and Formalists were not now broad enough nor of sufficient force The King's Party as their Serious Word called the Parliaments Party Rebels and as their common ludiâ—rous Name The Round-heads the original of which is not certainly known Some say it was because the Puritans then commonly wore short Hair and the King's Party long Hair Some sâ—y it was because the Queen at Strafford's Tryal asked who that Round-headed Man was meaning Mr. Pym because he spake so strongly The Parliaments Party called the other side commonly by the Name of Malignants as supposing that the generality of the Enemies of serious Godliness went that way in a desire to destroy the Religious out of the Land And the Parliament put that Name into their Mouths and the Souldiers they called Cavaliers because they took that Name to themselves and afterwards they called them Damme's because God Damn me was become a common Curse and as a By-word among them The King professed to sight for the Subjects Liberties the Laws of the Land and the Protestant Religion The Parliament profest the same and all their Commissions were granted as for King and Parliament for the Parliament professed that the Separation of the King from the Parliament could not be without a Destruction of the Government and that the Dividers were the Destroyers and Enemies to the State and if the Soldiers askt each other at any Surprize or Meeting who are you for those on the King's side said for the King and the others said for King and Parliament the King disowned their Service as a Scorn that they should say they fought for King and Parliament when their Armies were ready to charge him in the Field They said to this 1. That they fought to redeem him from them that took him a voluntary Captive and would separate him from his Parliament 2. That they fought against his Will only but not against his Person which they desired to rescue and preserve nor against his Authority which was for them 3. That as all the Courts of Justice do execute their Sentences in the King's Name and this by his own Law and therefore by his Authority so much more might his Parliament do § 52. But now we come to the main matter What satisfied so many of the intelligent part of the Countrey to side with the Parliament when the War began What inclined their Affections I have before shewed and it is not to be doubted but their Approbation of the Parliament in the cause of Reformation made them the easilier believe the lawfulness of their War But yet there were some Dissenters which put the matter to debates among themselves In Warwickshire Sir Francis Nethersole a religious Knight was against the Parliaments War and Covenant though not for the Justness of the War against them In Glocestershire Mr. Geree an old eminent Nonconformist and Mr. Copell a learned Minister who put out himself to prevent being put out for the Book of Recreations and some others with them were against the lawfulness of the War so was Mr. Lyford of Sherborn in Dorcetshire and Mr. Francis Bampfield his Successor and some other Godly Ministers in other Countries And many resolved to meddle on no side Those that were against the Parliaments War were of three Minds or Parties One Part thought that no King might be resisted but these I shall not take any more notice of The other thought that our King might not be at all resisted because he is our Sovereign and we have sworn to his Supremacy and if he be Supreme he hath neither Superior nor Equal And Oaths are to be interpreted in the strictest Sense The third sort granted that in some Cases the King might be resisted as Bilson and other Bishops hold but not in this Case 1. Because the Law giveth him the Militia which was contended for and the Law is the measure of Power 2. Because say they the Parliament began the War by permitting Tumults to deprive the Members of their Liberty and affront and dishonour the King 3. Because the Members themselves are Subjects and took the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and therefore have no Authority to resist 4. It is not lawful for Subjects to defend Reformation or Religion by Force against 〈◊〉 Soveraigns no such good Ends will warrant evil Means 5. It is contrary to the Doctrine of Protestants and the ancient Christians and Scripture it selfe which condemneth all that resist the higher Powers and as for the Primitive Christiansâ— it is well known they were acquainted with no other lawful Weapons against them but Prayers and Tears 6. It importeth a false Accusation of the King as if he were about to destroy Religion Liberties or Parliaments all which he is resolved to defend as in all his Declarations doth appear 7. It justifieth the Papists Doctrine and Practices of Rebellion and taketh the Odium from them unto our selves and layeth a Reproach upon the Protestant Cause 8. It proceedeth from Impatience and Distrust of God which causeth Men to fly to unlawful means Religion may be preserved better by patient Sufferings These were their Reasons who were against the Parliaments War which may be seen more at large in Mr. Dudly Digs his Book and Mr. Welden's and Mr. Michael Hudson's and Sir Francis Nethersole's § 53. As for those on the Parliaments side I will first tell you what they said to these Eight Reasons and next what Reasons moved them to take the other side 1. To the First Reason they said as before that for the Law to give the King the â—â—â—â—itia signifieth no more but that the People in Parliament consented to obey him in Matter of Wars and to fight for him and under his Conduct For the Law is nothing but the Consent of King and Parliament and the Militia is nothing but the Peoples own Swords and Strength And that this Consent of theirs should be supposed to be meant against themselves as if they consented to destroy themselves whenever he commanded it is an Exposition against Nature Sense and Reason and the common Sentiments of Mankind And they said that the same Law required Sheriffs to exercise the Militia in Obedience to the Decrees of his Courts of Justice and this against the King's Personal Commands and in the King's Name Because King and Parliament have by Law setled those Courts and Methods of Execution a Command of the King alone can no more prevail against them than it can abrogate a Law And the Law said they is above the King because King and Parliament are more than the King alone And they pretend also Presidents for their Resistance 2. To the Second they said that when 200000 Protestants were murdered in Ireland and their Friends so bold in England and the Parliaments Destruction so industruously endeavoured it was no time for them to rebuke their Friends upon terms of Civility and good Manners though their Zeal was mixt with Indiscretion and that if the Londoners had not shewed that Zeal
Soldier saith It is my Commission and the High Court of Parliament saith It is the Law declared in a Court of Justice a Parliament seemeth to be the properest Judge As in Controversies of Physick who is to be believed before the Colledge of Physicians Or in Controversies of Religion who before a General Council If the House of York and Lancaster â—ight for the Crown and both Command the Subjects Arms. the poor Peasants are not able to judge of their Titles And if a Parliament shall not judge for them who shall These were the Reasons which caused Men to adhere to the Parliament in this War § 55. For my own part I freely confess that I was not judicious enough in Politicks and Law to decide this Controversie which so many Lawyers and Wise men differed in And I freely confess that being astonished at the Irish Massacre and perswaded fully both of the Parliaments good endeavours for Reformation and of their real danger my Judgment of the main Cause much swayed my Judgment in the Matter of the Wars and the Arguments à fine à natureâ necessitate which common Wits are capable of discerning did too far incline my Judgment in the Cause of the War before I well understood the Arguments from our particular Laws And the Consideration of the Quality of the Parties that sided for each Cause in the Countries did greatly work with me and more than it should have done And I verily thought that if that which a Judge in Court saith sententially is Law must go for Law to the Subject as to the Decision of that Cause though the King send his Broad Seal against it then that which the Parliament saith is Law is Law to the Subjects about the Dangers of the Common-wealth whatever it be in it self and that if the King's Broad-Seal cannot prevail against the Judge much less against their Judgment I make no doubt but both Parties were to blame as it commonly falleth out in most Wars and Contentions and I will not be he that shall Justifie either of them I doubt not but the Headiness and Rashness of the younger unexperienced sort of religious People made many Parliament Men and Ministers overgo themselves to keep pace with those hot Spurs no doubt but much Indiscretion appeared and worse than Indiscretion in the tumultuous Petitioners and much Sin was committed in the dishonouring of the King and provocation of him and in the uncivil Language against the Bishops and Liturgie of the Church But these things came principally from the Sectarian separating Spirit which blew the Coals among foolish Apprentices And as the Sectaries increased so did this Insolence increase I have my self been in London when they have on the Lord's Days stood at the Church Doors while the Common Prayer was reading saying We must stay till he is out of his Pottage And such unchristian Scorns and Jests did please young inconsiderate Wits that knew not what Spirit they were of nor whither such unwarrantate things did tend Learned Mr. Iohn Ball though a Nonconformist discerned the stirrings of this insolent Sectarian Spirit betimes and fell a writing against it even then when some were crying out of Persecution and others were tender of such little Differences One or two in the House and five or six Ministers that came from Holland and a few that were scattered in the City which were the Brownists Relicts did drive on others according to their own dividing Principles and sowed the Seeds which afterward spread over all the Land though then there were very few of them in the Countreys even next to none As Bishop Hall speaks against the justifying of the Bishops so do I against justifying the Parliament Ministers or City I believe many unjustifiable things were done but I think that few Men among them all were the Doers or Instigaters of it But I then thought that whosoever was faulty the Peoples Liberties and Safety could not be forfeited And I thought that all the Subjects were not guilty of all the Faults of King or Parliament when they defended them Yea that if both their Causes had been bad as against each other yet that the Subjects should adhere to that Party which most secured the welfare of the Nation and might defend the Land under their Conduct without owning all their Cause And herein I confess I was then so zealous that I thought it a great Sin for Men that were able to defend their Country to be Neuters And I have been tempted since to think that I was a more competent Judge upon the Place when all things were before our eyes than I am in the review of those Days and Actions so many Years after when Distance disadvantageth the Apprehension A Writer against Cromwel's Decimation recanting his great Adherence to the Parliament in that War yet so abhorreth Neutrality that he likeneth him rather to a Dog than a Man that could stand by when his Country was in such a case But I confess for my part I have not such censorious Thoughts of those that then were Neuters as formerly I have had For he that either thinketh both sides raised an unlawful War or that could not tell which if either was in the right might well be excused if he defended neither I was always satisfied 1. That the Dividers of the King and Parliament were the Traitors whoever they were and that the Division tended to the Dissolution of the Government 2. And that the Authority and Person of the King were inviolable out of the reach of just Accusation Judgment or Execution by Law as having no Superiour and so no Judge 3. I favoured the Parliaments Cause as they professed 1. To bring Delinquents to a Legal Trial 2. And to preserve the Person and Government of the King by a Conjunction with his Parliament But Matters that Warrs and Blood are any way concerned in are so great and tenderly to be handled that I profess to the World that I dare not I will not justifie any thing that others or I my self have done of any such consequence But though I never hurt the Person of any Man yet I resolve to pray daily and earnestly to God that he will reveal to me whatever I have done amiss and not suffer me through Ignorance to be impenitent and would forgive me both my known and unknown Sins and cleanse this Land from the Guilt of Blood § 56. Having inserted this much of the Case of History of those Times I now proceed to the Relation of the Passages of my own Life beginning where I left When I was at Kidderminster the Parliament made an Order for all the People to take a Protestation to defend the King's Person Honour and Authority the Power and Priviledges of Parliaments the Liberties of the Subject and the Protestant Religion against the common Enemy meaning the Papists the Irish Massacre and Threatnings occasioning this Protestation I obeyed them in joyning with the Magistrate in offering
lying in great pain of the Stone and Strangury I went to visit him Twenty miles further And while I was there Mr. Baldwin came to me and told me that he also was forbidden to preach We returned both to Kidderminster and having a Lecture at Sheffnel in the way I preached there and stayed not to hear the Evening Sermon because I would make haste to the Bishop It fell out that my turn at another Lecture was on the same day with that at Sheffnal viz. at Cleibury in Shropshire also And many were there met in expectation to hear me But a Company of Soldiers were there as the Country thought to have apprehended me who shut the Doors against the Ministers that would have preached in my stead bringing a Command to the Churchwarden to hinder any one that had not a License from the Bishop and the poor People that had come from far were fain to go home with grieved hearts § 249. The next day it was confidently reported that a certain Knight offered the Bishop his Troop to apprehend me if I offered to preach And the People disswaded me from going to the Bishop supposing my Liberty in danger But I went that Morning with Mr. Baldwin and in the hearing of him and Dr. Warmstry then Dean of Worcester I remembred the Bishop of his Promise to grant me his Licence c. but he refused me liberty to preach in his Diocess though I offered him to preach only on the Creed and the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments Catechistical Principles and only to such as had no preaching But the Discourse between him and me at that time I have had occasion since particularly to recite in my Answer to him according as I noted it down when I came home and therefore I shall here pass it by And since then I never preached in his Diocess § 250. When he Silenced me he told me that he marvelled that I should think my own preaching so necessary as to offer to preach for nothing as if other Men could not do as much good as I I told him That when they and I had all done our best there would be many Places unsupplyed and asked him Whether he thought that such an one as I were not better than none He told me That he thought no meanly of my Abilities but till I was better affected he thought they were better that had none I urged him to tell me what he thought was the Errour of my Mind or Affections and what he would have me do towards the Cure My Errours he would not tell me save the ridiculous recital of that Sentence at the Savoy of Sin per accidens which I have spoken of in my Answer to him at large but for my Cure of I know not what he would have me read Bilson and Hooker I told him that was not now to do But when at his perswasion I revised them I admired at their Infatuation that ever they suffered such Books as Hooker's Eighth Book and Bishop Bilson of Obedience to see the Light When Hooker goeth so much further than the Long Parliament went as to affirm that the Legislative Power is so naturally belonging to the whose Body that it is Tyranny for a single Person to exercise it Lib. 1. And that the King is singulis Major sed Universis Minor and receiveth his Power from the People with many more Antimonarchical Principles which I have confuted in the Fourth Part of my Christian Directory particularly as judging them unsound And Bilson in that excellent Book of Christian Obedience hath this passage which methinks should make them burn it and not commend it to us for our Cure Pag. 520. If a Prince should go about to subject his Kingdom to a Foreign Realm or change the Form of the Commonwealth or neglect the Laws established by common Consent of Prince and People to execute his own pleasure In these and other Cases which might be named if the Nobles and the Commons joyn together to defend their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment and Laws they may not well be counted Rebels I never deny'd that the People might preserve the Foundation Freedom and Form of their Commonwealth which they fore-prized when they first consented to have a King I say the Law of God giveth no Man leave to resist his Prince but I never said that Kingdom and Commonwealths might not proportion their States as they thought best by their publick Laws which afterwards the Princes themselves may not violate By Superiour Powers ordained of God we understand not only Princes but all Politick States and Regiments somewhere the People somewhere the Nobles having the same Interest to the Sword that Princes have in their Kingdoms And in Kingdoms where Princes bear rule by the Sword we do not mean the Princes private Will against his Laws but his Precept derived from his Laws and agreeing with his Laws which though it be wicked yet may it not be resisted by any Subject with armed violence Marry when Princes offer their Subjects not Iustice but Force and despise all Laws to practise their Lusts not every nor any private Man may take the Sword and redress the Prince but if the Laws of the Land appoint the Nobles as next the King to assist him in doing right and withhold him from doing wrong then be they licensed by Man's Law and so not prohibited by God's to interpose themselves for the safety of Equity and Innocency and by all lawful and needful means to procure the Prince to be reformed but in no case deprived where the Scepter is inherited So far Bishop Bilson to whom I was sent § 251. To return to Bishop Monley He told me when he Silenced me that he would take care that the People should be no losers but should be taught as well as they were by me And when I was gone he got awhile a few scandalous Men with some that were more civil to keep up the Lecture till the paucity of their Auditors gave them a pretence to put it down And he came himself one day and preached to them a long Invective against them and me as Presbyterians and I know not what so that the People wondered that ever a Man would venture to come up into a Pulpit and speak so confidently to a People that he knew not the things which they commonly knew to be untrue And this Sermon was so far from winning any of them to the estimation of their New Bishop or curing that which he called the Admiration of my Person which was his great endeavour that they were much confirmed in their former Judgments But still the Bishop looked at Kidderminster as a Factious Schismatical Presbyterian People that must be cured of their over-valuing of me and then they would be cured of all the rest Whereas if he had lived with them the twentieth part so long as I had done he would have known that they were neither Presbyterians nor Factious nor Shismatical
were so used before what would they be said they if by such a War they should be conquered And they thought that the ruine of the State and of Men's Propriety was such an End as no means could be lawfully used for and that the Preservation of the Kingdom was such an End as would make lawful any necessary means which God himself had not forbidden 3. And then as to Authority they thought that the Legislative Power is the chiefest part of Soveraignty and that the Parliament having a part in the Legislative Power had so far inherently a Power to defend it which no Law can suppose them to give away And as the Peoples Representatives they supposed themselves much Intrusted to secure their reserved Liberties which the Law giveth not the King any Authority to take away 4. And they supposed that Government being that Publick Work which upholdeth the Common Peace it is to be done by Publick Instruments andâ— Means and that the Kings Laws are his Instruments of Government and also his Publick Courts and Officers And that the Subjects cannot know so well whether private Commands or Commissions be real or counterfeit nor are so much bound to take notice of them And that the Judgments and Executions of the Courts of Justice being the Effect of Laws which King and Parliament have made are of greater Authority than contrary Commissions or Commands from the King alone 5. It much confirmed them because all confessed That the Sheriffs of Counties must raise the posse Comitatus for the Execution of some Decrees of Courts of Justice though the King forbid it or grant a Commission to any to hinder it And that the foresaid Statute of Edw. 3. maketh even the King's Letters under the Broad Seal to be void when they would hinder Justice 6. And they pleaded the Law of Nature which is greater than Positive Laws That no Nation is bound to destroy it self The Militia being nothing but the Peoples own Sword they say they are not bound to destroy themselves with it nor can any Law be so interpreted And whereas it was said That the King sought not to destroy the Parliament but to bring some among them to punishment they said that it belongeth to the Parliament to judge its Members and that if on pretence of punishing offending Members the King may come and fetch away or demand those that displease him Parliaments and Liberties and all Security of them is gone 7. The King's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions greatly confirmed many when they saw the King himself declaring to them That the Legislative Power was in Kings Lords and Commons and that the Government was mixt and was not Arbitrary which they thought it must needs be if his Commissions were of greater power than his Laws and Courts and if no resistance might be made against any that executed an illegal Commission 8. It most prevailed with many that the Parliament professed not to fight against either the Person or Authority of the King though against his Will but that their War was only against Subjects They said that some Subjects were Delinquents that fled from Justice against whom they might raise Arms offensively and other Subjects took Arms against the Parliament and against these they made a Defensive War But all of them were Subjects and not Kings And the King's Will or Commission is not enough to save all Subjects from punishment when his Law is against it nor to authorize them to destroy the Parliament and their Country 9. They were much emboldened because this Parliament was continued by Law till it should dissolve it self And therefore some said the King's Presence is virtually with them he being a part of the Parliament and others said that no War could be lawful which was for their dissolution or ruine or to deprive them of their Liberty and that the defence of them was lawful whom the Law continued 10. They alledged King Iames who they said of any Man did most endeavour to advance his Prerogative and yet in his printed Treatise for Monarchy confesseth That a King cannot lawfully make a War against the Body of his Kingdom but only against an offending Faction Therefore say they not against the Representative Body till it be proved that by perfidiousness they have forfeited the Virtue and Honour of their Representation 11. They alledged Barclay Grotius and other Defenders of Monarchy especially that passage of Grotius de Iure Belli where he saith That if several Persons have a part in the Summa Potestas of which he maketh Legislation a chief Act each part hath naturally the power of defending its own Interest in the Soveraignty against the other part if thâ—â— invade it And addeth over boldly That if in such a War they conquer the conquâ—red party loseth to them his share And saith That this is so true that it holdeth though the Law expresly say that one of the Parties shall have the power of the Militia it being to be understood that he shall have it against Forreign Enemies and Delinquents and not against the other part 12. It much confirmed them to find the most Learned Episcopal Divines speak so high for the Legislative Power of Parliaments as Tho. Hooker doth Eccles. Pol. lib. 1. for the Eighth Book which saith more than the Parliament ever said was not then published And for resistance in several Cases as Bishop Bilson doth even in that Treatise wherein he so strongly defendeth Obedience and which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth And to find how far they defend the French Dutch and German Protestants Wars 13. They said that the Carnal respect of Men for personal Interests hath made all the stream of most Mens Words and Writings go on the Prince's side but Tyanny is a Mischief as well as Disobedience and that which all Ages and most Nations have grievously smarted by and they that befriend it are guilty of the Sin and of the Ruines which it procureth It keepeth out Christianity from five parts of the World It corrupteth it and keepeth out the Protestant Truth in most of the sixth part The Eastern and the Western Churches suffer under it to the perdition of millions of Souls If Bodily Sufferings were all the matter were nothing but it is Mens Souls and the Interest of the Gospel which is the Sacrifice to their Wills 14. Lastly This greatly confirmed many that the Matter being a Controversie whether the Disobedience and Resistance of King or Parliament is now the Rebellion and Sin the simple People are not wiser than the States-men that differ about it How then should they better quiet their Judgments than in the Judgment of the Parliament who are the Trustees of the People and the chief Court and Council of the King and have so many Lawyers and Wife men among them and are so greatly interessed in the common Good themselves If it were but the Question Which is the King 's Governing Will which the People must obey And a
a sober Christian hath the least reason to scruple Communion in Will you have a Pastor that shall not speak in the Name of the People to God or will you call his Prayers his own which he puts up by Virtue of his Office according to God's Word Ad 17m. I think they cannot without Sacriledge make such Alienation except where God's Consent can be proved For Example if the Ministers of the Church have full as much means given as is fit for the Ends to which it is given and yet the People will give more and more to the Burden and ensnaring of the Church and the impoverishing or ruin of the Common-wealth here I think God consents not to accept that Gift and therefore it was but an Offer and not plenarily a Gift for want of Acceptance for he accepts not that which he prohibits Here therefore the Magistrate may restore this to its proper use But whether this were any of the Case of these Sacrilegious Alienations too lately made in this Land is a farther Question I apprehend a deep Guilt of Sacriledge upon some Ad 18m. The Particulars here mentioned must be distinctly considered 1. About Fasts and Feasts the Question as referring to the Obligation of the Laws of the Land is of the same Resolution as all other Questions respecting those Laws which being a Case more out of my way I shall not presume to determine without a clearer Call Only I must say that I see little Reason why those Men should think themselves bound in this who yet suppose themselves loose from many other Laws and who obey many of the Laws or Ordinances of the present Powers 2. I much fear that not only the Querist but many more are much ensnared in their Consciences by misunderstanding the Nature and use of Synods It 's one thing for an Assembly of Bishops to have a superior Governing Power directly over all particular Churches and Bishops and another thing for such an Assembly to have a Power of determining of things necessary for the Concord of the several Churches I never yet saw it proved that Synods are over Bishops in a direct Governing Order nor are called for such Ends but properly in ordine ad Unitatem and so oblige only more than single Bishops by Virtue of the General Precept of maintaining Unity and Concord This is the Opinion of the most learned Bishop and famous antiquary that I am acquainted with 3. And then when the end ceases the Obligation is at an End So that this can now be no Law of Unity with us 4. All human Laws die with the Legislator farther than the surviving Rulers shall continue them The Reason is drawn from the Nature of a Law which is to be jussum Majestatis in the Common wealth and every where to be a sign of the Rectors Will de debito vel constituendo vel confirmando Or his Authoritative Determination of what shall be due from us and to us Therefore no Rector no Law and the Law that is though made by the deceased Rector is not his Law but the present Rector's Law formally it being the signifier of his Will And it is his Will for the continuance of it that gives it a new Life In all this I speak of the whole Summa potestas that hath the absolute Legislative Power If therefore the Church Governors be dead that made these Laws and no sufficient Power succeeds them to continue these Laws and make them theirs then they are dead with their Authors 5. The present Pastors of the Church though but Presbyters are the true Guides of it while Bishops are absent and the true Guides conjunctly with the Bishops if they were present according to the Judgment of your own side Whoever is the sole existent governing Powerâ— may govern and must be obeyed in things Lawful Therefore you must for all your unproved Accusation of Schism obey them The Death or Deposition of the Bishops depriveth not the Presbyters of that Power which they had before 6. Former Church Governors have not Power to bind all that shall come after them where they were before free But their Followers are as free as they were 7. The Nature of Church Canons is to determine of Circumstances only for a present time place or occasion and not to be universal standing Laws to all Ages of the Church For if such Determinations had been fit God would have made them himself and they would have been contained in his perfect Word He gives not his Legislative Power to Synods or Bishops 8. Yet if your Conscience will needs persuade you to use those Ceremonies you have no ground to separate from all that will not be of your Opinion 9. For the Cross the Canons require only the Minister to use it and not you and if he do not that 's nothing to you 10. Have you impartially read what is written against the Lawfulness of it by Amesius's fresh Suit Bradshaw Parker and others If you have you may at least see this that it 's no fit matter to place the Churches Unity or Uniformity in and they that will make such Laws for Unity go beyond their Commission Church Governors are to determine the Circumstances pro loco tempore in particular which God hath in Word or Nature made necessary in genere and left to their Determination But when Men will presume beyond this to determine of things not indeed circumstantial or no way necessary in genere nor left to their Determination as to institute new standing Symbols in and with God's Symbols or Sacraments to be engaging Signs to engage us to Christ and to Work Grace on the Soul as the Word and Sacraments do that is by a moral Operation and then will needs make these the Cement of Unity this is it that hath been the Bane of Unity and Cause of Divions 11. Kneeling at the Sacrament is a Novelty introduced many hundred years after Christ and contrary to such Canons and Customs of the Church to which for Antiquiâ—y and Universality you owe much more respect than to the Canons of the late Bishops in England 12. If your General Rule hold that you stand bound by all Canons not repealed by equal Power you have a greater burden on your back than you are aware of which if you bore indeed you would know how little this usurped Legislative Power befriends the Church And among others you are bound not to kneel in the Church on any Lord's Day in Sacrament or Prayer Grotius de Imperio Sumpotest would teach much more Moderation in these Matters than I here perceive Ad Q. 19m. 1. It 's too much Self-conceitedness and Uncharitableness to pass so bold a Censure as your Supposition doth contain of the visible ruling Church being Schismatical and so Heretical Which is the ruling Church I know none in England besides Bishops that pretend to rule any but their own Provinces and but few that pretend Order to Regiment Perhaps when the
Officers in the Court Freemen in Cities and Corporate Towns Masters and Fellows of Colledges in the Universities c. are required at their Admission into their several respective places to give Oaths for well and truly performing their several respective Duties their liableness to punishment in case of Non-performance accordingly notwithstanding Neither doth it seem reasonable that such Persons as have themselves with great severity prescribed and exacted antecedent Conditions of their Communion not warranted by Law should be exempted from the tye of such Oaths and Subscriptions as the Laws require § 17. 4. We agree that the Bishops and all Ecclesiastical Governours ought to exercise their Government not Arbitrarily but according to Law 5. And for Security against such Arbitrary Government and Innovations the Laws are and from time to time will be sufficient provision Concerning Liturgy § 18. A Liturgy or Form of Publick Worship being not only by them acknowledged lawful but by us also for the preservation of Unity and Uniformity deemed necessary we esteem the Liturgy of the Church of England contained in the Book of Common Prayer and by Law established to be such a one as is by them desired according to the Qualifications here mentioned 〈◊〉 1. For Matter agreeable to the Word of God which we 〈◊〉 all other lawful Ministers within the Church of England have or by the Laws ought to have attested by our Personal Subscription 2. Fitly suited to the Nature of the several Ordinances and the Necessities of the Church 3. Nor too tedious in the whole It 's well known that some Mens Prayers before and after Sermon have been usually not much shorter and sometimes much longer than the whole Church Service 4. Nor the Prayers too short The Wisdom of the Church both in ancient and latter times hath thought it a fitter means for relieving the Infirmities of the meaner sort of People which are the major part of most Congregations to contrive several Petitions into sundry shorter Collects or Prayers than to comprehend them altogether in a continued stile or without interruption 5. Nor the Repetitions unmeet There are Examples of the like Repetition frequent in the Psalms and other parts of Scripture Not to mention the unhandsome Tautologies that oftentimes happen and can scarce be avoided in the Extemporary and undigested Prayers that are made especially by Persons of meaner Gifts 6. Nor the Responsals Which if impartially considered are pious Ejaculations fit to stir up Devotion and good Symbols of Conformity betwixt the Minister and the People and have been of very ancient practise and continuance in the Church 7. Nor too dissonant from the Liturgies of other Reformed Churches The nearer both their Forms and ours come to the Liturgy of the Ancient Greek and Latin Churches the less are they liable to the Objections of the Common Enemy To which Liturgies if the Form used in our Church be more agreeable than those of other Reformed Churches and that it were at all needful to make a Change in either it seemeth to be much more reasonable that their Form should be endeavoured to be brought to a nearer Conformity with ours than ours with theirs Especially the Form of our Liturgy having been so signally approved by sundry of the most Learned Divines of the Reformed Churches abroad as by very many Testimonies in their Writings may appear And some of the Compilers thereof have Sealed the Protestant Religion with their Blood and have been by the most Eminent Persons of those Churches esteemed as Martyrs for the same § 19. As for that which followeth Neither can we think that too rigorously imposed which is imposed by Law and that with no more rigour than is necessary to make the Imposition effectual otherwise it could be of no use but to beget and nourish factions Nor are Ministers denied the use and exercise of their Gifts in praying before and after Sermon Although such praying be but the continuance of a Custom of no great Antiquity and grown into Common use by Sufferance only without any other Foundation in the Laws or Canons and ought therefore to be used by all sober and godly Men with the greatest inoffensiveness and moderation possible § 20. If any thing in the Established Liturgy shall be made appear to be justly offensive to sober Persons we are not at all unwilling that the same should be changed The discontinuance thereof we are sure was not our Fault But we find by experience that the use of it is very much desired where it is not and the People generally are very well satisfied with it where it is used which we believe to be a great Conservatory of the chief Heads of Christian Religion and of Piety Charity and Loyalty in the Hearts of the People We believe that the difuse thereof for sundry late years hath been one of the great Causes of the sad Divisions in the Church and that the restoring the same will be by by God's blessing a special means of making up the Breach There being as we have great cause to believe many Thousands more in the Nation that desire it than dislike it Nevertheless we are not against revising of the Liturgy by such discreet Persons as his Majesty shall think fit to imploy therein Of Ceremonies § 21. We conceived there needs no more to be said for justifying the Imposition of the Ceremonies by Law established then what is contained in the beginning of this Section which giveth a full and satisfactory Answer to all that is alledged or objected in the following Discourse which is for the most part rather Rhetorical than Argumentative Inasmuch as lawful Authority hath already determined the Ceremonies in question to be decent and orderly and to serve to Edification and consequently to be agreeable to the General Rules of the Word We acknowledge the Worship of God to be in it self perfect in regard of Essentials which hindereth not but that it may be capable of being improved to us by addition of Circumstantials in order to Decency and Edification As the Lord hath declared himself Jealous in Matters concerning the Substance of his Worship so hath he left the Church at liberty for Circumstantials to determine concerning Particulars according to Prudence as occasion shall require so as the foresaid General Rules be still observed And therefore the imposing and using indifferent Ceremonies is not varying from the Will of God nor is there made thereby any addition to or detraction from the holy Duties of God's Worship Nor doth the same any way hinder the Communication of God's Grace or Comfort in the performance of such Duties § 22. The Ceremonies were never esteemed Sacraments or imposed as such nor was ever any Moral efficacy ascribed to them nor doth the significancy without which they could not serve to Edification import or infer any such thing § 23. Ceremonies have been retained by most of the Protestant Churches abroad which have rejected Popery and have been approved by the
effectual with none but wicked Men and Hypocrites who dare Sin against their Consciences for fear of Men And is it worth so much ado to bring the Children of the Devil into your Church The third way of Efficacy is but to kill or banish all the Children of God that are not of your Opinion for it is they that dare not Sin against Conscience whatever they suffer And this is but such an Efficacy as the Spanish Inquisition and Queen Mary's Bonfires had to send those to God whom the World is not worthy of You know every Man that is true to his God and his Conscience will never do that which he taketh to be Sin till his Judgment is changed and therefore with such it can be no lower than Blood or Banishment or Imprisonment at least that is the Efficacy which you desire And if no such rigour be too much its pity the French that murthered 30000 or 40000 at their Bartholoâ—â—ew days or as Dr. Peter Moulin saith 100000 within a few Weeks and the Irish that murthered 200000 had not had a better Cause For they took the most effectual way of rigour But when God maketh Inquisition for the Blood of his Servants he will convince Men that such rigour was too much and that their Wrath did not fulfil his Righteousness You shew your Kindness to Men's praying in the Pulple without your Book Make good what you say that such Praying is of no great Antiquity and we will never contradict you more Or if we prove it not the Ancientest way of Praying in the Christian Church we will give you free leave to hang or banish us for not Subscribing to the Common Prayer Book which the Apostles used and which was imposed on the Church for some hundred years But it seems you think that we are beholden to meer Sufferance without Law or Canon for conceived Prayers How long then it will be suffered we know not if we must live by your Patience § 20. It seemeth that our Converse and yours much differ The most that we know or meet with had rather be without the Liturgy and you say That the People generally are well satisfied with it By this time they are of another Mind If it were so we take it for no great honour to it considering what the greater Number are in most places and of what Lives those Persons are of our Parishes and Acquaintance generally or for the most part who are for it Or what those are that are against it and whom for itsâ— sake you desire your effectual rigour may be exercised against The Lord prepare them to undergo it innocently § 21. Doth there need no more to be said for the Ceremonies How little will satisfie some Men's Consciences Lawful Authority hath in other Countreys cast out the same Bishops and Ceremonies which are here received Doth it follow that they are good in one Country and disorderly and undecent in another Or that our Authority only is infallible in judging of them Is not God's Worship perfect without our Ceremonies in its Integrals as well as its Essentials As for Circumstantials when you saw us allow of them you need not plead for them as against us But the Question is whether our Additions be not more then Circumstances § 22. We suppose that you give all to the Cross in Baptism which is necessary to a Humane Sacrament And this we are ready to try be just Dispute When you say that never was Moral Efficacy ascribed to them you seem to give up all your Cause for by denying this ascribed Efficacy you seem to grant them unlawful if it be so And if it be not so let us bear the blame of wronging them The informing and exciting the dull mind of Man in its duty to God is a Moral Effect from Moral Efficacy But the informing and exciting the dull Mind of Man in its Duty to God is an Effect ascribed to our Ceremonies Ergo a Moral Effect from Moral Efficacy is ascribed to our Ceremonies The major cannot be denied by any Man that knoweth what a Moral Effect and Efficacy is that which worketh not per modum Naturae in genere Causae efficientis naturalis only but per modum objecti vel in genere causae finalis upon the Mind of Man doth work morally but so do our Ceremonies Ergo sure the Arminians that deny all proper Physical Operations of God's Spirit as well as his Word and reduce all to Moral Efficacy will not say that Ceremonies have such a Physical Efficacy more than Moral And if not so the good Effects here mentioned can be from no lower Efficacy than Moral And the minor which must be denied is in the words of the Preface to the Common Prayer Book and therefore undeniable The Word of God it self worketh but moraliter proponendo objectum and so do our Ceremonies § 23. There is a great difference between Sacramental Ceremonies and meer Circumstances which the Reformed Churches keep These we confound not and could have wished you would not Our Cross in Baptism is A dedicating sign saith the Canon or transient Image made in token that this Child shall not be ashamed of Christ crucified but manly fight under his Banner against the Flesh the World and the Devil and continue Christ's faithful Servant and Soldier to his Lives end So that 1. It is a Dedicating Sign performed by the Minister and not by the Person himself as a bare Professing Sign is 2. It engageth the Party in a Relation to Christ as his Soldier and Servant 3. And in the Duties of this Relation against all our Enemies as the Sacramentum Militare doth a Soldier to his General and that in plainer and fuller words than are annexed to Baptism 4. And it is no other than the Covenant of Grace or of Christianity it self which this Sacrament of the Cross doth enter us into as Baptism also doth It is not made a part of Baptism nor called a Sacrament but as far as we can judge made essentially a Humane Sacrament adjoyned to Baptism The Reformed Churches which use the Cross we mean the Lutherans yet use it not in this manner § 24. This is but your unproved Assertion That the Fault was not in the Ceremonies but in the Contenders we are ready to prove the contrary but if it had been true how far are you from Paul's mind expressed Rom. 14. 15. and 1 Cor. 8. You will let your weak Brother perish and spare not so you can but charge the Fault on himself and lay Stumbling-blocks before him and then save him by your effectual rigour by Imprisonment or Punishment § 25. Those seem a few to you that seem many to us Had it been but one hundred such as Cartwright Amesius Bradshaw Parker Hildersham Dod Nicolls Langley Paget Hering Baynes Bates Davenport Hooker Wilson Cotton Norton Shephard Cobbet Word c. they had been enough to have grieved the Souls of many Thousand godly
Presence and with the Advice and Assistance of his aforesaid Presbytery 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 Advice of the Minister of the Place and as great diligence used for the Instruction and Reformation of notorious and scandalous Offenders as is possible towards which the Rubrick before the Communion hath prescribed very wholesom Rules 6. No Bishop shall Exercise any Arbitrary Power or do or impose any thing upon the Clergy or the People but what is according to the known Laws of the Land 7. We are very glad to find that all with whom we have conferred do in their Judgments approve a Liturgy or Set-Form of Publick Worship to be lawful which in our Judgment for the preservation of Unity and Uniformity we conceive to be very necessary And though 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 we have seen and we believe that we have seen all that are extant and used in this part of the World and well 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 to many absolete words and other Expressions used therein which upon the Reformation and Improvement of the English Language may-well be altered we will appoint some Learned Divines of different Perswasions to review the same and to make such Alterations as shall be thought most necessary and some such Additional Prayers as shall be thought fit for emergent Occasions and the improvement of Devotion the using of which may be left to the Discretion of the Ministers In the mean time and till this be done 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 8. Lastly Concerning Ceremoniesâ— which have administred so much Matter of Difference and Contention and which have been introduced by the Wisdom and Authority of the Church for Edification and the Improvement of Piety we shall say no more but that we have the more Esteem of all and Reverence for many of them by having been present in many of those Churches where they are most abolished or discountenanced and where we have observed so great and scandalous Indecency and to our Understanding so much absence of Devotion that we heartily wish that those pious Men who think the Church of England overburthened with Ceremonies had some little Experience and made some Observation in those Churches abroad which are most without them And we cannot but observe That those Pious and Learned Men with whom we have conferred upon this Argument and who are most solicitous for Indulgence of this kind are earnest for the same out of Compassion to the Weakness and Tenderness of the Conscience of their Brethren not that themselves who are very zealous for Order and Decency do in their Judgments believe the Practice of those particular Ceremonies which they except against to be in it self unlawful and it cannot be doubted but that as the Universal Church cannot introduce one Ceremony in the Worship of God that is contrary to God's Word expressed in the Scripture so every National Church with the approbation and consent of the Soveraign Power may and hath always introduced such particular Ceremonies as in that Conjuncture of Time are thought most proper for Edification and the necessary improvement of Piety and Devotion in the People though the necessary Practice thereof cannot be deduced from Scripture and that which before was and in it self is indifferent ceases to be indifferent after it is once established by Law And therefore our present Consideration and Work is to gratifie the private Consciences of those that are grieved with the use of some Ceremonies by indulging to and dispensing with their omitting those Ceremonies not utterly to abolish any which are established by Law if any are practised contrary to Law the same shall cease which would be unjust and of ill Example and to impose upon the Conscience of some and we believe much Superiour in Number and Quality for the Satisfaction of the Conscience of others which is otherwise provided for as it would not be reasonable that Men should expect that we should our self decline or enjoyn others to do so to receive the Blessed Sacrament upon our Knees which in our Conscience is the most humble most devout and most agreeable Posture for the holy Duty because some other Men upon Reasons best if not only known to themselves choose rather to do it Sitting or Standing We shall leave all Decisions and Determinations of that kind if they shall be thought necessary for a perfect and entire Unity and Uniformity throughout the Nation to the Advice of a National Synod which shall be duly called after a little time and a mutual Conversation between Persons of different Perswasions hath mollified those Distempers abated those Sharpnesses and extinguished those Jealousies which make Men unfit for those Consultations and upon such Advice we shall use our best endeavour that such Laws might be established as may best provide for the Peace of the Church and State 1. In the mean time out of Compassion and Compliance towards those who would forbear the Cross in Baptism we are content that no Man shall be compelled to use the same or suffer for not doing it But if any Parent desire to have his Child Christned according to the Form used and the Minister will not use the Sign it shall be lawful for the Parent to procure another â—Minister to do it And if the proper Minister shall refuse to omit that Ceremony of the Cross it shall be lawful for the Parent who would not have his Child so Baptized to procure another Minister to do it who will do it according to his Desire 2. No Man shall be compelled to bow at the Name of Jesus or suffer in any degree for not doing it without reproaching those who out of their Devotion continue that Ancient Ceremony of the Church 3. For the use of the Surplice which hath for so many Ages been thought a most decent Ornament for the Clergy in the Administration of Divine Service and is in truth of a different fashion in the Church of England from what is used in the Church of Rome we are contented that Men be left to their Liberty to do as they shall think sit without suffering in the least degree for the wearing or not wearing it provided that this Liberty do not extend to our own Chappel Cathedral or Collegiate
for my fear that he symbolized with the Papists was abated now I perceived that he knew not what they held And Dr. Gunning answered against him and said that the Papists do so use the Word I went on and told him That I also granted that a Man for a certainspace might he without any Act of Sin end as I was proceeding here Bishop Morley interrupted me according to his manner with vehemency crying out what can any Man be for any time without Sin And he founded out his Aggravations of this Doctrine and then cryed to Dr. Bates what say you Dr. Bates is this your Opinion Saith Dr. Bates I believe that we are all Sinners but I pray my Lord give him leave to speak I began to go on to the rest of my Sentence where I lest to shew the Sense and Truth of my Words and the Bishop whether in Passion or Design I know not interrupted me again and mouthed out the odiousness of my Doctrine again and again I attempted to speak and still he interrupted me in the same manner Upon that I sat down and told him that this was neither agreeable to our Commission nor the common Laws of Disputation nor the Civil Usage of Men in common Converse and that if he prohibited me to speak I desired him to do it plainly and I would â—â—sist and not by that way of interruption He told me I had speaking enough if that were good for I spake more than any one in the Company And thus he kept me so long from uttering the rest of my Sentence that I sat down and gave over and told him I took it for his Prohibition At last I let him talk and spake to those nearer me which would hear me and told them that this was it that I was going to say That I granted Bishop Lany that it was possible to be free from acting Sin for a certain time that so he might have no matter of Objection against me and that the Instances of my Concession were these 1. In the time of absolute Infancy 2. In the time of total Fatuity or Madness as natural Ideots that never had the use of Reason 3. In the time of a Lethargy Carus or Apoplexy or Epilepsie 4. In the time of lawful sleep when a Man doth not so much as dream amiss And whether any other Instances might be given I determined not But as I talked thus Bishop Morley went on talking louder than I and would neither hear me nor willingly have had me to have been heard Behind me at the lower end of the Table stood Dr. Crowther and he would consute me and I defended Dr. Lany in that Ieroboam made Israel to Sin What gather you thence quoth I that they had no Sin but that or never sumed before He answered yes and with a little Nonsence would defend it that Israel sinned not till then When I had proved the contrary to him in the general Acceptation of the Word Sin I told him that if he took the Word Figuratively the Genus for a Species I granted him that they sinned not that Species of Sin which Ieroboam taught them which is in the Text emphatically called Sin If he meant that they sinned no Sin of Idolatry or no National Sin till then It was not true and if it were it was nothing to our Question which was about Sin in the General or indefinitely He told me they Sinned no National Sin till then I asked him whether the Idolatry the Unbelief the Murmuring c. by which all the Nation save Caleb and Ioshua fell in the Wilderness and the Idolatry for which in the time of the Judges the Nation was conquered and captivated were none of them National Sins I give the Reader the Instance if this Odious kind of Talk to shew him what kind of Men we talkt with and what a kind of Task we had § 196. And a little further touch of it I shall give you When I beg'd their Compassion on the Souls of their Brethren and that they would not unnecessarily cast so many out of the Ministry and their Communion Bishop Cosins told me that we threatned them with Numbers and for his part he thought the King should do well to make us name them all A charitable and wise Motion To name all the Thousands of England that dissented from them and that had sworn the Covenant and whom they would after Persecute § 197. When I read in the Preface to our Exceptions against the Liturgy That after twenty years Calamity they would not yield to that which several Bishops voluntarily offered twenty Years before meaning the Corrections of the Liturgy offered by Archbishop Usher Archbishop Williams Bishop Morton Dr. Prideaux and many others Bishop Cosins answered me That we threatned them with a new War and it was time for the King to look to us I had no shelter from the Fury of the Bishop but to name Dr. Hammond and tell him that I remembred Dr. Hammond insisted on the same Argument that twenty Years Calamity should have taught Men more Charity and brought them to repentance and Brotherly Love and that it is an Aggravation of their Sin to be unmerciful after so long and heavy Warnings from God's Hand He told me if that were our meaning it was all well And these were the most logical Discourses of that Bishop § 198. Among all the Bishops there was none who had so promising a Face as Dr. Sterne the Bishop of Carlisle He look'd so honestly and gravely and soberly that I scarce thought such a Face could have deceived me and when I was intreating them not to cast out so many of their Brethren through the Nation as scrupeled a Ceremony which they confess'd indifferent he turn'd to the rest of the Reverend Bishops and noted me for saying in the Nation He will not say in the Kingdom saith he lest he own a King This was all that ever I heard that worthy Prelate say But with grief I told him that half the Charity which became so grave a Bishop might have sufficed to have helpt him to a better Exposition of the Word Nation from the Mouths of such who have to lately taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and sworn Fidelity to the King as his Chaplains and had such Testimonies from him as we have had and that our case was sad if we could plead by the King's Commission for Accommodation upon no no better Terms than to be noted as Traytors every time we used such a Word as the Nation which all monarchical Writers use § 199. Bishop Morley earnestly pleaded my own Book with me my fifth Disput. as he had done before the King And I still told him I went not from any thing in it He vehemently aggravated the mischiefs of Conceived Prayer in the Church and when I told him that all the Action of Men would be imperfect while Men were imperfect and that the other side also had its
pursued me to this very day 2. But it is the Reasons against our full Obedience to the Imposition of this Conformity which I am now to rehearse but I must desire the Reader to remember that my bare Recital is no sign of my Approbation of all that I recite though I be one of those that dare not Conform § 304. And first there are divers general Reasons which keep some of them more than others from Conformity and drive them further even from joyning with them in Liturgy or Sacrament 1. Some of them look upon the Principles and Lives of many of those who fall in with the establisht Church as furnishing them with a sufficient Plea against Conformity For say they it 's easie to observe how the Prophane and Vitious and Debaucht and Scandalous which makes up but too great a part of the Nation fall in with that Party in the Church that are for Prelacy and Liturgy c. and for oppressing those who differ in their Sentiments from them about these Matters Now how say they can we safely joyn in with that Body of Men that harbours so many open Enemies to all Religion as the prophane part of the Nation comprehends But some who are more considerate reply That this is no other than what is the usual Attendant of a National Establishment it being a common thing for all those in a State who are really of no Religion in appearance to fall in with that Mode of Religion that is favour'd by the Law and most encouraged by the Prince § 305. 2. The same Persons say That by Conforming they shall own and strengthen Usurpers who have made a New Office which Christ never made and to the great wrong of Christ and the peril of the Church have made themselves Lords of God's Heritage And as he that obeyeth the Pope's Law is guilty of his Usurpation so is he that obeyeth the Prelates Laws though the Matter commanded were lawful in it self But the moderater Nonconformists are not for this Reason because say they it is but Counsel as it cometh from the Convocation and it is the King and Parliament that make a Law of it whom we must obey in lawful things And they say further That we must not forbear a Duty for fear of Encouraging Men's Usurpations § 306. They say also 3. That these Impositions are done by the Prelates in meer design to root out godly Ministers and Christians And that when they feared that the old Conformity would not serve turn they have added such new Materials of set purpose which keep out a Thousand at least that would have yielded to the Old Conformity And what they aim at further when they have thus driven out all the able faithful Ministers God knoweth But if we set in with them and use the very means which they have â—â—bricated for this very end to destroy the Interest of Godliness though the Act commanded were indifferent we are made guilty of their Sin But the moderate Nonconformists say That such Reasons as these are good Seconds where the Matter is first proved evil but 1. That Mens Designs are lateâ—t in their hearts and the strongest Conjectures will not serve instead of Proof 2. If that it were known to any one of us not by the Evidence of the thing but by some other Discovery that a lawful thing is Commanded with a pernicious design that will not excuse us from our Obedience unless it be probable that the Church is like to be saved from ruine by our forbearance to obey And we may do the thing commanded without any participation of the Guilt of Mens private malicious Intentions § 307. 4. Also they say That we have Covenanted to endeavour a Reformation and had begun it and therefore shall be Covenant-breakers and Backsliders if we yield to any thing which was to be reformed But here the more moderate have many Distinctions between things unlawful and things only inconvenient and between those that have opportunity to do better and those that have not and between seldom Communion and most ordinary And they say that things unlawful must not be done whether we have covenanted against them or not But for things only inexpedient or evil by a superable Accident they become our Duties and no Covenant disobligeth us from our Duty and that the Covenant never was intended to oblige us to prefer no Worship before that which is defective but only to prefer that which is better before it And that it may be a duty to Communicate sometime with a very faulty Church in order to our Catholick Communion with the whole so be it our ordinary particular Communion be in the purest Church and Order caeteris paribus that we can have § 308. 5. And another Reason given is That the Aggravation of the Sin of these Imposers is very great that they have been Persecutors heretofore and seen and felt God's Judgments for it and have been convinced and intreated to return to Charity and yet they have with renewed Malice set themselves to the debauching of the Consciences of the Kingdom and to the extirpation of Natural Honesty and have branded all their Party with the Mark of Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution while they brand the Consciencious with the Name of Puritans And therefore they are a Generation ready for perdition and certainly near some heavy Curse And for us to joyn with them that are in the way to Wrath is the way to be partakers of their Plagues But the moderate say to this 1. That the Extenuation as well as the Aggravation of their Sin must be considered And that it must be remembred that among the Nonconformists there is a Party of Sectaries that Rebelled against all the Governours that were over them and cut off the King's Head when they had conquered those that are now against them in the Field and sequestred their Estates And that such great Provocation may not only sublimate Malice where it findeth it but greatly exasperate even temperate Men. 2. That it 's true that we must partake with no Men in their Sin as ever we would escape their Plagues but when that which is the Imposers Sin is become the Subjects Duty God will not plague us with them for doing our Duties 3. That it is dangerous to presume to foreteâ— on whom God will bring his Judgments in this Life and to preâ—ume that we are safe and they are near perdition while all things come alike to all and the differencing Day of Judgment is not yet come Therefore it is dangerous on such Prophesies or Presumptions or Fears to go out of the way of any Duty or to avoid any lawful Communion with the Church § 309. 6. Again it is said That these Impositions being the Engines of Division in the Church as Mr. Hales himself affirmeth we shall be partakers of the Schisms if we use them But the moderate say That indeed if we partake in the Imposition we partake in the
not the Primitive Episcopacy or any other sort but the present Diocesan Prelacy which was in being in England Ergo no other could be extirpated 2. Because when the Covenant was debated first in the Synod at Westminster abundance of Divines who Subscribed the Covenant did openly profess that they were not against Episcopacy and would not consent to it in any such sence 3. Because the said Divines upon that profession caused the Description of the word Prelacy to be exprest in a Parentheses which is only the Description of our Diocesan Frame which is to be seen in the words of the Covenant 4. Because when the House of Lords who imposed it did conjunctly and solemnly take the Covenant Mr. Tho. Coleman who preached and gave it them did openly declare at the giving and taking of it that it was not all Episcopacy that they renounced or vowed by this Covenant to extirpate but only the Diocesan Prelacy there described All this with the words themselves I think is sufficient Evidence of the matter of that Clause § 365. 2. And for the Persons here are especially three sorts in question 1. The King 2. The Parliament 3. The People The first question is Whether the People in the number allowed by the Act may not by humble petition endeavour a reforming Alteration of the Prelacy 2. Whether Parliament Men may not lawfully speak and vote for it 3. Whether King and Parliament may not alter it by altering the Laws If all these Actions be the endeavouring of a Duty or of a lawful Thing in their several Places and Callings and that be the very thing which the Vow obligeth them to then the question is Whether hereto it do not bind them § 366. 1. To say that the People may not so much as petition for a Thing so much concerning their Felicity is to take away not only that Liberty which the King hath in many of his Declarations against the Parliament professed to maintain but also such Liberty as Lawyers say is woven into the Constitution of the Kingdom by the Fundamental Laws and cannot be taken from them but by changing the Constitution yea and reducing them to a state below that of a Subject § 367. 2. To say that a Parliament Man may not speak or vote for such an alteration seemeth to be against the old unquestioned Priviledge of Parliaments which was never denied by the King who opposed them in other things And this Opinion also by such an Alteration of Parliaments would alter the Constituted Government of the Land § 368. 3. To say that the King and Parliament may not alter Prelacy by altering the Law doth seem to be the highest Injury to Soveraignty by denying the Legislative Power § 369. If it be a thing which the People may not petition for nor Parliament vote for nor speak for nor King and Parliament alter then either because the Law of God disableth them or the Common Good forbiddeth them or the Laws of the Land restraineth them from But it is none of these Ergo 1. It is before shewed That no Law of God hath established the English Form of Prelacy nay that the Law of God is repugnant to it 2. And that the Common Good forbiddeth not the Alteration but requireth it 3. And that no Law restraineth in any of the three formentioned Cases is plain in that there is no Law against the Peoples Petitioning as aforesaid nor can be without alteration of the Government And the King with his Parliament are above Laws and have power to make them and to abrogate them So that it seemeth a thing that may be done and a Vow turneth a may be into a must be where it is of force And thus far they think that there is no great difficulty in the Controversie § 370. Before I tell you their Answers to the contrary Reasons I may tell you that not only Dr. Sanderson granteth but all Conformists that ever I talkt with hereabout do agree with us in these following Points 1. That we must here distinguish between the Actum Imperantis the Actum Iurantis and the Materiam Iuramenti the Act of the Parliament imposing it the Act of the Persons taking it and the Matter of the Oath or Vow 2. And also between the Sinfulness of an Oath the Act of the Swearer and the Nullity of it 3. And that if the Imposers Act be sinful and the Taking Act be sinful yet the Oath is obligatory if the Matter vowed be not unlawful and the Actus Iurandi were not a Nullity as well as a Sin 4. That if there be six Articles in a Vow and four of them be unlawful this doth not disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part Otherwise an unlawful Clause put in may free a Man from a Vow for the most necessary Duties 5. That if a Nation take a Vow it is a personal Vow to every individual Person in that Nation who took it 6. That if there be in it a mixture of a Vow to God and a League Covenant or Promise to Men the Obligation of the Vow to God may remain when as a League or Covenant with Man ceaseth unless when the Vow is not co-ordinate but sabordinate to the League or Covenant as being only a Vow or Oath that it shall be faithfully performed 7. That if a Vow be imposed in lawful proper Terms it is not any unexpressed Opinion of the Imposers that maketh the Matter unlawful to the Taker 8. That if the Imposers be many Persons naturally making one collective Body â—o â—ence of theirs is to be taken as explicatory but what is in the words or otherwise publickly declared to the Takers Because they are supposed to be of different 〈◊〉 among themselves when they agree not in any Exposition 9. That though a Subject ought to take an Oath in the sence of his Rulers who impose it as far as he can understand is yet a Man that taketh an Oath from a Robâ—eâ— to sive his Life is not alway bound to take it in the Imposers sence if he take it not against the proper sence of the words 10. That though a Subject should do his best to understand the Imposers sence for the right taking of it yet as to the keeping of it he is bound much to the sence in which he himself took it though possibly he misunderstood the Imposers § 371. Now to their Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists Object 1. The End was evil to change the Government of Church and State withâ—â—â— Law which was setled by Law The Bishops were a part of the House of Lords and therefore could not be cast out but by their own consent and the whole Parliament's with the King Answ. 1. It is not the ill ends of the Persons imposing that can disoblige the Taker unless it had been the fiâ—is proximus ipsius Iuramenti essential to the Vow it self and inseparable from it The Ends of Parliaments may be manifold and unknown
Non-Subscribers to speak de materia necessaria 2. The Text expresly limiteth the indulgence to a daughter in the family or a wife and doth not extend it to the stronger Sex 3. It limiteth it to Families where the Ruler is still at hand and extendeth it not to Kingdoms 4. It doth not prove the Obligation null from the beginning but only dissolved afterward by the Father's or Husband's dispensation as many Verses express 5. Therefore to pretend a parity of reason for a King 's dispensing with his Subjects Vows is a bare pretence and unproved and disproved 6. If it would hold then it is in the power of Kings to save all their Subjects from the guilt of Perjury by dispensing with all their Vows 7. This Law in Numbers is no further in force than it appeareth to belong to the Law of Nature or of Christ For as Moses's Law it dy'd with Christ and was nailed to his Cross Though the general equity of it be still of force 8. How many Thousands in this Land and Scotland never knew of the King's Declaration against the Covenant How then could that dispense with their Vows which they never knew of nor possibly could know of being in the Parliaments Garrisons or Quarters 9. What 's this to all those that took it when the King was dead and therefore could not dispense with their Oaths 10. What is this to the King himself who took it long after his Father's Death over whom no man had a dispensing Power 11. What 's this to all those that took it after the present King had taken it and published a Declaration for it Did not this then confirm the Obligation Though for my part I am one of those that think that the Scots did ill unmannerly disobediently unlawfully inhumanly foolishly in forcing the King to take the Covenant against his will and to publish so harsh a Declaration against his Father's Actions contrary to his own Iudgment Yet it is his open Declarations and not his secret Unwillingness which his distant Subjects could take notice of So that this reason seemeth strongly to make against the pleaders of it because of the King 's confirming Act. § 378. 6. The sixth Reason is That the People cannot lawfully endeavour the change of Church Government without the King Answ. 1. Cannot the Subjects petition and the Parliament speak and vote without him and petition him also 2. Cannot a Bishop lawfully advise the King to do it if the King ask his Advice 3. Cannot the Subjects endeavour it if the King command them Are they all bound to disobey the King if he should command their Service for the Change of Prelacy into the Primitive Episcopacy Their Place and Calling is to do it when the King commandeth them And so many of them understood and took it And it seemeth too near a kin to Rebellion to say that no Subject must obey the King in such a matter though he swear it If you say This is never like to be I answer No Man knoweth what Change the Mind of Kings as well as other Men may admit And they that read the King's Declaration in Scotland thought they had a visible proof of it 4. And what 's all this to the King 's own Act who took it himself whom we must also by our Subscription disoblige § 379. 7. The seventh Reason answereth this That the King took not the same Covenant mentioned in the Act of Uniformity but another Answ. This is so thin a shift that the King himself doth not own it but saith That his Enemies drove him to it against his will As if mutatis mutandis the various Names and Cases of Persons made an Oath or Covenant not to be the same Because it 's said in the beginning We Noble men Knights c. and not We the King and Nobles they suppose another Name or Person maketh it specifically another Covenant Or because the Article of protecting the King's Person belonged not to him to take § 380. 8. Another Reason is That the King was forced to it Answ. The more to be blamed are they that did it then But all the World acknowledgeth that the Will of Man cannot be forced absolutely and that a voluntary Act though caused by necessity or terrour is moral and that a Promise made to Man much more a Vow to God in materia licita though forced by a Robber that would take away ones Life may yet be Obligatory A Man that may choose whether he will vow or die is bound by his Vow if he choose it before Death Though yet the choosing it may possibly be his sin § 381. 9. Mr. Fullwood's great Reason is That the King was pre-engaged to take the Corporation Oath as Heir of the Crown and consequently engaged to Episcopacy and consequently he was not obliged against it by the Covenant Answ. 1. If he were not obliged to take the Crown he was not obliged to take that Oath If he were obliged under the Peril of a Sin to take the Crown then Charles the Fifth and other Princes that have laid down Crowns or refused them have sinned unless some peculiar Reason be here brought But this is not affirmed by any That a Prince may not lawfully refuse a Crown unless when it would hazard the Happiness of the Kingdom 2. He might have taken the Crown with an alteration of that Oath Who ever said That the King and Parliament have not power to change that Oath who can change the Laws 3. Who can prove that it is any violation of that Oath or wrong to the liberties of the Church which the King sweareth to preserve to change the Prelacy into the Primitive Episcopacy by taking down Lay-Chancellors and restoring Pastoral Power c. any more than it was to take down Abbots and to cast out the Pope and to subject the Clergy to the Magistrate who before were much exempt All these seem to be much more against the Liberties of that which was called the Church when this Oath was formed than the shewing Mercy to Prelates and the whole Land by reducing them to a lawful rank can be 4. Do any Casuists in the World teach such Doctrine That a former Oath is null because some Conveniencies required the taking of a later 5. If this hold true then God's Law which is former and higher than all having first made it as many Non-Subscribers think a sin to cherish the Diocesan Frame at all and consequently to swear to do it the question is Whether the Obligation to swear the upholding of them or the Obligation not to swear it were the greater § 382. To Mr. Fullwood's further Reason is That it is injustice to cast out so many Men from their possessed Dignities and Estates and therefore no Vow can oblige any to it Answ. 1. If indeed it were so then the Vow extending but to our Places and Callings cannot bind us to it But is it any Injustice to make a Law
In the best sence which hath Evidence of Truth Charity requireth us to take all the words of others But the question is first Which is the true sence and not which is the best And if it can be proved that another is either certainly or probably the true meaning of any words we must not feign a better sence because it is better In the Case in hand the Law-makers have plainly declared their own sence by their Speeches and Votes and deliberate plain Expressions and by another Act for Corporations If I might take all Oaths and Statutes in the best sence which possibly those words may be used to express than I could take almost any Oath in the World and disobey any Law in the World under pretence of obeying it and tell any Lie under the pretence of telling Truth and Jesuitical Equivocation would be but the common Duty of the Charitable But Charity is not blind nor will it prove a fit Cover for a Lie He that knoweth the Parliament and is but willing to know their sence may know the mistakes of this pretended Charity And especially Laws and Oaths are to be taken in the sence which is plainest in the words § 391. Besides all that is already said I shall end this Subject with this question on the Non-subscribers part Whether an Oath doth not bind Men in the sence of the Takers though they be bound to take it in the sence of the Imposers if they know it As if I had been commanded to swear Allegiance to the King and he that commandeth it should mean Cromwell or some Usurper and I thought he had meant my rightful King Am I not bound hereby to the King indeed And if so Query further Whether any Man so well know the sence of every Man and Woman in England Scotland and Ireland as to be able to say that it was so bad that they are not obliged to it And in what Age it was that all Ministers were forbidden to Preach the Gospel of Christ till they knew the Hearts of all the People in three Kingdoms so far as to justifie them before God from the Obligations of such Vows and Oaths § 392. And though I heartily wish that the Prelates would have been intreated to have chosen another course of proceeding with their Brethren and not have tempted any to Repinings or Complaints for endeavouring which I lost their love yet I would admonish all my Brethren to take heed of aggravating this Difference so far as to bring the present Ministry into Contempt and hinder the Efficacy of their Labours I did my best to have prevailed beforehand that we might not have had any occasion of Divisions but if we must needs be divided that it might have been upon some lower Points than the Obligation of Oaths and Vows It had been better for the Prelates that the Non-subscribers had seemed to be scrupulous Persons that refused only some tolerable Ceremonies than that the fear of so great a Crime as justifying three Kingdoms from the Bond of an Oath and the guilt of Perjury should be the occasion of their Ejection and the Matter of this Publick Controversie But seeing this could not by us be prevented let us not be so partial as to wrong the Church by making them odious to justifie our selves It was sad when the Names of Formalists and Puritans and afterwards of Malignants and Rebels and Cavaliers and Roundheads distinguished the divided Parties But it is now grown worse when they are called PER-fidious jured secutors and PURITANS For the most odious Names do most potently tend to the extinguishing of Charity and the increase of the Difference between them § 393. III. The next Controversie is Political That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King or as is after said against any Commissionated by him In this the Lawyers are divided yea and Parliament themselves one Parliament saying one thing and another another thing And the poor ejected Ministers of England are commonly so little studied in the Law that in these Controversies they must say as they are bidden or say nothing And they think it hard that when Lawyers and Parliaments cannot agree every poor ignorant Preacher must be forced to decide the Controversie and say and subscribe which of them is in the right upon pain of being cast out of their Office and silenced which they think as hard as if they were required to decide a Controversie between Navigators or Pope Zachary and Boniface's Case about the Antipodes or else be silenced We are ready to Subscribe That King Charles the Second is our lawful King and that we owe him Obedience in all his lawful Commands and that we are bound to defend his Person Dignity Authority and Honour with our Lives and Estates against all his Enemies and that neither Parliaments nor any other at home or abroad have any power to judge or hurt his Person or depose him or diminish any of his Power and that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to conspire against him or â—stir up the People to Sedition or to take up Arms against either his Authority or his Person or against any lawfully Commissioned by him or any at all Commissioned by him except he himself by a contrary Commission or by his Law do enable us or not forbid us or when the Law of Nature doth oblige us In all these Cases we are ready to Subscribe And one would think this much might procure our Peace But that which is scrupled by the Non-subscribers is as followeth The words on any pretence whatsoever studiously put into a Form of Declaration by a Parliament are so universal as to allow no Latitudinarian Evasions or Limitations or Exceptions by any Man that is sincere and plain-hearted and doth not Equivocate with God and his Governours Now 1. Though the King's Authority or Person may not be resisted by Arms they are not certain that his Will may not in any Case be resisted 2. Though none Authorized that is Legally Commissioned by him may be resisted yet they are not certain that all that are Commissioned by him are Authorized or Legally Commissioned 3. Either this Declaration requireth us to suppose that the King never will Commission any illegally or else that though he do yet such may on no pretence whatsoever be resisted by Arms. If the former be the sence then either it is because no King will do it or only because no King of England will do it The former all Historians Politicians Lawyers and Divines are against And the latter hath no Evidence of Certainty to us But yet if that had been the sence we should have consented that on supposition the King commission Men legally they are not to be resisted But this no Man will say is to be supposed as an Event certainly and universally future But if the worst that is possible might be supposed possible then in these several Cases
Ministers can perform and it is a work that I never yet knew one Prelatist well perform to my remembrance and few of them meddle with it at all any farther than to read Common Prayer some time to a dying Man if any one of a Multitude desire it 2. Many of them had Pastoral Charges in Cities and Corporations from the obligation of which they take not themselves to be well released by the bare prohibition of Man while then Peoples needs and desires continue and where their places are supplyed with Men so ignorant and vicious as to be un-meet for such a charge of Souls And it must be more than the Will of Man that must warrant them to fly and forsake their Flocks to which they had a lawful Call and to leave their Souls to those notorious Perils as in very many places they must do 3. And in the rest of the Land where can a Minister labour with advantage but with those that know him and are known of him and have formerly profited by him and will afford him Entertainment 4. If it be lawful to desert the Souls of all Cities and Corporations and all other Parishes where-ever we preach'd it will follow that it is lawful to desert all the rest and so sacrilegiously to desert our office 5. Christ saith When they persecute you in one City fly to another Therefore we are not obliged to desert them all as soon as we are commanded 6. The Preaching of Christ's Apostles and of all his Ministers for 300 Years was against the will of the Princes and Rulers of the Countries where they preached And yet they planted Churches and ordained Elders principally in all the Cities where they came and would rather suffer Imprisonment and Death than to desert them any further than by flying from one to another § 9. 2. But natural necessity also constrained many For many had Wives and many Children to maintain and had not one Penny of yearly Revenue nor any thing but the Gifts of charitable People to maintain them And if they had a poor Cottage to live in and no Money to pay their Rent nor to buy Fire Food or Cloathing they had much less enough to take another House and pay for the removal of their Goods far off and the Charges of a new Settlement and there to dwell among Strangers far from those whose Charity relieved them was but to turn their Families to famish which is more inhumane than to see a Brother have need and to shut up the Bowels of our compassion from him which yet is contrary to the Love of God § 10. And indeed in many Countries it was hard to find many places which were not within five Miles of some Corporation or of some place where we had Preached before for some Ministers preached in a great number of Parishes at several times And if such a place were found was it like that there would be Houses enough found untenanted to receive so many Ministers Or if there were perhaps the Landlords would be so much for Prelacy as to refuse such Tenants or so timorous as to be afraid lest by receiving such they should bring themselves under Suspicion of favouring Non-conformists and so be ruined or so covetous as knowing their advantage to ask more for their Houses than poor Ministers that had hardly any thing left to subsist on could be able to give Besides that almost all Country Houses are annexed to the Farms or Land belonging to them And Ministers are ill Farmers especially when they have no Money to Stock their Land § 11. Yea they allowed them not to be kept as common Beggars on the Alms of the Parish but when by the Law every Beggar is to be brought to the place of his Birth or last abode and there to be kept on Alms No Minister must come within five Miles of the Parish where he ever exercised his Ministry nor any that were born in Cities and Corporations must come within five Miles of them for relief § 12. In this strait those Ministers that had any Maintenance of their own did find out some Dwellings in obscure Villages or in some few Market-Towns which were no Corporations And those that had nothing did leave their Wives and Children and hid themselves abroad and sometimes came secretly to them by night But God bringing Good out of Men's Evil many resolved to preach the more freely in Cities and Corporations till they went to Prison Partly because they were then in the way of their Calling in which they could suffer with the greater peace and partly because they might so do some good before they suffered and partly because the People much desired it and also were readier to relieve one that laboured for them than one that did nothing but hide himself and partly because when they lay in Prison for preaching the Gospel both they and their Wives and Children were like to find more pity and relief than if they should forsake their People and their Work Seeing therefore the Question came to this Whether Beggary and Famine to themselves and Families with the deserting of their Callings and the People's Souls was to be chosen or the faithful performance of their Work with a Prison after and the People's Compassion They thought the latter the more eligible § 13. And yet when they had so chosen their Straits were great for the Country was so impoverished that those of the People who were willing to relieve the Ministers were not able And most that were able were partly their Adversaries and partly worldly-minded and strait-handed and unwilling And alas it is not now and then a Shilling or a Crown given very rarely which will pay House-Rent and maintain a Family Those Ministers that were unmarryed did easilier bear their Poverty but it pierceth a Man's Heart to have Children crying and Sickness come upon them for want of wholsom Food or by drinking Water and to have nothing to relieve them And Women are usually less patient of Suffering than Men and their Impatience would be more to a Husband than his own wants I heard but lately of a good Man that was fain to Spin as Women do to get something towards his Family's relief which could be but little and being Melancholy and Diseased it was but part of the Day that he was able to do that Another Mr. Chadwick in Somerset for a long time had little but brown Rye Bread and Water for himself his Wife and many Children and when his Wife was ready to lye in was to be turned out of Door for not paying his House-Rent But yet God did mercifully provide some Supplies that few of them either perished or were exposed to sordid unseemly Beggary But some few were tempted against their former Judgments to Conform § 14. The Oath imposed on them was this I A B De Swear That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King And that I do abhor
Court of Justice declare That the King by his Laws commandeth us to assist the Sheriffs and Justices notwithstanding any Commission to the contrary under the great or little Seal and one shew us a Commission to the contrary which must we take for the King's Authority 8. Whether this extendeth to the Case of King Iohn who delivered the Kingdom to the Pope Or to those Instances of Bilson Barcley Grotius c. of changing the Government putting by the true Heir to whom we are Sworn in the Oath of Allegiance c. if Subjects pretend Commission for such Acts 9. Whether Parliament Judges in Court or private Men may by the King's Authority in his Laws defend their Lives against any that by a pretended Commission invadeth them or their Purses Houses or Companions 10. Whether we must take every Affirmer to have a Commission if he shew it not Or every shewn Commission to be current and not surreptitious though contrary to Law 11. Whether he violateth not this Oath who should endeavour to alter so much of the Legislative Power as is in the Parliament or the Executive in the Established Courts of Justice Or is it meant only of Monarchy as such 12. Doth he not break this Oath who should endeavour to change the Person Governing as well as he that would change the Form of Government 13. If so doth it not also tye us to the Persons of Church-Governours seeing they are equally here twisted and Church-Government preposed 14. Is it the King 's Coercive Government of the Church by the Sword which is here meant according to the Oath of Supremacy Or Spiritual Government by the Keys Or both 15. Is it not the English Form of Church-Government by Diocesans that is here meant and not some other sort of Episcopacy which is not here And doth he not break this Oath who instead of a Bishop over 500 or 1000 Churches without any inferiour Bishop should endeavour to set up a Bishop in every great Church or Market-Town or as many as the Work requireth 16. Seeing Excommunication and Absolution are the notable parts of Spiritual Government and it is not only the Actions but the Actors or Governours that we Swear not to alter and Lay-Chancellors are the common Actors or Governours whether an endeavour to alter Lay-Chancellors Government as some did that procured his Majesty's Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs be not contrary to this Oath and excluded by any alteration 17. Whether petitioning or other peaceable means before allowed by Law be not any endeavour and a violation of this Oath 18. Whether not at any time c. tye us not to disobey the King if he should command us by Consultation or Conference to endeavour it Or if the Law be changed doth not this Oath still bind us Lastly Whether this following Sense in which we could take it be the true sense of the Oath I A B do Swear That a it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever b to take up Arms against the King c And that I do abhor that Traytorous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by him d in pursuance of such Commission And that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government either in Church or State e a In my Opinion b For the Subjects of his Majesty's Dominions c Either his Authority or his Person the Law forbidding both d Whether it be his Parliament Courts of Justice Legal Officers or any other Persons authorized by his publick Laws or his Commission supposing that no contrariety of Laws and Commissions by over-sight or otherwise do Arm the Subjects against each other e I will not endeavour any alteration of State-Government at all either as to the Person of the King or the Species of Government either as to the Legislative or Executive Power as in the King himself or his Parliament or Established Courts of Justice And therefore I declare That I take all the rest of this Oath only in a Sense consistent with this Clause implying no alteration in the Government And I will endeavour no alteration of the Coercive Government of the Church as it is in the King according to the Oath of Supremacy Nor any alienation of the Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Lawful Bishops and Pastors of the Church Nor will I endeavour to restore the Ancient Discipline by removing the Spiritual Government by the Keys out of the Hands of Lay-Chancellors into the Hands of so many able Pastors as the number of Churches and necessity of the work requireth nor any other Reformation of the Church by any Rebellious Schismatical or other unlawful means whatsoever nor do I believe that any Vow or Covenant obligeth me thereto declaring notwithstanding that it 's none of my meaning to bind my self from any Lawful Means of such Reformation nor to disobey the King if at any time He command me to endeavour the Alteration of any thing justly alterable The General Answer was as followeth UPon Serious Consideration of the Act of Parliament Entitled An Act for Restraining of Nonconformists from Inhabiting in Corporations And of the Oath therein mentioned I am of Opinion That there is nothing contained in that Oath according to the true Sense thereof But that it is not Lawful to take up Arms against the King or any Authorised by his Commission or for a private Person to endeavour the Alteration of the Monarchical Government in the State or the Government by Bishops in the Church And that any Person notwithstanding the taking of such Oath if he apprehend that the Lay-Judges in Bishop's Courts as to Sentence of Excommunication for Matters meerly Ecclesiastical or for any other Cause ought to be Reformed or that Bishopricks are of too large extent may safely Petition or use any lawful Endeavour for Reformation of the same For that such Petition or other Lawful Endeavour doth not tend to the Alteration of the Government but to the amendment of what shall be found amiss in the Government and Reformed by Lawful Authority and thereby the Government better Established And I conceive every Exposition of the said Oath upon Supposition or Presumption of an Obligation thereby to any thing which is contrary to the Law of God or the Kingdom is an illegal and a forced Exposition contrary to the intent and meaning of the said Oath and Act of Parliament for it is a Rule nullum iniquum est in Lege praesumendium And an Exposition tending to enjoyn any thing contrary to the Law of God would make the Act of Parliament void which ought not to be admitted when it bears a fair and plain Sense which is no more Than that Subjects ought not to take up Arms against their Lawful King or such as lawfully Commissionated by him and for private Persons to be unquiet in the place wherein they live to the disturbance of the Government in Church or State Iohn Fountain Feb. 6.
read against Atheism Sadduceism and Infidelity to prove first the Deity and then the immortality of Man's Soul and then the truth of Christianity and the holy Scripture answering the Infidels Objections against Scripture It is strong and masculine only too tedious for impatient Readers He saith he wrote it only at vacant hours in his Circuits to regulate his meditations finding that while he wrote down what he thought on his thoughts were the easilyer kept close to work and kept in a method and he could after try his former thoughts and make further use of them if they were good But I could not yet persuade him to hear of publishing it The Conference which I had frequently with him mostly about the immortality of the Soul and other Foundation points and Philosophical was so edifying that his very Questions and Objections did help me to more light than other mens solutions Those that take no Men for Religious who frequent not private Meetings c. took him for an Excellently righteous moral Man But I that have heard and read his serious Expressions of the Concernments of Eternity and seen his Love to all good Men and the blamlessness of his Life c. thought better of his Piety than of mine own When the People crowded in and out of my House to hear he openly shewed me so great respect before them at the Door and never spake a word against it as was no small encouragement to the Common People to go on though the other sort muttered that a Judge should seem so far to countenance that which they took to be against the Law He was a great Lamenter of the Extremities of the Times and the violence and foolishness of the predominant Clergy and a great desirer of such abatements as might restore us all to serviceableness and Unity He had got but a very small Estate though he had long the greatest Practice because he would take but little Money and undertake no more business thâ—n in he could well dispatch He often offered to the Lord Chancellor to resign 〈…〉 when he was blamed for doing that which he supposed was Justice He had been the Learned Selden's intimate friend and one of his Executors And because the Hobbians and other Infidels would have persuaded the World that Selden was of their mind I desired him to tell me truth therein And he assured me that Selden was an earnest Professor of the Christian Faith and so angry an Adversary to Hobbs that he hath rated him out of the Room § 108. This year 1669 the Lord Mayor of London was Sir William Turner a Man Conformable and supposed to be for Prelacy but in his Government he never disturbed the Nonconformable Preachers nor troubled men for their Religion And he so much denyed his own gain and sought the Common good and punished vice and promoted the rebuilding of the City that I never heard nor read of any Lord Mayor who was so much honoured and beloved of the City Insomuch that at the End of his year they chose him again and would have heard of no other but that he absolutely refused it partly as being an usual thing and partly as was said because of a Message from his superiours For the Bishops and Courtiers who took him for their own were most displeased with him § 109. The liberty which was taken by the Nonconformists in London by reason of the plague the fire the connivance of the King and the resolved quietness of the Lord Mayor did set so many Preachers through the Land as is said on the same work that in Likelyhood many thousand Souls are the better for it And the predominant Prelates murmured and feared For they had observed that when serious Godliness goeth up they go down So that they bestirred themselves diligently to save themselves and the Church of England from this dreaded danger § 110. At this time our Parson Dean Rive got this following advantage against me As I had it from his own mouth At Wolverhampton in Staffordshire where he was Dean were abundant of Papists and Violent Formalists Amongst whom was one Brasgirdle an Apthecary who in Conference with Mr. Reignolds an able Preacher there silenced and turned out by his bitter words tempted him into so much indiscretion as to say that the Nonconformists were not so contemptible for Number and Quality as he made them that most of the people were of their mind that Cromwel tho an Usurper had kept up England against the Dutch c. And that he marvelled that he would be so hot against private Meetings when at Acton the Dean suffered them at the next door With this advantage Brasgirdle writeth all this greatly aggravated to the Dean The Dean hastens away with it to the King as if it were the discovery of a Treason Mr. Reignolds is questioned but the Justices of the Country to whom it was referred upon hearing of the business found meer imprudence heightened to a Crime and so released him But before this could be done the King exasperated by the name of Cromwell and other unadvised words as the Dean told me bid him go to the Bishop of London from him and him so to the suppression of my Meeting which was represented to him also as much greater than it was whereupon two Justices were chosen for their turn to do it One Ross of Brainford a Scot before-named and one Phillips a Steward of the A. Bishop of Canterbury § 111 Hereupon Ross and Philips send a Warrant to the Constable to apprehend me and bring me before them to Brainford When I came they shut out all persons from the Room and would not give leave for any one person no not their own Clerk or Servant or the Constable to hear a Word that was said between us Then told me that I was convict of keeping Conventicles contrary to Law and so they would tender me the Oxford Oath I desired my Accusers might come Face to Face and that I might see and speak with the Witnesses that testified that I kept Conventicles contrary to the Law which I denied as far as I understood Law but they would not grant it I pressed that I might speak in the hearing of some Witnesses and not in secret for I supposed that they were my Judges and that their presence and business made the place a place of Judicature where none should be excluded or at least some should be admitted But I could not prevail Had I resolved on silence they were resolved to proceed and I thought a Christian should rather submit to violence and give place to Injuries than stand upon his right when it will give others occasion to account him obstinate I asked them whether I might freely speak for my self and they said yea but when I began to speak still interrupted me and put me by Only they told me that private Meetings had brought us to all our Wars and it tended to raise new Wars and Ross told me
under the Profession of being a Church distinct from the Church of England and neither of these is my Case 2. The Statute of the 35 of Eliz. expoundeth it accordingly charging none of Unlawful Assembling but such as Separate or Communicate not with the Church 3. There is no other Statute that saith otherwise 4. The Rubrick and Law alloweth Conformable Ministers to keep many Religious Assemblies which are not in the Church being but Subordinate as 1. At the Visitation of the Sick where no numbers of Neighbours are prohibited to be present Sermons at the Spittle Sturbridge-Faire c. 2. At private Baptisms 3. At private Communions where any Family hath an impotent Person that cannot Communicate at Church 4. At the Rogation Perambulations where it was usual to Feast at Houses in their way and there for the Minister to instruct the People and to Pray and sing Psalms 5. The Laborious sort of Conformable Ministers have many of them used to repent their Sermons to all that would Assemble at their Houses Which Repeating was as truly Preaching as if they had Preached the same Sermon in several Pulpits Therefore all Meetings besides Church-Meetings are not Conventicles nor those that are in Subordination to them 5. Even the late Expired Act against Conventicles forbiddeth no Religious Exercises but such as are otherwise than the Liturgy or Practice of the Church and distinguishing expresly between the Exercises and the Numbers doth forbid no number when the Exercises are not otherwise as aforesaid tolerating even unlawful Exercises to the number of Four but not to more The Second Proposition That my Meetings were never Unlawful Conventicles is proved 1. I do constantly joyn with the Church in Common Prayer and go at the beginning 2. I Communicate in the Lord's Supper with the Church of England 3. I am no Nonconformist in the Sense of the Law because I Conform as far as the Law requireth me having been in no Ecclesiastical Promotion May 1. 1662. the Law requireth me not to subscribe declare c. till I take a Cure or Lecture c. 4. I sometimes repeat to the Hearers the Sermon which I heard in the Church 5. I exhort the People to Church-Communion and urge them with sufficient Arguments and Preach ordinarily against Separation and Schism and Sedition and Disloyalty 6. I have commanded my Servant to keep my Doors shut at the time of Publick Worship that none may be in my House that while 7. I go into the Church from my House in the Peoples sight that my Example as well as my Doctrine may persuade them 8. In all this I so far prevail that the Neighbours who hear me do commonly go to Church even to the Common-Prayer and I know not three or two of all the Parish that use to come to me who refuse it which success doth shew what it is I do 9. I have long offered the Pastor of the Parish the Dean of Windsor that if he would but tell me that it is his Judgment that I hinder his Success or the People's Good rather than help it I will remove out of the Parish which he never yet hath done 10. I have the Now-Arch-Bishop's License not reversed nor disabled to Preach in the Diocess of London which I may do by Law if I had a Church And I offered the Dean to give over my Meetings in my House if he would permit me to Preach without Hire sometimes occasionally in his Church which I am not disabled to do By all this it appeareth that any Meetings are not Unlawful Conventicles 11. And riotous they are not for my House being just before the Church Door the same Persons go out of the Church into my House and out of my House into the Church so that if one be riotous both must be so And I perform no Exercise at all contrary to the Doctrine or the Practice of the Church but when the Curate readeth only in the Evening and doth not Preach or Catechize when he hath done one part I do the other which he omitteth 2. The Oath cannot be imposed on me because I am none of the three sorts of Offenders there mentioned The first sort in the Act are such as have not Subscribed Declared and Conformed according to the Act of Uniformity and other Acts I am none of them because the Laws require it not of me being as aforesaid in no Church Promotion on May 1. 1662. The second sort are other Persons not Ordained according to the Order of the Church but I am so Ordained The third sort is School-Teachers which is not my Case though I have also a Liceâ—se to Teach School And that the two Descriptions of the Conventicles in the Preamble are to be the Expositions of the following prohibitous Parts of the Act is plain by the answerable distinction of them And also 1. Because the very Title and plain design of this Act is only to restrain Nonconformists 2. Because the express end and business of it is to preserve People from Seditious and Poisonous Doctrine But the Clergy which are not Nonconformists are not to be supposed to be defamed or suspected by the Laws of Preaching poisonous seditious Doctrine nor can it be imagined that they mean to drive them five Miles from all their Parishes in â—ngland if they should once be at a private Meeting or put the 40 l. Fine on them if they preach one Sermon after such Meeting to their Parishes before they have taken the Oath though no Man offer it them which would follow if it extended to them And I am exempted from the Suspicion of that Preaching 1. By being chosen and Sworn His Majesty's Chaplain in ordinary and Preaching before Him and Publishing my Sermons by His Special Commands and never since accused of ill Doctrine but the sharpest Debates written against Nonconformists do quarrel with them for quarrelling with my Doctrine 2. Some think the words have kept in the Act refer to the time past before the Act and then 't is nothing to me 3. Should I not have been Convict in my presence of some one unlawful Conventicle and of not departing after five Miles from the place for how should I be bound to forsake my Dwelling as an Offender before I knew of my Offence Lastly I told the Justices That I did not refuse the Oath but professed that I understood it not and desired time to learn to understand it if I could which they denyed me and would neither tell me who were my Accusers or Witnesses nor shew me the Words of the Accusation or Depositions nor suffer any Person but us three themselves and me to be at all present or to hear any thing that was said by them or me And though I shall never take Oaths which I cannot possibly understand nor in a Sense which is contrary to the plain importance of the Words till they are so expounded nor shall ever number deliberate Lying or Perjury with things indifferent yet
the loss of one Grain of Love was worse than a long Imprisonment And that it much more concerned us to be sure that we deserved not Suffering than that we be delivered from it and to see that we wronged not our Superiours than that they wrong not us seeing we are not near so much hurt by their Severities as we are by our Sins Some told me that they hoped this would make me stand a little further from the Prelates and their Worship than I had done To whom I answered That I wondred that they should think that a Prison should change my Judgment I rather thought now it was my Duty to set a stricter watch upon my Passions lest they should pervert my Judgment and carry me into Extreams in opposition to my Afflictors And not past a Year and half after two Gentlemen turned Quakers in Prison If Passion made me lose my Love or my Religion the loss would be my own And Truth did not change because I was in a Goal The temper of my Visitors called me much to this kind of talk § 126. When I was in Prison the Lord Chief Baron at the Table at Serjeant's Inn before the rest of the Judges gave such a Character of me openly without fear of any Man's displeasure as is not fit for me to own or recite who was so much reverenced by the rest who were every one Strangers to me save by hear-say that I believe it much settled their Resolutions The Lord Chief Justice Vaughan was no Friend to Nonconformity or Puritans but he had been one of Selden's Executors and so Judge Hale's old Acquaintance Judge Tyrell was a well-affected sober Man and Serjeant Fountain's Brother-in-Law by Marriage and sometime his Fellow-Commissioner for keeping the Great Seal and Chancery Judge Archer was one that privately favoured Religious People And Judge Wild though greatly for the Prelates way yet was noted for a Righteous Man And these were the Four Judges of the Court. § 127. My Habeas Corpus being demanded at the Common Pleas was granted and a Day appointed for my Appearance But when I came the Judges I believe having not before studied the Oxford-Act when Judge Wild had first said I hope you will not use to trouble this Court with such Causes asked whether the King's Council had been acquainted with the Case and seen the Order of the Court which being denied I was remanded back to Prison and a new Day set They suffered me not to stand at the Bar but called me up on the Table which was an unusual respect and they sent me not to the Fleet as is usual but to the same Prison which was a greater favour § 128. When I came next the Lord Chief Justice coming towards Westminster Hall went into White-Hall by the way which caused much talk among the People When he came Judge Wild began and having shewed that he was no Friend to Conventicles opened the Act aâ—d then opened many defaults in the Mittimus for which he pronounced it invalid but in Civility to the Justices said that the Act was so Penned that it was a very hard thing to draw up a Mittimus by it which was no Compliment to the Parliament Judge Archer next spake largely against the Mittimus without any word of disparagement to the main Cause And so did Judge Tyrell after him I will not be so tâ—dious as to recite their Arguments Judge Vaughan concluded in the same manner but with these two Singularities above the rest 1. That he made it an Error in the Mittimus that the Witnesses were not named seeing that the Oxford-Act giving the Justices so great a power if the Witnesses be unknown any innocent Person may be laid in Prison and shall never know where or against whom to seek remedy which was a Matter of great moment 2. When he had done with the Cause he made a Speech to the People and told them That by the apperance he perceived that this was a Cause of as great Expectation as had been before them and it being usual with People to carry away things by the halves and their misreports might mislead others he therefore acquainted them That though he understood that Mr. Baxter was a Man of great Learning and of a good Life yet he having this singularity the Law was against Conventicles and it was only upon the Error of the Warrant that he was released and that they use in their Charge at Assizes to enquire after Conventicles and they are against the Law so that if they that made the Mittimus had but known how to make it they could not have delivered him nor can do it for him on any that shall so transgress the Law This was supposed to be that which was resolved on at White-Hall by the way But he had never heard what I had to say in the main Cause to prove my self no Transgressor of the Law Nor did he at all tell them how to know what a Conventicle is which the Common Law is so much against § 129. Being discharged of my Imprisonment my Sufferings began for I had there better Health than I had of a long time before or after I had now more exasperated the Authors of my Imprisonment I was not at all acquit as to the main Cause they might ameâ—d their Mittimus and lay me in again I knew no way how to bring my main Cause whether they had power to put the Oxford-Oath on me to a legal Tryal And my Counsellors advised me not to do it much less to question the Justices for false Imprisonment lest I were born down by power I had now a great House of great Rent on my Hands which I must not come to I had no House to dwell in I knew not what to do with all my Goods and Family I must go out of Middlesex I must not come within five Miles of City Corporation c. where to find such a place and therein a House and how to remove my Goods thither and what to do with my House the while till my time expired were more trouble than my quiet Prison by far and the Consequents yet worse § 130. Gratitude commandeth me to tell the World who were my Benefactors in my Imprisonment and Calumny as much obligeth me because it is said among some that I was 〈◊〉 by it Serjeant Fountain's general Counsel ruled me Mr. Wallop and Mr. Offley sent me their Counsel and would take nothing Of four Serjeants that pleaded my Cause two of them Serjeant Windham afterwards Baron of the Exchequer and Serjeant Sise would take nothing Sir Iohn Bernard a Person that I never saw but once sent me no less than Twenty Pieces and the Countess of 〈◊〉 Ten Pound And Alderman Bard Five and I received no more but I confess more was offered me which I refused and more would have been but that they knew I needed it not And this much defrayed my Law and Prison Charges § 131. When
Constitutive Essential Part of the Kingdom But we are not willing accordingly to Swear Subscribe or Covenant to every petty Officer in the Kingdom nor to approve of every Law Custom or Exercise of Government in it tho we would live peaceably under what we approve not And if a Law were made that he shall be Banished as an Overthrower or Vnderminer of the Government who would not so Covenant or Subscribe Houses and Lands would be cheaper than they are and the King have fewer Subjects than he hath For I am not acquainted with one Conscionable Man that I think would Subscribe it And why should all the King's Subjects be bound more strictly to the Human Part of Church Government than of State or Civil Government and to approve of Lay-Chancellours than of Civil Officers Or of the matter of Canons than of Civil and Common and Statute Laws 3. If it be a Crime to know it is a Crime to Iudge or to use our Reason and Observation If it be not it is no Crime for us to know that Clergy-Pride imposing a multitude of things small and doubtful on the Churches as the Conditions of Ministry and Communion and forcing Magistrates Ministers and People to consent to many unnecessary things in their Humane part of Government Liturgies and Ceremonies hath been so great an Engin of Schism and Blood and Confusions in the Roman Church as assureth us that it is no desirable thing that by us any thing like it should be consented to 4. And it is no Crime in us to be sure that if Subscribing to all the present Church-Government Liturgy and Ceremonies be the thing that shall be necessary to our Ministry and Union and Communion our present Dissentions and Divisions will not be healed unless by Killing or Banishing the Dissenters and as Tertullian speaketh Making solitude and calling it Peace 1. Prop. His Majesty's Subjects Legal Commission any other of his Subjects Stic c Deleatur Answ. 1. We did not think that it had been your meaning that we must make our selves Judges of the Case not only of all his Majestie 's Subjects but of all others in the World If the Judges will give it us under their Hands that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever for the Subjects of any Prince on Earth to take Arms against any King of England or any Commissioned by him or that it is not possible for any War against us in any Age on any pretense whatever to be Lawful or else that they are sure that all the Kingdoms on Earth are so Constituted as that no where any Subjects may on any pretence take Arms against their Kings we shall accordingly submit to their Judgment But seeing Papists and Protestants Lawyers and Divines even Monarchical and Conformable say the contrary it were not modesty in us that are ignorant of Matters of Law to say that they are all mistaken till we are instructed to know it to be so For our parts we must profess our selves not acquainted with the Constitution of every Kingdom in the World 2. If Legal must be obliterated we shall our selves quietly submit to the Exercise accordingly and suffer from any one that saith he is Commissioned to hurt us if it be required of us But we are not skill'd in Law and thefore cannot say that all others are bound to do the like To deal plainly seeing Legal must be obliterated we understand not what the word Commission meaneth Whether it must have the King 's Broad-seal or the Lesser-seal or his Name only Whether the Commission and Seal must be shewed to those that are not to resist or proved to be Currant and how But that which causeth us to forbear subscribing is 1. We have taken the Oath of Allegiance and think that the King's Subjects are bound to defend his Life Crown and Dignity And we fear left by this the Lord Chancellour if not others may have power at his Pleasure to Depose the King that is to Seal Commissions to Confederates to take Possession of all his Navy Forts Garrisons Arms if not his House and Person and no man must resist them 2. We are not certain that a Commission can Repeal all that Law of Nature who obligeth a Man to preserve the Life of his Parents or Children or Neighbour We have not indeed any reason to fear that our King should grant such a Commission But who can deny but that it 's possible for some King or other to do it And seeing we know not when a Commission is counterfeit if two or three men come to my House and say they have a Commission to Kill my Father Mother Wife and Children and my self and shew it or if they Assault me and my Company on the High-way and shew a Commission to take our Purses and Kill us we are not sure that God will excuse us from the Duty of defending the Lives of our Parents Children and Friends Or if half a dozen should come to the Parliament and shew a Commission presently to kill them all or Burn the City and Kill all the Citizens or Kingdom we are not wise enough to know that neither Parliament City nor Kingdom may resist them And we find Parliaments so conceited that they have Propriety in Life and Goods and that none may at pleasure take them away and lay Taxes without their consent and that we fear if we should plainly say that whatever Taxes are laid or Estates or Goods or Persons seiz'd on or Decrees of Judges rejected by such Execution it were unlawful for the Sheriff or any others to resist they would trouble us for so saying And if an Admiral General or Lieutenant should be made by Act of Parliament Durante Vita and Authorized to resist any that would dispossess him we are not so Wise as to know whether he may not resist one to whom the Chancellour Sealeth a Commission to dispossess him And though we are confident that the Person of the King is inviolable yet if King Iohn did deliver up his Kingdom to the Pope we are not sure that the Kingdom might not have resisted any of the Pope's or any Foreign Prince's Agents if they had been Commissioned by the King to seize upon the Kingdom Or that no Subjects of any Foreign Prince may be resisted if they should come against us by such a Commission Had we the Judgment of the Judges in this Case we should submit as far as any reason could require us But tho we justify not Barclay Grotius Bishop Bilson and others of the contrary mind we must confess our selves not wise enough to Condemn them 1. Prop. Nor by any other unlawful means to endeavour Reformation Stric d Deleatur Vnlawful Ans. 1. Here we may see how many minds the Conformists are of or how unjustly all that I have debated the Case of Subscription with do affirm That by not endeavouring any Alteration is meant only not endeavouring by unlawful meanst which is here contradicted by a
dare not desert it lest we shortly appear before our Judge in the guilt of sacriledge perfidiousness against Christ and the people's Souls But we are forbiden to exercise it unless we will do that which we profess as Men that are passing to our final Doom we would readily do were it not for fear of God's displeasure and our Damnation Deprivation of all Ministerial maintenance with heavy Mulcts on such as have not money to pay and long Imprisonments in the Common Goals with Malefactors and banishment to those that shall survive them and that into remote parts of the World were the penalties appointed for us by your Laws Voluminous reproaches are published against us in which our Superiours and the World are told that we hold that things indifferent are made unlawful by the Commands of lawful Governours and that we are guilty of Doctrines inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of Societies and that we are moved by Pride and Covetousness as if we were proud of Men's Scorn and covetous of sordid Want and Beggery and ambitious of a Gaol and that we are Unpeaceable Disloyal Odious and Intolerable Persons Lest we should seem over-querulous and our Petitions themselves should prove offensive we have been silent under Twelve years sufferings by which divers Learned and holy Divines have been hastened home to Glory hoping that Experience would have effectually spoken for us when we may not Speak for our selves And did we believe that our own pressures were the greatest consequent Evil and that the People's knowledge and piety and the allowed Ministers Number sufficiency and Diligence were such as made our Labours needless and that the History of our Silence and Sufferings would be the future Honour of this Age and the future Comfort of your Souls and theirs that instigate you against us before our Common Judge we would joyfully be silent and accept of a Dismission But being certain of the contrary we do this once adventure humbly to tender to Your Majesty and Your Parliament these following Requests 1. Because God saith That he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not Eternal Life We humbly crave leave once to Print and Publish the true State and Reasons of our Nonconformity to the World to save Mens Souls from the guilt of unjust Hatred and Calumny And if we err we may be helped to Repentance by a Confutation and the Notoriety of our shame 2. That in the mean time this Honourable House will appoint a Committee to consider of the best means for the Healing our Calamitous Divisions before whom we may have leave at last to speak for our selves 3. That these annexed Professions of our Religion and Loyalty may be received as from Men that better know their own Minds than their Accusers do and who if they durst deliberately Lie should be no Nonconformists 4. That if yet we must suffer as Malefactors we may be punished but as Drunkards and Fornicators are with some Penalty which will consist with our Preaching Christ's Gospel and that shall not reach to the hurt or danger of many Thousand Innocent People's Souls till the Re-building of the Burnt-Churches the lessening of great Parishes where one of very many cannot hear and worship God and till the quality and number of the Conformable Ministers and the knowledge piety and sobriety of the people have truly made our Labours needless and then we shall gladly obey your Silencing Commands And whereas there are commonly reckoned to be in the Parishes without the Walls above Two hundred thousand persons more than can come within the Parish Churches they may not be compelled in a Christian Land to live as Atheists and worse than Infidels and Heathens who in their manner publickly worship God The Profession of our Religion I A. B. Do willingly profess my continued resolved consent to the Covenant of Christianity which I made in my Baptism with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost forsaking the Devil the World and the sinful Lusts of the Flesh And I profess my Belief of the Ancient Christian Creeds called The Apostles The Nicene and The Constantinopolitane and the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity fullier opened in that ascribed to Athanasius And my Consent to The Lord's Prayer as the Summary of Holy Desires and to The Decalogue with Christ's Institutions as the Summary Rule of Christian Practice And to all the Holy Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God And to the Doctrine of the Church of England professed in the 39 Articles of Religion as in sence agreeable to the Word of God And I renounce all Heresies or Errours contrary to any of these And I do hold that the Book of Common Prayer and of Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing so disagreeable to the Word of God as maketh it unlawful to live in the Peaceable Communion of the Church that useth it The Profession of our Loyalty and Obedience I do willingly and without Equivocation and Deceit take the Oaths of Allegiance and the King's Supremacy and hold my self obliged to perform them I detest all Doctrines and Practices of Rebellion and Sedition I hold it unlawful for any of His Majesty's Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King His Person Authority Dignity or Rights or against any Authorized by his Laws or Commissions And that there is no Obligation on me or any other of his Subjects from the Oath Commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any change of the present Government of these His Majesty's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any Reformation of the Church by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means The Overplus as a remedy against Suspicion We believe and willingly embrace all that is written in the Holy Scriptures for the power of Kings and the Obedience of their Subjects and the sinfulness of Rebellion and Resistance And concerning the same we consent to as much as is found in any General Council or in the Confession of any Christian Church on Earth not respecting Obedience to the Pope which ever yet came to our knowledg or as is owned by the Consent of the Greater part of Divines Politicians Lawyers or Historians in the Christain World as far as our Reading hath acquainted us therewith II. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of some Citizens of London on the behalf of this City and the Adjoyning Parishes Sheweth THat the Calamitous Fire 1666 with our Houses and Goods Burnt down near 90 Churches few of which are yet Re-edifyed And divers Parishes whose Churches yet stand are so great that it is but a small part of the Inhabitants that can there hear whereby great Numbers are left in ignorance and as a prey to Papists and other Seducers and which is worse to Atheism Infidelity and Irreligiousness And if many of their ancient ejected silenced Pastors who for refusing certain Subscriptions Declarations Promises Oaths and Practices are called Nonconformists had not through
Kingdom is to Heaven § 291. When I understood that the design was to ruin me by heaping up Convictions before I was heard to speak for my self I went to Sir Thomas Davis and told him that I undertook to prove that I broke not the Law and desired him that he would pass no Judgment till I had spoke for my self before my Accusers But I found him so ignorant of the Law as to be fully perswaded that if the Informers did but swear in general that I kept an unlawful meeting in Pretence of a Religious Exercise in other manner than according to the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England he was bound to take this general Oath for Proof and to record a Judgment and so that the Accusers were indeed the Judges and not he I told him that any Lawyer would soon tell him the contrary and that he was Judge whether by particular Proof they made good their general Accusation as it is in case a Man be accused of Felony or Treason it is not enough that Men swear that he is a Felon or Traytor they must name what his Fact was and prove him guilty And I was at charge in Feeing Counsellors to convince him and others and yet I could not perswade him out of his mistake I told him that if this were so any two such Fellows might defame and bring to Fines and Punishment himself and all the Magistrates and Parliament-Men themselves and all that meet in the Parish-Churches and Men had no Remedy At last he told me that he would consult with other Aldermen at the Sessions and they would go one way When the Sessions came I went to Guild-Hall and again desired him that I might be heard before I was Judged But though the other Aldermen save two or three were against such doings I could not prevail with him but professing great Kindness he then laid all on Sir Iohn Howell the Recorder saying that it was his Judgment and he must follow his Advice I desired him and Sir Thomas Allen that they would desire of the Recorder that I might be heard before I was Judged and that if it must pass by his Judgment that he would hear me speak But I could not procure it the Recorder would not speak with me When I saw their Resolution I told Sir Thomas Davis if I might not be heard I would record to Posterity the injustice of his Judgment and Record But I perceived that he had already made the Record but not yet given it in to the Sessions At last upon Consultation with his Leaders he granted me a hearing and three of the Informers met me at his House that had sworn against me I told them my particular Case and asked them what made my Preaching a Breach of that Law and how they proved their Accusation They first said Because I Preached in an unconsecrated Place I told them 1. That the Act only laid it on the manner of the Exercise which the Place was nothing to And 2. That it was the Practice of the Church of England to Preach in unconsecrated Places as at Sturbridge-Fair at the Spittle at Whitchall-Court and many such like They next said Because I am a Nonconformist I easily convinced them that I am not a Nonconformist in Law-sence but in the same case with a Conformist that hath no Benefice whatever I am in conscience the Law obliging me to no more than I do And if I were that is nothing to the manner of the exercise Their last and great proof was that I used not the Common Prayer I undertook to prove to them that Law commandeth the use of the Common Prayer only in Church Meetings and not in every other subordinate or by-Meeting for Religious Exercises such as ours was And that it was not the sense of the Act that Conformable persons that Communicate in the Liturgy with the Parish Churches should be judged Conventiclers whenever above four of them joyned in a Religious Exercise without the Liturgy For else all Tutors in the University should be punishable and all School-masters that teach their Scholars and pray with them if above 16 years of age and they that instruct Prisoners at Newgate and they that exhort and pray and sing Psalms with them at the Gallows with many such Instances We ought not to judge so uncharitably of King and Parliament unconstrained as to think that they would allow Multitudes to meet at a Play-house a Musick-house a horse-race a Bear-baiting or Dancing or any game and allow many to meet at a Coffee-house Ale-house or Tavern or in any private house and do on pain of utter ruine only forbid Conformable persons to joyn more than four in singing a Psalm or reading a Chapter or a Licensed book or in praying together or Conference tending to Religious Edification In Summ they confest they could not Answer me nor prove their charge but they still believed that I was guilty The Justice was so far from thinking that they proved it that he motioned to them to Retract their Oaths or else still he thought that he must condemn me They denyed to do that and said That the Bishop assured them That it was a Conventicle and I was guilty I desired them if it must all lie upon the Bishop that I might Speak with them to the Bishop for my self They told me That it was the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and they were all just now going to him and promised to bring me word when I might Speak with him But I heard no more of them of that But the Justice retracted not his Judgment but delayed a Month or more to give out his Warrant to distrein though I daily look when they take my books for they will find but little else Though both Justice and Accusers have before witness confessed that they cannot prove me guilty but one professeth to go on the belief of the Recorder and the other of the Archbishop § 292. But God hath more mercy on these ignorant Informers than on the Pharisaical Instigators of them For those repent but no Prelate save one that I hear of doth repent One of them that â—â—ore against me went the next Fast to Redrifâ— to Mr. Rosewell's Church where a Fast was kept where hearing three Ministers pray and preach his heart was melted and with Tears he lamented his former course and particularly his Accusing me and seemeth resolved for a new reformed Course of Life and is retired from his former Company to that end And a third the chief of the Informers lately in the Streets with great kindness to me professed that he would meddle no more coming by when a half distracted Fellow had Struck me on the head with his Staff and furiously reviled at me for Preaching with the titles of Rogue Villain Hypocrite Traytor c. as the Prelatists and Papists often do § 293. The Parliament meeting Apr. 13. they fell first on the D. of Lauderdale renewing their desire to
Hostility is Disunion and Dissolution Therefore no Head or Soveraign hath power to destroy or sight against his Kingdom nor any Common-wealth or Kingdom against their King or Soveraign Rulers unless in any case the Law of Nature and Nations which is above all Humane Positive Laws should make the dissolution of the Republick to become a Duty As if some Republick should cast off the Essential Principles of Society By Law neither King nor Kingdom may destroy or hurt each other For the Governing Laws suppose their Union as the Constitution and the Common good with the due Welfare of the Soveraign is the end of Government which none have power against But it must be noted that the words are against the King and not against the King's Will for if his Will be against his Welfare his Kingdom or his Laws though that Will be signified by his Commissioners the Declaration disclaimeth not the resisting of such a Will by Arms. 3. And if there be any that assert that the King's Authority giveth them right to take up Arms against his Person or Lawful Commissions it must needs be a False and Traiterous Assertion For if his Person may be Hostilely fought against the Common-wealth may be dissolved which the Law cannot suppose for all Laws die with the Common-wealth And it is a contradiction to be authorized by him to resist by Arms his Commissions which are according to Law For the Authority pretended to be his must be his Laws or Commissions and to be Authorized by his Laws or Commissions to resist his Laws must signifie that his Laws are contradictory when by one we must resist another But so far as they are contradictory both cannot be Laws or Lawful Commissions For one of them must needs nullifie the other either by Fundamental Priority or by Posteriority signifying a Repeal of the other And it must be noted that yet the Trayterous Position medleth not with the Question of taking Arms against the King's Person or Commissioners by the Law of God of Nature or of Nations but only of doing it by his own Authority 4. And that it is not lawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by him according to Law in time of Rebellion and War in pursuance of such Commission is a Truth so evident that no sober Persons can deny it The Long Parliament that had the War did vehemently assert it and therefore gave out their Commissions to the Earl of Essex and his Soldiers to fight against Delinquent Subjects for the King and Parliament 5. And the Oath containeth no more than our not endeavouring to Alter the Protestant Religion established or the King's Government or Monarchy It cannot with any true reason be supposed to tie us at all to the Bishops-much less to the English Disease or Corruption of Episcopacy or to Lay-Chancel lours c. but only to the King as Supreme in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil so far as they fall under Coercive Government This is thus proved past denyal 1. The word Protestant Religion as estalished in the Church of England cannot include the Prelacy For 1. The Protestant Religion is essentially nothing but the Christian Religion as such with the disclaiming of Popery aud so our Divines have still professed But our Prelacy is no part of the Christian Religion 2. The Protestant Religion is common to us with many Countreys which have no Prelacy And it is the same Religion with us and them 3. The words of the Oath distinguish the Religion of the Church of England from the Church of England it self and from Government 4. If Episcopacy in general were proved part of the Protestant Religion the English Accidents and Corruptions are not so They that say that Episcopacy is Iure Divino and unalterable do yet say that National and Provincial Churches are Iure Humano and that so is a Diocesane as it is distinct from Parochial containing many Parishes in it And if the King should set up a Bishop in every Market-Town yea every Parish and put down Diocesanes it is no more than what he may do And if by the Protestant Religion established should be meant every alterable mode or circumstance then King-James changed it when he made a new Translation of the Bible and both he and our late Convocation and King and Parliament by their Advice did change it when they added new Forms of Prayer And then this Oath bindeth all from endeavouring to make any alteration in the Liturgie or mend the Translation or the Metre of the Psalms c. or to take the keys of Excommunication and Absolution out of the hands of the Lay-Chancellour's c. which none can reasonably suppose 2. And that our Prelacy is not at all included in the word Government of the Kingdom in Church and State but only the King 's Supreme Government in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil is most evident 1. Because it is expressly said The Government of the Kingdom which is all one with the Government of the King For a Bishop or a Justice or a Mayor is no Governour of the Kingdom but only in the Kingdom of a Particular Church City Corporation or Division The summa potestas only is the Government of the Kingdom as a Kingdom And because forma denominat we cannot take the Kingdom to signifie only a Church or City 2. Because else it would change the very constitution of the Kingdom by making all the inferiour Officers unalterable and so to be essential constitutive parts Whereas only the pars Imperans and pars Subdita are constitutive parts of every Kingdom or Republick and the Constitutive pars Imperans is only the summa potestas except where the mixture and fundamental Contract is such as that Inferiour Officers are woven so into the Constitution as that they may not be changed without it's Dissolution which is hardly to be supposed even at Venice Tbe Oaths between the summa potestas and the Subject are the bonds of the Commonwealth their Union being the form that must not be dissolved But to make Oaths of Allegiance or Unchangeableness â—each to the Inferiour Magistrates or Officers is to change the Government or Constitution 3. And so it destroyeth the Regal power in one of it's chief properties or prerogatives which is to alter inferiour Officers who all receive their power from the Supreme and are alterable by him even by the Majestas which hath the Legislative powers And this would take away all the King's power to alter so much as a Mayor Justice or Constable For mark that Government of the Kingdom in Church and State are set equally together without any note of difference as to alteration If therefore it extend to any but the Supreme even to inferiour Officers it were to extend to them as Governing the State even to the lowest as well as the Church But this is a supposition to be Contemned 4. And if the Distinction should be meant de personis Imperantibus and should
years importuned me to let him Print it 1. The sharp execution of the Law had then brought Multitudes into Prison and Poverty 2. Nonconformists both Presbyterians and Independents had taken the Corporation Oath and Declaration and Communicated in the Parish Churches for to make them capable of Trust and Office in the City And because it seâ—m'd to tend to their protection and advantage we heard of no noise made against them by the Independents but they admitted them as their Members to their Communion as before I was against their taking the Declaration but not against their Communicating but I medled not with them At last when the Earl of Shaftsbury was broken and gone and the City Power and Common Council subdued to the will of the King the foresaid Communion in publick was more freely blamed by the Independents and Anabaptists and some few hot Scots Men. And the private Church Meetings were so much supprest and the prisons so full that my Conscience began to tell me that I should be guilty of injuring the truth the Church and the Souls and Bodily welfare of my brethren if I should by silence harden them against publick worship Specially the Case of the Countrey moved me wherein a great part of the Kingdom scarce two hundred men in a whole Country can have the liberty of any true Church Worship besides Parochial I remembred the Case of the Old Nonconformists against the Brownists and the Writings of Mr. I. Ball Paget Hildersham Bradshaw Gifford Brightman Ames c. I could not but remember what work the separating party had made in England and Scotland in my days from 1644. till 1660 against Government Religion and Concord I saw what I long foresaw each extreme party growing more extreme and going further still from one another And so great a Change is grown on London that the Terms which we offered the Bishops for Concord 1660 are now abhorred as Antichristian I saw multitudes like to be Imprisoned and Ruined for refusing their Duty as if it were sin and disgracing Religion by fathering these Errours on it The Conformists seeing the Errour of the Separatists derided them all and were confirmed in the Justification of all their Conformity thinking that it was but a just differing from a crazed Company of Fanaticks Those that imprisoned and ruined both them and the rest of the Nonconformists thought they did God service by it against an unruly sort of Men The Common people were made believe that this was the true Complexion of all the Dissenters from whatever the Law Commanded The distance growing wider and great sufferings increasing hard thoughts of those by whom Men suffered all real Love did seem to be almost utterly destroyed and Neighbours dwelt together like unplacable Enemies And worst of all Men were frightened to think that they must rather give over all Church Worship than they must Communicate with the best Ministry in the Parish Churches and so the main body of the Land would live like Atheists who can have no other Church-Worship but the Parochial For the Nonconformists Churches were in almost all Countries so suppressed that no considerable Numbers could enjoy them And by this means the Papists were like to have their Wills The Protestants must be told that Recusancy is all their Duties And going to the Publick Churches a sin And who can for shame drive Papists to sin And if thus they could draw all Protestants to forsake the said Churches they would like a deserted City and Garrison'd Fort be open and ready for their possession And while the Papists and Malignants are studying how to cast out all the Godly Conforming Ministers that the Ductile remainder might be prepared for Popery the separating part of the Independents and Anabaptists and some few hot Scotch Presbyterians go before them and tell all the People that it is unlawful to hear them and to own them as Ministers or Churches and to have Communion with them in the Liturgy or Sacraments Even when the rigour of Prosecutors hath brought it to that pass that they must have such or none as to Church worship Seeing so many in prison for this Error to the dishonour of God and so many more like to be ruin'd by it and the separating party by the temptation of suffering had so far prevailed with the most strict and zealous Christians that a great Number were of their mind and the Non-conformable Ministers whose Judgment was against this separation durst not publish their dislike of it partly because of sharp and bitter Censures of the Separatists and who took them for Apostates or Carnal Temporizers that communicated in publick and partly for fear of Encouraging Persecution against the Separatists and partly for fear of losing all opportunity of teaching them and some that had no hope of any other friends or maintenance or Auditors thought they might be silent On all these accounts I that had no gathered Church nor lived on the Contribution of any such and was going out of the world in pain and Languor did think that I was fittest to bear men's Censures and to take that reproach on my self which my brethren were less fit to bear who might live for farther Service And at the Importunity of the Bookseller I consented to publish the Reasons of my Communicating in the Parish-Churches and against Separation Which when it was coming out a Manuscript of Dr. Owen's who was lately dead containing Twelve Arguments against such joyning with the Liturgie and publick Churches was sent me as that which had satisfyed Multitude I thought that if this were unanswered my labour would be much lost because that party would still say Dr. Owen's Twelve Arguments confuted all Whereupon I hastily answered them but found after that it had been more prudent to have omitted his Name For on that account a swarm of revilers in the City poured out their keenest Censures and three or four wrote against me whom I answered I will not name the men that are known and two of them are yet unknown But they went on several Prineiples some Charged all Communion with the Liturgie with Idolatry Antichristianity and perjury and backsliding One concealed his Judgment and quarrel'd at by-words And another turned my Treatise of Episcopacy against me and said it fully proved the Duty of Separation I was glad that hereby I was called to explain that Treatise lest it should do hurt to mistakers when I am dead and that as in it I had said much against one extream I might leave my Testimony against the other I called all these writings together a Defence of Catholick Communion And that I might be Impartial I adjoyned two piece against Dr. Sherlock that ran quite into the contrary Extreames unchurching almost all Christians as Schismaticks I confess I wrote so sharply against him as must needs be liable to blame with those that know not the man and his former and latter Virulent and ignorant Writings § 81. About this time
Power to perform it so go together that God never calleth Man to Duty but he gives him this sort of Power that is Authority for the very Command to do the Work doth give Authority to do it Man may oblige himself without a Call and so have no Authority but whosoever is required of God to do it hath eo Nomine Authority to do it And the Office of the Ministry is but the Duty and Authority of performing the Works of the Ministry Moreover the Power is for the Work 's sake and not the Work for the Powers sake as the End So that if I prove once that the Duty is required of unordained Men I do thereby prove that the Power is given them Now that that Duty is required appears thus The greatest Works of Mercy to Mens Souls and of glorifying God are such as Men are obliged to by the Law of Nature if they have Ability and Opportunity and there be a Necessity But the Works of the Ministry are the greatest Works of Mercy to Mens Souls and Glory to God Ergo The Minor is proved by the Parts The Publick Preaching of the Lord Jesus to a Heathen People as the Jesuits have long been doing in the Indies and the Discipling Men to Christ and baptizing them is the greatest Work of Mercy imaginable Whereto add the teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Christ hath commanded and it makes up the whole absolutely necessary in all its Parts 1. The Greatness appears in that Men cannot be saved ordinarily without it It is to save Men from Everlasting Torments and help them to Everlasting Glory 2. It is that which Christ himself did yea made his Office to seek and to save that which was lost 3. It is that which he ordained the Ministry for yea giveth us his Gifts for yea upholds all things for and makes other Mercies subordinate to And that it is as conducible to that Honour that he will have by the Gospel and Mens Salvation is as clear For the Major Note that I suppose Ability and Opportunity for else they cannot be obliged Also I suppose Necessity that is that there be not Ordained Men Authoritatively enough competently to do it And then that it must be done without such Ordination rather than not at all is so plain in the Law of Nature that it needs no Proof To do good to our Power especially in so great Necessities and weighty Cases is a Principle in Nature that he who is a Man doth find in himself A Fortiore it 's proved that in lesser Cases we are bound to do thus much more in these so great If a Man be like to perish through Hunger or Nakedness he that is no Taylor must make him Cloaths if he can and he that is no Baker must make him Bread Or if a Man come into a Country infected with the Plague or other Epidemical Disease which he hath Skill in Curing he is a Murderer if he will not do it though he be no Physician while there is no Physician there that can Every Man that is able is a lawful Physician in case of desperate Necessity If these Instances serve not we may go higher In case of an unexpected Onslaught of the Enemy when the Commanders are asleep every Souldier may do his Office In case a General be slain in the Field or a Collonel or a Captain the next Officer may take his Place yea a common Souldier may do it in Necessity Or if the Commander turn Traytor the next Officer may take his Place and command the Souldiers against him Salus populi suprema lex esto is God's own Law And Salus Ecclesiae suprema Lex esto is no less his and unchangable as to all Church-Works still looking at his Glory herein as the highest absolutely He that should say I would cure these Sick Men but that I am not in Office a Physician â— or I would do this or that Work to save the City or the Army but it is not my Office or I have no Commission were not excusable Yet far more than he that would say I would Preach Christ to these People and Baptize them and acquaint them with his Laws to save them from Damnation but that I am not Ordained Durst you warrant that Man from being condemned for his Neglect Nay durst you encourage him to neglect it Nay durst you adventure to neglect it your self What should the People in New-England do if there were not Ministers among the Indians If there were Protestants cast into China and had the Opportunity as the Jesuits have what should they do To forbear the Ministerial Work till they had a lawful Ordination were no less than Soul-murder It would in probability never be had for if they travail'd for it to those parts of the World where it might be had there were no great probability of their Return If you say they may teach and baptize as private Men I answer If they do but what private Men here are allowed do viz. to Teach but privately and occasionally it would be still unnatural bloody Soul-murder To speak the Doctrine of Redemption to two or three in a House when they might speak to Multitudes and to teach now and then occasionally when they might do it ordinarily is cruel destroying of the most And to Baptize is no private Man's Work If you would have them Teach both publickly and ordinarily and Baptize then you would have them be Ministers under the Name of Private Men yea to do the Work of Apostles or Evangelists Certainly the Law of Nature is God's Law and Evangelical Ceremonies and points of meer Order do give Place to it as well as either Mosaical or Secular God hath as streightly commanded Obedience to Secular Power as to Ecclesiastical If therefore Matter of Order in Secular Things must stoop to Matters of Substance and Necessity and the Law of Corporations to the Law of Nature so it must do here The Gospel Crosseth not nor obliterateth Natural Principles And to love our Neighbours as our self and do him good especially to the Everlasting Saving of his Soul are too deep in Nature to be questioned or to stoop to a Point of meer Order If you say That the same God that requires us to do it doth require that we do it in his order and way I answer No doubt of it where that Order may be observed But where it cannot God's way revealed to Nature is to do it without as hath been shewed And Scripture seconds Nature in this Christ tells us That this is the second great Commandment Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and on this with the Love of God hang all the Law and the Prophets To do good to our utmost Power is a Charge laid on all Psal. 34. 14. and 37. 27. Gal. 6. 10. Eccl. 9. 10. As every Man hath received the Gift so must he as a good Steward of God's manifold Grace administer it 1 Pet. 4.
separare se debet nec se ad sacrilegi sacerdotis Sacraficia miscere 4. If the Case may be so plain who the Person is that God would have as that there is no room for a Controversy about it then it may possibly be determined by the meer Light of the Law without a Judge But the Case may be so plain Ergo The Antecedent is proved thus When these things following visibly concur then the case is so plain 1. When the Person is visibly qualified with Abilities and Piety and a Righteous Conversation to Men. 2. When he hath a Will to it 3. When he hath Opportunity as having Liberty from secular Power Proximity a known Language Vacancy from other Engagements and Employments of more necessity c. 4. When the Peoples Hearts are moved towards him 5. And when there is no Competitor or none who equalleth him or not so many but that all may be chosen when these concur there is no controversy who should be the Man if you say there may be many such and who knows then which to choose I Answer 1. Congregations should have many Pastors ordinarily 2. Providence answereth that Objection for me It is exceeding hard to find half enough that are competent God hath not given his Church more than they need but contrarily there is need of many more than he hath given It is therefore all Mens Duties that have Ability and Opportunity to be Preachers if they be not taken up with Employments of greater use to the Church as Secular Rulers often are but they must seek an orderly admission where it is possible and not be their own Judges of their fitness where there are other Judges of God's appointment Christ bids us to pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth Labourers into the Harvest because the Harvest is great and the Labourers few It is visibly true in a great measure to this day what we must pray for that we must endeavour that the Labourers may in Number be proportioned to the Work and we are like to have use for that Prayer still 3. It is not always that there are too many so apparently fit And therefore at least when it is not so the determination of the Individual Person is easie 4. As the Bishops Determination of one among many is valid so is the Determination of others in case of Necessity The Law of Nature and well ordered Common-wealths doth require that every Ignorant Man that thinks himself Skilful should not play the Physician least he kill Men nor the School-master least he delude and corrupt them And therefore that there should be some able Men appointed to try and judge who are fit before they are admitted I think God's Law of Nature requireth this as evidently as the written Law requireth that none be Ministers without Ecclesiastical Ordination or Approbation and in case there be many of equal fitness all must be admitted except they be too many which is not seen there neither for Nature multiplieth not the most noble Parts as it doth the the Fingers or the Hairs c. And if there be too many the Judges must Determine who shall be the Man Yet the same Law of God in nature doth as evidently teach that if either the Tryers and Judges be all dead or gone or enviously resolve to approve of none but such as are Ignorant or Wicked that would Poyson and Kill the People it is Lawful and the indispensible Duty of such as are able to offer themselves for Practise to the People without the Judges Consent rather then the Pestilence should sweep them away for want of a Remedy And there hath scarce yet been sound such an Enemy to Mankind that would forbid such Men to save Mens Lives for want of Approbation Or if there were many at once in an Infected City that were thus able they would rather let all Practise that have opportunity or let the People go to whom they please then to forbid all under pretence of the difficulty of discerning the fittest As scarce any thing is more Inhumane against Nature then to prefer a Commission or other Formality or point of Order before Mens Lives and Common Good which is finis Reipublicae so it is yet more Inhumane as well as Unchristian and against the evident Law of Nature and the main scope of Christ's Merciful Doctrine and Example who often neglected Formalities to save Mens Lives and Souls though to the Displeasure of tâ—t is Pharises for a Man to prefer a Formality or point of Order before the Saving â—as Mens Souls and the publick Good and Safety of the Church but of this before 5. If in case of the want of a lawful Magistrate or of such as they may lawfully use for Judgments the People may determine of an individual Person whom God shall Authorize though Scripture Name no Individual of this Age then they may do so also in regard of the Ministry But the former is true Ergo 1. Else we should have no Magistrates in the World scarce but by violent instrusion which is worse than popular Election 2. 1 Cor. 6. 1 2 3 4 5. Paul would have the Corinthians to choose some of the Church of the Saints to judge between man and man concerning the things of this Life whereabout they were wont to go to Law before Heathen Judges This is plainly to the Office of a Magistrate at least quoad partem Iudicialem tho not quoad violentam executionem They were to choose a wise Man that should be able to judge between his Brethren verse 5. The consequence is grounded on this that the Scripture meddles no more with the Individuals for Magistracy then for Ministry nor gives ordinarily the power of choosing Soveraigns to the People in the Common-wealth then the Power of Ordaining Ministers to the People of a particular Church and the People may determine of one as well though not so easily as of the other but I spoke somewhat of this also before to another Point I have transgressed the limits of the part of a Respondent on this point 1. Because I know it is Light and not Formality of Proceeding that you expect though it be formality before Light and Safety that you plead for 2. Because I know that the whole stress of your Cause lyeth on this Point and I doubt not to say that if I answer you well in this one Argument which you make your Second I easily carry the whole Cause To what you add concerning Authority I confess that it is not the same thing with Fitness c. but I say it may be conveyed sine vicariis Episcopis 2. I deny that any Church-Guides are in point of Government vicarii Christi They are nearest it as Nuncii and so may Beseech and Require in Christ's Name and Stead but they are no more his vicarii then the Magistrate is of the Soveraign They are not Pro-reges nor do they represent his Person They have not
the Ruler of all Persons all Families all Pastors and Churches all Physicians School-masters c. that is to see all these do their own duty but not to take their Work from them upon himself not to take all Men from Self-government of their Tongues Passions Actions not to take on him the part of Parents Pastors c. And no Prince's Laws will acquit a Man before God from his Duty in any of these Relations while he is in them VI. God hath much conjoyned Interest and Duty No Man is so much concerned whether I be saved or damned as I am my self And therefore my own Choice and Self-government is first and chiefly to be used for the saving of my own Soul without which no Man else can save me Therefore I am more concerned than any Magistrate is to the Counsel and Conduct of what Pastor I commit my Soul and I have the nearest and first power in the Choice There is great Controversie in the World Whether Subjects have a Propriety in their Estates which is not at the will of Princes And it is commonly affirmed That Propriety is anticedent to Regiment which is but to order it for common good and not to destroy it But I had rather quit my Claim to Propriety in all my Worldly Estate than of my Salvation or the necessary means thereto If the Law commanded me but to use a Physician that I thought unskilful in my Disease and his Medicines pernicious I would choose a better if I could though the King and Laws forbad me and I would refuse the obtruded Physician and his Medicine so I would do if they commanded me to marry an utterly unsuitable Wife And I should judge that as these matters are more my Interest than theirs so they belong to my Self-governing power and not to their Civil Government And next my self while I am young my Parents being naturally indued with stronger love to me than Magistrates are the Choice in such Cases more belongeth to their power than to the Magistrates VII Accordingly it was for Seven hundred if not a Thousand years the currant Judgment of the Christian Churches that a Bishop must be set over a particular Church by the Election or Consent of all the Clergy and all the People and that he was no justly called Bishop that came not in by the common consent of the Flock This is not only proved in the ancientest Writers even Clemens ad Corinth and others commonly but by many Canons and even the Popes Decretals for many hundred years and the contrary is an undoubted Innovation VIII It is certain that neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical Rulers have their Power for destruction but for edification 2 Cor. 10. 8. and 13. 10. Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4. Even Parents that give life and being to their Children are justly destroyed if they destroy them It is no singularity of Mr. Humphrey that hath lately written That Laws against the Common Good bind not in Conscience to Obedience It is the Judgment of the greatest Casuists Greg. Sayrus Fragosus c. in whom you may see many others The terminus entereth the definition of relations It is not Authority Ius regendi which is not for the Ends of Government the Common Good The Magistrate may order the preaching of the Gospel and other means of Salvation but not forbid them and destroy them If he do this it is not by Authority received from God as Bishop Bilson afore-cited often sheweth and Bishop Andrews in Torturâ Torti I have more power from God to use needful means of my own Salvation than any Man hath to forbid me the using of them IX It is not another Man's saying That much preaching or praying is not needful to me that will make or prove it so or ex use me from it And there is so vast a difference between a found skilful and experienced sively Teacher and one that is ignorant heretical a meer artist dead or dull that readeth a Cento as a Boy saith his Lesson that no Man can make it my Duty to commit the Pastoral Care of my Soul to the latter when the former may be had without a greater hurt than the benefit will compensate Nor will other Mens Crosses Opinions or Appetite herein suffice to satisfie me against my Sense Reason and my own and other Mens Experience X. Yet a tolerable lâ—ss must be born rather than publick Order violated And seeing our Laws and Church-Canons allow any Man when he will to change his Bishop or Pastor or Congregation if he will but change his Dwelling the losses of this must rather be born than any greater real detriment to our Souls or to the Publick Good But Wives Children and some others cannot remove their Habitations XI An Infant or Child in minority in his Parents House as he is not to be supposed to understand the Laws so caeteris paribus he seemeth to me to be more obliged to hear the Teacher that his Parents choose for him than one that is chosen by the Magistrates As in his Diet and the choice of a Physician when he is sick so here The Magistrate is an Officer of Power Wisdom and Love but principally of Power The Pastor is an Officer of Power Wisdom and Love but eminenty of Wisdom The Parent is an Officer of Power Wisdom and Love but eminently of Love And the works of Love to his Children eminently belong to his Care and Government XII Yet when Children have the true use of Reason to discern what God and Man command them they must obey neither Parents not Princes against God XIII In the circa sacra or Circumstantials of Religion so much as should be commonly agreed on by all or most Churches for the Common Good the Prince by the Counsel of the Pastors is the Judge of and is to be obeyed before the Bishops unless he leave it only to the Pastors own Consent and then their Consent in Synods must be much regarded of which Grotius de Imperio Sum. Potest hath written excellently notwithstanding Bishop Brumhalls discommendation But in the Circumstances that are not to be universally agreed on but belong to the Pastoral Office to vary pro re natâ the present officiating Pastor is the Judge and to be followed XIV Rules are to be obeyed in all lawful things belonging to their Office to command but all lawful things belong not to their Office Whether I shall eat once or twice a day or once in two days what Meat I shall eat and how much what Hoâ—se I shall ride on what Wife I shall marry what Physician or Teacher I shall trust and what Medicine I shall take c. belongeth more to my self as is said XV. Intolerable Ministers justly forbidden to preach are bound to obey and the People forbidden to hear them should forbear But it no more follows that the Case is the same to all others than that a true Man may be hang'd because a Thief may If we