them How Forms may be imposed publickly on the Congregations of Believers and on the Ministers yea though the Forms imposed be worse than the exercise of their own gifts though among us no Man be forbidden to use his own gifts in the Pulpit The Pharisees long Liturgy it is like was in many things worse than ours yet Christ and his Apostles often joyned with them and never condemned them I shall now only add that the Lord's Prayer is a Form directed to God as in the Third Person and not to Man only as a directory for Prayer in the Second Person it is not Pray to God your Father in Heaven that his name may be Hallowed his Kingdom come c. But Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy name c. And it seems by the Disciples words that thus John taught his Disciples to pray Luke 11. 1. and we have in the Scripture the mention of many Set Forms of Service to God which therefore we may well use And I desire the Reader again to Note that though Prayer was corrupted by the Pharisees yet Christ usually joyned in their Synagogues Luke 14. 17. and never medled with our controversie about the lawfulness of Set Forms This Mr. Baxter infers from Calvins note on Matth. 6. before the Preface to the Defence Pag. 76. Of Concord I constantly joyn with my Parish Church in Liturgy and Sacraments and hope so to do while I live I take the Common-Prayer to be better incomparably than the Prayers or Sermons of many that I hear As for the Common Prayer it self I never rejected it because it was a Form or thought it simply unlawful because it was such a Form but have made use of it and would again in the like case He that separates upon the account of the unlawfulness of our Liturgy and the badness of our Ministry doth separate upon a reason common to almost all of the far greatest part of the Churches See the Defence p. 54. The defects of the Liturgy and the faults of those by whom we suffer are easily heightned even beyond desert Defence p. 68. Apology p. 9. Having perused all the Foreign and Antient Liturgies in the Bibliotheca Patrum I doubt not but our own is incomparably better than any that is there That which is not unlawful in it self is not therefore unlawful because it is commanded Obedience to Superiors is our duty and not our sin unless in sinful things p. 152. Christ Direct 2d Edit Of Obedience to our Pastors We are indangered by divisions principally because the self-conceited part of Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastors but must have their way and will needs be rulers of the Church and them But pleasing the ignorant Professors humors is a Sin that shews us to be too humane and carnal and hath always sad effects at last It is a high degree of pride for persons of ordinary understandings to conclude that almost all Christs Churches in the World for Thirteen Hundred Years at least have offered such Worship to God as that you are obliged to avoid it and all their Communion in it and that almost all the Catholick Church on Earth at this day is below your Communion for using Forms Mark Is it not more of the Women and Apprentices that are of this mind than of old experienced Christians I think till we have better taught even our godly People what credit and obedience is due to their Teachers and Spiritual Guides the Church of England shall never have peace or any good or established Order We are broken for want of the knowledge of this truth till this be known we shall never be well bound up and healed The People of the New Separation so much rule their Ministers that many of them have been forced to forsake their own judgments to comply with the violent Labour to maintain the Ordinances and Ministry in esteem The Church is bound to take many a Man as a True Minister to them and receive the Ordinances from him in Faith and expectation of Blessing upon promise who yet before God is a sinful invader an usurper of the Ministry and shall be condemned for it How much more then to respect their lawful Bishops and Pastors Of lay-Lay-Elders For lay-Lay-Elders As far as I understand the greatest part if not three for one of the English Ministers are of this mind That unordained Elders wanting power to Preach or Administer Sacraments are not Officers in the Church of God's appointment Of this number I am one and Mr. Vines was another In the Worcester Agreement Printed 1653. Mr. Baxter declared that neither Scripture nor Antiquity knew of any such Officers as lay-Lay-Elders In the Third Defence p. 58. It was notorious that the Parliament yielded to Presbytery to exclude Episcopacy because they had no other way to uphold their Wars without which they had no way to hold up themselves but by help of the Scots My first Book Viz. the Preface to Saints Rest disclaims Lay-Elders Pag. 109. to Hinckly Of Bishops Page 832. of Mr. Baxter ' s Directory Q. 56. Mr. Baxter tells you in the Margin of those Reasons for a larger Episcopacy That in the Apostles Days there were under Christ in the Universal Church many general Officers that had the care of gathering and over-seeing Churches up and down and were fixed by stated Relation unto none And most Christian Churches think that though the extraordinary Gifts Privileges and Officers cease yet Government being an ordinary part of their Work the same Form of Government which Christ and the Holy Ghost did settle in the first Ages tho' not with the same extraordinary Gifts and Adjuncts were settled for all following Ages 1. Because we read of settling that Form viz. general Officers as well as Particular but never of any Abolition 2. Because if we affirm a Cessation without Proof we seem to accuse God of Mutability as setting a Form of Government for one Age only 3. And we leave room for audacious Wits to question other Gospel-Institutions as Pastors Sacraments c. 4. It was general Officers that Christ promised to be with to the end of the World Matth. 28. 20. And in this Premonition he says he doth not dispute the Lawfulness of Arch-Bishops over Parochial-Bishops as Successors to the Apostles and other general Officers of the first Age in the ordinary continued parts of their Office And in his Plea for Peace p. 263. Some of us incline much to think that Arch-Bishops i. e. Bishops that have over-sight of many Churches with their Pastors are lawful Successors of the Apostles in the ordinary part of their Work So also First Plea p. 35. and of his accepting two parts of Episcopacy not varying the Species in the Preface to the second Plea In Church-History p. 37. and in Plea for Peace p. 66. the Bishops in Cyprian's time had the best ordered Churches in the World
and the Bishops were the most Godly Faithful Peaceable company of Bishops since the Apostle's times In Preface to the Second Plea we offered Arch-Bishop Usher's Model and when his Majesty would not grant us that he prescribed the Episcopacy of England as it stood with little Alteration this we joyfully and thankfully accepted as a hopeful means of a common Conformity and Concord See more p. 3. of his Apology and p. 161. I shewed that there are in Directory p. 832. such general Officers in the Church as an Army that is headed by the general himself and a Regiment by the Colonel and a Troophy a Captain there was no parity then in the Church-Officers In the Preface to the Five Disputations p. 9. Two sorts of Episcopacy are allowed first such as St. Hierome says were brought into the Church for a Remedy against Schism the Bishop of this Constitution was to preside over Presbyters and without him nothing was to be done in the Church that was of Moment S. 58. of Church Hist The Second is that which succeeds the Apostles in the ordinary parts of Church-Government while some Senior Pastors have the care of Supervising many Churches as the Visitors had in Scotland and are so far Episcopi-Episcoporum having no constraining Power of the Sword But a Power to admonish and instruct the Pastors and to Regulate Ordinations Synods and all great and common Circumstances that belong to Churches For if there were one Form of Government in which some Pastors had such extensive Work and Power as Timothy Titus and the Evangelists had as well as Apostles we must not change it without Proof that Christ himself would have it changed Many wise Men think that the Presbyterians rejecting all Episcopacy setting up unordained Elders and National Churches headed by National Assemblies are divisive and unwarrantable as their making by the Scots Covenant the renouncing of Episcopacy to be the test of National Concord was divisive Page 72. of the Third Defence Part the last Cranmer Ridley Latimer Hoper Jewel Davenant Usher Moreton Abbot Hall Potter Charleton were all Pious as well as Learned Bishops and so were many Conformist Ministers Sibs Preston Fenner Bolton Whately Dent Crook Pike Stock Stoughton Taylor c. My Judgment is that a Peace with the Divines of the Episcopal Judgment is much to be desired and earnestly endeavoured If it be Objected that he calls the Bishops their Silencers and Persecutors p. 104. of his Apology he says no Bishops have Silenced us by Spiritual Government that we know of but only as Barons by the Secular Laws to which some of them gave their Votes for Mr. Baxter acknowledgeth all did not As for Bishops viz. a Diocesan ruling all the Presbyters but leaving the Presbyters to rule the People and consequently taking to himself the sole or chief power of Ordination but leaving censures and absolution to them except in case of Appeal to himself I must needs say that this sort of Episcopacy is very ancient and hath been for many Ages of very common reception through a great part of the Church And if I lived in a place where this government were established and managed for God I would submit thereto and live peaceably under it and do nothing to the disturbance disgrace or discouragement of it You may see how far Mr. Vines and Mr. Baxter did agree in the notion of a Bishop over many Presbyters Of which Grotius in his Commentary on the Acts and particularly chap. 17. saith that as in every particular Synagogue many of which were in some one City in Jerusalem 480. there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such was the Primitive Bishop And doubtless the first Bishops were over the community of Presbyters as Presbyters in joynt relation to one Church or Region which Region being upon the increase of Believers divided into more Churches and in after-times those Churches assigned to particular Men yet he the Bishop continued Bishop over them still For that you say he had a negative Voice that is more then ever I saw proved or I think ever shall for the first 200 Years and yet I have laboured to enquire into it That makes him Angelus Princeps not Angelus Praeses as Dr. Reinolds saith Calvin denies that and makes him Consul in Senatu or as a Speaker in the House of Parliament which as I have heard that D. B. did say was but to make him foreman of the Jury As touching the Introduction of ruling Elders such as are modelled out by Parliament my judgment is sufficiently known I am of your Judgment in the point There should be such Elders as have power to Preach as well as Rule On this Mr. Baxter reflects p. 353. Though Mr. Vines here yield not the negative Voice to have been de facto in the first or second age nor to be de jure yet he without any question yielded to the stating of a President durante vitâ if he prove not unworthy which was one point that I propounded to him and I make no doubt but he would have yielded to a voluntary consent of Presbyters de facto not to ordain without the President And the difficulties that are before us de facto in setting up a Parochial Episcopacy which he mentioneth I have cleared already in these Papers shewing partly that the thing is already existent and partly how more fully to accomplish it The Instances which he gives are in the Episcopacy of the Protestant Churches in Poland from Adrian Regenvolscius Hist Eccles Sclavon l. 3. p. 424. N. B. Whereas from the first Reformation of the Churches in the Province of the lesser Polonia it hath been received by Use and Custom that out of the Elders of all those Districtus Divisions which are 36 in Number one Primate or Chief in Order who is commonly called Superintendent of the Churches of lesser Poland and doth preside over the Provincial Synods be chosen by the Authority Consent and Suffrage of the Provincial Synod and that he be inaugurated and declared not by imposition of Hands to avoid the suspicion of Primacy and the appearance of Authority and Power over the other Elders only by Benediction and fraternal Prayers and by reading over the Offices which concern this Function and the Prayers of the whole Synod for the sake of Government and good Order in the Church of God c. The other instance is of the Churches of the Bohemian Confession who have among the Pastors of the Churches their Conseniors and Seniors and one President over all related by the same Regenvolscius p. 315. The Elders or the Superintendents of the Bohemian and Moravian Churches c. are for the most part chosen out of their Fellow-Elders and are Ordained and Consecrated to the Office of Seigniory by Imposition of Hands and Publick inauguration c. Mr. Baxter dislikes our Species of Diocesan Bishops because of their Chancellors which is very groundless for the power of Legislation the
Foundation and Form of Government which being wholly in the Bishops and Clergy who in Convocation have the sole Power of making Canons for the Government of the Church and there being no Censure to be inflicted but according to those Canons the Lay-Chancellor are but inferior Officers intrusted by their Bishops with some part of the Executive Power the Bishops themselves as well as their Chancellors having the Canons to direct and over-rule them in the Execution and if there be any extra-judicial Process there lye Appeals from them both Moreover the Chancellors being bred up to the Study and Practice of the Canon and Civil Laws are most fit for Executing the Canons being acquainted with the Nature of Evidences Probations and judicial Process which meer Presbyters cannot be presused to understand so well and this Office of Chancellors being allowed by the Laws of the Land they may be submitted to as they are the King's Officers by Mr. Baxter's own Concessions This may satisfie the impartial Reader against those bitter Invectives of Mr. Baxter against the Species of Diocesan Bishops as being Anti-Christian and the Military Instruments of the Devil Those that treated with the Bishops 1660. did yield to such an Episcopacy as the old Nonconformists would scarce generally have consented to i. e. to Bishop Usher's Model Episcopacy is not such an upstart thing nor defended by such contemptible Reasons as that the Controversie is like to die with this Age undoubtedly there will be a Godly and Learned Party for it while the World endureth And it is a numerous Party All the Greek Church the Armenian Syrian Abassine and all others but a few of the Reformed For Denmark Sweden part of Germany and Transilvania have a Superintendency as high as that I plead for p. 11. If you know no Godly Persons of the Episcopal way I do and as my acquaintance increaseth I know more and more and some I take to be much better than my self I will say a greater word that I know those of them whom I think as Godly Humble Ministers as most of the Non-conformists whom I know p. 12. And I believe there are many hundred Godly Ministers in the Church of England and that their Churches are true Churches And I am confident most of the Ministers in England would be content to yield to such an Episcopacy as you may find in the Published Judgments of Bishop Hall Usher Dr. Forbes Hodsworth and others Preface to the Five Disputations p. 9. Christ Direct the Second Edition p. 189. Part 3. Q. How doth the Holy Ghost set Bishops over the Church Answ By making the Office it self so far as the Apostles had any hand in it Christ himself having made their Office The Holy Ghost in the Electors and Ordainers directeth them to discern the fitness of the Persons and so to call such as God approveth of and calleth by the Holy Ghost in them which is done by the ordinary help of God's Spirit in the wise and faithful Electors and Ordainers the Holy Ghost doth qualifie them for the Work by due Life Light and Love Knowledge Willingness and Activity and so inclining them to it and marking out the Person by his Gifts which was done at first by extraordinary Gifts and ever since by ordinary special and saving in some common and only fitted to the Churches Instruction in others so that whoever is not competently qualified is not called by the Holy Ghost when Christ ascended he gave gifts to Men some Apostles c. Eph. 4. 78 c. Of Sacriledge Q. 171. What is Sacriledge Ans It is a robbing God by the unjust alienation of Holy things As deposing Kings silencing true Ministers the unjust alienating of Temples Utensils Lands Days separated by God himself and justly consecrated by Man Mr. Vines his Letter to Mr. Baxter p. 35. of the 5 Disput concerning Sacriledge As for your Question about Sacriledge I am very near you in the present Opinion The point was never stated nor debated in the Isle of Wight I did for my part decline the dispute for I could not maintain the cause as on the Parliament side And because both I and others were unwilling it was never brought to open debate The Commissioners did argue it with the King but they went upon grounds of Law and Polity and it was only about Bishops Lands for they then averred the continuance of Dean and Chapter Lands to the use of the Church Some deny that there is any sin of Sacriledge under the Gospel and if there be any they agree not in the definition Some hold an Alienation of Church-goods in case of Necessity and then make the necessity what and as extensive as they please The most are of Opinion that while the Church lies so unprovided for the donations are not alienable sine Sacrilegio If there were a Surplusage above the competent maintenance it were another matter It is clear enough the Donors wills are frustrated and that their general intention and the general use Viz. the maintenance of God's Worship and Ministers should stand though the particular use might be superstitious I cited in my last Sermon before the Parliament a place out of Mr. Hildersham on Psal 51. touching Sacriledge it did not please If his description of it be true then you will still be of your own mind I dare encourage no Purchasers c. Mr. Baxter's Advice to separating Brethren Mr. B' s Epistle to separate Congregations Consider this It is the judgment of some that Thousands are gone to Hell and Ten thousands on their march thither that in all probability had not come there if they had not been tempted from the Parish Churches for injoyment of Communion in a purer Church Pag. 21. Of Defence The Interest of the Protestant Religion must be much kept up by means of the Parish Ministers and by Doctrine and Worship there performed and they that think and endeavour contrary shall have the hearty thanks and concurrence of the Papists And I am perswaded that all the Arguments of Bellarmin and other Books that have been written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the Multitude of Sects among our selves Defence p. 21. In The Second Admonition to Bagshaw p. 78. It is Lawful to hold Communion with our Churches having but tolerable Ministers notwithstanding the Parochial Order and the Ministers Conformity and the use of the Common-Prayer-Book and that we ought to do so when some special reason as from Authority Scandal c. do require it A Ministers personal faults do not allow a People to separate from the Worship of God nor all Ministerial faults but only those that prove him or his Ministration utterly intolerable Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet p. 50. The word Schism signifieth any sinful Division among Christians there may be a Schism in a Church when no party divideth from it as when one says I am of Paul c. 1 Cor. 3. 3. A Man may cause
thought this be his own Sin it will not excuse the People from Obedience unless the Errour of his Directions be so great as would frustrate the Ordinance it self or do more harm than our Disobedience would do which in Circumstantials is rarely found By long Experience I am assured that Practical Religion will afford both to Church State and Conscience more certain and more solid Peace than contending Disputers with all their pretences of Orthodoxness and Zeal against Errours for the Truth will ever bring or did ever attain to Holy Common-wealth p. 352. God never instituted Churches to be kept up in Disobedience to those Christian Magistrates which he Commands us to obey upon pain of Damnation Disobedience to our Rulers is in Ministers double Treason and Wickedness Page 30. of the 1st Plea Princes and Rulers may forbid all that preach Rebellion and Sedition and may punish them if they do it and may hinder the Incorrigible whose preaching may do more hurt than good from exercising their Ministry or preaching within their Dominions Pag. 32. They should see that their Kingdoms be well provided of Publick Preachers and Catechists And may by due means compel the Ignorant to hear and learn what Christianity is And Sect. 37. They ought to be Preservers of Peace and Charity among Churches and to hinder Preachers from uncharitable and unrighteous Reviling each other and their unpeaceable Controversies and Contentions Pag. 35. Sect. 40. They may make their own Officers circa Sacra to execute their Magistratical Power And if they authorize any particular Bishops or Pastors to exercise any such Power as belongs to the Prince to give not contrary to Christ's Laws we judge that the Subjects ought to obey for Conscience sake Christian Direct He that is silenced by a just Power though unjustly in a Country that needeth not his preaching must forbear therefore Let none perswade you i. e. the Magistrates that you are such Terrestrial Animals that have nothing to do with the Heavenly Concernment of your Subjects Bodily things Rewards and Punishments are the Means whereby you may promote it you are Custodes utriusque tabulae and must bend the force of all your Government to the Saving of the Peoples Souls The Mischief of Separation The Mischief of Separation lies not in the bare Errour of Judgment but in the Unchristian and Church-dissolving Division and Alienation which thence followeth contrary to that Humility and Love which is the visible Character of Christians and to that Oneness which is still in Scripture ascribed to the visible Church Alas that Pride and Ignorance should have such power among Believers that Men cannot be of several Judgments in lesser Points but they must needs be of several Churches God will make us value Peace and Union a little more before we shall taste of the perfect everlasting Peace and Union yea before we shall see the Blessing of Union in the Church Wounding is a dividing healing is a re-uniting a Building is of many Stones or Pieces orderly conjoyned a Church is an Aggregation of Individuals an Association of Believers What then is it to demolish but to separate and disjoyn and what is it to dissolve Churches but to break their Association to reduce them to the Individuals to cut them into shreds As for the Differences in way of Government between the moderate Presbyterians Independants Episcopal and Erastian I make no doubt but if Mens Spirits stood not at a greater distance than their Principles they would quickly be united But of all the four sorts there are some that run so high in their Principles that they run out of the hearing of Peace or Truth For Anabaptism and Antinomianism God spake effectually against them by those wondrous Monsters in New-England but Wonders are over-lookt where the heart is hardned and God intends to get his Justice a Name The fearful Delusions that God hath formerly given them over to and the horrid Confusion which they have introduced where they have sprung hath spoken fully against both these later Sects The weeping Eyes the bleeding Sides the lacerated Members of these Churches the reproach of the Gospel the disappointed Reformation the hideous Doctrines and unheard of Wickedness that hath followed them the contemned Ordinances the reproached slandered and ejected Ministers the Weak that are scandalized the Professors are apostalized the Wicked hardned and the open Enemies of the Gospel that now insult all these do describe them more plainly to England than words can do and cry loud in the Ears of God and Man What will be the Answer time will shew but from Rev. 2. 14 15 16 c. we may probably conjecture He that is not a Son of Peace is not a Son of God All other Sins destroy the Church consequently but Division and Separation demolish it directly Building the Church is but an orderly joyning of the Materials and what then is disjoyning but pulling down Many Doctrinal differences must be tolerated in a Church and why but for Unity and Peace therefore Disunion and Separation is utterly intolerable Believe not those to be the Churches Friends that would cure and reform her by cutting her throat Those that say no truth must be concealed for Peace have usually as little of the one as the other Study Gal. 2. 22. Rom. 14. 1. Acts 21. 24 26. 1 Tim. 1. 4. 6. 4. Titus 3. 8 9. I hope sad experience speaks this lesson to your very hearts if I should say nothing Do not your hearts bleed to look upon the State of England and to think how few Towns or Cities there be where is any forwardness in Religion that are not cut into shreds and crumbled as to dust by Separations and Divisions To think what a wound we have hereby given to the very Christian Name how we have hardned the Ignorant confirmed the Papists and are our selves become the scorn of our Enemies and the grief of our Friends and how many of our dearest best esteemed Friends have fallen to notorious Pride or Impiety yea some to be worse than open Infidels These are Pillars of Salt see that you remember them Though of your own selves Men should arise speaking perverse things to draw Disciples after them Acts 20. 30. Yea though an Angel from Heaven should draw you to Divisions see that you follow him not If there be erroneous practices in the Church keep your selves innocent with Moderation and Peace It must be no small Error that must force a Separation Justin Martyr professed that if a Jew should keep the Ceremonial Law so he did not perswade the Gentiles to it as necessary yet if he acknowledged Christ he judgeth that he might be saved and he would imbrace him and have communion with him Paul would have him received that is weak in the Faith and not Un-church whole Parishes of those that we know not nor were ever brought to a just trial I ever loved a godly peaceable Conformist better than a