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A78447 The censures of the church revived. In the defence of a short paper published by the first classis within the province of Lancaster ... but since printed without their privity or consent, after it had been assaulted by some gentlemen and others within their bounds ... under the title of Ex-communicatio excommunicata, or a Censure of the presbyterian censures and proceedings, in the classis at Manchester. Wherein 1. The dangerousness of admitting moderate episcopacy is shewed. ... 6. The presbyterian government vindicated from severall aspersions cast upon it, ... In three full answers ... Together with a full narrative, of the occasion and grounds, of publishing in the congregations, the above mentioned short paper, and of the whole proceedings since, from first to last. Harrison, John, 1613?-1670.; Allen, Isaac, 17th cent. 1659 (1659) Wing C1669; Thomason E980_22; ESTC R207784 289,546 380

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end of the World in a succession of a lawfull ordained Ministry And in your next Paper you falling foule upon us and charging us with a rent indeed a Schisme in the highest you add which is not satisfied but with the utter overthrow of the Church from whom they rent Here you lay a great stress upon Episcopacy and such an one as none of our true Protestant Divines that defend the truth of our own and other reformed Churches against the Papists would ever have layd upon it But here two things are hinted which we shall severally examine 1. You intimate that by the taking away of Episcopacy the Church is overthrowne it cannot be continued amongst us from Age to Age to the end of the World except Episcopacy be restored 2. But yet there is a further Implication sc That there cannot be a Succession of a lawfull ordained Ministry which Succession yet you intimate to be necessary to the being of the Church if we have not Bishops againe that may Ordain 1. Unto the first of these we shall answer after we have premised a distinction touching the word Church For either the Church of God amongst us which you here speak of is taken essentially for that part of the Catholick visible Church which in regard of the place of its abode in this Land is called the Church of England as the severall parts of the Sea which yet is but one receive their Denomination from the Shoares they wash Or else you take the word Church for a Ministeriall Church or for the Church represensative as it is taken Matth. 18. 27. This premised we answer If you take the word Church in the former sense your Position is very gross no other then this that for want of Bishops the whole Church of England is at present overthrowne and that there is no way of recovery of it but by the restoring of them and so in the mean season it is no Church with whom we may safely hold Communion which layes a Foundation for separation from it and of Apostasie unto Rome where Bishops may be had We shall therefore to this say no more but onely mind you of what is well observed by Mr. Baxter out of B. Jewell in the defence of the Agreement of the Worcestershire Ministers Page 58. where he hath these words B. Jewell in his defence of the Apology Authorised to be kept in all Churches Part 2. Page 131. Neither doth the Church of England depend on them whom you so often call Apostates as if our Church were no Church without them They are no Apostates Mr. H c. Notwithstanding if there were not one neither of them nor of us left alive yet would not the whole Church of England flee to Lovaine Tertullian saith Nonne Laici sacerdotes sumus Scriptum est regnum quoque s●cerdotes Deo patri suo nos fecit differentiam inter ordinem plebem constituit ecclesiae authoritas honos per ordinis concessum sanctificatus a Deo Vbi ecclesiastici ordinis non est concessus offert tingit sacerdos qui est ibi solus Sed ubi tres sunt Ecclesia est licet Laici But if you take the word Church for a Ministeriall or Organized Church we oppose your Position with these following Arguments 1. That which we have already proved sc That a Bishop and a Presbyter are all one in Scripture acceptation will necessarily inferre that the being of a Ministeriall or Organized Church doth not depend on the continuance or restauration of Bishops taking them for such as are superiour to Presbyters either in regard of Order or Jurisdiction For though these be never restored yet Presbyters being continued that yet are Bishops in Scripture sense the Organized and Ministeriall Church of Christ is fufficiently secured against the danger of perishing 2. But by the Tenent you here hold forth you do very uncharitably unchurch the best reformed Churches throughout the World The Protestant Churches of France Scotland the Low countries and Geneva must all be p●t out of the number of free Organized and Ministeriall Churches and their Ministers must because they admit not the Bishops that you are for be accounted no lawfull Ministers Yea you here againe very undutifully unchurch your Mother the Church of England if she restore not Episcopacy and herein gratifie the Papists no little that vilifie her and other reformed Churches as no true Churches and ●ry out against their Ministers as no lawfull Ministers But blessed be God both the Church of England and other reformed Churches and their Ministers have had and still have better Advocates and more dutifull Sonnes then you herein approve your selves to be to plead their Cause 3. By this Tenent also it will follow That all the Ordinances that are dispensed in these Churches are null and void Their Baptisme is no Baptisme The Sacrament of the Lords Supper Administred amongst them is no Sacrament and the like must be said of all the Ordinances that are dispensed in our Church by such as were not ordained by Bishops and so it makes them as to outward Church-Priviledges no better then meer Heathens and hereupon it ministers occasion of endless Doubts and Scruples unto the Members of those Churches of questioning the validity of their Baptisme and whether they ought not to be rebaptized which doubts also by your Tenent are occasioned also to all those among your selves that were baptized by such Ministers as were not Ordained by Bishops Thus you see how you lay the Foundation of Anabaptisme which yet you would seem to be zealous Opposers of 4. Add hereunto that hence it will unavoidably follow That you must not hold any Communion with these Churches nor such Congregations in the Church of England where these Ordinances are dispensed by such as were not Ordained by Bishops their Ministers according to your Doctrine being not lawfull Ministers and for the Ordinance dispensed by them null and void And here is a Rent indeed a rent in the highest to use your owne expressions from which our old Episcopall Divines that were sound Protestants would never have excused you no nor Doctor Vsher with whom in some things you profess to close For however he is represented by Doctor Bernard to have held that a Bishop had Superiority in degree above a Presbyter by Apostolicall Institution and had expressed himselfe sharply enough in his Letter to Doctor Bernard Touching the Ordination made by such Presbyters as had severed themselves from Bishops yet a little after speaking of the Churches of the Low-Countries * he sayth For the testifying his Communion with these Churches which he professeth to love and honour as true Members of the Church Universall he should with like affection receive the blessed Sacrament at the hands of the Dutch Ministers if he were in Holland as he should at the hands of the French Ministers if he were in Charenton By which you may perceive however he held those Churches
Surplice c. by any authority in our Government they bring in something Prelaticall to our charge but not when we only press to the utmost against ignorance and scandall which was the least thing that Government was ordinarily known by We take the Parochiall Diocesan as a meere scoffe the very Officer they strive against in our Congregations make it apparent how farre our Government is from a Parochiall Prelacy If they would be understood besides this flourish to meane our inforceing our way upon men of other perswasions we have manifested by what we have said before and by our frequent practice how unjust this charge is 13. The second thing is That we contradict our selves to inveigh against the Donatists and Schismaticks and yet espouse their quarrels And here by the by the great Diana of this Party is brought in viz. mixt Communion A fearfull errour we are guilty of in opposing this c. That this was the great errour of the Donatists the world must believe and yet we Preach against them and this greatly troubles these Gentlemen We have contended against the Donatists of our times that pretend to separate from true Churches as many have done and we understand not that St Augustine ever strove against Donatus or his followers in any other sense But that prophane and scandalous persons should not be debarred the Sacrament sure is a thing men so much for antiquity and the Church of England should never take as Donatisme The separation which we make is no other then what Chrysostome Cyprian and Augustine himselfe will appeare by their writings to have led us in and what our Church of England in the Rubrick of the Common Prayer did enjoyn and should have practised 14. We know not any secular power we ever exercised or desired to do over any which any Parliament or his late Highness hath blunted the edge of If they meane the civill Sanction for our Government we constantly deny that either the Parliament or his late Highness hath done any such thing as by our Papers may appeare 15. And for the hurt they speake of by our secular power or by the Goliah's Sword they jeere to have taken up they might do well to consider that of Rom. 13. 3. Ecclesiasticall as well as civill Rulers are not a terrour to good workes but to evill wilt thou then not be afraid of the power do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same For our requiring a Sibboleth for admission it is none other then a blamelesse life and competent knowledge and this we are able to shew it one of the chief of these Subscribers hath consented to under his hand in his own case we hope they will none of them own it that they have not this Shibboleth ready And for our requiring all Men to fall down and worship the Idoll we have set up we might as well call their endeavouring to set up Episcopacy to be the fond attempt of rearing of Dagon to his place again when he fallen and broken before the Arke of God It is a small matter to make us like the Egyptians when a little before as bad as Nebuchadnezzar For the Taskmasters dilemma we urge them with sure it wight have sufficed what was said in our Answer which they have Printed to have cleared out Text from that glosse they put upon it that the matter of excommunication was to be understood in case of scandall and obstinacy only If the first construction would not have born it which that it would and doth we must with men that stand upon nicities endeavour to prove yet they having our express meaning declared vve vvonder how yet to fasten an aspersion upon us they dare in this place take the thing for granted in their own sense We desire to put men in no other straits then God himselfe declares them to be in and yet hath left a sufficient way-out Men that are scandalous sinne if they come to the Sacrament and sinne if they come not in the one for a mission of known duty in the other for an undue and sinfull performance of it men may eate and drinke unworthily and abstaine from eating and drinking unworthily too but they are under a necessity of mending that they may both come and come worthily 16. For the third contradiction they are grieved with it is that men that impropriate the name of Saints c. should not carry more tenderly then we do truly to this we may Answer that they may charge that on us in malice which we cannot make it our business to vindicate our selves from with modesty we know neither when we impropriated the names of Saints or Christians to our selves nor yet wherein in the particular they mention we have walked contrary we presume the thing they charge us with they acquit themselves from we will go no further for appeale then the Papers in hand let the impartiall Reader view what he can find savouring of so much sweetnesse and candor in their first and last Papers and what there is of provocation in ours and by that let the matter be judged wherever the profession of Saintship is where the contrary practice is most apparent We thinke it not strange to be counted legall and bitter for speaking against sinne when the Apostle was counted an enemy for telling the truth It is sadly suspiscious the controversie lies on another principle then yet is in view We know not any thing we are guilty of like censoriousnesse unless it be free speaking upon all occasions against gross wickednesse we would hope those men would not patronize that cause which we profess our selves only against If this be it that makes us so censorious in private and severe in publique we must profess we dare not be Ministers to sooth up men in their sinnes unless they can finde us a Christ that will save them in their sinnes yet we hope that such of our people as have had occasion to be conversant with us even in this businesse of the Sacrament do finde some of that Gospell tendernesse which these men would perswade the world we are so utterly destitute of and will Answer more for us herein then we thinke fit to say for our selves 17. They now conclude their Preface which ushers these Papers into the world and declare how much they were forced against their dispositions to Print we hope they will not say we forced them for they know we knew nothing of it They protest it is sine ullo studio contentionis without any pleasure or delight in contention whenas they were upon tearmes of accommodation with us according to our Narrative and the truth and yet Print the Papers and they professedly hereby fire their Beacons to raise up others to the like opposition or a stronger where there is ability and occasion For the success of their cause we know not what God in his wise judgement may permit it to be the reception of what
submission to Synods and Councils is any sounder then as we understood you to have meant those words and which we doubt not but he will discern from what hath been said concerning it in the Animadversion going before 5. But by this explication of your selves you have created to us a further scruple for it a●peats to us from thence seeing you joyn the word of God and constant practice of the Catholique Church together as that which must make those matters of faith and articles of Religion so plain to you that you thereupon will refuse to submit such matters so made plain and your apprehensions concerning them to a generall Council that except the plainest matters of faith and articles of Religion from Gods word be also made plain to have been the constant practice rather judgment as we think you should have expressed it of the Catholique Church they are not so plain to you as not to submit your apprehensions concerning them to a generall Council and so the word of God alone even in the matters of faith and articles of Religion that are therein most plainly contained shall not be a sufficient foundation to bottom your faith upon except it be also evident what was the constant and universall practice rather judgment of the Church in those points and so your faith even in the plainest articles of Religion must be resolved into the constant practice or rather declared judgment of the universal Church and which makes it a meer humane not a divine faith But touching this as the rule in any cases of matters of Religion we shall have further occasion to speak in our animadversions on the sixth Section of this paper 6. As touching our selves we have declared that we did not submit to Synods and Councils so as to build our faith on their dictates or resolve it into their determinations and in this we would be understood touching all matters of faith whatsoever not only those that are most plainly contained in Gods word but also such as about which there may be some doubt and difficulty although we reverence Synods as an Ordinance of God and in way of means judg it more likely in doubtfull cases that what is Gods mind should be boulted forth to our satisfaction by the learned debates of learned judicious and godly Divines in such Assemblies then by the discussion of one Bishop or some few Ministers But as touching the juridicall power of Synods we profess our selves to be ready to submit to their judgment and did so submit our Paper wholly to the judgment of our Provinciall which was a Synod actually in being and to whom we knowing our selves to be accountable and judging we ought so to be thought it not meet to publish the Paper that was read in our severall Congregations except it had first been approved of by them Now how farre we do in this declaration of our judgements touching our submission to Synods and Councils concur with what here you declare to be yours we leave it to your selves and the Reader to judg of but we are sure there is herein a great distance betwixt your declared judgment and ours though you shall not finde afterwards that we do hardly grant that to a generall Council rightly constituted and regularly called which we either in truth or any shew do grant to our Provinciall The Gentlemens Paper Sect. III. Having done with our Preface you come to the matter and as we said so we finde we much dissent not onely in the third and last concerning the Heresie and Schism of those who Erre so grossely whether in Doctrinals or points of discipline You give us the reason wherefore you did not so expresly mention them their sin and punishment as the grossely ignorant and scandalous Which is because they are very inconsiderable in comparison of the other and in sundry of your Congregations if not in most not any at all that you know of But if you will seriously consider the number of those that have rent themselves from a true constituted Church and of those who have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical obedience and therefore in the Judgement of that Learned and Rever end Bishop Vsher and others cannot possibly be excused from being Schismaticall we say if you consider this you will finde a considerable number even within the verge of your own Association What we said touching the way of Catechising for Information of the ignorant we are glad to hear you so heartily wish for a more generall practise thereof in your Churches at home at you say it is practised abroad It was enjoyned and practised in the Church of England before your separation And if you by your pretended Reformation have destroyed that practise the fault lies at your own doors You understand us aright in this That we hold it not fitting that Persons grossely ignotant should be admitted so the Sacrament of the Lords Supper But your conclusion thence is not good viz. That we cannot therefore in reason deny that there ought to be an Examination and tryall of all Persons de novo before they be admitted c Especially by your Eldership To whom you say the power of judgement and examination is committed and not to any one Minister before whom all must come for re-examination whatsoever their tryall and examination heretofore hath been Those Persons who have anciently been Catechized and have been a long time Commoners at the Lords Table and witnessed a good confession for parts and piety must these again yeild themselves to the examination of an Eldership before they can be admitted Pardon us if herein we pronounce a dissent from you Concerning the scandalous and wicked in their lives you say we fully come up to you and are glad there is an agreement in judgement betwixt us thus farre viz. That the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to Excommunicate such upon which you say you cannot see how we in reason can finde fault with your proceedings in such a way against such Persons though your ruling Elders which in our judgement a●e but meer lay-men do joyn in the Government with you Ther 's another non sequitur a conclusion as bad as the former and the reason of that conclusion as weak as the rest Because High-Commissioners Chancellors and Commissaries in the time of Episcopacy to which Government we submitted that were as much Lay-men as your ruling Elders had so great a share as to suspend Ministers c. and so farre as to decree the sentence of Excommunication against them and others as there was occasion for it For when you can prove that these Chancellors Commissaries c. did not officiate by deputation from and under a lawfull Pastor but in equall right with him and jure divino as your ruling Elders do Then your Comparison of them and your ruling Elders may hold good till then it is weak and frivolous Now whereas you desire to
be it further declared by the Authority aforesaid That every Person and Persons that shall not diligently perform the duties aforesaid according to the true meaning thereof not having reasonable excuse to the cootrary shall be deemed and taken to be offenders against this Law and shall be proceeded against accordingly Can you say now that you have power to censure such as forsake the publique Assemblies by any Ordinance of Parliament or rules as you call them of your Church Government when not only the pious and peaceable minded people but the obstinate also are exempted from the rigor of former Laws and onely taken to be offenders against this Law and no other and shall be proceeded against accordingly Dare you yet proceed to censure notwithstanding this Act If you do you are very bold and may run into a Praemunire Though you say you are not to be blamed for any mistakes that may arise ab ignorantia juris whether simple or effected A strange saying we have heard it said Ignorantia facti excusat but Ignorantia juris non excusat no not a simple ignorance much less an affected one The Animadversions of the Class upon it 1. IF you had weighed what we had answered you could not with any colour have said that we answered not your question you might have observed that we spake of our Assemblies as they were parts of the Church of England and of the same constitution with her and whom though those of the separation do un-church in regard of the mixture or the scandalous persons in them denying our Church in that respect to be true or our assemblies to be the assemblies of Saints yet we justified in our Answer from the examples of the Church of Corinth and the Churches of Galatia to whom the Apostle writes as to Saints and calls Churches notwithstanding such corruptions in them though we did not deny but the scandalous in our Church and assemblies were the spots thereof And seeing we acknowledged such assemblies were true Churches notwithstanding those scandalous persons that were found in them you had no reason to imagin that none else besides our selves were by us accounted Saints none brethren and sisters in Christ but such as stand for our discipline which you cannot mention but you must brand in calling it pretended you might from our answer have gathered that all other assemblies in our Land where the word of God and Sacraments are dispensed were taken into the number of those assemblies we spake of they being parts also of the Church of England as well as our own however they may some of them differ from us in point of discipline We told you in our Answer particularly that in the Church of Corinth there were some that denied the resurrection others made rents and schismes and sundry grosly scandalous and yet it was a true Church And therefore how should we be conceived to have denied such assemblies in our Land that are parts of the Church of England and of the same constitution with her for the substance not to be the assemblies of the Saints if they stand not for our Discipline Yet you would make the world to beleeve we meant no further in that Answer we gave you then not to un-Church or un-Saint our selves or assemblies because of the corruptions of them which yet we must tell you might have been the fewer if you and others who are members of these assemblies had shewed your selves more pliable to good order and discipline and to have been furtherers and not hinderers of their reformation 2. We spake in our Answer of some that had of late rent themselves from our Churches because of the scandalousness of the corrupt members and said that seeing our principles and practises are manifestly known to be utterly against them as against the opinions and practises of the Douatists of old you had no reason to apply that of Augustine unto us when he cried out against them ô impudentem vocem But now you will not have any to have rent themselves from our Church excepting such who having admitted themselves members or professed themselves of our Association have rent themselves from us and who you say are but a few so farre as you have heard But here you do not approve your selves good disputants against those of the separation who being by their birth members of the Church of England whereof our assemblies are but parts and of the same constitution with her as we said before and have rent themselves from it or from our Assemblies that are parts of it are justly chargeable with schisme they having hereby rent themselves from a true Church wherof they were members and whose membership is argued from their being born in gremio Ecclesiae not from their admitting themselves members of it afterward or their professing of themselves to be thereof members We had in our Answer to your first Paper hinted to you this ground of their membership when in Answer to what you had to the like purpose there suggested as you do here we told you that the severall Congregations within this Land that make a profession of the true Christian and Apostolike faith are true Churches of Jesus Christ that the severall members of these Congregations are by their birth members as those that were born in the Jewish Church are said to be by the Apostle Jews by nature Gal. 2. that this their membership was sealed to them in their baptisme that did solemnly admit them as into the universall Church so into the particular wherein they were born But as in this Paper where you should have replied to these propositions if you approved not of them you answered nothing to them though in your first Paper you would have exempted your selves from being subject to our Government because you had not admitted your selves members of some one or other of our Congregations or were any associates of ours as you there expressed your selves so here you come over again with the same unsound principle and yet say nothing to make it out intimating that none are to be accounted to have rent themselves from us but such as have admitted themselves members or professed themselves of our association whereas if being members by their birth of the Church of England they after rend themselves from any of our assemblies or others that are parts and members of it and of the same constitution with it they are guilty of schisme and which you must say or whatever you cry out against it you do not upon any sure principle oppose it 3. But this blot of schisme you would fasten upon us however though it be neither upon your own principles here laid down or any other whereby you can prove us guilty And to make this out you say that we or many of us had sworn Canonical obedience to the Government by Bishops and subscribed the 39 Articles of the Church of England and hereupon because we are not now for
Officers depending on that Hierarchy was extirpated according to that Covenant as appears by the Ordinance they passed October the 9. 1646. for the abolishing Archbishops and Bishops within the Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales By them also after the passing of severall Ordinances for the setling of the Presbyterian Governments by parts before at length that progress was by them made in that work that they passed the Ordinance of 1648. establishing the forme of Church Government to be used in the Church of England after advice had with the Assembly of Divines By their authority and according to the rules and directions by them given for that purpose they setled the Presbyterian Government in the Province of London and in this Province of Lancaster and in some other parts of the Land whereby they sufficiently awarranted those that should act therein according to their Ordinances that they are secured against that danger of a Premunire with which some as will appear from the following Papers hath been threatned What obstructions this work of reformation so happily begun did after meet with from severall Parties or how it came to passe that this Government was setled throughout the Land we are not willing here so much as to mention desiring rather in silence to acknowledge the righteous Hand of God in bringing us back again into the wildernesse of confusion to wander there for severall years together when we had been upon the borders of a just settlement and thereby correcting an unthankfull people and unwilling to be reformed according to their Covenant then by making complaints against any to seem to murmur at his just dispensation especially considering that we are not without hope but that the wise and mercifull God may have reserved the honour of finishing this work and building upon that foundation which was by them laid in troublous times for a fitter season when the people of this Nation having been convinced of the mischiefs and miseries of an ungoverned Church by the long want of Church Government in it may be the more ready to give the more chearfull entertainmant to what may be established by some after Parliament And who can tell but the hands of sundry of the same Zerubbabels that laid the foundation of this work their hands may also finish it But however thus we see that the worke of reformation and particularly of Churches and Nations is not a work that goes on easily it meeteth with opposition not only often from enemies but sometimes even from professed friends And if that Parliament that cast out Episcopacy and established the Presbyterian Government in the room thereof did not carry on that worke so far but through much difficulty it is not to be thought strange if the same spirit of opposition that they wrestled with should after they were risen discover it selfe to the interrupting and hindering of those that acted upon their Ordinances in the exercise of that Government and Discipline which they so established We cannot but imagine that sundry throughout the Land have reason to complaine of the like if not far worse then we have met with But as touching our selves it was our publishing a short Paper in our severall Congregations and herewith Printed that was the occasion of those contests betwixt us and the Gentlemen we have to deale with that are now made publick to the world What the designe of that Paper was we leave it to all indifferent persons to consider nothing doubting but that all equall judges will conclude it was very honest and did not merit such unhandsome handling as it after met with But how matters after proceeded betwixt us and the Gentlemen that assaulted it untill without our privity and consent both that and other Papers that after passed on both sides were by them Printed our Narrative following will give a full account whereby also it will be evident that we are forced into the field for our own defence as it will be further manifest to every Reader from the Papers themselves which we here publish we are meerly on the defensive part And if the Reader be pleased to take notice from our Narrative that it was in July last that we first met with all the Papers in Print and further observe thence that we had been before that time in a treaty with them touching a meeting in order to an accommodation during which time we had not any thoughts of returning any Answer in writing to their last Papers and that notwithstanding our severall other employments in the meane season our Answer to those Papers had fully passed the Class November the 23. of this same Year as appears by the date they beare according to the subscription of them by the Moderator we cannot conceive that he will judge we have neglected any time that could with conveniency have been redeemed for the hastening our Answer abroad in the world And now untill they see the light the transcribing them faire for the Press and the Printing of them drinkes up the remainder of the time All that we have now further to acquaint the Reader with is to give him an account of some things in reference to what we here publish We have Printed over again all the Papers that formerly passed betwixt them and us because we could not answer severall things in theirs without some speciall reference to both their Papers and ours and we judged it to be the fairest way to present all entirely to the Readers view that thereby he might be able the better to judg concerning the whole especially considering what we now publish might perhaps come into the hands of sundry that had never seen what had been before by them Printed We have not omitted to Print the Title given by them to the Papers as they were by them published that by comparing their Papers with their Title and our examination of them together with that tast we give in the close of that spirit they discover in them the Reader may the better judge how their discourse doth suit with the Title given to it We have also therewith again Printed their Preface that they might not have any occasion to say of us that we had a mind to suppress any thing of theirs which they perhaps might judg materiall though from our Narrative and Animadversions on this their Preface in the close of that our Narrative the weight that is in it will be tried The Paper which we published in our Congregations and that followes our Narrative though approved by the Provinciall yet being directed only to the Congregations of our own Association was drawn up short being for the use of those that were not altogether strangers to the Discipline it having been practised amongst them for severall yeares before and the rules whereof as they are more fully and particularly held forth in the forme of Church Government established by the Parliament so had been more fully expounded to them in our publick Ministry as
to the Sacrament The course by you published provided it be in publique little differeth from the order prescribed by the Church of England and other reformed Churches abroad before any be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 2. For those who erre so grossely whether in Doctrinals or points of disciplin thereby renting from a true constituted Church Though you speak nothing either of their sin or punishment yet we hope you with us do hold That the Churches lawful Pastors have the power of the Keyes committed to them to excommunicate such offenders 3. For such as are scandalous and wicked in their lives Admonition private and publique is to be observed according to Christs rule Mat. 18 but if they still continue and will not reform the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to excommunicate such Thus far we accord in judgement touching the way of informing the ignorant and reforming wicked persons and schismaticall which course is so fully warranted by the Word of God and the constant practice of the Catholique Church that we are not so wavering and unsetled in our apprehensions of the case as to submit either it or them either wholly or in part to the contrary judgement and determination of a Generall Council of the Eastern or Western Churches much lesse to a new termed Provincial Assembly at Preston wherein we not little differ from you Other parts of your Paper are full of darknesse to which we cannot so fully assent till further explicated and unfolded by you For 1. Whereas you say That in the several congregations if not in all belonging to this Association there are many persons of all sorts that are members of Congregations c. you seeme to hint that though your grief may be general as ours for all offenders yet your censures extend onely to those who have admitted themselves members of some Congregation within your Association and yet live inordinately and will not be admonished If so then we who never were any members or associates of yours are not within the verge and compasse of your Presbyterian discipline for what have you to do to judge those that are without 2. But whereas your complaint and offence taken is That many there are of all sorts who will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church but live like lawless persons out of their rank and order If by the present Government of the Church you mean your own as may strongly be conjectured you do then are we also comprehended therein and must fall within your censure and not onely we but all Papists Anabaptists and all other of what Profession and Religion soever who live within the Parish must be taken for members of some one Congregation within your Association and so driven into the common fold of Presbytery and be subject to your Government And this as we suppose is the chief design of you in this as in other transactions of yours to subject all to your Government which you garnish over with the specious title of Christs Government Throne and Scepter Presbytery is the main thing driven at here and however she cometh ushered in with a Godly pretence of sorrow for the sins and ignorance of the times and a duty incumbent upon you to exercise the power which Christ hath committed to you for edification and not for destruction yet these are but as so many waste papers wherein Presbytery is wrapped to make it look more handsomly and pass more currently but beware we must for latet anguis in Herbâ Object But you say For want of the vigorous exercise of this Ecclesiastical discipline ignorance Atheism and Licentiousness growes upon us and men live as lawlesse persons out of their rank and order because not subject to your present Governement Sol. We pray for the establishment of such Church Government throughout his Highness Dominions as is consonant to the will of God and Universall practice of primitive Churches that Ecclesiasticall discipline may be exercised in the hands of them to whom it was committed by Christ and left by him to be transferred from hand to hand to the end of the World and shall readily joyn with you in humble addresses to his Highnes and his great Council for the establishment of such a Church Government In the mean time though there may be such who as you say live as lawless persons out of their rank and order yet are they subject to law and therefore subject to punishment for though your Ecclesiastical sword cannot take hold on them the civill sword doth reach them Your Class may do well then not to contemn as in charity we hope you do not the authority of the civill Magistrate but in stead of warning all and every member belonging to them to complain to the Eldership of those that walke disorderly and will not be reclaimed to the end they may excommunicate them That they exhort them to complaine to the civill Magistrate whose sword of Justice is sharper and longer and likely to work a greater reformation in the lives and manners of men by a corporal and pecuniary Mulct then any sword of excommunication or other Church censure your Eldership can any way pretend unto There are other parts of your paper do remain likewise dark which we desire may be made plain unto us for whereas you say There are many persons of all sorts c. That will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order Our Quaeres there upon are 1. Why Government in singulari is there no Ecclesiasticall Government but yours may not another Church have its Government different from yours yet not different from that which Christ hath prescribed in his Word Calvin saith yea Scimus enim unicuique Ecclesiae c. And accordingly there are other Churches in England different in Government from yours and as good as yours But if you say yours is the Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminency as Christs own Government more immediatly and jure divino which you so much defend then why the present is there no present Government in any Church or Assembly of Saints but where your discipline is erected Are all the rest at present without Government or where hath yours been this 1500. years past till this present Hath Antichristianism so overspread the face of the Church that Christs own Goverment could never get footing till this present But now subjection is required thereto of all yet many of all sorts will not subject but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order Our next Quaere is What must all those that observe not your ranks and orders subject not themselves to your present Government be taken for lawless persons out of their rank and order Yea for so this close connexion of yours seems to import viz. many who do not subject but live c. In your paper you further proceed and
every lawful Minister to whom the Key of Doctrine is committed by himself singly or else it is Juridical and this belongs to Synods and Councils who having the Key of Discipline are invested with authority to inquire into try examine censure and judge of matters of Doctrine and Discipline authoritatively although they be tyed to the rule of Gods Word in such proceedings as Judges to the Law and likewise to censure offenders according to their merit when such cases are regularly and orderly brought before them And in this sense it was that we submitted our apprehensions in the Paper published to the Judgement of the Provincial Assembly And we believe when the Apostle tels us 1 Cor. 14. 32. That the spirits os the Prophets are subject to the Prophets And our Saviour Christ-saith Mat. 18. ●ell the Church And when we consider what was practised by Paul and Barnabas and certain others who upon occasion of a contest that arose in the Church at Antioch about a matter of Doctrine were sent up from that Church to Jerusalem to the Apostles and Elders about that question from these and other Scriptural grounds we had sufficient ground for so doing We are sure also That Whitaker de Conciliis quaestione quinta and Chamierus in his Panstratia de oecumenico Pontifice ubi de Authoritate Papae in Ecclesia cap. 13. cap. 14. And generally all our Protestant Divines against the Papists alledging the Texts above-mentioned and others do prove abundantly that in the sense declared the Pope is to be subject to a general Council wherein also sundry Papists do concur with them And questionless if in the time of Augustine who was no contemner of Synods and Councils any in this sense had declared that they would not have submitted their apprehensions to their judgement he would have cried out against them as well as against the Donatists O impudentem vocem And we hope when you have weighed the matter better you will not in this sense see any reason to refuse to submit either your sense and apprehensions of our Paper or what you may publish as your own private Judgements in other matters about Religion to the Judgement of a general Council supposing it might be had SECT III. WE have now done with your Preface and come to the matter it self wherein you professe 1. To joyn with us in a deep sense of the several grosse sins and errors of the times desiring earnestly to mourn first for your own sins next for the sixs of others c. And here we do heartily pray that neither we nor you may any of us condemn our selves either by professing our sorrow for what sins we may practise or by refusing to help forward the good that we professe to allow of but may testifie the truth of our sorrow for our own and other mens sins by suitable indeavors to reform what is amisse in our selves and helping forward every one in his place the reformation of others 2 In the next place you say You are also sensible with us that there are sundry persons grosly ignorant in the mainpoints of Christian Religion And if so we hope you will acknowledge that where after the injoying of plenty of Preaching and the publick Catechizing that hath been used for many years together and much more where there hath been lesse of this meanes many continue grosly ignorant in the main points of Religion it is at least not to be condemned in such Ministers as shall be willing to take the paines by private Catechizing to instruct such persons This course being to the Ministers a matter of paines onely and that hereupon where the publick Catechizing attaines not its desired end the private may be good and useful that so poor souls perish not for lack of knowledge 3. Lastly You hope That we with you are sensible and greived though you say we do not mention them for the grosse errors in judgement and damnable Doctrines of many who have rent themselves into as many several Heresies as they have into Sects and Schisms You may perceive by the title of our Paper that it was a representation of our apprehensions to the Provincial Assembly in the Case to us propounded by the said Provincial and what that was we shall particularly declare anon although by what we say had been complained of and represented unto us it might be gathered and therefore we were chiefly to apply our selves to that which was therein our main work and businesse That the grosse and damnable errors that the loosness of these times have brought forth are to be bewailed if it were possible with tears of bloud is most freely to be confessed And whether we lay them not to heart in some poor measure God the searcher of all hearts he knows as what complaints have been made of these by the members of this Classis both in their prayers and preaching men can witnesse and likewise what testimonies have been given to the truth of Jesus Christ and against the errors of the times subscribed with their hands and published to the world though therein but concurring with the rest of their Reverend Brethren in this Province in the Province of London and other Counties of the Land posterity may read when we are in our graves But as to the most of the Congregations belonging to this Classis the great business to be looked after was the use of our best indeavors for the informing of the ignorant and the reforming of the scandalous the numbers of these being great and of those that are so grosly erroneous as to maintain damnable doctrines and whereof you professe your selves to be so sensible very inconsiderable in comparison of the former and in sundry of our Congregations if not in most blessed be God for it not any at all that we know of And therefore there was not that reason to make any such expresse mention of these as of the former although in our Paper we were not herein neither altogether silent as will after appear Having professed your agreement with us thus farre you go on to declare your selves That touching the way of informing the ignorant and reforming the wicked and erroneous you shall not much dissent And 1. You say For the Information and instruction of the ignorant by way of Catechizing before they be admitted to the Sacrament the course by us published provided you say it be in publick little differeth from the Order prescribed by the Church of England and other Reformed Churches abroad before any be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Sapper That all Children and others so many as it is fit to instruct after that manner be publickly catechized is that which we heartily wish had been and were more generally practised in our own Church at home as it is practised by the Reformed Churches abroad And certainly had the publick catechizing of Children and others been more generally and constantly practised there had not been that cause
God in his Word for the information of the ignorant but in what way of Catechizing as is expressed in our Paper the ignorant in our Congregations who never offered themselves unto the Sacrament were most like to be brought to some measure of knowledge and which is not a matter of Doctrine but of Order onely Neither was it by us submitted to that Assembly whether the censures of the Church were the meanes appointed by Christ for the reforming of the scandalous But whether it might not be meet pro hic nunc and as the present case stood to apply the censures and so put in practice at this time that which in the General we were sufficiently assured from the word of Truth was the way for their reformation and with which we were both by God and Man intrusted to dispense unto those that were openly scandalous in our Congregations However they contented themselves to live in the want of the Lords Supper nor ever presented themselves to the Eldership to be admitted to it And this because meerly circumstantial as to the dispensing of the Censures at this time and to such Persons we think herein we owed the Provincial Assembly unto whose Authority we professe our selves to be subject so much respect and duty as to submit our apprehensions in a case of this nature which they had propounded unto us to be seriously weighed as they had done to the rest of the Classes within this Province unto their Judgement and to take their concurrent approval along with us before we proceeded to practise in a matter of this weight And yet we have declared before That however we are not so wavering and unsettled in matters of faith as to resolve our belief into the determination of Synods or Councils believing no more nor no otherwise then as they determine Yet that it is not out of the compasse of the authority of a Synod to examine try and authoritatively to censure Doctrines as well as matters of Discipline And we think how confident soever you may be of the soundnesse and orthodoxnesse of what in your Paper you propound in way of exception against any thing in ours you have not such clear and unquestionable grounds from Scripture for the same that you were to be accused of wavering or unsettledness if you had submitted the same to have been examined and tried by a Provincial Assembly and much lesse if you could have had the opportunity of submitting it to the Censure of a General Council But whereas mentioning our Provincial Assembly at Preston you call it a new termed Provincial Assembly If your meaning be that the terming it a Provincial Assembly instead of a Provincial Synod is a new term then this is but onely a Logomachia and not much to be insisted on Although we frequently call it a Provincial Synod as well as a Provincial Assembly But if your meaning be That it is a new termed Provincial Assembly at Preston Because Provinciall Synods or Assemblies have been held but lately at Preston we see not if Provincial Assemblies be warrantable and have been of ancient use in the Church that having been long in dis-use they began of late to be held at Preston that can justly incurre your censure But if the Antiquity of such Assemblies be that you question Then we referre you to what Doctor Bernard in the Book of his above quoted shews was the Judgement of Doctor Vsher who is acknowledged by all that knew him or are acquainted with his works to have been a great Antiquary however we alleadge him not that you should build your faith upon his Testimony and which we think may be sufficient to vindicate Provincial Assemblies in your thoughts from all suspition of novelty In that Book you have in the close of it proposals touching the Reduction of Episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Government received in the ancient Church And it thus begins By the Order of the Church of England all Presbyters are charged to administer the Doctrine and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as this Realm hath received And that they might the better understand what the Lord hath commanded herein The exhortation of Paul to the Elders of Ephesus Acts 20. 28. is appointed to be read unto them at the time of their Ordination A little after it is aknowledged That Ignatius by Presbytery mentioned by Paul 1 Tim. 4. 14. did understand the Community of the rest of the Presbyters or Elders who then had a hand not onely in the delivery of the Doctrine and Sacraments but also in the administration of the Discipline of Christ And for further proof Tertullian is alleadged in his Generall Apologie for Christians Where he saith that in the Church are used exhortations chastisements and divine censure For Judgement is given with great advice as among those who are certain they are in the sight of God And it is the chiefest foreshewing of the Judgement to come if any man have so offended that he be banished from the Communion of Prayer and of the Assembly and of all holy Fellowship The Presidents that bear rule therein are certain approved Elders who have obtained this honour not by reward but by good report There also is further shewed That in matters of Ecclesiastical judicature Cornelius Bishop of Rome used the received form of gathering together the Presbytery And that Cyprian sufficiently declares of what Persons that consisted When he wisheth him to read his Letter to the flourishing Clergy which there did preside or rule with him And further That in the fourth Council of Carthage it was concluded That the Bishop might hear no mans cause without the presence of the Clergy And that otherwise the Bishops sentence should be void unlesse it were confirmed by the Clergy And yet further That this is found inserted into the Canons of Egbert who was Archbishop of York in the Saxon times and afterwards into the body of the Canon law it self It is here also acknowledged That in our Church this kind of Presbyterian Government hath been much disused Yet that it did professe that every Pastor hath a right to rule the Church from whence also the name of Rector was at first given to him and administer the Discipline of Christ as well as to dispense the Doctrine and Sacraments c. By all which it is acknowledged and also proved That the form of Government by the united suffrages of the Clergy is ancient and which is there in express termes asse●ted as it might be demonstrated by many more Testimonies but that we conceive these already mentioned are sufficient and being alleadged by the aforementioned Author As also evidencing what his own Judgement was in this point may be more likely to sway with you if in that there should be a dissent betwixt you and us then any thing that we could our selves produce But in this reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Synodical Government
received in the ancient Church there are proposals of Assemblies of Pastors within certain limited bounds which saving that they are some of them somewhat larger then ours which is but a circumstantial difference doe hold proportion with the Classical Provincial and National Assemblies mentioned in the form of our Church Government as also the times propounded there for their meeting the power of these Assemblies and what they were to have Cognizance of and the subordination of the lesser to the greater with liberty of Appeal if need should require and are the same in substance as with us And all these were propounded as the way of Government in the ancient Church and in the year 1641. after the troubles that had risen in Scotland about Episcopacy and the Ceremonies and before the setting up of the Presbyterian Government in this Land had so much as fallen under debate in the Parliament so far as ever we heard of as an expedient to prevent the troubles that did after arise in this Land about the matter of Church Government being for the moderating of Episcopacy that at that time was grown to that height that it had quite taken away from the Pastors that rule that of right did belong unto them And for the Reduction of it to the ancient form of Synodical Government And therefore in the Judgement of this learned and reverend Antiquary our Provincial Assembly at Preston where the Pastors of the Churches are members as he acknowledgeth of right they ought to be in such Assemblies would not have been accounted a new termed Provincial Assembly SECT IV. BUt you go on and tell us That other parts of our Paper are full of darknesse to which you say you cannot so fully assent till further explicated and unfolded by us We cannot apprehend any such darknesse in our Paper as you speak of But yet because in yours you question what authority we have from the civil Magistrate for what we doe and likewise the extent of it and your mistakes of our meaning may perhaps some of them arise from your unacquaintednesse with the rule we walk by although we were not to be blamed for any mistakes that might arise ab ignorantia juris whether simple or affected that we determine not but leave you to examine Before we come to make Answer more particularly to what follows we are willing to be at some paines to give you some further account of the power we are awarranted by the civil Authority for to exercise to what persons within our bounds it extends it self and what some of those rules are that are prescribed unto us by civil Authority to walk by in the exercise of that power we are betrusted with It is a general and common mistake amongst many that the Presbyterian Government was established by the Parliament but for three years and that therefore it is now expired and our of date But if you peruse all that passed in Parliament touching it no such matter will appear The directions of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament after advice had with the Assembly of Divines for the electing and chusing Ruling Elders in all the Congregations and in the Classical Assemblies for the Cities of London and Westminster and the several Counties of the Kingdom for the speedy settling of the Presbyterian Government bearing date August 19. 1645. Their Ordinance together with Rules and Directions concerning suspension from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in cases of Ignorance and scandal dated Octob. 20. 1645 The Votes also of the said Houses for the Choise of Elders throughout the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales in the respective Parish Churches and Chappels according to the directions before mentioned And touching the power granted to the Tryers of Elections of Elders Of the date of Febr. 20. 1645. and Febr. 26. 1645 Their Ordinance for keeping scandalous Persons from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the inabling of Congregations for the choice of Elders and supplying of defects in former Ordinances and Directions of Parliament concerning Church Government bearing date March 14. 1645 The Remedies prescribed by them for removing some obstructions in Church Government dated April 22. 1647 And their Ordinance for the speedy dividing and settling the several Counties of this Kingdom into distinct Classical Presbyteries and Congregationall Elderships dated Jan. 29. 1647 We say all these were passed absolutely without any proviso's at all limiting the time of their continuance that is expressed in any of them Indeed in the Ordinance of Parliament giving power to all the Classical Presbyteries within their respective bounds to examine approve and ordain Ministers for several Congregations dated Nov. 10. 1645 It is provided in the Close of it That it shall stand in force for twelve moneths and no longer As it is provided in another Ordinance for the Ordination of Ministers by the Classical Presbyters within their respective bounds for the several Congregations in the Kingdom of England bearing date August 28. 1646 that it shall stand in force for three yeares and no longer Which latter might give to some that took but the matter upon report an occasion to conceive that the Presbyterian Government was settled but for three yeares although that was but ill applied to all the several Ordinances that had passed before which belonged onely to one But the Ordinance especially from which chiefly as we conceive the mistake arose about settling the Presbyterian Government for three years onely was the Ordinance that passed June 5. 1646 The title whereof is An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament for the present settling without further delay of the Presbyterial Government in the Church of England In the Close whereof it is ordained That this Ordinance shall continue for the space of three yeares and no longer unlesse both Houses think fit to continue it But if the matter of this Ordinance be consulted it is manifest it was but touching a Committee of Lords and Commons to adjudge and determine scandalous offences not formerly enumerated appointed by that Ordinance in stead and place of Commissioners mentioned in the Ordinance of March 14. 1645 And also shewing how the Elderships were to proceed in the examination of such scandalous offences And touching what power was granted to the said Committee and in what sort they were to proceed as is clear to any that shall but take the pains to peruse that Ordinance The ground whereof in the preface to it is made to be this The Lords and Commons in Parliament holding their former resolution that all notorious and scandalous offenders shall be kept from the Sacrament have thought fit to make a further addition to the scandalous offences formerly enumerated for which men shall be kept back from the Sacrament And least the stay of the enumeration and the not naming of Commissioners to judge of Cases not enumerated should hinder the putting in execution the Presbyterian Government already established They have
thought fit c. And doe therefore-ordain a Committee therein particularly nominated in stead and place of Commissioners The groundlesnesse of the mistake about settling the Presbyterial Government for three years onely that might arise from the proviso in this Ordinance is so clear to any common understanding that the bare recital of the sum of the matter of this Ordinance and the ground of making it doth make it so fully to appear that it were but lost labour to use any more words about it But we have particularly mentioned all that ever passed the Parliament so farre as we have either seen or heard of that hitherto concerned Church Government untill the year 1648 When the form of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland was agreed upon by the Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament after Advice had with the Assembly of Divines and was ordered by them to be printed August 19. of the said year 1648. And this Ordinance wherein all that had passed the Parliament before in parts and at several times and what ever was but temporary by vertue of other Ordinances so far as was intended for continuance are moulded up into a complete body with a supply of sundry things that had been never mentioned nor published before in other Ordinances is without any limitation of time for its continuance and remains unrepealed to this day for any thing we have seen or heard to the contrary Nay we think as we shall touch upon anon That by the humble Advice assented to by his Highnesse this Ordinance as well as others receives strength But by this full account given we think we have made it sufficiently to appear that we have had the Authority of the civil Magistrate to bear us out in what we have acted since the first setting up of the Presbyterian Government untill this present Except there be any that can come forth and charge us to have transgressed the rules appointed by the Parliament for us to observe in our actings against which our own innocency onely shall be our defence It now remaines for your further satisfaction and our own vindication that we recite some things particularly out of the form of Church Government which we conceive are thereunto subservient In the very first Words of the Ordinance according to what we have before recited in the directions for the electing and choosing of ruling Elders and is there also to be found you may find it thus Be it ordered and ordained by the Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled and by Authority of the same That all Parishes and Places whatsoever within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales as well Priviledged Places and exempted jurisdictions as others be brought under the Government of Congregational Classical Provincial and National Assemblies c. Whence it is to us unquestionable That by vertue of this appointment such as live within the bounds of our several Congregations and Parishes are under the power of some one or other of the Congregational Elderships constituted by Authority of Parliament within our several Parishes And that all those that live within the bounds of our Classis mentioned before are under the power of our Classical Assembly constituted in like manner by the said Authority What power is given particularly to the congregational Elderships you may finde in the aforesaid form of Church Government and unto which we refer you onely we shall minde you That by vertue thereof they have power as they shall see just occasion to enquire into the knowledge and spiritual estate of any member of the Congregation to admonish and rebuke to suspend from the Lords Table those who are found by them to be ignorant and scandalous and to excommunicate according to the rules and directions after following And it is thereby ordained That the Examination and Judgement of such Persons as shall for their ignorance in the points of Religion mentioned in that Ordinance not be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is to be in the power of the Eldership of every Congregation All which will appear by the expresse Letter of the said Ordinance to any that will consult it and which not onely justifies all that is practised in that case by the several Elderships but also shews what grounds this Classis had for that which was mentioned in our Paper touching both what is therein appointed to the Minister about Catechizing Families and also concerning the Ministers exhorting such as in the several Families he should finde to be of competent knowledge and know to be of blamelesse life That they should present themselves to the Eldership The Trial and Judgement in this case not belonging to any one Minister alone but to the Eldership There are also rules and directions given in this Ordinance to be observed by the several Elderships concerning suspension from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper in cases of scandal which may be seen there particularly But there is no rule given that will allow either the Eldership or Classis according to the several powers to them therein granted either to warn before all or to excommunicate knowing and blamelesse men for their meer not presenting themselves before the Eldership The rules of this Government prescribe otherwise as we our selves must also needs professe that we are not conscious to our selves that we have given any just occasion by our management thereof That contrary to the expresse rules appointed therein to be observed by us and to the plain sense of the expressions used in our Paper of which afterward any such a thing should have been so much as supposed to have been intended from any thing there expressed Give us leave to proceed a little further to lay open the order that is prescribed in the above mentioned form of Church Government touching the order of proceeding to excommunication which as it will awarrant the publishing of mens names openly in the Congregation and warning them before all to reform being such as are justly censurable by the rules thereof and particularly where it prescribes that several publique admonitions shall be given to the offenders c. So it will awarrant us in any thing that is made censurab●e by that Paper of ours that was published To make this to appear as also to shew what reason we had to make known to the several congregations within our bounds what our paper held forth We shall here declare what offences are censurable with this greatest and last censure of Excommunication according to the order that is there prescribed and which as it requires that it be inflicted with great and mature deliberation and after all other good means have been essayed so it appoints in these expresse words That such Errours in practice as subvert the Faith or any other Errours which overthrow the power of Godlinesse if the party who holds them spread them seeking to draw others after him and such sins in practice as
cause the Name and Truth of God to be blasphemed cannot stand with the power of godlinesse and such practises as in their own nature manifestly subvert that order unity and Peace which Christ hath established in his Church and particularly all those scandalous sins for which any Person is to be suspended from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper obstinately persisted in these being publiquely known to the just scandal of the Church The sentence of Excommunication may and ought to proceed according to the directions after following But the Persons that hold other Errours in Judgement about which learned and Godly men possibly may and do differ and which subvert not the faith nor are destructive to godliness or that be guilty of such sins of infirmity as are commonly found in the Children of God or being otherwise sound in the faith and holy in life and so not falling under censure by the former rules endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and do yet out of conscience not come up to the observation of all those rules which are or shall be established by Authority for regulating the outward worship of God and Government of his Church The sentence of excommunication for these causes shall not be denounced against them These things this Classis taking into consideration together with the power they were betrusted with by God and Man for the dispensing the censures of the Church in the cases censurable by the rules here laid down and elsewhere in the form of Church Government And there having been in the Provinciall Assembly several debates touching such Persons as in the several Congregations were ignorant and scandalous who offered not themselves to the Sacrament nor to the Eldership in order to their admission to it and they commending it to the several Classical Presbyteries to be considered of whether some further course was not to be held for the information of the one and the reformation of the other then yet had been taken notwithstanding their neglect and what they judged fittest to be done for the attaining those ends and to represent their thoughts therein to the next Assembly This Classis upon the whole concluded to represent their apprehensions in the Case as is expressed in the Paper that was published which was approved of before by the Provincial Assembly and which they judge is sufficiently awarranted in regard of any thing therein contained by the rules expressed in the above-mentioned form of Church Government We having thus far shewed what we have been and are awarranted to practice by the several Ordinances above mentioned shall now proceed further to declare That however we are no Lawyers and therefore leave the determination of the Case to the learned in the Law to judge of to whom it belongs yet if it may be lawful for us to judge of a matter of this nature from the principles of reason It seems to us that the above mentioned Ordinances about Church Government as well as other Ordinances of Parliament are confirmed in the humble Advice assented unto by his Highnesse in the 16. section thereof where we finde these Words And that nothing contained in this Petition and Advice nor your Highnesse consent rhereunto shall be construed to extend to the repealing or making void of any Act or Ordinance which is not contrary hereunto or to the matters herein contained But that the said Acts and Ordinances not contrary hereunto shall continue and remain in force in such manner as if this present Petition and Advice had not at all been had or made or your Highnesse consent thereunto given Whence we gather that if in the several Ordinances for Church Government there be nothing contrary to the humble Advice or to the matters therein contained they are not thereby any more then any other Acts or Ordinances of Parliament repealed but left to remain in force At least there seems to us to be a plain intimation that they have a force in them which is not by this humble Advice repealed and made void For it doth not appear to us That there is any thing in the form of Church Government or any other Ordinances of Parliament about that matter that is contrary to the humble Advice or matters therein contained And whereas in the eleventh section there is mention made of some that differ in worship and discipline from the publique profession of these Nations held forth to whom some indulgence is granted It seems to us there is an acknowledgement and owning of what the late Parliament held forth in regard of these by the Directory for worship and form of Church Government which they passed as the publique profession of these Nations in regard of worship and discipline And in these apprehensions we are the more confirmed because here in this section mention is made of a confession of faith to be agreed on by his Highnesse and the Parliament there having nothing in that kind passed the late Parliament that established the Directory for worship and form of Church Government However there had been a Confession of faith drawn up by the late Assembly of Divines Whence it seemes to us clear that they own the Directory for worship and the form of Church Government to be that which they hold forth as the publique profession of the Nation for worship and Government To the same purpose we finde in the Government of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland c. As it was publiquely declared at Westminster Decemb. 16 1653. pag. 43. Sect. 37. Where also they expresse a worship and Discipline publiquely held forth which must needs referre to the Directory and form of Church Government by us recited There being no other worship or discipline that then had or now hath the civil Sanction in this Nation We have been large in what we have here represented in the general before we come to speak more particularly to the rest that now follows in your paper But our pains being the greater to make this full representation unto you then it will be for you to read it we must intreat you to excuse us considering it tends as well to rectifie your mistakes as to vindicate our selves being also desirous not to be mistaken any more as also because it layes a foundation for our briefer and more particular Answer unto what follows and to which these ●hings being thus premised we now come SECT V. IN the things wherein you professe your selves to dissent till further explicated and unfolded by us 1 The first thing we meet with here is That by the many Persons of all sorts that are members of Congregations and mentioned in our Paper in your sense thereof we seem to hint that thereby we mean onely such who have admitted themselves members of some Congregation within your association and yet live inordinately c. And that therefore you who never were any members or associates of ours are not within the verge and compasse
of our Presbyterian discipline c. Unto which we say That we have constantly professed against those of the separation That the several Assemblies or Congregations within this Land that make a profession of the true Christian and Apostolique Faith are true Churches of Jesus Christ That the several members of these Congregations are by their birth members as those that were born in the Jewish Church are said to be by the Apostle Jewes by nature Gal. 2. That this their membership was sealed to them in their Baptism that did solemnly admit them as into the universal Church so into the particular wherein they were born We have also constantly maintained against the afore-mentioned Persons That the Ministers of these Churches are true Ministers notwithstanding that exception of theirs against them that they were ordained by Bishops who also themselves were true Ministers in our Judgement though we cannot acknowledge that by divine right they were superiour to their fellow brethren either in regard of order or jurisdiction And that therefore the Word and Sacraments the most essential marks of a true visible Church according to the professed Judgement of our Divines against the Papists on the one hand and those of the separation on the other dispensed by these Vinisters were and are the true Ordinances of Jesus Christ And that hereupon our work was not when the Presbyterian Government was appointed to constitute Churches but to reform them onely And that therefore none within our bounds except they shall renounce Christianity and their Baptisme can be deemed by us to be without in the Apostles sense and so therefore not within the compass and verge of our Presbyterian Government Neither is it their not associating with us in regard of Government that doth exempt them from censure by it if they should be such offenders as by the rules thereof were justly censurable It not being a matter arbitrary for private Persons at their own will and pleasure to exempt themselves from under that Ecclesiastical Government that is settled by Authority And as you know it would not have been allowed of under the former Government 2 And therefore whether you and all others within our bounds be not comprehended within our Government according to the rules laid down in the Ordinance of Parliament above mentioned appointing the form of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland and therein ordaining as hath been recited before in the first page thereof and to which we referre you Especially considering that all within the bounds of our several Parishes that are no other now then formerly even Papists and Anabaptists and other Sectaries were under the late Prelatical Government we leave it to you to judge Onely if so we wish you to consider that then you are brought under the Government of Presbytery not so much by us as by the Parliament appointing this Government And then we think you who warn us not to contemn civil power might well out of respect to the Authority ordaining it but especially considering the word Presbytery is a known Scripture expression 1 Tim. 4 and interpreted by sundry of the Fathers as we do as hath been declared before have used a more civil expression then to have called it a common fold into which it should seem your complains it that you should be driven Although Presbytery layes restraint on none but such as being scandalous in their lives and so contemning the Laws of God are therefore truly and indeed the lawless Persons that we speak of But whereas as you suppose This is our chief design in this as in other transactions of ours to subject all to our Government We doe refer our selves to our course of life past and hope it will witnesse with us to all that will judge impartially what our designes have been in our other transactions And as touching our design in the Paper published whether it hath been ought but the information of the ignorant and reformation of the scandalous to the Glory of God and their salvation we leave it to be judged by those that will judge of mens intentions by what is expressed in their words and actions We know very well we are charged by some that we affect Dominion to Lord it over the People and to have all sorts of Persons of what rank soever to stoop to us But we do openly professe that the Government of the Church that is committed unto men is not Despotical but Ministerial That it is no Dominion but a Ministery onely And that the Officers that are intrusted with it are themselves to be subject both in regard of their bodies and estates to the Civil power That by the Ordinance of God they are appointed to be under and that in their Government they have nothing to do with the bodies and estates of any Persons but with their Souls onely Although here we desire to enquire of you whether if you be indeed for the settling of any Government at all in the Church as you professe to be you do not think that all should be subject to it We cannot judge you to be so irrational as to be for a Government and that yet subiection to it must be denyed And if the late Government of the Prelacy was not blamed by you because it required subjection to it we wish you to consider whether upon this account you have reason to censure us But further whereas you tell us That we garnish over our Government with the specious title of Christs Government Throne and Scepter We wish you to consider what in your Answer to an objection that you frame out of our Paper your selves doe say You there tell us You pray for the establishment of such Church Government as is consonant to the will of God and universal practice of primitive Churches that Ecclesiastical Discipline may be exercised in the hands of them to whom it was committed by Christ and left by him to be transferred from hand to hand to the end of the World The expressions you here use are as high touching that Government you would have established as any have been that ever we have used of ours For your prayer is That Ecclesiastical Discipline may be exercised in the hands of them to whom it was committed by Christ and left by him to be transferred from hand to hand to the end of the world The Government then that you are for must be with you Christs Government Throne and Scepter And why do you then condemn us if we have used such expressions concerning our Government till you have convinced us that it is not such When yet you take to your selves the liberty to use the like language concerning the Government you pray may be established But where as you say Presbytery is the main thing driven at here and that however she comes ushered in with a Godly pretence of sorrow for the sins and the ignorance of the times and the duty incumbent upon us
though we do not deny But that if upon the first exhortation they do not present themselves to the Eldership it being in order to their regular and orderly Admission to the Lords Supper the Minister may exhort and exhort them again because they continue in the neglect of that which is their duty yet there was no such thing said by us But then to make the ground of your charge something more colourable you added another word which was not at all used by us We said the Minister was to exhort and that was all But you adde and say He shall exhort and admonish But we have told you before to exhort and admonish are different things And we leave it to indifferent Judges to consider whether this be a candid and fair wa● of arguing even in the Schools much lesse should it have been made use of when it is brought in to bear up the weight of so heavy a charge as you here put up against us And this is the main foundation whereupon all the rest is built But your ground work being so unsure what you built thereon must needs fall Yet you go on to make it good as far as you can and therefore do further add and say But what if they still refuse Their names say you shall be published c. But what 's your proof for this That 's say you the fifth Order But here you quite mistake your mark and therefore when you have considered it your selves will not wonder you should shoot so wide For the fifth Order speaks only of Persons that have been privately admonished and also admonished by the Eldership Of which the former branch of the fourth order speaks And what sort of Persons that refers to is manifest from our Paper and hath been by us shewed before that it cannot by any good Rules of construction be referred to the Persons that the Minister is to exhort and which is the latter branch of the fourth Order And this link of your chain being thus broken the rest of it which follows must needs of it self fall in sunder So that we need to add no more And so we have done with the examination of what you have presented to us in your Paper But we do not finde that you have discovered to us any thing in ours that is not sound and orthodox and for which therefore there is any just reason why any thing in it should lye sadly on your spirits and consciences But do hope after you have seriously weighed what is here presented you may receive so much satisfaction as to see you have no just cause to forbear joyning with us upon any grounds you have here made known We have been willing to put our selves upon some pains in this our large Answer And if it attain the desired end we shall not account it ill bestowed If yet you should rest unsatisfied we desire you to let us know what it is you stumble at And though in regard of sundry other imployments that lye upon us it cannot be expected that we who meet but once a moneth in ordinary and about other matters should hold on a course of Answering you still by writing Yet we shall be ready to appoint some other way that may be far more speedy and we trust as effectual to give you that further satisfaction that is meet and just And now we shall intreat that as our only aime in this Anser hath not been victory but the clearing up of the Truth the satisfying your scruples and giving you a right understanding in what you were mistaken and the vindication of the Government and our selves and hereby the setling of Peace and Unity in our Congregations to the glory of God and edification of the Church So you would shew forth that Candor as not to put any other construction upon what is here offered to you And as you subscribe your selves our brethren desirous of Truth Unity and Peace in the Church So we shall heartily begge of the God of Truth and Peace that both you and we may all of us in all our transactions make it to appear that we are cordial and real in our professions of such desires and that he would bless these and all other our sincere endevours that they may be effectual for the attaining those ends Subscribed in the Name and by the appointment of the Class by John Angier Moderator THE GENTLEMENS Second Paper To the first Classis at Manchester within the Province of Lancaster These Dear Friends nay more Brethren dearly beloved to us in the Lord WE return you hearty thanks for your Answer wherein we finde your much Civility towards us but with too much prolixity We deny not but there may be some errours and mistakes and some sharp reflections upon you and your Government in our Paper which you charge upon us In yours also and that not improbably in one of that bulk might be discovered so me Impertinencies errours and mistakes which we forbear to minde you of but silently pass over hoping all will be buried or covered in that true love and Charity of Brethren of one and the same Church and fellowship In that true love we say which covereth a multitude of faults We shall make no further Replication to the several particulars in your Paper at this time but only to one Branch wherein you refer us to Dr. Bernard In the close of whose Book we meet with one intituled The Reduction of Episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Government received in the Ancient Church By the most Reverend and Learned Father of our Church Dr. James Vsher late Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland proposed in the year 1641. as an expedient for the prevention of those troubles which afterwards did arise about the matter of Church Government which you say is the same in substance with yours Your words are these But if the Antiquity of such Assemblies be that you Question Then we refer you to what Dr. Bernard in the Book of his above quoted shews was the judgement of Dr. Usher who is acknowledged by all that knew him or are acquainted with his works to have been a great Antiquary however we alleadge him not that you should build your faith on his Testimony And which we think may be sufficient to vindicate Provinciall Assemblies in your thoughts from the Suspicion of Novelty In that Book you have in the close of it proposals touching the Reduction of Episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Government received in the Ancient Church And it thus begins By the order of the Church of England c. And so you go on quoting several Testimonies of Fathers and Councils there alleadged In which you further proceed and say There are Proposals of Assemblies of Pastors within certain limited bounds which saving that they are somewhat larger then ours which is but a circumstantial difference do hold proportion with the Classical Provincial and National Assemblies mentioned
it self and yet judged it not necessary might have fears least moderate Episcopacy once admitted might be a step to introduce that kind of Episcopacy or Prelacy that had been expresly covenanted against and upon that account might judge they were obliged by their Covenant to foresee so far as they could such an occasion and to shun it Others again might be much divided amongst themselves if they got over the former Blocks touching the Rules according unto which Episcopacy should be moderated some apprehending the Bonds layd upon it to be too straight and others againe thinking them to be too loose And these Divisions were like to be amongst persons of all Ranks Nobles Knights Citizens Commons of all sorts both of the Gentry Ministry and others Whereupon there were great danger to grow many Debates in the Parliament when that should assemble in the City and throughout the Land Contests of Ministers one a-against another in the Pulpits and at the Presses and amongst private Christians in their private Conferences as it hath been heretofore about the Ceremonies and Episcopacy to the further rending and distracting of our already rent and torne Church and which at this time would be the more dangerous when as the posture of Affairs doth cry aloud upon the wisest Physitians both by their Skill and Power to interpose for the healing of Breaches in England Scotland and Ireland that through our Divisions we be not made a Prey to the common Enemies of our Religion and therefore have no need that such a dangerous bone of Contention should be cast in amongst us as moderate Episcopacy might be like to prove to the sadning of the hearts of Friends and gratifying onely of those that would rejoyce in our ruine 4. It is not also to be sleighted that by admitting of moderate Episcopacy great offence might be taken by the best reformed Churches abroad They have taken notice that in the solemn Covenant that was entred into by these Nations there was not onely an Engagement to endeavour the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy that is Church-government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiasticall Officers depending on that Hierarchy according to which the Parliaments that have been have constantly declared that no Indulgency should be granted to Popery and Prelacy and this out of a conscientious respect as we have hinted before in our answer to your first Paper unto this solemn engagement as we judged But there was also a promise to endeavour the Reformation of Religion in England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches These things have been published to the World and are known abroad and however other matters contained in the Covenant that are of a civil Concernment may be judged of they being in their own nature variable and not of the like necessity in themselves with matters of Religion and the things of God and to be endeavoured after onely in a subordinate way unto Gods matters and never to be pursued in the manifest destructiveness of the interest of Religion that should be looked upon by all as the greatest and chiefest interest yet they are not likely to imagine that moderate Episcopacy that is not by them admitted but disowned can be of that necessity for us in these Lands for which they do not judge there was any rule given in Gods word requiring the setting of it up at the first as that after all the learned Debates touching Church-government for severall years together that have been in the reverend Assembly of Divines that sate by Ordinance of Parliament at Westminster and after their humble advice to the Parliament touching the Presbyterian Government as that Government they conceived was most agreeable to the word of God as it is evident it is most according to the example of the best reformed Churches and after the Parliament engaged also in that solemn Covenant had as they may conceive in pursuance thereof made so great a progress in the setting up of this Presbyterian Government that they passed by Ordinance the form of Church-government Anno 1648 after advice had with the Assembly of Divines as that Church-government which was to be used in the Church of England and Ireland it should be admitted of to the setting up a partition Wall betwixt us and them instead of coming neerer to them so far as we may do according to Gods word according to the solemn Engagement They cannot hereupon but be greatly grieved when they shall see their hopes so far disappointed as they may hereupon be brought to fear least if moderate Episcopacy be entertained as the Church-Government of these Lands after a while that very Prelacy in the height of it that in the time of our Affliction was vomited up by these Nations as loathsome may be swallowed down again Now we leave it to wise men to judge whether especially at such a time as this when Popish Enemies are banding themselves together against us and it is of so great advantage for our own preservation and the preservation of the true Religion that the Protestant Party throughout Christendome should endeavour after Union it be prudential to minister such occasion of grief and jealousie concerning us to our best Friends abroad as to admit of that which would be so much to their dissatisfaction as it would be occasion of endless strife and debate amongst our selves at home as hath been said before to say nothing of the hatefulness of it unto Scotland that yet we hope is lookt upon by England and Ireland as a neer Sister and Neighbour Church 5. Lastly We offer it to the consideration of all judicious and prudent persons whether there be not more probability of union amongst all sound Orthodox godly moderate Spirited men by means of some other expedients and upon some sober ground then upon the admission of moderate Episcopacy As touching such that are for it in their Judgments that are sober and godly and against Episcopacy in the height of it they might be accommodated in the Presbyterian way with far more safety and far less occasion of Offence as we gather from the Associations of the Ministers of severall Counties that are printed and particularly from that of Essex wherein they profess that many of them think according to Scripture and the way of divers reformed Churches there should be some adjoyned to the Minister in Government called ruling Elders yet that divers also of them are dissatisfied as touching such Elders but all of them also conceive it meet and a Ministers wisdome to see with more Eyes then his own and have the best help he can both to acquaint him with the conversation of his people and to assist him in matters of Concernment that cannot so safely and conveniently be done by him self alone Therefore they also agree as they shall see it fea
are cast upon us and the Church of God The Arguments you here urge are two we shall speak unto them both and in their order 1. And here we shall speak in the first place unto the charge of Schisme that you would fasten upon us reserving unto another place our Answer unto the charge of Perjury where you do it more plainly and expresly though here you might intend to insinuate it But as touching that of Schisme you plainely declare That such Ministers and of this sort you say there are many amongst us though if we should put you to prove this you would never be able to make it out as return not to that canonical Obedience as you call it which they were sworn to as you say lye under the blot of Schisme But in your next Paper you charge us with this more then once and call it a Rent indeed a Schisme in the highest We shall not examine that which you here seem to take for granted sc that all Ministers that were ordained by Bishops did swear Canonicall Obedience to them which we are sure is very untrue concerning many as how far those that did take any such Oathes were bound to obey is not to our purpose now to discuss But as to that blot of Schisme you would bring us and the Ministers of these Nations under who return not to that Obedience they sometimes yielded to their severall Diocesans we must speak the more fully because the Charge is foul 1. But we shall in the first place speak something of the nature of Schisme The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Schisme signifies a Rent or Division So it is used 1 Cor. 12. 25. That there be no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Schisme in the body In Js. 7. 43. its sayd There was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a schisme or division among the people because of Christ And John 9. 16. Therefore some of the Pharisees said this man is not of God because he keepeth not the Sabbath day Others said how can a man that is a sinner do such Miracles And there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a division or schism among them So John 10. 19. And so we read Acts 4. 4. That the multitude was divided and part held with the Jews and part with the Apostles This acceptation of the word is general and may comprehend under its Latitude any kind of Dissention And hereupon Divines though restraining it to Dissentions or Divisions about matters of Religion speak of a good Schisme that is justifiable which is the dissolution of a bad Union and that is but a conspiracy against God as was that Union that was amongst the Jews before they heard the Doctrine of Christ of which John 10. 19. By this kind of Schisme afterwards the whole World was rent and of which Christ speaks Matth. 20. 35. For I am come to set a man at variance against his Father c. And hereupon Gerhardus in answer to Bellarmines charge of Schism upon the Protestants saith Denique concedimus nos esse sano sensu schismaticos quia scilicet ab Ecclesia Romana ejus capite Pontifice Romano secessionem fecimus nequaquam vero ab unitate Ecclessiae ejus capite Christo Jesu nos separavimus At beatum schisma per quod Christo verae catholicae Ecclesiae uniti sumus This Schisme is that which is commanded Come out of her my people Revel 18. 4. And of this Schisme Ambrose speaks Siqua est Ecclesia quae fidem respuit deserenda est 1. e. If there be any Church that refuseth the faith it is to be forsaken But as when we speak of Schisme it is usually taken in the worse part so it is the bad and sinfull Shisme that is here spoken of But thus also it is sometimes taken generally for any division in the Church that is unwarrantable and so it comprehends also Heresie And so the words Heresie and Schisme are sometimes used in the same sense 1 Cor. 11. 19. For there must needs be Heresies or Schismes or Sects that those that are approved may be made manifest among them Although strictly Heresie be opposed unto Faith and Schisme unto Charity And this leads us to shew what Schisme is taken strictly and properly which in brief may be thus described Schisme is a dissolution or breach of that union that ought to be amongst Christians consenting together in the same Faith And because this breach of Union doth chiefly appear in denying or refusing Communion with the Church in the use of Gods publick Ordinances therefore that kind of separation is by a kind of singular appropriation truly and rightly called Schisme Thus much for the opening the nature of Schisme Now because you here charge us with it we must needs tell you the charge is great For Schisme truly and properly so called and as it is taken in the worser part is a very hurtfull dangerous and pernicious evil The Apostle warned to take heed of it and condemned it in the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 1. V. 10. 11 12 13. It is a work of the flesh and therefore the Apostle proves the Corinthians to be carnall because of the divisions that were among them 1 Cor. 3. 3 4. It is a great offence against Christs being a rending of the Unity of his mystical Body It is a wrong unto the Church whose peace is thereby disturbed and to the Members of the Church their edification being thereby hindred And to conclude Schisme opens the door unto Heresie into which it doth oftentimes degenerate and so makes way to separation from Christ And therefore you here charging us to lye under the blot of Schisme untill Episcopacy be againe admitted of and there be a returning to that Obedience that formerly hath been given to the Bishops should have produced some Arguments for the making out your Charge But here you are wholly silent and think it sufficient to insinuate this so high a Charge without giving any reasons to convince us of our guiltinesses As if we must presently without reason judge our selves because you accuse us 2. Yet because some may be ready to take the matter upon trust and except we purge our selves from this Crime by saying something for our selves conclude we are guilty because you say so we shall therefore in the second place offer to the Reader these following considerations that we may thereby clear our selves from this foul aspersion 1. That though Episcopacy be never restored and neither we nor any other Ministers in this Land return to that Canonicall Obedience that hath formerly been yielded yet still both we and they may continue in Communion with the same Church of England that we held Communion with during the continuance of Episcopacy and with which we also do hold communion in all the Ordinances of Gods Worship Word Sacraments and Prayer This in the beginning of this Paper you do not deny for you there speak of us as
Brethren of one and the same Church and Fellowship And we know not what other Church you mean but the Church of England some of you that are the Subscribers of this Paper not being Members of the particular Church at Manchester nor any of you acknowledging or owning our Presbyterian Classicall Church or Association And therefore you here take us to be of the same Church of England with your selves and confess that we are in fellowship with it notwithstanding Episcopacy be taken away and which is that which we our selves do constantly profess 2. That that Episcopacy that was submitted to by the Ministers of this Land of later times was burthensome and grievous It spoyled the Pastors of that power which of right did belong unto them and which they did not onely anciently exercise as Doctor Vsher shews in his Reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Synodicall Government received in the ancient Church Pag. 3 4 5. but which also by the order of the Church of England as the same Author out of the Book of Ordination shews did belong unto them For he there saith By the Order of the Church of England all Presbyters are charged to administer the Doctrine and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as this Realm hath received and that they might better understand what the Lord hath commanded them the Exhortation of St. Paul to the Elders of the Church of Ephesus is appointed to be read unto them at the time of their Ordination Take heed unto your selves and to all the Flock among whom the Holy-ghost hath made you Overseers to rule the Congregation of God which he hath purchased with his blood All which power the Pastors were deprived of during the prevalency of Episcopacy the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven being taken out of their hands they having neither power to cast out of the Church the vilest of Offenders that were often kept in against their minds nor any power to restore into the Churches Communion such as had been never so unjustly excommunicated though of the best of their Flock And so that Episcopacy that formerly was submitted unto was a plain and manifest usurpation upon the Pastors Office and Authority was very oppressive and grievous unto the Church and injurious to her Communion and whereupon it will follow that there is no breach of that Union which ought to be maintained in the Church by not admitting of it again but rather the Churches peace the power that of right belongs unto the Pastors and the Priviledges of the Members are all better secured in the absence then in the presence of it 3. That however both godly Conformists as well as Nonconformists did groan under the burthensomness of it yet in licitis honest is they submitted and yielded Obedience to it whilst it continued established by the Laws of the Land And that out of respect to the peace of the Church although they did not thereby take themselves obliged to forbeare the use of any lawfull means for their deliverance from that bondage as opportunity was offered And hereupon they petitioned the Parliament of late for an abolition of it as had been formerly desired in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James as when other Laws have been found to be inconvenient and mischievous it was never accounted any disturbance of the civil peace to remonstrate the grievousness of such Laws to the Parliament that they might be abolished 4. Let it also be further weighed that that Episcopacy to which you would perswade us by this Argument to return is now abolished and taken away by the Authority of Parliament as appears by the Acts and Ordinances for that purpose See them cited in our Animadversions on your next Paper Sect. 4. And therefore both the Bishops as such and that Superiority which they challenged and exercised over the Ministers in this Land are dead in Law and so there can be no guilt of Schisme lying on the Ministers in this Land for not returning to that Canonicall Obedience that is not hereupon any longer due or for not submitting themselves to that power and jurisdiction that is extinct There is the greater strength in this consideration if it be observed 1. That whatever Jurisdiction the Diocesan Bishops did exercise over Presbyters they did obtain onely by the Law of the Land and Canon of the Church 2. That the Parliament did lawfully take away that Jurisdiction from them and had therein the concurrence of a reverend and learned Assembly of Divines The first of these Propositions is clear upon this consideration that the Scripture makes a Bishop and a Presbyter all one This is clear from Titus 1. Ver. 5. compared with the seventh whence it appears that those whom the Apostle had called Elders or Presbyters Ver. 5. he calls Bishops Ver. 7. And indeed otherwise he had reasoned very inconsequently when laying down the qualifications of Elders Ver. 6. he saith Ver. 7. For a Bishop c. For a Bishop must be blameless Whereunto may be added that other known place Act. 20. 17. compared with Ver. 28. For the Apostle saith to those Elders that the Holy-ghost had made them Bishops or Overseers of the Church Besides what Office the Bishops had that the Elders had Both are charged to feed the Flock of Christ Act. 20. 28. 1 Pet. 5. 12. and which is both by Doctrine and Government The Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven were committed to them Mat. 16. 19. both the Key of Doctrine and the Key of Discipline The former is not denyed and for the other it is proved from 1 Thes 5. 12. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Heb. 13. 7 17 24. where we see they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that are over them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that rule well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those that rule And for power to Ordain we may see its plain from 1 Tim. 4. 14. where Timothy is charged not to neglect the Gift that was in him which was given him by Prophesie with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery This Text you your selves tell us in your next Paper Sect. 5. is understood by the Greek Fathers as Ignatius Chrysostome Theodoret Theophylact Oecumenius and others and some few of the Latines also Of the company of Presbyters i. e. Bishops who lay hands on the new made Bishops or Priests But from these several Texts thus urged it is very manifest that the Scripture makes a Bishop and a Presbyter both one or one and the same order of Ministry And hereupon it follows that whatever Jurisdiction the Diocesan Bishops exercised over Presbyters they had it not by Divine Right but obtained it onely by the Law of the Land and Canon of the Church And thus the first Proposition is clear We now come to make good the second And that the Parliament did lawfully take away the Jurisdiction and whole Office of Diocesan Bishops
defective in Government for want of Bishops yet he neither upon this account doth unchurch them nor would have refused Communion with them as you by what you do here hold forth must needs do 5. Nay lastly hence it will follow that when all the Bishops in these Lands and those that were Ordained by them shall be dead if there be no Bishops to be found in any other reformed Churches nor Ministers that were Ordained by them a retreat back againe to Rome must be sounded that so we might have a lawfull Ordained Ministry and a Church which yet cannot be but by owning the Pope as the Head of the Church and renouncing the Protestant Religion as in the mean season great advantage is given to the Popish Emissaries to ensnare the weak by such a dangerous Insinuation as this is sc That for want of Bishops or that when all the Bishops are dead and those that were Ordained by them we have amongst us neither Church nor Ministery nor Ordinances and thus must continue to the end of the World except we returne to Rome and which they will not be wanting to tell them But if you had consulted Bishop Jewell Bishop Downame Doctor Feild Bishop Davenant Mr. Mason and other Orthodox Episcopall Divines in this Point and weighed their Defences of the reformed Churches and Ministry against the Papists you would have found they would never have owned such a dangerous and unsound Position as the Argument you here urge us with to admit againe of Episcopacy doth imply Neither do we believe that they if they were now alive would judge that you had here argued well for your Mother the Church of England that hath her selfe also ever since the Reformation even during the time of Episcopacy acknowledged the reformed Churches of France Scotland Low-countries Geneva to be true Churches of Christ and hath given them the right hand of Fellowship as Sister Churches and owned their Ministers Ordained without Bishops by Presbyters onely to be true Ministers 2. We now come to the second thing implyed in this your second Argument with which you would perswade us to admit of Episcopacy which is as we have sayd before that if it be not restored there cannot be a succession of a lawfully Ordained Ministry Which succession yet you seem to judge to be necessary unto the continuance of the Church of God amongst us Here two things are implyed 1. The first whereof is that a Succession is necessary to the very being of the Church and of a lawfully Ordained Ministry And so 1. You do hereby strengthen the hands of the Papists who make the Succession of Bishops and Pastors without any interruption from the Apostles to be a Mark of the true Church although they are therein opposed generally by our Protestant Divines The Condition of the Church being many times such that the Succession of publick Teachers and Pastors is interrupted Doctor Sutlive saith well In externa successione quam haeretici saepe habent Orthodoxi non habent nihil est momenti 2. You do also hereby Minister occasion of such scruples unto private Christians as you will never be able satisfactorily to resolve For suppose one on this ground questions the truth of his Baptisme sc Because he doth not know whether he was baptized by one that was Ordained by a Bishop who himselfe also was Ordained by a former true Bishop and he by a former untill the Succession be carried on as high as that we are brought to such a Bishop that was ordained by one of the Apostles How will you be able making this Succession necessary to the continuing of the Church and a lawfully Ordained Ministry to resolve the scruples of such an one What Church-Story shall be able to resolve the doubts that may be moved on this occasion Or on what grounds holding the necessity of this Succession for the continuance of the Church and a lawfully Ordained Ministry will you be able to satisfie the Conscience of such as may be stumbled 3. Nay will not this Assertion give occasion to sundry to question all Churches Ministry and Ordinances and so to turn Seekers the Grounds you lay down giving them occasion to question the truth of our Churches Ministry and Ordinances 4. Neither shall the best and ablest Ministers that are already entred into that Calling or such as are to enter into it be able on your Principles in this particular either to satisfie their owne Consciences touching the lawfulness of their calling or be able to justifie and defend it against those that shall call it in question But our Protestant Divines have more sure Grounds on which to justifie our Churches Ministry and Ordinances and to satisfie their own and their peoples Consciences concerning them then what you insinuate 2. The second thing that is further implyed in this Argument is that the Succession of a lawfully Ordained Ministry to the end of the World doth depend upon Episcopacy which is not true There was a time when Bishops had no Superiority above Presbyters a Bishop and a Presbyter in Scripture sense being all one as hath been proved before And though this Superiority should never be restored unto them yet the Succession of a lawfully Ordained Ministry might be by the means of Presbyters Ordaining Presbyters And thus we say it was continued not onely in the dayes of Episcopacy though not without the mixture of some corruption cleaving to the Ordination then in use the Bishops notwithstanding their usurped Superiority above their fellow Brethren being themselves also Presbyters and so their Ordination valid in that respect and which we have constantly maintained against those of the separation but also in the darkest times of Popery and that our Ministry descended to us from Christ through the Apostate Church of Rome but not from the Apostate Church of Rome as our reverend Brethren of the Province of London do well express it in their Jus divinum ministerii Evangelici where they do solidly and learnedly prove That the Ministry which is an Institution of Christ passing to us through Rome is not made null and void no more then the Scriptures Sacraments or any other Gospel Ordinance which we now enjoy and which do also descend to us from the Apostles through the Romish Church And concerning which if any one do doubt we referre him unto the Book for his satisfaction Part 2. cap. 3. where as they well say this great truth so necessary to be knowne in these dayes is fully discussed and made out We have now at length done with both those Arguments we promised to speak to particularly with which you urged us to accept of the Proposall touching the taking in the Bishops wherein we have been the longer though perhaps this Discourse may by you be accounted tedious that so we might wipe off the foule aspersion of Schisme that we are therein charged with and likewise shew that the Church of God and a lawfully Ordained
know whom we mean by lawfull Pastors our Answer is we mean such Persons as have received their Ordination from men lawfully and truely qualified with a just power of conferring Orders which you and we believe 't is none but you presume one Presbyter may give another Whereupon you instance the opinion of Dr Vsher in a late Letter of his set forth by Dr Bernard and refer us to Dr Bernards animadversions upon it We have perused the Papers to which you refer us and finde that Dr Vsher doth not invalidate the Ordination by Presbyters but with a speciall restriction to such places where Bishops cannot be had But this we must desire you to consider is ex necessitate non ex perjurio pertinaciâ which he in the next page clearely dilucidates his words are these You may easily judge that the Ordination made by such Presbyters as have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworne Cannnical obedience cannot possibly by me be excused from being schismaticall Examine your selves in this particular we shall not judge any man For this Purity amongst Church Officers an Errour first broacht by Ae rius and for which amongst other things he was most justly condemned of Heresie and Ordination by Presbyters otherwise then before expressed cannot possibly be made out by any instance out of Dr Vshers Letter or Dr Bernards animadversions upon it since he is clearly against it and so that Catalogue of Divines Schoolmen and Fathers by you out of him collected is frustraneously cited Concerning submission to the judgement of Councils rightly called and constituted we have said enough before In which point if you will hold to what you profess you shall not have us dissenting from you But we shall finde you of another minde before you come to a conclusion As for your Provinciall Assembly at Preston or any other elsewhere of that nature we say it is a new Termed Assembly Not for the words sake Assembly but new both in respect of the word Provinciall and place at Preston That this County of Lancaster should be termed the Province of Lancaster and the Synods and Assemblies therein convened at Preston or elsewhere should be termed Provinciall all new New also in respect of the Persons constituting this Assembly Lay-men to preside to rule and to have decisive voices in as ample manner as the highest and chiefest in holy Orders is a novelty no Antiquity can plead for it Nor doth Dr Bernard or Bishop Vsher that Learned and reverend Antiquary or the Fathers and Councils there alleadged and by you out of him so confidently cited any way make for such an Assembly And so your Provinciall Assembly at Preston may in the Judgement of Bishop Vshor be accounted a new termed Provinciall Assembly and remains as yet uncleared from all suspition of novelty The Animadversions of the Classe upon it FIrst We must desire the Reader to take the pains to peruse the third Section of our Answer to which you do here reply You do in the next Section tell us that the most considerable part of our Answer as to the bulke doth insist on the proof of the establishment of our Government by Authority this you also said in the close of your second Paper But if the Reader but compare what is contained in this Section with what is in the next where we prove this establishment of our Government by authority he will finde our answer here in this one Section is considerably larger then all that great bulk you complain of in the next and it will be found to be as much as all that we have touching this matter throughout our whole answer And therefore we cannot but wonder that you should so much forget your selves and so little consider what you say as again and again to assert with no small confidence what is so farre from truth But in this Section the Reader may further descern that you pass over some things in silence to which you should at the least have made some reply testifying either your assent to them and so your receiving satisfaction or have given us the grounds of your dissent but we shall desire that what was answered by us and is by you replyed unto might be compared together by the candid Reader that he may see with his own eyes wherein you fall short Secondly You profess that in some things you finde we much dissent not only in the third and last concerning the heresie and schisme of those who erre so grosly in Doctrinals or points of Discipline you mention the reason we gave you why we did not so expresly mention them their sin and punishment as the grosly ignorant and scandalous scil the inconsider ableness of the number of the former to the number of these But First This was not the only reason we gave but there was also another mentioned scil because we were to give in to the Provincial Assembly what our apprehensions were touching the case propounded to us by them touching some further meanes to be used for the information of the ignorant and reformation of the scandalous Secondly But yet this you pitch upon because you had a mind to charge us and all others that have in our Congregations severed themselves from the Bishops with schisme that so you might hereby also invalidate that reason rendered of our not mentioning expresly the heretical and schismatical But we hope we have in our answer to your second Paper said that which will be sufficient to wipe off that aspersion and you must pardon us if wherein Dr. Usher in this point differing from us in judgment expressed himself too farre we therein though we otherwise reverence him both for his piety and learning look upon him as a man We cannot as yet be perswaded that the Bishops were the only true constituted Church of England from whom because we have severed our selves you do here though without any reason charge us to be schismatical and to have rent our selves from a true constituted Church Thirdly But seeing in this third and last touching those that are chargeable with heresie and schisme you profess to diffent from us you might have testified either your assent to or dissent from that previous course that in our answer we mentioned was to be taken with these before they were to be excommunicated especially considering we had told you that though you allowed of admonition of the scandalous before there was process to the censure of them yet you said nothing of this course to be taken with the other and wherein therefore we purposely declared our selves that if you judged the previous course of admonition necessary to be held with the scandalous you might not censure us as indulgent toward any of the other that might be in any of our Congregations though we said the number of them was not considerable to the number of the scandalous because we took it to be our duty according to the practice of the
Apostles in the Synod at Jerusalem and the Fathers of the Nicene Council and others we instanced in to endeavour their conviction in the due use of all good meanes before there was a process to excommunication We remembred also how quick the Prelates were in thundering out their excommunications against such as though godly and religious were in those times accounted by them to be schismatical and we thought it requisite to bear witness against those manner of proceedings But of this you take no notice and we do not much wonder for we see you count all those that severed themselves from the Bishops schismatical and may be if they had power again in their hands you did not much matter though you are willing the scandalous should be admonished before if all these for their great schisme in your esteem were forthwith excommunicated Thirdly As touching publick Catechizing we said we heartily wished it had been more generally practised in our own Church at home as it is practised by the reformed Churches abroad But by our own Church we meant the Church of England as it is a national Church and in which though Catechizing was enjoyned in former times yet it was neither so generally and constantly practised as it should have been else we should not have had so much cause to have complained of the gross ignorance of so many aged persons in our Congregations who were nor trained up under the Presbyterian but Prelatical Government as now we have And here we observe that when you profess you are glad to hear us so heartily wish that Catechizing had been more generally practised it is but that you may take occasion to affix the greater blot upon us for you would have it to be our Churches in whom this neglect is chiefly or only to be found and it is we that are again by you charged with separation that have by our pretended reformation as you are pleased to speak destroyed this practice We wish as heartily in this case as we did in the other that you may be sensible how prone you are to revile and slander and pray to God that it may not be laid to your charge But you might have remembred that as we professed our selves to be for publick Catechizing which blessed be God is practised in our Churches though you would make the world to believe that we had destroyed it so we professed to be for private too that so such as were not like in regard of age or timorousness to be brought to instruction by the publick might yet by the private gain some knowledge In the Paper also that was published in the Congregations there was some order appointed for the better and more convenient practice of it And doubtless by how much we were willing to be at the more pains for the information of the ignorant the greater fault will lie at your doores and be charged upon you if you repent not of it that by your opposition you have not only laboured to obstruct the good courses by us propounded for the help of poor ignorant souls but accused us also that by our pretended reformation we have destroyed Catechizing Here also we take notice that however in your first Paper you had a proviso touching Catechizing that it be publick and that we thereupon gave you some reason though briefly for private Catechizing yet this you wholly pass over in silence and say nothing to it thus you pretend to make a reply to our answer and yet but speak to what of it you please But if you had manifested any dissatisfaction touching private Catechizing we should here have proceeded to have given further reasons for it although this work is so fully done to our hands by Mr. Baxter in his Gildas Salvianus that it would have been needless unto those that have read that Book and whereunto for his further satisfaction we referre the Reader if he desire it Fourthly If we understood you aright in this that you held it not fitting that persons grosly ignorant should be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the conclusion that we inferred hence stands good against any thing brought by you to invalidate it But here we observe you stretch it beyond its scope and that in two particulars 1. In that you would have it referre to examination before the Eldership which was not that which we spake of we only said there ought to be examination and triall of all persons before they be admitted to the Lords Supper not determining here touching the persons by whom this examination was to be made but only inferring that then there ought to be this examination that so the grosly ignorant might not be admitted as they might be if all promiscucusly were to be admitted without any triall at all and which was the reason that we alleadged in our answer for the inference we made and which still stands good you urging nothing at all to take away the strength of it It is true that the examination and judgement of all such as shall for their ignorance not be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is to be in the power of the Eldership of every Congregation and not in the power of one Minister only by the rules of our Government But this was not the thing we there spake of we only concluded that there ought to be an examination and hoped that we had gained from your own concession this one further step toward an agreement betwixt you and us that all such persons as should be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper must be examined by some or other not determining by whom there being no way to discover the ignorant but by triall And as touching our practice it is well known that when the Eldership is sati●fied touching the knowledge of such as offer themselves to that Sacrament upon the examination of a Minister and one Elder or upon the examination of two Ministers however none is to b● debarred for their ignorance but by the juridical act of the Eldership and which is for the better securing of the Church-priveledges to the members then to have left the power to the Minister alone such are not required to be examined before the Eldership but are upon the testimony of the examiners there being nothing to be objected justly against them admitted by the authority of the Eldership 2. There is also another thing wherein you would make our inference to be that which indeed it was not for neither did we speak concerning any examination de novo of such persons as had been formerly admitted our words recited even now and to be seen in our answer do plainly speak concerning an examination before admission to the Lords Supper not concerning an examination de novo Indeed we shall neither be ashamed of nor deny what is our practice which is to take a triall of all the communicants de novo before admission of them to the Lords Supper We
Presbyterian Government were still in force and that those rules laid down in them awarranted all our actings and particularly what we had published in our several Congregations in our Paper and which whosoever doth not so start at because they are Ordinances of Parliament but that he keeps in his right mind he will see to be different things But you do still go on with your flowts and will needs have it to be that we went about to prove which is your own phrase and not ours our Government to be established by civill authority the first work we took in hand and that we are no further yet but going about to prove your own phrase again as if the matter must needs be as you say it is or therefore true because you represent it to be so after a scoffing manner Fifthly And when you have thus pleased your selves with your taunting expressions you now would profess to do us a kindness being willing to conduct us if possible into the good old way again by taking off our Government from the establishment of authority upon the proof whereof as you say so great a part of our answer doth insist But seeing the way you herein go as will appear anon doth quite overthrow all other Ordinances of Parliament as well as those that are for the establishment of the Presbyterian Government you must excuse us though upon your most earnest entreaty we dare not follow you in this your way being w●ll assured we should be then indeed out of our way quite Sixthly But now you come to answer to the Orders and Ordinances of Parliament by u●recited and so to the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament Aug 29. 1648 establishing the forme of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland and which remaines as we said unrepealed to this day and receives strength by the humble Advice assented to by his late Highness and which Ordinance was by us more especially insisted on But what is it that you alleadge to take away the strength of any Ordinance of Parliament that we made mention of in our answer In the first place you tell us that when we speak of a Government established by Law you hope we mean such as hath the strength and force of a Law to bind the free born people of this Nation and thereupon you question whether our Ordinance of the Lords and Commons though unrepealed to this day be of that force and touching this you referre us to the judgement and resolution of the Sages of the Law affirming that nothing can have the force of a Law to bind the people without the concurrent consent of the three estates in Parliament and you instance particularly in the Lord Cook and several passages in his Institutes In answer unto all which we must needs in the first place as we did in our answer to your first Paper apologize for our selves that being no Lawyers we shall not take upon us to determine any Law case and that our cause in this particular were fitter to be pleaded by the learned in the Law that have farre better abilities for it then we have only till some of these undertake in this particular to plead for us we hope we may be allowed freely to speak for our selves And here we shall not say all that we could much less what persons better able to deal in an argument of this nature might But that which we shall say is first something in the general then we shall proceed to answer more particularly In the generall we say two things 1. That if the Ordinances of Parliament for Church Government be of no force because there was not the concurent consent of three Estates to the making of them then all Ordinances of Parliament without exception of any are null and void and of no force to binde the people as well as those that concern Church Government and so it concerns all Committees that have been throughout the Land and those that have acted under them or do yet act and all Judges and Justices that have acted or do act upon any Ordinance of Parliament to consider what they have to say to what you do here alledge against their proceedings as well as against ours Nay then the Act made Anno 1650 for Relief of Religious and peaceable People that yet is afterwards much insisted on by you is of no force for to that questionless there was not the concurrent consent of three Estates in Parliament 2. That the Parliament themselves who made these Ordinances declared That the King having not onely withdrawn himself from the Parliament but leavied war against it salus populi was suprema Lex and thereupon by Ordinance of Parliamēt they proceeded to settle the affairs both of Church and State without his consent yea and to repeal some former acts and as they did expresly when they passed the Ordinance for the Directory for Worship repealing the Acts of Parliament that had been passed formerly for the Book of Common Prayer as appears by their Ordinance for that purpose of Jan. 3d 1644. And also when they passed another Ordinance Octob. 9. 1646. for the abolishing of Arch-Bishops and Bishops within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of W●les by which they are expresly dis●nabled to use or put in ure any Archiepiscopall or Episcopall jurisdiction or authority by force of any Letters Pattents from the Crown made or to be made or by any other authority whatsoever any Law Statute usage or custome to the contrary notwithstanding as appears from the very words of that Ordinance And if we forget not it was by them in those times further declared That however the King had withdrawn his Person from the Parliament yet his Royall Authority could not be withdrawn But we know that what the Parliament in those dayes acted in the passing those and such like Ordinances was approved by the Sages of the Law that in those times adhered to the Parliament And this will now lead us to return our more particular answer to what you present for to take away the obliging force of Ordinances of Parliament And therefore 1. We say That that long Parliament as you call it who did so much honour the Lord Cook as to publish his Works by their special appointment did so well understand him that they were well assured there was not any thing in them that condemned their proceedings as illegal as on the contrary we do thereupon conceive that if he had been alive in those times he would have justified them And further we say under correction that all youalledg out of him was and is to be understood in cases ordinary not as it was in the times when the Ordinances for Church Government and other Ordinances for the setling the affairs of the Nation were passed when the King had withdrawn himself from the Parliament and levyed war against it 2. But to add some further confirmation
to what we here assert be pleased to take notice that we meet with a Book printed in this very year 1658. Entituled A collection of Acts and Ordinances of general use made in the Parliament begun and held at Westminster the third day of November 1640. and since unto the adjournment of the Parliament begun and holden the 17th of Septem Anno 1656. and formerly published in print which are here printed at large with marginall notes or abreviated being a continuation of that Work from the end of Mr. Poltons Collection by Henry Scobell Esq Clerk of the Parliament examined by the Original Records and now printed by speciall Order of Parliament In this book as we finde the Ordinance for the Directory of Worship recited at large and likewise the Ordinance above mentioned for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales so likewise we meet with the Ordinance of Aug. 29. 1648. establishing the form of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland after advice had with the Assembly of Divines and this recited at large as will appear to any that will peruse that book And being the design of that book was to make a continuation of a Collection of Acts and Ordinances of generall use from the end of Mr. Poltons Collection as appears by the Title of it the Parliament that appointed this book to be printed by their speciall Order and Mr. Scobell the Clerk of the Parliament who collected these Acts and Ordinances and examined them by the originall Records were much mistaken in the putting forth this book that is also printed in a large black Character after the manner of the Statutes if no Ordinances of Parliament have in them any force to oblige the people of this Nation 3. We have onely one thing more to add sc that in the 16th Section of the Humble Advice and whereof we minded you in our Answer it is expresly provided that the Acts and Ordinances not contrary thereunto shall continue and remain in force Now that there is nothing in the form of Church Government contrary to any thing contained in the humble Advice we shall make out anon But thus we hope we have said that which may be sufficient for answer to your first exception against the Ordinances of Parliament for Church Government as not having the concurrent consent of the three Estates and to what you alledge out of the Lord Cooke As touching what you urge out of Judg Jenkins saying an Ordinance of both Houses is no Law of the Land by their own confession meaning the Parliament 1. part Coll. of Ordinances fol. 728 we cannot give that credit to his representation of the Parliament he having been an opposer of it as to conclude thence there is no force in any Ordinance of Parliament to oblige the people of this Nation considering that in some of their Ordinances they do as we have said expresly repeal former Acts of Parliament made by the concurrent consent of the three Estates and considering that if they have any where any expressions to that purpose they may be understood either of Ordinances of Parliament made in cases ordinary when the King had not withdrawn himfelf from it or concerning such as were of no long continuance but for the present emergency or of such as were but temporary and long since expired and which sort of Ordinances Mr. Scobell in his Preface to the Book above mentioned saith he collected not but onely such whereof there is or may be daily use as he there speaks We have now donewith your first exception against the Ordinances by us recited for the establishing Church Government and come to your second for admitting Ordinances of Parliament to have an obligatory force in them yet those that concern the establishment of the Presbyterian Government you would have to be repealed Indeed here you said something if you could bring forth any of those subsequent Acts that you speak of granting liberty to pious people in the Land that did repeal the Ordinances for Church Government either implicitly or expresly For we shall not deny that Leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant but in this you fall short as in the former There is not any subsequent Act or Ordinance that we have seen or that you mention that grants any liberty to any which is denied in the form of Church Government The Act made 1650 for relief of Religious and peaceable people from the rigour of former Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion and which you will have to be an express repeal doth not make void the Ordinance which we act●on It onely repeals the poenall Statutes that imposed mulcts and punishments on the offenders against those Laws in their bodies or estates It doth not at all refer to the Ecclesiasticall censures nor so much as mention them as will be clear to him that will peruse it And so the Ordinance establishing the form of Church Government stands whole and entire and untoucht at all by this Act. But here we desire two things might be observed 1. That if this Act stood good against our proceedings repealing the Ordinances establishing the Presbyterian Government so as that the persons mentioned in it were thereby exempt from all Ecclesiasticall censure then it must needs much more stand good against all other sorts of persons that have no such Ordinance awarranting their proceedings and would be a barr in their way that they could not censure with Church censures any of their members 2. That being you in your Papers do fully declare your selves for Episcopacy and that the Acts granting some indulgence to some persons yet do still provide that the liberty granted by them should not be extended to Popery and Prelacy neither this nor any other Act for the relief of any pious or concientious Christians can with any colour be alledged by you to the purpose for which you urge them As touching the eleventh Section of the humble Advice to which you referre us we had throughly perused it and seriously weighed it before you minded us of it but we never did neither do we as yet see any contrariety betwixt it and the forme of Church Government established by Ordinance of Parliament We finde still as we told you in our answer though you here neither take notice thereof nor make any reply thereto that it seems clearly to own the Directory for worship and the forme of Church Government as the publique profession of the Nation for worship and Government as we also said in our answer there were the like expressions in the Government of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland as it was publikely declared at Westminster Decemb. 16. 1653. pag. 43. Sect. 37. And if you had pleased you might have found that whatever indulgence is granted to any in this Sect it is there expresly provided that that liberty be not extended to Popery and Prelacy And
therefore you and all men may discern that when you say speaking of the humble Advice that in the eleventh Section all Ministers throughout the Land and their Assemblies professing the true Protestant Religion though of different judgments in worship and discipline are all of them equally protected in the liberty of their profession that proposition is a great deal larger then the humble Advice will allow of it expresly concluding even from that protection allowed to some others the way of Prelacy though it should be set up by some Ministers and others of the Protestant Religion and therefore all Ministers and their Assemblies though professing the Protestant Religion cannot equally lay claim to the protection there spoken of But for answer to all that you here urge out of this eleventh Section of the humble Advice we shall say two things 1. That as your selves speak only of protection allowed by it to some persons of different judgement in worship or discipline so whoever will peruse this Section shall not find that it saith one word touching the restraint of the exercise of Church-discipline towards any when it speaks of some that shall differ in other things sc that had been mentioned particularly before in doctrine worship or discipline from the publick profession held forth to whom it allows protection from injury as it grants them a freedom from mulcts and civil penalties and then after of such Ministers or publick Preachers who shall agree with the publick profession in matters of faith although in their judgement and practice they differ in matters of worship and discipline whom it makes capable being otherwise duely qualified and duely approved of some special grace and favour that the former sort are not capable of it is plain from those expressions that it owns a publique discipline which is not held forth any where but in the forme of Church Government established by Ordinance of Parliament for the Church of England and Ireland Aug. 29. 1648. that hath been often times mentioned But you will not find that the exercise of this publick discipline held forth is any where at all in this Section prohibited or that it is restrained in regard of its exercise towards any or limited only in that respect to the Ministers and Assemblies of this or the other perswasion And yet that this publick discipline held forth as aforesaid might be free from all suspition of any undue rigour or harshness towards any we shall here mention one rule which we recited with several other things in our answer to your first Paper touching the Order prescribed in the forme of Church Government of proceeding to excommunication which runs in these words But the persons who hold other errours in judgment about points wherein learned and godly men possibly may or do differ and which subvert not the faith nor are destructive to godliness or that be guilty of such sins of infirmity as are commonly found in the children of God or being otherwise sound in the faith and holy in life and so not falling under censure by the former rules endeavour to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and do yet out of conscience not come up to the observation of all those rules which are or shall be established by authority for regulating the outward worship of God and government of his Church the sentence of excommunication for these causes shall not be denounced against them By this one rule it is very clear that as this discipline is not to be accused of undue severity so there is no repugnancy between the humble Advice and it 2. That which in the second place we have to say is that admitting your proposition were fully as large in the humble Advice in regard of the persons to whom you would have liberty to be extended as you have laid it down which yet we have shewed is not so yet how inconsequently do you argue when you will inferre an exemption of persons from Church censures authorized to be exercised by the forme of Church Government from the humble Advice because it affords them a protection against civil injuries As if this proposition were most certainly true All those that according to the humble Advice are to be protected against civil injuries are thereby exempted from Church censures and yet this must be proved or your consequence is never proved But to make that out we shall allow you time and in the mean season must deny it And so now all you have to the conclusion of this Section is but meer varnish although we are able to tell you as we have told you even now and often before what power is granted unto us who act by an unrepealed Ordinance of Parliament and yet in force that others have not although when you say are these within the bounds of our association subject to our Government unless they will renounce their Baptism and Christianity and which you would represent us to assert in that recital you make of our words in the beginning of the next Section you do therein manifestly offer violence to the words of our answer for if the Reader peruse the first part of the fifth Section of our answer he may there find that we declared our selves in the first place fully against those of the separation and concluded that discourse with these words that hereupon our work was not to constitute Churches but to reforme them only And that therefore none within our bounds except they shall renounce Christianity and their Baptisme can be deemed by us to be without in the Apostles sense this being our answer to what you had pressed us with in your first Paper pleading your exemption from under our Governement from the words of the Apostle and saying for what have you to do to judge those that are without The conclusion then that we inferd did answer that argument you urged from the Apostles words For its plain from our declaring our selves we judged none to be without in the Apostles sense but only Heathens of whom the Apostle spake or such as having formerly professed Christianity did renounce it and their Baptisme and that therefore none could be exempted by those words of the Apostle from being within the verge of our Presbyterian Governement which was the inference we thereupon made By all which it is very clear in what sense those words were to be taken that you here mention and that we did not say that except men did renounce Christianity and their Baptisme they were subject to our Government as you would have it to be but that they could not be judged by us to be without in the Apostles sense except they should make so great an apostacy and wherein we were more liberal and charitable toward you then you were toward your selves It is one thing that makes a member of the Catholick visible Church and another that makes a member of this or that particular Church as it is also true that
but upon this representation that we have made and the Reader his perusing what he may find in our answer more fully and what you here reply unto it comparing all together he will be better able to judge concerning the whole matter as we doubt not but he will conceive the arguments we urged against the rule you had laid down for the deciding of controversies in matters of Religion standing still in their full strength it will not be necessary for us to urge any more to that purpose till these that we have already urged be answered 2. Yet because you say something against what we insinuated touching making the word of God alone the determiner and so be judge concerning all controversies in Religion and particularly concerning that betwixt you and us touching Church Government we shall first examine what you oppose thereunto and then shall give our reasons for this assertion We cannot call what you oppose us with Arguments but what you say such as it is we shall speak to 1. And first For our laying down this rule you cannot it seems your selves forbear laughter and think it strange if there be any that can forbear laughing hereat with you and then you rail upon us calling us Scripturists and such as cry verbum Domini verbum Domini nothing but Scripture the word of God being there the only rule of faith and manners If these words had been belched out by some railing Rabshakeh a stranger to the true God and the true Religion we should have held our peace and not answered you a word according to the Commandment that was given by Hezekiah saying answer him not or had they been uttered by some Papist or Popish Priest we should not much have wondered but when they come out of the mouths of such as profess themselves to be Protestants and dissenting Christians though in the principle here laid down touching the judge of controversies you are downright Popish and that Mr. Allen an ancient Protestant Minister hath put his hand to such stuff as this who should not have reproached his fellow brethren upon this account it being no wayes allowable that Ministers should press any thing upon the consciences of their people but what they do bring verbum Domini the word of the Lord for We cannot here be silent but must needs tell you that seeing now your Papers are published to the world we must expect a publike retractation of what you have thereby so much dishonoured God and justly offended and grieved the Church of God and not us onely and had the intended treaty gone on we should have insisted on satisfaction as we hinted to you in discourse for that distemper of spirit that you do here and elswhere in your Paper let forth though then the more private might have served the turn before we could have closed with you in any way of accommodation 2. But in the next place you paralell us with those under the Law that cried Templum Domini Templum Domini though we are sure that you cry the Church the Church that is Templum Domini the Temple of the Lord to the prejudice of the Scriptures that are verbum Domini the word of the Lord. 3. Then you come to compare us with the Anabaptists of old of whom you say when they and their Bibles were left together what strange phantasticall opinion soever came in their brain their usuall manner was to say the spirit taught it them quoting Mr. Hooker And yet in the beginning of your second Paper we were your dear friends nay more brethren dearly beloved to you in the Lord to whom you returned hearty thanks for our Answer full of civility towards you and thus we might have continued in your esteem of us if we could have come up to your termes in admitting of Episcopacy and casting out the ruling Elders 4. In the next place you proceed to misrepresent our assertion and to father that upon us which is not true and whether that be not slandering we leave it to you to judge for as upon our asserting the Word of God alone to be the judge of all controversies in matters of Religion it followes not that then we must take to our Bibles and burn all other books as you say but rather being the Scriptures are the onely judge and these are profound and deep we must use the greatest diligence and best helps we can to come to understand what is the will and mind of God revealed there so upon this account though we dare not build our faith upon such an unsure foundation as the determination of Councils and Fathers and the Churches practice for matters of Church Government or any other matter in Religion yet we are farre from abandoning or despising them which yet is that you here charge us with But it is you who attribute more unto them then ever the great Champions for the Protestant cause did that will be found joyning hands in this point with the Papists enquiring where was our Church before Luther and whom our Divines answering sufficiently from the Scriptures do yet ex superabundanti prove the main points of the Protestant Religion wherein they differ from them both from Councils and Fathers and making that plea for that Church Government for which you contend and against that which we from the Scriptures argue for which the Papists did against our Protestant Divines for their unwritten traditions and superstitious ceremonies and devotion For you ask of us where was our Church you here sure mean where was our Presbyterian Government else you take not the Church of England to which you belong to be the Church you are members of before Calvin But we answer you though we need not take such an high jumpe over all the practice and successions of the Church as you talk of being able ex superabundanti to evidence it from antiquity in the purer times of the Primitive Church after Christ and his Apostles whereof we have given some account already and shall anon give some further yet it will be sufficient for us and all sound Protestants if we can prove it to be as ancient not as we list but as the Scriptures of the old and new Testament wherein it is to be found and whereof we have given some account also out of what we have in our second Paper urged out of the Vindication of the Presbyterian Government by the Provinciall Assembly of London and the Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici by some London Ministers and of which the Reader and you also if you would take the pains to peruse them may see more at large not onely in Mr. Rutherford's works but also in Aarons Rod blossoming written by Mr. George Gillespi and in the Assertions of the Government of Scotland conceived by some to be penned by the same M. Gillespi yet therein assisted by Mr. Henderson wherein the jus Divinum of the ruling Elders office is proved not onely from the new
times and so their interpretations of Scriptures often more difficult to be understood then the Scriptures that they interpret this also is very considerable that it will be out of the compass and reach of the most persons of ordinary rank to procure all the writings of the Fathers and Councils that are yet extant as we do not beleeve that any of you are so well stored as that you have such a Library wherein all the Fathers or most of them might be consulted which yet were necessary to be procured if their unanimous consent must be the rule for interpretation of Scripture when there is a doubt or difficulty And if some persons might be found of that ability as to procure the Works of all the Fathers yet it is not easie to imagin how even the Learned though Divines much less the simple and ignorant could ever be able to reade over all their Works compare all the Fathers together and their interpretations that so they might when there was a doubt or difficulty gather what was the unanimous consent of the Fathers touching the interpretation of a Text the sense whereof we questioned And hereupon it will follow that what you propound as the rule yea and the best rule too for interpreting of Scripture is so farre from being such that it is a very unfit and unmeet rule being such as few or none if any at all are able in all cases or the most to make use of But by this time we doubt not notwithstanding your great confidence touching the sureness of your rule that it is manifest from the reasons we have given unto which we might add many more if there were need that your rule for the interpretation of the Scriptures participates not of the nature of what is to be a rule and therefore however the exposition of the Church Fathers and Councils is not to be despised yet it is not to be made a rule but that the onely sure rule for the interpreting of the Scriptures is the Scripture it self But because you alledge something for your assertion we shall now in the last place examine it of what nature and strength it is And ● You quote the late King in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although his assertion is more limited then yours as from the words you cite is clear and manifest And as touching that which his words are alledged for we must say that such a Church Government as is not found instituted in Scripture in regard of the substantials of it is therefore contrary to the commands of Scripture because not found instituted there and this we affirm touching that Episcopall Government that you plead for that superiority of a Bishop above a Presbyter in regard of order and jurisdiction being a meer device of man without and against Scripturall warrant as it was that that was unknown to the primitive Church in the more ancient and purer times and of which afterward 2. But you further add and say that except your rule for interpreting of Scripture be admitted of we shall seem to abound in our own sense and to utter our own fancies or desires to be believed on our bare word and so to give way to private interpretation whereas we should deliver that sense which hath been aforetime given by our forefathers and forerunners in the Christian faith unto which we say that whether it be the interpretation that we ourselves shall give of Scripture or it be the interpretation of others however Fathers or Councils and forerunners in the Christian faith yet if it be an interpretation inferred or brought to the Scripture and not found in the Scripture the uttering of that interpretation is the uttering our own or other mens fancies and so is that private interpretation of Scripture which the Apostle Peter 2d Epist ch 1. ver 20. condemns and to whose words there you do here point it being the Holy Ghost the author of Scripture whose interpretation is that publike interpretation that the whole Church and every member thereof is to give heed to and is that which is opposed to the private interpretation mentioned as the Apostle shews ver 21. in the words following But seeing you do here urge the very popish argument and that text which they quote touching the rule they make for interpretation of Scripture in direct opposition to our Protestant Divines it is hence very clear that your opinion touching the rule of interpreting of the Scriptures and judg of controversies in matters of Religion which you make to be the Churches exposition and consent of Fathers and Councils is the very same with theirs and wherein you approve not your selves to be either sound Protestants or to own the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Papists in this particular 3. Yet you go on and urge another argument for when there is a difference about interpretation of Scripture not to admit for a rule the exposition of the Church consent of Fathers and Councils you say that is dominari fidei to Lord it over the faith of others but we say as we have shewed before that to impose a necessity of admitting the interpretation given by the Church Fathers Councils when it is not evident from the Text so expounded either the words of it scope or other circumstances of it the things going before or following after or from some other Texts with which it is compared this is certainly dominari fidei to Lord it over the faith of Gods people and which Paul though so great an Apostle and immediately and infallibly inspired would not presume to do 2 Cor. 1. ●4 The Church having onely a Ministery committed to her which is onely to propound that sense of Scripture which the Scripture it self gives and no more 4. But thus say you the best and ablest defenders of our Protestant Religion defended it against the Papists though out of the word of God too giving the sense which the Fathers unanimously in the Primitive Church and Councils gave But this is not the question whether our Divines defended the Protestant Religion against the Papists not onely out of the Word of God but from the testimonie also of Fathers and Councils but whether they did ever make the unanimous consent of the Fathers and Councils the judg of controversies or rule for interpreting of Scripture He that shall hold the affirmative here doth plainly shew he is a stranger to the writings of the best and ablest defenders of the Protestant Religion We shall readily grant that our Divines do ex super abundanti defend the truth against the Papists from the testimony of Fathers and Councils but did never assert that the defence of it from the Scriptures alone was not sufficient as they would never have quarrelled with the Papists touching the judg of controversies and the rule for interpretation of Scripture if they would have been contented to have stood to its determination It s true Mr. Philpot that glorious
appoints fofeitures in case of prophanation of the Lords day by Carriers c. that travel on the Lords day or by Butchers that sell or kill victuass on that day By all which you may plainly see if you will not shut your eyes that it is not against Law that a man may come to be punished twice for one offence Nay what hath been heretofore more ordinary then the High-Commissioners imprisoning fining and excommunicating for one and the same offence But yet you will have the latter Acts and Ordinances against drunkenness swearing prophanation of the Sabbath c. enjoyning punishment by the Civil Magistrate onely though they do not speak one word that tends to the repealing of the Ordinance for Church Government to have utterly taken off all power of Excommunication But this we must not so easily grant and yet we shall not be unready as there may be occasion to complain to the civil Magistrate of any lawless persons that are justly censurable with the censure of Excommunication the conjunction of the Civil and Ecclesiasticall Sword being sharper and longer then either of them alone The Gentlemens Paper Sect. VIII And you further proceed to make answer to our severall ensuing Quaeries but how fully and satisfactorily all may judge that have perused what hath formerly been said touching the civil sanction of your Government Our first Quaerie is Why Government in singulari Your answer is Because it is the onely Government that is established in this Church by Civill Authority This Answer hath been confuted before we shall say no more here to that But we are unsatisfied what you mean by this Church whether you mean this Church at Manehester where your Classis is or you mean the Church of England If you mean this Church of Manchester of your association it is establisht not so much by Ordinance of Lords and Commons in Parliament as by later Acts grauting the free exercise of Religion in Doctrine and Worship to all Churches and Congregations in their own way to all and all alike but such as are particularly cautioned against And so you in your Presbytery in your Church at Manchester are protected because you have possessed your selves of that Church But then others in other Churches and Congregations to wit Prestwich Burie Middleton and the like may say of their way of worship it is the onely Government which is establisht in this Church But if your meaning be of the Church of England and so we conceive by the subsequent words viz. That there is no other Government but yours owned as the Church Government throughout the whole Nation You are certainly mistaken and dare not maintain it that his Highness or his Council owns Presbytery and none but that Government But leaving the Civill Sanction you come to the divine right of Presbytery and prove it to be the onely Government in singulari because it is that onely Government which Christ hath prescribed in his word and what Christ hath thus prescribed must needs be de jure one and the same in every Church And Calvins judgement you say in this particular is so manifest by his works to the whole world that it needs no proof We have told you before of the form and order of Church Government appointed by the Council of Nice by Patriarch Arch-Bishop Bishop c. How this Government which we suppose you will not say is Presbyterian is in Calvins judgement not differing from that which Christ hath prescribed in his word And in his first Section of this Chapter he tells us of Bishops not one word of Elders chosen out of the people who should rule in the Church but Bishops that did all viz. make and publish Canons a note certainly of rule and jurisdiction in the Church in which saith he they so ordered all things after the rule of Gods word that a man may see they had in a manner nothing differing from the word of God And this form of Government did represent a certain Image of divine Institution Can Calvin say more for your Presbytery nay can he say so much then how manifest is his judgement for the jus divinum of your Presbytery that it is that Government in particular which Christ hath prescribed in his word Thus have we taken off your Calvin and Beza as above your modern Doctors for Fathers you have none and now you descend to the Assembly of Divines The jus divinum by London Ministers the provincial Synod at London Rutherford Gyllaspie to prove your divine right of Presbytery modern Authors of yesterday with whom you paint your Margent in abundance and may serve your turn amongst the ignorant and vulgar sort who measure all by tale and not by weight when others that know what and who many of them are will conclude you draw very near the dregs As for such as are lawless persons and who those be whether drunkards swearers unclean persons prophaners of the Sabbath such as will not subject themselves to the present Government c. all together or a part conjunctim seu divisim whether you will they are onely punishable by the Civil Magistrate you cannot exclude them the Church by any of your censures as we have said before The Animadversions of the Class upon it 1. WE did indeed proceed to make answer to your several Queries and desire the Reader to peruse the Queries you propounded to us in your first Paper and the answer we gave unto them and then to judge how satisfactorily we did it after he had fully weighed our answer and what you have said to take off the establishing of our Government by the civil Sanction But whereas your first Query was why Government in singulari and our answer given thereunto was because it is the only Government that is established in this Church by civil Authority you say this answer hath been confuted before but how strongly we shall leave it to the Reader for to judge But it seems this answer hath raised another scruple in your mindes for you are unsatisfied what we mean by this Church although in our answer we had sufficiently explained it it being that Church wherein the Prelatical Government formerly had been set up and wherein that being put down the Presbyterian was set up in its stead as the only Government that was owned as the Church Government for the whole Nation as we had told you and which words did sufficiently declare that by this Church we meant the Church of England This you confess is that which you conceive to be our meaning yet you quarrell at the word that so upon supposal that the Church of Manchester of our Association and where our Classis meets might thereby be understood you might take the liberty to tell us that our Church Government is not so much established by the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament as by later Acts granting as you say the free exercise of Religion in doctrine and worship to
such lawless persons whether drunkards swearers c. as will not subject themselves to the present Government of the Church they are onely punishable by the civil Magistrate and that we cannot exclude them the Church by any of our censures this is as easily by us denied as it is by you asserted and we leave it to be judged of by the Reader upon his perusall of what hath been said by both whether you or we have the better reason for what is herein maintained by us But we must again mind you that notwithstanding in our answer we had here told you that however we did not judg all those to be lawless persons that do out of conscience not come up to the observation of all those rules which are or shall be established by Authority for regulating the outward worship of God and Government of his Church yet both you and we might well remember that such as should have refused to have subjected themselves to the late Prelaticall Government would have been accounted in those times lawless persons yet to this also you do here say nothing although it was one of your queries in your first Paper whether all that subjected not themselves to our present Government must be taken for lawless persons and which was a matter more considerable to have replied to then to have put us off as you do with that which is not at all here to the purpose your querie to which we answered not being about our power to censure the persons that we counted lawless but who those lawless persons were The Gentlemens Paper Sect. IX To our next Quaere viz. How farre you extend this Saintship this Church and Assembly of Saints You answer As farre as the Apostle did when writing to the Church of Corinth and Galatia he calls them Saints and Churches notwithstanding the gross errours of many members in them and therefore though there may be sundry of the like stamp in your Assemblies you do not un-church them or make your Assemblies not Assemblies of Saints because of the corruption of such Members c. But by your leave you answer not our question which was not Whether all your Assemblies were called assemblies of Saints for no question you will not un-church your selves or un-saint your Assemblies notwithstanding the corruptions in them But whether none else but you were accounted Saints none Bretheren and Sisters in Christ but such as stand for your pretended discipline If so then the Donatists crime may be imputed to you and we say with St. Augustin O Impudentem Vocem Nay but this cannot be laid in your dish whose principles and practises are so manifestly against the practises and opinions of the Donatists of old it may more fitly be charged upon such as have rent themselves from your Churches But who are they that have rent from your Church we hear but of few that ever admitted themselves members or prosessed themselves of your association that ever rent from it Those that are out say they were never of you never had sworn obedience to or subscribed any Articles of yours as you or many of you had sworn Canonicall obedience to the Government by Bishops and subscribed the 39 Articles of the Church of England Here is a rent indeed a Schism in the highest which is not satisfied but with the utter overthrow of that Church from whom they rent and rasing out those Articles of Religion they had formerly confirmed by their own subscription saying Illa non est c. O Impudentem Vocem this saying doth not concern you But still we are unsatisfied in the word Publique what you mean thereby to which you Answer Such as you by your profession and practise do own for publique such as you do constantly frequent and stir up others to frequent also where are also the publique Ordinances of the word Sacraments and Prayer dispensed But here again you come not home to our Question Whether none are publique Assemblies nay publique Assemblies of Saints but such as you constantly frequent or whose discipline you own however publique yours are And then your Order is Notice shall be taken of all Persons that forsake the publique Assemblies Notice of all Persons in order to censure so is your meaning and purpose as a little before you have said we may gather from your Paper to censure all Persons that maintain private meetings in opposition to publique whether out of conscience or out of a principle of carelesness sloth worldliness c. All Persons that crie down your Churches Ministry c. is your purpose and meaning by that order And you say further Neither do we transgress any Laws of the Land which have made no Proviso to exempt any man that we meddle with c. Here sure you are mistaken for you can no more proceed to censure such as forsake the publique Assemblies by virtue of any Ordinance of Parliament or rule laid down in your form of Church Government then you or any other Minister or Magistrate civill or Ecclesiastical can punish them by an Act of 1. Eliza. intituled An Act for Vniformity of Prayer and Administration of Sacraments or by an Act of 35. Eliza. Intituled An Act for punishing of Persons obstinately refusing to come to Church c. Or an Act of 23. Eliza. against such as refuse to come to Church All which with your Ordinance are repealed by an Act made Septemb. 27. 1650. Intituled An Act for relief of Religious and peaceable pcople from the rigor of former Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion By which these are not only repealed but it is enacted further That all and every the branches clauses Articles and Proviso's Expressed and contained in any other Act or Ordinance of Parliament whereby or wherein any penalty or punishment is imposed or mentioned to be imposed on any Person for not repayring to their respective Parish Churches c. shall be and are by the Authority aforesaid wholly repealed and made void None by this Act shall be censured or punished by virtue of any former Act or Ordinance for refusing to come to their Parish Church c. though they obstinately refuse And if by no former then not by that you pretend to Now to the end no prophane and licentious Person may take occasion by the repealing of the said Laws intended onely for relief of pious and peaceable minded people from the rigor of them o neglect the performance of Religious duties It is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all and every Person and Persons within this Commonwealth and the territories thereof shall having no reasonable excuse for their absence upon every Lords day dayes of publique thanksgiving and humiliation diligently resort to some publique place where the service and worship of God is Exercised or shall be present at some other place in the practise of some Religious duty either of Prayer Preaching reading or Expounding the Scriptures or conferring upon the same And
Episcopacy you conclude us guilty of a rent indeed a schisme in the highest But herein you were contradicted by Mr. Allen himself in the presence of others of you that subscribed this Paper in a full Class to which he and severall of you resorted which makes us the more to wonder how he could subscribe this Paper who looking about him upon the Ministers that were present said they were free from that with which we are here charged there being none there that had sworn Canonicall obedience c. although here you say we or many of us did so as hereupon it will follow from your own principle laid down that we who according to Mr. Allens own confession never associated with the Episcopall Hierarchy or swore any obedience to them are quit from that guilt of schisme with which you here charge us But because we have already hinted that you do not argue well against those of the separation to acquit our selves and all the Ministers of this Land who now disown Episcopacy to which they formerly submitted or to which any of them might have sworne Canonicall obedience from the guilt of schisme in this respect we referre the Reader to the grounds we have laid down for that purpose in our Answer to your second Paper and which whosoever will but impartially consider he will finde that it is not we but your selves that do make the rent although to heighten the charge against us you here tell us that our schisme is so great that it is not satisfied but with the overthrow of the Church which yet in our Answer to your second Paper we have sufficiently refuted and rasing out those Articles of Religion we had formerly confirmed by our own subscription as if it were an Article of the faith of the Church of England which all the Ministers thereof had subscribed that the Prelaticall Government by Archbishops Bishops c. must stand for ever or if it were at any time taken away by the Parliament and disowned by the Ministers of England they had rased out those Articles of Religion that they had once confirmed by their own subscription But you must pardon us if we be not so credulous as to conclude the same with you who in your great heat for Episcopacy do so farre overshoot 4. Unto that wherein you were unsatisfied sc what we meant by the word publick our answer was full and home but either you minded it not or though you saw your doubt was resolved yet being desirous to quarrell you would not take any notice of it for we did not only tell you that by publick Assemblies we understood the Assemblies where the publick Ordinances were dispensed which we our selves did own and constantly frequent but also said expresly as is to be seen in our answer that we do not meddle with the censuring of those who being godly and sound in the faith in the main points of Religion do yet differ from us in judgement in matters of Discipline and Government and have their Assemblies for Gods publick worship distinct from ours as we are barred from it by the rules of our Government as we have often said before These were the very words of our answer and therefore but that we see you are resolved to be satisfied with nothing and find fault with that which is expressed never so plainly we should have wondred that you should here have said that we come not home to your question whenas it is manifest from the words of our answer that though these Assemblies owned not our Discipline or we their● yet we denyed them not to be the publick Assemblies or the Assemblies of the Saints as we expresly professed we never medled with the censuring of them or to take notice of their members being sound in the faith and godly in order unto censure as the forsakers of the publick Assemblies of the Saints But we here told you we were heartily sorry that you understanding our meaning as was manifest from what you after said should only move this doubt to give a lash at our private meetings which in our answer we justified but notwithstanding the lash you gave us you do neither acknowledge your fault nor reply one word to what we had said for our own defence 5. Whereas we said in our answer that seeing in the Paper which we had published in our Congregations we said notice should be taken of all those that should forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints you might thence have gathered our purpose was to observe and censure those that did maintain and hold up p●i●ate meetings in opposition to the publick that did cry down Ministery and Ordinances and which we shewed were censurable by the rules of our Government and that therefore we were not altogether silen● concerning either the sin or punishment of those that did erre in Doctrinals or Discipline so as to make dangerous rents from the Church and for which silence you seemed to tax and blame us in your first Paper yet now you mention this our declared purpose to take notice of such forsakers of the Assemblies of the Saints thus characterized as a fault and so with you we are worthy of blame if we be silent touching either the sin or punishment of such and censure them not and we are also worthy of blame and punishment too as transgressors of the Laws of the Land as you will have us to be here if we shall proceed to censure such And so let us neglect our duty or performe it we are either way as you will have it blame worthy Yes and which were yet the more to be wondered at were it not manifest from what principle it proceeds you that crie out of schisme and separation and blame us for our silence touching either the sin or punishment of those that erre in Doctrinals or rend themselves from the Church yet here are become advocates to plead the cause of those that cry down our Church publick Assemblies Ministers and Ordinances For you will have these to do all this out of conscience these being your own expressions and not ours we declaring our selves plainly concerning those only that cry down our Churches and publick Assemblies Ministery and Ordinances as meant by those persons that we said held up private meetings in oppofition to publick and whom we purposed to observe and censure But these you will have also to be exempted from being censured by us as also all those who out of a principle of carelesness sloth worldliness or manifest prophaness do on the Lords day either idle out the time or else are worse employed when they should be at the publick Assemblies and whom in our answer we said we purposed to take notice of as such as did forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints 6. But seeing you have undertaken to plead the cause of both these sorts and will have us to be sure mistaken when we said we did not transgress any Laws
edifyingly and lastingly be effected that when all our undermining scorning and opposing enemies do hear and see these things they may be much cast down in their own eyes perceiving that this work hath been wrought of our God in whose arms of mercy and truth we leave you and the Cause we manage Manchester Jan. 11. 1658. Signed in the Name and by the appointment of the Class by John Harrison Moderator THE EPISTLE To the READER IT is no new thing that such workes as have been most eminently conducing to the glory of God and the Churches greatest wellfare have met with strong oppositions When the Adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the Children of the captivity builded the Temple unto the Lord God of Israel they set themselves diverse waies to hinder and obstruct the worke When Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches began to be stopped then they were very wroth and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it When Jesus Christ the eternall Son of God the brightness of his Fathers glory and express Image of his Person appeared in the world cloathed with our nature though he came about a worke of greatest consequence that ever was yet his enimies withstood and opposed his Kingdome Of this the Psalmist prophesied before it came to pass Psal 2. 1 2. Why did the Heathen rage and the people imagine a vaine thing The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the people take counsell together against the Lord and against his annointed saying Let us breake their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us And this the Church saw fulfilled who in their Prayer unto God applied unto the times wherein they lived what he by the mouth of his Servant David had foretold so long before saying For of a truth against thy holy Childe Jesus whom thou hast annointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsell determined before to be done It would be here too long to go through the Books of the N. T. and tell what persecutions were raised against the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour for executing that Commission which he had given them when he commanded them to go teach all Nations or to go through the story of the Church and speak of the diverse kindes of tortures and torments which thousands of all rankes endured in the times of the ten Primitive persecutions under the Heathen Emperours to tell of the Martyrdome of Ignatius Polycarpus Justin Martyr Irenaeus Cyprian and many others glorious lights and worthy Confessors of the truth for no other reason but because they studied to advance Christs Gospell We will instance something in latter times When the Romish Synagogue having most abominably apostatiz'd both in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Governement Luther and other faithfull Servants of Christ did earnestly bend themselves to endeavour a reformation in Religion the Antichristian world was mad with fury To come yet a little nearer home When Religion was reformed in Scotland in Doctrine and Worship the Church of Christ there had many conflicts and the worke was long obstructed before the Governement and Discipline of Christ could be fully established amongst them as it is in fresh remembrance what troubles they passed through more lately in their contending against Episcopacy and the Ceremonies which had been introduced amongst them to the great prejudice of their Ancient Church governement and Discipline But here it may not be forgotten how when the Parliament of famous memory that was convened eighteen yeares agoe having taken into their pious consideration the condition of our own Church at home and judging that a further reformation in matters of Religion then had been made in the daies of Queen Elizabeth was necessary and setting upon that work as also the vindication of the liberties of this English Nation were forced to take up Armes for their own defence against that Partie that could not brooke the Reformation which they intended And to what an height that opposition grew in after time and with what difficulties they conflicted for many years together because they would not give up that cause they had undertaken to defend is so well known to even such as may be but strangers in our Israel that we may spare the pains of a full recitall But yet nothing of all this is to be wondered at Satan must needs be like himselfe and stir the more when he sees his Kingdome begin to shake And corruption will rage when it is crossed God also hath a wise hand in these oppositions not only thereby the more inflaming the zeal and brightning up other graces in his faithfull servants trying and exercising their faith and patience the purging and purifying and making them white but also getting himself the greater glory when his worke is carried on notwithstanding the greatest opposition of his and his Churches enemies And here we cannot but with all thankfullness to Almighty God take notice of this hand that was most eminently lifted up in the worke of Reformation begun by that late forementioned Parliament as there is cause why also we should to the honour and glory of his great Name and the praise of that Parliament unto the generations that may come hereafter acknowledg their unwearied pains courage and constancy in that worke Much was done yea very much by that illustrious and worthy Parliament By them the foundation of reformation was laid in the solemne League and Covenant which they not only took themselves but ordained should be solemnely taken in all places throughout the Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales And for the better and more orderly taking thereof appointed and injoyned certain directions to be strictly followed And in pursuance of this League and Covenant engageing every one that tooke it in their severall places to indeavour the refomation of Religion in England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and governement according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches and to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdomes to the nearest conjunction and uniformity of Religion Confession of Faith forme of Church Government Directory for worship and Catechizing After consultation had with the Reverend Pious and Learned Assembly of Divines called together to that purpose they judged it necessary that the Book of Common Prayer should be abolished and the Directory for the publick worship of God and in their Ordinance mentioned should be established and observed in all the Churches within this Land as appears by their Ordinance of January the 3. 1644. for that purpose By them Prelacy that is Church Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deanes Deanes and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiasticall