ever it be the question only VVhether this man or that man be fittest to have his countenance and maintenance and to be by him allowed to preach when only one of the two is needful we shall never speak against him for chusing according to his judgment as long as meer hereticks impious or intollerably unable ones are not chosen But if many hundred worthy Ministers shall be forbidden to Preach at a time and in a Land where many hundred thousand souls do wofully cry out for help as lying in damnable ignorance and sensuality and ungodliness in this case we say that no Rulers may forbid such Preaching 3. The Objectors seem to intimate dangerous Doctrine that if a King should not be a Christian or of the right Religion he lost his power over the Church which is false however maintained by the Papists The Heathen and Infidel Rulers had the Government of all their Subjects Christians and Apostles as well as others They wanted aptitude to do it well and therefore some of them persecuted But they wanted not Authority a King loseth not his Authority when ever he loseth his aptitude to use it rightly Christian Kings only can rule the Church well but others also are its authorized Rulers and there is no external coactive power at all but in the Kings or Magistrates be they Christian or Infidel 4. Christ himself did not set up a Kingdom of this world or worldly nor exempt himself from the Government of the Rulers Nor did his Apostles exempt themselves or the Church Paul Rom. 13 c. and Peter call on all Christians to honour the King and to be subject to the higher powers for conscience sake Mark then in this how little our case doth differ from the Apostles when they were forbidden to preach not by Usurpers only but by lawful Rulers to whom they professed conscientious subjection and yet must obey God rather than those very Rulers 5. Christian Rulers are the Churches nursing Fathers and have more obligation than others to build it up but no more power to pull it down They have all their power as Paul had his For edification and not for destruction It was never referred to them to judg as I have before said whether there shall be a Church or a Christ or a Ministry or whether souls shall be saved or damned or the Gospel Preached where it is necessary to Salvation or not But only by whom and in what order which best furthereth mens Salvation it shall be Preached If a Magistrate as a Magistrate may not forbid necessary Preaching much less may a Christian Magistrate as Christian who is more obliged to promote it This therefore altereth not the case 6. The Sanhedrin and Herod and other Jewish Rulers had such real Authority as Christ did not disown of the same nature with Jehoshaphats and Hezekiahs If therefore these were not to be obeyed when they forbad necessary Preaching then lawful Rulers in that case are not to be obeyed 7. The Arrian Emperours had lawful Power of coactive Government over the Church and yet the Orthodox Bishops never thought it their duty to cease Preaching in Conscience of obeying their commands Though they were forced oft to quit their present Stations Let not any Cainite here say that I compare our Rulers to Arrians For I only argue that if an Arrian Emperour had true Authority and yet when he thus abused it was not to be obeyed by forbearing to Preach the same must be said of others that have authority in case of the like Prohibitions 8. Christ setled Pastors over his Churches 300 years before there were any Christian Princes or States By which he shewed that though Princes are the true Rulers of Pastors yet Pastors are more necessary to the Being of the Church and to Salvation of the people than Princes are and that Pastors hold not their office from Princes nor at their will unless you think they had no true power till Constantines reign 9. Magistrates may not hinder a sufficient number from entering into the Ministry else the meaning of Christ must be Pray the Lord of the harvest to perswade Kings and Rulers to give leave to men to become labourers Therefore they may not hinder a sufficient number from labouring when they are entered 10. Magistrates cannot dispense with absolute lawful Vows to God at least about necessary duty This all Protestant Divines maintain in their Writings against the Papists who plead for the Popes power to dispense with Vows But our enterance into the Ministry had the nature of an absolute lawful Vow and was done by the Magistrates encouragement For in it we did solemnly devote our selves to the Sacred office and work 11. Magistrates are Christs Officers and Servants and have no power but from him and for him as the Justice and Constable are under the King Therefore they have no power against him Therefore they have no power to forbid the necessary Preaching of the Gospel and where it is not necessary we confess their power 12. If the Magistrate might degrade Ministers or absolutely forbid their work then it would follow that one Prince hath the Government of all other Princes Dominions or else that all Princes on earth must agree to the degrading of a Minister For it is fully proved by Divines of all parties except some of the Independents that Ministers at their Ordination are as Christians at their Baptism entered into a Relation to the Universal Church and not only to one particular Church And therefore he that is removed from one Church or Kingdom is not removed from the Ministerial office which continueth as towards an indefinite object Yea we are first in order of nature related to the unconverted world as we have capacity Go teach all Nations baptizing them will be Christs Law to the end of the world And if they cannot degrade they cannot take away the power of exercising the office statedly but only suspend it for a time or limit the exercise or regulate it by their governing power on just occasions and governing an office is not nullifying or destroying it Obj But if the Magistrate may suspend them and deny them liberty in his dominions then it is he and not every Minister that is to judg who deserveth such restraint 1. If you speak of publick judgment which is the publick decision of a controverted cause no doubt it is only the Magistrate that is Judg in foro civili No Pastor may enter into the Judgment seat and judg his own cause But if you speak of a private judgment of discerning every mans reason is the discerner of his own duty for he cannot do it without discerning it 2. The Magistrate is to judg publickly but not as he list as left to his own will but as an officer of Christ under the regulation of his Laws as our Judges are regulated by the Kings Laws The King may judg between an Infidel and a Christian whether Christ be the
blind themselves and knew not the Spirituality of Doctrine or Worship Mat. 23. 26. 25. They were loose Expositors of the Law of God and extended it not to those Internals and necessary strictness which was the proper sense but made it forbid no more than those notable external evils which themselves and their vulgar followers could spare Mat. 5. 26. And with the forbearance of these outward sins and the performance of their Ceremonies they so contented themselves and quieted their Consciences that they wanted the true and spiritual Righteousness absolutely necessary to Salvation Mat. 5. 20. 27. They were the very leaders of all the malignant party that hated Christ and his Disciples and more zealous against them than the very Heathen Roman Governours who sometime saved the Preachers from the Pharisees rage 28. They were so malignant that they envied the very good works and healing miracles which Christ did and repined and fretted that God should so much honour Christians Joh. 11. 47. 29. They were so malignant that no course of the Servants of God could please them or escape their obloquy But John that lived austerely they reproached as a melancholy Demoniack or a crackt-brain'd man and Christ that used a freer converse they accused as not strict enough for them 30. They were so malignant that they could not endure to have God acknowledged the owner and approver of Christianity but would rather have the people take Christ for a deceiver or his works to be done by the Devil himself than that God should be known to be the author of them as his attestation and seal to the Truth of Christ Mat. 12. 24. 31. Being a Generation that never had done complaining of those that conformed not to their Ceremonies and outside Rites and yet void of true Sanctification Christ pronounced them a Plant that his Father had not planted that were e're long to be extirpated Mat. 15. 13. 12. 2. 12. 2 14. 32. They formally preached much good as sitting in Moses Chair and having a holy Law to speak of but their own lives were covetous proud persecuting and contrary to the Law and to their own Doctrine and yet their very Doctrine had much corruption Mat. 16. 1 6 11. 21. 45. 23. 2. Luk. 16. 14. 33. Yet were these Pharisees of a much sounder judgment than the Atheistical Sadduces and therefore thought highly of themselves and some few among them had a secret favour unto Christ as far as their reputation and the fear of their party would permit Luk. 7. 36. Joh. 3. 1 2. Act. 5. 34. 23. 6 7 8 9. In all this I have but recited the Scripture Characters of the Pharisees not daring to speak a word of the application for I much doubt whether you will not think that I have drawn your picture by the bare recitation of the Text so much did I wonder at one of the last Sermons which I heard in publick but just such as I have oft heard forty-five years ago which was spent in likening the Puritan to the Pharisee how the speaker avoided blushing and remembering what the hearers would think when they should read the History of the Pharisees in the Bible and whether they perceived what injury they did themselves who used to call the people to such observations For my part I would counsel them never to name the Pharisees more left the hearers apply it otherwise than they imagin At least never more to go about to make men think that the Puritan who is so contrary to him is like the Pharisee for men never speed worse than by such monstrous undertakings But yet it may be some of them believe themselves For he that will needs make his own Creed may make his own Faith but if they make as large Creeds for others and call them to subscribe them and to swear to them when they cannot make them a Faith proportionable they will but multiply Nonconformists And so much to your angry censure which leaveth us room for no more argumentative a defence 11 Obj. If you do scruple Conformity why do you gather private meetings and separate from the Church and hold your meetings at the time of our publick VVorship and encourage the people in their Separations For whatever you say of your self you cannot but know that it is so in London and in many other places Ans. 1. I told you not my own practise alone but many others and when I have told you our Principles you will the better know how to judg of our different practises The Nonconformists hold 1. That we are members of the Catholick Church in order of nature before we are of any particular Church For Baptism as such doth enter us into the former And that no man must ever separate from this Church upon any pretence whatsoever 2. That our Communion with this Catholick Church is our concord in the performance of that Baptismal Covenant which uniteth us 3. That our conjunction with this or that particular Church is a matter left to humane prudence and to be changed according to the interest of our own souls and the publick good and that God bindeth me not to one Church more than to another by any Law except that general Law which directeth us what choice to make of matters undetermined 4. That the Magistrate is the Governour of these Churches as to their external ordering which supposeth the Pastors to be Governours governed by him as Schoolmasters Philosophers Pilots Architects c. and that the Pastors are essential to the Church in a Political sense as we now take it as a Schoolmaster is to a School but so is not the Magistrate 5. That the ordinary instituted way of the Pastors call to a particular Church is by the Direction of the Ordaining Pastors and by the Election or Consent of the Congregation And that as the Churches had true Pastors without and against the Magistrates consent so may it have still seeing then and now the Magistrate had Power of Governing Churches already made by exterior order rather than of making or unmaking Churches And therefore that a Pastor may still be a true Pastor when he is prohibited to Preach 6. That the Magistrate hath the power of things circa sacra that is of Temples Tythes maintenance c. so that he divest not the Pastor of his intrinsick power proper to his office as to chuse his subject method words c. And therefore that no Minister may seize upon the said Temples Tythes c. against the Magistrates will 7. That ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia as Cyprian faith where the true Pastor is there is the Church because the Pastor is an Essential and the Governing part And as this was true in Cyprian's time so it is now 8. That if Usurping Pastors though by the Magistrates consent do take possession of the Temples and publick maintenance and Legal Right as well as possession this is not enough to make those men
AN APOLOGY FOR THE Nonconformists Ministry CONTAINING I. The REASONS of their PREACHING II. An Answer to the Accusations urged as Reasons for the Silencing of about 2000 by Bishop Morley Bishop Gunings Chaplain Dr. Saywell Mr. Durel the nameless Ecclesiastical Politician and Debate-maker the Counterminer H. Fowlis Dr. Good and many others III. Reasons proving it the duty and interest of the Bishops and Conformists to endeavour earnestly their Restoration With a POSTSCRIPT upon Oral Debates with Mr. H. Dodwell against his Reasons for their Silence And a Scheme of INTERESTS Written in 1668 and 1669 for the most of it and now Published as an Addition to the Defence against Dr. Stillingfleet and as an Account to the Silencers of the Reasons of our Practice By RICHARD BAXTER 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom Preach the Word Be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine London Printed for T. Parkhurst and D. Newman at the Bible and three Crowns in Cheapside and at the Kings Arms in the Poultry 1681. To the Right Reverend Dr. Compton Lord Bishop of London Dr. Barlow Lord Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Crofts Lord Bishop of Hereford Dr. Rainbow Lord Bishop of Carlisle Dr. Thomas Lord Bishop of St. Davids Dr. Lloyd Lord Bishop of Peterborough and as many more as are of their Moderation and love of our Common Peace and Concord Right Reverend Fathers and Honourable Lords YOU are not the men that resisted and frustrated our earnest endeavours and hopes of Concord at his Majesties return 1660 and 1661 nor made the Act of Uniformity or the rest by which we suffer nor have you been the makers of any Engines to wrack and tear in pieces the Church and Kingdom at such a time when they groan'd and beg'd and hoped for healing I therefore direct this Apology to you and all others of your moderation in some hope though evil men and deceivers grow worse and worse You are reputed among us Nonconformists not only true to the Protestant Cause but lovers of good men and no lovers of cruel silencings violence or blood Though I know but few of you I have reason to believe this fame and some of you have publickly declared your moderation to the world If then the ancient Christians might present their Apologies in hope to Heathen Emperors may I not do so much more to Christian Bishops to moderate Bishops and lovers of peace If yow are wiser and better than we you are as much more merciful and peaceable than we and as much more against all hindering the Gospel and weakening or dividing the Churches of Christ by unjust silencing restraining or persecuting any faithful Ministers or Christians and you are more sensible than we with what deep sense men will shortly hear In as much as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren you did it to me You have then more of the wisdom from above which is first pure then peaceable gentle c. Jam. 3. 17. and you have a deeper Impress of that holy LOVE by which all Christs disciples must be known Interest is supposed to Rule the World And the grand design of Satan is to set up some fleshly sinful interest in Rulers and Teachers and People which is contrary to the Laws and interest of Christ and then he hath made a Virtual War Carnal Interest will not yield and Christ will not yield nor change his Laws Carnal interest will expound them for it self and so secretly and powerfully byas the judgment that even Learned men when they warp and err shall not perceive it but verily think that it 's all for God We are commonly supposed to be against your interest and that this will make us continue unreconciled to the gratifying of them that have no low game to play by the contrived means of our divisions If your chosen Interest be the furthering of holiness and everlasting happiness by sound and serious preaching of Christs Gospel worshipping God that is a Spirit in spirit and truth and yet with all reverent decency and order and living according to the Laws of our Universal Head in soberness righteousness godliness and in love and peace with one another God forbid that we should be against your interest And this is your interest indeed He that is most for it we account the best and wisest man And if your Dignity Wealth and Honour be your Interest subordinate to the greater as it is highest in the ungodly I beseech you think not we are more even against that than we are indeed I had rather be ruled than rule but God must be first obeyed God knows I envy not your dignity or wealth I have proved in the end of this book that our Restoration is greatly for your interest and that none have done more against you than those of your own tribe that have had the greatest hand in our silencing and suffering Give me but a sober understanding man to deal with and I undertake to shew him that by a meer Reforming of the Parish-Churches so far as your selves confess to be desirable and just with such a limited Toleration of peaceable sound Christians as Christian Reason must acknowledge necessary We may be brought yet to an happy Concord and a better Reformation than England yet ever saw without doing the least wrong or hurt to the Diocesans It is usually said that England had more respect to the principles of Augustine in Doctrine and of Melancthon and Bucer in the points of Reformation than of Calvin Luther or any other And as to Cranmer Ridley Cox and the other Reforming Bishops I verily believe it I know no Divines whose judgment I more consent to than Bucers and Melancthons O that all our Clergy would read and weigh what Bucer saith copiously and vehemently for Parish-Discipline and pure Communion de Regno Dei de Animarum Cura in censura Liturg. specially de Confirmatione and what he saith of Pastoral Government Ordination and Order and of imposing such Ceremonies as ours It was written in England and for England And that they would read what Melancthon saith in his Epistles of the Pestilent design of the Papists that would lay the validity of our Ministry and Sacraments on an uninterrupted succession of Canonical Episcopal Ordination that they may make the judgment of their Councils more effectual than of Christ and his Spirit in the Scriptures and what he saith against these cheats And verily we have little worldly interest to draw us to be enemies to yours And I still profess that in all my experience those called Nonconformists did heartily love honour praise and hear a Bishop or Conformist that preached and lived seriously spiritually and in Christian Love such as through Gods mercy we have had many yea if he preached and lived better than Nonconformists they
it was my judgment that it was not my duty without a special call to perswade any man to Nonconformity when it was but in the issue to perswade him to be silenced and to deprive the Church of his publick labours Therefore did I never to my remembrance endeavour to make any one man a Nonconformist that did not come or send to me for resolution in the case And some such also I put off as far as conscionably I could Though I may never perswade a man to that which I judg to be sin yet I am not always bound to disswade him from it If I saw a man about to tell a lye or take a false oath to save the life of the King from an enemy or traytor I do not think that it is my duty to hinder him Affirmatives bind not ad semper I thank God not that so many laudable Ministers conform but that they preach the Gospel and keep up so much of the interest of the Church and Religion in the Land I have met with some women and hot-brain'd lads of another mind that said Let them put upon us the veriest ignorant sots and drunkards we shall be the more easily justified for not going to their Churches But I ever reproved this as the language of the Serpent who insinuating into the injudicious would increase the sin and misery of the world For my own part I heard all Ministers where I lived who were but tollerable in the Sacred Office I came to the beginning of the Churches Prayers when I could and staid to the end I took not my self for a constrained unwilling hearer of them but the more any external imperfection made my devotion difficult the more I thought it my duty to labour to stir up my affections lest I should as the hypocrite draw near to God with my lips without my heart I remember what was said of Old Mr. Fenne the famous Coventry Nonconformist that he would say Amen loudly to every one of the Common-Prayers except that for the Bishops by which he thought he sufficiently expressed his dissent I know how unable the old Separatists were to answer the many Arguments of the famous Arthur Hildersham John Paget William Bradshaw Brightman John Ball and other old Nonconformists for the lawfulness of Communicating with our Parish-Churches in the Sacraments and the Liturgy I was exceedingly moved against Separation truly so called by considering 1. How contrary it is to the principle of Christian love 2. And how directly and certainly pernicious to the interest and cause of Christ and of his Church and of the souls of men and how powerful a means it is to kill that little love that is left in the world 3. And how plainly it proceedeth from the same spirit that persecution doth For though their expressions be various their minds and principles are much the same which is to vilifie our Brethren and represent them as odious and intollerable and overlook that of Christ which is amiable in them In which when they have agreed as Children of the same Father they differ in their way of serving him One saith He is such and such therefore away with him silence him imprison him banish him The other saith He is such and such a one therefore away with him have no communion with him He that eateth not Rom. 14. will say Away with him because he eateth And he that eateth will say Away with him because he eateth not Both agree in murdering love and accounting their brother unlovely and intollerable 4. And I was greatly moved in thinking of the state of most of the Churches in the world if I travelled in Abassia Armenia Russia or among the Greek Churches I durst not deny to hold communion with them When I go to God in prayer I dare not go in a separate capacity but as a member of the Universal Church nor would I part with my share in the Common-prayers of all the Churches for all the world but am joined with them in spirit while I am corporally absent owning all their holy prayers though none of their faults or failings in them having many in all my own prayers to God which I must be further from justifying than other mens And having perused all the foreign and ancient Liturgies extant in the Bibliotheva Patrum I doubt not but our own is incomparably better than any that is there But I will not conceal it from you that I am not such a Separatist neither as to communicate with Parish-Churches only If only the Law have turned any Pastors out of the Parishes and the people and they still hold their relation and communion not to say now whether they do well or ill I will no more separate from them than from you I communicate with you in Liturgy and Sacrament but neither as with a Sect or Faction nor as the whole Church but only as a part of the Church Universal and so are they I will hear you and I will hear them when I have a just occasion I will communicate with you and I will communicate with them as I perceive a call If each side run away from the other I will run from neither though I will sin with neither and must go from them that drive me away But I tell all that ask my mind that I am not so indifferent as to the Ministers whom I must join with as I am to the forms and modes of Worship Not that I call their actions Nullities or say that the Sacraments are invalid which they administer For their usurpation cannot rob the innocent of their right But yet I will not be guilty of countenancing and encouraging any soul-murderer in so great a sin Three sorts of Teachers I renounce Communion with as Ministers 1. Those that through intollerable ignorance and insufficiency do want those abilities which are necessary to the essence of the Ministry 2. Those Hereticks who preach against any essential article of Religion 3. Those wicked ones who openly bend their application not against different Sects and adversaries for that is common to all the factious and peevish but against the serious practise of Godliness Temperance Love or Justice and that labour to make these odious to their hearers though their Doctrine be sound from which they raise these malignant applications These are the men that I will not communicate with I confess when I read in Sulpitius Severus the History of St. Martins resolved Separation from Ithacius Idacius and the Synods of Bishops of those times and the confirmation of him by Visions and the antiquity and credibility of that History if of almost any ancient Church History in the main and the stupendious miracles which he is said to work it a little stagger'd me till I considered 1. That Scripture only is our rule And 2. That it was not from the Episcopal Order that he separated for he was one himself nor from any particular Bishops that were innocent nor yet from the
the necessity and that God and nature had given no power to themselves to know what is necessary good and helpful or unnecessary bad or hurtful to themselves Obj. The sheep chuse not their own shepherds nor children their own School-masters Ans. 1. This is as some call it Phrase-divinity Similitudes prove nothing beyond the point of likeness Sheep have not reason and children have it not in maturity and full use 2. Are we grown better and wiser now than the Churches all were for 600 years or for the first 300 either Why do men pretend so much to antiquity and cry out against novelty who when interest bids them do more than others despise the judgment and example of the Primitive ancient Church as a ragged fordid infant-thing 3. Mans nature hath laid the foundation of this order It is not possible for the people to be edified by Ministers or worship God in their communion acceptably against their own wills And therefore as their consent is of absolute necessity to their benefit and salvation so it is the more necessary to the just calling of him that must profit them For they are the likelier to consent to his Doctrine and rule when they have first consented to his relation and so e contra they are the likelier to reject the guidance of him that was forced on them against their wills Obj. But what divisions and heresies shall we have if all the people shall chuse their Pastors and then they may bring in Hereticks whether the Magistrates will or not Ans. 1. Their choice is a matter of mutable convenience but their consent is a matter of necessity 2. I say not that they alone must chuse them or consent Two or three Negative wills sine quibus non in a case of great concernment is safer than one alone Writings or treasures belonging to three parties kept in a chest of which every party hath a lock and key are safer than under a single lock The Ordainers have a negative voice and so have the people as to the relation of the Pastors to themselves And so hath the Magistrate under Gods Laws whether that man shall live or preach in his dominions 3. And God in wisdom is pleased to lay all mens salvation or damnation more upon themselves and their own choice than on the Kings because it is themselves that must have the everlasting joy or sorrow And therefore so he hath done by all the actions and means that stand nearest to their own Salvation 4. And when we say the Ordainers and people conjunctly should chuse their Pastors we still say that when they are chosen they are under the Government of the King 5. Apply all your Objections to the case of a Physician to his Patients it is meet that all Physicians be under the Government of the King and that he by Laws restrain them from the abuse of their callings And it is meet that the Colledg that can best judg be the discerners who shall be a Licensed Physician But when all 's done it is not meet that any one be forced on the sick without their own consent And why 1. Because their consent is necessary to the use of the remedies 2. Because it is themselves that are most concerned in the event 3. Because every man knoweth much of his own condition which the King doth not know Yet here you may as handsomely exclaim What shall every woman every boy every sottish rustick and tradesman have liberty to put his life into the hands of women or foolish Empericks what murdering of men by medicine shall we then have and what diminution of the Kings subjects Ans. But 1. this is your error which confoundeth all that you think the matters of imperfect man in an imperfect world can be done without any imperfection or inconvenience and then that you look only with one eye on your own side and cannot or will not see the far greater inconveniencies on the other side but will cure an inconvenience with a mischief and subvert the end and substance to preserve your particular way of Order What would follow on the other side if all men must have Physicians forced on them Those empty fellows that could make most friends should be the seekers and finders of the place especially if Physicians were made Lords and had the honour and maintenance that Bishops have And next the people must be taught by these formalists that it is not for them to judg themselves what is good or bad for them nor when to take Physick nor how much And next they must be told that it being an office of Government as well as of skill they must put their lives into his hand who ever he be that is the Physician of the place and not go to others as abler men O what work would these Orderers make If you here except against the aptness of the similitude I will only ask you now 1. Whether the King is not as truly the Governour of his subjects as to their lives as he is as to their Salvation Do not his subjects bodies and lives belong to his care 2. Is not every man as much concerned for his own soul more than the King is or any other as he is for his health or life Will not the Salvation or damnation be his own 3. Is not every mans free will as much and more to be exercised for his salvation as for his health You may drench him by force as a horse for his health and therefore there is more pretence for cogent Laws But so you cannot for his soul. These things are plain to them that are willing to see but not to them whose interest will not give them leave but like the Ephesian Craftsmen must cry up Diana and cry down Paul to save their Trades And yet I still maintain that the King is to afford his Subjects all help in his power for their souls as well as for their bodies IV. OUR Fourth main Reason why we dare not cease our Ministry is Because we shall sin against Nature it self even the great and radical Law of Love and shall be guilty of murdering mens souls And because Magistrates cannot dispense with the great and necessary Laws of Nature we put them all into one for brevity 1. If we were Lay men yet charity would naturally oblige us to do our best to save mens souls in a way that doth not greater hurt Deny this and you deny the master-points of natural obligation and are unfit to dispute about things indifferent And the judgment of the ancient Church as the case of Origen and other Teachers and Catechists at Alexandria as well as that of Frumentius and Edesius do witness is flat against you and so is the common judgment of Divines both Protestants and Papists who use to cite these instances to prove that in some case Lay-men may be publick Teachers But if they might not in Churches lest they seem usurpers yet in other
to all men forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sins alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost Acts 4. 2 c. 3. Experience assureth us that from the beginning of the Church to this present day Christ never gave too many able faithful Ministers to his Church Supernumeraries of such were never its disease nor the amputation of them its cure There is still need of the Lords-prayer Thy Kingdom come And Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers c. That man is but a Christian or a Pastor in jest and Image and not in earnest and reality who thinketh that the Pastors now allowed are so sufficient for the great employment of the Ministry that more are but supernumerary and the rest may be spared without any detriment to the souls of men Even in the Apostles age of Miraculous gifts Dr. Hammond thinketh the Pastors were so scarce that every Episcopal Church had no more than one Bishop with some Deacons without ever a Subject-Presbyter And that there was de facto none of the Order of subject-Presbyters in Scripture-times And so think all the Presbyterians too And it is a notorious truth that afterwards the Presbyters were so low in abilities that publick preaching in the Church was mostly used by the Bishops only And many Countries have lost the Gospel for want of Preachers And wherever ignorance and prophaneness have broken in upon the Church as the Greeks Abassines Armenians Moscovites Papists and too many Protestant Churches it hath commonly been by the decay of able godly faithful Pastors And if one City or Parish of ten thousand have had too many their near neighbours have so much wanted them that they could not be esteemed supernumerary And in England there are few Parishes which need not helps even where the ablest men are placed much more where Is it seasonable then or doth it answer the Will or Providence of to call in so many when the Church hath always had too few 4. The punishment which you inflict upon the Ministers doth fall a thousand times more heavily on the souls of the innocent people who without being accused or speaking for themselves in a Legal trial have so great a penalty inflicted on them as none but a believer that judgeth of things in reference to Eternity is able to estimate a right Alas to the Preacher the suffering is small in comparison of the peoples What if they live poorly what if they want house or clothes or bread How small a matter is that in comparison of the want of knowledg and faith of grace and salvation I confess their sufferings will cost them dear that are the true cause when Christ condemns those that do not relieve them But to themselves it is no such dreadful business Nay if they were but discharged in conscience from the Ministerial Office most of them might live in much more peace and plenty in the world There are many other Callings to betake themselves to in which they might live quietly and not be as the Hare before the Hunters pursued from place to place with cryes as if they that will imitate Paul in labours must bear also his reproach as pestilent fellows and movers of sedition among the people that do contrary to the decrees of Cesar and turn the world upside down Yea many are already turned Physicians and they have better words and kinder usage But every man that hath the eyes of a Christian in his head and seeth what the people of England VVales and Ireland are for members and for quality and seeth and heareth also what Ministers for number and quality do instruct them doth know as certainly that many hundred thousand souls do wofully need more Ministerial helps as he knoweth that five hundred Scholars do need more than one School-master or five hundred sick men need more than one Physician But O what a plague is it to the Church and World to have Ministers who when they read of the necessity of knowledg holiness and salvation do neither believe Christ nor themselves Argue not the people into such hard thoughts of you as if this were your case by perswading them that it is no matter whether their souls have any more Ministerial helps than now is given them Either you believe that where the Gospel is hid it is hid to them that are lost and that the cure of gross ignorance hard-heartedness unbelief and sensuality are of necessity to salvation or not If not deal openly and silence both your selves and us If yea then either you know how these maladies abound in the people and how much labour the cure doth usually cost or not If not then take not on you to be Pastors or English men or competent Judges of any of the peoples cases and concernments but confess that these are matters that you are strangers to But if you do know this then I need to say no more to you but to desire you to fuppose that soul-necessities are not the less because men complain not of them but greatest where there is the greatest insensibility and contentedness with them The Turks and Heathens cry not out for the help of Christian Pastors The worldling drunkard and fornicator is most miserable that would have no reproof or help Suppose therefore that their necessities are instead of cryes and that you hear them calling to you for help O pity the many hundred thousand souls that are drowned in ignorance unbelief insensibility worldliness and sensuality that are utter strangers to that life of faith and love and holiness without which none can please or see God and must quickly be converted and made new creatures or they are lost for ever Or suppose that their necessities being their complaints you heard them expostulating with you for their souls O take not from us that means which God by Nature and by his Institution hath made so needful to our salvation Alas our ignorance and deadness and worldly-mindedness and fleshly affections are too hardly cured by all the best means and diligence that can be used what shall we do then if you deprive us of that which we have enjoyed Alas say not that the reading of the Scriptures and a few lifeless notes of a Sermon will serve turn We confess that it should do so if our disease were so light as to need no more the thing it self is good and every word of God is precious but it is the nature of our disease to be read asleep and hardned in our sins by the customary hearing of a few good words in a sleepy saying tone It is the skilful choice of pertinent Truths convincingly and clearly uttered and closely applied with life and seriousness that our case requireth We confess that if a School-boy or a raw ignorant youth from the University did but read a chapter or say over a less pertinent cento of good words we should be moved