so far to lay it by your self as 1. To omit answering a great part of it especially which justifieth our Preaching and Assemblies yea I think you plead for them and my large Answer to the Charge of Schism you seem to approve which we accept and so that is no part of our Controversie § 5. 2. But you also avoid the Defence of the Corporation Declaration which is a matter of so great importance to all the Cities and Corporations of England as perhaps may prove more considerable than the silencing of a thousand of the best Preachers among us for Non-conformity But I blame you not for not doing more than you are able § 6. 3. But why did you avoid the Order of my Book 's Objections and also the answering of any chief intimated reasons while yet I did but intimate some few disclaiming argumentations why do you tell us that you take them as you remember them without the Book and satisfie your own conscience while you seem to answer the Book And what drew you to begin with Reordination which none of the Antient Non-Conformists are put upon But your disclaiming to defend the Oxford-Oath and your profession that some part of the Subscriptions and Declarations by the Law enjoyned to Ministers you never made your self doth bid us to believe you that it is to draw men to think mildly of conscientious Conformists that you write if not to judge Conformity lawful and a duty in case of silencing c. And I doubt not but you will so far prevail But when you tell us of a Noble man impeached of Treason that made it his business only to put by that charge you may remember that when the Great and Good Duke of Sommerset had so done and the shout was made for his being found not guilty he was yet though the King's Uncle and Protector beheaded as a Felon Such a justification doth little good And you say truly I am not to yield to the smallest Sin to save my Life § 7. I see not how this agreeth with what you say After that Mens weakness and ignorance may make it their duty of two perceived Sins proposed to them to take the safer side and that is to avoid the greater Answ. Doubtless it is a gross Contradiction to say It is a duty to choose or not avoid the least Sin For that is no Sin which a Man is not bound to avoid and undoubtedly when two Sins are proposed every Man is bound to avoid both though not as equal with equal Zeal And God never necessitateth Man to choose either or not to avoid both But if our own Badness disable us from avoiding both we must be most careful to avoid the greater I cannot pray without sinful dulness or imperfection of Faith But I must rather avoid a total Omission than imperfect performance for all the Faults are eminently in this No Sin is to be done on pretence of avoiding a greater Sin But sometime the avoiding of a great Sin may make another thing e.g. the omission of that which else would have been a Duty to be then no Sin that else would have been a Sin Negative Commands bind ad semper § 8. You say If the Non-conformist err it is on many accounts a safe Error because it is confessedly a refusal to Subscribe and Conform to a number of things in their own nature indifferent Rigid Conformists confess them to be but Trifles comparatively the Church might be without them and yet do well And Moderate Conformists confess them to be burdensom and the Church might be and do better without them or if they were left to each Man's choice and will Answ. But if we prove them far from indifferent Non-conformity will prove a necessary and great Duty However I doubt the Imposers will give you as little thanks for this description of the Case as they do us for Non-conformity Specially when you add that for this We are thought Seditious Factious Schismatical worthy to be Silenced Imprisoned Anathematized and used as Intolerable They will not love the Glass that sheweth them such a Face as you dislikingly describe Especially when you tell them that you Are satisfied that it is in it self a great and dreadful Sin to Silence the Non-conformists and do by them as hath been for these many Years And Blame those loose Conscienced Men who think that their Humours Opinions Lusts and proud and imperious Wills are fit to be the standard of Unity Uniformity and Edification to all the Churches This is but cold pleading for Conformity CHAP. II. § 1. YOu begin with Reordination And 1st I told you how the Church in all Ages hath commonly abhorred it The Canons called the Apostles depose both the Ordainer that doth it and the Ordained Gregory Magnus equalleth it with twice Baptism which perhaps you may think lawful too you are for it upon reason Toties quoties You tell us how loth we should be as to Condemn that which so many worthy Men held as were the old Conformists And may not I tell you that you should be more Cautelous how you contradict all Ages of the Church even to this Day § 2. Had you heard as great a Man as I have done declare that he could not take them for Ministers or take the Sacrament of them that had not Episcopal Ordination and had you heard my L. Chancellor Hide give such Reasons openly for Re-ordination as I did and had you seen the Writings of so Learned a Bishop as I have seen to prove such no Ministers as are Ordained but by Presbyters and heard such Men and so many Argue for it as I have done you could not have thought that the judgment of those that impose Reordination was or is that Men are true Ministers of Christ that are Ordained by Presbyters only So that your sense of the Imposition is feigned § 3. It is a known thing that the Church of England is not of your singular opinion for Reordination You may as well feign them to be for Rebaptizing They all renounce it with our Consent Therefore they that require Men to be Ordained by Bishops must needs hold that they had no true Ordination before or else they should be for that which they abhor So that it 's past doubt you talk of you know not what when you make this to be but the singular Opinion of one Mr. Dodwel disowned by all though much in his Book besides be by most disowned And it is not every later Bishop that made the Law or altered the Liturgy § 4. You say that Ordination once validly done by eminent Presbyters and grave substantial Ministers it doth to all intents and purposes make him a compleat Minister And elsewhere you maintain the Validity of Presbyters Ordination and say That it is a taking God's Name in vain when it is done without urgent Reasons I have moved to you that the present Imposers suppose the contrary and I think considering how much the
and the English sort of God-Fathers you may refuse to say the words of Prayer which imply his Salvation over the Dead who were Excommunicable though not Excommunicated You may understand the Article which professeth the certainty of Baptized Infants salvation of those only that are the Children of faithful Parents or Pro-parents you may say you Assent to all in the Book and mean not all but some part and that not as true but as usable You may profess Consent to use it all and yet not mean to use the Calendar or Rubricks or to Administer the Sacraments otherwise than as aforesaid You may Say or Subscribe or Swear that it is on any pretence whatsoever unlawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King and mean only such as are lawfully Commissioned You may subscribe that no one in England that sware it is bound by the solemn Vow and Oath to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State and mean only that he must not endeavour it by Sedition or Rebellion And so on to the end But other Bishops will say the clean contrary viz. That the Bishop is the only Pastor and the Parish Priest hath none of the power here named and so of all the rest And what Uniformity then will there be Know you not how they write against such different Administrations as destructive and intolerable 7. And know you not that a Bishop hath no power against the Canons The Canons are their own Laws and Judgment and bind them And when the Canon saith e. g. He shall be suspended that giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or that the Non-conformists are ipso facto Excommunicate c. Hath the Bishop authority to say the contrary 8. And you know that I wrote not to accuse you or any Man for Conforming but to tell them that judge us worthy to be Silenced and Ruined what our Non-conformity is And what use then is your own Latitude to me or such as I though I went your own way For I have askt and heard the Opinion of divers Bishops already and they have said clean contrary to you I have heard him that first forbad me Preaching in his Diocess say that The Liturgy forbiddeth delivering the Sacrament to any that Kneel not I can shew it you under his Hand that the Priest must not be Judge when to omit the forementioned words at the burial of the Dead nor tolerated in such Liberty as you presume on I have been told by a Bishop That seeing Christ died for all the Children of any Parents in the World have right to Baptism and any Man hath as good right to present to it an Infidel's Child as to take in an exposed Infidel's Child to his House in Charity I told you that Bishop Sanderson publickly before the Bishops Nemine contradicente told me That I need not question Baptizing any Infidel's Child if God-Fathers presented him according to the Order of the Church of England Are we not then concluded against Conformity by the Bishop's judgment by your own Rule And must not you be a Non-conformist in the Diocess of any such Bishop as these 9. And by your Rule a Man must be a Conformist in one Bishop's Diocess and a Non-conformist in another's and change his mode of Religion as he Travelleth or doth change his Dwelling I imagine that by your Rule I might partly Conform in the Diocess of London or Lincoln Hereford or Carlisle but I should be as Non-conformable as I am in the Diocess of Winchester Ely York Norwich and any other as far as I yet know I conclude that your Catholicon may purge your self from all Non-conformity but it is utterly unprofitable to me Facile credimus quod volumus I have had as much reason as you to be willing to find Conformity lawful if it be so I have lost many thousand Pounds more by Non-conformity than you have got by Conformity But I have no such Byas on my Will as should set all my Wit on work to find or buy a Rope for my Conscience And I find nothing better that you offer me herein § 4. When you have told us Where no God-Fathers can be had we must Christen without and such like You say And this is the common sense put upon the Law by the Law-makers themselves that is by the Bishops Ans. What reason did you think we have in such an Historical Assertion to believe your bare word In what Synod did they declare it Why did you neither name the Bishops nor the Time or Place or Witness by which it might be proved the common sense But could you think this should convince me that know it to be false § 5. You tell us pag. 119. If it were a part of Assent and Consent that Ordination by good and substantial Presbyters were null it would be a hard point indeed to Unchurch Churches and Unbaptize the Baptized and plead the cause of Satan the Pope and all Malignants of the Ministry in the Name of Christ. Ans. Excuse us then for not Conforming I before gave you this Proof that it is the sense of the Law-makers or Bishops They that abhor Reordination or twice ordaining to the Priesthood and yet require those to be ordained by Bishops who were before ordained by Presbyters must be judged to hold the said Ordination by Presbyters to be null But c. Ergo. § 6. 1. You say No Man that I know of takes the Silenced Ministers and those ordained by Presbyters only for no Ministers at all unless one Mr. Dodwel a high-flown Man whom Conformists themselves do utterly dissent from in this Ans. Your ignorance is no good reason for my Conformity If you know of no more I do Read Mr. Thâ—rndike of Forbearance of Penalties Ask Bishop Gunning his judgment c. If your acquaintance be so small you should not write of that which you know not § 7. 2. But you say All both Rulers and People Conformists themselves do own them for Ministers otherwise they would take some course for the Rebaptizing of all Baptized by them Ans. Did you ever read the Conference at Hampton Court Did you dream that all these take Laymens Baptizing for null Or do you conclude that all think what you think § 8. 3. You prove it from the toleration of the Foreigners Churches in London Ans. How will you prove that they judge all true Ministers whom they Tolerate § 9. 4. You say the Acts against Conventicles and the Five Mile Act prove it 5. The King's Proclamation for Indulgence proveth it 6. The Fines and Imprisonments for Conventicles prove it 7. The allowing four Persons to meet in private proveth it 8. The common sense of Bishops Divines and People of the Church of England prove it Ans. You may next say That any thing that you see or hear proveth it It 's liker these prove the contrary than this By this Men may see how little satisfaction we may expect
THE DEFENCE OF THE Nonconformists Plea for Peace OR An Account of the Matter of their NONCONFORMITY Against Mr. Cheney's Answer Called The Conforming Nonconformist And The Nonconforming Conformist To which is added the Second Part In Answer to Mr. Cheney's Five Undertakings By RICHARD BAXTER LONDON Printed for Benjamin Alsop at the Angel over against the Stocks-Market 1680. THE PREFACE Reader TOo many of the contentions of this age do tell the world how much the several parties differ in Piety and Malignity Humility and Pride Love and Malice Meekness and Cruelty But I think verily the controversie here managed between this brother and me doth but tell you how weak and fumbling a thing mans understanding is here in the flesh and what great diversity of apprehensions all men have in many things who agree in the main and how diversity of Lights or appearances may cause great and confident contrariety of judgments yea and changes in the same person The difference between Paul and Barnabas and Peter and Paul Gal. 2. tell us how far the best of mortals are from perfection Our difference I think is not caused by contrariety of worldly Interests which yet divided even Abraham's family and Lot's and much worse Joseph's brethren from him For as neither of us have any great matters of worldly wealth but our daily bread which is enough so I am perswaded that he seeketh no such thing and I am sure I cannot if I would who daily expect to give up my account and carry about me a thorn in the flesh enough to cure at least the expectation of fleshly and worldly pleasure and prosperity Read not therefore these books as the conflict of enemies but as the consultation of unfeigned loving friends who fain would understand the truth You see he abhorreth the silencing or persecuting the ministers of England for Nonconformity Yea and all disaffection on such accounts And though I shew the great mistakes in his writing impute them not to the habitual weakness of his judgment But 1 to the badness of his cause 2 To the newness and crudity of his thoughts about it For though he hath been long a publick conforming Minister yet it is but lately that he hath received the satisfaction which he here expressed being before purposed no more to declare or subscribe what he here defendeth And new thoughts are seldom well digested I speak this the rather because some say that he is an honest weak man that hath shewed his good will to defend their cause but was not able to do it as it will shortly be done by some greater men that are about it But my opinion is that his concessions and coming so near the truth doth give him so much advantage against us that the ablest of them that stand at a greater distance are like the more to marr their matter and assault us with less success than he And I advise his Reader to pardon such slips in the book which I confute as concern not much the cause in hand but are only the oversights of the well meaning Author As when pag. 8. he distributeth the Learned Ministry into several degrees of which one is such as have no Learning and another such as have a little c. It 's easie to know that this was a meer oversight And in his supplement pag. 145. when he saith God himself doth assent and consent to the use of all the lyes and wickednesses of men and devils It 's like the Reader will think that he meaneth by the use that men and devils use to lye and do wickedness or act these sins If so it were odious blasphemy indeed But by conference I have cause to believe that the Author's judgment is sound in those points and therefore that it is but an heedless speech and that he meaneth no more but that God consenteth when lyes and wickednesses are committed that men make good use of them in esse cognito as to repent of them or hate them or take warning to avoid the like and that God himself will use them as occasions of some accidental good as sickness is used to honour the skill of the Physician And that the word Assent slipt in because his cause was in his thoughts If you say This is a ridiculous equivocation To make such use of the Liturgie in esse cognito as to hate it or perswade from it no enemy will deny but what is that to using it To use the Liturgie is to read and practise it and so to use lying and wickedness is to lye and do wickedly that which you call sin objective in esse cognito is not sin indeed but the idea of it but it is the real Liturgie which we must make a Covenant to use Ans. And who can manage an ill cause without somewhat that is too like it And who doth any thing which needeth no repentance or amendment And who is so wise as to speak wisely at all times Let us pity one another and pray for a teachable mind and long for the world of Concord in perfection O how much harder is it to justifie proud Schismatical silenccers and persecutors of the just than to excuse the failings of the weak and with how great a difference shall they be shortly judged as sure as there is a day of judgment to be expected Yea how much easier will it be for Sodom and Gomorrah for Indians and Americans at that day than for those that malignantly oppressed men of most serious piety and fought against Christ as by his own pretended authority and in his name THE CONTENTS OF THE following Book CHAP. I. THe occasions and reasons of answering Mr. Ch's Book CHAP. II. Of Reordination Equally Sinfull with Rebaptization in the judgment of Greg. M. § 1. The ordination required supposed the persons were not ordained before § 3. Mr. Chey's exceptions glosses c. removed § 4 5. CHAP. III. Of the several orders of ministers Mr. Ch's trifling in the ambiguity of the word Order noted § 2. 3. CHAP. IV. Of the Bishop's Oath to the Arch-Bishop CHAP. V. Of the Oath of Canonical Obedience CHAP. VI. Of the words Receive ye the Holy Ghost 5 sorts of mission or commission given by Christ to his Ministers CHAP. VII Mr. C ' s 6. section answered i. e. with pity concerning those words to the People To come forth and make their exceptions to the person ordained CHAP. VIII Of the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed CHAP. IX About the certainty of baptized Infants salvation made an Article of faith Mr. C. gives no answer to Mr. B's objections § 1. Bishop of Ely ' s judgment § 3. A case put at the conference at the Savoy with Bishop Sanderson ' s answer ibid. Reply to that answer with Bishop Morley's return to it and the removal of that return ibid. CHAP. X. About coming to the Sacrament of the Lords supper without a full trust in Gods mercy and a quiet conscience CHAP. XI
you feign them to speak Nonsense or to Tautologize You say You Assent to all but not that All is true Which is a Contradiction or Equivocation § 4. Prove say you that there is any one thing in the Book which may not in the course of Conformity be godly used Ans. To some Men I will undertake to prove nothing If there be no proof in the Book which you write against when you have got leave to Print it you are likely to have more Till then to call for proof when you have it and speak not sense against it is too easie a way to satisfie the Just. § 5. III. I told you by word of Mouth that your Catholicon of trusting to the Bishops Exposition of the Book yea to his silence so gentle and tractable are you become is no relief to you for expounding the Assent Consent Subscription against the obligation of the Vow and about Arms c. because these are part of the Act of Uniformity and you say that Act is no part of the Book To this you Print your Answer that you Have another string to your Bow viz. That the Bishop is by Law the Ordinary to Ordain and take Subscriptions and may admit Ministers to subscribe these Tests with such Explications Meanings and Allowances as will well stand with the words justly and fairly construed Ans. 1. The Bishop is not made the Expounder of the Law but the Receiver of your Subscription according to the Law 2. If you will confound Indulgent Connivance and Conformity must we do so too This is Mr. Humphrey's project And I freely confess to you That if you can meet with an Indulgent Bishop it 's a fairer way to intromit a Dissenter than any that you have named in your Book All words are ambiguous The sense is the Soul of them If e.g. I were commanded to say that The Scripture is not God's Word and I had leave to expound it 1. All Scripture or Writing is not God's Word but the sacred Bible is Or It is not God's Eternal Coessential Word which is Christ were it not for Scandal this might be said as true And some think the Scandal is sufficiently avoided if you give in your sense in Writing and make it as publick as is your Subscription But I think that the very subscribing such scandalous Words will scandalously harden others and encourage Tyrannical Imposers more than your Exposition can Cure and therefore I would not use them And if I would I could cast in such an Expository Writing whether the Bishop will or not And if he accept it I pray better understand that This is not Conformity but Indulgence Connivance Toleration or Prevarication You might as well say He Conformed that by the King's Indulgence was excused from Subscribing and Declaring You put a Supposition that you had gone to Bishop Sanderson and askt his sense according to his Rules de Juramento Ans. I doubt your Party will think you betray their Cause by Prevarication 1. I told you how publickly in a meeting of Bishops Bishop Sanderson gave his judgment about Baptism against you 2. I cited the words of his Rules de Iuramento in the Book which you answer as being plainly against Conformity And you give no answer to it and yet suppose them to be for you This is too supine neglect to satisfie us § 5. You come over your foresaid sense of the Declaration again and pag. 160. You have better bethought you and will take the Debate of the Lords and Commons as useful to know the meaning of the Law Ans. What shall we do then by your Useful Error Why you now say You know nothing in the Book but what may be assented to as true Ans. And why was this so much disclaimed before When you put us to the trouble of Confuting you you Confute your self by changing your Cause and so we labour in vain Your Repetitions of the same things with saying and unsaying and bare saying without proof are so many that I will not wrong the Reader with Confuting any more of them save only to give you some account why I am sorry 1. That you retract your saying that Oaths are stricti juris 2. And that while you pretend to own Bishop Sanderson's Rules de Iuramento you renounce this which is one of the chief of them And I will tell you the reasons of my dissent from that and most of your Book IV. By stricti juris is not meant the meer Literal Sense as different from the less Proper which is more notified but strict is contradistinguished from loose and stretcht I told you the Rule that we go by in this and it pleased you not to Confute it Thus much I repeat 1. We must take Oaths Covenants and Professions imposed by Authority in the sense of the Imposers as near as we can know it 2. But if they discover their Sense in words so unmeet as that in the Vulgar Sense they seem false or wicked we must number such with unlawful words unless we can by the publick notifying the Exposition avoid the Scandal 3. We are to take the Laws and imposed words of Rules especially in Oaths Covenants and Professions in that sense as those words are commonly used and understood in that time and place by Men of that Profession Unless the said Rulers make known that they use them in a different unusual sense 4. We must not presume that they mean not as they speak by an unusual sense upon dark and uncertain Conjectures especially dictated by our Interest but only by Cogent Evidence These are our Rules The reasons why we cannot Swear or Covenant or profess in your Laxe and stretched sense nor call that sense honest as you do especially on pretence of a Bishop's Exposition contrary to what I have reason to be fully satisfied our Law-makers meant are those which I gave you in the thirty Aggravations Sect. 16. which it did not please you to contradict These few I repeat I. The words of the Third Command are dreadful God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain or falsly II. Such licentious stretching of Oaths and Professions overthrow that mutual trust which is necessary to Humane Converse III. It depriveth the King of his due security of his Subjects Loyalty and of his Peace and Life I much fear lest relaxing and stretching the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy but as much as you relax and stretch the words of the Subscription Declaration Liturgie c. may untie the Consciences of Rebels and King-killers so far as to make way for and consist with Rebellion and killing the King IV. It seemeth to me most dangerously to expose the Lives of all the Subjects of the Kingdom to the will of their Enemies and to be a Vertual Murdering of many or any if not all Persons that have Enemies For while two false Swearers may take away a Mans Life if Men are taught to stretch Oaths and