we can in Conscience hold Communion with them that is joyn in and consent to their Worship one hour our selves Can this I say be expected or demanded from us It cannot surely Some Circumstantials may be on our hand abated or relaxed and had been doubtless long ago if Men of eager and inflexible Spirits had not hindred but the main Constitution we may not recede from What most of the Dissenters would be at No Liturgy no Episcopacy no Uniformity c. may not be cannot be without Schism Wherefore again to take up my Exhortation Let us resolve upon yielding spirits Let us move towards one another in order to meeting We of the Establisht Church do not say there is nothing amongst us which may be amended Again we do not say there is nothing among you which is to be approved My Exhortation to you here only is That as far as your Cause has any thing good in it you would not blast that good and the hopes of its taking by an Universal stiffness and while you insist on things which are questionable and in the judgment of most others but your selves not sit to be granted keep open the breach to our Common Destruction The only steps by which we can mutually move to Peace I with all submission conceive to be these 1. That we would all seriously betwixt God and our own Consciences severally study Self-denial one of the great Lessons our Lord taught us and that with a peculiar eye and regard to Accommodation One man perhaps must deny himself of a certain kind of Popularity and Vulgar esteem Another of an Idiosyncrasy or particular humour though perhaps that not so much natural as contracted A third of somewhat else All of whatsoever good Conscience tells us is less valuable than Common Union 2. That the soberest of the Dissenters would Categorically and sincerely publish what of the Establisht Order they can agree to 3. That they would actually do and teach their Followers to do what they in Conscience judge lawful If these Points might be obtained certainly in a very short time a Consultation of things would be resumed And then let those be blamed who would not hear and do Reason But if these and such Discourses as these may not be heard if we of the Church must only be Calumniated still as the great Enemies to a Publick Peace and no means will take for the sweetning and allaying the heights of those Spirits we have to deal with we can all of us only expect the fruit of Contention and that is Confusion and every Evil Work one James III. 1● part of which will be as already intimated our Common Ruin And let it be considered beforehand when we shall have again ruin'd our selves by our

I cannot say whether That a man may with less danger of exposing himself preach many Sermons than print one Those Defects and Crudities which the speed and with some more happy persons the Grace of Pronunciation covers are easily perceived by the mature attention of the Peruser That this will be the Fate of divers Passages in these foregoing Discourses I am sensible enough and perhaps see the Particulars But the Design I pursue in them is so necessary to be promoted by more Advocates than it has in good earnest that I could not prevail with my self through any fear of Censures to suppress my poor however cordial endeavours therein Nor did I think it fit in the Copy for the Press to make any such Supplies or Changes as in themselves I might think but requisite lest it should be objected by any I preached not what I print Wherefore I am content that all pass in the form it is I will only admonish that the same Arguments which I have used in the Second Sermon to prove our present Divisions destructive to Holiness will also prove that other part which I have too lightly touch't That the Union we perswade would certainly produce more Holiness or Reformation of the Publick Manners than any other Expedient we can easily imagine Only I had not time to apply them distinctly to both parts and to those who will read this 't is amply enough to have suggested thus much There may possibly occur divers Passages in both Sermons which same may say want Truth nay the Contradictions to which I have read in print not many days ago I can only say I spoke them not with a design of contradiction and I both did and still do judge them real Truths For instance Serm. 1. pag. 22. I say We Conformists doubt not but in this our obedience we please God and are not unserviceable unto men Mr. Baxter on the contrary in his Apology for the Non-conformists Ministry which Book I shall much cite in what follows applies to us more than once as I remember that passage of the Apostle touching the unbelieving Jews 1 Thessal II. 15. That we please not God and are contrary to all Pag 235. c. men I believe in my Conscience he is mistaken and that what I said is true Nay further I will tell him and all the World and God is my Witness herein I at first obeyed with a design to serve God and I bless my God I do both serve him with a pure Conscience in the way of Conformity and have the comfort and joy thereof in my own brest daily nor do I trouble my self or can I help it if prejudicate men are of another mind Again pag. 30. of the same Sermon I said Presbyterians and Independents could not agree among themselves no not when they had an Assembly packt mostly of themselves Yet many have lately magnified their Agreement and some have told us that Assembly was almost all of Episcopal conformable Mr. Baxt. Apol. N. C. p. 90 204. c. men Were it worth the labour I could prove the truth of what I said nay I could prove much more First as to their great concord I say they were so far from agreeing then that they are not agreed yet For whereas some could come in to our Church upon such terms as they are pleased to insinuate under the name of a Comprehension namely the Moderate Presbyterians They of the Congregational way cannot according to their Judgments allow of our Parochial Bill for Accommodation pag. penult Churches nor a Book of Liturgy but do choose to worship God in the way of their Gathered or Separate Congregations and so need an Indulgence Then as to Mr. Baxter's demand Were not almost all the Westminster-Assembly Episcopal Conformable men when they came thither I could say No not in their hearts as appear'd by their fruits Those four of five that were had no comfort to be amongst them Hear part of the Preamble of that Ordinance by which this conformable Assembly was called Whereas it has been declared and resolved by Jun. 12. 1643. Scob. Coll p. 42. the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament that the present Church Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers depending upon the Hierarchy is justly offensive and burthensome to the Kingdom a great impediment to Reformation and growth of Religion and very prejudicial to the State and Government of this Kingdom and that therefore they are resolved that the same shall be taken away and that such a Government shall be settled in the Church as may be agreeable to God's Holy Word Episcopacy then in these mens judgments was not and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland c. What Episcopal men would have answered this call or these ends any otherwise than by protesting against them Did these things tend to peace I could and would give a further answer I could tell him too who it is that through habitual prejudice self-flattery and unhappy errour is a falsifier of History and that in the very memory of them in whose times these things were acted and particularly in fixing the war upon an Erastian party in Parliament when all the World knows a People ever known to be of more bloody Principles and whom I will not name for peace-sake both scattered and blew the Coals whence arose those Combustions but that I say I conceive my Answer would no more conduce to peace than his reminding the Nation of those things which at other times he would have forgotten I would have set forth all this In short he and all his Abettors must know the Catalogues of that Parliament of that Assembly are in our hands the Copies of their Speeches the Journals of their Votes Transactions c. are all to be produced and to say nothing of the Covenanters the Commissioners both of Ministry and Laiety named in the Form of Church Government which the Assembly had been so long a hammering to be used in the Church of England and Ireland all these mens names qualities principles and procedure are notorious in print Such publick and as I may justly call them Authentick Records as these must and will be credited when private persons whose interest and unhappiness it is to tax others with their own faults will scarce find belief But I forget my self however I followed another and sad it is when one who pretends for peace in his very pleas for it leads us out of the way to it I have done with this kind of Discourse when I have besought my Reader not to account any thing said in my Sermons false because some have been pleased to contradict and hector the Truth I did not at first intend even thus much of Reflexion for I proposed not to my self in this Postscript to Apologize for my Sermons nor to answer

Office of the Visitation of the Sick that much in that Particular is referred to the discretion of the Minister Then shall the Minister exhort the sick person after this form or other like says the Rubrick He is not then tied up but may vary and I scarce ever knew but in ordinary practice we do so Again Then shall the Minister examine whether he repent him truly of his sins and be in Charity with all the World exhorting him c. viz. to forgiveness satisfaction to men for wrongs done disposal of his goods Charity to the Poor all which says the Rubrick may be done before the Minister begin his Prayer as he shall sée cause And for all this there is no form at all prescribed consequently then it being left to the Ministers prudence he he may put what Interrogatories and make as narrow a search as he shall think fir and he is required plainly to judge because to exhort and admonish as there appears cause Now it is to be considered these Exhortations and Admonitions may and most frequently do take up divers Visits However all this being supposed to be done Then and not till then Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special Confession of his sins if he féel his Conscience burdened with any weighty matter After which Confession the Priest shall absolve him if he humbly and heartily desire it after this sort Rubr. Where to be short I only desire two things may be noted 1. That after all this the Minister is not commanded to absolve him They must be absolved in Mr. Baxter is then false but if he see fit to absolve him he is to absove him after this sort It is very well known divers of us have refused and daily do to absolve such persons touching whose Penitence we are not sati●fied 2. Those words if he humbly and heartily desire it do import the discovery of such a sense of sin to to the Confessour at least suppose him in Consc●ence judge as may well be conceived to bear him out in giving Absolution certainly they do exclude Cursing and Swearing and railing at an holy Life at that time Which things being so apparently thus it would almost tempt a man in charity to think Mr. Baxter writes against the Laturgy without having duly read or considered it otherwise he would not so falsly accuse it or traduce our Church for it His last imputation is but little better than this which we have now dispatched Namely that the Discipline of the Church is managed by one Lay Chancell●r and his Court with some small Assistance The Archdeacons of which in most Dioceses there are divers in that of Exon from whence I came four throughout England generally have their Courts and neither are they Lay-men nor for the most part do they Act mainly by Lay-Officials and their Courts in many places are weekly Besides these in Every Deauery i. e. ten Parishes or thereabouts there are Archypresbyters or Deans Rural whose Duty and Oath binds them to enquire into the Conversation as well of the Clergy as of the People within their Precincts So that if Ministers and Church-wardens will but do their Duty the Provision of Discipline is sufficient in Mr. Baxter's language for the keeping clean the Church I will be still so charitable to him as to believe he is not verst in our Exercise of Discipline but I could also have wish't that he had no more censured it Only I will conclude this Particular by appealing to his own Sense and the sense of Mankind if such undue and prevaricant Charges as these be the way to peace 9. And now I am speaking of Prevarication his reckoning Hooper Latimer and Cranmer pag. 228. amongst the Nonconformists to conciliate thence credit to their Cause and detract from us is a kind of Art which Ingenuity and much more Christian Veracity would blush to own I will allude in this regard to the words of the great Apostle I wish not only Mr. Baxter but all the Dissenters were altogether such as they excepting their Bonds and Sufferings 10ly and Lastly For I will not run the number up to Mr. Baxter's beloved number of 20 or upwards though I might There appears to me in him a great Inconstancy to himself and that not only in smaller points and lapses of memory or attention as may seem that pag. 10. I never came near them that is the People of Kidderminster nor except very rarely sent them one line yet within five lines after I sent them says he all the Books which I wrote but even in his Resolutions and Matters of great moment is there with him Yea and Nay Sometimes he seems against all Subscribing as pag. 60 113 c. At another time he is for Subscribing to the Doctrine of the Church in the 39 Articles and Books of Homilies pag. 12 167 c. and other terms of Peaceableness Again pag. 128. The 39 Articles are a wholsome Doctrine yet pag. 122. They are not intelligible they have contrary meanings to fit the use of every Subscriber they are hot to one and cold to the other By the way sometimes it is no fault in the Books to be subscribed that they are so worded as to allow men to abound in their own sense And we are sure our Articles are in this no more guilty than most Confessions which have been penn'd for Concord as the Augustan it self witness therein the Article and Clause touching the Presence of Christ's Body in the Sacrament In sum when a Proposition evidently admits of two or three senses and each of them is known famous and held by divers Doctors of the same Church and that Church framing a Rule or Mean of Concord for her Sons shall in that Rule set a Proposition which takes in the several Opinions of these Doctors in such sort as to tye them up as far as is necessary and to leave them otherwise at their liberty is this Proposition justly to be called unintelligible or have Mr. Baxter and the Dissenters any cause if they will be constant to themselves to say 't is Unreasonable For my own part I wish sincerely for their sakes some more of the Articles and perhaps Rubricks too were penned with ampler Latitude But to the Point again That is a very unkind inconstancy unkind not only to us but to the Design of Peace that so often in pag. 16 17 18 c. he says They take it to be their Duty in the Exercise of their Ministry to take heed of any thing that tendeth to the Division of the peoples minds or the hinderance of the lawful publick Ministry or to their just Discouragement Again to take heed lest any dishonour or murmuring against their Rulers arise or be cherished by reason of their sufferings or to subvert or perplex the hearers by aggravating the faults of others or other mens worshipping of God or breeding in them distast of the Publick Worship for all which Expressions

Expression is admirable and infinitely above that they would have obtruded It is not every kind of style or Character of Speech which is fit for Publick Prayers There is something in this respect Quod nequeo monstrare at sentio tantùm not so well expressible to all mens Apprehension which makes those Prayers of theirs more non-natural More expresly such Heterogenous Pieces such bold Narrative or telling God of divers Matters such abruptness of Transitions such confused synonymous Petitions such long-winded Continuations without any Responds at all which yet I have heard Mr. Baxter has declared his Approbation of yea without any obliging the People so much as to a Vocal Amen the frequent use whereof as it is very ancient so must I commend as most serviceable to engage the Peoples hearts ever and anon afresh in Prayer and to keep them to the Publick Devotions these I say and divers more very uncouth Incidents concurring in them render them very unsavoury to us in comparison of our own and as unmeet to be received much more to be prescribed Wherefore I wonder not that their whole frame was rejected but I must confess I do wonder at the Humoursomness of their Authours Devotion who ever thought of rejecting all ours or admitting theirs into equal Authority so that it should have been at the Ministers choice which to have used Would they have had us had two Liturgies or to have received one which had little to recommend it but utter Novelty and to have laid aside another whose Antiquity Simplicity Purity and Persection has extorted Commendations from its very Adversaries These things they could not expect would be agreed unto nor may yet wherefore such Terms of Peace or Accommodation they ought not to think of Thus as to what Mr. Baxter and some of his Brethren have proposed touching the Liturgy 2. As to the C●remonies as far as I can see Mr. Baxter would have therein only such a Reformation which Vna litura potest Take all away and the Quarrel is at an end we are all one pag. 218. Sometimes indeed he speaks as if he would have these left to all mens choice so that they who have a mind of them might use them and they who have not might let them alone as pag. 60 113. c. But this especially if extended to all would be of far worse Consequence than the present Injunction can be justly charged with 3. Episcopacy he expresses sometimes a content to submit to yet at other times both brings such Charges against it and makes such Demands as at once destroy the order and all regard to be paid to it Usurpation and Church Corruption are ordinary terms for it pag. 218 221 c. He has much Church Tyranny p. 241. Destroying thousand of Churches p. 243. c. worse but I cannot stay to look them And he demands That an Vniversal Confirmation be granted of those who have been ordained otherwise than by Bishops they being still responsible for any personal Insufficiency or Crime and that Reordination whether Absolute or Hypothetical be not made necessary to the Exercise of their that is such mens Ministry Petition for Peace pag. 2. Take away from the Bishop this Peculiar and farewel Episcopacy St. Hierom himself being Judge Quid enim facit exceptâ Ordinatione Episcopus quod Presbyter non facit Epist ad Euagr. This for that reason was not to be expected because inconsistent with retaining the Order Besides that in the judgm●nt of the generality of the Church of England such practice can never be admitted in our own Church I profess I meddle not with Forreigners without Schisin and abominable Scandal even the Laity would be no less scandalized at it than the Clergy 4. Another strange Demand or Proposal of Mr. Baxter's and divers of his Brethrens is that the Exercise of Discipline even to to the putting each scandalous Offender to open Penance and in case such person submit not after Admonitions the Power of Excommunication should be vested in every single Parochial Minister provided indeed there be place for due Appeals to Superiour Powers Reform of Liturg. pag. 79 80 87 88. c. Yet is it not determined there what Crimes they are which are scandalous but rather tacitly supposed that all men know them or that every Minister will judge aright How far the very Parliament themselves were from permitting this to the Parochial Presbyteries and what Debates there were upon this single Point what should be a scandalous sin or a cause sufficient to have men suspended from the Lord's Supper I list not to speak at present Yet then it was demanded only for the Pastor and Eldership now to the Pastor singly This Demand at once cuts off from the Bishops the taking cognizance of any scandalous Offence in primâ instantiâ as we speak Before their Power of Ordination had its wound now their Jurisdiction Yet we must suppose them Bishops still However let it be consider'd whether this Proposal would have been swallowed in case it had past the Bishops by either People or Parliament A few Ecclesiastical Courts in a Diocese that is in some hundreds of Parishes though all of them govern'd by Canons which the Ecclesiastical Judge dare not swerve from are now looked upon by a great many as a strange burthen Would then the People ever submit to or our Lawgivers go about to Erect and Authorize a severer Tribunal regulated chiefly by a single persons discretion in every Parish What intolerable Confusion Strife or Oppression must arise from hence I can think of none that this project would be good for unless the Officers in the Bishops Courts for they undoubtedly would have so much work by Appeals that they would not be able to turn themselves to it If any say this last Head is no defect but rather an exorbitancy I answer as to the Discipline propounded there is a defect of Laws and Canons but to give an answer once for all which may serve too in other cases whether Mr. Baxter's Proposals in general are peccant in Defect or Excess of what is fit I am not concern'd to be Critical I modestly styled them defects and I am sure they come much short of being any likely Mean of Peace Witness 5. That he divers times insinuates more a great deal would be done by himself and brethren towards Conformity were not Subscriptions Declarations Swearing and Penalties imposed and so seems to desire Conformity only might be injoyn'd but none of these stipulations or obligations thereto required Thus Third Part of Plea pag. 60. Let the Agenda of Religion remain only Agenda and the doing of them serve the turn and you would have much fewer Scruplers and Nonconformists And to the same purpose again for he seems to think us very forgetful pag. 113 156. c. First as to the point of bare Church-Conformity there is only required Subscription and Declaration The Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are of another