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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45123	An answer to Dr. Stillingfleet's sermon, by some nonconformists, being the peaceable design renewed wherein the imputation of schism wherewith the doctor hath charged the nonconformists meetings, is removed, their nonconformity justified, and materials for union drawn up together, which will heal both parties.	Humfrey, John, 1621-1719.; Lobb, Stephen, d. 1699.	1680 (1680)	Wing H3668; ESTC R22261	36,018	45

Laws may be made and Old repealed without alteration of the Constitution but not without Alteration of Government because Government takes in both the Administration and the Constitution Let us suppose therefore the word Government confined only to the Constitution There is the Constitution of the Government in the State which is a Legal Monarchy and this indeed we are so far bound from endeavouring to alter as we think it is not alterable by the King himself and Parliament because the Supream Power for the Administration must be supposed in all Communities to be derived from and held by the Constitution But as for Government in the Church we are to know and acknowledge that the Constitution hereof it self is but a Law of the Administration in reference to the State And consequently when all Laws for the Administration are liable to the Regulation of Parliaments the great Question will remain How those Men who are Presbyterian or In dependent in their Judgment and think Episcopacy against the Scripture can be abridged the Endeavour only afore-mentioned which consists but in choosing Representatives and doing no more than the Constitution allows in order to the Prosecution of what they think themselves obliged to in Conscience both by Oath and the word of God Is not the foundation Liberty of the whole People and our selves with them here in danger Judge ye that are Wise And what an Anointed Plot have we had here on the Nation that an Allegiance in effect should be sworn to the Bishops as well as to the King by such Impositions For the Words then or Form we wonder at this Rigour in the Compiler That a Man must swear not to endeavour any Alteration Had it not been enough to be engaged not to endeavour the Alteration of the Substance of our Government Episcopacy in the Church and Monarchy in the State but it must be not any Alteration It were well we were so absolutely Perfect And again must they not at any time endeavour any Alteration What if Times should turn and we be in a Confusion as we were or any the like Chance or Change come Must these Men be bound up that they cannot endeavour to reduce back this Government that we have No not the King and Bishops if the Iniquity of the Times should put them out for they have sworn they will not at any time endeavour any Alteration in Church or State Sirs The Matter of this Obligation being against the Fundamental Freedom of the Subject and Parliament and the Words you see so ensnaring and that against the Duty all owe to the Publick Good we offer it to you to consider in the first place whether this last part be according to Righteousness For the middle of the Oath Here is a Position of taking Arms by the Kings authority against any Commissionated by him which must be sworn to as abhor'd and traiterous There is now a Case in the mouths of all the understanding Refusers of the Oath and Subscription Suppose some Writ sued out and comes to the Sheriffs hands and suppose some to oppose the Execution by the Kings Personal Command or Commission and he thereupon raises the posse Comitatus upon them We will ask here whether the Sheriff acts not herein by the Kings Authority We think it cannot be denyed By the Kings Authority is all one as by the Law And when he can act so against any for all their Commission and the Law will bear him out how is this position in this case traiterous and to be ahor'd For our parts we do resolutely believe that it was not ever the intent of the Parliament in this Oath the Subscription as to the Major part we may be bold to advance the personal will or Commission of the King above Law which were to make his power Despotical and not Royal. Non est Rex says Bracton ubi dominatur voluntas non Lex He is no King that Governs by his will and not by the Law And how this position indefinitly without exception of this Case at least must be sworn to as altogether Traiterous ☞ we are to learn What if any should come with a Commission under the Seal to raise Money without an Act of Parliament and by vertue of such Commission shall seize our Goods rifle our Houses ' and Ravish our Wives May not the People or our inferior Magistrates or the Sheriff for the County withstand such violence May not the Constable alone by a Warrant from the Justice to keep the Peace raise the Neighbour-hood and do it If he may or the Sheriff may it must be in the Name of the King or by Authority of the Law and then is there some Case or Cases where Arms or Force may be raised by the Authority of the King against such as are Commissionated by him though never against his own Sacred Person Suppose again that Papists or Fanaticks should either by Power or Suprise at any time get the King into their hands as the Duke of Guise once dealt with the French King and prevail with him for fear of his life to grant Commissions under his Hand and Seal destructive to the Church and State must the Nation be remediless in this Case and so the King and Kingdom ruin'd by these Commissions Nay what security hath the Nation that a Lord Keeper may not prove Traytor to his King and Countrey If we may suppose such a thing possible what if such a Lord Keeper should under the Broad Seal grant Commissions to disband his Majesties Life-Guard deliver up the Navy or Sea Port Towns seize the Tower or places or strength in what a condition were the King and Kingdom brought if the Subjects hands be bound up by an Oath not to resist or take Arms against the Execution of such Commissions Suppose but so long as till they understand his design for by that time the whole Nation may be past recovery We are offended at the sense and stand amaze at the Horror of those sad Comsequences into which the Imposition of such like Tests or Injunctions as these if not timely retrenched may lead our Posterity The Courts of Law can avoid the Kings Charters or Commissions which are passed against Law For the King is subject to the Law and sworn to maintain it Judge Jenkens in his Works p. 48. As for the Form then of the Words I abhor this Traiterous Position They are harsh The word Abhor especially is a word of Interest and Passion A cooler word as I disown or disallow might have served Some of the most Grave as Calamy particularly were much offended at that word A man may say a thing is unlawful in his Conscience when he cannot say according to the Truth I Abhor it There is never a Gentleman in the Land but may swear truly That he believes it unlawful to company with any other Woman as his own Wife but if each one was put to swear he Abhors it we suppose some Sons

I A. B. do declare that I Assent not to that passage in the Athanasian Creed Again I A. B. do profess that a Heathen may be saved and yet I do libenter ex animo subscribe to the Article amongst the Thirty-nine that does pronounce him Accursed who dares hold such an opinion We are not ignorant indeed how some would blend the two terms Assent and Consent and then interpret them by the words to the use in the Act But this is a shist which will not satisfie all persons and many desire to use no shifts If these words to the use had been put into the Declaration it self it had been better Yet if they had Assent is proper to the Truth and Consent to the Vse And yet moreover how can a man unfainedly consent to the use of any such Particular which is false and which perhaps he even abhors that the Wise and Ingenuous of his particular perswasion should think he believed Another Instance shall be this In the Service on the Gunpowder Treason we thank God for preserving the King and the Three Estates of the Realm Assambled It is a difficult Point now in the Politicks of England Whether the Three Estates be The King the House of Lords and the House of Commons Or the Lord-Spiritual Temporal and Commons The late King made no Scruple in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions to reckon himself one of the Three Estates Neither was there any we know that durst account the Three Estates of the Land to be dissolved when the Dishops were turned out of House by an Act. We cannot tell therefore of what Consequence it is to the fundamental liberty constitution and state of this Kingdom to yield unto the insinuation of such a thing as this in in our Prayers No man can give his unfained Assent to any thing he knows not and understands not This is a thing we do not know that the Bishops are indeed one of the Three Estates of this Realm Whether they be or no we Dispute not but till we are better satisfied with them and their station we are afraid that any snare should be laid for the people in the Exercise of their Devotions unto God We must mention one Particular more which is our general Exception In the new Book there is inserted several passages that make the Bishops a distinct Office and Order from the Presbyter We need not name the Words for they are put in more than once de industria They would not be content with a difference in Degree and Eminency but they would have us decalare to a Jure Divino distinction disproved by Learned Doctors among the Papists and among the Episcopal men as well as the Reformed Churches Now we humbly beseech the Parliament to consider Whether the Bishops have dealt candidly with us to get such a Condition imposed on the Presbyterian to the keeping of his Ministry as not only Bishop Davenant and Vsher but such as Dr. Field and Francis Mason must have been turned out for Nonconformists upon the same There are Two Orders Ecclesiastical Presbyteri Diaconi When we say Bishops Priests and Deacons we name but two Orders yet three Degrees Mr. Joseph Mede Disc V. For our Consent We will name three things likewise and but name them more indefinitely There is the Hierarchy or Bishop invested with sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction There are the Ceremonies in general so often disputed There is the Imposition it self of things not necessary the occasion of stumbling to many good men and cause of our Divisions Two of these things are matters of most Notorious concernment which would require each of them a Book it self to peruse but we have no such liberty and must be content therefore only with the bare Notification If we give our unfained consent To all and every thing prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer and Form of Ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons then must we give our approbation we suppose to these things amongst others But if the Two first are disputable which we must desire therefore to be weighed according to the engagement of mens minds and consciences about these Subjects and not after our passing short mention of them we are past doubt in the last that to Impose things that are inductive to others to sin and yet not necessary in unlawful What Charter hath Christ given to the Church to bind men up to more than himself hath done says Stillingfleet with much more to that purpose in his Epistle to his Irenicum We will not speak so laxly altogether as he does there but when we distinguish the Imposition and Submission this we are fully perswaded of in Conscience that though a Submission to the things Imposed may perhaps be maintained the Imposition of them in not to be so neither by that Doctor nor by us For if we build again the things we have destroyed we make our selves transgressors It is not Sirs the serving God by a Liturgy or the reading Common-Prayer in the ordinary daily Service that makes us Nonconformists though it be this only lyes in the view of the inconsiderate Many and though there are some things we except against the occasional Offices which by and by may be named We are sorry if any have given cause for such a scandal which tends to the breaking of Concord and Charity which ought to be maintained equally between the brethren of our Private and of the Parochial Congregations We should be ready to do any thing we could to the healing this scandal But there are matters of another moment which if we had liberty to open to the World at large as our cause requires we doubt not but that it might come to see whether we have reason to stick at Conformity or no. There are few of us who are not sensible in some measure of the Corruption which hath crept into the Church in regard to the Discipline or Government of it by the Hierarchy and Diocesan Bishop so much degenerated since Cyprians time from the primitive simplicity And there hath passed a solemn Oath over the Nation engaging the main Body of it to the endeavour of a Reformation Now when the same Government is returned upon the Land with all its former Corruptions and more heavy Injunctions if we should generally submit again to it without obtaining any amendment composition or abatement we dread to think on it with what faces they shall be able to stand before God who have lift up their hands to him for things quite contrary in the late Revolutions But to proceed At last besides the matter of this Declaration The strict prescription as to the form of words is more especially to be noted That this Declaration be made in these words and no other And what if a Minister would read the Book of Common-Prayer without this Declaration Or what if he would declare to the Contents of the Book in other Expressions Why should these crooked SS's

their own Expressions And this expedient we gather from the Lord Coke who hath providently as it were against such a season laid in this Observation The Form of the Subscription set down in the Canons ratified by King James was not expressed in the Act of the thirteenth of Elizabeth Inst purt 4. c. 74. And consequently if the Clergy enjoyed this freedom until then in reference to the Particulars therein contained what hinders why they might not have the same restored in reference also to others It is true that it may seem hard to many in this Parliament to undo any thing themselves have done in a former But though this be no rule for Christians who are sometimes to repent as well as to believe if they be loath to Repeal any thing what if they shall only Interpret or Explain Let us suppose then some clause in this Bill or some new Act for Explanations If any Nonconformist cannot come up to the full meaning and intent of these injunctions rightly explained let him remain in statu quo under the state only of Indulgence without benefit of Comprehension for so long as those who are not Comprehended may yet enjoy that case as to be Indulged in some equal measure answerable to His Majesties Decloration that was whether Comprehension be large or narrow such terms as we obtain are pure advantage and such as we obtain not are no loss But if any does and can honestly agree to that whole sense which the Parliament intends in such Impositions why should there be any obstruction for such a Man though he deliver himself in his own words to be received into the Establish'd order with others unless Men will look on these Injunctions only to be contriv'd for Engines of Battery to destroy the Non-conformists and not as Instruments of Vnity to edifie the Church of God We will not leave our Congregational Brethren neither so long as we have something more that may be said for them not ordinarily considered by any It is this That though indeed they are not and cannot seek to be of our Churches as they are Parochial under the Diocess or Super-intendency of the Bishops Yet do they not refuse but seek to be comprehended within the Church as National under His Majesty We will explain our selves The Church may be considered as Vniversal and so Christ alone is the Head of it and we receive our Laws from him Or as Particular and so the Pastors are Heads Guides or Bishops over their respective Flocks who are commanded therefore to obey them in the Lord Or as National which is an accidental and external respect to the Church of God wherein the King is to be acknowledged the Supream Head of it ansd as we judge no otherwise For thus also runs the Statute That our Sovereign Lord shall be taken and reputed the only Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England called Ecclesia Anglicana Now if it should please the King and Parliament to allow and approve those separate Meetings and stated places for Worship by a Law as His Majesty did by His Declaration we must porfess that as such Assemblies by this means must be constituted immediately Integral parts of the Church as National no less than our Parish Congregations So would the Congregate Churches at least those that understand themselves own the King for Head over them in the same sence as we own him Head over ours that is as much as to say for the Supreme Goercive Governour of all in this accidental regard both to keep every several Congregation to that Gospel-order themselves profess and to supervise their Constitutions in things indifferent that nothing be done but in subordination to the Peace of the Kingdom Well let us suppose then a liberty for these separate Assemblies under the visitation of His Majesty and His Justices and not the Bishops or under them as his substitutes that is exercising an Authority formerly secular and objectively only Ecclesiastical and no otherwise We would fain know what were the evil you can find in them If it lie in any thing it must be in that you call Schisme Separation then let us know in it self simply considered is nothing neither good nor evil There may be reason to divide or separate some Christians from others out of prudence as the Catechumeni of old from the fully instructed for their greater edification and as a Chappel or two is added to a parish Church When the people else were too big a Congregation It is not all division then or separation is Schism but sinful division Now the Supream Authority as National Head having appointed the Parochial Meetings and required all the Subjects of the Land to frequent them and them alone for the acknowledging glorifying or National serving and worshipping the one only true God and His Son whom we have generally received and this Worship or Service in the nature of it being intrinsically good and the External order such as that of Time and Place and the like-Cirumstances being properly under his Jurisdiction it hath seemed to us hitherto that unless there was something in that order and way prescribed which is sinful and that required too as a Condition of that Commonion there is no man could refuse his attendance universally on these Pariotchial Assemblies without the sin of disobedience And consequently his separation thereby becoming sinful proves Schism But if the Scene be alter'd and those separate Assembles made legal the Schism in reference to the National Church upon the same account does vanish Schism is a separation from that Church whereof we ought or are bound to be Members If the Supream Authority then loose our obligation to the Parish Meeting so that we are bound no longer the iniquty we say upon this account is not to be found and the Schism gone Lo here a way opened for the Parliament if they please to rid the trouble and scruple of Schism at once out of the Land If they please not yet is there something to be thought on for the Separatist in a way of Forbearance that the innocent Christian at least as it was in the time of Trajan may not be sought out unto punishment Especiallly when such a Tolleration only is desired as is consistent with the Articles of Faith i. e. the Creed a Good life and the Government of the Nation But what shall we say then to the Papists which is the Objection hit still in their Teeth that plead for Mederation Why we will not baulk the delivery of our opinion There are Two parts we profess of that favour or condescension we seek from the Higher Powers The one consisting of a Composition with those whose Principles are fit and capable of it And the other consisting of Forbearance towards those whose Principles will allow them no more The Papist is one whose worship to us is Idolatry and we cannot therefore allow them the liberty of publick Assembling themselves as others of the