the great pollution of our Churches and much of our Distraction in Matters of Church-Order is from the careless unobserved irregular Transition out of the state of Infant Membership into the state of Adult Membership every ignorant Man almost taking himself for an Adult Member because by Baptism he was made an Infant Member and hath customarily been present at Publick Worship Let the distinction therefore between Infant Members and Adult be more observed in every Parish and let the Transition out of the one state into the other be more solemn and regular under the Judgment of the Guides of the Church That no Person may be admitted to be an Adult Member but by the Minister in the face of the Congregation ordinarily after a Solemn Profession of the Faith Repentance and Resolution for a Holy Life of the Person admitted to which there must be the preparation of Catechising and of a Conversation that contradicteth not the Profession so made 1. This was the Course of the Ancient Churches who catechized Children and admitted them among the Confirmed Members by Imposition of Hands 2. The Divines of the Reformed Churches commonly own it and with for it in their Writings 3. The Episcopal Divines in the Rubrick of the Common Prayer Ordained that none should be admitted to the Sacrament till after Catechising and a Certificate under the Minister's or Curate's hand he were confirmed by the Bishop though it was done to little purpose by them 4. The Presbyterians Examination of Men before the Sacrament intimateth the like 5. The Congregational Men's trial of particular Church-Members importeth their approbation of this 6. The Anabaptists by going farther do seem to be permitted of God of purpose to awaken us to this Duty and I think they will continue to be our Scourge till this be done and this will half satisfie some among them that are moderate and silence many Objections of the rest 3. Let the Ministers approved by the State be constrained to Catechize and personally instruct and publickly preach to all the Persons in their Parishes according to their strength and opportunity in order to prepare such as are willing to learn for an Adult state of Christianity as the ancient Churches did their Catechumens And let the young and ignorant and ungodly of this Rank be compelled by some moderate Penalty to hear and confer with the Teachers and be instructed and catechized by them And let not any Ministers be suffered to administer the Lord's Supper to any that have not been admitted as aforesaid upon a Profession of Faith and Holiness into the number of Adult Members 4. Seeing a particular Church must consist of Christians cohabiting and consenting let Parishes be the ordinary Bounds of Churches so that all the Adult Members of the Universal Church and no other at Age within that Parish who do consent be Members of that particular Church into which they are first admitted or whether into both at once we need not determine And if any be taken out of other adjoyning Parishes let it be by exception from the common Rule And seeing there are many Cases in which Members may be taken out of other Parishes the Differences thereabout may be denied as is after declared Prop. 8. § II. 5. The Pastors of particular Churches have power to Teach and Rule those Churches according to the Word of God and the People are bound to esteem them love them honour them and obey them I Tim. 5. 17. I Thess. 5. 12. Heb. 13. 7 17. Therefore let them use the Power of Administring all Congregational Worship and the Keys for Binding and Loosing within their own Congregations◠And let it be granted to them that desire it at least for Peace and Concord sake that they be not forced to Subjection to any pretending to a Superiour Governing Power besides the Magistrate 6. As particular Christians must hold Communion in particular Churches for the Worship of God and their mutual Edification so particular Churches must all hold such a Correspondency and Communion with one another so far as their Capacity extends as most tendeth to the Edification Strengthening Peace and Concord of them all and to the Publick Prosperity and the Success of the Gospel among them and in the World The whole Church being one Body must maintain the Union and Communion of the Parts and do God's Work in the greatest Concord that they can and with the best Advantages 7. This cannot de done well without Meetings to these Ends nor those Meetings be improved to the best advantage unless the Times and Places be fixed and commonly known And as the use of them is ordinary so the Assemblies should be ordinary and not only seldom in some extraordinary Cases Nor is any sort of Men so fit to manage them as Ministers who have most Ability and Leisure being wholly set apart to the Work of the Gospel It is therefore meet that there be known Times and Places of Meeting where Ministers and as many more as the Churches shall think fit may assemble Every Minister or Church according to their conveniency choosing of what Association they will be which ordinarily they should frequent and which should consist of such and only such as for Piety Ability and faithful Diligence are fit for the Ministry and such Communion 8. If it be the Judgment of some that these Assemblies have a Superior governing Power over the particular Pastors and of others that they are only for Communion and mutual Assistance they shall either keep their several Opinions to themselves or at least having professed and recorded them shall continue their Presence and Assistance to those lower ends that all are agreed upon Not to make new Laws for the Churches or any of the Members of the Assemblies to bind by a ruling Power but to consult and advise and agree nor yet to agree upon things unnecessary nor lay the Churches Unity upon such much less to exercise any magisterial coersive Power But 1. To open any occurrent difficult Cases in Doctrine or Practice that befal any particular Church or Pastor wherein they need their Brethrens Advice 2. To agree upon the best and profitablest manner of managing the Work of God in regard of undetermined Circumstances in cases where Uniformity will further the Work As for Example what Translation of Scripture to use what Version of the Psalms to sing c. 3. To communicate those Affairs of the Churches that are of common concernment to give notice of such as one Church hath excommunicated that other Churches may avoid them or else they may have Familiarity with all other Christians about them and be entred among them as Members and so Excommunication will lose its force and miss of its Ends. 4. To maintain personal Unity among Ministers by Familiarity and Correspondency and to heal Divisions and Dissentions and Estrangedness and cherish Brotherly-love 5. In case any be injuriously cast out of any Neighbour-church as for professing sound Doctrine against
the Quality of the Pastors 4. That no Pastors be forced upon the Flocks against their Consent the Church Governors being the Approvers and Ordainers and fit means being used to procure their Consent though meer Teachers may be forced on the Ignorant Heretical and obstinate that are unmeet for Church-Communion 5. That the Teachers of the Parishes may be urged to catechise the People and personally in due time and Place to confer with them all and instruct them in the Matters of Salvation and all the People may be urged to submit thereunto 6. That before any Person 's baptized in infancy be admitted among the adult Members of the Church to their holy Communion and Priviledges they make an open Profession of Faith and Holiness such as shall be approved by the Pastor of that particular Church who is responsible if he deny Approbation unjustly The solemnity of Confirmation we leave to the Wisdom of Church-Governors 7. That we may have Liberty in the Temples to assemble for God's Worship and may have no new Worship and Ordinances or symbolical mystical Ceremonies enforced on us against our Consciences And that such as dare not use the Cross Surplice or kneeling in the Act of Receiving may not be Penalties be forced to them nor therefore denied the Exercise of the Ministry or the Communion of the Church and those that Scruple the English Common Prayer-Book may have leave to exercise their Ministry without it at least that they may be allowed the use of a Liturgy to be drawn up in Scripture Words and approved by a Synod and besides that freely to pray according to the variety of Occasions and Subjects which they preach of they being responsible to their Governors for all that they say and do amiss 8. That the Pastors of each Parish-Church may have Liberty to hear Accusations of Hereby or Scandal and to admonish the Offenders publickly that hear not private Admonition to call them openly to Repent and confess their Sin and promise Reformation to absolve the Penitent and reject the Impenitent requiring the People to avoid them But yet if you require that no Pastor should proceed to the publick admonishing and rejecting any but upon the Judgment of the next Synod and their President we submit unless which God forbid they should defend Heresy and Wickedness and prohibit Discipline 9. That the Neighbour-Pastors associating for Union and Communion may hold monthly Synods in every Market-Town having a President stated for Life unless he prove unfit And that the Pastors of the Particular Churches be here responsible for their Doctrine and Practice if any shall accuse them And that Cases about Publick Confirmation Admonitions or Censures excepted from the Power of the Pastors of the particular Churches of that Association may be here decided But yet that the President and Synod may not be forced to undertake the special Charge of all the Souls of each Congregation as it belongeth to the several Pastors 10. That every Quarter and oftner if the President see cause there may be a Synod of all the Pastors of each County or Diocesses if that may not be granted who also shall have a stated President the Name we leave to you who shall maintain a more general Communion and without destroying the Power of the particular Pastors or lesser Synods shall receive Appeals and take Cognizance of such Cases as are proper to them And that no President of greater or lesser Synods shall ordain suspend deprive or excommunicate any Pastor or Deacon without the Consent of the Synod and the Presence of some of them nor censure the Members of any particular Church without the Consent of the Synod or of the Pastor of that Church And that all Presidents be freely chosen by the Synods where they must preside 11. That National Councils may consist of the Presidents of both the Diocesane and inferior Synods or else of the Diocesane and two out of each County freely chosen by the Major Vote of all the Pastors 12. That no Subscription be required of the Pastors to any thing about Religion but to the Holy Scriptures and the ancient Creeds and to the necessary Articles of Faith and Practice exprest in Scripture Terms and to the Renunciation of all Heresies contrary thereto And that in the Matter of the Divine Right of Prelacy or Synodical Government or Ceremonies it may suffice that we are responsible for any Disobedience and be not forced to subscribe our Approbation they being not Articles of Faith but Points of Practice and if you see Cause to restrain Men from Preaching against any other controverted Opinions they may not be forced to approve them 13. That no Pastor be displaced unless for Insufficieney Negligence or Scandal committed within two Years before the Accusation or unless some able Godly faithful Pastor prove a better Title to the Place 14. Lastly That Persons Excommunicate may not be punished eo Nomine because Excommunicate by corporal Punishments unless it be by disfranchising that they be uncapable of Government or of choosing Governors seeing the same Men are also obnoxious to the Laws of the Land for such Crimes as the Laws condemn notwithstanding their Excommunication On these Terms we may hold a Christian Concord without any Danger of Persecution or Breach of Charity or Peace if the Magistrate should think meet to settle Episcopacy as we may on the forementioned Terms while the present Liberty continueth Iuly 1659. Dr. Hammond's Answer 1. WHAT concerns private Christians in their own Families will I suppose easily be granted care being taken that nothing contrary to known Laws be attempted under Pretence of convening for Christian Advantages 2. What concerns the Rectors of each Parish in the Discharge of the Duty by Law committed to them there can be no doubt of What is more required to be intrusted to them being now by Law in the Bishops cannot be removed without changing the Law which must be left to the Law-Makers upon due Consideration of Ancient Primitive Practice and what may probably most tend to Edification 3. What concerns the Observation of Ceremonies by Minister or People by Law established must be done by Tolleration or Exemption from Punishments allowed to tender Consciences with care had also to Uniformity 4. The Nomination of Persons to Offices in the Church must have respect to to the lawful right of Patrons unless by Law some Change be thought expedient to be introduced herein 5. If the Presidents of inferior Synods are to have Episcopal Power in Confirmation Censures Ordination then this being the multiplying of Bishops must be referred to the Supreme Power to judge whether all things considered it be best or whether some larger Diocesses being divided some lesser may not remain as they are But if inferior Presidents be not vested with Episcopal Power but be in the Nature of our rural Deans or of Archdeacons the use of them and their Synods may be good with Subordination to Bishops and regulated
call it self and such Men Holy Dare you read what I have written of their Holiness in my Key chap. 34. Detection 25. or procure them to answer that and the rest there 2. Are all that are Holy the Rule or Rulers to all others when you have conversed among the Papists one seven Years if Delusion leave you Reason and impartiality you will be more capable of comparing them with your own Parents and such as you lived amongst here and judging which were the more holy 3. As Catholick signifieth a Member of the Church Catholick or such is hold the Catholick Faith so other Churches are much more such than Rome As it signifieth the universal Church Rome is none such The same I say of Apostolick Those that are most exactly of the Apostolick Faith are to be called Apostolick but Woe to us if we were in that no better than Rome 14. You may see now what pitiful Grounds you have for flying into a Pest-house as a City of Refuge or for 〈◊〉 all the cleanest Rooms in the House of God and 〈◊〉 your self to that Room that hath the most leprous infected Persons in it as if it were the only Church of God And for Novelties O that the whole Case 〈◊〉 there be tried and let that Church that hath introduced most Novelties in Faith and Discipline and Worship be most rejected as unclean Were you impartial the several 〈◊〉 of our Religion might put that part of the Controversy 〈…〉 you For our Rule of Religion is only the Holy Scripture if you shew 〈◊〉 that we misunder stand it we shall renounce that misunderstanding but to misunderstand Scripture is to make a new Rule no more than to understand your Councils And you know the Scripture is no Novelty but the Eldest Your Rule is Councils and Papal Decrees which are new contradictory and endless and you never know when you have all and when your Faith is at its maturity and no more to be added under pretence of Determinations If you dare read my 24th 25th and 35th Decection in my Key you may see quickly who are the Novelties One chief Reason of my abhorring Popery is that I am absolutely certain of its Novelty Madam I must take the freedom to say That when your Priests dare neither Dispute in your hearing upon all the provoking offers that I made not yet will answer the Books that I have written nor yet give you leave to read them they have imprisoned your Soul in the partiality of a Sect and while you are so unfaithful to your self if you be miserable because you would not make use of the Remedy and deluded because you are resolved or obliged from coming into the Light your Friends will have an easier account to make for you before God than your self as having discharged their Duty when you wilfully refuse yours What you read formerly against Popery before you doubted or heard their Fallacies was as nothing I suppose for I do not think you observed or remember the stress of the Argumentation which you read We will have leave to pray for you though we cannot have leave to instruct you and God may hear us when you will not which I have the more hopes of because of the Piety of your Parents and the Prayers and Tears of a tender Mother poured out for you and your own well-meaning pious disposition I have known some such Piety bred among us carried by mistake into their Church but little initially bred there Though they pretend that Persons of Charity and the Spirit of God with us must go to them to receive it I would I knew whether you can say by true Experience I felt no true Love of God in my Soul before but as soon as I turned Papist I did and have now the Spirit of God and his Image which before I never had Sure the Change of an Opinion about your Pope and Church is one thing and the Renewing Grace and Love of God and Heavenly mindedness is another I fear not your Prayers bringing your Delusions and Idolatry in your Mother's Chamber as to her self while she walks uptightly with God Nothing that I find in your Manual or the Mass-Book will ever have that power For the Liberty of your Religion which you say you hope for on the Grounds of the King's Declaration I have no more to say but 1. That I never loved Cruelty in any and it hath increased my version to Popery that I still observed that lying and uncharitable cruelty have been the two Hands by which it makes such a bustle in the World 2. And that i◠Italy Spain and Austria Bavaria c. would grant Liberty to Protestants we should see more Equality in the Expectations of it here but if you get Dominion as well as Liberty it will be no Evidence of the Truth and Goodness of your Cause Our God our Rule our Hope our End and Portion are the same in the Inquisition Prison and Flames as in Prosperity We have a Kingdom that cannot be moved and Treasure that none can rob us of It is for that and not for Worldly Prosperity that we renounce all Sensuality Heresie Superstition Idolatry Tyranny and false Worship and desire in Pure and Spiritual Worship with Faith and Patience to wait for the Coming and Righteous Judgment of the Lord. Who with the Spirit of his Mouth and the brightness of his Coming will destroy that wicked One the Son of Perdition 2 Thess. 2. Madam I rest your Servant for and in the Truth of Christ Rich. Baxter London Ian. 29. 1660. Since the Writing of this I am informed that Mr. Iohnson is the Person that you would have had to Dispute for you and that did now and formerly Dispute with Dr. Gunning If so I like your Condition or Religion never the better for your denying it◠when you confessed he feared not any injury from me Our Religion is more a Friend to Truth For the honourable Lady Anne Lindsey at Calice This. § 87. When the King was received with the General Acclamation of his People the Expectations of Men were various according to their several Interests and Inducements Some plain and moderate Episcopal Men thought of Reconciliation and Union with the said Presbyterians yea and a Reward to the Presbyterians for bringing in the King The more Politick Men of the Diocesan way understood that upon the King's Return all the Laws that had been made in Nineteen Years viz. since his Father's departing from the Parliament were void and so that all their Ancient Power and Honour and Revenues would fall to them without any more ado and that they had nothing to do but to keep the Ministers and People in quietness and hopes till Time should fully do the work Some few Presbyterians thought the King would favour them as well as others for stirring up the Soldiers and City to restore him In London I found that Mr. Calamy for his Age and Political Understanding and
Worship Ans. 1. And who shall make that Rule The Bishops And who shall be Bishops You And so the Sum is The only certain and safe way of Healing is for no Man to differ from our Judgment or Will in our Agendis or Credendis Circumstance or Substance manner or matter of Worship nor say a Word to God in publick but what we write down for him or allow him What Sectary would not be such a Healer 2. But I am sorry that any Christian much more Pastors can believe that ever all the Church will be such Idolizers of Man as to stretch their Consciences to own all that for matter and manner substance or Circumstance he shall prescribe or else will all be so ripe in Knowledge as all to know which are the right Modes and Circumstances and so come to be of one mind The Church of Rome had not needed Inquisitions Flames and Racks nor lost so many Kingdoms if this could have been done But if ever the Church be heated by Men of your Opinion by this which you account the only way neither God nor Reason have herein spoken by me Wonderful that near one Thousand three Hundred Years Experience of the Churches doth not convince you and teach you better Strict For though an Agreement in the Essentials only be enough to make any Man a Member of the Catholick or universal Church yet is it not enough to make a Man a Member of this or that particular National Church For all the Reformed Churches agree as appears by the Corpus Confessionum in the Essentials of Faith and Worship and therefore in that respect they are all Members of the Church-Catholick but they do not agree either in the same form of Government or in the same outward form of Worship or in the same Ecclesiastical Discipline or in the same Rites and Ceremonies And it is the Agreement in such things as these as well as in Essentials which constitutes and giveth Denomination to the several National Churches which all of them taken together do make up the Church Catholick Thus to make up one Member of the French Dutch or any other Reformed Churches it is not enough to be a Catholick no nor a Protestant-Catholick neither but he must subscribe and conform not only in point of Judgment to their Confession of Faith but in point of Practice also to all their Rules Orders and Usages in Preaching Praying Administration of the Sacraments and all External Rites and Ceremonies prescribed by publick Authority to be used in the publick Worship of God for the more solemn more unanimous more decent and more edifying performance of the same which if any Man upon any pretence whatsoever refuse to do he cannot be of such or such a National Church where a Conformity to all such things is indispensably required of all that will be of or continue in the aforesaid respective Churches And is it not as Lawful and reasonable for our Church to prescribe Conditions of her Communion to those that will be of it and continue in it as it is for any other of the Reformed Churches to prescribe to those that are of theirs Ans. 1. It 's well that Christ is more merciful than Men His easie Yoke and light Burden Mat. 11. 29. and the necessary things Act. 15. is enough to make Men Members of him and his Body the Church Catholick that they may be saved But he that will be of a National Church must bear and do no Man knows what 2. But how will this stand with Christ's Catholick Laws A true Catholick Christian shall be saved But he that is no more with you is guilty of one of the greatest Crimes viz. Contempt of your Authority and can he then be Saved Christ's Catholick Members must love honour and cherish each other But with you he that obeyeth you not in every Word Mode and circumstance or ceremony is to be silenced and persecuted Christ's Laws are that he that is weak even in the Faith be received but not to doubtful disputations and that for smaller difference we neither despise nor judge each other but receive one another as Christ received us and that so far as we have attained we walk by the same Rule and mind the same things and if in any thing we be otherwise minded God will reveal even this unto us And that we must love one another with a pure Heart fervently and by this be known to all Men to be Christ's Disciples But your National Process carrieth it beyond this Line you will first break this Catholick Law as if your National Church were not part of the Universal and make Laws for judging the foresaid Dissenters and then plead yours against Christ's Laws and say he meant not those that are under a Law while he forbad such Laws And so you may Excommunicate reproach avoid imprison undo and silence those that Christ commanded you tenderly to Love and say they are Schismaticks for they obey us not in every Circumstance O! how much easier is Christ's Yoke than yours 3. But what is this National Church which is so contrary to Christ's Catholick Church If it be all the Churches and Christians that are under one Christian Prince we own it as such But this needs no such conditions as you name And it is not true that the Catholick Church consisteth only of such for the Subjects of the Turks and Heathens are part of the Catholick Church If it be all the Churches of a Kingdom as voluntarily associated for Communion or Concord I repeat the same as aforesaid But if you mean all the Churches of a Kingdom as under one Constitutive Ecclesiastical Head and Pastor few Protestants will say that it is of God's Institution Bilson and others usually say Patriarchs Metropolitans c. are humane Creatures And verily I had rather be no Member of a Church of Man's making till I better know the Maker's Authority than renounce all that mutual Love and Brotherly concord and forbearance and kindness and all Christ's Promises of Salvation to such which he hath settled upon his Catholick Members And if what you say be true who would not rather far be a meer Catholck Christian out of all National Churches than be in them But I yet hold that though your particular Canon bind not the Church universal yet Christ's universal Laws bind all particular Churches and Christians 4. And that which maketh me dissent is that I am not able to discern how all Men can obey such Laws as you mention and live in any concord with you without renouncing all Conscience Christianity and Religion Not that I judge all to do so that agree with you For those that agree in Iudgment may agree in Practice But you must make me mad or unacquainted with Mankind before you make me believe that a whole Kingdom will ever be so perfect in Judgment or so much of the same temper Education condition converse c. as to be all of
strict against an Oath or Gaming or Plays or Drinking nor troubled themselves so much about the Matters of God and the World to come and the Ministers and People that were for the King's Book for Dancing and Recreations on the Lord's Days and those that made not so great a matter of every Sin but went to Church and heard Common Prayer and were glad to hear a Sermon which lasht the Puritans and which ordinarily spoke against this strictness and preciseness in Religion and this strict Observation of the Lord's Day and following Sermons and praying Ex tempore and talking so much of Scripture and the Matters of Salvation and those that hated and derided them that take these Courses the main Body of these were against the Parliament Not but that some such for Money or a Landlord's Pleasure served them as some few of the stricter sort were against them or not for them being Neuters but I speak of the notable Division through the Land If you ask how this came to pass it requireth a longer Answer than I think fit here to give But briefly Actions spring from natural Dispositions and Interest There is somewhat in the Nature of all worldly Men which maketh them earnestly defirous of Riches and Honours in the World and they that value them most will seek them and they that seck them are more like to find them than those that despise them and he that taketh the World and Preferment for his Interest will estimate and choose all means accordingly and where the World is predominant Gain goeth for Godliness and serious Religion which would mortifie their Sin is their greatest Enemy Yet Conscience must be quieted and Reputation preserved which can neither of them be done without some Religion Therefore such a Religion is necessary to such as is consistent with a worldly Mind which Outside-formality Lip-service and Hypocrisie is but Seriousness Sincerity and Spirituality is not On the other side there is that in the new Nature of a spiritual Believer which inclineth him to things above and causeth him to look at worldly Grandeur and Riches as things more dangerous than desirable and he is dead to the World and the World to him by the Cross of Christ no wonder therefore if few such attain great Matters in the World or ever come to Preferment or Greatness upon Earth And there is somewhat in them which maketh them more fearful of displeasing God than all the World and will not give them leave to stretch their Consciences or turn aside when the Interest or Will of Man requireth it And the Laws of Christ to which they are so devoted are of such a stream as cannot suit with carnal Interest There is an universal and radicated Enraity between the Carnal and the Spiritual the Serpent's and the Woman's Seed the fleshly Mind and the spiritual Law of God through all the World in all Generations Gen. 3. 15. Rom. 8. 6 7 8. Thus Enmity is found in England as well as in other Countries between the Godly and the Worldly Minds as he that was born after the Flesh did persecute him that was born after the Spirit even so was it here The vulgar Rabble of the carnal and prophane the Fornicators Drunkards Swearers c. did every where hate them that reproved their Sin and condemned them by a holy Life This Difference was universal and their Enmity implacable farther than common Grace abated it or special Grace cured it So that every where serious godly People that would not run with others to excess of Rvot were spoken against and derided by the Names of Precisians Zealot Over-strict the holy Brethren and other Terms of Scorn These things being supposed it unhappily fell out that in the Days of Queen Mary that we may fetch the matter ab origine our Reformers being Fugitives at Frankford fell into a Division One part of them were for Diocesans and the English Liturgy and Ceremonies that they might no more than needs depart from the Papists nor seem unconstant by departing from what King Edward had begun The other were for Calvin's Discipline and way of Worship for the setting up of a Parochial Discipline instead of a Diocesan and to have a Government in every particular Church and not only One over a Thousand or many Hundred Churches and for a plain and serious way of Worship suited as near as possible to God's Word When these two Parties returned into England the Diocesan Party got Queen Elizabeth's Countenance and were preferred and their way set up The other Party petitioned and hoped and waited but were discountenanced rebuked and by Law suppressed This lamentable Breach was never healed The discountenanced Party were servent Preachers of holy Lives and so were many of the Bishops also in those days But if those that succeeded them had been as holy and as diligent Preachers they had kept up their Honour and Places without such Assaults as they have undergone But when Iewel Pelkington Grindal and such like were dead many succeeded them whom the People took to be other kind of Men. And the silenced Disciplinarians as then they were called did by their Writings their secret Conference and Preaching and their Godly Lives work much upon such as were religiously addicted And moreover besides what they received from such Teachers there is I know not perfectly whence among the most of the Religious serious People of these Countreys a suspicion of all that is Ceremonious in God's Service and of all which they find not warrant for in Scripture and a greater inclination to a rational convincing earnest way of Preaching and Prayers than to the written Forms of Words which are to be read in Churches And they are greatly taken with a Preacher that speaketh to them in a familiar natural Language and exhorteth them as if it were for their Lives when another that readeth or faith a few composed Words in a reading Tone they hear almost as a Boy that is saying his Lesson And they are much perswaded that a just Parochial Discipline would greatly reform the Church and that Diocesans by excluding it cherish Vice Now upon the Difference between the Diocesans and the Disciplinarians the Diocesans found that their very Places and Power and Lands and Lordships were assaulted by the contrary Opinion and therefore they thought it necessary to suppress the Promoters of it And so putting Episcopacy Liturgy Ceremonies and all into the Subscriptions which they imposed on all that would be Ministers or Schoolmasters they kept and cast out very many worthy Men For some that were for Liturgy and Ceremonies were not for Diocesans but for Parish Discipline and some that were for Bishops were not for the Ceremonies and some that were for the rest yet scrupled some one and he that could not Subscribe to all was forbidden to preach the Gospel whereas in the mean time many Bishops preached very seldom and abundance of Places had ignorant Readers that could nor preach
Churches Good must be first regarded As to the other Question Why we dealt not thus by all the Parish and took them not all for Members without question We knew some Papists and Infidels that were no Members We knew that the People would have thought themselves wronged more to be thus brought under Discipline without and against their own Consent than to 〈◊〉 them to withdraw And we thought it not a Business â—it for the unwilling â—â—â—â—ually at such a time as that But especially I knew that it was like to be their utter undoing by hardening them into utter Enmity against the means that should recover them And I never yet saw any signs of hope in any Excommunicate Person unless as they are yet men and capable of what God will do upon them except one that humbled himself and begged Absolution Now either Discipline is to be exercised according to Christ's Rule or not If not then the Church is no purer a Society as to its Orders than those of Infidels and Pagans but Christ must be disobeyed and his House of Prayer made a Den of Thieves If yea then either impartially upon all obstinate impenitent Sinners according to Christ's Rule or but on some If but on some only it will be a Judgment of Partiality and Unrighteousness whereas where there is the same Cause there must usually be the same Penalty If on all then the multitude of the Scandalous in almost all places is so great and the Effects of Excommunication so dreadful that it would tend to damning of multitudes of Souls which being contrary to the design of the Gospel is not to be taken for the Will of Christ we have our Power to Edification and not to Destruction A few in case of necessity may be punished though to their hurt for the good of all but multitudes must not be so used Indeed a Popish Interdict or mock Excommunication by the Sentence of a Prelate or Lay-Chancellour may pass against multitudes and have no considerable Effect but as it is enforced by the Sword But the Word of God is quick and powerful and when it is thus personally applyed in the Sentencing of a guilty obstinate Sinner doth one way or other work more effectually Therefore in this difficulty there can be but two Remedies devised One is with the Anabaptists to leave Infants unbaptized that so they may not be taken into the Church till they are fit for the Orders of the Church But this is injurious to Infants and against the will of God and hath more inconveniences than benefits Though for my part as much as I have wrote against them I wish that it were in the Church now as it was in the days of Tertullian Nazianzen and Austin where no man was compelled to bring his Infants to Baptism but all left to their own time For then some as Augustine c. were baptized at full Age and some in Infancy The second therefore is the only just and safe Remedy which is That by the due performance of Confirmation there may be a Soleman Transition out of the state of Infant Church-Membership into the state of Adult Church-Membership and due qualifications therein required and that the unfit may till then be left inter Auditores without the Priviledges proper to Adult Members of which I have fully written in my Book of Confirmation 26. Another Advantage which I found to my Success was by ordering my Doctrine to them in a suitableness to the main end and yet so as might suit their Dispositions and Diseases The thing which I daily opened to them and with greatest importunity laboured to imprint upon their minds was the great Fundamental Principles of Christianity contained in their Baptismal Covenant even a right knowledge and belief of and subjection and love to God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and Love to all Men and Concord with the Church and one another I did so daily inculcate the Knowledge of God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and Love and Obedience to God and Unity with the Church Catholick and Love to Men and Hope of Life Eternal that these were the matter of their daily Cogitations and Discourses and indeed their Religion And yet I did usually put in something in my Sermon which was above their own discovery and which they had not known before and this I did that they might be kept humble and still perceive their ignorance and be willing to keep in a learning state For when Preachers tell their People of no more than they know and do not shew that they excel them in Knowledge and easily over-top them in Abilities the People will be tempted to turn Preachers themselves and think that they have learnt all that the Ministers can teach them and are as wise as they and they will be apt to contemn their Teachers and wrangle with all their Doctrines and set their Wits against them and hear them as Censurers and not as Disciples to their own undoing and to the disturbance of the Church and they will easily draw Disciples after them The bare Authority of the Clergy will not serve the turn without over-topping Ministerial Abilities And I did this also to increase their Knowledge and also to make Religion pleasant to them by a daily addition to their former Light and to draw them on with desire and Delight But these things which they did not know before were not unprofitable Controversies which tended not to Edification nor Novelties in Doctrine contrary to the Universal Church but either such Points as tended to illustrate the great Doctrines before-mentioned or usually about the right methodizing of them The opening of the true and profitable method of the Creed or Doctrine of Faith the Lord's Prayer or Matter of our Desires and the Ten Commandments or Law of Practice which afford matter to add to the knowledge of most Professors of Religion a long time And when that is done they must be led on still further by degrees as they are capable but so as not to leave the weak behind and so as shall still be truly subservient to the great Points of Faith Hope and Love Holiness and Unity which must be still inculcated as the beginning and the end of all 27. Another help to my Success was that my People were not Rich There were among them very few Beggers because their common Trade of Stuff-weaving would find work for all Men Women and Children that were able And there were none of the Trades-men very rich seeing their Trade was poor that would but find them Food and Raiment The Magistrates of the Town were few of them worth 40 l. per An. and most not half so much Three or four of the Richest thriving Masters of the Trade got but about 500 or 600 l. in twenty years and it may be lose 100 l. of it at once by an ill Debtor The generality of the Master Workmen lived but a little better than their
and that they were allowed to make odious any thing that was amiss and because it was faulty if any Man had rebuked them for belying it and making it far more faulty than it was instead of confessing their Sin they called their Reprover a Pleader for Antichrist or Baal every Error in the Mode of the Common Worship they had no fitter Name for than Idolatry Popery Antichristianism Superstition Will-worship c. when in the mean time many of their own Prayers were full of Carnal Passion Selfishness Faction Disorder vain Repitions unfound and loathsom Expressions and their Doctrine full of Errors and Confussion and these Beams in their own Eyes were matter of no Offence to them They would not communicate with that Church where ignorant Persons or Swearers were tollerated though they themselves never did their Part to have them cast out but look'd the Ministers should do all without them but without any scruple they would communicate with them that had broke their Vow and Covenant with God and Man and rebelled against both King Parliament and all kind of Government that was set up even by themselves and did all the fore-recited Evils I know these same Accusations are laid by some in Ignorance or Malice against many that are guilty of no such things and therefore some will be offended at me and say I imitate such Reproachers But shall none be reproved because some are slandered Shall Rebells be justified because some innocent Men are called Rebels Shall Hypocrites be free from Conviction and Condemnation because wicked Men call the Godly Hypocrites Woe to the Man that hath not a faithful Reprover but a Thousand Woes will be to him that hateth reproof And woe to them that had rather Sin were credited and kept in Honour than their Party dishonoured and Woe to the Land where the Reputation of Men doth keep Sin in Reputation Scripture it self will not spare a Noah a Lot a David a Hezekiab a Iosiah a Peter but will open and shame their Sin to all Generations And yet alas the Hearts of many who I hope are truly Religious in other Points will rise against him that shall yet tell them of the Misdoings of those of their Opinion and call them to Repentance The poor Church of Christ the sober sound religious Part are like Christ that was crucified between two Malefactors the prophane and formal Persecutors on one hand and the Fanatick dividing Sectary on the other hand have in all Ages been grinding the spiritual Seed as the Corn is ground between the Milstones And though their Sins have ruined themselves and us and silenced so many hundred Ministers and scattered the Flocks and made us the Hatred and the Scorn of the ungodly World and a by Word and Desolation in the Earth yet there are few of them that lament their Sin but justify themselves and their Misdoings and the penitent Malefactor is yet unknown to us And seeing Posterity must know what they have done to the Shame of our Land and of our sacred Profession let them know this much more also to their own Shame that all the Calamities which have befallen us by our Divisions were long foreseen by seeing Men and they were told and warned of it year after year They were told that a House divided against it self could not stand and told that it would bring them to the Halter and to Shame and turn a hopeful Reformation into a Scorn and make the Land of their Nativity a Place of Calamity and Woe and all this Warning signified nothing to them but these Ductile Professors bldinly followed a few selfconceited Teachers to this Misery and no warning or means could ever stop them Five dissenting Ministers in the Synod begun all this and carried it far on Mr. Philip Nye Mr. Tho. Goodwin Mr. Sydrach Sympson and Mr. William Bridge to whom that good Man Mr. Ieremiah Burroughs joined himself in Name but as he never practised their Church-gathering way so at last he was contented to have united on the Terms which were offered them and wrote his excellent Book of Heart Divisions After this they encreased and Mr. Burroughs being dead Dr. Iohn Owen arose not of the same Spirit to fill up his place by whom and Mr. Phillip Nye's Policie the Flames were encreased our Wounds kept open and carried on all as if there had been none but they considerable in the World and having an Army and City Agents fit to second them effectually hindred all remedy till they had dash'd all into pieces as a broken Glass O! what may not Pride do and what Miscarriages will not false Principles and Faction hide One would think that if their Opinions had been certainly true and their Church-Orders good yet the Interest of Christ and the Souls of Men and of greater Truths should have been so regarded by the Dividers in England as that the Safety of all these should have been preferred and not all ruined rather than their way should want its carnal Arm and Liberty and that they should not tear the Garment of Christ all to pieces rather than it should want their Lace § 148. And it must be acknowledged also impartially that some of the Presbyterian Ministers frightned the Sectaries into this Fury by the unpeaceableness and impatiency of their Minds They ran from Libertinism into the other Extream and were so little sensible of their own Infirmity that they would not have those tollerated who were not only tollerable but worthy Instruments and Members in the Churches The Reconcilers that were ruled by prudent Charity always called out to both the Parties that the Churches must be united upon the Terms of primitive Simplicity and that we must have Unity in things necessary and Liberty in things unnecessary and Charity in all But they could never be heard but were taken for Adversaries to the Government of the Church as they are by the Prelates at this Day Nay when in Worcestershire we did but agree to practice so much as all Parties were agreed in they said we did but thereby set up another Party We told them of Archbishop Usher's Terms in his Sermon before the King on Eph. 4. 3. but they would not hear The Lord Bacon in his Third Essay and his Considerations Mr. Hales in his Treatise of Schism and all men of sound Experience and Wisdom have long told the World that we must be united in things Necessary which all Christians agree in or which the Primitive Churches did unite in or not at all But nothing shorter than the Assemblies Confession of Faith and Catechisms and and Presbytery would serve turn with some Their Principles were that no others should be tolerated which set the Independants on contriving how to grasp the Sword They were still crying out on the Magistrate that he was irreligious for suffering Sects and because he did not bring Men to Conformity And now they cannot be tollerated themselves to preach nor scarce to dwell in the Land
The Uniting of the Churches upon the Primitive Terms and the tollerating not of all but of tollerable Differences is the way to Peace which almost all Men approve of except those who are uppermost and think they have the Reins in their own hands And because the side which is uppermost are they that have their Wills therefore the Churches had never a settled Peace this Thousand years at least the true way of Settlement and Peace being usually displeasing to them that must give Peace to others But this way hath the mark of being the best in that it is the only way which every Sect acknowledge for the second and next the best and is it which all except the predominant Party liketh But Wisdom is justified of her Children § 149. To consummate the Confusion by confirming and increasing the Division the Independants at last when they had refused with sufficient pervicacy to associate with the Presbyterians and the Reconcilers too did resolve to shew their proper strength and to call a General Assembly of all their Churches The Savoy was their Meeting-place There they drew up a Confession of their Faith and the Orders of their Church Government In the former they thought it not enough expresly to contradict St. Iames and to say unlimitedly That we are justified by the Righteousness of Christ only and not by any Works but they contradicted St. Paul also who faith That Faith is imputed for Righteousness And not only so but they expresly asserted that we have no other righteousness but that of Christ. A Doctrine abhorred by all the Reformed and Christian Churches and which would be an utter shame to the Protestant Name if what such Men held and did were indeed imputable to the sober Protestants I asked some honest Men that joyned with them Whether they subscribed this Confession and they said No. I asked them why they did not contradict it and they said that the meaning of it was no more than that we have no other Righteousness but Christ's to be justified by So that the Independant's Confessions are like such Oaths and Declarations as speak one thing and mean another Also in their Propositions of Church Order they widened the breach and made things much worse and more unreconcileable than ever they were before So much could two Men do with many honest tractable young Men and had more Zeal for separating Strictness than Iudgment to understand the Word of God or the Interest of the Churches of the Land and of themselves § 150. But it hath pleased God by others that were sometime of their way to do more to heal this Breach than they did to make it wider I mean the Synod of New-England who have published such healing Propositions about stated Synods and Infants Church Membership as hath much prepared for a Union between them and all other moderate Men And some One hath strenuously defended those Propositions against the opposition of Mr. Davenport a dissenting Brother I take this to be more for healing than the Savoy Propositions can be effectual to divide because the New-England men have not blemished their Reputation nor lost the Authority and Honour of their Judgments by any such Actions as the leading Savoyers have done § 151. When the Army had brought themselves and the Nation into utter Confusion and had set up and pull'd down Richard Cromwell and then had set up the Rump again and pull'd them down again and set up a Council of State of themselves and their Faction and made Lambert their Head next under Fleetwood whom they could use almost as they would at last the Nation would endure them no longer nor sit still while the world stood laughing them to scorn as acting over the Minster Tragedy Sir George Booth and Sir Thomas Middleton raised Forces in Cheshire and North-Wales but the Cavaliers that should have joyned with them failed them almost all over the Land a few rose in some places but were quickly ruined and came to nothing Lambert quickly routed those in Cheshire Sir Arthur Haselrigge with Col. Morley get into Portsmouth which is possessed as for the Rump Monk declareth against them in Scotland purgeth his Army of the Anabaptists and marcheth into England The Rump Party with Haselrigge divided the Army at home and so disabled them to oppose Monk who marcheth on and all are afraid of him and while he declareth himself against Monarchy for a Commonwealth he tieth the hands of his Enemies by a lie and uniteth with the City of London and bringeth on again the old ejected Members of the Parliament and so bringeth in the King Sir William Morrice his Kinsman and Mr. Clarges were his great Advisers The Earl of Manchester Mr. Calamy and other Presbyterians encouraged and perswaded him to bring in the King At first he joyned with the Rump against the Citizens and pull'd down the City Gates to master them but at last Sir Thomas Allen then Lord Mayor by the perswasion of Dr. Iacomb and some other Presbyterian Ministers and Citizens as he hath oft told me himself invited Monk into the City and drew him to agree and joyn with them against the Rump as they then called the Relicts of the Parliament And this in truth was the Act that turned the Scales and brought in the King whether the same men expected to be used as they have since been themselves I know not If they did their Self-denial was very great who were content to be silenced and laid in Gaols so they might but bring in the King After this the old Excluded Members of the Parliament meet with Monk He calleth them to sit and that the King might come in both by him and by them He agreeth with them to sit but a few days and then dissolve themselves and call another Parliament They consented and prepared for the King's Restoration and appointed a Council of State and Dissolved themselves Another Parliament is chosen which calleth in the King the Council of State having made further preparations for it For when the Question was Whether they should call in the King upon Treaty and Covenant which some thought best for him and the Nation the Council resolved absolutely to trust him Mr. A. especially perswading them so to do And when the King came in Col. Birch and Mr. Prin were appointed to Disband the Army the several Regiments receiving their Pay in several places and none of them daring to disobey No not Monk's own Regiments who brought in the King Thus did God do a more wonderful Work in the Dissolving of this Army than any of their greatest Victories was which set them up That an Army that had conquered three such Kingdoms and brought so many Armies to destruction cut off the King pull'd down the Parliament and set up and pull'd down others at their pleasure that had conquered so many Cities and Castles that were so united by Principles and Interest and Guilt and so deeply engaged as much
and the tolerated Churches and that they keep the Peace between these Churches and settle their several priviledges by a Law 2. That the Churches be accounted Tolerable who profess all that is in the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue in Particular and generally all that they shall find to be revealed in the Word of God and hold Communion in Teaching Prayer Praises and the two Sacraments not obstinately preaching any Heresie contrary to the particular Articles which they profess nor seditiously disturbing the Publick Peace And that such Heretical Preaching and such Seditious unpeaceableness or notorious Wickedness of Life do forfeit their Toleration 3. And that those that are further Orthodox in those Particulars which Rulers think fit to impose upon their Subjects have their publick Maintenance and greater Encouragement Yea and this much is become neccessary but upon supposition that Men will still be so self-conceited and uncharitable as not to forbear their unnecessary Impositions Otherwise there would be found but very few who are Tolerable that are not also in their measure to be approved maintained and encouraged And if the Primitive Simplicity in Doctrine Government and Worship might serve turn for the Terms of the Churches Union and Communion all would be well without any more ado supposing that where Christian Magistrates are they keep the Peace and repress the Offenders and exercise all the Coercive Government And hereticks who will subscribe to the Christian Faith must not be punished because they will subscribe to no more but because they are proved to preach or promote Heresie contrary to the Faith which they profess 28. I am farther than ever I was from expecting great matters of Unity Splendor or Prosperity to the Church on Earth or that Saints should dream of a Kingdom of this World or slatter themselves with the Hopes of a Golden Age or reigning over the Ungodly till there be a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness And on the contrary I am more apprehensive that Sufferings must be the Churches most ordinary Lot and Christians indeed must be self-denying Cross-bearers even where there are none but formal nominal Christians to be the Cross-makers And though ordnarily God would have Vicissitudes of Summer and Winter Day and Night that the Church may grow extensively in the Summer of Prosperity and intensively and radicatedly in the Winter of Adversity yet usually their Night is longer than their Day and that Dâ—y its self hath its Storms and Tempests For the Prognosticks are evident in their Causes 1. The Church will be still Imperfect and Sinful and will have those Diseases which need this bitter Remedy 2. Rich Men will be the Rulers of the World and Rich Men will be generally so far from true Godliness that they must come to Heaven as by Human Impossibilities as a Camel through a Needles Eye 3. The Ungodly will ever have an Enmity against the Image of God and he that is born of the Flesh will persecute him that was born after the Spirit and Brotherhood will not keep a Cain from killing an Abel who offereth a more acceptable Sacrifice than himself And the Guilty will still hate the Light and make a Prey to their Pride and Malice of a Conscionable Reprover 4. The Pastors will be still troubling the Church with their Pride and Avarice and Contentions and the worst will be seeking to be the Greatest and they that seek it are likest to attain it 5. He that is highest will be still imposing his Conceits upon those under him and Lording it over God's Heritage and with Diâ—trephes casting out the Brethren and ruling them by constraint and not as Volunteers 6. Those that are truly judicious will still comparatively be few and consequently the Troublers and Dividers will be the Multitude and a judicious Peace-maker and Reconciler will be neglected slighted or hated by both Extreams 7. The Tenour of the Gospel Predictions Precepts Promises and Threatnings are fitted to a People in a suffering State 8. And the Graces of God in a Believer are mostly sured to a State of Suffering 9. Christians must imitate Christ and suffer with him before they reign with him and his Kingdom was not of this World 10. The Observation of God's dealing hitherto with the Church in every Age confirmeth me and his befooling them that have dreamed of glorious Times It was such Dreams that transported the Munster Anabaptists and the Followers of David George in the Low Countries and Campanella and the Illuminati among the Papists and our English Anabaptists and other Fanaticks here both in the Army and the City and Country When they think the Golden Age is come they shew their Dreams in their extravagant Actions And as our Fifth Monarchy Men they are presently upon some unquiet rebellious Attempt to set up Christ in his Kingdom whether he will or not I remember how Abraham Scultetus in Curriculo Vitae suae confesseth the common Vanity of himself and other Protestants in Germany who seeing the Princes in England France Bohemia and many other Countrys to be all at once both Great and Wise and Friends to Reformation did presently expect the Golden Age But within one year either Death or Ruines of War or Back-slidings had exposed all their Expectations to Scorn and laid them lower than before 29. I do not lay so great a Stress upon the external Modes and Formes of Worship as many young Professors do I have suspected my self as perhaps the Reader may do that this is from a cooling and declining from my former Zeal though the truth is I never much complyed with Men of the Mind But I find that Iudgment and Charity are the Causes of it as for as I am able to discover I cannot be so narrow in my Principles of Church-Communion as many are that are so much for a Liturgy or so much against it so much for Ceremonies or so much against them that they can hold Communion with no Church that is not of their Mind and Way If I were among the Greeks the Lutherans the Independants yea the Anabaptists that own no Herisy nor set themselves against Charity and Peace I would hold sometimes occasional Communion with them as Christians if they will give me leave without forcing me to any sinful Subscription or Action Though my most usual Communion should be with that Society which I thought most agreeable to the Word of God if I were free to chuse I cannot be of their Opinion that think God will not accept him that prayeth by the Common-Prayer-Book and that such Forms are a self-invented Worship which God rejecteth Nor yet can I be of their Mind that say the like of extemporary Prayers 30. I am much less regardful of the Approbation of Man and set much lighter by Contempt or Applause than I did long ago I am oft suspicious that this is not only from the increase of Self-denial and Humility but partly from my being glutted and
Schism and Herefie come to be opened it will not be found to lye where you imagin nor so easily proved as rashly affirmed or intimated 2. Do not be too sensible of Persecution when Liberty of Conscience is so proclaimed though the Restriction be somewhat on your side O the difference of your Persecution and theirs that suffered by you 3. The only conscionable and safe way for the Church and your own Souls is to love long for pray and consult for Peace Close in the unanimous practice of so much as all are agreed in In amicable Meetings endeavour the healing of all breaches Disown the ungodly of all Parties Lay by the new violent Opinions inconsistant with Unity I expect not that this advice should please the prejudiced But that it 's the only safe and comfortable way is the Confident Opinion of Your Brother Richard Baxter All the Disturbance I had in my own Parish was by Sir Ralph Clare's refusing to Communicate with us unless I would give it him kneeling on a distinct Day and not with those that received it fitting To which Demand I gave him this following Answer SIR UPon Consultation with others and my own Conscience I return this Answer to your last motion beseeching you to believe that it had been more pleasing if it would have stood with the pleasing of God and any own Conscience 1. In general it is my resolution to be so far from being the Author of any Divisions in any part of the Church of Christ as that I shall do all that lawfully I can to avoid them 2. I am so far from the Judgment and Practices of the late Prelates of England in point of compelling all to obey or imitate them in gestures and other indifferent things on pain of being deprived of God's greatest Ordinances which are not indifferents beside the ruine of their Estates c. that I would become all things lawful to all Men for their good and as I know that the Kingdom of God standeth not in such things so neither would I shut any out of his visible Kingdom for such things as judging that our Office is to see God's Law obeyed as far as we can procure it and not to be Law-gives to the Church our selves and in Circumstantials to make no more Determinations than are necessary left they prove but Engines to ensnare Mens Consciences and to divide the Church And as I would impose no such things on other Churches if I had power so neither will I do it on this Church of which I have some oversight 3. More particularly I am certain that sitting in the receiving of the Lord's Supper is lawful or else Christ and his Apostles and all his Churches for many hundred years after him did sin which cannot be And I take it to be intolerable arrogancy and unmannerliness to speak easily to call that unreverence and sawciness as many do which Christ and the Apostles and all the Church so long used with one consent He better knew what pleaseth himself than we do The vain pretended difference between the Apostles Gesture and ours is nothing to the matter He that sitteth on the Ground sitteth as well as he that sitteth on a Stool And if any difference were it was their Gesture that seems the more homely and no such difference can be pretended in the Christian Churches many hundred years after And I think it is a naked pretence having no shew of reason to cover it of them that against all this will plead a necessity of kneeling because of our unworthiness For 1. The Churches of so long time were unworthy as well as we 2. We may kneel as low as the Dust and on our bare knees if we please immediately before in praying for a blessing and for the pardon of our sins and as soon as we have done 3. Man must not by his own Conceits make those things necessary to the Church which Christ and his Church for so long thought unnecessary 4. On this pretence we might refuse the Sacrament it self for they are more unworthy to eat the Flesh of Christ and to drink his blood than to sit at his Table 5. The Gospel is Glad Tidings the Effects of it are Faith and Peace and Joy the Benefits are to make us one with Christ and to be his Spouse and Members the work of it is the joyful Commemoration of these Benefits and living in Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And the Sacramental Signs are such as suit the Benefits and Duties If therefore Christ have called us by his Example and the Example of all his Church to sit with him at his Table to represent Our Union Communion and joyful redeemed State and our everlasting sitting with him at his Table in his Kingdom it as little beseems us to reject this Mercy and Duty because of our Unworthiness as to be our own Lawgivers And on the like Reasons men might say I will not be united to thee nor be a Member of thy Body or married to thee nor sit with thee on thy Throne Rev. 3. 21. according to thy Promise because it would be too great sawciness in me Gospel Mercies and Gospel Duties and Signs must be all suited and so Christ hath done them and we may not undo them 4. I must profess that upon such Considerations I am not certain that sitting is not of commanded Necessity as I am sure it is lawful nor am I certain that kneeling in the Act of Receiving when done of choice is not a flat sin For I know it is not only against Scripture Example where though Circumstances apparently occasional bind not as an upper Room c. yet that 's nothing to others but also it is against the Canons of Councils yea a General Council at Trull in Constantinople and against so concurrent a Judgment and Practice of the Church for many hundred years that it seems to fight with Vincentius Lerinens Catholick Rule quod semper ubique ab omnibus receptum c. Let them therefore justifie kneeling as lawful that can for I cannot and therefore dare not do that which shall be an owning of it when we may freely do otherwise 5. Yet for all this I so much incline to Thoughts of Peace and Closure with others that I will not say that sitting is of necessity nor that kneeling is unlawful unless where other Circumstances make it so nor condemn any that differ from me herein Yea if I could not otherwise Communicate with the Church in the Sacrament I would take it kneeling myself as being certain that the Sacrament is a Duty and not certain that kneeling is a sin and in that Case I believe it is not 6. As for them that think kneeling a Duty because of the Canons of the late Bishops enjoyning it I have more to say against their Judgment than this Paper will contain Only in a word 1. If it be the Secular Powers establishing those Canons that binds
them to Thoughts of practising it there though the dulness of some Pastors and the backwardness of the People were their great Discouragements § 43. But all these Beginnings which so comfortably smil'd upon us from all parts of the Land were clowded and obstructed by the proud Commotions and rebellious unquiet Humour of the Fanaticks especially the Military Anabaptists who thinking it lawful because it seem'd to set up their Sect did oppose the Ministry and trouble the Peace of the Nation and raise Stirs against all setled Government even against the Usurper whom they had themselves set up And when Cromwell was dead they set up his Son and pull'd him down again and set up others and pull'd down them and never ceased rebelling and overturning all before them till they had not left themselves a Bow to stand upon And Harrison's Party in the Conventicle called The Little Parliament as they cast out all the Ministers in Wales at once who though very weak and bad enough for the most part were better than none or so few Itinerants which they set up so they attempted and had almost accomplish'd the same in England The Independants thought that the Parishes were no true Churches and the Anabaptists thought that those baptised only in their Infancy were no Christians and so that they might have true Churches and Christians many Independants secretly and the Anabaptists openly promoted the Ejection of all the Parish ministers in England at one Vote that so they might set up the best of them again in an other way to make Men Christians and gather New Churches which they thought was better than to reform the old § 44. These Endeavours having been on foot all the time of Oliver's Usurpation and before promoted the Generation of Seekers Ranters Quakers and such others who sent forth many railing Words and Pamphlets and the Scope of all was against the Ministry which yet got ground even in these licentious times and prevailed against them and carried on their Work This was some Diversion to us while I and others were fain to dispute against Anabaptists and Quakers and Seekers and to answer their railing Invectives and to build with our Weapons in our Hands So that besides my Writings against them I seldom preached a Lecture but going and coming I was railed at by a Quaker in the Market-place in the way and frequently in the Congregation bawled at by the Names of Hireling Deceiver false Prophet Dog and such like Languge But all this in the Issue furthered our Work § 45. Before this there were two very sober Men in London Mr. Lamb and Mr. Allen who were Pastors of an Anabaptist separated Church The Wife of one of them an extraordinary intelligent Woman wrote me a Letter that her Husband was in troubled Thoughts not about Anabaptistry but about Separation upon that account and that if I would write to him now it might do him good which I did and gave him many Arguments to prove that though he should continue in his Opinion against Infant-Baptism yet he ought not to make it a Reason of denying Communion with his Brethren of another Mind These Arguments met with Thoughts of his own that tended the same way and in conclusion he was satisfied Afterwards the same Woman perswaded me to try with Mr. Allen also who in conclusion was satisfied And they dissolved their Church When this was done the Men being of extraordinary Sincerity and Understanding were very zealous for the reduction of their Brethren of the Anabaptists way And to that end they had a Meeting with divers of the most moderate Pastors of the Rebaptized Churches And they desired my Proposals or Terms on which we might hold Peace and Communion with them I sent them these Terms and they entered into Consultation of them and were in a very hopeful way of Agreement I saw no likelyhood of the contrary And suddenly the Broils of the Army pulling down Richard Cromwell and setting up I know not what and keeping all in Confusion broke off all our Consultations till the King came in And since then Men dare not prosecute the Agreement left they be taken as Conspirators that do it in preparation to a Plot so unhappily are the Affairs of the Church oft crossed by Secular Interests and Divisions in the World But these two Brethren at last cast off their Anabaptistry also and are now more zealous than other Men against Independency and Separation by how much the more they smarted by it The Terms of Agreement here ensue with a short Disputation preparatory thereto The Letters that pass't on this Occasion betwixt Mr. Baxter and Mr. Lamb and Mr. Allen are inserted in the Appendix Whether it be our Duty to seek Peace with the Anabaptists Because I conceive it no very difficult matter to resolve this Question I shall the more briefly dispatch it Only two Terms do need some Explication 1. What we mean by Anabaptists We do not here use the word with an intention of Reproach for that doth less besee ◠a Disputation of Peace but we are fain to make use of it as that Name by which that sort of Men are already commonly known and distinguished from all others as not knowing otherwise how to speak intelligibly of them without using Descriptions and Circumlocutions instead of well-known Names or Titles which would be contrary to the Common Rules of Discourse The Persons called by that Name in General are all that are for the Baptizing of those who were baptized in Infancy as supposing it null or unlawful Of these there are more Subdivisions than I will undertake to enumerate As to our present purpose it may suffice us to take distinct notice of these four sorts of them 1. Those that only deny Infant Baptism and are for the Necessity of Re-baptizing 2. Those that upon this account do also gather Separated Churches withdrawing from the Churches whereof they were Members and receiving none into Communion but the Re-baptized 3. Those that with the two former do hold many dangerous Errours either Pelagian or Antinomian or any other which yet do not so overthrow the Foundation but that the Persons holding them may be saved 4. Those that had such Errours as are inconsistent with a true Belief of the Fundamentals and consequently with Salvation And among the three former sorts we must distinguish between those that are peaceable temperate and willing of Communion with us and that endeavour not the ruine of the Church in their practice and those that are unpeaceable and refuse our Communion and set themselves to root out the Ministry or to destroy the Faith or Church of Christ. 2. The word Peace signifieth several things according to the several sorts of Men that we are related to with whom we must seek it 1. There is a Peace of bosom Friendship and this we owe not to many of the Saints themselves For of bosom Friends we must have but few 2. There
is a Peace of Actual Communion in the Worship of God as Members of the same particular Church Thus we owe not to every Christian though sincere in the main 3. There is a Peace which is among the Members of all particular Political Churches in the World as related to each other and obliged to hold Communion as far as is necessary for the Common Good 4. There is a Peace which is common to all professed Christians Members of the Universal Church though perhaps of no particular Political Church 5. There is a Peace to be kept with sober Heathens or Infidels 6. And there is a Peace to be kept with Enemies both of us and the Gospel as far as we can I shall give you my Thoughts about the present Question in these following Propositions Premising that 1. It is not the Peace of bosom Friendship that the Question intendeth and Ergo we need not stand on that 2. Nor is it the Peace that is due to Enemies or that is due to Infidels and those without but it is the other sorts due to the several sorts of Christians Prop. 1. We may not have that Peace which is proper to Christians much less that which is proper to Christians in Church-Order with any that deny the Essentials of Christianity Prop. 2. As for those Anabaptists that in zeal for their Opinion do endeavour the Extirpation of the Ministry or of those of them that are against their Opinions or any other way do attempt that which would tend to the ruine or great damage of the Church we may not have that Peace and Communion with them as with inâ—ffensive Brethren but must admonish them as scandalous and gross Sinners and avoid them if after due admonition they desist not and repent not Prop. 3. Those that deny the Divine Institution or present Existence of Ministry or Worship and Ordinances or governed Churches are uncapable of being Members of any true Political Church and Ergo we cannot have such Church-Communion with them and because their Doctrine is of heinous Consequence as tending to the destruction of all Church-Order Worship and Communion we must reject them if they shall teach it after due Admonition Prop. 4. As for them that think it unlawful to have Communion with us unless we will renounce our Infant Baptism and be rebaptized we cannot have Communion with them in that Case though we would because they refuse it with us Prop. 5. We cannot lawfully disown the Truth of God nor own their Errours for Communion with them nor may we yield for any such Ends to be rebaptized Prop. 6. We may not lawfully be Members of a Church of Anabaptists separated on that Account from others nor of any other unlawfully separated Church nor ordinarily Communicate with them in their way of Separation though we might be admitted to it without any other disowning the Truth or owning their Mistakes Except it were in a case of Necessity as if such a Church were removed among Infidels or gross Hereticks where we could have no better Communion in worshipping God Prop. 7. If any one that Erreth but in the bare Point of Infant Baptism or other Errours that subvert not the Christian Faith shall yet take it to be his duty to propagate those Errours it will be the duty of every Orthodox Minister when he hath a Call and findeth it Necessary to defend the Truth of such Errours and to endeavour the establishing of the Minds of the People and not to let them go on without Controll or Contradiction lest he be guilty of betraying the Truth and Peace of the Church and the Souls of the People who are usually sorely endangered hereby The like must be done by Private Christians privately or according to their Places and Capacities So much for the Negative The Affirmatives follow Prop. 1. The Common Love which is due to all Men and the Common Peace which must be endeavoured with all must be held or endeavoured as to them that deny the Essentials of Christianity But as is before said this is not it that the Question doth intend Prop. 2. It is our Duty to do the best we can to reclaim any Erroneous or Ungodly Person from his Errour or Impiety that so they may be capable of that further Love and Peace and Communion with us which in their present state they are uncapable of Prop. 3. Those that believe not some Points that are necessary to the Constitution or Communion of Political Churches if yet they believe in Christ and worship God so far as they know his Will and live uprightly may be true Christians and so to be esteemed even when they make themselves uncapable of being Members of any Political Church Prop. 4. Some Anabaptists and others that make themselves uncapable of being Members of the same particular Churches with us or of local Communion in God's Worship may yet be acknowledged to be Christian Societies or truly particular Political Churches though in tantum corrupt and sinfully separated I mean this of all those that differ not from us in any Article of our Creed or Fundamental of Christian Religion nor yet in any Fundamental of Church Policy As e. g. those that only re-baptize and deny Infant Baptism or also hold some of the less dangerous Points of 〈◊〉 or Pâ—lagianism but withal hold all the Fundamentals necessary to Salvation and Church Policy or Communion Prop. 5. If any Person disclaim his Infant Baptism and be Re-baptized and then having so satisfied his Conscience shall continue his Communion with the Church where he was a Member and not separate from them and shall profess his willingness to embrace the Truth at soon as he can discern the Evidence of 〈◊〉 and shall live 〈◊〉 and inoffensively under the Oversight of the Church-Guides 〈◊〉 may not Exclude such a one from 〈◊〉 Communion but must continue him a Member of that particular Church and live with him in that love and peace as is due to such Prop. 6. If such an one should also mistake it to be his Duty publickly to enter his Dissent to the Doctrine of Infant Baptism and so to acquiesce and live quietly under the oversight of the Ministry and in the Communion of that Church he ought not to be rejected Prop. 7. It is our Duty to invite those called Anabaptists now among us to loving familiar Conferences of purpose 1. To narrow our Differences as far as is possible by a true stating of them that they seem not greater than they are 2. And to endeavour if possible yet to come nearer by rectifying of Mistakes 3. And to consult how to improve the Principles that we are all agreed in to the Common Good and to manage our remaining Differences in the most peaceable manner and to the least disturbance or hurt of the Church Here come in two more Questions to be resolved 1. How should such an Attempt be managed 2. What hope is there of Success For the first I shall
from their Churches Answ. No but consent to improve the common Truths and perform our Duties even to such as differ from us in this Object 3. There is not one of an hundred of them that will consent to these Terms Answ. If they will not who can help it when we have tried them we have done our Duty and left them without Excuse Object 4. Shall we confess a Schismatical Church for a true Church Answ. Every Schism nulleth not the Church or Ministry that is guilty of it else most of the Churches in the World were nulled If they reject the Essentials of a Church they are none Object 5. Baptism is Essential to a Church The Apostle Heb. 6. 1. putteth it among the Principles Answ. 1. It is only the thing signified by Baptism that is Essential 2. The Apostle calls it a Principle because it is one of the first things taught but not because it is Essential to a Church 3. The Anabaptists have Baptism in their Churches though not of Infants Object 6. To make a League with Schsmaticks is to be guilty of their Schism Answ. True If by that League you own approve or consent to their Schism But not by agreeing with them to perform Common Duties Object 7. They are undermining the Church and Ministry and shall we seek peace with such Answ. 1. Those that we speak of are not such 2. If they were yet it is our Duty to hinder them by agreeing to moderate Ways and Common Duties Object 8. They are guilty of their Infants Damnation as much as in them lyeth by not believing their part in the Covenant nor dedicating them to God Answ. They virtually consent for their Infants in that they would actually do it if they knew the Promise Object 9. They are under God's visible Displeasure Ergo c. Answ. So far as God disowneth them we must do so but no further Object 10. We shall be reproached as complying with them Answ. Slanderous Tongues cannot excuse us from plain Duties Object 11. Those whom we should Excommunicate we may not have Communion with But the Anabaptists should be Excommunicated Ergo c. Answ. I deny the Minor taken of such Anabaptists as we have now in question Object 12. It is a scandalous Sin unrepented of Answ. 1. So is many a greater Errour which Men must not be Excommunicated for 2. It is virtually repented of seeing if they knew the Evil of it they would repent Object 13. You would have a looser Discipline than the Prelates or Papists for they would not Communicate with Anabaptists Answ. 1. I only avoid dividing rigour and cruelty 2. They have Multitudes in their Communion that know not what Baptism is nor to what use nor who Christ is whether God or Man nor many other Fundamentals Ergo Their Discipline is far looser than I desire but too partial also The Anabaptists object We are bound to propagate the Truth and if you will have Communion with us you must be baptized Answ. 1. You are bound to propagate first the greatest Truths that Salvation lyeth on and to do nothing that may hinder this by promoting your own Opinions 2. If you reject Communion with all but Anabaptists you reject all the Church through most Ages of the World And no Church no Christ and no Christ no Christians nor any Salvation 3. Blame us not if we be not easily brought to your Opinion if we had but these Reasons 1. You confess no thanks to you that Infants were once Church-Members by God's appointment and have never yet proved that he cast them out again And we must have good proof of that before we can be satisfied with your way 2. We cannot be hasty to believe an Evil and we know that it is a sad Penal Evil for Infants to be put out of the Church And Ergo we will have proof of it before we believe it 3. It must be no easie matter with us to believe that the Head and Shepherd of the Church hath de facto had a Church of a false Constitution as to the very Materials and Enterance from the beginning to this day except a few within this twenty years that troubled it in a Corner of the World and that now in the end of the World we must expect a right Constitution as if Christ had slept or regarded not his Church or been the Head of a Body which he disowned We cannot hastily believe such things I say again No Church no Christ for No Body no Head And if no Christ then there is no Christ now Take heed therefore how you unâ—unâ—Church or difown the whole Church of Christ in the very frame for so many Ages An Offer of Christian fraternal Communion to the Brethren that are against or doubtful about Baptizing Infants of Believers IT is our exceeding Joy that we have all one God one Saviour one Spirit one Faith and one Baptismal Covenant one Rule of Faith and Life one End and Hope and are Members of one Catholick Church and agree about God's Worship in the most and greatest parts And it is our Grief and the Matter of our great Humiliation that we can come no nearer and that by the Remnants of our Differences the Wicked are so hardened the Weak offended our Charity hindered our holy Communion and mutual Edification disturbed our Minds discomposed and the Gospel the Catholick Church and our Saviour dishonoured Lamenting this with the rest of our Unhappiness while we are in the Flesh and absent from the Lord the Centre of Perfect Unity and Concord and knowing it to be our Duty to walk by the same Rule and mind the same things so far as we have attained and being taught of God to love one another and observing how frequently and urgently Brotherly Love and Forbearance and the Unity and Concord of Christians is prest in the holy Scriptures and Uncharitableness and Divisions condemned that as far as may be we may promote our Common Ends of Christianity and with one Mind and Mouth may glorifie God We whose Names are under-written do make this following Offer of Communion 1. To all those that joyn with us in the foregoing Profession of the Christian Faith and have been Baptized since their Infant-Baptism as thinking it unlawful or insufficient we offer free Communion in our particular Churches with leave to Enter your dissent from our Infant-Baptism into the Church-Register or Records so be it you will thence-forth walk in that Love and Holiness and that Obedience to the faithful Overseers of the Flock and that Concord and Brotherly Communion with the Church as is required in the holy Scriptures according to your power and will resist Uncharitableness Discord and Divisions and joyn with us in our Common Work for the Common Ends. 2. To all those that joyn with us in the foregoing Profession of Faith though they have been baptized since their Infant-Baptism or think that Baptism unlawful and dare not hold Local Communion with us in
Errours have divided and distracted the Christian Churches and one would think Experience should save us from them § 53. But the Brethren resolved that they would hold on the way which they had begun And though they were honest and competently judicious Men yet those that managed the Business did want the Judgment and Accurateness which such a Work required though they would think any Man supercilious that should tell them so And the tincture of Faction stuck so upon their Minds that it hindered their Judgment The great doer of all that worded the Articles was Dr. Owen Mr. Nye and Dr. Goodwin and Mr. Syd Sympson were his Assistants and Dr. Cheynell his Scribe Mr. Marshall a sober worthy Man did something the rest sober Orthodox Men said little but suffered the Heat of the rest to carry all § 54. When I saw they would not change their Method I saw also that there was nothing for me and others of my Mind to do but only to hinder them from doing harm and trusting in their own Opinions or crude Conceirs among our Fundamentals And presently Dr. Owen in extolling the Holy Scriptures put in that That no Man could know God to Salvation by any other means I told him that this was neither a Fundamental nor a Truth and that if among the Papists or any others a poor Christian should believe by the teaching of another without ever knowing that there is a Scripture he should be saved because it is promised that whoever believed should be saved He said awhile That there could be no other way of Saving Revelation of Jesus Christ I told him that he was savingly revealed by Preaching many years before the New Testament was written He told us that the Primitive Church was bound to believe no more from the Apostles but what was written before in the Old Testament and proved thence I told him that by that Assertion he subverted the Christian Church and Faith 1. By overthrowing the Material 2. and the Formal Object of our Faith or the medium necessary thereto 1. For the Matter it is not in the Old Testament That this Iesus is the Christ that he is already incarnate conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary fulfilled the Law suffered was crucified buried and rose again ascended into Heaven and is there at the right hand of God in our Nature and therein intercedeth for the Church that he hath instituted the Sacraments sent his Apostles given the Holy Ghost to them to direct them into all Truth c. with more of the like 2. That if Christ and his Apostles were not to be believed for the Image of God appearing on their Doctrine and the Divine Attestation of Miracles confirming it then Moses and the Prophets were not for those Reasons to be believed And consequently not to be believed at all for there was no reason to believe them which Christ also gave us not for the belief of him and his Apostles After a deal of wrangling about these Things because the Doctor was the hotter and better befriended in that Assembly and I was then under great Weakness and Soporous or Scotomatical Ilness of my Head I asked their leave to give them the Reasons of my Opinion in Writing which I brought in and never received any Answer to it And yet if Mr. Vines who came but seldom had not stuck to me when he was there they would have made the World believe as some of them endeavoured that I was Popish and pleaded for the Sufficiency of Tradition to Salvation without the Scripture But Bishop Usher was of the same mind with me and told me that he had said the same to the Iesuits Challenge Cap. de Tradit § 55. Many other such crude and unsound Passages like the Savoy Articles of Justification after put into the Independant Agreement had come into our New Fundamentals And all because the over-Orthodox Doctors Owen and Cheynell took it to be their Duty in all their Fundamentals to put in those words which as they said did obviate the Heresies and Errours of the Divines Whenas I told them they should make the Rule to look no way but strait forward and put in their Rejections after as the Synod of Dort doth as being the Contradictions of the Rule One merry passage I remember occasioned laughter Mr. Sympson caused them to make this a Fundamental That He that alloweth himself or others in any known sin cannot be saved I pleaded against the word allowed and told them that many a Thousand lived in wilful sin which they could not be said to allow themselves in but confessed it to be sin and went on against Conscience and yet were impenitent and in a state of Death And that there seemed a little contradiction between known sin and allowed so far as a Man knoweth that he sinneth he doth not allow that is approve it Other Exceptions there were but they would have their way and my opposition to any thing did but heighten their Resolution At last I told them As stiff as they were in their opinion and way I would force them with one word to change or blot out all that Fundamental I urged them to take my wager and they would not believe me but marvelled what I meant I told them that the Parliament took the Independant way of Separation to be a sin and when this Article came before them they would say By our Brethrens own Judgment we are all damned Men if we allow the Independants or 〈◊〉 other Sectaries in their sin They gave me no Answer but they left out all that Fundamental The Papers which I gave them in were these Without the Knowledge of whom by the Revelation of Scripture there is no Salvation The Words by the Revelation of the Scripture I desired might be either here left out or changed into the Revelation of the Gospel or the Word of God To this you will not consent because it would intimate that there may be another co-ordinate way of Revealing Christ besides the written Word by which there may be Salvation I cannot subscribe to the Article as it stands of which when I have shewed the point of our Difference I shall give you my Reasons 1. Our Difference is not de doctrina tradita but de modo tradendi For I have fully acknowledged that there is no Salvation without the Knowledge of the Essentials of the Christian Faith 2. And that the Light of Nature and Book of the Creatures is insufficient hereunto So far we are agreed as to the way of the Revelation 3. Nor do I doubt of the full Perfection of the Scripture but detest the Popish Doctrines of Traditions or unwritten Verities to supply what is supposed to be wanting in the Scripture as if it were but a part of God's Word for the revealing of these supernatural things I desired rather that you would more fully express the Scriptures Perfection and Infallability 4. Nor is it any doubt
between us whether Men should wait for farther objective Revelations or Additions to the written Word or whether we should condemn the Errors of the Enthusiasts herein we are agreed in all this 5. Nor is the Question de Officio whether it be the Duty of all Men to look out after the written Word as far as they can and rest in it 6. Nor is the Question whether the Scripture only have the proper Nature of a Rule to Judge Controversies by 7. Nor yet whether Scripture be of necessity to the Church in General 8. Nor whether it be necessary as a means to the Salvation of all that have it 9. Nor whether it be the only sufficient means of safe keeping and propagating the whole Truth of God which is necessary to the Church 10. But the Question is of every particular Soul on Earth whether we may thus assert that there is no Salvation for them unless they know Christ by the Revelation of the Scripture And I cannot assent to the Article for these Reasons 1. It seems a Snare by the unmeet Expressions 2. We cannot be certain of the Truth of it 3. It is not of so great necessity as that all should be cast out of the Ministry though in other things Orthodox that will not own it 4. Much less is it a Fundamental Nor dare I judge all to Damnation that are not herein of your Opinion 5. It seems to me to be injurious to Christianity it self 6. And to the present intended Reformation 7. And to the Parliament 8. And to our selves 1. For the First of these Reasons It is confessed by some here that a Man may be converted by the Doctrine of the Scripture before he know the Writings or their Authority and that you intend not to assert that the divine Authority of the Scripture is that primum credibile which must needs be believed before any Truth therein contained can be savingly believed And it is thought by some that your Assertion is made good if it be but proved that all saving Revelation that is now in the World is from Scripture originally and subordinate to it and not co-ordinate But the obvious Sense of your Words will seem to many to be this that the particular Knowledge of that Person who will be saved must be by Scripture Revelation as the objective Cause or Instrument even under that Consideration either in the Mind of the Speaker or Hearer or both If it should be said that the Revelation which converted this or that Sinner did arise from the Scriptures a Thousand Years ago But hath since been taken up as coming another way and so there hath been an Intermission of ascribing it to the Scripture as to those Men by whom it was carried down this will not seem to agree with your Expressions And seeing many others must be Judges of your Sense who shall have Power to trie Ministers hereby you enable them by your obscure Expressions to wrong the Church oppress their Brethren and introduce Errors And so it seems you frame a â—nare 2. And you will put every poor Christian in these Places where Christ's Faith is known to many but by Verbal Tradition into an Impossibility of knowing that they have any true Faith because they cannot know that it came from the Scriptures 2. That we are not certain of the Truth of this Assertion nor can I be Judge 1. Because there was Salvation from Adam to Moses by Traâ—â—â—ion without the written Word and there was a considerable space of time after Christ's Assention before the Scriptures of the New Testament were written The first Christians were savingly called and the Churches gathered without these Writings by the preaching of the Doctrine which is now contained in them And though that be now necessary to the Safety of the Church and Truth which was not so necessary when the Apostles were present yet it is unproved that there is more necessary to the Salvation of every Soul now than was in those Days And it is considerable that it was not only the preaching of the Apostles but of all other Publishers of the Gospel in those Times that was in suo genere sufficient for Conversion without Scripture Yea and to the Gentiles that knew not the Scriptures of the Old Testament 2. If there be no Salvation but by a Scripture Revelation then either because there is no other way of revealing the Marrow of the Gospel or because it will not be saving in another way But neither of these can be proved true Ergo for the latter 1. The Word of God and Doctrine of his Gospel may save if revealed supposing other Necessaries in their Kinds For it sufficeth to the formal Object of Faith that it be veracitas revelantis and to the material Object that it be Hoc verum bonum revelatum but it must be truly revelatum though not by Scripture Ergo 2. God hath promised Salvation to all that truly believe and not to those that believe only by Scripture-Revelation nor hath he any where told us that he will annex his Spirits help to no other Revelation 2. For the former That there is now in the World no other way of revealing the Marrow of the Gospel but by Scripture or from it 1. It cannot be proved by Scripture as will appear when your Proofs are tryed 2. The contrary is defended by most learned Protestants 1. A Praecepto another collateral way of Revelation is commanded by God Ergo there 's another 2. From certain History and Experience which speak of the Performance of those Commands and the Instances they give of both are these 1. Ministers are commanded to preach the Gospel to all Nations before it was written and a Promise annexed that Christ would be with them to the end of the World In Obedience whereunto not only the Apostles but Multitudes more did so preach which was by delivering the great Master-Verities which are now in the written Word This Command is not reverst by the writing of the Word And therefore is still a Duty as to deliver the Gospel Doctrine in and by the Scripture so collaterally to preach the Substance of that Doctrine as delivered from the Mouth of Christ and his Apostles 2. Christ commanded before the Gospel was written to baptize Men into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost for the Pardon of Sin upon repenting and believing and for the hope of everlasting Glory upon a holy Life This was done accordingly both before and since the writing of the Gospel And so the very Sum and Kernel of the Gospel and indeed all the true Fundamentals and Essentials of the Christian Faith have been most certainly and constantly delivered down by Baptism as a collateral way distinct from the written Word which is evident in the very Succession of Christians to this Day 3. Another means hath been by Symbols called Creeds and Catechising which was mostly by opening the Creeds As Reverend Bishop Usher hath
Divisions or satisfying the Desires and Consciences of multitudes of Persons truly fearing God And if we may not have Discipline to promote a just Reformation of Manners we shall still have irregular Attempts of Reformation But it is not the Name that we insist on Call them Rural Deans or Arch-Deacons or what you please so be it they may be authorized to do the things â—ere desired even to exercise that Discipline which one Bishop in a County cannot exercise 6. A General Care is one thing and the Special Charge of the particular Pastor is another The former extendeth no further than to oversee the particular Pastors and to receive Appeals in extraordinary Cases from any of the People and to teach them in course while as Visitors they pass from one Parish to another and in the same manner to administer Sacraments and personally exercise Parish Discipline But the Special Charge containeth an Obligation to watch over each particular Person in an ordinary teaching them publickly and privately as they have occasion and opportunity and plucking up all Weeds of Heresie and Profaneness that shall spring up among them resolving Doubts convincing Gainsayers and ordinarily guiding them in Publick Worship calling the Offenders to Penitence and absolving the Penitent and binding over the Impenitent to the Judgment Seat of Christ and requiring the People to avoid them If you impose on every Diocesan Bishop besides the fore-described General Care this Special Charge over every Soul as every Pastor of a particular Church hath you will take an effectual Course to keep the most pious modest and thoughtful Persons out of that rank And your Phrase of Intrusting so much as is found necessary in the hands of the Rector of each Parish seemeth to intimate that you take those Rectors not only for Men of a distinct Order or Office from the Bishops but also of an Office that it is not of Divine Institution and described by God but of Humane Institution and left to the Bishop's Discretion what it shall be and how much power such shall have and that they are to be intrusted with it from the Bishops as the Italians in Concil Trident. would have had the Bishops to have theirs from the Pope If this be your meaning it will not reconcile If it be not then the Rectors of each Parish may knowâ— their Office from the Holy Scripture and receive it as from Christ who hath instituted it and entrusted them with it 7. We desire the Scripture Confession but to the Extent and Securing of our Peace and Concord If Papists would agree upon such a Confession yea on a Subscription to the whole Scripture we should rejoice But they cannot do it without ceasing to be Papists And many may rise up among our selves that may scruple some words in the 39 Articles that are not fit ergo to be persecuted and cast out of the Church as Mr. Chillingworth's Instance proves 1. As he that should scruple some one word of no great weight in Athanasius's Creed contrary to Art 8. 2. Or the absolute Exclusion of Works in the Article of Justification Art 11. 3. Or the displeasingness and sinfulness of Works before Faith and their not making Men meet to receive Grace Art 13. 4. And that voluntary Works besides or above God's Commandments cannot be taught without Aâ—â—ogancy and Impiety vide Annot. Dr. H. H. in 1 Cor. 9. 16 17. Art 14. 5. If any think that the Virgin Mary or Infants offended not in many things Art 15. We question whether it be according to the Ancient Simplicity or Charity to cast out all these from our Churches 6. And what if Dr. Taylor and many others cannot Subscribe to Art 9. and 2. 7. And if a Man believe not that by good Works a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a Tree discerned by the Fruit should he be presently cast out Art 12. 8. The 21 Art concludeth that General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes and some think it may as well besaid that we may not meet for Publick Worship without their Command and Will and that this proveth that there never was a General Council nor ever will be because the Princes Infidels and Christians in whose Dominions the Bishops live never did or will generally Consent to have their Subjects go to a General Council 9. The 31st Art concludeth that there is none other Satisfaction for Sin but Christ's alone which many beside Grotius do contradict 10. Many dare not Subscribe to the 34th Art without restrictionâ— 11. Many good Men dare not so fully approve of all the Homilies as Art 35. dothâ— 12. Many have refused Subscription because of Art 36 it being hard so far to justifie every word in such Humane Writings as the Book of Consecration is Now it seems against our Unity to make such a Test of it as all Persons tolerable cannot agree in And it seems contrary to the Ancient Simplicity which required no other Test than the Scriptures and the Creeds And it hardeneth the Papists to call on us to prove a Succession of Protestants from the first Ages that is of Men that have held all the 39 Articles But yet we highly value the 39 Articles as found and moderate and if we can procure no nearer a recourse to Scripture and Ancient Simplicity we shall cheerfully submit to the 39 Articles if the Doctrine of Bishops and Ceremonies might be left out as Matters of Practice and not of Faith as long as we are responsible for any Disobedience And it 's hard if such things must be Subscribed as of Necessity to our Church Communion or Ministry And that these have been excepted against by the Old Nonconformists I suppose you know And if you could be content with a Scripture Confession if Rome would yield to it why should you deny to your Brethren at home that which you would grant the Romanists and therefore confess you may lawfully grant Let us lay down such a Rule of Concord as is fit for all to yield to and then leave all to accept it as they please and so they cannot blame our Religion nor maintain their Alienation But if we will not be content with a Rule that 's fitted for Universal Concord we keep Men from it And seeing you now say It 's reasonable that we be clog'd with no more why might not the same have been said of some of the fore-mentioned Passages if they had been left out 8. But the Doubt is Whether you will allow the Title of the Ministers now in possession except as before excepted or whether you will rather judge all their Titles void that were not Ordained by Diocesan Bishops Lastly We desire to know whether all the rest not touched on and excepted against in these Notes have your Consent as that Bishops be chosen by the whole Clergy and Ordain not and Censure not without their Synods c. O how easie were a
he lived in the House of a certain Nobleman near our parts and that being much in London he is there the chief Hector or great Disputer for the Papists and that he was the chief of the two Men who had held and printed the Dispute with Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning And when I saw what Advantage he had got by printing that Dispute I resolved that he should not do so by me and so I printed all our Papers but before I printed them I urged him to some farther Conference and at our next meeting I told him how necessary it was that we should agree first of the meaning of our Terms and I wrote down some few as Church Pope Council Bishop Heresy Schism c. which I desired him to explain to me under his Hand promising him the like whenever he desired it which when I had got from him I gave him some Animadversions on it shewed their Implications to which he answered and to that I replyed And when he came no more to me nor gave me any Answer I printed all together which made him think it necessary at last to write a Confutation whereto I have since published a full Rejoinder to which I can procure no Answer § 84. And not long after hearing that the Countess of Balcarres was not well I went to visit her and found her grievously afflicted for her eldest Daughter the Lady Ann Lindsey about sixteen or seventeen Years of Age who was suddenly turned Papist by she knew not whom She told me that when she first heard of it she desired Dr. Gunning to meet with the Priest to dispute with him and try if her Daughter might be recovered who pretended then to be in Doubt And that Dr. Gunning first began to persuade her Daughter against the Church of Scotland which she had been bred in as no true Church and after disputed but about the Pope's Infallability and â—eft her Daughter worse than before and that she took it to be a strange way to deliver her Daughter from Popery to begin with a Condemnation of the Reformed Churches as no true Churches and confess that the Church and Ministry of Rome was true She desired me that I would speak to her Daughter and try whether she would yet enter into Conference about the Reason of her Faith But she utterly refused it and would say nothing to that purpose but refer us to the Church and profess her acquiescence in its Judgment and when I desired to know of her how she knew what was the Judgment of the Church whether it were not meerly the Word 〈◊〉 the Priest that satisfied her in this and therefore desired her that she would hear that Priest or Jesuit on whose Word she built all her Faith in the Presence of some one that was fit to help her in the Tryal of his Assertions and intreated her to procure a Conference in her hearing between him and me she promised readily that it should be done The next time I came again and askt whether she had spoke with him about it and whether time and place were agreed on she confidently told me that he was ready to do it when I pleased and that all he desired was that my Promise might secure him from Accusation and from the danger of the Law and that was all that he was solicitous for I offered her to bring only two Witnesses on each side and that we might have two days Conference or Dispute in one of which he should give his Reasons why she ought to change her Religion and I would answer them and in the other I would give my Reasons why she ought not to change and he should answer me and I thought this the clearest and most impartial Method for the discerning of the Truth And I promised her all the Security which I could procure him from any danger The next time I came to know the Day she told me the Gentleman would not meet nor dispute I desired to know the Reason But she told me that she did not know her self I intreated her to procure some other to do it in whom she put the greatest Confidence and desired her to take the ablest she could get among all the Jesuits or Priests of the Queen or the Queen-Mother with whom I knew she was not unacquainted But she would not undertake for any whereupon I was forced to urge her with Provocations and tell her that seeing she was forced to resolve all her Faith into the Word of particular Priests by which only she knew the Sense of the Church and all that History which induced her to believe that Rome was the true Church she seemed very little to regard her Soul who would so far venture it upon the Words of Men that would not be provoked to an equal Conference in her hearing The next day I came I urged her again to procure a Conference She told me that the Gentleman would not consent And when I urged her to tell me his Reason she told me that he knew me very well and that he had very high Thoughts of me and that it was not now through any fear of Danger for he durst venture his Life in my Hands but since he knew it was me that he was to meet with he would not come but would not tell her why And though still I told her that there were more enough if he refused I could not procure her to bring any of them to a Dispute But at last when I purposely continued to provoke them she told me that he would yield to Dispute so it might be done only in Writing and not a Word spoken nor any thing written but Syllogistically and according to the strictest Rules of Disputation I told her 1. That I supposed that she understood not when an Argument was in Mood and Figure nor what a Fallacy was and therefore that this was not designed to her Edification 2. That I supposed that she had not read one of many of all those Books already written against them which are unanswered And if Writing will serve turn a printed Argument is as good as a written one Nor had she read the late Disputation between Mr. Iohnson and me nor were any one of my Books against them yet answered and why then should I write more till those were answered 3. I told her that Mr. Iohnson's Writing and mine held us above a Twelvemonth and yet was not driven to the Head And I asked her whether she would be willing to wait a Year or two and suspend her Resolution in Religion till she saw the Issue of our Disputation in Writing 4. I told her that it was like that he that offered this understood that by his Majesty's Pleasure I was then newly engaged in another Work which occasioned him to make this Offer 5. But yet that her Deceiver might have no Excuse I offered her that I would do all that he desired and manage it in Writing so be it
Duties will permit I have done my part in urging you and them with my offer till you call me unto more In the mean time Madam may I intreat you to read impartâ—ally and deliberately 1. My little Book called The Trâ—â— Catholick and Catholick Church c. which I shall send or bring you 2. My Preface before the Disputation with Mr. Iohnson and the Letters in the end and the Second Part and then the first 3. My two first Books against Popery The Safe Religion and The Key For your former reading of them before any doubting had made you observe the stress of Arguments is nothing if you will but now read them again impartially after your contrary Conceptions continue a Papist if you can And truly if you will not do thus much for your own Soul because Men engage you to the contrary that dare not appear to make good their own Cause I must be a Witness against you before the Lord that you wilfully resused Instruction and sold your Soul at too cheap a rate I tried when I was last with you to revive your Reason by proposing to you the Infallibility of the Common Senses of all the World and I could not prevail though you had nothing to answer that was not against Common Sense And it is impossible any thing controverted can be brought nearer you or made plainer than to be brought to your Eyes and Taste and Feeling and not yours only but all Mens else Sense goes before Faith Faith is no Faith but upon Supposition of Sense and Understanding if therefore Common Sense be fallible Faith must needs be so But methinks yet I should have hope of reviving your Charity You cannot be a Papist indeed but you must believe that out of their Church that is out of the Pope's Dominions there is no Salvation and consequently no Justification and Charity or saving Grace And is it possible you can so easily believe your religious Father to be in Hell your prudent pious Mother to be void of the Love of God and in a state of Damnation and not only me that am a Stranger to you but all the Millions of better People in the World to be in the same State of Gracelesness and Damnation and all because we believe not that the Pope is Christ's Vicar General or Deputy on Earth and dare not subject our selves to his usurped Dominions When we are ready to protest before the Lord as we shall answer it at his Bar that we would be his Subjects but for Fear of the high Displeasure of the true Head and King of the Church and for fear of sinning and Damning our own Souls And that we are heartily willing to read and study and pray and hear all that can be said for them and some of us read as much of their Writings as of our own and more and would not stick at Cost or Pains or Loss or Shame were it to travail over Land and Sea to find out that they are in the Right if that would do it and they be so indeed But the more we study the more we pray to God for his Assistance the more diligently we search we are the more resolved and convinced that their way as it differeth from ours is false and that they are the most Superstitious Tyrannical Leprous part of the Catholick Church condemning the main Body because they will not be under their abominable Dominion and will not sin as much as they We hold all that was held necessary by the Apostles and the ancient Church and we dare not make a new Faith to our selves as the Papal Sectaries have done Must we renounce both our Sense and Reason and put out the Eye of Natural Understanding and also renounce the Catholick Church and Christian Charity and step into the Throne and pronounce Damnation not only upon all the Saints of God that we have been acquainted with our selves but also on the Body of Christ which he died for even on the far greatest part of the Universal Church and all this because they will not depart from the Word of God to corrupt his Doctrine Discipline and Worship and herein obey an usurping Vice Christ must we do all this or else be judged to Damnation by the Sectaries of Rome For my part I shall be so far from fearing their Sentance that I appeal to Christ whose Body they condemn and I had rather be tortured in their Inquisition and cut as small as Herbs to the Pot and be accounted the odiousest Wretch on Earth than be guilty of being a Papist at all but especially on such hellish Terms as these If the greater part of the Church must be damned as no part of the Church it will be impossible to prove your Sect or Fragment to be the Church any more than any other Christ is the Saviour of his Body Eph. 5. 23 and to him as to its Head it 's subject ver 24. and this Body is that which is sanctified by him ver 26. And by one Spirit all his Members are baptized into one Body 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. Did you never note where the Unity of the Body is fulliest described that Apostles themselves are made but Members and Christ only the Head 1 Cor. 27 28 29. Eph. 4. 4 5 7 11. There is but one Lord c. but diversity of gifts of whom the Apostles are the chief And when Thousands were added to the Church even such as should be saved Acts 2. 47. what made them Christians but the Baptismal Covenant and what were they Baptized into but into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Peter or Paul baptized none into their own Names nor dare the Pope himself lest his Innovation be too visible Christ hath said He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16. 16. Did they ever then subject any Baptism to the Bishop of Rome Was the Eunuch Acts 8. subjected to the Pope that only saith I believe that Iesus Christ is the Son of God and was Baptized If men could not be saved without believing in the Pope and being subject to the Church of Rome how comes it to pass that none of the Apostles preached this necessary Article of Faith Why did they never say You must believe in or be subject to the Pope of Rome or you cannot be saved Would they be so unfaithful as to hide a necessary Article Why did Peter himself Acts 2. by Baptism take Three thousand into the Church without preaching any of this Doctrine to them The Gospel professeth that he that hath the Son hath Life 1 Joh. 5. 11 12. and whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3. 16. and that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Iesus that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And now up steps a Man of Rome and presumeth to Reverse the Gospel and say It 's no such matter for all this they shall not be
saved unless they will be my Subjects If you say that those may be saved that Sin for want of Light I answer 1. On this account your Doctors teach the Salvation of Heathens Are those of your Church and so no otherwise of Christians than of Heathens 2. Either these wanting your Light are in the Church or out If in it then a Man may be of the Church without being a Papist which is against your Faith If out of it then it seems Men out of the Church may be saved and Christ is the Saviour of more than his Body which is against your Faith and ours 3. Who is it that hath sufficient Light if all that have heard or read the frivolous Reasonings of the Papists then your Parents and almost all of us must perish But if it be any other Light which must be had you know not what measure to give us to discern it nor ever will know and so you make your Church invisible while the Members of it cannot be known For none can know of another by your Rule whether his Light be sufficient or not And I pray you are not all the Indians of America that never heard of Christ the Members of your Church for their Light sure is not sufficient to shew them either the Pope or Christ. Hath he the heart of a right Christian that can thus damn two or three parts of all the Christians in the World for not believing in a Wretch at Rome that sometime is an Infidel himself for so was Pope Iohn 23. judged to be by the great General Council at Constance even one that believed no Resurrection which is worse than a Turk or Jew or some Heathens And it 's a wonder to me that if your own Soul hath ever been seriously conversant with God in Holy Worship you can savour and suit with the Cantings and Repetitions and Stage Devotions of the Papists and that a Latin Mass should be believed to be the acceptable way of Worship when the Holy Ghost hath so plainly and copiously disowned that serving of God in an unknown tongue 1 Cor. 14. Pardon me if I intreat you to make a deliberate search into your Heart and former Ways and try whether you conversed with God in the Spirit and were serious in your Faith and Love and Worship If you were not no wonder if an unsound superfical Religion be easily let go and such an unexperienced Heart can suit with a Canting Carnal Iudicrous kind of Devotion or if God so far forsake a Soul that was not sound and serious in the Religion once professed by you But if it was better with you then its strange your Soul can so lose its relish and its stranger that one that was a Member of Christ and in the Church and justified before should turn to a Sect that tells them they were not what they were and must come to them for what they had already And whereas all the pretence you shew me for your Change was the difference that you found amongst us Protestants and our condemning one another do you not know that in Policy greater Differences are tolerated among the Papists under the Names of divers Orders by far than any are between the Presbyterian Independant and Episcopal Protestants And that none but ungodly or uncharitable passionate People with us do deny any of these Parties to be true Members of the Universal Church If you here met with any one that doth condemn the other as no parts of the Church of Christ they spake not according to the Protestant Religion and you can no more charge us with the Railings of every Fellow that is drunk with domineering Pride or Passion than with the words of the next Scold or Quaker or Papist that you shall hear Reviling us I have said more to you than at first I intended I look on you as one about that Age when Conscience useth to receive its first serious deep Impressions and the Papists falling in with you just at that time I doubt before you had heartily received the Life of what before you professed and had time to be rooted and stablished in the Truth the opportunity served them to your Delusion That it may not prove to your everlasting Destruction shall be the Prayers and if you admit them the faithful Endeavours of Your Servant in obedience to Christ though to no Vice-Christ Rich. Baxter Dec. 1. 1660. The Answer to the Lady Anne Lindsey's Letter to her Mother Madam IT pleased the truly honourable Lady your Mother to shew me your Letter directed to her from Calice and to give me leave to send you my Animadversions upon it which I am the willinger to do because I perceive you have there contracted the Reasons most commonly used for the perverting of the Ignorant and which its likely have prevailed most with your self You must give me leave to be free and plain with you in the Matters of God and of Salvation I think it meet to leave the first part of your Letter of the Point of Obedience to your Mother's Animadversions It is the Doctrinal Part that I shall speak to You say that Heresies against Faith expressed by the Name of Sects cut us off from Heaven and that an Aâ—athema is on them that preach any other Doctrine than what was preached by the Apostles How far Heresie cuts off from the Church I have distinctly shewed you in the end of my Book against Mr. Iohnson on that Question but while you expect your Mother should consider of your Reasons you will not your self peruse an Answer to them which before was tendered you whom then can you blame if your Soul be cheated Briefly you err in Confounding Sects and Heresies which are not the same Heresies indeed which are false Doctrines practically inconsistent with the Essentials of Christian Faith do cut Men off from a state of Life or shew them to be Aliens but lesser Errours called Heresies by ignorant or uncharitable Men do un-Church none Herein I plead for you for if they did then wo to the Church of Rome that hath so many Errours And if it be damnable to be a Sect all Papists must be damned they being as certainly a Sect as there is any in the World A corrupt part of the Universal Church condemning the rest and pretending to be it self the whole is a Sect or Party of Schismaticks but such are the Papists Therefore they are a Sect c. But this is not the worst You consequently Anathematize all Papists by your Sentance for Heresies by your own Sentance cut off Men from Heaven But Popery is a bundle of Heresies Therefore it cuts off Men from Heaven The minor I prove according to your Churches Principles that Doctrine is Heresie which is contrary to a point of Faith But many of the Papists Doctrines are contrary to Points of Faith Ergo c. To pass by now all those Points of Popery which are contrary to what the Holy
whole Christian World 5. That the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth the Possessors Keepers and Teachers of God's Oracles and that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it is most sure and comfortable Truth But what is this to Rome any more than to Ierusalem or Alexandria The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Body of Christ the Universality of Christians the true Catholick Church But it may prevail against Corinthians Gallateans Romans or any particular part As it prevailed against Pope Iohn XXII alias XXIII to make him deny the Resurrection and against Pope Eugenius to make him a Heretick if General Councils are to be believed 6. As to what you say of Apostles still placed in the Church When any shew us an immediate Mission by their Commission and by Miracles Tongues and a Spirit of Revelation and infallability prove themselves Apostles we shall believe them Till then we remember that Church that was commended for trying them that said they were Apostles and were not and finding them Lyers Rev. 23. Peter and the Twelve Apostles with him we acknowledge and Paul we acknowledge but know none properly called Apostles living now But if it be only the Name and not the Office that you differ about and by Apostles you mean not Men immediately sent by Christ to preach the Gospel with a Spirit of Miracles and Infallability which is our Sense of that Word but some other sort of Men then if they be ordinory Pastors or Bishops it s no matter of Difference if not you must describe them before we can know them They are to blame whoever they be that they call not themselves Apostles and tell us where who and how many they are if they are so indeed 7. They were to be accounted Heathens and Publicans that heard not the Church admonishing them But sure other Pastors besides Apostles must admonish and be heard And other Churches besides the Roman must hold or refuse Communion as is there signified either you will erroneously have that Text understood of the Universal Church or else truly of a Particular Church If the former what 's that to the Roman Church that is but a corrupted Part If the latter it 's no more to the Roman than any other which are particular Churches also surely this is plain Truth if you are willing to see 8. You say The Faith of which Believers were was that of the Romans spread through the World Answ. Yes and it was the Faith of the Ephesians Philippians Colâ—ssians too and all one The Romans had not a Faith of their own specifically different from others Nor did the Holy Ghost by the Apostles ever give one Word of Command to other Churches to conform their Faith to Rome or take that Church for their Mistress or Sovereign These Fancies Pride hath set up against Christ The Faith of Ierusalem was as much known through the World as that of Rome and sure you think not that being known through the World made them the Rule or Rulers of the World 9. Upon Observation you find this Church shining as a Light and set as a City on a Hill And was not Ierusalem Antioch Alexandria Ephesus c. so too Sure they were All faithful Preachers of the Gospel especially the Apostles were observable as such Lights and City to the World that wondred at their Doctrine which is all that Christ there saith and as I said the universal Church is more observable than the Roman Sect And other particular Churches are and were as Light and Conspicuous as it And the most conspicuous Church hath from thence no Pretence to be the rule or Ruler of the rest 10. You say This Church hath been ever triumphant ever Heresies Answ. 1. What! when Honorius was by two or three General Councils condemned for a Heretick Pope Iohn XXII and Eugenius as beforesaid for that and worse with many more 2. Woe to the Churches if others had not conquered Heresy better than the Roman Party hath done 3. And veriâ—y did you think that a particular Church is therefore the Rule or Ruler to the rest because it triumpheth over Heresy 11. You add immoveable in Persecutions Answ. 1. For they have been the great Persecutors as Leeches sucking and swell'd with the Blood of Thousands and Ten Thousands of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus O the Blood that will be found among them when the righteous Judge of all the World shall make Inquisition for Blood among their Massacrees and Inquisitions 2. Was that Church unmoveable in Persecution when the Head of it Pope Marcellinus offered Incense to Idols And Liberius subscribed to the Arrians and against Athenasius What should I tell you of more who I perceive are made believe the Crow is white 3. Again it is a pitiful Proof of their Rule to prove them immutable in Persecution The Church hath many Heads if every Church or Bishop be its Head that hath stood fast in Persecution 12. You add And always watchful in the Succession of Pastors I give you the same Answers 1. watchful indeed when their own Church Histories tell us of such Multitudes that came in by Symony or Poison or other Murder or Violence that have been Hereticks as aforeshewd or Adulterers Murderers and such impious Wretches as the Cannons depose and when Iohn XII or XIII was deposed by a Councell for ravishing Maids and Wives at his Doors and abundance more such Villanies and Iohn XXII for worse and when Eugenius continued the Succession when a general Council bad judged him a Heretick wicked deposed c. and when they have had such abundance of Schisms having two three or four Popes alive at once and one Schism of Forty Years in which no Man knew or knows to this Day which was the true Pope and when meer Possession is it that must prove their Succession For besides these Incapacities Mr. Iohnson you may see confesseth that no one way of Election by Cardinals People Emperors Bishops Councils c. hath been held or is necessary nor any Consecration necessary at all to the being of the Pope And if a Succession of bare Possession serve how many Churches have the like Yea 2. Constantinople Ethiopia Armenia and many other Churches have had a far more regular Succession than Rome of at least as good 3. And it 's a pitiful Argument that because a Church hath had a Succession of Pastors therefore they are the whole Church and others are no part or therefore they are the 〈◊〉 and Rulers to the rest or therefore we must be of that Particular Church only Surâ— none denies the Succession of Pastors in England as to meer possession of the Place if that will serve the turn 13. To what you say of being 〈◊〉 Holy Catholick and Apostolick and cannot deceive you I answer 1. O dreadful Delusion that a Church headed with horrid Monsters and not Men 〈◊〉 their own Histories describe a multitude of their Popes should
Churches or to any Colledge in either of our Universities where we would have the several Statutes and Customs observed which have been formerly And because some Men otherwise Pious and Learned say they cannot conform to the Subscription required by the Canon at the time of their Institution and Admission into Benefices we are content so they take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy that they shall receive Institution and Induction and shall be permitted to exercise their Function and to enjoy the Profits of their Livings without any other Subscription until it shall be otherwise determined by a Synod called and confirmed by our Authority In a word we do again renew what we have formerly said in our Declaration from Breda for the Liberty of tender Consciences that no Man shall be disquieted or called in question for Difference of Opinions in Matters of Religion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom and if any have been disturbed in that kind since our Arrival here it hath not proceeded from any Direction of ours To conclude and in this place to explain what we mentioned before and said in our Letter to the House of Commons from Breda that we hoped in due time our self to propose somewhat for the propagation of the Protestant Religion that will satisfie the World that we have always made it both our Care and our study and have enough observed what is most like to bring disadvantage to it we do conjure all our Loving Subjects to acquiesce in and submit to this our Declaration concerning those differences which have so much disquieted the Nation at home and given such Offence to the Protestant Churches abroad and brought such reproach upon the Protestant Religion in general from the Enemies thereof as if upon obscure Notions of Faith and Fancy it did admit the Practice of Christian Duties and Obedience to be discountenanced and suspended and introduce a License in Opinions and Manners to the prejudice of the Christian Faith And let us all endeavour and emulate each other in those Endeavours to countenance and advance the Protestant Religion abroad which will be best done by supporting the Dignity and Reverence due to the best Reformed Protestant Church at home and which being once freed from the Calamities and Reproaches it hath undergone from these late ill times will be the best shelter for those abroad which will by that Countenance both be the better protected against their Enemies and be the more easily induced to compose the Differences amongst themselves which give their Enemies more advantage against them And we hope and expect that all Men will henceforward forbear to vent any such Doctrine in the Pulpit or to endeavour to work in such manner upon the Affections of the People as may dispose them to an ill Opinion of us and the Government and to disturb the Peace of the Kingdom which if all Men will in their several Vocations endeavour to preserve with the same Affection and Zeal we our self will do all our Good Subjects will by God's Blessing upon us enjoy as great a measure of Felicity as this Nation hath ever done and which we shall constantly labour to procure for them as the greatest blessing God can bestow upon us in this World Note That the two Papers which the King's Declaration publisheth his Offence against were 1. A Declaration which the Scots drew the King to publish when they Crowned him in Scotland disclaiming his Father's Wars and Actions in Language so little tender of his Father's Honour that it was no wonder that the King was hardly drawn to it then nor that Cromwell derided their Doings as Hypocritical nor that the King was angry with those rash People whoever they were who now reprinted it 2. A Book of Dr. Cornelius Burges who though he was for a moderate Episcopacy had written to prove the Necessity of a Reformatation in Doctrine Discipline and Worship whereas in all our Treaty we had never medled with the Doctrine of the Church Because though the most part of the Bishops were taken to be Arminians as they are called yet the Articles of Religion we took to be sound and moderate however Men do variously interpret them § 106. When we had received this Copy of the Declaration we saw that it would not serve to heal our Differences Therefore we told the Lord Chancellour with whom we were to do all our Business still before it came as from us to the King that our Endeavours as to Concord would all be frustrate if much were not altered in the Declaration I pass over all our Conferences with him both now and at other times In conclusion we were to draw up our Thoughts of it in writing which the Brethren imposed on me to do My judgment was That all the Fruit of this our Treaty besides a little Reprival from intended Ejection would be but the Satisfying our Consciences and Posterity that we had done our Duty and that it was not our Fault that we came not to the desired Concord or Coalition and therefore seeing we had no considerable higher hopes we should speak as plainly as Honesty and Conscience did require us But when Mr. Calamy and Dr. Reignolds had read my Paper they were troubled at the plainness of it and thought it would never be endured and therefore desired some Alteration especially that I might leave out 1. The Prediction of the Evils which would follow our Non-Agreement which the Court would interpret as a Threatning 2. The mentioning the Aggravations of Covenant-breaking and Perjury ◠I gave them my Reasons for passing it as it was To bring this to pass more effectually they told the Earl of Manchester with whom as our sure Friend we still consulted and whom the Court used to Communicate to us what they desired And he called the Earl of Anglesey and the Lord Hollis to the Consultation as our Friends And these three Lords with Mr. Calamy and Dr. Reignolds perused all the Writing and all with earnestness perswaded me to the said Alterations I confess I thought those two Points material which they excepted against and would not have had them left out and thereby made them think me too plain and unpleasing as never used to the Language or Converse of a Court But it was not my unskilfulness in a more pleasing Language but my Reason and Conscience upon foresight of the Issue which was the Cause But when they told me that it would not so much as be received and that I must go with it my self for no body else would I yielded to such an Alteration as here followeth It was only in the Preface that the Alteration was desired I shall therefore that you may see what it was give it you as first drawn up and afterwards alter'd Our Petition to the King upon our Sight of the First Draught of his Declaration May it please your Majesty SO great was the Comfort created in our Minds by your Majesty's oft-expressed
that those Men are reproveable who say that nothing but Deceit and Jugling was from the beginning intended For who knoweth other Mens Intents but God Charity requireth us to think that they speak nearer to the Truth who say that while the Diocesan Doctors were at Breda they little dreamt that their way to their highest Grandeur was so fair and therefore that then they would have been glad of the Terms of the Declaration of Breda and that when they came in it was necessary that they should proceed safely and feel whether the Ground were solid under them before they proceeded to their Structure The Land had been but lately engaged against them The Covenant had been taken even by the Lords and Gentlemen of their own Party at their Composition There was the Army that brought them in who were Presbyterians as to the most of the ruling part to be disbanded and how knew they what the Parliament would do Or that there would be none to contest against them in the Convocation How could they know these things beforehand Therefore it was necessary that moderate things should be proposed and promised and no way was so fit as by a Declaration which being no Law is a temporary thing giving place to Laws And it was needful that the Calling of a Synod were delayed till the Presbyterians were partly cast out and a way to keep out the rest secured And if when all these things were done the former Promises were as the Independants called the Covenant like an Almanack out of Date and if Severities were doubled in comparison of what they were before the Wars no Man can wonder that well understood the Persons and the Causes § 144. Presently after this Mr. Crofton writing to prove the Obligation of the solemn National Vow and Covenant not as binding any Man to Rebellion or to any thing unlawful but in his Place and Calling to endeavour Reformation to be against Schism Popery Prelacy and Profaneness and to defend the King he was sent Prisoner to the Tower where when he had laid long at great Charges he sought to get an Habeas Corpus but his Life being threatned he was glad to let that Motion fall and at last to petition for his Liberty which he obtained But going into his own Country of Cheshire he was imprisoned there and when he procured his Liberty he was fain to set up a Grocer's Shop to get a maintenance for his Family While he was in the Tower he went to the Chappel Service and Sermon his Judgment being against separating from the Parish-Churches notwithstanding their Conformity so be it he were not put himself to use the Common-Prayer as a Minister or the Ceremonies And this occasioned some that thought his Course unlawful to write against it to which he somewhat sharply replied and so divers Writings were published on both sides about such Communion § 145. This calleth to my Remembrance how earnest the Brethren of London and the Countries were to have had us draw up among our selves how far we should go when Conformity was imposed that we might not be weakened by differing among our selves which I could never persuade my self to attempt considering as I oft told them 1. That we had no such Design as to unite and strengthen one Party against onother but to keep up the Interest of Religion in the Land 2. That if God permitted some able Men to conform though sinfully he would do good by it to his Church by keeping the Parish-Churches in such a Case that all of us might not be driven to forsake them 3. That the thing desired was utterly impossible 1. Because no Man could tell beforehand what would be imposed on us and therefore none could tell wherein we should be forced to dissent 2. Because the same Act as coming to Common-Prayer or Sacrament in the Churches might become a Duty to some Men and a Sin to others by diversity of their Stations Relations Pastors Churches Occasions Circumstances as I proved How then could all beforehand set a bound how far to go It would be much better to persuade Censorious Brethren to unite in Christian Faith and Love and to keep Charity and Peace with all that agree in the Foundation and not to make a Breach by their Censoriousness and then say others make a Breach by differing from us Nor to be of the same Spirit with Imposers while they are in the Heat of Opposition against them or of sufferings by them The Difference is but in the Expressions of Uncharitableness one Party silenceth imprisoneth and banisheth and the other Party censureth those that differ from them as Temporisers and unfit for their Communion 3. And if any had set down his Terms or Bounds who can dream that all would have agreed to them when Mens Judgments and Interests and Temptations are so various 4. The thing would have seem'd intollerable to our Governors and they would have taken us for Factious that had more desired to strengthen a Party against them than to live in Peace and Concord § 146. About this time there fell out an Accident that gave Occasion to the Malicious to reproach us It was our great Grief that so many faithful Ministers were put out and so many unworthy Persons restored or newly put into the Ministry Every Day almost People talkt to us of one drunk at such a Place and another carried in a Cart or lying in a Ditch at such a place or one taken drunk by the Watch at Night and another abused and made a Scorn in his Drunkenness by the Apprentices in the Streets and of Three that the Day when they had been Ordainedâ— got in their Drink three Wenches to them in the Inn or Tavern which having their married in their manner c. two fled and the third was fain to take his Wench to Wife with abundance such News that fill'd the City We modestly told some of it and they made us odious by it as malicious Slanderers as if a Word had not been true At last the City did ring of one Baker that preached a funeral Sermon drunk at Westminster and fell a railing at the People in the Church in his Sermon with much of the like Because the Rumour was so common we enquired after it till it was attested to us by the Hearers and having such unquestionable Witness some Brethren would by all means tell the King 〈◊〉 it as by the by to move â—im to reform such things When we were next with him Dr. Manton told him of it and there being one Baker elected by the King to an Irish Bishoprick and the common Fame and some of the Hearers saying that it was the same Man I seconded Dr. Manton and told the King That we could not say upon our knowledge that it was true but when the Fame of such things was common as to affect his Subjects be it true or false we thought it better for his Majesty to hear what the People
Believers that the Covenant of God is made and not that we can find to all that that have such believing Sureties who are neither Parents nor Prâ—parents of the Child Ans. Repentance whereby they forsake sin and Faith whereby they stedfastly believe the Promises of God c.  20 Quest. Why then are Infants baptized when by reason of ther tender Age they cannot perform them  Ans. Yes they do perform by their Sureties who promise and vow them both in their Names  In the general we observe That the Doctrine of the Sacraments which was added upon the Conference at Hampton-Court is much more fully and particularly delivered than the other parts of the Catechism in short Answers fitted to the memories of Children and thereupon we offer it to be considered First Whether there should not be a more distinct and full Explication of the Creed the Commandments and the Lord's Prayer Secondly Whether it were no convenient to add what seems to be wanting somewhat particularly concerning the Nature of Faith of Repentance the two Covenants of Justification Sanctification Adoption and Regeneration Of Confirmation The last Rubrick before the Catechism  ANd that no Man shall think that any detriment shall come to Children by deferring of their Confirmation he shall know for truth that it is certain by God's Word that Children being baptized have all things necessary for their Salvation and be undoubtedly saved ALthough we charitably suppose the meaning of these words was only to exclude the necessity of any other Sacraments to baptized Infants yet these words are dangerous as to the misleading of the Vulgar and therefore we desire they may be expunged Rubrick after the Catechism  So soon as the Children can say in their Mother-tongue the Articles of the Faith the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments and can answer such other Questions of this short Catechism c. then shall they be brought to the Bishop c. and the Bishop shall Confirm them We conceive that it is not a sufficient qualification for Confirmation that Children be able memoriter to the repeat the Articles of the Faith commonly called the Apostles Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments and to answer to some Questions of this short Catechism for it is often found that Children are able to do all this at four or five years old 2dly It crosses what is said in the third Reason of the first Rubrick before Confirmation concerning the usage of the Church in times past ordaining that Confirmation should be ministred unto them that were of perfect Age that they being instructed in the Christian Religion should openly profess their own Faith and promise to be obedient to the Will of God And therefore 3dly we desire that none may be Confirmed but according to his Majesty's Declaration viz. That Confirmation be rightly and solemnly performed by the Information and with the Consent of the Minister of the place Rubrick after the Catechirm  Then shall they be brought to the Bishop by one that shall be his Godfather or Godmother This seems to bring in another sort of Godfathers and Godmothers besides those made use of in Baptism and we see no need either of the one or the other The Prayer before the Imposition of Hands  Who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy Servants by Water and the Holy Ghost and hast given unto them the forgiveness of all their sins This supposeth that all the Children who are brought to be confirmed have the Spirit of Christ and the forgiveness of all their sins Whereas a great number of Children at that Age having committed many sins since their Baptism do shew no Evidence of serious Repentance or of any special Saving Grace And therefore this Confirmation if administred to such would be a perillous and gross Abuse Rubrick before the Imposition of Hands  Then the Bishop shall lay his hand on every Child severally This seems to put a higher value upon Confirmation then upon Baptism or the Lord's Supper for according to the Rubrick and Order in the Common-Prayer-Book every Deacon may Baptize and every Minister may consecrate and administer the Lord's Supper but the Bishop only may Confirm The Prayer after Imposition of Hands  We make our humble Supplications unto thee for these Children upon whom after the Example of thy Holy Apostles we have laid our Hands to certifie them by this Sign of thy Favour and gracious Goodness towards them We desire that the Practice of the Apostles may not be alledged as a ground of this Imposition of Hands for the Confirmation of Children both because the Apostles did never use it in that Case as also because the Articles of the Church of England declare it to be a corrupt imitation of the Apostles practice Acts 25. We desire that Imposition of Hands may not be made as here it is a Sign to certifie Children of God's Grace and Favour towards them because this seems to speak it a Sacrament and is contrary to that fore-mentioned 25th Article which saith That Confirmation hath no visible Sign appointed by God The last Rubrick after Confirmation We desire that Confirmation may not be made so necessary to the Holy Communion as that none should be admitted to it unless they be confirmed None shall be admitted to the holy Communion until such time as he can say the Catechism and be confirmed  Of the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony THe Man shall give the Woman a Ring c. shall surely perform and keep the Uow and Covenant betwixt them made whereof this Ring given and received is a Token and Pledge c. SEeing this Ceremony of the Ring in Marriage is made necessary to it and a significant Sign of the Vow and Covenant betwixt the Parties and Romish Ritualists give such Reasons for the Use and Institution of the Ring as are either frivolous or superstitious It is desired that this Ceremony of the Ring in Marriage may be left indifferent to be used or forborn The Man shall say With my Body I thee worship This word worship being much altered in the Use of it since this Form was first drawn up We desire some other word may be used instead of it In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost These words being only used in Baptism and herein the Solemnization of Matrimony and in the Absolution of the Sick We desire it may be considered whether they should not be here omitted least they should seem to favour those who count Matrimony a Sacraâ—â—â— Till Death us depart This word depart is here improperly used Rubrick Exception Then the Minister or Clerk going to the Lords Table shall say or sing this Psalm We conceive this Change of Place and Posture mentioned in these two Rubricks is needless and therefore desire it may be omitted Next Rubrick  The Psalm ended and the Man and the Woman kneeling before the Lord's Table the Priest
equal liberty for Volunteers they would be like Aleâ—houses where many honest Men may come but the number of worse Comers is so great as maketh it dishonourable There is no impleading Mens Writings unless the Book be opened and the words and context well perused § 205. Dr. Bates urged Dr. Gunning that on the fame reasons that they so imposed the Gross and Surplice they might bring in Holy Water and Lights and abundance of such Ceremonies of Rome which we have cast out He answered Yea and so I think we ought to have more and not fewer if we do well or to that fence § 206. They told us of the Antiquiry of Liturgies And I earnestly intreated them to let true Antiquity be imitated by them and desired any of them to prove that ever any Prince did impose one Form of Prayer or Liturgy for Uniformity on all the Churches in his Dominions Yea or upon any one Province or Country under them Or that ever any Council Synod or Patriarchs or Metropolitans did impose one Liturgy on all the Bishop and Churches under them I proved to them not only from the instances of Basil and the Church of Naeocesarea but others that every Bishop then chose what Forms he pleased for his own Church They could deny none of all this But Antiquity is nothing to them when it makes against them § 207. Towards the end of our Meetings Bishop Cosins taking the Chair told us That a very worthy Person had offered unto his Superiours a Paper containing the way to our Reconciliation which he thought so reasonable and sit that he desired us to take them into our Consideration and so delivered me the Paper I asked him from whom he expected an Answer He said from me I told him that he might well know that I would enter upon no new Debates without the Consent of my Brethern present and whether they would meddle in it and undertake new Work without the Consent of our Brethern who are absent I could not tell especially when long and wandering Discourses had already taken up almost all our time But upon perusal of the Paper I perceived that it was a cunning Snare for us but advised our Brethern present that we might promise them an Answer by the next Morning but only in the name of us three and that our Brethern absent should not be judged to be concerned in it This I the rather did because I perceived it came by the notice of some above us who would enquire after it and that an Answer in Writing would be a better spending of our time than that rambling Discourse which there we spent it in where a multitude of Men would needs speak and yet would be angry if they were answered The Paper with the Answer is as follows The Paper offered by Bishop Cosins as from some considerable Person A way humbly proposed to end that unhappy Controversie which is now managed in the Church that the Sore may no longer rankle under the Debate nor Advantages be got by those that love Division 1. THat the Question may be put to the Managers of the Division Whether there be any thing in the Doctrine or Discipline or the Common Prayer or Ceremonies contrary to the Word of God and if they can make any such appear let them be satisfied 2. If not let them then propose what they desire in point of Expediency and acknowledge it to be no more 3. Let that then be received from them and speedily taken into the Consideration and Iudgment of the Convocation who are the proper and authentick Representatives of the Ministry in whose Iudgment they ought to acquiesce in such Matters and not only so but to let the People that follow them know that they ought not to disturb the Peace of the Church under the pretence of the Prosecution of Expediency since the Division of the Church is the great Inexpedient The Answer to the foresaid Paper Right Reverend C. AS it was your desire that we should return an Answer to these Three Proposals only in our own Names who are but Three so we must here profess therefore that it is not to be taken as the Act of the rest of our Brethren the Commissioners but as part of the Conference to which we are deputed And though we are the Managers of the Treaty for Pacification or Agreement and not the Managers of the Division and therefore cannot take our selves to be the Persons meant by the Author of the Proposals yet we are glad to take the opportunity of your invitation to profess that the principal part of these Proposals is so Rational Regular and Christian-like that we not only approve of but should be fully satisfied as to the Debates before us with the real grant of the first alone and not be wanting in our Duty according to our Understanding and Ability in endeavouring to accomplish the Ends of your Desires in the rest More particularly Ad 1 m Though we find by your Papers and Conference that in your own personal Doctrines there is something that we take to be against the Word of God and perceive that we understand not the Doctrine of the Church in all things alike yet we find nothing contrary to the Word of God in that which is indeed the Doctrine of the Church as it comprehendeth the Matters of Faith distinct from Matter of Discipline Ceremonies and Modes of Worship As to Discipline there was given into his Majesty before his Declaration came forth a Summary of what we think to be contrary to the Word of God which we shall more fully give in to you or any others whenever we are 〈◊〉 called to it For the Common Prayer and Ceremonies we have in our Exceptions and Reply delivered you an Account of what we take to be unlawful and inconvenient And we humbly crave that our Reasons may be yet impartially considered At present we shall humbly offer you our Judgment concerning the following Particulars and profess our readiness to make it good when we are called to it It is contrary to the Word of God 1. That no Minister be admitted to Baptize without the prescribed use of the Transient Image of the Cross. 2. That no Minister be permitted to read or pray or exercise the other parts of his Office that dare not wear a Surplice 3. That none be admitted in Communion to the Lord's Supper that dare not receive it kneeling and that all Ministers be enjoyned to deny it to such 4. That Ministers be forced to pronounce all baptized Infants to be Regenerate by the Holy Ghost whether they be the Children of Christians or not 5. That Ministers be forced to deliver the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ unto the unfit both in their Health and Sickness and that with personal application putting it into their hands and that such are forced to receive it though against their own wills in the Conscience of their Impenitency 6. That Ministers
Action I was commonly censured by them as one that had granted them too much and wronged my Brethren by entring into this Treaty oâ—t of too earnest a desire of Concord with them Thus were Men on both extreams offended with me and I found what Enmity Charity and Peace are like to meet with in the 〈◊〉 But when these Papers were printed the Independents confess that we had dealt faithfully and satisfactorily And indifferent men said that Reason had once whelmed the Cause of the Dioâ—esans and that we had offered them so much a test them utterly without Excuse And the moderate Episcopal Men said the same But the engaged Prelatist were vehemently displeased that these Papers should 〈◊〉 câ—me abroad Though many of them here published were never before printed because none had Copies of them but my self § 264. Bishop Morley told me when he Silenced me that our Papers would be answered 〈◊〉 long But no Man to this day that ever we could hear of hath answered them which were unanswered Either our Reasons for Peace or our Litugy or our large Reply or our Answers to Dr. Pierson's Argument c. only Roger L'Estrange the writer of the News Book hath raised out a great many words against some of them And a nameless Author thought to be Dr. Wommock hath answered one part of one Subject in our Reply which is about excluding all Prayers from the Pulpit besides Common Prayer and in very plausible Language he saith as much as can be said for so bad a Cause viz. for the prohibiting all Extemporary Prayer in the Church And when he cometh to the chief strength of our Reasons he passeth it by and faith that in answering so much as he did the Answer to the rest may be gathered And to all the rest of the Subjects he faith nothing much less to all our other Papers § 265. Also another nameless Author commonly said to be Sir Henry Yelverton wrote a Book for Bishop Morley against me But neither he nor Boreman nor Wommâ—â—k ever saw me for ought I know and I am sure he is as strange to the Cause as to me For he taketh it out of Bishop Morley's Book and supposing what he hath written to be true he findeth some words of Censorious Application to make a Book of § 266. And about the same time Sir Robert Holt a Knight of Warwickshire near Brâ—â—â—â—châ—m spake in the Parliament House against Mr. Calamy and me by name as preaching or praying seditiously but not one syllable named that we said And another time he named me for my Holy Commonwealth § 267. And about that time Bishop Morley having preferred a young Man named Mr. S Orator of the University of Oxford a fluent witty Satyrist and one that was sometime motioned to me to be my Curate at Kidderminster this Man being Houshold Chaplain to the Lord Chancellour was appointed to preach before the King where the Crowd had high Expectations of some vehement Satyr But when he had preached a quarter of an hour he was utterly at a loss and so unable to recollect himself that he could go no further but cryed The Lord be merciful to our Infirmities and so came down But about a Month after they were resolved yet that Mr. S should preach the same Sermon before the King and not lose his expected Applause And preach it he did little more than half an hour with no admiration at all of the Hearers And for his Encouragement the Sermon was printed And when it was printed many desired to see what words they were that he was stopped at the first time And they found in the printed Copy all that he had said first and one of the next Passages which he was to have delivered was against me for my Holy Common-wealth § 268. And so vehement was the Endeavour in Court City and Country to make me contemptible and odious as if the Authours had thought that the Safety either of Church or State did lye upon it and all would have been safe if I were but vilified and hated Insomuch that Durell the French Minister that turned to them and wrote for them had a senseless snatch at me in his Book and Mr. Stoope the Pastor of the French Church was banished or forbidden this Land as Fame said for carrying over our Debates into France So that any Stranger that had but heard and seen all this would have asked What Monster of Villany is this Man and what is the Wickedness that he is guilty of Yet was I never questioned to this day before a Magistrate Nor do my Adversaries charge me with any personal wrong to them nor did they ever Accuse me of any Heresie nor much contemn my Judgment nor ever accuse my Life but for preaching where another had been Sequestred that was an insufficient Reader and for preaching to the Soldiers of the Parliament though none of them knew my Business there nor the Service that I did them These are all the Crimes besides my Writings that I ever knew they charged my Life with But Envy and Carnal Interest was so destitute of a Mask that they every where openly confessed the Cause for which they endeavoured my Defamation and Destruction especially the Bishops that set all on work 1. As one Cause was their own over-valuing of my Parts which they made account I would employ against them 2. Another was that they thought the Reputation of my blameless Life would add to my ability to deserve them 3. Another was that they thought my Interest in the People to be far greater than indeed it was 4. But the principal of all was my Conference before the King and at the Savoy in both which it fell out that Bishop Morley and I were the bassest Talkers except Dr. Gunning and that it was my lot to contradict him who was not so able either to bear or seem to bear it as I thought at least his Honour would have instructed him to be 5. And my refusing a Bishoprick increased the indignation And Colonel Birth that first came to offer it me told me that they would ruine us if we refused it Yet did I purposely forbear ever mentioning it on all occasions 6. And it was not the least Cause that my being for Primitive Episcopacy and not for Presbytery and being not so far from them in some other Points of Doctrine and Worship as many Nonconformists are they thought I was the abler to undermine them 7. And another Cause was that they judged of the rest of my Talk and Life by my Conference at the Savoy not knowing that I took that to be my present Duty which Fidelity to the King and Church commanded me faithfully to do whoever was displeased by it and that when that time was over I took it to be my Duty to live as peaceably as any Subject in the Land and not to use mâ— Tongue or Pen against the Government which the King was pleased to appoint
that Christ should have no one Witness that would ever scruple or contradict them either among the Orthodox or the Hereticks as far as any Records of Antiquity do make known § 300. 7. The seventh Controversie is about their own practice in Administrations and Church Discipline And 1. that they must Ministerially deny the Sacrament of Baptism to all Children whose Parents will not have them use the Cross they say that it is the Church that refuseth them by Law and not they who are by the Law disabled from receiving them 2. The same they say of their refusing to give the Lord's Supper to any that will not kneel in the Reception of it They say that it is better to Administer the Sacraments to some than to none at all which they must do if they refuse not them that kneel not 3. And for the giving of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper to the unworthy for all are forced to use them they say that the Infants of all in the Church have right to Baptism at least for their Ancestor's sake and for the Godfathers and Godmothers or the Churches sake And for the Lord's Supper they have power to put away all that are proved impenitent in notorious Scandal § 301. Having told you what the Conformists say for themselves as faithfully as will stand with brevity before I proceed I think it best to set down here the words 1. Of the Covenant 2. Of the Subscription and Declaration 3. Of the Oath of Canonical Obedience before your Eyes that while the Subject of the Controversie is before you the Controversie it self may be the better understood And I suppose the Reader to have all the Books before him to which we are required to Assen◠〈…〉 The Solemn League and Covenant WE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens â—â—â—gesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commous of all 〈◊〉 in the Kingdoms of Scotland â—England and Ireland by the Pâ—â—vidence of God living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our Eyes the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the King's Majesty and his Posterity and the true Publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private Condition is included And calling to mind the trâ—atherous and bloody Piots Conspiracies Attempts and Practises of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their Rage Power and Presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the distressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick Cestimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter Ruine and Destruction according to the Commendable Practice of these kingdoms in former times and the Example of God's People in other Nations after mature Deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a Mutual and Solemn League and Covenant Wherein we all Subscribe and each one of us for himself with our Hands lifted up to the most high God â—o swear 1. THat we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of God endeavour in our several Places and Callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our Common Enemies The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Confession of Faith Form of Church Government Directory for Worship and Catechizing That we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of Persons endeavour the Extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commistaties Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierachy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaneness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several Uocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the King's Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the world may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindring the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant That they may be brought to publick Trial and receive Condign Punishment as the degree of their Offences shall require or deserve or the Supream Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall â—udge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denied in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of God granted unto us and hath been latlely concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity and that Iustice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. We shall also according to our Places and Callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination Perswasion or Terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and Conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the Glory of God the Good of the Kingdoms and Honour of the King But shall all the days of our
those Vices which are the shame of Infidels and Heathens and those of our Communion are in their Lives no better than the Unbelieving World All Men will think that that is the best Society which hath the best People and will judge rather by Mens Lives than their Opinions § 345. 7. And hereby it greatly dishonoureth Christianity it self and when the Church is as full of Vices as the Mahomiran Societies are or the Heathen it is a publick perswading the World that our Religion is as false or bad as theirs § 346. 8. And hereby God himself and our blessed Redeemer are greatly dishonoured in the World As his Saints are his honour so when the Communion of Atheists and Prophane Persons and Oppressors and Deceivers and Fornicators and Drunkards is called by us The Communion of Saints it tendeth to make the Church a Scorn and to the great dishonour of the Head of such a Body and the Author of the Christian Faith § 347. 9. And it lamentably conduceth to the hardening of the Heathens and Infidels of the World and hindering their Conversion to the Christian Faith It would make a Believer's heart to bleed if any thing in all the World will do it to think that five parts in six of the World are still Heathens Mahometans and Infidels and that the wicked Lives of Christians with Popperies Ignorance and Divisions is the great Impediment to their Conversion To read and hear Travellers and Merchants tell that the Banians and other Heathens in Indostan Cambaia and many other Lands and the Mahometans adjoyning to the Greeks and the Abassines c. do commonly fly from Christianity as the Separatists among us do from Prelacy and say God will not save us if we be Christians for Christians are Drunkards and proud and Deceivers c. And that the Mahometans and many Heathens have more both of Devotion and Honesty than the common fort of Christians have that live among them O wretched Christians that are not content to damn themselves but thus lay stumbling blocks before the World It were better for these men that they had never been born But if all these notorious ones were disowned by the Churches it would quit our Profession much from the dishonour and shew poor Infidels that our Religion is good though their Lives be bad § 348. 10. Lastly it galleth the Consciences of the Ministers in their administrations of the Sacraments to the openly ungodly and grosly ignorant It hindereth the Comfort of the Church in its Communion It filleth the Heads of poor Christians with Scruples and their Hearts with Fears and is the great cause of unavoidable Separations among us and consequently of all the Censures on one side and wrathful Penalties on the other and uncharitableness on both sides which follow thereupon If the Pastors will not differ between the precious and the vile by necessary regular Discipline tender Christians will be tempted to difference by irregular Separations and to think as Cyprian saith That it belongeth to the People to forsake a sinful Pastor They will separate further than they ought and will take our Churches as Sinks of Pollution and fly from the noisomness of them and come out from among us for fear of partaking in our Plagues as men run out of a ruinous House lest it fall upon their Heads And then they will fall into Sects among themselves and fall under the hot displeasure of the Bishops and then they will be reproached and vexed as Schismaticks while they reproach our Churches as Hypocritical and Prophane that call such Societies the Communion of Saints This hath been and this is and this will be the Cause of Separations Sects Persecutions Malice and Ruins in the Christian World And it will never be cured till some tolerable Discipline cure the Churches § 349. 10. The tenth and last Charge against our Frame of Prelacy is That by is use of Civil or Coercive Power it at once breaketh the Command of Christ and greatly injureth the Civil Government Both which are thus proved by the Nonconformists § 350. 1. It violateth all these Laws of Christ Luke 22. 24 25. And there was a strife among them which of them should be accounted the greatest And he said unto them the Kings of the Gentles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors but ye shall not be so but he that is greatest among you let him be as the younger and he that is chief as he that doth serve That is it is a Ministerial Dignity and not a Magistratical which you are called to that which is allowed to Kings here is denied to Ministers even Apostles But it is not Tyranny or Abuse of Power but Secular Magistratical Power it self which is all owed to Kings Ergo it is this which is forbidden Ministers This is the very sence of the Text which is given by Protestant Episcopal Divines themselves when they reject the Presbyterians sence who say that it forbiddeth Ecclesiastical Superiority and Power of one Minister over another as well as Coercive Therefore the old Rhymer said against the Prelates Christus dixit quodam loco Vos non sic nec dixit joco Dixit suis Ergo isti Cujus sunt non certo Christi So 1. Pet. 5. 1 2 3. Feed the Flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof not by constraint but willingly Not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind Neither as being Lords over God's heritage but being ensamples to the Flock But our Bishops take the oversight of those that are not among them and whom they feed not and they rule them by constraint and not as voluntary Subjects not by Ensample for one of an hundred never seeth or knoweth them but as Lords by Secular Force Dr. Hammond taketh the word Constraint here Actively not Passively not as forbidding them to Bishops against their own Wills but to Rule the People by constraint against the Peoples wills It would be tedious to recite all those Texts which command the People to imitate the Apostles as they imitated Christ who never used Magistratical force nor did any of his Apostles and say that the Weapons of our warfare are not carnals and that he that warreth entangleth not himself with the Affairs of this Life and that the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle c. § 351. 2. And that this Coercive Church Government is an heinous Injury to Christian Magistrates even where it seemeth to be subordinate to them appeareth thus 1. Though they do mostly confess that they can exercise no Power of Coercion of themselves but by the Magistrates consent yet do they take it to be the Magistrates duty to consent to it as if he were not else a tender Nursing Father to the Church and so they lay his Conscience in Prison till he trust them with his Sword or serve them by it 2. They call their Magistratical Government by the
the Churches of England and faithfully to preserve the peace and happiness thereof And all those who are qualified with abilities according to the Law and take the Oaths and Declarations abovesaid shall be allowed to preach Lectures and Occasional Sermons and to Catechize and to be presented and admitted to any Benefice or to any Ecclesiastical or Academical promotions or to the teaching of Schools 3. Every person admitted to any Benefice with cure of Souls shall be obliged himself on some Lord's day within a time prefixed to read the Liturgy appointed for that day when it is satisfactorily altered and the greatest part of it in the mean time and to be often present at the reading of it and sometimes to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the said Liturgies And it shall by himself or some other allowed Minister be constantly used in his Church and the Sacraments frequently administred as is required by the Law 4. The 4th was against the Ceremonies without alteration in their own words save about bowing at the Name â—esus as after 5. No Bishop Chancellor or other Ecclesiastical Officers shall have power to silence any allowed Minister or suspend him 〈◊〉 officio vel beneficio arbitrarily or for any cause without a known Law And in case of any such arbitary or injurious silencing and suspension there shall be allowed an appeal to some of his Majestie 's Courts of Iustice so as it may be prosecuted in a competent time and at a tolerable expence being both Bishops and Presbyters and all Ecclesiastical persons are under the Government of the King and punishable by him for gross and injurious male-administrations 6. Though we judge it the Duty of Ministers to Catechize instruct exhort direct and comfort the people personally as well as publickly upon just occasion yet lest a pretended necessity of Examinations before the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper or an unwarrantable strictness should introduce Church-Tyranny and wrong the faithful by keeping them from the Communion let all those be admitted to the Communion who since their Infant baptism have at years of discretion manifested to the Bishop or the Ministers of the Parish Church where they live a tolerable understanding of the Essential points of Faith and Godliness that is of the Baptismal Covenant and of the nature and use of the Lord's Supper and have personally owned before them or the Church the Covenant which by others they made in Baptism professing their Resolution to keep the same in a Faithful Godly Righteous Charitable and Temporal Life and are not since this profession revolted to Atheism Insidelity or Heresy that is the denying of some Essential Article of faith and live not impenitently in any gross and scandalous sin And therefore in the Register of each Parish let all their Names be written who have either before their Confirmation or at any other time thus understandingly owned their Baptismal Covenant and a Certificate thereof from the Minister of the place shall serve without any further examination for their admission to Communion in that or any other Parish Church where they shall after live till by the aforesaid revolts they have merited their suspension 7. Because in many families there are none who can read or pray â—or call to remembrance what they have heard to edify themselves and spend the Lords day in holy Exercises and many of these live so far from the Church that they go more seldom than the rest and therefore have great need of the assistance of their Neighbours it is not to be taken for a Conventicle or unlawful meeting when Neighbours shall peaceably joyn together in reading the Scripture or any good books or repeating publick Sermons and praying and â—ging â—salms to God whilst they do it under the inspection of the Minister and not in opposition to the publick Assemblies Nor yet that meeting where the Minister shall privately Catechize his Neighbours or pray with them when they are in sickness danger or distress tho persons of several Families shall be present 8. Whereas the Canon and Rubrick forbid the adâ—ission of notorious scandalous sinners to the Lords table be it enacted that those who are proved to deride or scorn at Christianity or the holy Scriptures or the Life of Reward and Punishment or the serious practice of a Godly Life and strict obedience to Gods Commands shall be numbered with the Scandalous sinners mentioned in the Canon and Rubrick and not admitted before repentance to the holy Communion § 69. The following paper will give you the reasons of all our alterations of their form of Words But I must add this that we thought not the form of Subscription sufficient to keep out a Papist from the established Ministery much less from a Toleration which we medled not with And here and in other alterations I bore the blame and they told me that no Man would put in such doubts but I. And I will here tell Posterity this Truth as a Mystery yet only to the blind which must not now be spoken that I believe that I have been guilty of hindering our own Liberties in all Treaties that ever I was employ'd in For I remember not one in which there was not some crevice or contrivance or terms offered for such a Toleration as would have let in the moderate Papists with us And if we would but have opened the Door to let the Papists in that their Toleration might have been charged upon us as being for our sakes and by our request or procuâ—ement we might in all likelihood have had our part But though for my own part I am not for Cruelty against Papists any more than others even when they are most cruel to us but could allow them a certain degree of liberty on Terms that shall secure the common Peace and the People's Souls yet I shall never be one of them that by any renewed pressures or severities shall be forced to petition for the Papists liberty if they must have it let them Petition for it themselves No craft of Iesuits or Prelates shall thunder me cudgel me or cheat me into the Opinion that it is now necessary for our own Ministry Liberty or Lives that we I say we Nonconformists be the famed Introducers of the Papists Toleration that so neither Papists nor Prelatists may bear the odium of it but may lay it all on us God do what he will with us his way is best but I think that this is not his way § 70. Upon these Alterations I was put to give in my Reasons of them which were as followeth The Reasons of our Alterations of your Proposals 1. I Put in Presidents c. to avoid Dispute whether such were meer Presbyters or as some think Bishops 2. I leave out time of disorder because it will else exclude all that were Ordained by Presbyters since the King came in 3. I put in Instituted and Authorized to intimate that it is not an Ordination to
c. After Baptism put Seing this Child is Sacramentally Regenerated And in the Prayer following put it That it hath pleased Thee Sacramentally to Regenerate and Adopt this Infant and to incorporate him into thy Holy Church Instead of the new Rubrick it is certain by God's Word c. put True Christian Parents have no cause to doubt of the Salvation of their Children dedicated to God in Baptism and dying before they commit any actual sin In the Exhortation put it thus Doubt not therefore but earnestly believe That if this Infant be sincerely dedicated to God by those who have that power and trust God will likewise favourably receive him c. Let not Baptism be privately administred but by a lawful Minister and before sufficient Witnesses and when it is evident that any was so Baptized let no part of the Administration be reiterated Add to the Rubrick of Confirmation or the Preface And the tolerable Understanding of the same Points which are necessary to Confirmation with this owning of their baptismal Covenant shall be also required of those that are not confirmed before their admission to the holy Communion Let it be lawful for the Minister to put other Questions besides those in the Catechism to help the Learners to understand and also to tell them the meaning of the Words as he goeth along Alterations in the Catechism or another allowed Q. WHat is your Name A. N. Q. When was this Name given you A. In my Baptism Q. What was done for you in your Baptism A. I was devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and entred into his Holy Covenant and engaged to take him for my only God my reconciled Father my Saviour and my Sanctifier And to believe the Articles of the Christian Faith and keep God's Commandments sincerely all the Days of my Life Renouncing the Devil and all his works the Pomps and Vanities of this wicked World and all the sinful Lusts of the Flesh. Q. What Mercy did you receive from God in this Covenant of Baptism A. God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as my reconciled Father my Saviour and my Sanctifier did forgive my Original Sin and receive me as a Member of Christ and of his Church and as his Adopted Child and Heir of Heaven Q. Do you think that you are now bound to keep this Covenant and to believe and live according to it A. Yes Verily c. Q. Rehcarse c. A. I Believe c. Q. What c. A. First c. Q. What be the Commandments of God which you have Covenanted to observe A. The Ten Commandments written by God in Stone besides Christ's Precepts in the Gospel Q. Which be the Ten Commandments After the Answer to What is thy Duty towards God add And to keep holy the Day which he separateth for his Worship In the next let to bear no malice c. be put before to be true and just In the Answ. to the Quest. after the Lord's Prayer after all People put that we may Honour and Love him as our God That his Kingdom of Grace may be set up in our Souls and throughout the World and his Kingdom of Glory may come and that God's Law and not Men's sinful Lusts and Wills may be obeyed and Earth may be liker unto Heaven And I Pray c. Q. How many Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace hath Christ Ordained in his Church A. Two only Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Q. What meanest thou c. A. I mean that Solemn Covenanting with God wherein there is an outward visible sign of our giving up our selves to Him and of his giving his Grace in Christ to us being ordained by Christ himself as a means whereby we receive that Grace and a pledge to assure us of it To Q. What is the inward Spiritual Grace A. The pardon of our Sins by the Blood of Christ whose Members we are made and a death unto sin c. Q. Why are Infants Baptized A. Because they are the Children of the Faithful to whom God's Promises are made and are by them devoted unto God to be entered into Covenant with Him by his own appointment which when they come to Age themselves are bound to perform After the next Answer add And for our Communion with Him and with his Church To Q. What are the Benefits c. A. The renewed Pardon of our Sins and our Communion with Christ and his Church by Faith and Love and the strengthening c. In the Visitation of the Sick let the Minister have leave to vary his Prayer as Occasions shall require And let the Absolution be conditional If thou truly believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and truly repentest of thy sins I pronounce thee absolved through the Sacrifice and Merits of Iesus Christ. If any who is to kept from the Communion for Atheism Infidelity Heresie or Impenitency in gross sin shall in sickness desire Absolution or the Communion And if any Minister intrusted with the power of the Keys do perceive no probable sign of true Repentance and therefore dare not in conscience absolve him or give him the Sacrament left he profane God's Ordinance and harden the wicked in presumption and impenitency let not that Minister be forced to that Office against his conscience but let the sick chuse some other as he please And at the Burial of any who were lawfully kept from the Communion for the same causes and not absolved let the Minister be at liberty to change the words thus For asmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take out of this world the soul of this deceased person we commit his body c. believing a Resurrection of the just and unjust some to joy and some to punishment And to leave out in the Prayer We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world And instead of it put And the souls of tne wicked to wo and miseryâ— We beseech thee to convert us all from sin by true and speedy repentance And teach us to spend this little time in an holy and heavenly conversation that we may be always prepared for Death and Iudgment And And in the next Collect to leave out as our hope is this our brother doth But in the Rubrick before Burial instead of any that die unbaptized put anythat die unbaptized at years of discretion That the Infants of Christian Parents who die unbaptized be not numbered with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers and denied Christian Burial Let the Psalms in the Parish-Churches be read in the last Translation Let the Liturgy either be abbreviated by leaving out the short Versicles and Responses Or else let the Minister have leave to omit them and in times of cold or haste to omit some of the Collects as he seeth cause In Churches where many cannot read let the Minister read all the Psalms himself because the confused
required but I think it should be the Congregation's And what if the Elders dissent Shall that hinder the Relation or not 93. The number of chosen Ministers in National Synods will be inconsiderable as to the rest 96. The use of a National Synod where all Bishops and Moderators are chosen by the King and the Commissioner ruleth being before-hand resolved to be to Compile a Liturgy and Rules for all Points of Divine Worship with the Methods Circumstances and Rites to be observed therein Many knowing what Liturgy Subscriptions Declarations and Rites are pleasing to Authority in England will imagine them in fierâ— if not virtually set up already in Scotland when these Rules are set up 107. Publick Pennance And why not and Suspension from Communion till penitent Confession be made But I know not why Compensations should serve instead of Confession and Promise of Reformation without which Money will not make a Man a Christian nor fit for Church-Communion But for any other Pennance besides one penitent Confession and Promise of Amendment and desire of the Churches Prayers for Pardon I know nothing of it and therefore meddle not with it 132. No Act Order nor Constitution may be Expounded to reach to Scripture Constitutions and Orders and the proper Acts of the Ministerial Office if not better explained 133. The Word Ecclesiastical Meeting may be interpreted of particular Synaxes or Congregations of a Parish for Worship if not limited which Convocating of the People is part of the Pastor's proper Office and for a thousand Years was so accounted by the Catholick Church And if in case of Discord or Heresie a few Neighbour Ministers meet for a Friendly Conference to cure it it seemeth hard to charge them with Sedition 140. If the Parties be able to come 143. Many of these Faults should be Corrected by Mulcts before Men be forbidden to Preach the Gospel If every Man be Suspended which I suppose is prohibiting him to Preach and Endeavour Mens Salvation who useth unsound Speeches Flattery or Lightness I doubt so many will talk themselves into Silence that a sharp Prosecution will leave many Churches desolate 145. But what if there be no Preachers to be had May not the Suspended Preach 146. Disobedience to some of the small Ecclesiastical Rules may be punished with Mulcts without absolute Silencing especially when able Preachers are wanting Shall the instructing of the Peoples Souls so much depend on every Word in all these Canons But oh that you would make that good in Practice that Labouring to get Ecclesiastical Preferment should be punished if it were with less than Deposition It would be a happy Canon 147. But shall the Synod or Presbytery carry by Vote or not 149. If every Church-Session have this power of Suspension with power but to say We declare you unfit for Communion of this particular Church till you repent it would give me great Satisfaction were I in Scotland For to speak freely I take these two Things to be of Divine Appointment 1. That each particular Church have its proper Pastor who have the Ministerial Power of Teaching Worship Sacraments Prayer Praise and Discipline and I desire no more Discipline than you here grant that is Suspension from Communion in that particular Church if also the Person may be declared unfit for it till he Repent 2. That these Pastors hold such Correspondency as is necessary to the Union of the Churches in Faith and Love And 3. For all the rest I take them to be Circumstances of such prudential Determination that I would easily submit to the Magistrates determination of them so they be not destructive to the Ends and would not have Ministers take too much of the trouble of them upon themselves without necessity 152. But then you seem here to retract the particular Churches Power again For if a Man may be debarred the Communion for once sinning by Fornication Drunkenness c. why not much more for doing again after Repentance I differ more from this than all the rest Is it not enough that the Party may Appeal to the Presbytery And that the Sessions or Pastor be responsible for Male-Administration or Injury if proved This one Canon would drive me out of the Ministry in Scotland I would never be a Pastor where I must after the first Crime ever after give the Sacrament to every flagitioâ—s Offender till the Presbytery suspend him unless they do it very quickly which perhaps they may never do 153 154. No doubt but Iure Divino every true particular Church hath the Power of Excommunicating its own Members out of that particular Church-Communion Delivering up to Satan is a doubtful Phrase which I shall not stand on But an Excommunication which shall bind many Churches to avoid the Sinner must be done or Consented to by those many Churches Therefore Excommunication should be distinguished 156. Sure some few Ecclesiastical Rules and Proceedings may be so low as that a Contempt of them may be easilyer punished than with this terrible Excommunication Impenitency must be joyned with Scandalous Sins or else they make not the Person Excommunicable as is implyed in what followeth 162. No doubt but every Church may absolve its own Members from that sort of Excommunication which it self may pass And so may a Presbytery But if the Magistrate will have a more formidable Diocesane or National Excommunication and an answerable Absolution those Circumstances are to be left to his Prudence so be it he deprive not each particular Pastor and Church of their proper Power and Priviledge plainly found in Scripture and used many hundred Years through the Catholick Church Honourable Sir The Copy which you sent me goeth no further than to the Visitation of the Sick viz. to Can. 176. And so much according as I was desired I have freely and faithfully Animadverted And in general here are many excellent Canons though of many things I cannot Judge and those few Exceptions I humbly offer to your Consideration craving your Pardon for this boldness which I should not have been guilty of if the worthy Messenger had not told me that it was your desire Sir I rest Your Humble Servant Rich. Baxter Iuly 22. 1670. § 173. I had forgotten one passage in the former War of great remark which put me into an amazemeut The Duke of Ormond and Council had the cause of the Marquess of Antrim before them who had been one of the Irish Rebels in the beginning of that War when in the horrid Massacre two hundred thousand Protestants were murthered His Estate being sequestred he sought his restitution of it when King Charles II. was restored Ormond and the Council judged against him as one of the Rebels He brought his cause over to the King and affirmed that what he did was by his Father's Consent and Authority The King referred it to some very worthy Members of his Privy-Council to examine what he had to shew Upon Examination they reported that they found that he had
consult about such a work and if so that more than I may be consulted and nothing laid on me alone I am confident were but Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson or any such moderate Men appointed to consult with two or three of us on the safe and needful terms of Concord we should agree in a Week's time supposing them vacant for the Business I Rest Your humble Servant Richard Baxter Decem. 15. 1673. The means of uniting the Protestant Ministers in England and healing our lamentable Divisions supposing Church-Government may not be altered 1. About Engagements Let no other Covenant Promise Oath Declaration or subscription be necessary to Ministers for Ordination Institution Induction Ministration or Possession of their maintenance nor to Scholars at the Universities except the ancient University Oath or to School-masters besides the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the subscribing the Doctrine and Sacraments of the Church of England as expressed in the thirty nine Articles accordingly to the 13th of Queen Elizabeth and the common Subscription approving the Doctrine of the Homilies and this following Declaration against Rebellion and Sedition I. A. B. do hold that it is not Lawful for His Majesty's Subjects upon any Pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King his Person or Authority or against any Authorized by his Legal Commission And that there lyeth no Obligation on me or any other of his Subjects from the Oath commonly called the solemn League and Covenant to endeaveavour any Change of the present Government of these his Majesty's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any Reformation of Church or State by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means II. Because the Churches are all supposed to have Incumbents and the present Non-conformists being devoted to the sacred Ministry do holn it high Sacriledge to alienate themselves therefrom to pass by their outward wants till by Presentations to vacant Churches they are better provided let them have liberty to be School-masters or assistants to Incumbents or to Preach Lectures in their Churches so it be by their Consent whether they be Lectures already endowed with some Maintenance or such as the People are willing to maintain And let not the Incumbents be discouraged by the Bishops from receiving them And let such places as being convenient are already possessed by them for God's Publick Worship be continued to that use as Chappels till they can be thus received into Benefices or Lectures III. Because the Piety of Families must keep up very much of the Interest of Religion in the World and Multitudes especially in the Country that cannot read can do little or nothing of it in their own Families and may be greatly helped by joyning with their more understanding pious Neighbours let it not be forbidden to any who attend the publick Assemblies at any other hours to join with their Neighbours being of the same Parish who read the Holy Scriptures and Licensed pious Books and repeat the publick Sermons and Pray and Praise God by singing Psalms and refuse not the Inspection of their lawful Pastors herein Nor let it not be unlawful for any stablished Minister to receive his People in such Work or for the Catechising and personal instructing of such as shall desire it IV. Concerning the Liturgy and publick Communion 1. Let no Man be punished for omitting the use of the Liturgy if in the Congregation where he is incumbent the greatest part of it appointed for that time be sometimes as once a quarter or half a Year as the Canon requireth used by himself and every Lord's Day ordinarily unless when sickness or other Necessity hindreth either by himself or by his Curate or Assistant And let none be forced to read the Apocrypha publickly for Lessons 2. Let no meer Lecturer be forced to read the the Liturgy himself or to procure another to read it seeing it is the Incumbent's Charge and it is supposed it will be done Or if this may not be granted let the Lecturer be only obliged once half a Year which is the time limited in the Canon to read the Greatest part of it appointed for that time 3. Let not Christian Parents be forbidden to dedicate their Children publickly to God by entering them into the Christian Covenant professing and undertaking on their Behalf that which belongeth to Parents in that Case And let not the Parents be forced to get such Godfathers and Godmothers as are Atheists Infidels Hereticks or grosly ignorant what Baptism and Christianity is or as for their wicked Lives are themselves justly kept from the Communion nor such as they know have no intention to do what they are to undertake And if any Christian Parent can get no better to undertake that Office many now scrupling it and none can be forced to it let not his Child be denied Baptism if he be ready to do the Office of a Parent himself 4. Seeing some Ministers think that the use of the transient Image of the Cross as a Sacramental or dedicating Sign In the Baptismal Covenant and a Symbol of the Christian Profession is a breach of the second Commandment â—et not such be forced to use it nor to refuse to baptize the Children of such Persons without it who are of the same Mind 5. Let no Minister be forced against his Judgment to baptize any Child both whose Parents avoid or are justly denied the Communion of the Church unless sâ—me Person who communicateth with the Church do take the Child as his own und undertake to Educate it according to the Christian Covenant 6. Let none be forced to receive the Sacrament who through Infidelity Heresie or Prophaneness is unwilling till the hinderance be removed Nor any who by Consciousness or fear of their unfitness are like to be driven by so receiving it into distraction or desperation 7. Let no Minister be forced to deliver the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood to any who is unbaptized or who being baptized in Infancy did never yet personally to the Church or Minister own his Baptismal Covenant by an understanding Profession of the Christian Faith and promise of Obedience to God the Father Son and Holy-Ghost and who also will not yet make such a profession and promise to the Church or Minister or else bring a valid Certificate that he hath formerly done it to the Bishop or some approved Pastor under whom he lived Nor to any who upon accusation fame or just suspicion of Atheism Infidelity Heresie intolerable Ignorance or gross and heinous Sin doth refuse to come speak with the Minister for his satisfaction and his Justification or better Information or who by Proof or Confession is found guilty of any of the aforsaid scandalous Evils until he have professed serious Repentance to the said Minister if the crime be notorious and if he refuse till he have moreover amended his former wicked Life 8. Let no Minister be forced to publish an Excommunication or Absolution of any against his Conscience upon the decree or
I was then desired to Communicate it to some Nonconforming Brethren Dr. Manton was gone into the Countrey Dr. Bates was sick I Communicated it to Mr. Iohn Corbet Mr. aâ—ents Mr. Pool Dr. Iacomb and Mr. Humphrey When we had made such further small Corrections as all agreed on Mr. Pool and I were desired to meet the two Doctors for a further procedure They met us and we again read the Draught but would give them no Copy and agreed with them that they should take the present time while Bishop Morley was out of Town as likest to frustrate and to desire Bishop Ward and Bishop Pierson of Chester a Learned sober Man to meet us and to hear what we had agreed on and promise us secrecy Bishop Ward once came in upon us when we were together but withdrew They promised us to try it speedily But when they had only in General told Bishop Ward c. how far we had gone and how fair we were for Agreement and told them some of the particular Materials there was a full end of all the Treaty The Bishops had no further to go We had already carryed it too far Hearing no more of the Doctors we sent to know how the Case went and understood by them that their Hopes and Labours were at an end I sent to Dr. Tillotson to know whether they would give me leave to tell any to promote our Concord how far they agreed with us that their Names might be some advantage to the work And he wrote to me as followeth Apr. 11. 1675. Sir I took the first opportunity after you were with us to speak to the Bishop of Sal. who promised to keep the matter private and only to acqaint the Bishop of Ch. with it in order to a Meeting But upon some General Discourse I plainly perceived several things could not be obtained However he promised to appoint a time of Meeting but I have not heard from him since I am unwilling my Name should be used in this Matter not but that I do most heartily desire an Accommodation and shall always endeavour it But I am sure it will be a prejudice to me and signify nothing to the effecting of the thing which as Circumstances are cannot pass in either House without the Concurrence of a considerable part of the Bishops and the Countenance of His Majesty which at present I see little reason to expect I am Your affectionate Brother and Servant Iohn Tillotson § 288. A short time after told these Doctors what these same Bishops were even then contriving when they cryed up Agreement and set them on this work even to bring things much higher than they were by putting on Oath on the Lords Commons and Magistrates of which more anon But because some would know the Terms which we agreed on I shall here annex the Form to a word only telling them that would understand it 1. That it is not what we would have had we our Choice but what we would possibly hope might have been granted us We had not the least hopes of more 2. That we did not so annex the latter Particulars as if we would not have been glad of the former alone could no more be had For the bare opening of the Door for our Entrance would have done something for a present shift 3. That the passage that shortening Common Prayer in extraordinary Cases should not be punishable had several uses which unless we had opportunity here to open as we debated it cannot be suddenly understood by each Reader And many will say that too much or too little is yielded that know not our Circumstances and hear not our Reasons But it may somewhat satisfy considering Men that both parties did agree in the form here annexed tho the Bishops had rather all our Distractions and Miseries were by the greatest Cruelty continued An Act for the Healing and Concord of his Majestie 's Subject 's in matters of Religion WHereas the Concord and Conjunct Labours of all able Godly Ministers of Christ are of great use to the safety of the true Religion and peace of the Kingdom and the Salvation of their Flocks and Experience proveth that this Concord cannot be now obtained without some Abatement of the terms of Uniformity required by the present Laws Be it enacted by His Majesty c. I. That no other Oath Subscription Declaration Covenant or promise shall henceforth be necessary to or required of any Priests or Deacons for their Ordination Institution Induction License to preach and perform their Office nor of Students in the Universities nor School-Masters besides the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and the promises at Ordination of Ministerial fidelity contained in the form of Ordination and the subscribing to the Doctrine and Sacraments of the Church of England according to the statute of Eliz. 13. in the words J. A. B. do unfeignedly assent to the Doctrine of Faith and Sacraments of the Church of England as they are expressed in the Articles of the Church And the Oaths for the proper privileges of the Universities and Colledges and to this following Declaration against Rebellion and Disloyalty J. A. B. do hold that it is not lawful for any of his Majestie 's Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King his Person Authority or Rights and Dignity nor against any Authorized by his Laws or Legal Commission and that there lyeth no obligation on me or any of his Majestie 's Subjects from the Oath commonly called the solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any Change of the present Government of his Majestie 's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any reformation or alteration of the Church Government as it is not by Law established by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means II. And be it enacted by c. That in such Churches or places of publick worship where the Liturgy is read and the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper accordingly administred by the Incumbent or the Lecturer or Curate or other Minister no other shall be punished for not using it there or for not baptizing or not administring the Lord's Supper provided that such other Minister be oft present at the reading of the Liturgy and that he read it himself at least twice a year and as often baptize Children if offered thereto and administer the Lord's Supper according to the Liturgy if he have cure of Souls Provided that no Minister shall be punished as guilty of Omission for any brevity which is caused unavoidably by sickness weakness or any just extraordinary cause But if otherwise the Liturgy be in any Church disused the Incumbent shall be punishable as is already appointed by the Law And Be it enacted that no Parent shall be forbidden to enter his own Child into Covenant with God in baptism by speaking such promising and undertaking words as by the Liturgy and Canon are now required of the Godfathers and Godmothers alone Nor shall any Minister be forced against
Protestant Divines of England are branded as Popish that since the Reformation have defended against the Pope that Bishops are jure Divino for so I say it was direct Popery that first denied Bishops to be jure Divino witness the Pope's and Papelins canvassing in the Council of Trent to oppress by Force and Tyranny the far major and more learned part of the Council that contended for so many Months with Suffrages Arguments and Protestations Protestant like to have it defined that Bishops were jure Divino and only the Pope and his Titulars and Courtiers suffered it not to be propounded least it should be as certainly it would have been defined for then Popes and Presbyterians could not have lorded it so Thus the chiefest and most pious and learned Bishops of our English Church must be branded for Popish Bishop Andrews Mountague White c. Reply to Sect. 15. 1. If you deny the Authors cited by me to be authentick pretend not to adhere to the Episcopal Protestants for sure these are such 2. You do not well to say that all the Protestant Bishops are branded as Popish that since the Reformation have defended against the Pope that Bishops are jure Divino either shew the Words where I so brand them or else do not tell us that your Words are true though in a matter of Fact before your Eyes we may well question your Argument when we find you so untrue in reporting a plain Writing Indeed our late Bishops and those most that were most suspected to be Popish did stand most upon the jus Divinum which many of the first did either disclaim or not maintain But it never came into my Thoughts to brand all for Papists that did own it Do I not cite Downame and others as Protestant Bishops who yet maintain it yea Bishop Andrews whom you name this is not fair 3. As for the Trent Quarrel about Bishops I say but this if the Spanish Bishops and the rest that stood for the jus Divinum of Episcopacy there were no Papists then those that I spoke of in England were none much less And I must cry you mercy for so esteeming them Except to Sect. 16. The 3d Argument is from the uncertainty of Succession which might have done the Hereticks good Service in the old times when St. Irenaeus and Tertullian muster up against them Successions of Catholick Bishops that ever taught as the Church then taught against the Hereticks Reply to Sect. 16. 1. It seems you are confident of an uninterrupted Succession of authoritative Ordination though you seem to think none authoritative but Episcopal But so were not the Protestant Bishops who took the Reformed Churches to have true Ministers and to be true Churches when yet Episcopal Ordination is interrupted with them Such are all those with whose Words you say I fill my Book to whom I may add Men which is strange that were thought nearer your own way As Bishop Bromhall in his late Answer to Militerius who yet would have the Pope to be the Principium Unitatis to the Church and the Answer to Fontanus's Letter said to be Dr. Stewards besides Dr. Fern yea if you were one of those that would yield that Presbyters may ordain yet I am still unpersuaded that you are able to prove an uninterrupted Succession of Authoritative Ordination and if you are able I should heartily thank you if you would perform it and seeing it is so Necessary it is not well that no Episcopal Divine will perform it If you are not able methinks you should not judge it so necessary at least except you know them that are able If you cast it on us to disprove that Succession I refer you to our Answer to Bellarmine and others in those Papers as to that point 2. As for Tertullian and Irenaeus and others of the primitive Ages pleading such Succession I answer 1. It is one thing to maintain an uninterrupted Succession then when and where it was certain and another to maintain it now when it is not 2. It is one thing then to maintain that such a Succession was de facto and another to affirm that it must be or would be to the end of the World which those Fathers did not It was the Scope of Irenaeus and Tertullian not to make an uninterrupted Succession of standing absolute necessity ad esse Officii nor to prophecy that so it should still be and the Church should never want it but from the present certainty of such a Succession de facto to prove that the Orthodox Churches had better Evidence of the Soundness of their Faith than the Hereticks had If this be not their meaning I cannot understand them it was easy then to prove the Succession and therefore it might be made a Medium against Hereticks to prove that the Churches had better Evidence than they But now the Case is altered both through time and Sin It might have been proved by Tradition without Scripture what was sound Doctrine and what not before the Scripture was written An Heretick might have been confuted in the Days of the Apostles without their Writings and perhaps in a great measure some time after but it follows not that they may be so to the End of the World Those that heard it from the Mouth of the Apostles could tell the Church what Doctrine they taught but how uncertain a way Tradition would have been to acquaint the World with God's Mind by that time it had passed through the puddle of depraved Ages even to 1653. God well knew and therefore provided us a more certain way So is it also in this Case of Succession as the Fathers pleaded it against the Hereticks to prove the Soundness of the Tradition of those Churches Except to Sect. 17. Against all which a Quirk it seems lay that if secretly any of them had had but a secret Canonical Irregularity all the following Successions were null But the evident Truth is much otherwise that the Church never anulled the Acts or Ordinations made by Bishops which the Catholick Church then had accepted and reputed Catholick Bishops though afterwards they came to know of any Secret Irregularities or canonical Disablings had they then been urged or prosecuted by any against those Bishops and then they should have been accepted for Bishops by the Church no longer Reply to Sect. 17. 1. I have proved and more can do open and not only secret Irregularities in the Church of Rome's Ordinations known a Priâ—re and not only after the Ordinations The Multitude of Protestant Writers even English Bishops have made that evident enough against the Pope which you call a Querk general Councils have condemned Popes as Hereticks and Infidels and yet they have ordained more 2. If it were otherwise yet all your Answer would only prove that we must sometimes take them for Bishops who were none when the Nullity is secret but not that they are Bishops indeed or have Authority It is one thing to
separated to God's Service those of the Sons of Asaph and of Heman and of Ieduthun who should prophesie with Harps c. 1 Chron. 25. 1 6. They were for the Service of the House of God according to the King's Order so 1 Chron. 16. 4. so did Solomon 2 Chron. 8. 14 15. The Magistrates Power in Church Matters was no Ceremony or Temporary Thing 13. When any Officers of the Temple were discovered to have no just Title and thereupon were put out yet none of their Actions while they were in Place were censured null Ergo if now any be discovered to have no just Title his former Actions are not to be judged null The Reason of the Consequence lyeth in the Equality of the Case The Antecedent is proved from Ezra 2. 62. Neb. 7. 64 65. They sought their Register among those that were reckoned by Genealogy but they were not found therefore were they as polluted put from the Priest hood So Neh. 13. 29 30. And therefore the Ordination done before such Ejection is not null And that the individual Person to receive this Power may be determined of in case of necessity without an Ecclesiastical Authoritative Determination may further appear thus 1. If the individual Person may be determined of ordinarily or sometimes by the Peoples Election to be presented to the Ministers for their Ordination or Confirmation then may the individual Person be determined of by the People to be presented to God immediately for his Ordination in case there be no Ordainers to be had But the Antecedent is true Ergo the Antecedent is proved 1. From the Apostles Instruction to the Church of Ierusalem Act. 6. 3. Choose you or look you out seven Men of honest Report full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom whom we may appoint over this Business They describe the Men and leave them to nominate them that were such And if the Church can do this to present to the Apostles then it seems they are competent Discerners of Such If the Apostles had said We do appoint and authorize the seven Men whom you shall choose so that they be such and such Men the Ordination had been as valid on Supposition of such an Election as it was when it followed the Election And if the Apostles might have so done no doubt God may so do by his Law For he doth the same viz. describe the Persons and confer the Power particularly and on an Individuum vagum and sometimes quasi signatum and if popular Election can make it an Individuum determinatum then all is done 2. And the Church hath continued this Custom so far that Councils decreed Ordinations invalid without Elections of the People yea if they were but afrighted and over-awed and did it not freely Insomuch that Cyprian faith Plebs maximam habet potestatem vel dignos Sacerdotas elegendi vel indig nos recusandi Till the bloody bout in the choice of Damasus it is known that the Peoples Election was the principle Determiner of the individual Person or at least did much in it For the Consequence the Reason of it lyes here in that Scripture may apparently suffice for all except the Nomination of the Individual as you seem to intimate in laying the stress of all your Argument upon this that it meddles with no Individuum of these times The Law gives Authority to that individual Person that is justly nominated or determined of But a right qualified Man chosen only by the People in case there be no Ordainer is justly determinated of or nominated Ergo The Law gives Authority to such Where note that the Law needs no other Condition to the actuating of its Conveyance but only the Determination of the recipient Person Then note that regularly Officers and People are to join in this Determination of the Person The People sometime being in electing and the Officers conclusively determine and sometimes the Officers begin and the People after consent but both must concur and all that both can do is to determine of the Man whom God by his Law shall authorize though the very determination it self as by the Officers is an Act of Authority Now whenever two Parties are made Con-causes or are to concur in such Determinations when one Party faileth the Power and Duty is solely in the other At least it is hence apparent that there is a possible way left for the determining of Individuums in this Age. 2. If the Law do so far describe the Persons to receive Power as that a Bishop can nominate the Persons by the Light of that Description then it doth so far describe the Persons as that others may nominate them by the Light of that Description But the Antecedent is true Ergo The Antecedent you will own or else farewell all Episcopal Ordination The Consequence is plain in that others may be able to see that which a Bishop can see and in necessity at least may do it This therefore wholly answers your Argument against the Law being a sufficient Medium eo nomine because it meddles not with Individuums for it meddles with none of the Individuals which Bishops determine of and yet it is the Law that conveys the Power when the Bishop hath determined of the Person to receive it as Spalatensis hath largely proved of Kings Law is God's Instrument of conveying Right and imposing Duty though Men may be the Media Applicationis The Law is to be conceived as in this Form I do authorize the Persons that shall be justly determined of according to this Description And because Ministerial Determinations are the ordinary regular way with the Peoples Consent it is q. d. Ordinarily I do authorize the Persons whom Ecclesiastical Power shall determine of according to this Description So that it is God by his Law that gives the Power As when a Corporation is to choose their Bailiff or Major it is the Law or Charter that is the immediate Instrument of effective Conveyance of the Power though the Choosers are the Media Applicationis and perhaps some capital Burgesses may have the chief Power in choosing him ordinarily 3. If the People may per Iudicium Discretionis discern whether a Bishop have ordained them one agreeable to the Scripture Description then may they also discern whether a Man be agreeable to it though unordained But the antecedent is true Ergo Were not the People to judge of this then they must receive any Heretick or Infidel without Tryal if ordained their Bishop But that is not true Though the Officers contradict it yet the People of themselves are bound to reject a Heretick Bishop 1. It is a general Precept A Man that is a Heretick avoid and with such no not to eat If a Bishop ordain over this Church a common unreformed Drunkard Rayler c. The Holy Ghost bids us not to eat i. e. have Communion with him 2. Cyprian determines it that Plebâ— obsequens praeceptis Dominicis Deum metuens a Peccatore praeposito
the same all are not of the Church that are in the Parish there are three sorts of the Parish 1. Communicants and those are the Church 2. Meer Hearers and Catechical Persons and these are Candidates 3. Aliens Atheists Infidels and Papists Hereticks Men of no Church or other Churches Parish-Churches as combined parts of a Christian Kingdom or National Church thus distinguished from Aliens Auditors and not only tolerated but orderly combined maintained encouraged are the most regular Churches agreeable to Scripture Reason and Antiquity Quest. 3. Suppose the Parish-Churches should be no true Churches is it destructive to particular Churches to join with the Parish-Assemblies Answ. No who can dream that Families and Neighbours and occasional Meetings may not Worship God or that such Worship destroys Churches Did Corâ—lius's Meeting Acts 18. or those Acts 12. 12. or these that Acts 20. prayed at an Oratory nor the Water destroy the Church 2. Occasion Communicants are not bound to try the Call of the Ministers where they come and have no Vote but to take them according to visible Profession and Possession and if the Ministers should prove uncalled the Loss would be to themselves and not to the Faithful that are blameless and have right to the Childrens Bread though a Iudas or a Pharisee distribute it But the Separatists Object that pretended Churches which are not true are worse than occasional Assemblies that pretend it not Answ. 1. whether they are worse or better is nothing to this Question of destroying Churches 2. The liker they are to true Churches the liker they are to be better than those that are unlike them 3. The Officiating of a true Minister may make that a true temporary Church which is not a constant setled Church 4. It is far liker that many separating Congregations will prove no true lawful Churches for want of true Ministers and other Causes and yet it will not follow that all that join with them destroy true Churches for some under Government may do it blamelesly and they that do it sinfully may yet own true Churches every Sin destroys not other Churches 5. It is a Duty for Members of a Church to get what good they can by all Christians whether they be regular Churches or not Quest. 4. Suppose the Parish-Assemblies to be particular Churches are the Corruptions in them so great as that we must separate from them or would it not be Schism so to do Answ. There are many sorts of Separation It is Schism to call them no true Churches of Christ or such as it is not lawful to hold Communion with and to separate on that account and this I have oft proved in Print so fully that I must not now repeat it But there are many Occasions which may warrant and necessitate a meer local Separation as I have fully proved in many Treatises as if any Sin be imposed and Communion denied to those that will not Sin those Men do not separate but are driven out by Separatists or Tyrants and must not give over all Church Worship of God because Tyrants forbid it them Many other Instances of lawful local Separation I have published which I cannot find any have confuted no nor denyed Quest. 5. Whether there are not in congregational Churches such things which are not plainly instituted in Scripture Answ. Congregational is a sorry Word as here used in distinction from Parish-Churches Parish-Churches are Congregational they consist of Pastors and Christian Communicants joined for Personal Communion and Independents and Separatists much differ many Independants are against Separation the old Nonconformists both Presbyterians and Independants were judged the parish-Parish-Churches that had tolerable Ministers to be true Churches and Independents greatly differ among themselves some are sound in the Faith and some are unfound some are for Infant Church-Membership and Covenant Grace and some against it some are for self-made Covenants and Terms of Church-entrance and Communion and for the Peoples Power of the Keys and against Ordination and many other Errors which others do renounce And remember it is one thing to be Independants by Agreement as Neighbour Churches and another thing to be dependant as Subjects on governing Churches And it is one thing to be Independant on equal Neighbour Churches and another thing to be independant on a superior Ministry The Churches of Rome Corinth Galatia Ephesus and the rest were independant on each other as to Government but they were dependant on the Apostles and Evangelists Paul Barnabas Luke Mark Silas Timothy Titus and Apollos c. as to Oversight and dependant on other Churches as Fellow-members of the same Universal Body as the Members of our Bodies are 3. I know no Churches to happy as to have nothing that is not particularly yea or generally instituted in Scripture yea and that obtruded on the People O! when will God make them wiser some Independant Ministers and Churches have Catholick Charitable Uniting Principles But the separating part who are they that have so many and great Defects and Faults as I have in my former Writing enumerated and need not here again recite but advise you impartially to review them Quest. 6. Whether every Person who doth join with such a Church doth not become as guilty of the Sin of such a Church as those do that join with the Church of England Answ. This Question intimateth that you know not what the Church of England is It is nothing but a Christian Kingdom consisting of a Christian supreme Power and combined Christians and Churches governed by that Power it is not Liturgies nor Ceremonies that essentiate the Church of England Orthodox Godly Presbyterians and Independants who deny not a Christian Kingdom of Christian Churches though differing in many thing are all parts of the true Church of England But I suppose you mean the Conformists which are but a part 2. One is guilty of the Faults of the Conformists by their bare Presence and Communion who do not consent to those Faults and if bare Presence signified Consent we must avoid Communion with all Churches on Earth for who are Sinless And all must avoid us and how shall we avoid our selves who sin in all we do 3. But when People causelesly separate and unchurch other Churches far â—ounder than their own and falsely accuse them yea and almost all Christ's Churches these Fifteen Hsndred Years as those now called Separatists usually do I think your ordinary joining with such when you may have sounder Communion is a sinful Encouragement of them in their Schism justly leaveth you under the Imputation of Schism and requireth great Humiliation and Reformation being greater than some great private Sins as publick Cases are more important than private but I am loath to say all that I judge true against the present separating Way lest I be mistaken as if I would render them odious or be against the necessary Toleration of the Week I have truly told the World near Forty Years ago that I am past
were all distinguished by the Limits of their Habitation or Proximity so that there was never two Churches in the same City or Bounds save Hereticks and Men of divers Tongues at least where one could hold them all But it 's otherwise with the Separatists 4. No lawful Church in Scripture was gathered out of a true Gospel-Church But theirs are 5. Scripture Churches had fixed known Tests to know qualified Members by which was consent to the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lord's-Prayer and Commandments So that all Churches had the same Test and Terms of Qualification and so had one Profession But these Men leave this Arbitrary to the Pastor or People to try whether Men are converted by uncertain Terms and Words devised by every Minister so that the Terms are unknown and not agreed on among their Churches and may be as various as Ministers 6. Scripture-Churches never divided the Christians of the same Family some to one Church and some to another But these Men do so to great Confusion 7. They are not agreed on any Form of Doctrine to be a Test of their Agreement with other Churches with whom they will have Communion If they say that the Scripture is that Test I answer a General Belief that Scripture is the Word of God is neither sufficient to Salvation nor to Communion Many have this who deny the Essentials of Christianity And an explicite Understanding and Belief of every Text no Man hath Thousands of Texts are not understood by most Christians or Teachers therefore there must be some Collection of the Essentials in a Creed or else there can be no certain Notice whether so much of Scripture Truth be explicitely believed as is necessary to Salvation And if single Pastors require more it must be only in order to Growth and Edification and not as a necessary Qualification for Membership or Communion of Churches I have great Cause to know what I say of them A Parliament once chose Fourteen Ministers to draw up the Fundamentals of Religion as a Test of such as were to be tollerated in Union There were Dr. Owen Mr. Nye Dr. Thomas Goodwin Mr. Sydrak Sympson Dr. Cheynel and others Bishop Usher was chosen and refused and I was chosen in his stead Before I came they had drawn up Fourteen or Fifteen Articles all in new Terms of their own and some neither Essential nor true I told them that we were not to make a new Christianity or Creed but must own that which the Christian Church was known by in all Ages But I could not be heard though Mr. Vines and Mr. Mantâ—n joined with me At last they wrote this for a Fundamental That they that allowed themselves or others in any known Sin cannot be saved I told them that though I could not be heard by them I durst say that I would make them presently blot it out They bid me do it if I could I said The Parliament taketh Independency Separation Anabaptistry and Antinomianism for Sin And they will say These Divines pronounce us all Damned if we allow them They said not a Word but threw away their Fundamental The rest of them they printed But the Parliament were glad with silence to pass by all their Works and take no notice of it lest it should be a publick Reproach that we could not agree on the Fundamentals And I am glad that I hindered such an Agreement as they would have made instead of the old Creeds which they would not rest in And can such Churches be of any known Consistency or Concord If you join with them how know you what Religion they are of Or how know they what other particular Churches are in their Communion for I hope they hold a Communion of Churches Arrians and Socinians say they believe the Scripture No Man understandeth all the Scripture The necessary selected Articles they have no known Agreement in If they say that they own the same Creed that we do why then do they not use it as the Test of Christian Profession but instead of it leave every Pastor to make one in Terms that is only his and no two Churches have the same To agree in Independency or Separation is not to agree in Christianity There are abundance of Books written for very false Doctrines by men called Independents it 's odious to name them Are all the Author of their Communion or not The Assembly could never get them to tell whom they would take to be of their Communion and whom not 8. Therefore their Churches are not compaginate nor confederate so as the Members of our Body should be and as Scripture-Churches were and as Christ would have had the Jewith National Church to be 9. They have no Certainty and Concord in their Church-Worship which they have little more than such Preaching and Praying which cannot be known for true or false sound or unsound till the Words are past And it may justly be expected that Separatists Antinomians Anabaptists Socinians and all erroneous Men should put their Errors into their Sermons and Prayers and sinfully father them all on God And so all God's Worship must be contiually uncertain to the Flocks and of as many different Strains as the Preachers differ in Parts and Wisdom And it must be low and poor and confused wherever the Ministers are young raw erroneous or ignorant They once met at the Savoy and drew up an Agreement of many Pastors But in that they differ from many other Churches called Independants and from the Anabaptists And they expresly contradict the Scripture 1. In saying that we have no Righteousness but Christ's which is imputed to us when as Scripture many Hundred times mentioneth also another personal inherent or acted Righteousness 2. They say that Faith is not imputed for Righteousness I think they mean well But they should rather expound Scripture than flatly deny or contradict what it saith and after defame those falsly that would help them more distinctly to understand it Their People are taught to speak evil of what they understand not and to represent Men as dangerous or odious who think not of many wordy Controversies as confusedly and ignorantly as they Their Churches are too usually constituted of such Novices in Knowledge of both Sexes as are like a School where the Boys call their Teacher a Deceiver for every word by which he would deliver them from their Errours and teach them more than they knew before 10. They lazily gather a few that seem so much better than the rest as will put them to no great labour in Teaching and Discipline But if all the rest of the Parishes lye in Ignorance how little are we beholden to these Separatists for the Cure When I came to Kidderminster some inclined that way importuned to me to take a few Professors of Zeal for my Flock and let the rest follow their ignorant Readers But when I renounced their Counsel and after my own and my Assistants long Catechizing them
peaceable Reformation among us than to break down This Partition-Wall for there is nothing provokes more than this doth to deny such Churches to be true Churches of Christ. For do but think with your selves and I will give you a familiar Example You come to a Man whom you think to be a godly Man you tell him He hath these and these Sins in him and they are great ones It is as much as he can hear though you tell him he is a Saint and acknowledge him so but if you come to him and say besides this You are a Limb of the Devil and you have no Grace in you this provoketh all in a Man when there is any Ground in himself to think so or in another to judge him so so it is here Come to Church and say You have these Defects among you and these things to be reformed But if you will come and say Your Churches and your Ministers are Antichristian and come from Babylon there is nothing provoketh more Therefore if there be a Truth in it as I believe there is Men should be Zealous to express it For this is the great Partition Wall that hindreth of twain making one Then again This is that which I consider and it is a great Consideration also I know that Jesus Christ hath given his People Light in Matters of this Nature by degrees Thousands of good Souls that have been bred up and born in our Assemblies and enjoy the Ordinances of God and have done it comfortably cannot suddenly take in other Principles You must wait on Christ to do it In this Case Men are not to be wrought off by Falshoods God hath no need of them no rather till Men do take in Light you should give them all that is comfortable in the Condition they are in we should acknowledge every good thing in every Man in every Church in every thing and that is a way to work upon Men and to prevail with them as it is Philem. v. 6. That the Communication of thy Faith may become effectual acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Iesus It is that which buildeth Men up by acknowledgment of every good thing that is in them Lastly The last Inconvenience is this It doth deprive Men of all those Gifts that are found amongst our Ministers and in this Kingdom that they cannot hold any Communion or fellowship with them So that I profess my self as Zealous in this Point as in any other I know And for my part this I say and I say it with much Integrity I never yet took up Religion by Parties in the Lump I have found by tryal of things that there is some truth on all Sides I have found Holiness where you would little think it and so likewise Truth And I have learned this Principle which I hope I shall never lay down till I am swallowed up of Imortality and that is that which I said before To acknowledge every good thing and hold Communion with it in Men in Churches or Whatsoever else I learn this from Paul I learn this from Jesus Christ himself He filleth All in All He is in the Hearts of his People and filleth them in his Ordinances to this Day And where Jesus Christ filleth why should we deny an Acknowledgment and a right Hand of Fellowship and Communion My Brethren this Rule that I have now mentioned which I profess I have lived by and shall do while I live I know I shall never please Men in it Why It is plain for this is the Nature and Condition of all Mankind if a Man dissents from others in one thing he loseth himself in all the rest And therefore it a Man do take what is good of all sides he is apt to lose them all But he pleaseth Christ by it and so I will for this particular Thus far Dr. T. Goodwin prefaced and commended by Thankful Owen and Iames Barron worthy and peaceable Men deceased The Transcriber craveth judicious Resolutions of these two Questions 1. Whether it be lawful to be a fixed Member of a grosly Schismatical Church that is guilty of such separating from slandering almost all others as is here reproved when Communion with better may be had Quest. 2. How far others are bound to reprove and Testify against such dividing Principles Ministers and Churches especially after and under doleful Experience of their sinful calamitous Effects Dear Brother I Have felt that in my own Soul and seen that upon my Brethren for these two or three Years last past which persuadeth me that God is about the healing of our Wounds having communicated more healing Principles and Affections and poured out more of the Spirit of Catholick Love and Peace than I have perceived heretofore Love is arisen and shineth upon the Children of the Day and your congealed Stiffness begins to vanish and a Christian Tenderness to succeed The Prince of Peace erects his Banner and the Sons of Peace flock in apace It is a shame to be the last but a misery to be none God will bring his divided distracted Servants nearer together and it is Pity he should be put to bear down any resisting Saints among the Instruments of Satan and that any of their Carcasses should be found on the Ground when he conquereth the Enemies of Peace The Lord is about revealing to his Servants the Error of their Consoriousness Harshness Uncharitableness and Divisions and how grievously they have wronged him and themselves by departing so far from Christian Love and Unity He will let them see how much of the Cause was secret and undiscerned Pride and Self-conceitedness and want of Holy Christian Love while little was pretended or discerned but Strictness and Obedience He will shew them more fully wherein the true Nature of Grace and Holy Obedience doth consist and teach them by the Impress of his Spirit what he so emphatically commanded them by his Word to go learn what that meaneth I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice It 's pity we should not understand the meaning of Words so plain but it 's Sin and Shame as well as Pity that we have studied them no better after such a Memorandum and Command as this But many of God's Servants have in the Points of Unity and Peace been like those miserable Souls that are described to have Eyes and see not Ears and hear not Hearts and understand not these blessed Precepts of Love and Unity though none more plain and frequent and urgent for the time was not come that they should be recovered and healed though this Defection be not in the Essence of Christianity but the Degrees nor for Perpetuity but a Time yet it 's sad that such a Spirit of deadness should so far prevail that Men inquisitive after Truth and zealous of Holiness should least understand the plainest nearest frequent Precepts and so little feel their Obligations to such weighty Duties that the Lord is pleased to stir upon their
in Scripture than that Baptism was appointed for our Entrance upon our State of Disciples in general And Ergo if a Man may be a visible Disciple without it where it seemeth most necessary then much more may he be admitted into a particular Church afterward without it when at least it is no more necessary and indeed much less and not at all save only as universal Church-Member this is pre-requisite to particular The Ministers of Christ Baptized 2000 without asking the Consent of any particular Church 2. They that are under both a Precept making the use of instituted Ordinances their Duty and a Promise of Acceptance in the Performance must perform these Duties with belief of their Acceptance But such are these that you account unbaptized Ergo That they are under a Command is plain All the Precepts for Christian Communion and not forsaking the assembling of our selves and obeying those that rule over us c. are made to the whole visible Church that hath Opportunity for such Communion you will not think that our Sin as you take it can except us from an Obligation to Duty But all the Question is whether such Duty will be accepted if performed by the unbaptized as you now suppose them and this you grant professing your self that you are out of doubt that we are very well accepted of God and you think that it is accounted for Baptism to us And if you yield both that we are bound to the Duty and shall have Acceptance in particular Church Communion what is it then besides the regularity that you deny Do you not grant the Cause in Hand And we have many Promises of Acceptance of Believers in their sincere Endeavours and all things are pure to the Pure And if involuntary unavoidable Mistakes shall hinder our Acceptance when we are sincere then we can never be sure that we are accepted 3. It is but visibility that is requisite in a Church or Member to make them capable of our Communion If it be a Communion of Christians as Christians or Saints as Saints that particular Churches are to hold withal that consent and are Members of their Churches then Christianity or visible Sanctity in such Consenters is all that is of Necessity to such Communion But the Antecedent is plain As it is as Christians that we must inwardly love one another so it is as Christians that we must manifest that Love in holy Communion Communion is the Demonstration of Love and all Men must know us to be Christ's Disciples by our loving one another and therefore if any Man be but a visible Christian it 's plain that he 's capable of your Communion if he cohabits and consent else it were not formalitur a Communion of Saints or Christians but of something else Now you confess that Men are visible Christians that are to you unbaptized 4. There is no such thing as a universal visible Church that is not to use Eucharistical Communion nor any parts of it that have opportunity Your similitude of Corporations in a Republick holds in some things but hath this dissimilitude that all Christ's Republick should consist of such Corporations except a Person that is a Merchant Traveller Embassador or by some extraordinary Necessity is denied Opportunity which Rarities are not here of Consideration And whereas in Republicks it may be as commodious for rural Villages to be not incorporate as for Cities to be incorporate and their Priviledges in their Nation may be as great and they are not obliged to incorporate none of this is so in our Case But every visible Christian not hindered by Necessity is bound to incorporate and charged not to forsake the Assemblies but all to join and speak the same things and Glorify God with one Mouth c. And he that is not a visible Christian hath no visible Right to our Christian Communion And he that is a visible Christian and depriveth himself of this Communion sinneth and wrongeth his own Soul and as it were out-laws himself and is not as you suppose in your Comparison of the not-incorporate But though in some Cases such may be saved as deny instituted Communion and Worship or neglect it yet they do so far put themselves into the State of those without 5. Your Opinion sets up a new kind of Church or Christian Assemblies and Communion of such as may only hear and Pray and not have Eucharistical Communion and be under Church-Guidance Shew us any such in Scripture if you can 6. Heathens or Infidels are called to a natural Worship of God Ergo visible Christians are called to more 7. Faith it self hath its Office formally by Institution though its aptitude thereto be in the Nature of the thing And if the Gospel it self be supernatural and our Christianity and Faith an instituted thing as well as Sacrament and Governors and so the universal visible Church an Institution as well as a particular then certainly want of Baptism will no more keep a visible Christian out of the particular instituted Church than out of the universal because as to the Point of Institution there is no such Reason as can make a Difference 8. The great and excellent part of Church Communion is that which you call natural Worship as performed by Believers in the loving God in Christ and admiring and magnifying his Love in the Riches of the Grace of Redemption and seeking with all Saints to comprehend it hearing his Counsels and Commands praying for his Grace and Glory and praising and magnifying him in Faith and Hope and Love with our Eye upon the second Coming of our Lord. And that which you call Instituted Order and Worship is but the means to this and without this but a Shell It is subservient to it And therefore 1. They that are capable of the greater are capable of the less Heathens are bound to meer natural Worship and their Hearing and Praying is another thing and Obligation and Capacity differ 2. They that must do the work must do it in God's way and by his means The great internal Worship is as the Soul and the external as the Body which are to be distinguished but not separated Must one sort of Christians have the Soul of holy Communion without the Body and carry the Knife naked while you deny them the Sheath 9. If a Member of the Universal visible Church as such is pro tempore to be admitted to Communion in all Ordinances with any particular Church where they come then these that you acknowledge such visible Members must by you be so admitted and so are capable of Communion in instituted Ordinances but the Antecedent is true beyond Dispute None of the Apostles were Members of particular Churches but were as Itinerants to do their work in many Countries so was it with abundance of Itinerant Preachers of those times called their Companions and Fellow Labourers and Helpers as Barnabas Luke Mark Silus Timothy Titus Epaphroditus Apollos c. When Paul came
to Troas Acts 20. he and all his Company are admitted among the Disciples in breaking Bread and that not as Members of any particular Church but as Christians Some Christians are lawfully excused and necessarily deprived of stated Church-Membership in a particular Church as Princes Ambassadors that may spend their Lives in motion and action in several places c. And shall all these Christians be deprived of actual Communion Sacraments c. in the Places where they come because they are uncapable of any fixed station Yea when perhaps it may be the Work or Cause of God that is the Cause of their unsettledness 10. Dare you undertake to exempt all but those that you judge Baptized from the frequent Precepts of knowing those that are over them in the Lord and submitting themselves and esteeming them highly in love for their work sake and being at peace among themselves 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. and from giving double honour to the Elders 1 Tim. 5. 17. and obeying those that rule over them c. Hebr. 13. 7 17. All Christians that have opportunity are bound to submit to and obey their Guides and Pastors and that cannot be statedly but in a particular Church And then if you look to the beneficial part it 's plain that when Christ ascended up on high and gave gifts to men it was for the perfecting of the Saints and the work of the Ministry and edifying of the Body of Christ even that Pastors and Teachers were given till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect Man Ephes. 4. 9 11 12 13. And will you exclude twenty if not five hundred parts of the Church from this all this benefit of Pastors and Teachers when Christ provided them for all Consider what you do 11. The Unity of the Catholick Body and their commanded correspondency requireth a Fellowship with all the Parts according to opportunity From Christ the whole Body fitly joyned together or jointed which is by Officers Order and Love and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part when you exclude a hundred or many hundred parts from their Communion maketh increase of the Body to the edifying of it self in love not only secret unknown love but love appearing in Communion Ephes. 4. 16. 12. Excommunication out of particular Church-Communion in instituted Ordinances is a grievous Censure and never inflicted on the holy Servants of Christ that never wilfully resist or reject his Truth or Precepts No nor on Offenders but for impenitency or grievous Crimes Durst you Excommunicate me out of your Church if I were in it and professing my owning of Baptism and my hearty longing to know and obey the will of Christ. There is many an honest humble Christian in this Town that I conjecture you may know and deal for that if you should cast out on such an account I am confident infinite Love would be offended with you and say you have toucht the Apple of mine Eye Inasmuch as you cast out these my Members you did that which was too like casting out me And sure you must cast them out upon your grounds if they were in your Church because you judge them uncapable of a station and communion with you and judge your selves bound to separate from such 13. You seem to exalt an outward Act even when the heart disclaims it before a heart that is right with God without the Act. For if you had one twice or thrice Baptized in your Church that afterward disclaimed it and owned none but his Infant Baptism what would you do with this Man If you would retain him you would lay more stress on a disclaimed outward Action than on the Life of Grace If you would reject him then it seems you judge not the Baptism and Entrance which you suppose right to be enough in Fact and Existence but you think a belief of its Necessity necessary and so you put it among the Credenda and not the Agenda only when it was never in the Churches Creed For if it be a necessary Article of Faith they must perish that reject it 14. Paul and other Penmen of the Scripture telling us of many greater Errours than the thing you oppose doth not require an avoiding of the Communion of the Erroneous yea commandeth us to receive them that are weak in the faith but not to doubtful Disputations Rom. 14. 10. and dare you reject a strong Believer upon a doubtful Disputation 15. Search observe and judge whether the abundant earnest Precepts for Special Love and Company and Endearedness of Saints as Saints I could soon fill a Sheet with pertinent Citations will possibly consist with your rejecting them from special Communion and Separating from them Is this the appearance of your honouring them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. and your Loving the Brethren and that with a pure heart fervently Can all Men know you by this to be Christ's Disciples Communion is but the expression of this special Love and holy Improvement of each other for God and our mutual Benefit As he contradicts himself that saith He loveth God and hateth his Brother so doth he that saith he loveth his Brother and yet separateth from him or rejecteth him and most such on Earth for an unavoidable infirmity If you that are strong or think so are bound to bear the Infirmities of the weak then not to Excommunicate them Rom. 15. 1. Though this Body hath some Parts which we think less honourable yet must there be no Schism in it but the Members must have the same care one of another as Suffering being honoured and rejoycing together 1 Cor. 12. 24 25 26. nor must one part say to another I have no need of thee nor cut it off from the Communion of the Body The general command of Love Company Familiarity Edifying and Admonishing one another comprehends the Means in which this Communion must be held or will not be fulfilled in rejecting such Persons 16. When you are in doubt between two Difficulties the clearest and greatest Truth should prevail against the less But much more when on one side there is great weight and no difficulty and on the other much difficulty and far less weight the uncertain smaller Point should give place to the greater and more certain But it is of clearest certainty and greatest weight that we dearly love the Saints as Saints and use them as Saints and have Communion with them as Saints But you are not so sure that you must not reject almost all the Saints on Earth for want of your season of Baptism nor hath God laid weight by Promise upon such a Duty or by a Threatning driven you to it but contrarily condemned it as a sin 17. Doth not your Cause plainly bear an Image contrary to that of God Love is likest him that is Love Charity covereth infirmities and thinketh no evil and
see the Examples of Tyranny and rash Excommunication let him read Iohn's Epistle to Diotrephes and the pious Admonitions of Irenaeus to Victor The Examples of Schisms we have in others not a few To which Optatus Melev prudently ascribeth three Causes Wrath Ambition and Covetousness But how many score Canons Interdicts and Bloody Wars do prove all this XXVIII And had not these Vices conquered Common Reason with Christianity in such men it were a Wonder that so unprofitable and causeless a thing as forcing all Christians to Unite on the profest Approbation and Practice of all the needless Things which such impose and denying them Communion and Peace on the Terms that Christ prescribed for all his Servants to own and love each other on should be thought a sufficient Justification of all that Dividing Cruelty of which it hath been guilty And that Church-Grandees should make such Schisms as are yet in East and West and then hate and persecute the Sufferers as Schismaticks Saith Grotius on Luke 6. 22. Scitum est Veterum Iudaeorum cujus Maimonidememinit siquis Innocentem à Communione arcuerit ipsum excidere jure Communionis And Dr. Stillingfleet on Archbishop Laud and before him Chillingworth conclude That if a Church deny Communion to her Members on those Terms that give them Right to Communion with the Church Universal that Church is guilty of the Schism Were it not more Christian-like easie and sweet to joyn all in the practice of the Laws of Christ by which we shall be judged with the needful use of edifying Order and Circumstances that all Sizes and Ages of Christians might live in Unity and Love than to cast out all that cannot Unite on Terms so far beyond meer Christianity as most Churches on Earth require When the Volume of Councils and Canons were unknown and plain Familiar Discipline was used in the open Church-Meetings Christians were less divided saith Grotius in Luc. 6. 22. Apud Christianos Veteres praesidente quidem Episcopo Senioribus sed Conscia Consentiente Fratrum multitudine morum judicia exercebantur If Christians be partial hear an impartial Heathen Ammianus Marcellinus who scandalized with the murder of Men kill'd in the Church for the Election of Pope Damasus concludeth how well it would have gone with Christianity if those great Roman Prelates had lived like the poor humble inferiour Bishops See his words But if Paul's full Decision on Romans 14. will not bring us to necessary forbearance no Plainness not Authority will serve Numb IX An Act for Concord by Reforming Parish Churches and Regulating Toleration of DISSENTERS I. THE Qualification requisite to Baptism in the Adult for themselves and in one Parent at least or Pro-Parents for Infants is Their understanding Consent to the Baptismal Covenant in which they are solemnly devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as their God and Father Saviour and Sanctifier Renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil so far as they are adverse And the requisite Qualification of the Adult for proper Church Priviledges and Communion in the Lord's Supper is That they forsake not the said Covenant or Christianity but publickly own it not rendering their Profession invalid by any Doctrine or Practice inconsistent therewith And that they understandingly desire the said Communion II. The Christian Churches have universally taken the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments as delivered by Christ for the Summary of the Christian Belief Desire and Practice expounding the Matter of the Baptismal Covenant Therefore all Pastors shall Exhort all Housholders to learn themselves and teach their Families the words and meaning of the Baptismal Covenant and of the Creed Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments And shall also thus Catechize such themselves as need their help as far as they or their Assisstants can do it III. No Minister shall Baptize any Person Adult or Infant till the Adult for themselves and the Parent or Pro-Parent who undertaketh the Education of the Child as his own have there professed their Belief of the Christian Faith and their fore-described Consent to the Christian Covenant in which they are to be solemnly devoted to God And such they shall not refuse Nor shall the Pastors admit any to the proper Priviledges of Church Communion and partaking of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ but those who have made Profession that they resovedly stand to their Baptismal Covenant in the foresaid Belief of the Christian Faith and Desire and Obedience to Christ. Which Profession shall be made in the Church or to the Pastor before sufficient Witness or to the Diocesan or some other Pastor who shall give Testimonial of it And if any shall go from the Parish-Church Pastor to be Confirmed by the Bishop or received by any other Minister without the Certificate or Consent of his own Parish Pastor the said Pastor shall not be obliged to admit him to Communion till to him also before Witness he have made the said Profession IV. Because in great Parishes and Cities where Persons live unknown and as Lodgers are transient and too great a Number desire not Communion and many Communicate only with other Churches and it is needful for Order that all Pastors know their Communicating Flock from the rest the Pastor may for his memory keep a Register of the stated Communicants of his Parish and put out the Names of those that deny or remove or are lawfully Excommunicate or that wilfully forbear Communion above fix Months not rendering to the Pastor a Satisfactory Excuse But occasionally he ought not to refuse any Stranger who hath Testimony of his Communion with any other approved Christian Church V. If by the Pastor's knowledge or by just accusation or same any Communicant be strongly suspected of Atheism Infidelity or denying any Essential part of Christian Faith Hope or Practice or to live in any heinous Sin the Pastor shall send for him and enquire of the Truth and if he be proved Guilty gently instruct him and admonish him and skilfully labour to bring him to Repentance And if he prevail not shall again send for him and do the same before some Witnesses And if he yet prevail not or if he wilfully refuse to come or to answer him shall open his Case before the Church Vestry or Neighbour Pastors and if he be present there admonish him and pray for his Repentance And if yet he prevail not to bring him to the profession of serious Repentance he shall declare that he judgeth him a Person unmeet for Church Communion till he Repent and shall till then forbear to give him the Sacrament But when he professeth serious Repentance shall receive him But if after such oft Professions he continue in such heinous Sin he shall not again receive him till actual Amendment for a sufficient time to make valid his Profession VI. Ordination to the Priesthood shall be a valid License to Preach And every just Incumbent being the Pastor Overseer or
those whose Liberty is desired Not that we are against subscribing the proper Rule of our Religion or any meet Confession of Faith Nor do we scruple the Oath of Supremacy or Allegiance Nor would we have the Door left open for Papists or Hereticks to come in 2. We take the boldness to say that since we have had the Promises of your gracious indulgence herein and upon divers Addresses to your Majesty and the Lord Chancellor had comfortable Encouragement to expect our Liberty yet cannot Ministers procure Institution without renouncing their Ordination by Presbyters or being re-ordained nor without Subscription and the Oath of Canonical Obedience 3. We must observe with Fear and Grief that your Majesty's Indulgence and Concessions of Liberty in this Declaration extendeth not either to the abatement of Re-ordination or of subscriptional Ordination or of the Oath of Obedience to the Bishops We therefore humbly and earnestly crave that your Majesty will declare your Pleasure 1. That Ordination and Institution and Induction may be conferred without the said Subscription or Oath And 2. That none be urged to be reordained or denied Institution for want of Ordination by Prelates that was ordained by Presbyters 3. And that none be judged to have forfeited his Presentation or Benefice nor be deprived of it for not reading those Articles of the 39 that contain the controverted Points of Government and Ceremonies Lastly We humbly crave that your Majesty will not only grant us this Liberty till the next Synod but will indeavour that the Synod be impartially chosen and that your Majesty will be pleased to endeavour the Procurement of such Laws as shall be ne-necessary for our security till the Synod and for the Ratification of moderate and healing Conclusions afterwards and that nothing by meer Canon be imposed on us without such Statute Laws of Parliament These Favours which will be injurious to none if your People may obtain of your Majesty it will revive their Hearts to daily and earnest Prayer for your Prosperity and to rejoice in the thankful Acknowledgment of that gracious Providence of Heaven that hath blessed us in your Restoration and put it into your Heart to heal our Breaches and to have compassion on the faithful People in your Dominions who do not petition you for Liberty to be Schismatical Factious Seditious or abusive to any but only for leave to obey the Lord who created and redeemed them according to that Law by which they must all be shortly judged to everlasting Joy or Misery And it will excite them to and unite them in the cheerful Service of your Majesty with their Estates and Lives and to transmit your deserved Praises to Posterity A little before this the Bishops Party had appointed at our Request a Meeting with some of us to try how near we could come in preparation to what was to be resolved on Accordingly Dr. Morley Dr. Hinchman and Dr. Cosins met Dr. Reignolds Mr Calamy and my self and after a few roving Discourses we parted without bringing them to any particular Concessions for Abatement only their general talk was from the beginning as if they would do any thing for Peace which was fit to be done and they being at that time newly elect but not consecrated to their several Bishopricks we called them my Lords which Dr. Morley once returned with such a Passage as this we may call you also I suppose by the same Title by which I perceived they had some Purposes to try that way with us § 107. This Petition being delivered to the Lord Chancellor was so ungrateful that we were never called to present it to the King But instead of that it was offered us that we should make such Alterations in the Declaration as were necessary to attain its Ends But with these Cautions that we put in nothing but what we judged of flat necessity And 2. That we altered not the Preface or Language of it For it was to be the King's Declaration and what he spake as expressing his own Sense was nothing to us but if we thought he imposed any thing intollerable upon us we had leave to express our Desires for the altering of it Whereupon we agreed to offer this following Paper of Alterations letting all the rest of the Declaration alone But withal by Word to tell those we offered it to which was the Lord Chancellor That this was not the Model of Church-Government which we at first offered nor which we thought most expedient for the healing of the Church But seeing that cannot be obtained we shall humbly submit and thankfully acknowledge his Majesty's Condescention if we may obtain what now we offer and shall faithfully endeavour to improve it to the Churches Peace to the utmost of our Power Having declared this with more we delivered in the following Paper The Alterations of the Declaration which we offered 1. WE do in the first place declare that our Purpose and Resolution is and shall be to promote the Power of Godliness to encourage the Exercises of Religion both publick and private and to take care that the Lord's Day be appropriated to holy Exercises without unnecessary Divertisements and that insufficient negligent non-resident and scandalous Ministers be not permitted in the Church And as the present Bishops are known to be Men of great and exemplary Piety c. 2. Because the Diocesses especially some of them are thought to be of too large Extent we will appoint such a Number of suffragan Bishops in every Diocess as shall be sufficient for the due Performance of their Work 3. No Bishops shall ordain or exercise any part of Jurisdiction which appertains to the Censures of the Church without the Advice and Consent of the Presbyters and no Chancellors Commissaries Archdeacons or Officials shall exercise any Act of Spiritual Jurisdiction 4. To the end that the Deans and Chapters may be the better fitted to afford Counsel and Assistance to the Bishops both in Ordination and in the other Ordinances mentioned before we will take care that those Preferments be given to the most learned and pious Presbyters of the Diocess And moreover that at least an equal Number of the most learned pious and discreet Presbyters of the same Diocess annually chosen by the major Vote of all the Presbyters of that Diocess shall be assistant and consenting together with those of the Chapter at all Ordinations and all other Acts of spiritual Jurisdiction Nor shall any Suffragan Bishops ordain or exercise any act of spiritual Jurrisdiction but with the Consent and Assistance of a sufficient Number of the most Judicious and pious Presbyters annually chosen by the major Vote of all the Presbyters in his Precincts And our will is that the great Work of Ordination be constantly and solemnly performed at the four set times and Seasons appointed by the Church for that purpose 5. We will take care that Confirmation be rightly and solemnly performed by the Information and with the Consent of
the Minister of that Place Who shall admit none to the Lord's Supper till they have made a credible Profession of their Faith and promised Obedience to the Will of God according as is expressed in the Consideration of the Rubrick before the Catechism and that all possible Diligence be used for the Instruction and Reformation of scandalous Offenders whom the Ministers shall not suffer to partake of the Lord's Table until they have openly declared themselves to have truly repented and amended their former naughty Lives as is partly expressed in the Rubrick and more fully in the Canons Provided there be place for due Appeals to superior Powers 6. No Bishops c. 7. We are very glad to find that all with whom we have conferred do in their Judgments approve a Liturgy or a set Form of publick Worship to be lawful which in our Judgments for the Preservation of Unity and Uniformity we conceive to be very necessary And although we do esteem the Liturgy of the Church of England contained in the Book of Common-Prayer and by Law established to be the best that we have seen and we believe that we have seen all that are extant and used in this part of the World and we know what Reverence most of the reformed Churches or at least the most learned Men in those Churches have for it yet since we find some Exceptions made against several things therein We will appoint an equal Number of learned Divines of both Persuasions to review the same and to make such Alterations as shall be thought most necessary and some additional Forms in Scripture Phrase as near as may be suited unto the Nature of the several Ordinances and that it be left to the Minister's choice to use one or the other at his Discretion In the mean time and till this be done although we do heartily wish and desire that the Ministers in their several Churches because they dislike some Clauses and Expressions would not totally lay aside the use of the Book of Common Prayer but read those Parts against which there can be no Exception which would be the best Instance of declining those Marks of Distinction which we so much labour and desire to remove Yet in compassion to divers of our good Subjects who scruple the use of it as now it is our Will and Pleasure is that none be punished or troubled for not using it until it be reviewed and effectually reformed as aforesaid In the Preface concerning Ceremonies we desire that at least these Words be left out Not that themselves do in their Iudgments believe the Practice of these particular Ceremonies which they except against to be in it self unlawful As concerning Ceremonies our Will and Pleasure is 1. That none shall be required to kneel in the act of receiving the Lord's Supper but left at Liberty therein 2. That the religious Observation of Holyâ—days of human Institution be left indifferent and that none be troubled for not observing of them 3. That no Man shall be compell'd to use the Cross in Baptism or suffer for not using it 4. That no Man shall be compelled to bow at the Name of Jesus 5. For the use of the Surplice we are contented that all Men be left to their Liberty to do as they shall think fit without suffering in the least Degree for wearing or not wearing it And because some Men otherwise pious and learned say they cannot conform unto the Subscription required by the Canons nor take the Oath of Canonical Obedience we are content and it is our Will and Pleasure so they take the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy that they shall receive Ordination Institution and Induction and shall be permitted to exercise their Function and to enjoy the Profits of their Livings without the said Subscription or Oath of Canonical Obedience And moreover that no Persons in the Universities shall for the want of such Subscription be hindred in taking their Degrees Lastly That such as have been ordained by Presbyters be not required to renounce their Ordination or to be re-ordained or denied Institution and Induction for want of Ordination by Bishops And moreover that none be judged to forfeit their Presentation or Benefice or be deprived of it for not reading of those of the 39 Articles that contain the controverted Points of Church-Government and Ceremonies § 108. After all this a Day was appointed for his Majesty to peruse the Declaration as it was drawn up by the Lord Chancellor and to allow what he liked and alter the rest upon the hearing of what both sides should say Accordingly he came to the Lord Chancellor's House and with him the Duke of Albermarle and Duke of Ormond as I remember the Earl of Manchester the Earl of Anglesey the Lord Hollis c. and Dr. Sheldon then Bishop of London Dr. Morley then Bishop of Worcester Dr. Hinchman then Bishop of Salisbury Dr. Cosins Bishop of Durham Dr. Gauden after bishop of Exeter and Worcester Dr. Barwick after Dean of Paule Dr. Hacket Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield with divers others among whom Dr. Gunning was most notable On the other part stood Dr. Reignolds Mr. Calamy Mr. Ash Dr. Wallis Dr. Manton Dr. Spurstow my self and who else I remember not The Business of the Day was not to dispute but as the Lord Chancellor read over Declaration each Party was to speak to what they disliked and the King to determine how it should be as liked himself While the Lord Chancellor read over the Preface there was no Interruption only he thought it best himself to blot out those Words about the Declaration in Scotland for the Covenant That we did from the Moment it passed our Hand ask God Forgiveness for our Part in it The great matter which we stopt at was the Word Consent where the Bishop is to confirm by the Consent of the Pastor of that Church and the King would by no means pass the Word Consent either there or in the Point of Ordination or Censures because it gave the Ministers a negative Voice We urged him hard with a Passage in his Father's Book of Meditations where he expresly granteth this Consent of the Presbyters but it would not prevail The most that I insisted on was from the end of our Endeavours that we came not hither for a Personal Agreement only with our Brethren of the other way but to procure such gracious Concessions from his Majesty as would unite all the soberest People of the Land And we knew that on lower Terms it would not be done Though Consent be but a little Word it was necessary to a very desirable end if it were purposed that the Parties and Divisions should rather continue unhealed then we had no more to say there being no Remedy But we were sure that Union would not be attained if no Consent were allowed Ministers in any part of the Government of their Flocks and so they should be only Teachers without any Participation and
to put up to God in all which they are meer Executioners of other Mens Judgments as a Cryer or such other Messenger § 316. 2. The second Charge against this Diocesan Prelacy is That it introduceth a New Humane Species or Presbyters or Spiritual Officers instead of Christ's which it destroyeth that is a sort of meer Subject Presbyters that have no power of Government but meerly to Teach and Worship That this is a distinct Species is proved in that 1. It wanteth an essential part which the other Species hath 2. From the Bishop's own profession who in the beginning of the Book of Ordination Subscribed to do declare it plainly determined in Scripture viz. That Bishops Priests and Deacons are three distinct Orderâ— which word Orders is the common term to signifie a Species of Church Officers distinct from a meer degree in the same Order or Species That this Office is New is proved 1. In that Scripture or Antiquity never knew it 2. Dr. Hammond Annot. in Act. 11. and in his Latin Book against Blondell Dissertat professeth that it cannot be proved that the word Bishop Presbyter or Pastor signifieth in all the Scripture any other than a proper Bishop or that there was any such as we now all Presbyters in Scripture times And in his Answer to the London Ministers he saith That for ought he knoweth all his Brethren of the Church of England are of his mind So that Presbyters that had no Governing Power were not in Scripture times And though he says that the other sort came in before Ignatiu's time yet 1. He saith not that this sort had no Government of the Flock but that they were under the Bishop in Government so that yet they are not the sort that we are speaking of 2. And he doth not prove any more § 317. 3. A third Charge which they bring against our Prelacy is That it destroyeth the Species or Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ The Churches which Christ instituted are Holy Societies associated for Personal holy Communion under their particular Pastors But all such Societies are destroyed by the Diocesan Frame Ergo it is destructive of the Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ. The distinguish between Personal Local Communion of Saints by Pastors and their Flocks and Communion of hearts only and Communion by Delegation or Deputies 1. We have Heart-Communion with all the Catholick Church through the World 2. Particular Churches have Communion for Concord and mutual Strength in Synods by their Pastors or Deputies 3. But a holy Communion of Souls or individual Persons as Members of the same particular Church for publick Worship and a holy Life is specifically distinct from both the former as is apparent 1. By the distinct end 2. The distinct manner of Communion yea and the matter of it And that this Form of Churches or Species is overthrown by this Prelacy they prove The Churches of Christ's institution were constituted of Governing Pastors and a Flock governed by them in Personal holy Communion every Church having its proper Pastor or Pastors But such Churches as are thus constituted are destroyed by our Frame of Prelacy Ergo The Major is confessed de facto by Dr. Hammond ubi supra as to Scripture times and sufficiently cleared in my Treatise of Episcopacy Ignatius his Testimony alone might suffice who saith That to every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons his Fellow Servants A Church of one Altar and of a thousand Altars A Church that is for Personal Communion and a Church that hath no Personal Communion with her Pastor or Bishop or with one of a hundred of her Fellow-Members a Church which is a Church indeed and that which is no Church but only a part of a Church are more than specifically distinct for indeed the Name is but equivoeally applied to them as distinct Natures or Societies Every Church univocally so called in sensu politico as a governed Society hath its pars gubernaâ—s and pars gubernata to constitute it But so have not our Parish Churches as such indeed as Oratories and Schools as instructed and worshipping Societies they have their Parochial Heads but as governed Societies they have no Heads proper to themselves nor any at all as Churches but as parts of a Church For the Diocesan is Head of the Diocesan Church as such and not of a Parochial Church as such but only as a part of the Diocesan Church And as it is no Kingdom which hath no King so it is no Political Church which hath no Governour or Pastor So that Diocesans destroy particular Churches as much as in them lyeth Unless any will say that as one King as he is persona naturalis may be three or twenty Kings as persona civilis as related to several Kingdoms and so one Bishop as persona naturalis may yet be a thousand Ecclesiastical Persons as Pastor of so many Churches But this being ridiculous and yet said by none that I have heard of I shall not stand to confute it But were it so yet a Pastor that never seeth or speaketh to his People nor hath any personal Communion in Worship with them and this according to the Constitution it self is not of the same sort with a Scripture Pastor 1 Thess. 5. 12 13. Hebr. 13. 17 c. which labour among them and preach to them the Word of God and watch for their Souls c. And consequently the Churches constituted by them are not of the same Species It is one Office personally to Teach Oversee Rule and Worship with them and another to do none of these to one of a thousand but to send the Churchwardens a Book of Articles § 318. 4. A fourth Charge is That it setteth up a New Church-Form which is unlawful instead of that of Christ's institution that is a Diocesan Church consisting of many hundred Parishes which none of them are Churches according to the Diocesan Frame but parts of one Church It hath been shewed that this Diocesan Church is of another Species than the Parochial one being for personal Communion which the other is uncapable of the far greatest part of the Members never seeing their Pastor nor knowing one another any more than if they lived in several parts of the World And that this Church Form is new is proved already that is that there was no Diocesan Church having many stated Congregations and Altars much less many hundreds and all under one only Bishop or Governour either in Scripture time or two hundred years after excepting only that in Alexandria and Rome some shew of more Assemblies than one under one Bishop appeared a little sooner Here note That it is not an Archbishop's Church that we are speaking of who is but the General Pastor or Bishop having other Bishops and Churches under him but it is a Church infimae Speciei commonly called a particular Church which hath no other Churches or Bishops under it
And that none such was in Scripture times Dr. Hammond hath manifested there being then no Presbyters distinct from Bishops as he faith on Act. 11. And that there was none such of long time after is abundantly proved in my Treatise of Episcopacy § 319. 5. The fifth Charge against the Diocesan Form is That it extirpateth the ancient Episcopacy which they prove by what is said already The ancient Bishops were the Heads of the Presbyters and People of one single Church only To every Church saith Ignatius there is one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and the Deacons my Fellow Servants There was then no Bishop infimae Speciei as distinct from an Archbishop that had more than one Altar and Church But now all these Bishops of particular Churches are put down and no Church of one Altar hath a Bishop of its own but only a Church consisting of many hundred Worshipping Churches In the ancient times every City that had a Congregation of Christians had a Bishop But now every Bishop hath many Cities under him which have all but one Bishop For all our Corporations called Oppida Towns or Burroughs were then such as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified though we have appropriated the English word City to some few that have that Title as honorary in favour from the Prince § 320. 6. The sixth Charge is That instead of the ancient Bishops a later sort of Bishops is introduced of a distinct Species from all the ancient Bishops for then there were none but meer Bishops of particular Churches and the Archbishops Metropolitans and Patriarchs that had the general oversight of these But ours are of neither of these sorts They are not Bishops of particular worshipping Churches that have one Altar but have hundreds of such Nor are they Archbishops for they have no Bishops under them But they are just such as the Archbishops or Metropolitans in those days would have been if they had put down all the Bishops that were under them and taken all the Charge of Government on themselves leaving only Teaching Priests with the People Even as the Papists feign Gregory to have meant when he so vehemently denied the Title of Universal Bishop as putting down the Inferiour Bishops Now any Man that thinketh the Species of Episcopacy described by Ignatius and used in the Primitive times to be of Divine or Apostolical Institution must needs think that a Species which having deposed them all doth stand up in their stead is utterly unlawful And therefore this Argument against Diocesans is not managed by the Presbyterians as such but by those that are for the Primitive Episcopacy § 321. 7. The seventh Charge against the Diocesan Form and that which sticketh more than all the rest is That it maketh the Church Goverment or Discipline which Christ hath commanded and all the ancient Churches practised to be a thing impossible to be done and so excludeth it and therefore is unlawful For to dispute Who shall be the Governours of the Church when the meaning is Whether there shall be any Government at all of that sort which Christ commandeth is the present practise For the clearing of this these Questions are to be debated Quest 1. Whether Christ hath instituted any Church-Discipline 2. What that Discipline is which he hath instituted 3. How many Parishes there be in a Diocess and Persons in a Parish who are to be the Objects of this Discipline 4. Who they be that in England are to exercise this Discipline § 322. 1. And for the first Question It is agreed on by all Protestants that I know of except some of those that are called Erastians I say some of them for I think there are very few even of the Erastians that deny it Dr. Hammond hath written a Treatise for it Entitled Of the Power of the Keys yea the Papists differ not from the Protestants in this point It will therefore be labour in vain to prove it § 323. 2. And as to the second Question What this Discipline is It is considerable 1. As to the Matter 2. As to the Persons 3. As to the Place 4. As to the Manner and 5. As to the End 1. As to the Matter We are agreed that it consisteth in receiving Persons into the Church in preserving and healing those that are in the Church and in casting out those from the Communion of the Church which are unfit for it and in Absolving and Restoring the Excommunicate when they are penitent And therefore it is called The Power and Exercise of the Keys By these Keys the Door is first opened to Believers and their Seed and the Bishops judge who are fit to be let in by Baptism When any are lapsed into scandalous sin they are to be proceeded with as Christ hath directed Matth. 18. 15 16 17. We must first tell men privately of their private Faults and if they hear us not we must take with us two or three if they hear not them we must tell the Church and finally if they hear not the Church they must be to us as Heathens and Publicans And whatsoever is thus bound on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever is loosed on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven vers 18. The Church is the Body of Christ his Spouse his Family his Garden It is a Communion of Saints which is to be held in it It is commanded to put away wicked Persons from among them and not to keep company if any that is called a Brother be a fornicator or covetous or an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner with such a one no not to eat 1. Cor. 5. 11 13. And we are to withdraw our selves from every Brother that walketh disorderly and to note them and to have no company with them that they may be ashamed 2. Thess. 3. 6 14. If any come to us and bring not sound Doctrine we must not receive him into our houses nor bid him good speed lest we be partakers of his evil deeds 2 John 10. 11. A Man that is an Heretick must after the first and second Admonition be avoided as Self-condemned Tit. 3. 10 11. And the penitent must be restored and re-admitted All this is agreed on § 324. 2. And as to the Persons who are Parties in this Transaction we are agreed 1. That it is such Persons as desire Communion with us that are to be admitted being fit and such as having Communion with us become unmeet for it that are to be cast out c. so that it is to be exercised on Persons so far as they are to have Communion with us and not on those that are uncapable of that Communion 2. That sententially it must be done by the Pastor or Governour of that particular Church which the Person is to be admitted into or cast out of And by the judgment of the Pastors of other neighbour Churches when they also as Neighbours are to refuse Communion with
Voice of the multitude is seldom intelligible Let the shorter confession and the general Prayer offered by the Commissioners 1660. be inserted as alias'es with the Confession and Litany and liberty granted some time to use them All things in the Canon contrary to any thing in this Act to be void and null And all things repeated in any former Law that is contrary to this Act. § 73. We inserted these Rubricks and Orders because they gave us more hope that the Alterations of the Liturgy would be granted than the rest And therefore we thought best to get that way as much as we could And yet we insisted most on the other part because therein it was desired that till the Liturgy was satisfactorily reformed we should not be constrained to read it but only sometimes the greater part of it Which words I offered my self lest else the whole should have been frustrate and because the very words of the Scripture the Psalms Sentences Hymns Chapters Epistles Gospels c. are the far greater part of the Liturgy so that by this we should not have been forced to use any more or any thing scrupled § 74. Before we concluded any thing it was desired that seeing the Earl of Manchester Lord Chamberlain had been our closest Friend we should not conclude without his notice And so at a Meeting at his House these Two more Articles or Proposals were agreed to be added Viz. I. Whereas the Sentence of Excommunication may be passed upon very light Occasions it is humbly desired that no Minister shall be compelled to pronounce such sentence against his conscience but that some other be thereunto appointed by the Bishop or the Court. II. That no person shall be punished for not repairing to his own Parish-church who goeth to any other Parish-church or Chappel within the Diocess For by the Bishop's Doctrine it is the Diocesan Church that is the lowest Political Church and the Parishes are but parts of a Church For there is no Bishop below the Diocesan Therefore we go not from our own Church if we go not out of the Diocess § 75. When these Proposals were offered to Dr. Wilkins and the Reasons of them 1. He would not consent to the clause in the first Propos. Provided that those who desire it have leave to give in their Profession that they renounce not their Ordination c. Where was our greatest stop and disagreement 2. He would not have had subscription to the Scriptures put in because the same is in the Articles to which we subscribe I answer'd that we subscribed to the Articles because they were materially contained in the Scripture and not to the Scriptures because they were not in the Articles I thought it needful for Order sake and for the right description of our Religion that we subscribe to the Scriptures first And to this at last he consented 3. He refused the last part of the fifth for Appeals to Civil Courts saying there was a way of Appeals already and the other would not be endured 4. The two next the 6th and 7th he was not forward to but at last agreed to them leaving out the Clause in the 6th for Registring Names 5. The two last added Articles also were excepted against But in the end it was agreed as they said by the the Lord keeper's Consent that Sir Matthew Hale Lord chief Baron of the Exchequer should draw up what we agreed on into the form of an Act to be offered to the Parliament And therefore Dr. Wilkins and I were to bring our Papers to him and to advise farther with him for the wordingof it because of his eminent Wisdom and Sincerity § 76. Accordingly we went to him and on Consultation with him our proposals were accepted with the alterations following 1. Instead of the Liberty to declare the validity of our ordination which would not be endured it was agreed that the terms of Collation should be these Take thou Legal Authority to preach the Word of God and administer the Holy Sacraments in â—y Congregation of England where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto That so the word Legal might shew that it was only a general License from the King that we received by what Minister soever he pleased to deliver it And if it were 〈◊〉 a Bishop we declared that we should take it from him but as from the King's Minister For the Paper which I gave in against Re-ordination convinced Judge Hales and Dr. Wilkins that the renunciation of former Ordination in England was by ho means to be exacted or done 2. Our Form of Subscription remained unaltered 3. The Clause of Appeals we left out 4. The Fourth Fifth and Seventh passed leaving out the Clause of Registring Names 5. The first of the added Articles they thought reasonable but put it out only leâ—t by overdoing we should clog the rest and frustrate all with those that we were to deal with 6. The other added Article they laid by for the same reason and also lest it should be a shelter to Recusant Papists And thus it was agreed That the Papers should be all delivered to the Lord Chief Baron to draw them up into an Act. And because I lived near him he was pleased to shew me the Copy of his Draught which was done according to all our Sense but secretly lest the noise of a prepared Act should be displeasing to the Parliament But it was never more called for and so I believe he burnt it § 77. Because they objected That by the last Article we should befriend the Papist and especially by a Clause that we offered to be inserted in the Rubrick of the Liturgy That the Sacrament is to be given to none that are unwilling of it and I stood very much upon that with them that we must not corrupt Christ's Sacrament and all our Churches and Discipline and injure many hundred thousand Souls only to have the better advantage against Papists and that there were fairer and better means to be used against them Upon their Enquiry what means might be substituted I told them that besides some others a subscription for all the Tolerated Congregation or Ministers distinct from that of the Established Ministry as followeth might discover them § 78. The Subscription of the Established Ministry I do hereby profess and declare my unfeigned belief of the Holy Canonical Scriptures as the infallible intire and perfect Rule of Divine Faith and Holy Living supposing the Laws of Nature and also my belief of all the Articles of the Creed and of the 36 Articles of the Doctrine and Sacraments of the Church of England Or else the Subscription before agreed on though this be much better supposing the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy also be taken The Subscription of all that have Toleration I A. B. do hereby profess and declare without equivocation and deceit That I believe Iesus Christ to be the only Governing Head of the Vniversal Church and the Holy Canonical
Scriptures to be the infallible intire and perfect Rule of Divine Faith and Holy Living supposing the Laws of Nature and that I believe all the Articles of the Ancient Creeds called the Apostle's and the Nicene And that I will not knowingly oppose any Article of the said Holy Canonical Scriptures or Creeds nor of the Creed called Athanasius's Nor will I publickly seditiously or unpeaceably deprave or cry down the Doctrines Government and Worship Established by the Laws This doth exclude the Essentials of Popery and yet is such as all sober peaceable Persons that need a Toleration may submit to § 79. It hath oft times grieved me in former times to hear how unskilfully some Parliament-Men went about to exclude the Papists when they were contriving how to take off the Test and Force of the Law compelling all to the Sacrament Some must have a Subscription that must name Purgatory and Images and praying to Saints and Iustification by Works and other Points which they could neither rightly enumerate nor state to fit them for such a use as this but would have made all their work ridiculous not knowing the Essentials of Popery which are only to make up such a general Test for their Exclusion § 80. But I suppose the Reader will more feelingly think when he findeth upon what terms we strive and all in vain for a little liberty to preach Christ's Gospel even upon the hardest Terms that will but consist with a good Conscience and the safety of our own Souls he will think I say what a case such Ministers and such Churches now are in And how strange or rather sad than strange is it That Christian Bishops that call themselves the Pastors and Fathers of the Church should put us on such Terms as these when Acts 28. ult Paul preached in his own House to as many as came to him none forbidding him even under Heathens c. And if the Reader be so happy as to live in Days of the Churches Peace and Liberty and Reformation he will be apt to censure us for yielding to such hard Terms as here we do Who if he had been in the time and place with us and seeâ— that we could have the Gospel upon no other Terms he would pity rather than censure the Churches and us § 81. Nay how joyfully would I believe 1400 of the Nonconformable Ministers of England at least have yielded to these Terms if they could have got them But alas all this labour was in vain For the active Prelates and Prelatists so far prevailed that as soon as ever the Parliament met without any delay they took notice That there was a rumour abroad of some Motions or Act to be offered for Comprehension or Indulgence and voted That no Man should bring in such an Act into the House and so they prevented all talk or motion of such a thing and the Lord Keeper that had called us and set us on work himself turned that way and talk'd after as if he understood us not § 82. In April 1668. Dr. Creighton Dean of Wells the most famous loquacious ready-tongu'd Preacher of the Court who was used to preach Calvin to Hell and the Calvinists to the Gallows and by his scornful revilings and jests to set the Court on a Laughter was suddenly in the Pulpit without any sickness surprized with Astonishment worse than Dr. South the Oxford-Orator had been before him and when he had repeated a Sentence over and over and was so confounded that he could go no further at all he was fain to all Men's wonder to come down And his case was more wonderful than almost any other Man's being not only a fluent extemporate Speaker but one that was never known to want words especially to express his Satyrical or bloody Thoughts § 83. In Iuly Mr. Taverner late Minister of Vxbridge was sentenc'd to Newgate-Goal for Teaching a few Children at Brainford but paying his Fine prevented it And Mr. Button of Brainford a most humble worthy godly Man that never was in Orders or a Preacher but had been Canon of Christ's Church in Oxford and Orator to the University was sent to Goal for Teaching two Knight's Sons in his House having not taken the Oxford-Oath by one Ross a Justice a Scot that was Library-Keeper at Westminster and some other Iustices And many of his Neighbours of Brainford were sent to the same Prison for worshipping God in private together where they all lay many Months six as I remember And I name these because they were my Neighbours but many Countries had the like usage Yea Bishop Crofts that had pretended great Moderation sent Mr. Woodward a worthy silenced Minister of Hereford-shire to Goal for six Months Some were imprisoned upon the Oxford-Act and some on the Act against Conventicles § 84. In September Col. Phillips a Courtier of the Bed-chamber and my next Neighbour who spake me fair complained to the King of me for Preaching to great numbers but the King put it by and nothing was done at that time § 85. About this time Dr. Manton being nearest the Court and of great Name among the Presbyterians and being heard by many of great Quality was told by Sir Iohn â—abor That the King was much inclined to favour the Non-conformists and that an Address now would be accepted and that the Address must be a thankful Acknowledgment of the Clemency of his Majesty's Government and the Liberty which we thereby enjoy c. Accordingly they drew up an Address of Thanksgiving and I was invited to joyn in the presenting of it but not in the Penning for I had marr'd their Matter oft enough But I was both sick and unwilling having been oft enough imployed in vain But I told them only of my sickness And so Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Dr. Iacombe and Mr. Ennis presented it what acceptance it had with the King and what he said to them this Letter of Dr. Manton's will tell you But the Copy of the Acknoâ—â—dgment I cannot give you for I never saw it nor sought to see it that I remember for I perceived what it aimed at Dr. Manton's Letter to me at Acton SIR I Was under restraint till now and could not send you an account of our reception with the King It was very gracious He was pleased once and again to signifie how acceptable our Address was and how much he was persuaded of our Peaceableness saying that he had known us to be so ever since his return promised us that he would do his utmost to get us comprehended within the Publick Establishment and would remove all Bars for he could wish that there had been no Bounds nor Bars at all but that all had been Sea that we might have had liberty enough but something must be done for publick Peace However we could not be ignorant that this was a work of difficulty and time to get it fully effected for our Assurance And therefore we must wait till Businesses could be ripened
one Mind in every word circumstance ceremony and mode of Worship and Discipline upon Christian conscientious terms Either they must absolutely believe as the Rulers bid them or not If yea then most Turks Heathens Papists are in the right that be of the Religion of their Rulers If not some bounds and Rules must shew them the difference how far Obedience is to be given And the Subjects must be the Discerners whether the Case falls under those Qualificationt or not As e. g. whether it be Sin against God And when all the Men and Women in a Kingdom have a Multitude of Words circumstances and ceremonies and modes to try by such Rules they will never be of one Mind about them who would be of one Mind in a few plain things And then you come and make their Disobedience to be one of the greatest Crimes deserving Excommunication Imprisonment and ruin so that you make such a National Church to be a trap for Men's undoing and Damnation 5. As for what you say of the Foreign Churches their Country-men say that it is not all one to impose the necessary Discharge of Men's plain undeniable Duty and to impose the Humane Work which you can describe But I am a stranger to them and am bound to receive nothing against another till I hear both Parties speak nor am I concerned in the Case as not being bound to justifie them any more than you If it be as you say no wonder if they have the distractions and calamities and Divisions which render them the objects of compassion The Serpent that beguiled Eve hath long ago tempted almost all the Churches from the Ancient Christian Simplicity in Doctrine Discipline and Worship which is the only way of common Concord 6. But yet besides the Catholick Church we hold particular Churches being Christian Assemblies to be of Christ's Institution And it is impossible there to worship God without the determination of many Circumstances and Modes Some Translation some Metre of Psalms some Tune some Time and Place some Pastor some Utensils must be chosen And he that will herein depart from the Common chosen Circumstance departeth therein himself from their Communion But yet such may serve God acceptably in another Assembly and may live in Christian Love and Peace though they Sing not in the same Tune or Gesture or use nor every Ceremony alike And this is nothing to the making of new Symbols Oaths Subscriptions or other things not necessary in genere and that by the Officers of National Humane Church and this not only to be done and quietly born but approved Your Way is the most proper Engine to tear in pieces all the Churches in the World or reduce them to a Spanish Humane Obedience For if a particular Parish-Church did not so much as tye Men to a Ceremony but mere Determinations which must some way be made If the Priest stood at the Church door and said You shall not enter unless you will Subscribe or Say or Swear that we are infallible in all that we do or that there is no Sin no Fault nothing contrary to God's Will and Word nothing but what you Assent and Consent to in all our Translations of Scripture in all our Versions Tunes Words Gestures Circumstances I would never enter into that Church though I will gladly and peaceably joyn with them if they will let me alone without such Obligations to justifie all they do One would think this should have been past Controversie before this day among the Prudent Pastors of the Churches Strict Still supposing that neither they nor we require any thing that may not be submitted to without sin Answ. Upon that Supposition we have no Controversie with you Then what need any of this adoe But who shall be the Judge If you must and that absolutely then it is all one to us whether it be sin or no sin for to us it will be none if we do as you bid us But then why do Protestants condemn Papists who do as they are bidden And why do our Articles condemn them that say All Men may be saved in the Religion they are bred in when they all do as they are bidden even they that defie Christ. But if you hold not to this what shall we do Are we our selves the discerning Judges Then we protest before God and Men that we take the things that we deny Conformity to to be sins and very heinous sins and very far from things indifferent If you say that we must obey you till we are past doubt and certain that 't is sin I Answer 1. It 's too few things that Man's Understanding reacheth to a certainty in What if I verily think that I see reason to take that which a Bishop or Church Commanded to be Blasphemy Perjury Treason Murder Heresie c. but I am not certain and past doubt Must I then do it Then a Man that can be but sufficiently ignorant or doubtful may stick at no Commanded Wickedness Some other Rule therefore than this must be found out If you say That we have no reason to take any thing commanded for sin and you think you confute all our Objections I Answer 1. So all Imposers think or most And so we are as confident that our Reason is good and that we see the gross Errors of your Answers And all this is but to say that no Man is to be Tolerated in your Church that is not in every thing in the Right and that in your Judgments Suppose you were Infallible so are not all the Subjects And if their Reason be bad and yours good all that is no more than to say That They Err or are Mistaken And if no Man shall be Tolerated with you that Erreth and that in as great a Matter as a Circumstance or Ceremony no two Men in the World must hold Communion on such Terms I am confident I study as hard as you I am confident I am as impartial and willing to know the Truth I have far less than you to tempt me to the contrary And yet I verily think Conformity to me would be a heinous Sin Nay I am past doubt of it if that will serve Give us but leave to publish our Reasons freely and you shall see whether we have any Reason But if yet I be mistaken Shall your National-Church have never a Member Tolerated that is as ignorant and bad as I Hold to that and try the Issue whether your Church will be as numerous as you are Strict And Churches abroad both have been and will be our Compurgators and I wish the Presbyterians of England and Scotland would be content to stand to the Judgment of all the Tresbyterian Churches abroad whether they may not without sin conform to all that by our Church is required of them Nay whether they can refuse to Conform without sin Ans. Content I and all of my mind profess that we will accept your offer But we wish as sincerely that you
would stand to it Not that we take any Men for the Lords of our Faith but let them hear us speak and if they say that it is lawful or not a heinous sin in us to Conform we will acquiesce and never more accuse you as Persecutors but silently undergo all the Accusation of Schism But then by the Churches you must not mean any odd persons but the Churches indeed Strict Especially in this Conjuncture of time when we have so great reason to fear the prevailing of the Common Enemy against us both and consequently not only the Endangering but the utter ruining of the Protestant Religion and that not only here but perhaps in all the World besides the guilt whereof will lie especially at our Doors if we do not agree Ans. 1. What is the great reason you have to fear the prevailing of the Common Enemy and utter ruin of the Protestant Religion Is it from our State at home Or from abroad If the later we understand it not nor who is the Cause If the former Where lyeth the danger Is it in the increase of Papists as to Quality or Number of persons Did not you cause the Silencing of 1800 Ministers and thereby and otherwise the disaffecting of many Hundred thousand people I think who would have loved and Served you Did not you help to Banish them Five Miles from not the Court only but all Cities and Corporations and Places of their former Ministery Did you not undertake all the Ministerial Work without them And say you could do it better without them than with them as being sufficient your selves Did not one of you tell me that you thought any Congregation was better to have none then such as I Do you not still here conclude that unless we will conform to every Oath Subscription Word c. It 's better that we be out of your Church than in it And do you after all your Undertakings and Sufficiency now bring us so sad an account of your success Have you been bringing our Religion to no better a pass Have high and low been no better instructed and prefered by you Hath Popery been no better resisted by you in those Places whence you Bunished us Do you now come and tell us that we have great reason to fear the utter ruin of the Protestant Religion Is this your account of your undertaken Stewardship What hands then is the Church faln into if it be so used 2. O let us all hear and fear what Man may come to Would our Agreement do any thing to prevent this terrible danger which you describe And will you still tell all the World That rather than we shall not be compelled against our Consciences to our Damnation if we obey to Declare that we assent and consent to every word yea and use every word in all your Liturgy to Declare That Millions whom we know not if they Vow in their Places and Calling to endeavour a Reformation of the Church were it but in Lay-Men's power of the Keys are not obliged by that Vow rather than we shall be suffered not to Swear Obedience to the Bishops though we are responsible to the Law for any Disobedience rather than we shall be Suffered to forbear the Image of the Cross in Baptism or to forbear to pronounce every wicked Man saved that we Bury or to suffer a Parent to Covenant in Baptism for his own Child or rather than we shall be endured to forbear turning Godly People that dare not kneel from Church-Communion and pronouncing them Excommunicate every six Months if the Chancellor or Bishop bid us Rather than this shall be granted us we shall have no Agreement the Common Enemy shall prevail the Protestant Religion shall not only be endangered but utterly ruin'd here and throughout the World And is it so indeed And yet would you make us believe that you are against the ruin of it who will not prevent it at so easie a rate What good doth it do you for me to subscribe as ex Animo that there is not a word in your Liturgy or Ordination contrary to the Word of God and that I assent and consent to all that is in it When I am without this responsible for all Omission or Opposition to it We offer if necessary to take our Oaths as in the presence of God the Judge of all that we would agree with you and obey you too in any thing except that which we judge to be forbidden of God We offer our Reasons which perswade us that your Impositions obeyed would be our sin and heinous sin We are past doubt that your Answers to them are frivolous You dare not allow us to bring all into the Light and to Print our Case and Reasons that the World may Judge of them We that pay so dear for our Dissent are as likely to be Unbiassed as you that have the Wealth and Honours of the World And were it not liker to be moved by our Reputation with the poorer sort than you by your Reputation with the Great and Honourable if not the most And if yet we be mistaken so is all the World in as great a Matter as most things now in Question You call them Indifferent We think them not so And yet shall Protestant Religion be ruin'd in all the World rather than you should not have your will in our obedience to you in every prescribed Word Ceremony Covenant or Oath after all this Strict And at Ours indeed of the Church-party if we require what cannot be consented to without sin Ans. Ex ore tuo 〈◊〉 What you required of old we debated 1660 and you never gave us an Answer to what we largely offered you in Confutation of your Defence And how then did you think we should know we Erred Not by what you kept secret in your thoughts And as to the New Conformity we never had leave to give our Reasons against it by Word or Writing Grant us but that leave and if we do not openly prove that to Conform would be our sin and very heinous sin not medling with any Men's Conscience but our own call us Schismaticks and go on to use us as you have done Which I say as to my self who offer to assume that suffering as the penalty of my Error if I err but not to justifie you if it were so who are no more allowed by Christ to shut all that err out of the Church than to Un-church every person in the World Strict But at theirs that refuse to come in to us if they may without sin submit to all that their acknowledged Superiours require of them Ans. Which they are most confident they cannot do And if Quoad Materiam they should mistake I think yet St. Paul mistook not in saying He that doubteth is condemned if he eat because he eateth not in Faith And him that is weak in the Faith receive c. And therefore I would deny your Consequence comparatively There