but also before our Livelihoods Liberties and Lives Woe to the Hypocrite that hath no better a reward And why should we do it Were we not as capable of the more Noble and General applause as you if we could have taken your way As we are none of your Judges then Be you none of ours but let us with Resolved unity though not uniformity serve that one God whom we are all devoted to Remember that to Preach Love is your Ministerial work And to practice it is your Christian work Resolve as much to maintain Christian Love as inviolate even to Martyrdom as the Martyrs did to maintain the Christian Faith Remember Ridley and Hooper You may come to Ridley's Confessions ere you die We purpose not to Unminister you so much aâ— Gildas did his Brittains nor to separate from you so much as Martin did to the death from all the Neighbour Synods and Bishops for a far lesser cause than the silencing of eighteen hundred Ministers We take not you whom I now write to to be consenting to this work Though your silence and non-resistance hath bred such thoughts of you in people as we would fain have you cure by the contrary means We are for peace Be not you against it But we cannot buy it by deserting the Ministry to which we were consecrated and devoted nor by neglecting so many thousand miserable souls Bring things in England once to that pass that really our labour may be unnecessary in the judgement of those that are not Infidels Ignorants or Malignant enemies of a holy life and we will presently gratifie all that desire our silence or our banishment and will not trouble men with needless work Thus Brethren you see I have presumed no higher than to Petition you And that not to your cost or detriment nor for our preferment wealth or ease We aske you not for food or rayment We crave from you none of your Dignities nor Estates Though when I find this Author disswading us from our Ministry because the people are poor I think that reason might almost as aptly have served to perswade us to live no longer because the world is too poor to keep us We do but eat if we preach and so we must if we do not And I think it had savoured of no excess of Charity and Ministerial ingenuity if he had rather said Brethren you must perform your undertaken Ministry and we and the peoples souls have need of all your help And the maintenance is given for the work Therefore you that work with us shall have part of the Church maintenance with us at least a fifth part as was allowed to the ejected by the Parliament because the people cannot maintain you and it is hard to serve God without anxiety while your families are in want This had better beseemed our Brethren but we crave and expect no such thing from you but only patiently to suffer us to live and labour by you and let God provide for us as he please And if we had expected that heretofore you had Petitioned our Rulers for the liberty of our Ministry it had bin no unreasonable expectation All knew that our own Petitions had no hope Ministers should of all men have bin most sensible of the Churches breaches loss and danger and most compassionate of the peoples souls If you had but humbly acquainted our Rulers That all our labours conjoyned are too little that you needed our help and the ignorant our teaching That your own judgement was that our Ministry was more necessary than our personal Conformity 1. You know not but you might have bin heard For no doubt our Rulers thought they did that which the Reverend Church-men did advise or think best I hope you do not think that our civil Rulers would have done all that they have done against us if it had bin against the Bishops and conformable Clergies judgment and advise Civil Governours are never so cruel in matters of Religion as the Ruling and exasperated Clergy are as the Histories of all ages testifie 2. Or at least you might have had the greater peace of Conscience in all the confusions that have followed and said It is not long of us And you would have acquitted your selves in the judgement of all your hearers and they would have bin the less prejudiced against your Ministry Had you Petitioned and prevailed but for these two things you had healed all our breaches First That the door of enterance might not have bin barred by any other subscriptions professions or Oaths than what were used in the Churches of Christ till the exaltation of the Papacy for 600 years besides the Oaths of Allegeance and supremacy and the subscribing the Doctrine of the Church of England in the 39. Articles according to the 13th of Queen Elizabeth Secondly That those so subscribing who dare not use the Liturgy and Ceremonies might have leave to preach in the Churches which use them under Laws which shall restrain them from all unpeaceable opposition to what they dare not use or to the Government of the Church And having mentioned this What if I added yet this clause to my present Petition to you V. That you will yet Petition for us or rather for the Church of Christ that upon the foresaid terms we may be if possible taken in to the established Ministry If not yet tolerated as Lecturers under you in such Churches where the Ministers desire us not taking any of their maintenance from them but trusting God for our daily bread By this means you shall have no need to fear our injuring of your wealth or reputation Nor the strengthening of the Papists by the weakening of Protestants through our-own divisions Onely let not the people who scruple Conformity be therefore denyed Church-Communion and Sacraments And now as God will judge so let the world judge let posterity judge whether we are unworthy in comparison of the present Ministers of England to be permitted to preach Christs Gospel on these self-denying and self-abasing terms And whether they that cry out of the danger of Popery Infidelity Profaneness and Heresies and yet had rather let them in all than give us leave to exercise that Ministry to which we were consecrated in poverty and subjection and while they cry out of Divisions will not lay by the Dividing-engines should rather accuse us or themselves if the evils overwhelm us which they seem to fear It is not pleasure profit or worldly preferments that we contend for We would do no man hurt or wrong If our lovers of Church-power do think us intolerable because we obey them not as fully as they desire we profess before God and Man that it is not because we would not be subject and obedient to any as far as will stand with our obedience to God but only because we dare not we will not do that which we believe that God forbideth us And if we erre it is not for want of studying perhaps as hard and impartially as they to know the truth And to him that thinketh he doth evil it is sin It is sin and no small or tolerable sin which our consciences fear in our forbearing subscriptions and Conformity If they also take it to be a sin to suffer us to preach the Gospel and a greater sin than to suffer the inundation of Infidelity Popery and the rest which they say is ready to break in upon us And if they think our not Subscribing Swearing c. to be in us so great a sin that the punishment laid on Swearers Drunkards or Fornicators will not serve turn to avenge it on our selves nor any other of our personal sufferings unless the souls of many thousands and the Protestant Religion and our Posterity also suffer for it the Judgments of God must be endured But remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our Fore-fathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins Spare us good Lord Spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood and be not angry with us for ever And hasten O Lord Jesus thy more Righteous Judgement FINIS ERRATA P. 13. l. â—â— the thing p. 19. l. â— del 〈◊〉 p. 28. l. 21 r. you p. 45. l. 15. del 4 p. 65. l. 6. r. work p. 67. l. â—8 r. by not only p. 70. l. 3. for r. p. 89. l. â— r. intolerable p. 9â— l. â— r. make your p. 108. l. 21. r. and renounce all
Essentials of a true Church That Dr. Seaman Mr. Calamy Dr. Manton Mr. Gouge Dr. Bates Dr. Jacomb and abundance more such with the people subject to them as Pastors were true Churches Prove you if you can that on Aug. 24. 1662. they were degraded or these true Churches dissolved on any reason which any Churches for 600 years after Christ would own 4. If not you seem your self to accuse their Successors of Schism for drawing away part of the people from them meerly by the advantage of having the Temples and Tythes and so gathering Churches out of true Churches so ordinary is it for self-esteeming men to talk to their own reproach and condemnation Sect. 8. But as to his second Objection I will take his part and though we differ not at all from the Doctrine of the Church of England till the new Doctrine about Infants was brought into the new Rubrick yet it is not in minutioribus that we differ from the Conformists gather from it what you can God knoweth we think the matters in difference very far from things indifferent CHAP. V. Whether the Declaration make the Non-conformists preaching more lawful or their duty than it was before Sect. 1. HIs Sect. 2. Pro. 2. is impertinent For 1. He knoweth little if he know not that the Nonconformists did before take such preaching and meetings to be lawful and a duty in respect of the Law of God where they had opportunity to use them 2. But they take it for a double sin to neglect a duty when they have Liberty granted them by the King to perform it But he knoweth we take God for our absolute Soveraign and think that none can repeal his Laws because that none hath any power but from him and we suppose that he will pass the final sentence on Kings and us To what purpose is it then among Christians to question whether Men make it lawful for Christs Consecrated Ministers to preach when God commandeth it Sect. 2. But pag. 14. he thinks he may safely say that the Declaration doth not so much as uncommand and uninjoyn any thing which the Law properly commands or injoyns Answ Say you so 1. The Law commandeth Magistrates to execute the penal Laws The King forbiddeth them Is not that to uncommand them 2. The Law commandeth us not to meet above four in a private house for worship otherwise than c. The King suspendeth or dispenseth with this Command and not only with the penalty And is not a suspension of a Precept an uncommanding though not a commanding of the contrary I will not instance in Juries indicting Papists c. Sect. 3. But he subtilly tells us that the Declaration meddles neither with the Preceptive nor Punitive parts of the Law but only with the Execution which is extrinsick to both All Lawyers must come learn anew of him what it is to dispense with a Law As if the Command You shall examine and punish such such men and the prohibition You shall not punish them but protect them were not contrary Nor the prohibition You shall not meet above four c. and the dispensation You may meet c. Sect. 4. But all this is utterly impertinent to them whose Consciences never allowed them to forbear their Ministry in formal obedience to any mens prohibition but only when they had not power or opportunity to exercise It 's no duty which cannot be done And License maketh that possible which was impossible He that untieth my feet accidentally maketh it my duty to go Sect. 5. pag. 16. Let Mr. Crofton answer for himself but the other two named by you Ball and Baxter have much against you but nothing for you and understand themselves better than you understand them and he that surviveth taketh himself to be abused by your Allegations and provoketh you to cite any of his words which are against Nonconformists preaching as they have opportunity If you had rather that we were all used as Mr. Jos Allein was you may see by his Preface to his Life whether he was not for such sufferings rather than silence Sect. 6. His reviving his pitiful Objection That we have the approbation of Authority for separation is but a contemptible sporting of himself at the game he is best skilled at Objecting nothing that he may seem to answer it with something Sect. 7. But p. 18. he will bring us to Vtopia Morus invented it and there he will suppose the Villanies of Theft Murder and Adultery unpunished and publick Meetings allowed where they should be practised Answ 1. What should the poor Nonconformists hear if they thus Commented on the Clemency of the King 2. But because you will force dumb men to speak suppose that in the same Utopia the Philosophy Schools which had faithful Teachers and the Christian Churches that had faithful Pastors were deprived of near 2000 of them at once and those that came in their places had the consent but of the least part of the people and that they were such as did Doctrinally declare to the people that millions may be PER â— without sin that they ex animo approve of all the Gregorian Liturgie and every thing therein and of all the Lutherans Consubstantiation and Church-Images and when in Baptism they had vowed to fight against the World the Flesh and the Devil under Christ they should contrarily upon deliberation make a solemn publick Covenant that in their places callings they would never endeavour to reform Cardinals Inquisitions High-places Consubstantiation Church-Images or Church-tyranny so in part renounce their Baptism And suppose a clement Prince should release the ejected Teachers from their restraints and allow them to set up private schools of Philosophy and Divinity and the people should say We cannot in conscience cast our Souls on the guidance of the PER â— and therefore crave the benefit of your conduct If these suffering men shall seek to reconcile them to the PERS â— and desire them to have a better opinion of them but yet tell them that they will not deny them their own best help Quaere whether they sinned by not being PER â— themselves or by not being cruel deserters of mens Souls and which side is to be compared to the Murderers and Adulterers I know this is not our Case in England but if we must follow you into Utopia or Moria let us have the equitable judgment of the place CHAP. VI. Of the Inconveniencies of our Tolerated Meetings Sect. 1. NOthing more easie than for men that have some great advantages to force inconveniencies upon other mens greatest Duties And we look to do nothing in the World scarce that shall have no inconvenience I eat not one meal of ten that doth not make me sick But must I therefore give over I can tell you of more than a few inconveniences of your own preaching and Church-worship and yet you will not give it over But if any shall make those inconveniencies against our wills
you set not up wholly for your selves that speak so 3. And they will worship God with the Sect of the Diocesan Prelatists in the Parish-Churches also as far as will stand with the due exercise of their proper Ministery But will not promise you to give over Preaching to become your constant Auditors or Disciples Sect. 6. You understand neither the Men that you talk of nor their Cause they take not the Independents Assemblies to be the Tents of Enemies they leave terms of Enmity among Brethren to those that have enmity in their hearts Nor do they tamely deliver up the Cause The most Nonconformable Ministers of my acquaintance whose judgment I ever asked of that matter do seem to think as I my self do that the Episcopal Pretbyterians Independents and Erastians have each of them some Truth and Good which above the rest they do defend and each of them some special mistake where they err above the rest And if we could know it we would take the Best from among them all and leave the worst And not maintain Church-quarrels under pretense that we must not flie to the Enemy and give up the Cause Sect. 7. O the confidence of this Adviser in his own understanding that dare say That he is sure that the Presbyterians have no reason to engage in a way of publick Worship contradistinct to our Parochial Congregations 1. That is contradistinct which is not opposite or adverse but either co-ordinate as one Parish to another or subordinate as a Chappel 2. And what man Is a Vow and Dedication to Preach the Gospel no reason to Preach it elsewhere when its forbidden us in your Assemblies Is the alienation of Consecrated persons no Sacriledge Is the notorious need of many hundred thousand Souls no reason Is the exercising of a Worship and Discipline more agreeable to Gods Word than yours we are ready to give you the proof when we have leave no reason Is the relieving of many godly Christians who are cast out of your communion because they dare not Conform no reason Had we had leave to have conted the silly reasonings of Mr. Fulwood and some such other Pamphleteers produced against the Nonconformists we had long ago shewed you cause to repress such self esteem which dare say I am sure they bave no reason Sect. 8. And this man that is sure they have no reason for it could instance in no greater than the Objection that It will seem an undervaluing their liberty and ingratitude to the King 1. We have no reason to be ungrateful to the King nor to undervalue our Liberty 2. But did that move the London Ministers and others to Preach all this while before the Declaration 3. When you have proved that Greater Hurt than Good will follow our Preaching and Ministry and when you have proved that though all the Papists in England do use the liberty of the Toleration in the Declaration yet the Nonconformists must not but silently leave our sufficient Conformists to do all the work against Ignorance Infidelity Popery and Sensuality themselves I say when you have proved this well you may again bless the people with our silence and perswade us to silence our selves when you cannot do it otherwise Sect. 9. But he saith p. 6. Their ingenuity and gratitude to God and the King will be better expressed by their Conformity and Loyal obedience to the known Laws than by the use of the Liberty permitted to the contrary Answ He knoweth that we must not give him our Reasons against Conformity He cannot but know that many that Conform nor in all the matters of Subscriptions Declarations Oathes Discipline c. not medling with other mens Consciences do think it would be in them a composition of such hainous crimes as they do forbear to name them for fear of seeming to be accusers of others and to be unpeaceable And if he think that such toys as Mr. Fulwoods Mr. Stilemans and Mr. Hinkleys c. should satisfie them he thinks contemptibly of their understandings And he that by such poor temptations as those will yield to what their Consciences fear can scarce tell what he may not yield to before he dieth Let him procure us leave but to publish ours Reasons against Conformity and then let him tell us that we were better Conform when he hath answered them It 's easie to talk when none must confute him and to brave it against one whose tongue is tyed Sect. 10. His next Supposition is that the matter of this Liberty is evil I am glad it is not evil for the Conformists to Preach and Worship God lest it would have been lawful to none at all We are glad that Christ is Preached even by them that do it contentiously in envy and strife to add to our Afflictions and Bonds But we will not our selves give over Preaching Praying nor the rest of the Christian Religion because such men can call it evil He that saith our Preaching is evil may tempt men to think that the Gospel which we Preach is evil or that Infidelity Atheism Sensuality and Wickedness which we Preach against is good or harmless Is it good in you and evil in us to Preach the same Gospel If you turn to them that Calumniate us of Preaching Errour or Sedition the Law is open our Writings and Doctrine are easily tryed If we say evil bear witness of the evil If not take heed of calling it evil Isa 5. 20. CHAP. IV. Whether to gather themselves into distinct and separate Congregations is unlawful in the judgment of the Presbyterians themselves Sect. 1. THe proving the Affirmative is his work pag. 7 c. But the Presbyterians do not love confusion nor to dispute such blindly-stated Questions They distinguish 1. Between bare Local distinction and separation and that which is eminently called Separation in England and denominated from the Separatists which is separating from the Parish-Churches Ministry Worship as being no true Churches Ministry and Worship or at least such as no Christians may lawfully Communicate with in Doctrine Prayer and Sacraments when they can have no better In the former sense as is said one Parish-Church is separate from another And if there be any difference in their Forms or Modes of Worship so was there between Basil at Caesarea and the Church at Neocesarea and between Rome and Millane and between almost all the Catholick Bishops for many hundred years And so now one Parish-Minister prayeth freely in the Pulpit after Sermon and before another by a Form a third biddeth prayer before and a fourth prayeth not afterward at all And yet these are not separated Churches any otherwise than Locally and in such Modal differences 2. They distinguish between a Parish-Church that imposeth nothing on the Ministers or People that God forbiddeth and one that doth 3. And between a Parish-Church that is Reformable in that which notoriously needeth Reformation and one that solemnly Covenanteth against Reformation 4. They distinguish
between a Parish-Church that is such and owneth it self for such And a Parish-Congregation that hath no proper Bishop nor Pastor who hath the power of the Keys of Government but is called by its Rulers only a part of a Church Diocesan and the Minister but the Diocesan Bishops-Curat 5. They distinguish between a Parish-Church where the Ministers in question are forbidden to preach and the People to have the Sacrament or their Children to be baptized unless they will say and do such things as they dare not do for fear of God's displeasure And a Parish-Church that driveth none such away from Ministry or Communion And now will this Adviser prove that what any Presbyterians ever said in one case must reach to all others that are so different Sect. 2. He next questioneth 1. Do you not allow our Parochial Churches to be true Churches Answ Yea those of them that have true Pastors but no others in a political or organized sense 2. Quest And will you not account such Congregations as shall be gathered to your allowed places to be true Churches also Answ In some places we will and in some we will take them but as parts of the Parish-Church And in some we will take them but for temporary Assemblies waiting for a fixed better state And in some we will take them for Churches secundum quid but not simpliciter Even as the case of each particular place requireth Sect. 3. And hence follows the cry of Schism Independents Brownists rank Separatists c. As if the Ministers of Christ did know no difference between noise and sense Yea we are told of Schism from the Church of England when I would give him all the money in my purse to make me understand what the Church of England is 1. I know that the King is the Civil-Head or Governour of it But it is a Constitutive Ecclesiastical Head that must denominate it as an essential part 2. I take it for granted he speaks of a Church organized in a proper political sense as constituted of a Pars regens and a Pars subdita and not as an ungoverned Community 3. I take it for granted that we have two Archbishops and they tell me that one is not under the Government of the other And if that be true we may have a Church of Canterbury and a Church of York but no one Church of England as denominated from one of them as Head 4. I take it for granted that the Convocation is not the Constitutive-Head 1. Because it is so seldom in being that then we should seldom have a Church of England For the Essence ceaseth with the essential part 2. And the Canon thundreth against them that deny the Convocation to be the representative-Representative-Church of England If it mean of the whole Church Pastors and People then the People rule and make Canons by them as the Separatists hold And it is the Head of the Church only that we enquire after If they mean the Clergy then the Representative-Church or Head must be somewhat distinct from the Real represented If it be the whole Clergy that is the Real Represented-Church or Head then we are Popular or Presbyterian for the Presbyters are the major part by far And what Rulers are they that never rule the Church as one by themselves but only by Representatives I confess easily that many Churches united under one King and living in one Kingdom and having thereby special opportunity for Synods and Correspondence and Concord may be called one Church by a denomination 1. accidental 2. and humane not used in Scripture And we will not be so quarrelsome as to avoid that language where men will needs use it But it is the Thing and not the Name that we enquire of What is that One Essential Constitutive-Head which maketh the Churches of England to be all one Church in a proper political sense that is as a Governed-Society None question the Civil-Head none question the need of Communion and Agreement among all these Churches But the Question is only of the one Ecclesiastick Constitutive Head And if you will have the Question to be de nomine pardon us for holding that forma denominat But if you will denominate many Churches One from One Accident instead of One Individual Form or Essence and if you will use terms in Divine Matters which God never so used in his Word we contend not against you but only desire to understand you when you charge us with Schism from the Church of England We have observed what hath been the effect of such another enterprize in the Roman Empire It was thought meet by Princes that where the Empire was One the Church should be in some sort One also which was under them Whereupon Rome had the chief Patriarchate But in time 1. this Humane-Unity name and thing is pretended to be Divine 2. And this One Imperial Church under one Emperour is taken to be One Vniversal Church as if the Indians Persians and all other Christians even the Abassian Empire had been part of it and the Orbis Romanus had been Orbis Universalis 3. And then no man is a Christian that is not baptized into this Papal Church and made a Subject of the Pope Tell us what you mean by our Schism from the Church of England We divide not our selves from the King or Kingdom or from the particular Churches as concordant in any necessary thing If it be only that we agree not with the Major Vote in all Subscriptions Oaths Discipline or Ceremonies No more did the Bishops in the Roman Empire who had various Liturgies nor Gildas with the Britains nor Ambrose and Martin with the French and Italian Bishops nor the Episcopal party in Scotland heretofore with the Presbyterians when they were the major part Is every difference in things unnecessary from the major part a Schism from them The Bishops thought not so in England fifteen years ago We do not go so far with you as Gildas with his British Clergy who pronounced him non eximium Christianum no excellent Christian that called them Priests or Ministers and not rather Proditores Traitors as he himself did Nor do we make such a Schism as Martin seemed to do who renounced Communion with the Bishops and their Synods all his life who had prosecuted the Priscilianists with the Secular Sword Yet neither of these holy men are called Separatists or Schismaticks But perhaps it is our Disobedience to the Church that is our Schism from it 1. But every one that maketh himself an Ecclesiastical Governour over other Pastors and Churches is not therefore their rightful Lord. The King we know and his Officers we know but we know not all that call themselves our Lords or Masters Not but that obedience is the easiest course of life to a quiet humble mind But fidelity to our King commandeth the disowning of Usurpers 2. We confess that we do not actually obey the Civil unquestionable Power in every particle
about Gods Worship which hath been commanded us I need not tell you why No more did the Christians for three hundred years after Christ nor the Orthodox Bishops in the dayes of Constantius Valens c. nor the Protestants now in France nor the Calvinists now in Sweden Denmark Saxonie nor the Lutherans under Calvinist Governours c. We compare not our Rulers to any of these in any other respect but only as Rulers but if you your selves are resolved to say and subscribe and swear and do whatever lawful Rulers bid you its possible that before you dye you may shew that indeed you are not of our minds 3. But who ever took every act of disobedience in a Circumstance in a Family or Kingdom to be a Schism from that Family or Kingdom Do you rule by such a Law of Works or Innocency which cuts off men for every disobedience and censureth him that obeyeth not perfectly in all things 4. And methinks this should not be your meaning because by Nonconformity we more disobeyed our Rulers before their Toleration than since and yet it is our preaching after that you call our Schism from the Church You see what trouble you put men to to understand you because you speak unintelligibly and confusedly If you tell me that the Presbyterians owned a National Church in Scotland I answer 1. So do I as before described that is as denominated 1 From an accident and not from an Individuating Form and therefore equivocally and improperly 2 And humanely and so unnecessarily 2. And if Scots or any Presbyterians do it otherwise that 's nothing to me who am no more bound to their Opinion than yours And sure the Church of England is not called One in the Presbyterian sence as an Aristrocracie or as Headed by the whole Clergie conjunct Sect. 4. The rest p. 8 9 10. need no other answer then 1. That the old Puritanes never held it unlawful for them to preach in houses even when they had no Toleration 2. As they held it lawful to hold Lay-communion with Parish-Churches that have true Ministers so do we 3. They never said it was unlawful to hold communion with any besides the Parish-Churches no more will we What Law tyeth us to be such Schismaticks as to renounce communion with all other Churches except Parochial and Conformists or what Nonconformists ever held it 4. Whose conscience should sooner accuse him of Schism A Conformists that will hold Communion with none but his own party but separateth from all the other Churches in the Land Or ours that resolve to to hold communion seasonably with all true Christian Churches among us that teach not Heresie nor preach down Holiness Love or Peace and deny us not their communion unless we will sin Let the impartial judg which of us is the Schismatick and Separatist 5. Do you not hold it lawful for a Minister to remove from one Parish to another and for any man for his souls edification to remove his dwelling into another Parish where is a better Minister And what if forty Families do so who calleth any of this Separation And what if it had been into the Parish of Dedham Ashby Whitmore Preston when John Rogers Arthur Hildersham John Ball John Dod all Nonconformists were allowed to preach there without Conformity Had this been Separation and Schism or not If yea what Law of God or Man forbad it What Church did they divide from If nay why then is it Schism to joyn with such men in other places Where lyeth your Point of Schism or Separation Is it for going out of their own Parishes 1. So Men in London have ever done to other Parish-Churches 2. And who ever made a Parish and a Church Synonymal Jure Divino Shall mutable conveniencies be turned into immutable necessities What then Is it for going to a Nonconformist so did those before mentioned Is it for going to a private house 1. So did many Episcopal Pastors fourteen years ago 2. And some in London since the Fire 3. And it s an ill argument against them that would fain Preach in the publick Temples if they could have leave As far as I discern this dust of Schism which you would cast into other mens eyes obligeth you to wink hard lest it be blown back into your own Sect. 5. The love of peace and the fear of frightning any further from Parish-communion than I desire do oblige me to forbear so much as to describe or name the additional Conformity and that sin which Nonconformists fear and fly from which maketh it harder to us that desire it to draw many good people to communion with Conformists than it was of old But when both Law and Love of Peace and Concord forbid us so much as to name the Causes it is disingenious for the culpable to take that advantage against us and to urge us to do that which they themselves cannot bear Sect. 6. But with full sail of self-conceitedness he next comes upon us with this as an undeniable proof that our Members are taken out of true Churches Who would gainsay a man of such understanding But 1. Do not those as aforesaid that remove from one Parish Church to another remove from true Churches 2. How many Bishops have written that the Church of Rome is a true Church as Halls Collection against Burton sheweth you and must no Churches therefore be gathered out of them 3. What advantage then hath every foolish Superstitious Priest above God and over all good Christians God bids us worship him according to his Law and to do all things in order and decently and to edification And must not God be obeyed No if the Priest will not consent For if he will worship God foolishly with non-sence undecently disorderly against edification you cannot help it his followers may be a true Church still and then no man must remove to worship God better than pleaseth the Priest He that is fallen under such drunken Readers as I was bred under in my youth that were drunk many times oftner than they preached I am ready to prove it for they never preached but were drunk oft this poor man and his Family must venture their Souls on this sottish Drunkards conduct because it is a true Church and they must not go from a true Church What a trick hath the Devil found to bind men to constancy in his service so it be done in a true Church Alas poor England whose Teachers talk confidently at this rate because they can say that they do it in a true Church did not the Parliament take a Church out of a true Church when they separated Covent-Garden from Martins Parish And so it is when Parishes are divided into two one part is separated from the other Sect. 7. But factious Disputers see but on one side You thought not that you your self were all this while proving your selves Schismaticks I undertake to prove that Pastors and People are the Constitutive
never did deny it Let the enemy of mankind glory in the contrary as his proper vertue But if he mean as he plainly seemeth that we approve of the Universality of Toleration Come weigh his proof 1. By desiring to escape the penalty of the Laws Answ Now you speak sense we feel your meaning It is a crime worthy the name of Schism to desire to be unpunished when you desire our punishment We do not toto pectore telum recipere What if you were for hanging and burning us were it Tolerationism Schism to be unwilling to be hang'd or burnt While we have such Ithacian Masters in our own Coats blame us not to desire Toleration and to thank the King for saving us from our Brethren The penalty of poverty and losing all Ministerial maintenance we never escaped since you succeeded us Yet God that bids us ask for our daily bread would not have charged our desiring it on us as our sin if the Law had forbit it us Poor Joseph Alleine and many another are gone and did not escape the penalty I never heard that Bradford or Hooper or Latimer were accused for desiring to escape penalty Was it Josephs sin that the Ishmaelites and Egyptians were more merciful to him than his Brethren But Brother what good will our sufferings do you What harm wil it do you if we escape Do you feel your self ever the more at liberty when we are in the Common-Jayls Are you the fuller because some Nonconformists wants Bread We have been heinously accused by others for coming within five miles of any City Corporation and place where we lately preached when Christ said If they persecute you in one City flee to another As if it were lawful to desert all the Souls in Cities and Corporations or to take you alone for sufficient where the very number of Souls proves you least sufficient But would you be at more hearts-ease to think that none of us are within five miles of you nor teach any of the people the Gospel of Christ You have with less noise endured Infidels and Papists enough within five miles of you Alas when the Stone is set on rolling down the Hill where will it stop Sect. 7. But this is spoken conjunctively with what followeth And what 's that 2. To live quietly in a state of separation that is Not to be your subject hearers But 1. Have not many of us some constantly some at times sat at your feet as your Disciples 2. If Ministers be judged by you unworthy to preach the Gospel have they not reason to think you judge them unworthy to receive the Sacrament 3. Are you Separatists for not hearing them If not why are they such for not hearing you But of this before Sect. 8. But the utmost is Erecting separate Congregations to your selves Answ 1. You mean it is sin in us to exercise the Ministry which we are vowed to and not to be Sacrilegious and cruel to Souls For can we Preach without Auditors And can those Auditors be no Congregation And can that Congregation be out of your hearing and not be locally separate as every parish-Parish-Church and Chappel is Must two Congregations be one or else be Separatists I know two Churches so near that the people may hear each other and yet they are two and therefore one is separate And I pray which of them is it It may be all in England save Canterbury or rather Glastenbury are Separatists for separating from the first Church As if Pythagoras justly cursed the number of two because it was the first that durst depart from unity and all Churches in the World were Separatists except Jerusalem I pray you Sir tell me What if a Tolerated Presbyterian should read the Common-prayer in his Church and use all your Ceremonies though he fear Perjury and Lying and Violating his Baptismal Vow were this a Schismatick or not If yea Then so is every neighbour Parish-Minister or Chappel Curat If not than it is not a distinct Congregation that maketh Separatists And then what if he do not use the Liturgie doth that make a Separatist Were you all Separatists that used it not fifteen years ago I shall next expect to hear that he is a Separatist that readeth in his own Common-Prayer-Book and not in yours But I doubt the Separation is in this that the Tolerated Minister will not be your Curat and ruled by you But remember that some are Presbyterians and therefore for Parity of Ministers and I and many others are so much for Episcopacy as that we would not have Prelatical Jurisdiction given to those Parish Priests who themselves are against Presbyters and for Prelacy CHAP. VIII Of Inconvenience from the Nature of the Practice Sect. 1. IN all this Section let the Reader consider 1. How few words there be which a Papist Priest in Paris might not say against the Protestants 2. Whether this be not the summe of all Preaching the Gospel hath hazards inconveniencies and likelihood of frustration Therefore it is your folly and sin to Preach it 3. Whether there be not much that would not almost as handsomly have served Celsus Julian Porphyry Eunapius or Symmachus against Christianity Sect. 2. Do not you excommunicate and drive from your several Parishes the Members of Christ for not eating with your Spoon and then repreach them that will take them in whom you cast out Sect. 3. We still hold that Members of the same particular Church should not live at a distance so great as to make them uncapable of ordinary Personal Communion Sect. 4. We take your Warning Independents as you say may over-reach us Peoples inconstancy and weakness may frustrate much of our Labours Quakers and Papists may deceive some We adde And you and others may keep us after all in Poverty and in Jayls for ought we know And what of all this Therefore preach not Next say Therefore be no Christians Therefore damn your own souls if your temptations be so great No Sir But therefore we will serve Christ the more resolutely and trust him for our preservation and reward The God whom we serve is able to deliver us But if he will not be it known unto you that we will not cease to preach his Gospel while we can and we fear not being losers by him Sect. 5. But your Will seemeth to bear down your Experience while you would tempt us by the discouragements of Difficult Assembling and the Peoples Poverty Have those kept us from doing what we could till now Will our Poverty be greater than you Conformists have made it Have we served God about twelve years without one bit of the Levites portion and cannot we do so till we die There is an harmony in all your discourse To tell us of the discouragement of Poverty from others that would help us were they able when your Party hath so long kept us without a bit of Bread but what Alms or some mens own Stocks afforded them is just
like the rest It sufficeth us to tell you that we preach not for Riches and we will not cease through Poverty Talk at this rate to one another Sect. 6. When you say that a Toleration may reduce the common sort to an indifferency in Religion I answer Get your friends together then that have brought it to that pass as that It must be this or worse and bring them to weep over their sins before God That if a miserable Nation may not be saved from the Fire that you have kindled your Souls yet if possible may be saved Sect. 7. But pag. 29. you too boldly make your selves the Stewards of God's Blessings and as Magisterially without proof pronounce that we are out of his way and in opposition to his Church and contrary to his Word Answ For my self I have long been of an opinion which one day you will pardon that Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution proud contending who shall be greatest and covenanting never in certain points to obey Christ against the World and the Flesh is not the way of God If you take me for singular there is no remedy 2. And what Word of God is it that we contradict I reade in the Rubrick of something about Infants Certain by the Word of God but I never heard in what Chapter or Verse it was 3. And which is Christ's Church which we oppose What Chapter and Verse saith that only Subscribers Swearers Declarers and Conformists are the Church of Christ and those that fear an Oath and Conformity are none of it CHAP. IX Of Inconvenience from our present Conformity Sect. 1. HE next confesseth that most of us have hitherto held some measure of Communion with the Church of England And now if we depart and fall quite away when we purpose to go no further from them but rather come nearer if they will give us leave then saith he You will publish to the World that your complyance with us before the Toleration was not out of sense of Duty or love of Peace and Unity or any other good end but meerly out of slavish fear of Punishment c. Answ 1. We will not reflect by recrimination because we would not provoke you more than needs 2. As far as I can promise we will judge of you no worse than we have done nor deny any Communion with you which we have used and can use without neglecting our own work As I constantly joyn in my Parish-Church in Liturgy and Sacraments so I hope to do while I live if I live under as honest a Minister at due times But what if I had leave without Conformity to preach in the next Parish-Church I cannot then be in yours at the same time He that preacheth not may hear you constantly But he that may preach himself must not cease his Ministry to be still one of your Flock We long ago published our Judgments that It is a sin not to joyn with a less-worthy Minister and a less-orderly Mode of Worship when we can have no better And that it is a sin to tye our selves ordinarily to such when we may have better lawfully that is consideratis considerandis upon terms whereon it will not do more hurt than good You see then on what terms we may vary our practices without the crimes recited by you If now when we are preaching our selves you will say that we are departing from you because we cannot be in two places at once and then come on with all these Calumnies we take but this to be your meaning 1. To tell us that you think we so value the honour of our Names and Reputations with you as that you can make us false to our Callings rather than be censured by you 2. That you have alwayes a Quiver full of such Arrows provided and resolve that if we will not give over our Ministry and be ruled by you you will make as many as you can believe that we never had sense of Duty love of Peace or Unity or any good end but meer slavish fear So men it 's like would say of Christ when sometimes he preached openly and sometimes departed from mens fury into the Wilderness or obscure places Or of Paul that was let down by the Wall in a basket and when he departed from the Jews Synagogues which he had before frequented or those that fled from one City to another It is a duty to preach when I can and no duty when I cannot And if others make the can and the cannot is it I or they that change my practice But if you teach men such apparently causless Censures and Reproaches you may have many Disciples but not very good ones And some will thus paraphrase your words If the King will not let us persecute them for preaching we are resolved we will slander them and make men believe on how hard terms soever they serve Christ that they do it all but as cowardly self-seeking Knaves What abundance have called me Rogue of late years that never knew me or spake one word to me before or heard one from me As to the rest That we proclaim our cowardise or a love of licentiousness or put on liberty for a cloak of maliciousness it all signifieth but what you have a list to say and calls to us to long for the judgment-day of Christ but yet to look well to the integrity of our hearts and try our way before we go it CHAP. X. Whether our Ministry by divisions will let in Popery Sect. 1. I Love this Author much the better because he speaks against divisions and because he seemeth willing to draw those men towards him whom others drive from them and because he seemeth careful of our Protestant Interest and desirous of some kind of unity to that end But alas have we so many years ago besought his party with all humble petition and importunity and disputed it with them that they would have pitty on the consciences of thousands fearing God that they would have mercy on the thousands of ignorant souls that need all our Teaching that they would not cast out so considerable a part of the Protestant Ministry that should hinder Popery and would not necessitate unavoidably those divisions which by weakning the Protestants would do the Papists work and under the sad denial of our petitions must we now hear that the Pope shall come on the Puritans back That word shall we have bin long hearing and feeling To be Masters of the Game is a great advantage for the disposal of other mens reputations in this World a little while but in the next the sport is spoiled Sect. 2. And really Will Popery come in ever the more for our Preaching do you think we shall Preach for it or ever the less if we renounce our Ministry Why then will not your silence too prevent it and so we may all be silent leâ—t we preach in Popery Sect. 3. But it is Divisions that will do it No doubt
Worship must renounce communion with all the World and all with him Unteach them that false conceit that all Book-prayers are unlawful yea or all that is imposed Read over to them those Psalms that have frequent repetitions and responses that they may know that such are not unlawful If it be lawful for the people to sing Gods praise it is not unlawful to say it Do you doubt of the consequence Prove to us what difference there was between the ancient singing and our Laudatory saying and you will find your task too hard Unteach them that paultry principle of placing Religion in being cross to the rest of the Congregation As when they will not stand up at the Creed or at all the Hymns of praise when reason and use tell us that standing up is a convenient praising gesture and when the primitive Churches from an unknown original calling it an Apostolical Tradition unanimously commanded standing only in all the Lords Days Adorations which because we cannot now well observe it is decently confined to praises only And in this the Conformists do better and more decently than you and it is sorry perversness to fly from a better way because that others use it Unteach them their unwarrantable self-made Tests of Church Communion as if there must be any other proof of Holiness needs given besides a sober profession of Christianity that is of the Baptismal Covenant not provedly contradicted by Heresie or a wicked life If we are Non-Conformists because we cannot comply with all that we think to be invented uncapable terms of Communion from others why shall we make such engines to divide the Churches our selves and do the very things which we condemn in others Unteach them their expectations that all the Church must be satisfied of the sincerity of each Communicant or that the presence of the unworthy who are admitted by their own false profession or by the Ministers fault doth make it unlawfull to others there to communicate The Book called The Cure of Church Divisions will tell you more such dividing principles which you must unteach them The Ministers that have bred and cherished these have bin our subverters and are our shame and such principles are the shame of too many well meaning honest people Woe to the selfish Teachers that for their personal interest dare not contradict them but cherish them into their dividing errours when their eyes are opened and they see their mistakes they will be tempted to shew their own dislike of them by running as far on the extreame of formality In a word help to save Religious people from being superstitious while they cry out against superstition and make them know that a Religion which consisteth in our own modes and ways of worship and in decrying other mens may stand with all unmortified sin and that the flesh is no more denyed by sitting than by kneeling and that to say I am Godly because my gestures and orders are more Scriptural than the Conformists is a pittiful way for an Hypocrite to cheat his soul and make them know that few things have hardened men against Religion and made Non-Conformists a scorn instead of being helpers of mens souls so much as to see that many place their Religion in superstitions of their own Touch not tast not handle not and make it piety to avoid that as sin which is no sin and then men judge of all the rest by this 13. And I will presume to tell you my opinion as of a matter not absolutely necessary but at this time of such convenience as if I were to keep a Church Meeting I would resolve upon it as my duty and that is that your own practice now shew a sound and healing judgement about that Church troubling Controversie of Praying freely or by Forms even that now you would seasonably do both The contention about this hath bin childish and yet a fire not yet quenched in the Church while one belyeth God as if he had forbidden all FREE Prayer in the Church and others belye him as if he had forbidden all Forms or Book-prayer when God hath left both free to be done as edification most requireth His understanding is low that thinketh either of them simply unlawful and he knoweth little in such matters that knoweth not that both ways have many and great conveniences and both have many and great accidental inconveniences which having enumerated else where I must not now repeat And they that are all for the one only or the other only shall have all the inconveniences with the benefits but he that will seasonably use both shall have the benefits of both and the least part of the inconveniences of either Therefore in the Churches of England free prayers were allowed in the Pulpits after the Liturgy And pardon me for saying that when this petty controversie hath so much distracted us those Ministers that use but one way onely seem scandalously to the people to be onely for that way and so do harden them in their errour and keep the fire burning in the Church He that prayeth only by Book or Form perswadeth the poor people that free prayer is Fanatical uncertain and unlawful and they that never pray otherwise perswade the poor people that all Forms or Book-prayers are unlawful if a whole party agree in forbearing all Forms at such a time as this when so many take them for unlawful And so they corrupt mens very Religion and teach them to make duties and sins to themselves which God never made and thereby set them in a way of Hypocrisie Self-delusion and endless quarreling with others I prescribe to no man and toleration so far taketh off publick Impositions as that none can now say This Form is imposed on me and therefore unlawful But though I will not bind my self I here tell the world That if my strength and toleration and a call should ever more give me opportunity for the free exercise of mine Office I would sometimes pray freely without Forms and sometimes use some part of the common Liturgy and sometimes use the Reformed Liturgy which in 1660. was agreed on by the Commissioned Non-Conformists though being done in extream hast it should be reviewed and perfected I would ordinarily pronounce the Creed as the Faith which the Church Assembleth in the profession of and ordinarily recite the Lords Prayer and Decalogue and read two Chapters and the Psalms And they that would not joyn in this way of Worship should freely go choose them a Teacher more agreeable to their opinions for I would not serve the humours of any in their dividing errours And Brethren endure me to tell you 1. That pleasing the ignorant professors humours is a sin that sheweth us too humane and carnal and hath always sad effects at last 2. And that I confess to you I think your day is short and that it is now of more importance what the future effects of your course will be to posterity or those to
come than how it will take with your present followers And when the History of this Age is written do that now which you would have there recorded My chief meaning is This will be a controversie when we are dead and gone Do that now which being recorded may best tend to the right decision of it then Leave to Posterity now you have liberty that example as well as words which thou would have them follow Tempt not future Contenders to plead that all Forms are unlawful by your examples If any say We shall thus loose our people and the Separatists who will cherish all such humours will have them all I answer We have too long tryed the pleasing way already and see that we cure not but cherish their disease Take Gods way and let us deny our selves as well with the humourous people as we have done with the Conformists and then leave the issue to God And if they will follow Separatists it is fitter that they be mislead by such erroneous persons than by you 14. And on this occasion let me say a word to this kind of Religious people Is it not a shame to you that your worthiest Ministers should be fain to go besides their own judgement in Gods Worship to humour you And that they must tell the world We would mix Free-prayer and Forms in publick but the people then will be gone to the Separatists I say not that they go against their Consciences For their consciences have directed them to omit what else would have bin fittest lest crossing your humour it should drive you away to your own subversion But how came you to be so much holyer and wiser than the Holyest and wisest of your Teachers Mark is it not more of the Women and Apprentices that are of this mind than of the old experienced Christians Is it not a high degree of Pride for persons of your standing and understanding to conclude that allmost all Christs Churches in the World for these thirteen hundred years at least to this day have offered such worship unto God as that you are obliged to avoid it and all their Communion in it And that allmost all the Catholick Church on earth this day is below your Communion for using Forms And that even Calvin and the Presbyterians Cartwright Hildersham and the old Non-conformists were unworthy of your Communion Would you have run away from Dod or Perkins or from Cyprian or Augustine and said They are formal Fellows not to be joyned with Doth God use by Miracle to make self-conceited Women and young Men so much wiser than the most ancient studious experienced Divines It is best then to turn Preachers before we grow old and to avoid study and experience lest it make us more ignorant than we were Brethren and Friends I profess for your sincerity many of you are our joy and it is not a little that we have done and suffered for your sakes But I must tell you for Adversaries will tâ—ll if you that for your ignorance injudiciousness pride self-conceitedness you are our grief and shame We are hit in the teeth with such self-wise ignorant giddy unpeaceable followers And we have nothing to say but to blush and say that you mean well and that it is not long of us Can Gods Spirit which ordaineth Elders to be Pastors in his Church be the Guide of your judgements when with such shameless pride you set up your errours against the knowledge of your Guides If you are wisest be you the Pastors which some are prone enough to arrogate It shameth us it grieveth us to see and hear from England and from New-England this common cry We are endangered by Divisions principally because the self conceited part of the Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastors but must have their way and will needs be Rulers of the Church and them Yea I tell you with truth and grief I am confident next to mens own sin which leaveth them to a judicial delusion nothing hath done more to set up Popery and the Prelacy you dislike than the scandalous instances of your unruliness and Church tearing humours And that you have made more Papists than ever you or we are like to recover Nothing is any whit considerable that a Papist hath to say till he cometh to your case and saith Doth not experience tell you that without Papal unity and force these people will never be ruled or united It is you that tempt them to use fire and Fagot that will not be Ruled nor kept in concord by the wisest and holyest and most self-denying Ministers on Earth Even Ainsworth the Learnedest and Godlyest Pastor of the Separatists though he went with them beyond Sea and was of their opinion and carded wooll to maintain himself while he was their Teacher yet could not keep that one separated Church in peace And must you even you that should be our comfort become our shame and break our hearts and make men Papists by your temptation Woe to the World because of offences and woe to some by whom they come I thank God I speak not my own case I think those many Religious people that I have had the oversight of are as ready to be ruled by me and as undivided as any that ever I have known But alas in too many places it is otherwise Should the Ministers in London that have suffered so long but use any part of the Liturgy and Scripture Forms though without any motive but the pleasing of God the Churches good what muttering and censuring would there be against them And woe to those few Teachers that make up their designs by cherishing these distempers One would think that their warning had bin fair But si nati sint ad bis perdendam Angliam The Lord have mercy on us 15. Seeing places and numbers and other Church-circumstances are matters left to humane prudence be sure that you prudentially discern the divesity of duties according to the diversity of places and occasions These things I here include First That you be not of those Church-tearers opinion who must have all go just one way in all those undetermined variable things And will censure all and take them for dividers that do not as they do Secondly That Edification or the Publick good is the end rule and measure of these Prudential actions Thirdly That in looking to this rule and end you must not look only to your present Congregation or the present Age but to all the Churches abroad and to posterity Fourthly That nothing here should be rashly done but by great advise Fifthly That therefore other Brethren as well dissenting as consenting Ministers should for safety be consulted with not to be your Governours but for Counsel and for Concord Sixthly To which end correspondencies of Ministers is necessary 16. In those places where the name of a distinct Church and that your administration of the Sacraments is like to do more harm than good it