by not multiplying Bishops as Churches or Converts needed it began the grand sin and calamity which hath undone us and therefore are not to be our Pattern Orbis major est urbe 6. Were Bishops necessarily to be distributed by Cities the Empires that have few or no Cities must have few or no Bishops and an Emperor might aliud agâ—ndo depose all the Bishops by dis franchizing the Cities 7. But every Corporation oppidum like our Market-Towns was then truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if you will but procure every such City with us to have a Bishop and the Office of such Bishops to be to drive men from sin and not to it and to silence Blasphemers and not faithful Preachers of the Gospel all our controversies of Prelacy are then at an end 8. And you must remember that great Cities had long but few Christians in comparison of the Heathens till Constantine's time and mostly long after And when Patrick with his own hand Ordained Three Hundred and Fifty Bishops in your Ireland they were but Ecclesiarum fundatores and with them he founded but septingentas Ecclesias and Ordained Five Thousand Clerks if Ioceline be true Vit. Patriâ— cap. 185. and not rather the far more credible report of Antonin in Chrâ—n tit 11. cap. 18. § 2. and Vincent specul histor lib. 20. cap. 23. who say that Ecclesias funâ—avit 365. â—rdinavit Episcopos eodem numero 365. et eo amplius in quibus spiritus Dei crat Presbyteros autem usque ad 3â—00 ordinavit Aâ— Vsher â—â—ceth them de primord Eccl. Br. p 9â—7 which is Ninius number there So that here is no more Churchâ—s thâ—n â—ishops and about Nine Presbyters to a Bishop You tell me of above One thousand Clergy-men at Rome in Corâ—elius's 〈◊〉 Ans. 1. This was above Two hundred and Fifty years after Christs Birth 2. I never took all the impotent persons poor and Widows in the Church to be Clergy-men and Clergy-women Cornelius his account is that there are Six and Forty Presbyters Seven Deacons Seven Sub-Deacons Two and Forty Acolytes Two and Fifty Exorcists and Readers with Porters Widows and impotent persons above One thousand and Fifty souls considering 1. How their Meetings were then obscure and small in Houses as the tolerated Churches in London And in so vast a City in how many distant places Besides the sub-urbicarian Assemblies 4 And how many Presbyters used still to be with the Bishop in the same Assembly 5. And that here are in all but Seven Deacons 6. And that many then were Presbyters that used not to Preach but for privater over-sight and as the Bishops Assessors 7. And that the poorer sort most commonly received the Gospel 8. And that none of these but the Six and Forty Presbyters had any power in the Discipline 9. And that by all this reckoning the whole Church maintained not besides the Officers near a thousand poor we may probably conjecture that the whole Church of that Bishop was not bigger than some one London-Parish Stepney Giles Cripplegate Martins c. where are about Fifty thousand souls 10. And when none were Christians but persecuted Volunteers they were the holiest and best of men and I have tryed that Six hundred such make less work for Discipline than Ten of the Rabble that are driven into our Churches and choose them rather than the Goal But when all 's done Two Cities under the power of great temptation are not to be our Rule against Gods Word and the state of all other Churches in the world and undeniable experience It 's true that you say that to erect another Altar was counted Schism that is Altare contra altare because when the Phrase came up no Church had more than one Altar Your Instances intimated of Antioch and Carthage I believe not and can give you had I liberty a Volume of proof from Antiquity that for Two hundred and Fifty years if not much longer Ignatius's Rule was true that every Church had one Altar and one Bishop at least except the two aforesaid Vlphilas was but an Arrian Bishop of a few Goths newly turned Arrians and the first that translated the Scriptures into the Gothick Tongue so that no Churches among them had the Scripture till after his translating and these few were presently persecuted to rhe death by Athanarichus ut socrat lib. 4 cap. 32. You may call these few a Kingdom if you please How few of the Indians were converted when Frumentius not Aedesius as you say was made their Bishop it 's easie to gather by the History Scythia and Persia used to have each a Bishop and he lived in the Roman Empire as near them as he durst as not being tolerated usually in their Land And as few it 's like Mosâ—s had among the Arabians there being no mention in the History of any thing to perswade us that he had many Churches under him that I remember And the work of these Bâ—shops was to ordain Presbyters who had the power of the Keys exceptae Ordinatione did all that Bishops did as Hierome saith So that then a Diocess had not one sole Church-Governour and therefore where you gather that yet Discipline was not dissolved I answer 1. In all this you leave out a matter of chief consideration viz. That all the Presbyters then were assistants in Discipline and had a true Church-Government over the people which now they have not 2. It 's strange that we that have eyes and ears must be sent to the Indians and ancient History to know whether one Bishop can hear and try and admonish so many thousands at once as we see by experience are those Objects of Discipline which the Scripture describeth and when we see that it is not done And after all this we have talk't but of a â—hantasm for it is not one Bishop but one Lay man a Chancellor that useth this Decretory power of the Keys over all these fouls so far as they are used as to the ordinary Court-tryals and exerciâ—e and the Bishop rarely medleth with it Again Nonconformists doubt not to prove that the Diocesan frame whiâ—h they dare not swear to 1. Doth depose the species of Churches of Gods Institution 2 And the Discipline it self almost totally 3. And the species of Presbyters 4. And the old species of Bishops And instead of each of these setteth up a new species of man's invention wholly different and inconsistent And that they are not willing to Swear Subscribe or deliberately and solemnly enter into a Church-Covenant That in their Places and Callings they will never endeavour any alteration of this no not by a request or word you may less wonder than if some were then loath to Swear or Covenant never to endeavour to take down the Priests of Dan and Bethel or reform the high places It 's dangerous making a solemn Ministerial Covenant Never to obey God in any one great matter and never to repent of so doing Again our Reasons
AN ANSWER TO Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlocke Confuting an Universal Humane Church-Supremacy Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church-Tyranny and Popery And defending Dr. Isaac Barrow's Treatise against it By Richard Baxter Preparatory to a fuller Treatise against such an Universal Soveraignty as contrary to Reason Christianity the Protestant Profession and the Church of England though the Corrupters usurp that Title LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1682. READER THough the difference between Mr. Dodwell and Mr. Thorndike and such others and those condemned by them be very great I would not have it seem greater than it is The sum of it is as followeth 1. Mr. Dodwell thinketh that there is no true Ministry Church-Sacraments nor Covenant-right to pardon and salvation but where there is a Ministry delivering the Sacraments who were ordained by Bishops in his sense of Bishops who had their Ordination from other Bishops and they from others by an uninterrupted chain of succession from the Apostles We know that by this Doctrine he condemneth or unchurcheth not only the Reformed Churches the Greeks and other Easterns but the Church of Rome it self and leaveth no certainty of the very being of any one Church on earth And we maintain that the sacred Scripture is the universal Law of Christ in which he hath described and instituted the office and work of the sacred Ministry and appointed the way of their continuance in the world by necessary Qualification Election Consent and ordinarily regular Ordination That as Presbyters now lay on hands with the Bishop so senior Pastors are the Ordainers as the Colledg of Physicians license Physicians and the Convocation of Doctors make Doctors and man generateth man But to avoid contention and division the Churches have used to make one of these Presbyters or Pastors a President and partly a Ruler in each Colledg and Church and given him a Negative voice in Ordinations against which we strive not but maintain 1. That his consent is not so necessary as that no one can be a true Presbyter that hath it not As the Clergy at Rome in Cyprian's days long governed when they had no Bishop so if the Bishop be dead or refuse to ordain or would ordain none but Hereâ—icks or uncapable men or would tyrannize and impose men not consented to the Ordination is valid that is made without him And 2. That the true chief Pastor of every particular formed Church is a true Bishop though Diocesans should deny it 3. And that even Ordination it self is necessary but for Order where it may be had and not to the Being of the Ministry where it cannot be had on lawful terms no more than Coronation to the King or publick solemnization to Marriage 4. And we are assured that if Regular Ordination were interrupted by death heresie refusal neglect e. g. at Antioch Alexandria Constantinople Jerusalem c. Christs Charter or Scripture-Law would presently restore it to persons duly qualified chosen and ordained by the fittest there that can be had 5. If this were not so as multitudes of schismatical and unlawful Popes Ordinations at Rome would be invalid e. g. John 13. and 21. and 23. and Eugenius 4th deposed as a Heretick by a General Council c. so every usurping Bishop that pretendeth falsly that he was himself lawfully ordained would nullifie Churches Ministry and Sacraments of all ordained by him And many have falsly pretended to Orders 6. And that if men must refuse the Government and Sacraments of all Bishops and Presbyters that do not prove to them a Regular Ordination uninterrupted for 1600. years all the Ministry on earth may be refused and none for so doing should be called Schismaticks I never yet heard or saw a Bishop prove such a succession nor ever knew one that would take his Oath on it that he was a true Bishop on such terms II. Mr. Dodwell thinks that the Presbyters yea and Bishops were not given by God Pag. 60. saith he But where do they find that God ever gave Bishops Presbyters and Deacons Where note that it is of the Office in specie that we speake But we think that God hath made or instituted the Office and its work And if he did not 1. Who did If men was it Clerg-ymen or Lay-men If Lay-men was it Christians or Infidels And by what Authority Do the children beget the fathers and yet may not Presbyters propagate their species If Clergy-men who were they If not Apostles or Prophets or Evangelists they were none If these then it seems the Apostles did it not as Bishops for it is the making of the first Bishops that we question And what the Apostles did not as Bishops but as commissioned Apostles Christ did by his Spirit And they that will do the like must have the like Office Authority and Spirit If God gave not Bishops because the Apostles made them then God gave us not the Scripture because the Apostles and Evangelists wrote it And is not this the same or worse Doctrine than that which the Italian Iesuits would have had pass at Trent against Gods making Bishops or their Office And if God gave not Bishops or Presbyters they that reject them reject no gift or institution of God And if men made them how come they to be essential to the Church Did not Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles institute so much as the Church-essentials And if men made Bishops and Presbyters in specie may not man unmake them III. Mr. Dodwell maintaineth that the power of Presbyters is to be measured by the intention of the Ordainers who give it them and not by any Scripture-institution charter or description We maintain the contrary that God having instituted and described the Office of Bishops Pastors Presbyters Gods Law in Scripture is the Rule by which the office-office-power and obligation and work in the essentials must be known Otherwise 1. It would be supposed that God made not the office of Bishops or Presbyters which is false 2. That Ordainers may make new Churches Bishops or Presbyters in specie yea as many species of them as they shall intend 3. That they may abrogate or change the ancient species They may make one office only for preaching another only for praying another only for Baptism another only for the Lords Supper and others for new work of their own The Papists themselves abhor this Doctrine 4. Then no man can know the measure of his Authority not knowing the intentions of the Ordainers Perhaps three or ten ordainihg Bishops may have three or ten several intents 5. Then the Bishop may put down Gods Worship or Sacraments by limiting the Priests power 6. It 's contrary to all Ministerial Investitures The Investing Minister is not the Owner or the Donor but delivereth possession of what the Owner and Donor contracted for or gave If the Archbishop Crowning the King would infringe his Prerogative it 's a
Nullity because he is not the Giver of it nor is his intention but the Kingdoms constitution the measure of it If the Priest would make the man whom he marrieth to a woman no governour of her it 's a Nullity for it is not his intent that makes the power 7. If this were otherwise I call and call again but in vain to Mr. Dodwell and all his party to tell me how the Bishops and Priests of the Church of England in the days of Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th and Queen Elizabeth came to have power to put down the Mass to set up the Liturgie to take down Images and to reform as they did when it was certainly contrary to the intention of their Ordainers 8. And setting this point together with the other that Ordination of Presbyters is null I ask them and ask again but all in vain 1. Do not Bishops generate their Species and make Bishops their equals 2. Who then can give his Office to the Archhishop if he have no Superior in England unless his Inferiors give it or you fly to a Forreign Iurisdiction 3. Whose Intention is it that giveth power to the Pope if he be greatest Or to the General Council if it be greatest If there be none above them either God or Inferiours give them their power 4. And what if these Inferiours that make Popes Primates or Councils by Intention would take down half their power Is it then done What self-contradiction and confusion would some men rather run into than grant Christ to be Christ that is the only Vniversal Head and Legislator to the Church on Earth IV. Accordingly Mr. D. holdeth that there is a supreme Authority in man over the Universal Church from whose intention and sense it is not lawful for us to appeal so much as to the Sacred Scripture no nor to the Day of Iudgment for any practice different from them See his Reply p. 80 81 82 83 84 85. Though we hold that no unjust Appeal should suspend the authorised Acts of a Governour this Doctrine seems to me to be worse than Antichristian and to put down God If God indeed be the Vniversal Soveraign Lawgiver and the final Iudge if God be God and man be man and not above him to say that we must not obey him before man and disobey man that commands what he forbids or that we must not appeal from mans subordinate Law to his supreme Law nor from mans judgment to his final judgment and to say as he and Thorndike do that to do so and practise accordingly is inconsistent with all Government are things that I had hoped my ears or eyes should never have seen or heard delivered by a sober Christian. Papists most commoâ—ly abhor it save some few Flatterers of the Pope If â—his be so a man must not only worship Images swear to the Pope and do all that Councils command but also curse Christ if the Turkish Rulers bid him blaspheme God if Heathen Rulers bid him and condemn all the Martyrs as Rebels that did subvert all Government by practising contrary to it and appealing to God And then man must be every where of the Rulers Religion and do whatever wickedness he commandeth Dan. 1. and 3.6 and the Church for three hundred years and more tell us of other kind of Examples V. Mr. D. holdeth this Absolute Destructive Power to be essentially necessary to the Vnity of the Catholick Church which is the sum of Thorndike's Book I would not go further from them or the French in the point of Vnity than I needs must I shall therefore tell you what is our judgment of it 1. We grant them that Christ's Church on earth is one and its Vnity is part of its very essence as the Vnity of the parts of a House Ship c. 2. We hold that this essential Vnity consisteth in the Vnion of all Christians with Christ the only unifying Vniversal Head and that the Vnity described Ephes. 4.4 5 6. sufficeth to it viz. One Body of Christ one Spirit one Hope of Grace and Glory one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father c. And that all this is prescribed in the Gospel and every true Christian hath all this 3. That all must endeavour to keep this Vnity in the bond of peace and to be in every lesser matter of one mind as far as they can And the Pastors of the Churches to beautifie and strengthen the Church by as much concord as they can well obtain 4. But that perfect concord being the fruit of personal perfection will never be had on earth And the differences of the infirm that cannot be cured must be tolerated in tender Brotherly Love And to persecute or destroy Christians who unite in Christ and the Essentials of Christianity because they are not of one size of knowledg and differ in lesser things is the work of Satan the Enemy of Love and the great Destroyer 5. We believe that Synods or Councils are so far good and useful as they are needful to the foresaid strength and concord of the Churches But that they are for Agreement and not for direct Regiment as Archbishop Usher was wont to say Councils are not for Government of the several Bishops by the Majority but for Consultation and Concord And they that cannot in all things consent to them in Accidentals or lesser matters are not therefore cut off from Christ's Vniversal Church But it is a fault peevishly and causelesly to dissent and be singular a breach of Christ's general Law of doing our work as much as we can in Love and Concord Plainly Reader do you know the difference between the Senate of Rome or Venice and the Assembly at Nimmegen Ratisbone or Frankford The said Senate is una persona Politica though plures naturales and hath the Supreme Government by Vote in Legislation and Iudgment and it is Rebellion there to disown their Power and a Crime not to obey it At Nimmegen Ratisbone c. many Princes or their Agents meet for Peace and Christian Concord It is a sin for any of them to be causelesly against any Vote that is useful to those ends But no one of them nor the major Vote is Governour of the rest nor is any one to be dispossest of his Dominion that seeth reason to dissent This is plain truth Though Dr. Sherlock find fault with the Learned and Iudicious Dr. Barrow for asserting it in his Treatise against the Papacy And it being not Regiment but Concord that is the end of Synods as over Bishops there is no more use than possibility of an Vniversal Council or one Vniversal Colledge But the necessity and aptitude of Councils for strengthning concord must measure their extent What Mr. D's opinion is of the degree of corporal punishment which he would have used to his ends I know not Mr. Thorndike is against Death and Banishment For my part the two greatest things that have alienated me
ready to be Confirmed by learning the Catechism and recognizing the Covenant c. 25. Doth he not make the chief Bishops and Reformers of the Church of England to be the promoters of the Doctrine which he accounteth so damnable when Dr. Stillingfleet in his Irenicon recites the words of Cranmer and others of them at a Consultation down-right against not only the necessity of his uninterrupted succâ—ssion but also even of Episcopal Ordination it self And I have elsewhere cited about Fourteen of them for the validity of Ordination without Bishops And Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop Edw. Reignnolds and many more held that no Form of Government was of Divine determination Did all these plead for damning Schism against all title to salvation 26. And what could more directly contradict the main tenor of the Gospel which tells us of the saving power of the Word Preached how it converteth souls and promiseth salvation to all that truly believe and repent Insomuch that Paul thanks God that he baptizâ—d few of the Corinthians because God sent him not to baptize but to Preach the Gospel 27. But his Doctrine feigneth that God will damn them that truly believe repent love God forsake sin for want of the Sacrament or else that the Word converteth none but only Sacraments convert men 28. And then it will follow that none but unbelievers impenitent wicked men should be first admitted to the Sacrament for if that only converteth then it is only the unconverted that must first be received to it 29 When all 's done he doth but contradict his end for it 's hard to find a National Episcopacy on earth which imposeth no unlawful thing on Ministers or people And with all such he speaketh not for our Communion 30. Either Ordination and Collation of church-Church-power must be given by Superiors or by Equals if by Equals why may not Presbyters make Presbyters If by Superiors then who shall give the Pope his Power Or if you think any other be the highest who makes them such Who giveth the Archbishop of Canterbury his Power 31. In short as far as I can understand these men deny all Covenant-right to salvation to all men living and all true Sacraments and Church-Communion or at least all knowledg of any such thing seeing as it is certain that in most Churches such Ordination as they describe hath not had an uninterrupted succession so no man is sure that any one Church or man hath had such And they that silence us for not subscribing declaring and swearing obedience to our Diocesans and other Ordinaries are bold men if they dare swear themselves that they are true Bishops and have any Authority to rule and command us by an uninterrupted succession of a Canonical Episcopal Ordination down from the Apostles But I have already in my Book of Concord Part 3. Chap. 9. opened so many palpable and pernicious absurdities and ill consequents of Mr. Dodwell's Doctrine which he dare not undertake to answer but sâ—ly passeth by that I must expect the Reader will there peruse them who will judg uprightly between him and me and therefore will hear what both have said And those that will judg falsly upon partial trust to save themselves the labour of tryal are out of the reach of ordinary means to be saved from deceivers CHAP. IV. My words of Gods Collation of Ministerial Authority Vindicated from the forgeries and fallacies of Mr. Dodwell § 1. CHRIST hath taught me to judg of Prophets or Teachers by their fruits more than by their cloathing Mat. 7. And the fruits which are of God are those which express the Divine Nature and Image viz. holy Light and Truth holy Love and holy Life and Practice and the promoting of these in the world And Christ hath taught me that the Devil is 1. Against holy Light and Truth the Prince of Darkness and a Lyar and the Father of Lyes 2. Against holy Love accusing slandring and rendring as odious the servants and ways of Christ. 3. Against holy righteous and sober living and an opposer of it and a persecutor and murderer of the Saints And those that are likest Satan in these three parts of his Image and whose works are more certainly the works of these three Diabolical Principles I am taught by Christ to judg of by their fruits So much as there is in Mr. Dodwell's labours of holy Truth holy Love and helps to holy living so much sure is of God But so much as there is in his or any of his Parties cause of deceit and falshood and defence of ignorance so much as there is of Malignity Calumny or making odious the servants of Christ so much as there is of cruelty and destruction and silencing faithful Ministers and promoting ungodliness by upholding its defences I am obliged to resist as being from him against whom in my baptismal Covenant I was engaged § 2. He giveth his Reader the sum of my doctrine in this point p. 29 c. a chain of forgeries or putid falshoods Either he knew that he wrote falsly or he did not if yea then it seems he thinks that God or his Church needed his lyes if not how unfit is he to write against what he understandeth not But what made him devise a frame of his own words of above six pages to express my words by if he meant not to deceive those that would believe his writing without reading mine § 3. And whether it be from the Lord of love or the enemy of love that he goeth so far to the unchurching and damning of so many of the Reformed Churches besides the Churches of the Southern and Eastern parts of the world if not of all Churches on earth let the sons of Love consider § 4. And whether his endeavours to persuade all the Nonconformists to give over preaching Christs Gospel and all publick Worship of God till they can conscionably conform and his reasonings for that frame that hath long excluded true discipline and sheltered ignorance and ungodliness be of God and all his copious discourses to that end are to save souls or to starve and murder them I leave to mens impartial trial § 5. I so often and fully repeated my judgment of the Calling of the Ministry as leaveth his Forgeries inexcusable The sum is this 1. There is no power but of God 2. Gods universal Laws are the prime Laws and the only universal Laws of the Church or world 3. In his Laws God hath established or instituted the work and the species of that Ecclesiastical Ministry which he will have to teach and guide his Church to the end of the world And therein signified his owning of them as sent by him and promised them his help and blessing 4. In that Law he hath told us what men they are that he will thus own and bless and described the Essentials and the Integrals of their Receptive disposition or qualifications 5. He hath in that Law told us who shall be the tryers and
denieth § 7. I. If he deny that God hath Instituted the Office of the sacred Ministry and Pastorship in his Law 1. The Scripture will shame him to all that believe and understand it 2. And if it be not divinely established men may alter it and what is all this stir about to keep up their Domination § 8. II. If he think that God hath only Instituted Teachers or Rectors in genere but not in Specie then I give him the same answer as before Scripture will shame him and men may make new Species of Church-Pastors and unmake or alter them and how many or how oft who knows And who be the men that have this Office-changing-power that we may know whether and how far and how long we are bound to obey them § 9. III. If he think that Gods Law hath not described the Essential Qualifications of the Recipient then Prelates may make Pastors of Infidels Mahometans Bedlams or Blasphemers if not of Horses or Dogs § 10. IV. If he think that Gods Law hath determined of no way of Election Approbation or judging who is capable then every man may make himself a Bishop or Priest and the Turk may make Bishops for Christians or a company of Lay-enemies and persecutors may do it and then the Bishops Judgment and Ordination will have no Divine Authority § 11. V. If when the Recipient is duly qualified and chosen and capable he does not think that Gods Law or Grant is a sufficient signification of his Donative will and a fundamentum juris and an obliging instrument 1. He must deny the very nature and force of Gods Law and Grant And 2. He maketh it less effective than the Laws Charters and Donations of men are For which he cannot have the least shew of true reason § 12. VI. Can he devise any other sort of power in the Ordainers than I have named What is it If he say that they give the Office-power I ask Is the controversie about the word Give or the Act If that which I have named be called giving let him use his liberty and call it how he will 1. But as to the Thing what is it more than I have described It is God and not man that made the Office in genere specie Did our Bishops make the universal Law which stablisheth the Office in the world 2. And the Bishop never had that power and therefore cannot give that which he had not It 's Dr. Hammond's reason against Presbyters ordaining Nâ—mo dat quod non habet The word Office or Power and Duty signifieth an Accident which cannot transire a subjecto in subjectum The Ordaâ—ners have their own power but they have not another mans 3. Do they give it as Masters and Owners or only as the Donors Ministers No doubt they will say as his Ministers And do I need to prove to Mr. Dodwell that servants are not the Donors and give not their own but deliver their Masters Stewards themselves are but entrusted with the performance of their Masters will in delivering his Goods as he requireth them § 13. And this is so evident a truth that the Papists themselves who would fain have all power flow from the Pope are yet forced to plead for it as you may see in W Iohnson's alias Terret's answer to my first because else they cannot defend the Papal Power For the Pope hath been sometimes chosen by the Roman people sometime by the Roman Presbyters sometimes by people and Presbyters sometime by the Italian Bishops sometimes by Emperors and now by Cardinals and none of all these were Popes nor had Papal power and if they were the givers must give what they never had Whereupon the Papists are foâ—c't to grant that the Electors do but determine who shall be the Recipient but that the power floweth to him â—mâ—ediâ—tely from Gods Law or Institution § 14. And the Prelatists must needs say the same or else grant that Inferiors that never had Superior power may yet give it others for how else shall the supreme Ecclesiastical power in every National Church be given If it be in a Primate or a Synod those that have not the supreme power must give it for there is none above them or equal to do it And so Archbishops are chosen and Councils called § 15. And thus almost all Societies by contract are formed e. g. The King giveth Commission to several men to List voluntary Souldiers and be their Captains and command them Every Souldier chooseth his own Captain and thereby subjecteth himself to him but it is not by giving him his power for that floweth immediately from the Kings Commission but by making himself a subject to it and so maâ—ing the Captain Relatively a Recipient of power from God and the King over this particular man for the Soldiers have no governing-power to give nor are superiors to their Captain § 16. And thus Servants impropeâ—ly only make men their Masters not by giving them a Domestick Ruling-power which they never had themselves but by making themselves the Correlate Subjects and so putting their Masters into the Relation to which Gods Lâ—w immediately giveth the Ruling-power All the power is from God and God doth not first give it the Servant Souldier c. to give the Master or Captain but the Servants or Souldiers consent is a Causa sine quae non disposâ—tiva Recipientis to make the Receiver capable of it from God § 17. And indeed all Kings and Soveraigns thus hold their Soveraignty from God Though God hath not made the form in Specie necessary all power is of God and the Soveraignty from him by no mediate Efficient below his Law It 's a falshood in politicks to say that the people as such efficiently give the Soveraign his power and that he is universis minor in Authority though he is not universis melior and therefore their common good is more than his the finis regiminis Nor is it true that Richard Hooker saith that in defect of Heirs it escheateth to the people but only that it belongeth to the people to choose a new Recipient to whom the power shall flow from Gods Law and not from them I do not think that the King of France Spain or England will believe that their power is given â—fficiently by and floweth from their People Parliaments or the Prelate that Crowneth them And the case is evidently the â—am as to the Ministry § 18. And the French Papists by some called Protestants who are for the Ecclesiastical Soveraignty of General Councils above the Pope do not believe that the Pope giveth them their power though he may call them But whoever calleth them or chooseth them they suppose that God only giveth them their power § 19. And in all these cases it is notorious that an interrâ—ption of due Election and Investiture hindereth not the restoration of interrupted power If the Law say whoever is thus and thus chosen to be Lord Chancellor Lord
Parliament by Charter yet if they are unqualified when they come thither the choice is judged null If a City choose and Invest a proclaimed Rebel for Mayor I will believe it null or invalid though Mr. D. will not And if he write Forty Books with such streams of confident words to prove that the Election and Investiture of the dâ—â—lared Heretick Bishops at Alexandria Antioch Constantinople and most of the Empire in many Ages Arrians Eutichians c. were yet judged valid by the Councils of the Orthodox no man that ever read the Councils will believe him 5. Nor will I believe him that any Bishops Ordination can make a true Bishop or Priest of a Woman an Infant or a professed Heathen Infidel or proper Heretick or any uncapable person any more than he can make a Woman to be a Husband or a dumb man the University Orator § 23. He saith They cannot give an Instance of any Power setled by Charter whereupon a failure of all who are by the Charter empowred to dispose of Offices the power must devolve to those who are not by the Charter empowred to dispose of them and where such a Charter is not thought in Law to fail by becoming unpracticable till the supreme power interpose c. Ans. Still the same fraud If all empowred to dispose of Offices is an ambiguous word The Prince disposeth of them by giving the Power and the Electors by choosing the Receivers and the Minister by delivering the Insignia If Electors and all die indeed there are none to determine of the Receiver And yet if the Plague kill most of the Electors at Age and leave not a due number when the rest left come to Age and choose the Charter will renew the Office-power 2. But if it be only the Ministerial Invester that faileth the sense of the Lawgiver must be judged of by the words and by other notices and the light of common Reason e. g. Whether it be the meaning of the Charter which saith that the Recorder shall give the Oath or the former Mayor shall deliver the Insignia that if the Recorder or Mayor be dead or sick or mad or wilfully refuse the City shall have no Mayor or if no Priest will Marry folks all England must live unmarried or if the Archbishops and Bishops will Ordain none but Hereticks all the Churches must have no other Ministers And here Nature and Christ teach us that the Means is only for the End and Order for the thing ordered and God will have us understand his own Laws so as that Rituals give place to Morals I will have mercy and not sacrifice And sure if the King of Spains Charter for the making of Governours at the West Indies should not express or reasonably imply a Remedy in case of the failure of circumstances of meer Order his Countrey might be lost before they could send to Spain for a new Charter or new power And Mr. D. saith Which is the very case impugned by me of the Nonconformists And so judg whether he must not turn a Seeker and say that all Ministry Churches and Sacraments cease till a new Commission comes from Heaven upon the failure of every such circumstance yea when almost all the Churches charge each other with failures and intercisions and the very species of the Ordainers is so much altered If the King send his Army into the Indies or his Navies and mention no power but the Generals as chief or no way of choosing a new General but by the Field-Officers choice and giving him an Oath by the Secretary c. yet no man doubteth but it was his meaning that if the General die or turn Rebel yea and the major part of the Field-Officers or the Secretary the Army should choose another General rather than perish and the Kings service miscarry § 24. He addeth They cannot give an Instance of any humane Charter that ever allows any person empowered to extend his own power by a private exposition of the Charter against the sense of all the visible supreme powers of the society Ans. This opens the Core of the Aposthume 1. We deny as confidently as any French or Italians affirm that there is any such thing at a supreme visible power over the universal Church under Jesus Christ and therefore none such is disobeyed or contradicted 2. And we maintain That by Divine appointment there is no visible National supreme Church-power but that of the Civil Christian Soveraign and therefore none such disobeyed 3. And we hold that no man can extend his own power further than Christs own Law extendeth it False expositions give no power 4. And therefore we prove by your own Rule that Christ being the only supreme universal Ruler and having described and specified the Office of a Pastor and order of a Church no Bishops can by their private exposition turn a single Church into a Diocesan or a Presbyter of Christs description into an half Presbyter of their own making But if they make a man a Pastor his power and work shall be what Christ saith and not what the Ordaâ—ner will Investing-Ministers Acts are null if they contradict the Order of the Donor If the King give you a Parsonage of 300. l. a year and the Instituter say you shall have but 100. l. out of it it 's vain he instituteth you but as the Donors instrument in the same Benefice and power given by him § 25. He addeth p. 38. Where can they find such a Charter for the power of Presbyters in Scripture as they speak of Ans. Nay then we are far from agreeing if you think that the very Species of a Pastors Office is not found in Scripture as of Christs institution Thâ—n it seems the Bishops make the very Species The Italian Bishops at Trent scarce gave so much to the Pope Then why may not the Bishops put down Presbyters if they make the Species or make as many Species as they please Indeed Dr. Hammond thought that there was no evidence of the Order of Subject Presbyters in Scripture-times And if God instituted none let us have none But I have told you before and often where in Scripture the true Pastors Office is described § 26. He adds They may find some actual practices but will they call that a Charter Ans. This is indeed to strike at our foundation If we prove not Christ to be King and Lawgiver and that his Laws or Governing-precepts were partly given by himself and partly by his Spirit in his Commissioned Apostles and these Recorded Sealed and Delivered in Scripture If we prove not that these as the authorized Agents of Christ delivered his Will by words and practice in setling and describing the Pastors of his Churches then take the Ministry and spare not for mans invention I cited you before the Texts that are our proof But if the Office which you call Priestly be of mans making in specie I doubt the Diocesans will prove so much more
that was Ordained in our Synods § 33. And he hath half disabled me to answer him from p. 50. forwards where he feigneth me to maintain that Authority must necessarily result from true qualifications For it is taken for uncivil to give his words their proper name But if the Reader will pardon the Repetition I may remind him how probable it is that Mr. Dodwell trusted that his Reader would believe his words without perusing what I wrote where he might have seen 1. That I say that the Authority resulteth not from the qualifications but from Christs Law Grant or Charter 2. That personal qualifications of gifts or grace are but part of the necessary Dispasitio Recipientis but that moreover there is needful 1. Opportunity 2. And need of his Office 3. And to a Bishop the flocks consent if not election And ordinis gratia where moral necessiâ—y dispenseth not with order the Ordainers approbation and consent 5. And to regular possession where it may be had a due Investiture so that there is a Relative part as well as a Qualitative of the Receptive disposition necessary And all the following leaves in which he disputeth against me as maintaining a power resulting from meer qualities are so unbeseeming a Divine and a Câ—ristian that I will not soul my paper with their due confutation But they are suitable to that man who thinks himself wise good and fit enough to Unchurch and condemn so much as he doth of the Christian world on pretence of pleading for obedience to the Diocesans § 34. And where he adds p. 50. Or that it so depends on them qualifications as that where the persons ordained may want any of them there the whol Ordination must be null because of the incapacity of the matter This also he denieth Ans. 1. I still distinguish between the Qualifications necessary ad esse and those only ad bene esse or integral If he would perswade the Reader that I null Ordination for want of the latter his weakness or designed ill intent is such as warneth his Readers to take heed of believing him If he mean it only of the former as I speak I have before confuted him that dare say that no qualification is necessary ad esse Then a Pope Ioan or woman-Priest or Prelate or a professed enemy of God or Christ may be a Priest And he may be a Pastor of a Church to feed them by the Word who never heard or know what was the Word or Church Cannot the best believer go to Heaven if all your Priests will but deny him the Sacrament and yet may a man be validly a Bishop and the Key keeper of Heaven that believeth not that there is a God a Christ or Heaven and so professeth This maketh me remember the old Roman Canons how no Bishop must be deposed for lying with his own Sister unless a great multitude of Witnesses testifie it and the Councils that decreed no Layman shall witness against a Clergy-man c. But Election consent the Ordainers approbation ordinarily are part of my Qualifications And if these be unnecessary what doth the man plead for And is a false approbation of a man that wanteth Essentials more necessary than having them How contrary is this to the Doctrine of the Council of Carthage in the Epistle in Cyprian of Martial and Basilides and to many honest Councils § 35. P. 90. At the end of this insinuated false accusation he asketh Where do we find that God ever gave Bishops Presbyters and Deacons though he gave Apostles Pastors and Teachers those extraordinary Offices indeed seem to have been made neither of man nor by man but by God immediately c. Ans. 1. Hath he said a word to prove that Pastors and Teachers are not ordinary Officers contrary to the common judgment of the Church in all ages 2. Whether he mean Bishops in the Dative Case or the Accusative I know not If the later let him speak out and say God gave not Bishops But how proveth he that Presbyters and Bishops are not Pastors or Teachers 3. The Text tells you Ephes. 4.14 15 16. that these offices were given for the continued stated use of the Church For the perfecting of the Saints the work of the Ministry for the edifying the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledg of the Son of God to a perfect man c. Was this temporary 4. It seems he disclaimeth Bishops being made in making Apostles 5. Christ by his Spirit in the Apostles ordered the Churches § 36. P. 65. he saith They never find any of those Officers to whom succession is at present pretended made immediately by God but by the intervention of men c. Ans. Still deceiving confusion 1. Intervention is a word of fraud and may signifie only that act which determineth of and qualifieth the receiver and it may signifie the Donation or making of the office It is this that we speak of 2. The Intervention of infallibly inspired men commissioned to deliver and record Christs own will hath an efficiency instrumental in making the office in that the Spirit in them doth it and they do make instrumentally the Charter or Law which giveth the power and Christ doth what they did by his Commission and Spirit If you can prove that our Diocesans have this Commission spirit and power if they write new Sacred Scriptures or make new Sacraments and Church-forms and offices we will obey them But prove it well 3. Did any man but Christ send forth the Seventy Yet most Prelatists hold that those were the predecessors of the Presbyters 4. By this it seems he again denieth that Christ himself instituted the Order of Bishops by making Apostles And if so he will sorely shake his standing for then they must prove all their power from the Apostles or following persons institutions and not make them successors of the Apostles own Office for they made not their own Office And Dr. Stillingfleet thinks there were no Bishops or few made in the Apostles times as Dr. Hammond thinks of subject-subject-Presbyters And if Christs Spirit in the Apostles made not these Offices who made the Scripture which is Gods Law I despair of seeing it proved that any since them were authorized to make them And if men only made the Episcopal and Presbyters Office men may unmake them § 37. A case put to me within this hour remindeth me how much these men prefer Ordination not only in it self but in this circumstance of Prelatical uninterrupted succession before Baptism which is our Christning There are some godly young men that have Communicated in the Lords Supper that were the children of Quakers and Anabaptists some were never baptized and some know not whether they were or not and being born near Two hundred Miles hence cannot learn or come to any certainty The question is Whether these that have Communicated should yet be baptized which is to make Christians of
about the final Judgment If all these be little tollerable differences why may not we be tollerated If not judg Reader who they be that are intollerable when you hear them plead against tolleration § 3. I. For the first we judg that there is a God who is the Governour of the World by an universal Law which is above all humane Laws or will and that he is the fountain of all power and there is none but what he giveth and limiteth and that no man is above him nor hath true authority against his Laws But Mr. Dodwell saith That it is irreconcileable to Government in this life or to due subordination of subjects to superiours to practice differently and defend it by pretending Divine authority and appealing to writings Scriptures is our word by excellency so called And so God shall be God and be obeyed if the Clergy please § 4. II. As to the second we suppose that the Holy Scriptures are Gods Laws indited and recorded by the Holy Ghost to be the first obliging Rule of Faith and holy living which all men are to be obedient to before and against all contrary Laws of men But Mr. Dodwell as aforesaid alloweth no such prime obligation as will warrant an appeal to the Word of God from the visible Church-Governours that contradict it § 5. III. And for the third we suppose that all humane Powers are derived from God and have no authority but what he giveth them and are more under him and his Laws than the Justices are under the King and his Laws and can oblige no man against the Laws of God But how far Mr. Dodwell thinks otherwise you have heard He saith not indeed that we must break Gods Laws but we must not pretend them or appeal to them against our Governours In charity I hope he meaneth no worse but that we must take our Rulers word or exposition and judg nothing to be in the Scripture contrary to their commands And whether he give them the same dominion also over the Law of Nature let him tell you Paul disclaimed dominion over mens saith and the written Law of God § 6. IV. And for the fourth We take moral good to be a conformity to Gods Law and moral evil or sin to be a breach of it But Mr. Dodwell is for measuring them by the Clergies or Governours will though Gods Law be against theirs § 7. V. And for the fifth we take the Catholick Church to have no Supreme Government but God and our Glorified Redeemer God and man and that there is no such thing as a Catholick-Church of Gods making under any other Supreme Rulers But that as God is the invisible King of this visible world and Kings are subordinate Supremes in their Kingdom but neither one of them or many conjunct in an Aristocracy Supreme over all the earth so Christ is the partly visible and partly invisible supreme Ruler of the visible Church of Christians and each Pastor is under him over his proper flock bound to keep concord and peace but none under him Supreme over all whether Monarch as the Pope or Aristocracy as Councils Cardinals or ' others But Mr. Dodwell is for a visible Society with a visible humane Supreme But who the Supreme is I despair of getting him to acquaint us § 8. VI. And for the sixth we suppose that God sent forth Preachers to convert the world and turn them from darkness to light and the power of Satan to God and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word preached and that whoever believeth shall be saved and the word of God is powerful to this end and sufficient to make us wise to salvation But Mr. Dodwell thinks that it is not Preaching but the delivering men the Sacraments that giveth them the first true saving grace and title to Salvation And that none in the world have this Sacrament or Covenant-title to life but those that receive it from a hand that had an Ordination by Bishops in his sense of uninterrupted succession from the Apostles by the like Ordination § 8. VII Accordingly we hold that Preaching is for the converting of souls and the means of saving faith and holiness But what he thinks it is good for I know not well nor whether he would send the Indians the Sacraments instead of Preachers § 10. VIII We take it to be our duty though men forbid us to confess Christ and assemble for Gods worship to read and hear the Scripture and to praise God But he thinks we must not practice differently from the ruling Clergies will if they forbid us nor alledg Divine authority for it § 11. IX We suppose that the office of a Prophetical Ministry bringing new Doctrines or Laws from God and the office of the Teachers and Rulers by these Laws are greatly different and must necessarily be distinguished Moses was a Prophetical Mediator in Legislation and he confirmâ—d his Mediation by uncontrouled Miracles The Prophets afterward came but on particular applicatory messages But the Priests and Levites as such were no Prophets nor had power to make any new additions or alterations of the Law but only to teach it the people and as guides apply it to their several cases so Christ and his Apostles commissioned to deliver and record all his Doctrines and Commands to the following ages did by the Holy Ghost Prophetically deliver to the world that body of Doctrine and Law which must rule them to the end and judg them and thus sealed and confirmed all by a multitude of uncontrouled Miracles but all following Bishops and Pastors are not to do the like nor add or alter nor are such Legislators being not Prophets nor workers of Miracles but only to teach and apply the Laws already recorded in Scripture and guide their Congregations in variable circumstances time place translations c. according to the general rules of Gods Law This is the truth But how much Mr. Dodwell equals the Bishops and Apostles and sets their words above the Scripture as to obligation you have seen before § 12. X. And as he giveth Bishops power to silence Presbyters and forbid the Preaching of the Gospel and Gods worship so how little knowledg or godliness or common sobriety or honesty he requireth to a saving Sacramenting Priest who must not be separated from you heard before contrary to Cyprian and many a Councils Canons But we know that Paul had no power to destruction but only to edification And they have no more § 13. XI We suppose that we must love honour and communicate with all such as true Ministers or Churches who have true faith and repentance and sincere obedience to Christs Laws and are able godly willing Pastors chosen or consented to by the flocks approved and ordained by senior Pastors especially in Synods where City-Pastors preside and especially if also authorized by the Christian Magistrate But he thinks if they have not also successivâ— Ordination from the Apostles by Bishops
work that God hath â—ade Officers to do already And then we need not say â—that Orders are Iure Divino if the Bishop may make more at his pleasure but quo jure and what shall set his bounds and end This seemeth more in kind than the Italians at Trent would have given to the Pope over Bishops Anâ— if they do not themselves also that same Essential part of their Office which they give to others they degrade themselves For the ceasing or alienation of an Essential part changeth the specieâ— But I suppose you will say 〈◊〉 is Preâ—byters to whom they may delegate this work And 〈◊〉 either it is a worâ— which God hath made part of the Presbyters Office or not If it be then that Presbyter doth his ow◠〈◊〉 appointed him by God and not another 〈…〉 not 〈◊〉 he maketh a new Officer who is â—either 〈…〉 But the 〈…〉 the Office 〈◊〉 that it may not be 〈◊〉 thoâ—gh Bishop may Ordain men to an Office of 〈…〉 the King or Church may make new Officers 〈…〉 Clock keepers Ostiaries c. 〈…〉 and obligation to personal duty to be done 〈◊〉 personâ—l abiâ—â—ty as is the Office of a Physician a Judg a School 〈…〉 a Pilot c where he that Authorâ—zeth and obligâ—th another statedly to do his work doth thereby make that other a Physician Judg School-Master Pilot c. This is but Ordinâ—tioâ— And if a Bishop be but one that may appoint others to do the Episcopal work then 1. Why is not every King a Bishop for he may appoint men to do a Bishops work And why is he not also a Physician Musician Pilot c. because he may do the like by them 2. And then the Bishop appointed by the King is no more a Bishop indeed than one appointed by a Bishop is But this delegation that I speak against is a smaller sin than such men choose To depute others to exercise Discipline whom God appointed not de specie thereto is but Sacriledg and Usurpation by alienating it from the true office and setting up a false one But yet the thing might some how be done if any were to do it But the almost total deposition and destruction of the Discipline it self and letting none do it by pretending the sole authority of doing it is another kind of sin Now to your answer from the similitude of Civil Monarchs I reply It is no wonder if we never agree about Church-offices if we no better agree of the general nature of them and their work Of which if you will please to read a sheet or two which I wrote the last year to Ludov. Molinaeus of the difference of Magistracy and Church-power and also read the Lord Bacons Considerations you will excuse me for here passing by what is there said I. The standing of the Magistrates Office is by the Law of Nature which therefore alloweth variety and mutations of inferior Orders as there is cause But the standing of the Clergy is by Supernatural Institution Our Book of Ordination saith there are three Orders c. Therefore man may not alter them or make more of that same kind II. Kingly power requireth not ad dispositionem materiae such Personal ability as the Pastoral-office doth A child may be a King and it may serve turn if he be but the head of power and give others commission to do all the rest of the Governing work But it is not so with a Judg a Physician an Orator or a Bishop who is not subjectum capax of the essence of the office without personal aptitude III. God hath described the Bishops office in Scripture as consisting of three parts viz. Teaching Priestly or about Worship and Sacraments and ruling as under Christs Prophetical Priestly and Kingly Office And he hath no where made one more proper to a Bishop than another nor said this is Essential and that is but Integral Therefore the Bishop may as well allow a Layman to administer the Sacraments c. as one not appointed to it by God to Rule by the Keys IV. The Bishops Pastoral Rule is only by Gods word upon the Conscience as Bishop Bilson of Obed. sheweth at large and all Protestants agree and not by any mulcts or corporal force If he use the sword or constraint it is not as a Bishop but as a Magistrate But the Kings is by the sword And will it follow that because the King may appoint another to apprehend men and carry them to prison c. that therefore a Bishop appointed by God to Preach Worship and Rule and therein to draw the Impenitent to Repentance by patient exhortations and reproofs c. may commit this to another never appointed to it of God V. Either it is the Bishops work as was said that is delegated by him or some other If properly his own than either he maketh more Bishops and that 's all we plead for or else a Presbyter or Layman may do a Bishops proper work And then what need of a Bishop to pass by the contradiction VI. But my chief answer to you is the King as Supreme Magistrate doth appoint and rule by others that are truly Magistrates They have every one a Judicial power in their several places under him even every Justice of Peace But you suppose the Bishop to set up no Bishops nor no Church-Governours under him at all A King can rule a Kingdom by Supremo Judgment when he hath hundreds of Judges under him who do it by his authority And if this had been all our dispute whether a Patriarch or Archbishop can rule a thousand Churches by a thousand Inferior Bishops or Church-rulers you had said something But doth it follow that your Church Monarch can over-see them all himself without any sub-oversees or rule them by Gods word on the Conscience without any sub-rulers You appropriate the Decretory Power to your Monarch and communicate only the executive Hold to that The whole Government is but Legislatio Iudicium Legislation now we meddle not with yet our Bishops allow it to the Presbyters in Convocation for they take Canons to be Church-Laws It is a lower power that is denied to them that they grant the higher to Bare execution is no Government A Hangman is no Governour A Governour may also be Executioner but a meer Executioner is no Governour The People are Executioners of Excommunications while they withdraw from the Excommunicate and with such do not eat c. as 1 Cor. 5. And the Parish-Priest is an Executioner while he as a Cryer proclaimeth or readeth the Chancellors Excommunication in the Church and when he denieth the Sacrament to those that he is bid deny it to I grant you that this is Communicated But it is the Judicial power it self which I have been proving the Bishop uncapable of Exploration is part of the Judicial work I know you include not that in execution which follows it If you did it would be a sad office for a Bishop to
understood II. But if it be a priority of Existence in order of execution that you mean it disproveth it self For 1. It is contrary to the nature of production that two or twenty or an hundred stated Congregations should be before on t as it is that I should write a page before a line and a line before a word and a word before a letter 2. It is contrary to the Scripture-History which telleth us that Christ called his Disciples by degrees a few first and more after and that the Apostles accordingly converted men from the number of 120 they rose to 3000 more and after to 5000 c. And that ordinarily the Churches in Scripture-times were such as could and often did meet in one place though that be nâ—t necessary as I said before hath so copious evidence as that I will not here trouble you with it 3. Either the Apostles Ordained Bishops before subject Presbyters or such Presbyters before Bishops or both at once If both at once as two Orders it 's strange that they called both Orders promiscuously by the same names sometimes Bishops sometimes Presbyters and sometimes Pastors and Teachers without any distinguishing Epithete or notice And it 's strange that we never find any mention of the two sorts of Congregations one the Bishops Cathedral and the other the Parish Presbyters Congregation If you say that they were the Bishops themselves and first Ordained only subject-Presbyters under them that cannot hold For doubtless there were more than twelve or thirteen Churches the number of Apostles in their times nor were they fixed Bishops but indefinite gatherers and edifiers of the Churches And either those Elders first Ordained by the Apostles were Bishops or else there were Churches without Bishops for they Ordained Elders in every City and in every Church And either the Elders first Ordained by the Apostles had the power of Ordaining others or not If they had then either they were Bishops or else subject-subject-Presbyters were Ordained to be Ordainers yea to Ordain Bishops if such were to be after ordained And so indeed it would be suitable to your conceiâ— that the inferiour order of Diocesans do by consent make superior Metropolitans Provincials Nationals and Patriarchs to rule them and with Hieromes report ad Evagr. that the Alexandrian Presbyters made the Bishops as the Army doth a General But this making of Children to beget Fathers is so commonly denied that I need not more dispute against it 3 But I think most of the Hierarchical way will say that the Apostles first Ordained Bishops that those Bishops might Ordain subject-Presbyters And if so the Churches could be but single Congregation at the first till the subject-Presbyters were Ordained Yea Dr. Hammond as aforesaid asserteth in Act. 11. and in Dissert c. that there is no proof there were any of the Order of subject-Presbyters in Scripture-times and he thinketh that most of his party were of his mind and that the name Bishop Elder and Pastor in Scripture signifie only those that we now call Bishops And in this he followeth Dion Petavius and Fr. a Sancta Clara de Episcop who saith that it came from Scotus And if this be so then in all Scripture-times there was no Church of more than one worshipping Congregation For we are agreed that Church-meetings were for the publick Worship of God and celebration of Sacraments and exercise of Discipline which no meer Lay-man might lawfully guide the people in and perform as such assemblies did require And one Bishop could be but in one place at once And if there were many Bishops there were many Churches So that according to Dr. Hammond and all of his mind there was no Church in Scripture-times of more than one stated ordinary Worshipping Congregation because there were no subject-Presbyters If you say that yet this was a Diocesan Church because it had a Diocesan Bishop I answer why is he called a Diocesan Bishop if he had not a Diocesan Church If you mean that he was designed to turn his single Congregation into many by increase 1. That must not be said only but proved 2. And that supposeth that his one congregation was first before the many And I hope you â—ake not Infidels for parts of the Church because they are to be converted hereafter Those that are no members of the Church make not the Church and so make it not to be Diocesan One Congregation is not an hundred or a thousand because so many will be hereafter If you mean that such a space of ground was assigned to the Bishops to gather and govern Churches in I answer 1. Gathering Churches is a work antecedent to Episcopacy 2. The Ground is no part of the Church It is a Church of men and not of soil and houses that we speak of 3. Nor indeed will you ever prove that the Apostles measured out or distinguished Churches by the space of ground So that the first Churches were not Diocesan III. As to your Third Opinion 1. Officers are denominated from the work which they are to do There are works to be done circa sacra about the holy Ministerial works as Accidental as to 〈◊〉 to Church buildings Utensils and Lands to Summon Synods and Register their Acts to moderate in disputations and to take votes c. These the Magistrate may appoint Officers to peâ—â—orm and if he do not the Churches by his permission may do it by consent And there are works proper to the Magistrate viz. to force men to their duty by mulcts or corporal penalties I deny none of these But the works of Ordination Pastoral Guidance Excommunication and Absolution by the power of the Keys are proper to the sacred Office which Christ hath instituted And I shall not believe till I see it proved that any men have power to make any new Order or Office of this sort which Christ never made by himseelf or his Spirit in his Apostles much less that Inferiors may make Superior Offices For 1. It belongeth to the same power to make one especially the Superior Church-Office which made the other of the same General nature If without Christs institution no man could be Episcopus gregis and have the power of the Keys over the people then by parity of Reason without his institution no man can be Episcopus Episcoporum and have the power of the Keys over the Bishops 2. Dr. Hammond's argument against Presbyters Ordination is Nemo dat quod non habet which though it serve not his turn on several accounts both because 1. They have the Order which they confer 2. Because Ordination is not giving but Ministerial delivery by Investiture yet in this case it will hold For 1. This is supposed to be a new institution of an Office 2. And that of an higher power than ever the Institutors had themselves The King giveth all his Officers their power but all of them cannot give the King his power The Patriarch cannot make a Pope nor the
submit to all unsinful conditions of the Episcopal communion where they live if imposed by the Ecclesiastical Government thereof This proved by these two degrees 1. That the supposition of their being less secure of salvation out of this Episcopal communion than in it is sufficient to prove them obliged to submit to all terms not directly sinful however unexpedient rather than separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from this communion chap. 1. § 7 8 9 10. 2. That there is indeed less security of salvation to be had even on performance of the Moral conditions of salvation out of this Episcopal communion than in it This proved from two things 1. That they cannot be so well assured of their salvation in the use of extraordinary as of ordinary means nay that they being left to extraordinaries is a condition either very hazardous or at least very uncomfortable at present whatever it may prove hereafter Ch. II. 2. That these ordinary means of salvation are in respect of every particular person confined to the Episcopal communion of the place he lives in as long as he lives in it This proved from Two things 1. That these ordinary means of salvation are confined to the external Communion of the visible Church This proved from Four things 1. We cannot be assured that God will do for us what is necessary for our salvation on his part otherwise than by his express promises that he will do it Chap. III. § 1 2. 2. The ordinary means how we may assure our selves of our interest in his promises is by our interest in his Covenant by which they are conveyed to us Chap. III. from § 5. to the end 3. The ordinary means by which we may assure our selves of our interest in this Covenant with him is by our partaking in these external solemnities by which this Covenant is transacted and maintained Chap. IV V VI VII 4. The participation in these external solemnities with any legal validity is only to be had in the external Communion of the visible Church Chap. VIII B. II. That this visible Church to whose external Communion these ordinary means of salvation are confined is no other than the Episcopal Communion of the place where any one lives whilest he lives there This proved in Two parts a 1. That the visible Church to whose external Communion these ordinary means of salvation are consined is the Episcopal Communion This proved by these degrees A. 1. That salvation is not ordinarily to be expected without an external participation of the Sacraments 1. Negatively Not by those other popular means which ordinary persons are apt to trust in to the neglect of the Sacraments that is 1. Not by hearing the Word Preached Chap. IX 2. Not by private Prayer nor indeed by any out of the Communion of the Church Chap. X XI XII XIII XIV 2. Positively That salvation is ordinarily to be expected only by this external participation of the Sacraments 1. Proved concerning Baptism Chap. XV. 2. Concerning the Lords Supper Chap. XVI XVII II. That the validity of the Sacraments depends on the Authority of the persons by whom they are administred Chap. XVIII III. No other Ministers have the Authority of Administring the Sacraments but only they who receive their Orders in Episcopal Communion This proved by Four degrees 1. That the Authority of Administring the Sacraments must be derived from God Chap. XIX 2. That though it be derived from God yet it is not so derived without the mediation of those men to whom it was at first committed Chap. XX. 3. That it cannot be so derived from those men to whom it was first committed without a continued succession of persons orderly receiving Authority from those who had Authority to give it them from those first times of the Apostles to ours at present Chap. XXI 4. That this Authority is not now to be expected any where but in the Episcopal Communion Chap. XXII XXIII XXIV XXV b. 2. That the Episcopal Communion to which every particular person is obliged to joyn himself as he would enjoy the ordinary means of his own particular salvation is the Episcopal Communion of the place wherein he lives whilest he lives in it Chap. XXVI b. II. That the nature of this obligation to unsinful conditions of their Episcopal Communion is such as will make them guilty of the sin of SCHISM who rather than they will submit to such Conditions either separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from Communion by their respective Diocesan Ordinaries Chap. XXVII Here is Episcopal Communion talkt of without telling what is the Episcopacy or what the Communion which he means and how both are known Confusion 1. There are usurping Bishops not truly called or chosen 2. There are Heretical Bishops 3. There may be divers Bishops in one City or County which of these mean you 4. He may be one fit for others and not for me nor am I to take him for my Pastor As the Greek Bishop in London and many Latine Bishops that spake not English heretofore or his faultiness may make it my duty to chuse a better 5. What if the King and Law command the contrary 6. All this is nothing for submitting to sinful conditions 2. As it is a duty to refuse sinful conditions so of many particular Churches to chuse the fittest for our communion The French and Dutch and Greeks in London are not Schismaticks for not being subject to this Bishop or locally communicating with him 2. You tell us not how a man shall know he is of the Bishops communion among a thousand Parish-Churches that differ in many things and own the Bishop in some things and not in others 3. Few of the Diocess ever locally communicate with our Bishops and mentally the Nonconformists communicate in Essentials at least 4. Most Christians on earth are guilty of Schism and yet are not prevalently Schismaticks but still members of the Catholick Church 5. The Bishops e. g. in France are more guilty of the Schism than the Protestants See Dr. Stillingfleet's Defence of Laud. 1. This is false in the fore-excepted cases 1. If he be a Bishop to others and not to me unless communion include not subjection for so we communicate with many other Bishops 2. If the condition imposed be a thing which a Superior Power forbiddeth King or in some cases Parents The matter and consequences are so weighty as tell us it is not well done to abuse dull Readers thus with the deceitful unexplained nature of Episcopacy and Communion The love of truth and souls forbid such deceit 1. If some receive only Parish-bishops of the old sort and others also their Archbishops and others such Diocesans as put down all Parish-bishops which of these have Episcopal communion 2. When of old many Ages Voting and Fighting could not tell men which was the true Bishop among many competitors and when at Rome there were oft two or three at once and when
a true Bishop by vertue of Gods Law and if he have better Qualification and Election and Ordination to be of surer Authority than the Diocesan it 's his Communion that we must prefer 4. But indeed Baptism and Salvation are ordinarily given before Episcopal Communion of any sort 5. They that thought the Pope Antichrist as most Protestant Bishops long did thought it a duty to reject the Communion of the Bishops of the places where they lived And Denmark and other Countries set up others against them that were ordained by Bugenhagius and other Prsbyters 6. Parochial and Diocesan bounds are humane mutable institutions 7. If the Bishop of the place be a Schismatick the Communion of a better near is better b. II. 1. All causleless separation from any Christians or causleless disobedience to any Pastor or neglect of any Christian duty needful to the Churches peace and concord and every opinion and practice that is against them doth make a man guilty of sinful Division or Schism in some degree And while every Christian hath many errors and sins which all tend to some sinful breach as the least sore is solutio continui I cannot see but every man living hath some guilt of Schism nor that there is any Church on earth that hath not some such guilt But every degree of guilt denominateth not the man or Church a Schismatick in a predominant or mortal sense And in Charity I hope that even some of those heinous Schismaticks may be saved that divide the Churches by their usurpation obtrusion sinful impositions and worldly domination yea some that in blind zeal put down Parish-Bishops and smite and silence the Pastors and scatter the Flocks And if I must have Communion with none that 's guilty of Schism with what Church or Bishop should I joyn And if their Sacraments be invalid what a case is Italy Spain France yea and England in Must all be baptized again that they baptized 2. But it 's no schism but a duty for the people as far to forsake a sinful Bishop much more an usurper as Cyprian and that Council advised them to do in the case of Martial and Basilides 3. And after all this deceitful confusion note Reader that he denieth not our disobedience to be lawful in case of sinful conditions imposed And if we fully prove not this to be our case let our accusers silence us and let our guilt be our shame 4. And if people that had Parish-Bishops on the place where they lived lawfully called shall forsake them to obey a Diocesan that is not on the place but perhaps Forty or Fifty or Sixty Miles off and never saw them and was obtruded contrary to the ancient Canons which nullifie such and sets himself to silence faithful Pastors and persecute them and other godly Christians for not sinning heinously upon deliberate choice and covenant doth not even this man conclude such to be Schismaticks that are out of the ordinary way and hope of salvation CHAP. III. The consequence of Mr. Dodwell's foresaid doctrine 1. THOSE that live under the Popish Bishops in Italy Spain France c. must live in their communion and under their command in all unsinful things 2. The Protestant Churches that have not Episcopal Ordination are no true Churches and have no true Ministers or Sacraments nor any Covenant-right to salvation 3. The Protestant Churches are in the same unchurched damnable case that have Bishops if they have not an uninterrupted succession of such from the Apostles canonically ordained 4. Therefore the Churches of Denmark Germany c. that have Superintendents ordained at the Reformation by Bugenhagius Pomeranus a Presbyter and all the rest whose succession was interrupted are in the same case 5. It is Schism and rejecting Sacraments and Covenant-right to salvation in all the people that continue in such Protestant Churches and communicate with them 6. It is better for the Protestants in France to joyn with the Papists than to live as they do without Sacraments or Church-communion 7. Yet by self contradiction it will follow that certainly the Church of Rome and all that derive their ordination from that Church have no true Bishops Ministers Sacraments Churches nor Covenant-right to salvation for it 's certain their true succession hath been oft interrupted 1. By such utterly uncapable persons as all History describeth and even Baronius calleth Apostaticos non Apostolicos and such as divers General Councils judged Hereticks Infidels Simoniaks c. e g. Eugenius 4. who yet kept in 2. By such whose false ordination the Canons expresly null 3. By many Schisms two or three Popes at once of whom none can tell who had the right or whether any 4 By the Popes taking on him to be Christs Universal Vicar an Office in specie usurpt which he maketh his Episcopacy and as such giveth his orders And all his Presbyters have turned the true Ministry into the false one of Mass-Priests and being no true Ministers can give no true Sacraments by his rule 8. Yea it is certain that few if any Churches on earth can prove such an uninterrupted succession as he and the Papists describe and most it s known have no such thing 9. Therefore if any have such a succession they cannot know it it being a thing that cannot be proved and so cannot be sure that they are true Churches c. 10. For the certainty of any true Ministry Church Sacraments and Salvation dependeth on such knowledg of History as is not in the world viz. To know that this Bishop and his Ordainer and his Ordainer and his Ordainer and so up to the Apostles were every one true Bishops and truly Ordained which no mortal man can know 11. Men that by a Prince against even the Nullifying Canons can but get possession of Patriarchal and Diocesan Churches without the Clergy or peoples choice have thereby the power of damning men that fear God at their pleasure For 1. they must pass for the Bishops of the place 2. They may command any unsinful thing and excommunicate him that doth not obey 3. He is a Schismatick that suffers himself so to be Excommunicate and so is in a damnable state 4. He cannot hinder it not knowing the thing to be unsinful 12. For by this whoever will escape damnable schism must be one that knoweth the unsinfulness as he speaks of all things in the world that are such which a Prelate may command or else he must do any thing which he judgeth sin if a Prelate command it But that is wicked Idolizing man 13. And therefore by this rule no man living can be saved that a Prelate hath a mind to damn or from his damning impositions For no man living knoweth the lawfulness of all lawful things and therefore may take a commanded thing for sin that is not and then if he wilfully do that which he judgeth sin he rebelleth against God if he do it not the Prelate may excommunicate him and unresistibly make
judgers of the personal qualifications and that ordinis gratia ordinarily their approbation choice or consent shall be a relative part of their Receptive qualification 6. God himself giveth all the personal qualifications 7 He is ready to help the approvers and chusers to discern all these and to judg aright of them 8. The person being thus made a capable Recipient by personal qualifications and relative due Approbation Election and Consent God's Donation or Law doth give him Right and oblige him to the office-work And the Electors Approvers and Consenters are none of the proper efficient Donors or causes of this right and obligation but only efficient causes of his relative receptive capacity 9. That therefore the right and obligation is immediately from Gods Law by resultancy as the established medium of Gods conveyance but not immediately without any means of his receptively to make him materiam dispositam 10. That all this is true both of Soveraign Civil Power and of Church-power in Bishops and Pastors 11. That yet besides Approbation and Election God hath for the publick notice and order of the Church appointed a Regular Ministerial Investiture by which the Approved shall be solemnly put into possession as Kings are crowned and Ministers instituted and Ordination usually containeth both the approbation part of the election and the investiture 12 But this Investiture being but a Ministerial delivery of possession proveth not the Investor to be any Donor of the Power to the King or to the Bishop or Pastor 13. Nor is it necessary save ordinis gratia and in foro ecclesiae to avoid intrusion and confusion but not when it is set against the end or the end may and must be sought without it 14. Who it is that hath the power of this Ordination Approbation and Investiture is much of the controversie of these times some say it is the Magistrate but those that say it is the bishops are not agreed what species of bishops it is whether the chief Pastors of each particular Parish true Church or only a Diocesan that is the sole bishop of many parishes that are no true Churches or only Diocesans that are Archbishops over many true Parish-churches and bishops 15. But the Fundamentum juris being Christs Statute-Law or Grant and all that is left to man being but qualitatively or relatively to make the person an immediately capable Recipient and ministerially invest him therefore it follows that if at Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem Cesarea Constantinople London all the old bishops were dead or hereticks a just title may be restored without the ordination of one that had successive canonical ordination because there needeth no efficient donor but Christ and his Law and the receptive capacity may be without such ordination where it is not to be had as among Papists that will not ordain one on lawful terms c. for Order it self is but for the thing ordered and not against it And I will have mercy and not sacrifice â—morals before rituals and all power is to edification c. are certain rules And God never made men judges in partem utram libet whether there shall be Churches and Pastors and Worship or none or whether there shall be Civil Government or none no nor of what the species the Church-Offices shall be 16. I use to explain this by many expository similitudes 1. If the Laws of God authorize Soveraignty and the Constitution of the Kingdom say it shall be Monarchy were it Elective the Electors are not Efficients of power but determiners of the Recipient And if it be Hereditary or Elective the Investers by coronation are no efficients of the power but Ministerial deliverers of possession and that but necessary ad ordinem and not ad esse potestatis 2. If the King by a Charter to the University state the power of the Chancellor Vicechancellor Proctors and all the Masters of Colledges and then tell them who shall be capable and how chosen and how inveâ—ted here his power is immediately from the Kings Charter as the efficient Instrument and all that others do is but to determine of the Recipient and invest him 3. So it is as to the power of the Lord Mayor of London and the Mayors and Bailiffs of all Corporations 4. So it is in the essential power of the Husband over the Wife the woman chuseth who shall have it and the Parson that marrieth them investeth him in it but God only is the efficient donor of his Law 17. Therefore it is not in the power of the Electors Approvers or Investors to alter any of the Power established by God If both the woman and the Priest say that the man shall be her Husband but shall have no government of her it is a nullity Gods Law shall stand If the City and the Recorder say You shall be Lord Mayor but not have all the power given by the Kings Charter its vain and he shall have all that the Charter giveth him If the A Bp crown the King and say You shall be King but not have all the power stated by the Constitution on the King this depriveth not the King of his power unless he give away that which God hath not stated on him but men so if an Ordaining Prelate Patron or Parish say This is a true Parish Church and we choose and Ordain you the true Pastor of it but you shall have but part of the true Pastoral Power stablished on the office by God it 's null Gods Institution shall be the measure of his power 18. But I confess that if God had left Church-Officers as much to the will of men as he hath done the Civil the case had been otherwise for Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy are all lawful And the King or other supreme power may make new Species of Judges and Magistrates and Officers and alter them as they see cause And it would have been so in the Church if as the Italians at Trent would have carried it Christ had immediately Instituted only the Papacy and left it to the Pope to make Bishops and to Bishops to make Priests And yet I would not wrong the worst I cannot say that they would have empowered the Pope to change the Species of Priests or Bishops But God hath fixed the Species by making a setled Law for all the work and all the Authority to do it though Accidentals may be altered in work and Office § 6. This is the clear state of my assertions which how grosly Mr. Dodwell hath falsified in his forged description I will not stay to open But it is a great stress and fabrick that he layeth on the contrary supposition that his Species of Bishops are the givers of the Powers and so we can have no other or more than they are willing to give us And let him that thinks he spoke a sentence of truth and sense to prove it enjoy his error I would quickly prove the contrary to him if I knew what he
Chief Iustice Lord Admiral c. shall have such and such power and be thus and thus invested in the place if there were an intercision of an hundred yâ—ars the next person so chosen will from the Law immediately receive his power And the Investiture is but for publick Order and the Investers regular succession no nor the act it self never necessary ad esse where it cannot be had as I proved against Mr. D. in my Book of Concord The Archbishops succession that Crowneth him is not necessary to the power of the King § 20. And obligation to the Office-work is as essential to the Officer as is the power to do it And it is only the Governours that lay on another an obligation to duty except what by contract a man layeth on himself and none are the obliging Governours of the highest Powers Civil or Ecclesiastical but God therefore theirs must flow only from God Therefore the thing is not unusual And if Bishops were as much superior to Parish-Pastors as the Lord Chancellor is to a Constable yet they were but Governours of them in tantum quoad exercitum and not Donors of their power The Constables power is immediately from the Soveraigns Law and so is the Ministers from Christ for he is the only universal Soveraign § 21. Mr. Dodwell saith These are bare similies Ans. These are plain explications of the conveyance of power from the Soveraign of all He saith That the power is not properly given by the Ordainer is but begged by me Ans. A begging affirmer may easily write Books at that rate But saith â—e They connot give an instance from humane Charters where the acts of men not invested are valid in Law Ans. 1. Will you tell the King so to his saace that before his Coronation no act is valid that he doth 2. No doubt but as publick Matrimony after secret Marriage is necessary in foro civili ordinis gratiâ where it may be had and yet when it was done by a Justice without a Priest yea or by the persons publick contract only it was no nullity no nor coram Deo before so to regular order the most orderly Investiture is needful but not ad esse much less that all the Investers circumstances also and all his predecessors have been regular 3. Investing here is the act of a servant only solemnizing the entrance or delivery of possession But such a servant is not the Owner and Donâ—â— of thâ— power 4. The Papists and Protestants confess that the power of Invâ—sting is so humane and mutable that it cannot be necessary ad esse potestatis I told you how oft the power of choosing â—nd investing Popes hath beeen changed And the old Canons make the Act of three Bishops necessary to Invest or consecrate one But did God determinâ— of three Or can you prove onâ— Bishops Ordination a Nullity 5. In the Civil State some Officers are made without any Investiture as Constables Headboroughs Church Wardens and others and some the Charter imposeth Investiture on But whether if Recorders Stewards Town Clerks that by Charter are to Invest be dead or refuse their Act the Mayor Bayliff or other Officers be therefore none and the Government be dead let Lawyers tell you 6. Sure I am that Hen. 4. and the rest of the Germane Emperors who fought and strove so long against Hildebrand and his Adherents for the Investing-power were no Bishops and all the Councils of Bishops who stood for the Emperors never took them for Bâ—shops and therefore thought not that Ivesting was an Act proper to episcopal-Episcopal-power 7. I have before proved that ancient Writers and Papists and many Protestants agree that Baptism is valid administred by Lay-men that I say not women 8. Mr. Dodwell self-condemningly saith that a presumptuous Ordination of the Priest serves to the validity of Sacraments though indeed he were not Ordained and that God is bound to make such Acts to the people good 9. Mr. D. must beg belief instead of proving it if he tell us that the stated teaching of Gods Word to a Church is not as truly the work of the Pastor as is the Admistring the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper It is one of the principal of the Jesuits jugglings to make the people think that till they can prove their Teachers the rightly Ordained Ministers of Christ they are not bound to hear them or believe them Our Parents mostly were never Ordained Bishops or Priests Must not Children therefore hear them and believe them fide humanâ And hath not that God who appointed Parents to teach his Law to their children lying down and rising up and to educate them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord thereby signified that Parents instruction is the first ordinary means appointed by God for the conveying of saving knowledg and faith And if the help of Parents though unordained be Gods ordinary means of the first saving faith shall We say with such men as Mr. Dodwell that we have no Covenant right to salvation till we have the Sacrament from the hand of a Minister that had a regular Ordination uninterruptedly down from the Apostles 10. Did the Three hundred Act. 2. and the Eunuch Act. 8. refuse Baptism till they were satisfied by proof that the Baptizers were rightly called Ministers Paul tells those that questioned his Apostolick power that he was an Apostle to them whatever he was to others and that they should know first whether Christ were in them and so whether he were not a true Minister and not begin at the trying of the Ministry 2 Cor. 13.4 5 6 7. Gal. 3.1 2 3 4. c. 11. The Acts of the Parliament called irregularly by General Monk were they that restored King Charles the 2 d and were confirmed by him as valid through the defect of a Regular Summons and by necessity 12. I have fully proved in my Treatise of Episcopacy that the Species of Bishops which Mr. Dodwell pleaded for is not the same which the Churches had for 200. or 300. years And then where is his regular succession from the Apostles § 22. He saith also p. 37. They cannot give an Instance of any power setled by Charter whereupon the Acts of any persons lawfully Invested though confessedly less qualified are not thought valid A plain sign that their Investiture doth properly confer such power Ans. Words fitted to deceive 1. He that is unqualified is not lawfully Invested and yet the Act of the Invester may be right had the Recipient been lawful 2. He saith Less qualified when he knew that our question is of the unqualified 3. Investiture giveth it as the Act of the Power and Donor by a servant delivering orderly possession but doth not make or prove the Investing Minister the Owner or Donor no more than he was that from the Emperor Henry delivered the Bishops the Staff and Ring or the Priest that Marrieth the persons 4. Burroughs and Cities choose and return Burgesses for
there is no certainty that any Subject Presbyters were made by the Apostles in Scripture times So that the very species of their Clergy hath no such succession as distinct from ours 4. And he that will read the Church-History and Councils declaring the multitude of doleful intercisions in East and West by Heresies the Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch Constantinople Ierusalem and Rome and most of the chief Seats of Bishops having been judged Hereticks Simoniacks or no Bishops by General Councils yea Roman Bishops judged some of them Infidels and Diabolical by the Councils of Constance Basâ—l c. I say he that knoweth this History must know that the Diocesans that from these derive their succession have certainly had frequent and notorious intercisions § 46. And this leads me to another part of Mr. Dodwell's work viz. his proof that Aidan and Finan were Bishops As if this had been a great part of his Cause Such diverting noise is a great part of the art of deceiving Because I had said that Aiden and Finan were not Bishops but Presbyters that is when they came out of Scotland into Northumberland I apprehended that some men of his gâ—â—ius and design would be willing to mistake me and therefore Printed an Explication of the Words in the end of my first Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet But Mr. D would have men think that I said that they were never made and called Bishops at all and that I read not Beda from whom alone near Five and Thirty years ago I took almost all that I assert concerning them Let the Reader see my foresaid Explication If Mr. Dodwell will give us more than noise and mist about this matter 1. Let him prove that it was Diocesan Bishops that Ordained these Scots before they came into England when Beda saith they were sent from those Monasteries that were ruled by Presbyters and which would not so much as eat or communicate with the Roman Bishops 2. Let him prove that any Bishops in England Consecrated hem or made them Bishops here when Beda tells us that they were the first in the North and therefore had none here to Ordain them 3. Let him prove that they were here made true Diocesan Bishops of our species When 1. they had no Presbyters at first under them and therefore ruled none and had but one Congregation for one man can be but in one place at once 2. Their Church in Lindisfarne was not made of stone but of wood covered or thatcht with reeds and they are not said to have any other Church under them 3. They went indeed to preach all over the Country but not as to a Church but as to Heathens to convert them 4. Let him prove that ever they took themselves to be of a distinct order from Presbyters 5. At a Synod Bed c. 25. we find no more but the King and his Son and Hilda a woman-Abbess and three or four of this sort of Bishops far below our Ordaining City-Presbyters and their Synods But unlearned men that value Books by interest and preconceived opinions may think that by such talk Mr. Dodwell hath done some great matter § 47. But saith he p. 81 82. Our Hypothesis obliging inferiour Governours to prove their title to their office and the extent of it from the intention of their supream Governours does oblige all to a strict dependance on the supreme visible power so as to leave no place for appeal concerning the practice of such Government which as it lasts only for this life so it ought not to admit of disputes more lasting than its practice c. Ans. Alas for the poor world and Church that will be cheated at so gross a rate 1. Did you not know that the grand error that Protestants charge Papists with is the asserting of any such thing as a supreme visible power over the Church universal besides Christ. And did you think that your roteing over the name to them that deny the thing would make a wise man change his Religion 2. By your Hypothesis then no man can prove his title to his Office who either believeth not that there is any such universal Supreme or that knoweth not who it is I know no Competitors but the Pope and General Councils unless the Patriarch of Constantinople be one 3. And he that knoweth not the intention of this Supreme power is still unable to prove his office 4. And he that knoweth the intention of the Ordaining Diocesan is never the better if he know not the intention of the Supreme And what if the intention of the Supreme and of the Diocesan are contrary 5. But by your Hypothesis the Governours may alter the very species of the Priesthood as they please and what ever God saith of it in his Institution or Law it must be to us no other in kind or extent than the Governours intend If they say I ordain thee to baptize but not to teach or to do both but not to celebrate the Lords-Supper or to do that but not to pray or praise God or not to use the Keys of the Church our power is limited accordingly Then if the Prelates make Mass-Priests their intention is the measure of their power Answer the Papists then that ask Was it ever the intention of the Pope and his Prelates that the English Bishops should disclaim the Pope or the Mass or reform without them as they did 6. Seeing the English Bishops by you derive their succession from Willfred and Augustine and Rome is not the Church of Rome the â—ittest Judg of the extent of their power as knowing their own intentions Nay if they were so blind as to intend them power to pull down themselves may they not recall it 7. Did ever Protestant preach this Doctrine That there is no appeal from the supreme Prelates to God O dreadful what may men come to and what error so great that a former may not introduce Disgrace not the Church of England so much as thus to intimate that they set up themselves so as that there is no appeal to Scripture or God himself from them God hath commanded Preaching Praying Praises Baptism the Lords-Supper holy assemblies c. if the supreme Prelates interdict and forbid all these is there no appeal to God I have told you how much Robert Grosthead abhor'd this Doctrine and so told Pope Innocent the 4 th What absolute blind obedience to Prelates is this 8. And what a reason brings he That the practice lasteth only for this life and therefore c Doth any of our actions here last longer than while they are doing Praying Praise Sacraments obeying the King doing good to the poor c. and so swearing cursing adultery rebellion atheism blasphemy here last only for this life Must we therefore obey men without appeal to God if they forbid us all duty and command all sin 9. And what did the man mean when he said That it ought not to admit of disputes more lasting than its
practice Is this the rate of these mens wise disputations 1. A murderers practice may be disputed at the Assizes when his act is past 2. Shall not all the actions of men in this world be examined and judged of by Christ hereafter What no men judged according to their works or for any thing done in the body 3. Or did he mean that God will justifie us for any Villany that we shall do in obedience to the Supreme Clergy 4. Or did he think that by appealing to Gods judgment we challenge them there to dispute with us What to make of this mans demonstrations little do I know § 48. He adds P. 82. For how fallible soever they may be conceived to be in expounding Scripture yet none can deny them to be the most certain as well as the most competent Iudges of their own intentions Ans. 1. That 's true And if their intentions may make Doctrine Worship and Priesthood what they please it much concerneth us that they conceal not their intentions But I would I knew whose intention this must be whether the supreme Clergies or the Ordainers and what to do if divers mens intentions differ and what bounds are set to their intentions and how many hundred sorts of Priests Doctrine or worship they may make 2. You touch their fallibility tenderly as a thing that some may conceive But it seems let them never so falsely expound Scripture their own intentions still shall prevail against all the word of God I would you would answer Dr. Stillingfleet's Rational Account which confuteth you § 49. He proceeds As certainly therefore as God hath made his Church a visible society and constituted a visible Government in it so certainly it is to be presumed that their Hypothesis must be false c. Ans. 1. Trifle not at this deceiving rate with plain men that love the light If by a visible Society with a visible Government you mean as we have great reason to think With a visible Government over it besides Christ do not thus as Mr. Thorndike and others of you do go on to beg it and build vast structures on it but prove it to us and we will yield prove to me that the Vniversal Church is a Society that must have one visâ—ble supreme Government under Christ and I here declare to you that I will turn Papist presently and will not wrangle against any man for calling me a Papist though I may not own all that Popes say and do as those do that Grotius called Papists I will not talk with Bishop Gunning of a Collegium Pastorum governing all the Christian world per literas formatas nor be so moderate as those French Papists that make an Vniversal Council which never was nor ever must be the supreme church-Church-power I will presently be for the Pope though not as absolute But why answer you not what we have said against it particularly my Sermon in the Morning-Lectures against Popery 2. But if by a visible power in the Church you mean not one over the Church the Independents deny it not while every City hath its proper Mayor and so every Church its Pastor it is a visible power in the Kingdom but not over it as a Kingdom All the Justices of Peace are visible powers in the Kingdom but not Supreme nor as one Aristocracy over the whole Seeing all my dissent from Popery and from you is founded in my judgment against any one universal Supreme besides Christ Monarch Aristocracy or Democracy I seriously intreat you to write your strongest arguments on that subject to convince me and answer what I have said to Mr. Iohnson and you may spare all the rest of your labour as to me This will do all § 50. P. 83. He adds How can subjects preserve their due Subordination to their Superiors if they practice differently and while they defend their practices and pretend Divine authority for them Ans. 1. As the three Confessors did Dan. 3. and as Daniel did Dan. 6. and as the Apostles did Act. 2. 3. 4. And as all the Bishops and Churches did for three hundred years And as the Orthodox did under Valens Constantine Theodosius junior Anastasius Philippicus c. 2. They may defend it by proving that there is a God who is supreme and that there is no power but of him and none against him and that man is not God and therefore hath no power but limited and that to disobey usurpation is not to disobey power and that God must be obeyed before man 3. This is high language and harsh to Protestant and Christian ears What! are you serious Must none in Rome Italy Spain France c. practise contrary to their Governours nor in Turky neither Nor in China Iapan c Is it unlawful to read the Scripture to pray to worship God to be baptized to profess our selves Christians to speak a good word or do a good deed to feed our Children or relieve our Parents c. if Governours forbid us This is far worse than to forbid the Scripture in a known tongue if when we know it we must not obey it if Governours forbid us nor so much as plead Divine Authority for doing what Gods word commandeth us Is Gods authority so contemptible in comparison of Prelates Or doth it so little concern us as that we may not so much as plead it for any practice forbidden us by superiours This Doctrine must needs startle a Christians heart It 's far unlike Bishop Bilsons of subjection and such others If you really mean so that whatever God commandeth us in Scripture we must do none of it if the Governours forbid us or else we overthrow all Governments speak it out and prove it but Christians will abhor it And yet this same man calleth the Martyrs Saints when his argument makes them rebels W. Iohnson would not have talkt at this rate § 51. And I would fain know whether he that first saith that it subverteth all Government and after nameth supreme Church-Government do really mean it of all or of Church-Government only 1. If of all the man is no Papist I will gratifie him to proclaim it for he is no Christian. He that thinks that men must not plead Gods Authority for doing any thing different from the wills of Turkish Iewish or Heathen Governours surely is no Christian No nor if he had confined this power to Christian Governours 2. But if he mean it only of Church-Governours how come they to have so absolute a power more than Civil Magistrates May we plead Gods Authority against a King and not against the Prelates What proof was ever given of this Then the Prelates is far above the Kings Then the Prelate is an absolute Governour of the King himself Let Kings and Parliaments but understand these men and we fear not their deceits Are they willing to give over all worship of God and confessing Christ and all duties of Religion Justice or Charity if the Supreme
Clergy will but forbid them See I beseech you worthy Country-men what sort of men and Doctrine you have to do with § 52. And why doth the man talk only against different practice Doth he not know that Government commandeth duty as well as forbiddeth the contrary Is not Omission against Government as well as Commission If the King command Taxes Military service c. may we disobey and call it Passive obedience What if the Bishops only forbid us to confess Christ to come to Church to Pray to give Alms to do any good May we forbear sobeit we do not the contrary Doubtless if Gods Word and Authority may not be pleaded for any duty which God commandeth and the Prelates forbid neither may it be pleaded for the Omission of any Villany commanded by Prelates no not Inquisition Torments or Massacres which God forbids But this man hath the Gramatical skill to call Omissive obedience by the name of Passive § 53. It 's like he will next say that I make odious suppositions That the supreme Church-power may command any Villanies and forbid Christian duties Ans. 1. I despair of getting any of these designers to tell me which is the Supreme Universal Church-power so as to be well understood I never heard of any pretenders but Pope and General Councils and as Bishop Guning holds the Colledg of all the Bishops in the world And certainly Pope and Councils have set up Heresies and decreed even the exterminating of all that will not dis-believe all their senses and deny Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine They have decreed deposing Kings absolving Subjects from their Allegiance adoring Images c. And what is it that yet they may not do If they say with Peter If all men deny thee I will not how shall I know that they say true Doth not the Church of England tell us that Councils have erred c § 54. And be not these very honest Sons of the Church of England that affirm it irreconcilable to Government to alledg Divine Authority of any different practices without exception and at the same time to Subscribe to Art 21.19.6.18 of the sufficiency of Scripture That the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome have erred in matters of Faith That the Church may not Ordain any thing contrary to Gods Written Word That General Councils may err and have erred and that things Ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the holy Scripture And those are accursed that presume to say that every man may be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth And why not if he must do all that the Governours require or nothing divers to them § 55. My Reason forbids me to trace such a Writer as this any further To tell men of every vain Harangue and confident discourse that 's full of gross error or false report is work unworthy of time and labour but I will a little more open the Coar of his deceit CHAP. V. Wherein Mr. Dodwell's deceits and the danger of them do consist § 1. AS to his Method of disputing that you may detect his fallacies he hath got this absurd ptetence p. 90. That there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to have skill in Causes Ans. Would you have thought that ever a man should publickly use such a Cothurnus among the Learned What a man is obliged to mean is one thing and what he doth mean is another And is there any one that knoweth what humane Language is that knoweth not that almost all words have various significations Doth he not know by how good reason the Schools oblige Disputants first to explain their Terms And what need there is of Definition to explain them He instanceth in the words Bishops and the Church of England And might have added the Catholick Church And doth he not know that it is the species of Bishops that we differ about and will the general name here explain each parties sense When we are for one sort of Bishops and against another And is it not such fraud as souls should not be abused by to refuse wilfully to define the Episcopacy that he meaneth and then plead that all should understand him And why is it not as much ignorance in him not to understand me as in me not to understand him when I use distinct explication which he obstinately refuseth And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet's case shame what he saith of the Church of England who was hardly brought to explain it and at last denieth the very being of the Church in Mr. Dodwell's sense which of you was to blame to meddle with the Word till you had skill in Causes to understand it without a Definition And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet take it as the Introduction of Popery to hold a Constitutive Regent Church-Government National or Catholick and so he and Mr. Dodwell mean not the same thing by the Church Catholick nor Bishop Guning Mr. Thorndike or the Church of Rome who are all for an Universal humane Supreme power And who is he that hath read Dr. Challoners Credo Eccles. Cathol Chillingworth Bishop Mortons Grand Imposture Bishop Bilson Dr. White Dr. Whitaker Dr. Sutliffe Bishop Andrews Bishop Carlton c. Chamier Sadeel Melancthon Bucer c. who knoweth not that the Papists and Prorestants by the name of the Catholick Church do mean several things and that we deny the very being of any such Church as they call the Catholick And is this the bold and happy Disputant that will save the Schools and World the labour of explaining Terms and foreagreeing of the sense and put men on disputing where the Subjâ—ct is denied and fill a Book with tedious confident Harangues and then hide all the fraud by saying that there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige mâ—n to mean and that every one ought to know who pretend to have skill in Causes When the Cause disputed is only managed by words as they signifie the minds of the Speakers about the real matters § 2. And as to the material fundamental difference between Mr. Dodwell's party and us it lyeth in these following things I. We totally differ about the nature of Gods Government of man II. And about the use of the Holy Scripture and Gods Laws III. About the nature and extent of all humane Government IV. About the form of moral good and evil V. About the essential form of the Catholick Church VI. About Gods ordinary means of saving Grace VII About the use of Preaching VIII About the duty of worshipping God in Sacred Assemblies or the Communion of Saints IX About the difference of Apostles and the office of the Bishops X. About the office of a Presbyter or Parish-Pastor XI About the Necessaries to Ministry Churches Christianity and ordinary title to Salvation XII And
consented to all the General Councils 3. You shall chuse what Name I shall call you by If it be Protestant far be it from me to deny it you But as your Book publisheth your judgment to the world you will give me leave to tell men what is in it And to profess my self that I am no such Protestant as takes the Church of Rome to be a true Church of uninterrupted succession which gave our Bishops their Office and Power and that all the Reformed that have not Diocesan Bishops are no Churches no Ministers have no Sacraments no pardon of sin or hope of salvation by promise and known ordinary grounds which the Roman Church hath Yea that they sin against the Holy Ghost Yea and that this is the case of the Episcopal Protestants that have not had an uninterrupted succession of Episcopal Ordination and that the French Protestants were better turn Papists than to continue such Protestants as they are I take all this for your judgment But I vindicate you so far as to say that you oft contradict your self and so possibly may yet come off If you should say that neither such Protestants nor Papists have Sacraments and part in the Covenant of grace pardon and salvation you would leave so few for Heaven and so many for Hell as I will not imagine you to be guilty oâ— II. As to the Second I must tell all that I take it but for trifling to call us to answer the same things again which are answered so long ago and have no reply from Papists or any other And I doubt not but you know that it is the main charge which the Papists assault the Reformed Churches with and put their chief trust in which you also bring against them And we still believe that Iansenius did it much stronglier than you and much more than yours is by Voâ—tius against him fully answered and your denial moveth us not III. To satisfie your Third demand I remember a small Script which I published 1659 or 1660 and therewith send it you by which with what I read to you you may conjecture at my terms specially if you joyn my Preface to Cathol Theologie I take it for granted that it will not satisfie you But pardon my freedom for saying that while I perceive your Confidence ordinarily to go quite beyond your Proofs and while my Principles call me to love more as brethren than yours do and engage me not to justifie persecution of men better than my self I shall think never the worse of them for that IV. As to your judgment for my ceasing to Preach I dare not obey it I think if I say these men forbid me God will not take it for an excuse after such charges as Scripture layeth down and such promises as in Ordination I made and such necessity of souls as I am sure of and such encouragements as God hath given me I fear hearing Thou slothful servant c. as much as the guilt of other heinous sins I have not lived idly and if I silence my self I invite God by death to silence me and judg me as obeying man against him I am past doubt that Satan and my flesh give me the same counsel as you do I have abundant arguments for my Preaching which I never heard a â—ational answer of and which such a poor Objection as Then there will be no Order will not confute especially when all the Ministers of England are bound to be Nonconformists and consequently to â—ease Preaching if I am so bound And why not next all Christians to cease hearing and praying if so forbidden If it be only Christs Gospel that I Preach I cannot but suspect the voice that saith Give over Preaching Accept this account of the sense of Your Friend Rich. Baxter To Mr. Dodwell Nov. 15th 1680. SIR YOurs of Oct. 16 th I received Nov. 11 th which intimateth the Second Edition of your Letters which I hear not of your last Letter to me signifying your purpose to publish your long Letter from Ireland to me caused me to Print an old Treatise of Episcopacy which I had cast by and now send you as an answer to that Letter I thank you for your admonition and desire of my repentance It shall make me if I can search yet more diligently but I find no probability of being able the like lamentations of my sin and wrong to the Church I have long had from Papists Antinomians Anabaptists and Separatists and some Quakers and Seekers and I despair of satisfying them nor can I be of all their minds and I find here but one Argument to draw me to yours viz my taking the Oath of Canonical obedience And 1. You know not that I took it Many Ordained men did not To tell you the truth I entered so rawly that though I well remember my Subscription I remember not that I took that Oath I remember I took it not for my Ordination but at the same time taking a License for a School some Oath the Register suddenly thrust on me and I remember not what it was which was and is my sin 2. If I took it surely I never intended to bind my self to any but my true Ordinary And when he is dead and the very Order for near Twenty years publickly though culpably put down and none existent where I lived I never saw it proved that I am sworn to all that after are set up over others by the King without the Clergies or Peoples choice or consent contrary to the Judgment of the Church for One thousand years and that without and against my own consent And that he that sweareth obedience to his present Ordinary is thereby sworn though he never dream't of it to all that ever shall succeed him what changes soever be made and though judging them Usurpers I renounce them If it be said that I virtually consent by the Convocation I deny it nor did the City of London consent for they had not one chosen Clerk there They chose Mr. Calamy and me and we were both refused by the Bishop and only the Dignitaries of the City admitted What if I had sworn obedience in 1639. to the Presbytery in Scotland or 1649. in England and after they are put down and I find them to be an unlawful power and they are restored again doth my first Oath bind me to the latter stock against my consent 3. The English Ecclesiastical Law-Books which I have read do tell me that the Chancellor Official Commissary Archdeacons and every Iudex Ordinarius is my Ordinary whatever you say against it And some Bishops themselves have judged the Lay-Chancellors Judgment by the use of the Keys to be a great sin Quest. Whether then an ignorant Oath to obey such Usurpers repented of do bind to obey them still What if in France I had sworn obedience to their Bishops and after see that it was an unlawful Oath quod materiam am I bound by it till death 4.
no power to cross or violate these his Laws And if they do it notoriously it is null and worse and no act of authority but of sin e. g. If Bishops baptize unconverted Infidels or give the other Sacrament to such or to notorious wicked impenitent persons 3. I believe that if one or many Bishops or Priests do disobey these Laws of Christ their sin doth not oblige all other persons to rebel or sin with them or disoblige them from their duty e. g. If some Bishops should refuse to receive penitent believers and their â—eed into the Church by Baptism others are nevertheless bound to receive them and not all the Bishops in the world to keep them out because some do it sinfully so if some Bishops would feed them with unâ—ound Doctrine or corrupt Gods Worship e. g. with Image-worship or language unintâ—lligible c. others must not follow them but do better And if some Bishops turn Christs sheep out of his sold and pasture unjustly denying them Communion others must not do wickedly with them but must receive such else one tyrant might oblige all the Churches to tyranny 4. But while the power of the Keys is lawfully used he that is justly cast out of the Communion of one Church should not be received to Communion with any other that hath just notice of his Exclusion till the cause be removed 5. But the notice of it concerneth not those that living out of reach are uncapable of Communion with that person If a woman in this Parish be Excommunicated as a Scold or a man as a Drunkard c. the Bishop is not bound to send notice of their names and case to Ethiopia or Armenia nor to all the Christian World no nor to all England Nor do they use to do it to all the Parishes in the Diocess but only to that one where the person liveth But I doubt not but all that Church should know of it of which he was a Communicating member by the way why is not all the Diocess told of it but that men are conscious that he hath not Personal communion with them and therefore need not be so Excommunicated 6. Therefore mens limited capacity allowing them Personal Communion but in a narrow compass there needs no Confederacy of all the Christian World for the rejecting of those that one of them hath first rejected 7. But in well-ordered agreeing Churches none should be received presently into the Communion of another Church without due notice of his aptitude or capacity which regularly should be by the Certificates of the Church whence he came called Communicatory Letters or if he was never before admitted to the Sacrament because not at age his own Personal profession giveth him right and so it doth in the Countries where through neglect such Certificates or Testimonies are not in use sobeit there come in no proof against him that he stands Excommunicate or deserveth it A professing Christian hath right to Communion if he travel through all the Churches in the World till his profession be disproved or his claim disabled by just testimony If a man be Excommunicate in e. g. Lincoln-Diocess in one Parish-Church above a thousand Parishes more of the same Church Diocesan may receive him for want of notice unless they are bound to receive no stranger of another Parish and that is a kind of Excommunicating of all Christians from the Communion of all the Christian World except one Parish 8. The Legal Excommunication which is only a general pronunciation that such or such sinners in specie shall be actually excommunicate is done already by God himself in his Universal Laws And no man ought to make Laws to Excommunicate any that Gods Laws do not decree to be Excommunicate save that when there is a difficulty in discerning whether this or that Doctrine or practice be indeed the sin so condemned in Gods Laws mens Laws may expound it to remove that difficulty If all were excommunicate that Gods own Laws do require to be excommunicate alas how great would the number be So little need is there that Voluminous Councils should excommunicate many more and that Councils should be added to Councils to the end of the world to make new Laws for excommunicating men 9. Where God hath commanded all Christians in his Laws to avoid any sort of wicked men and with such not to eat the fact being once notorious the person is so far ipso jure excommunicate as that all are bound to avoid familiarity with that person though no Bishop sentence him But the Pastors having the Church Keys we must not go out of the Church because such a man is there for who shall be in the Church is at his Judgment but who shall be at my Table is at mine 10. But if the Church it self be essentiated of such as God thus commandeth all to avoid and this be notorious every Christian must avoid that Church The Essentials of a Church are the pars regens pars subdita the Pastors and the Body of the flock If either be so far corrupt the Church is corupt When any one essential part is wanting or depraved then the Essence is wanting or depraved Therefore where many Pastors make up the pars regens of a particular Church it is not the heresie or wickedness of some one only that will warrant a separation because one is but an integral and not an essential part But where one Bishop only is the essential regent constitutive part there that one mans heresie or notorious wickedness such as we are commanded to have no Communion with will allow us to avoid that Church as a Church though not each Member of it who are parts still of the Universal Church If I knew what further explication of my thoughts it is that you desire I should be ready to give it you III. As to the coercive power which you talk of it is strange if we can differ about the nature of it but we greatly differ I suppose about the extent of it Pardon me if to avoid confusion I first speak of the Name and then of the Thing 1. Though our ordinary use of the words coactive and coercive be to signifie that which worketh either on the Body and its provision only or on the Mind by force upon the Body or Estate yet if you will but tell me what you mean by it so distinctly that we may not be entangled with Logomachy take it in what sense you will The words which you use are the signification of your mind I desire but to understand and to be understood I follow Bishop Bilson of Christ. Obed. and others commonly that distinguish the power of Magistrates and Pastors by the Names of the power of the Sword and of the Word By the first they mean all power of corporal mulâ—ts and penalties directly such for he that grievâ—th the mind consequently troubleth the body By the latter they mean all that Official power of Gods
Word and Sacraments which worketh by the senses of hearing seeing and tasting upon the Conscience that is on the Understanding and Will and by these reformeth practice The word is thus deâ—ivered either Generally by common Doctrine which is historical assertive precepts prohibitions promises or threatnings or by personal application of these 1. By meer words as in personal instruction precept threatning c. and by declaration that this person proved and judged guilty of impenitency in such and such sin is uncapable of Church-communion therefore by auâ—hority from Christ I command him to forbear and you to avoid him And such a one being proved innocent or penitent hath by Gods Law right to Communion with his Church therefore I absolve him invite him receive him and command you in Christs name to hold loving Communion with him 2. Or it is the application of words and Sacramental signs togetâ—er by solemn tradition and investiture or the denying of such Sacraments Briefly Magistrates by mulcts prisons exile 〈◊〉 c. work on the body Pastors have no such power bâ—t by General Doctrine and personal application by words and Sacraments given or denied work on the mind or conscience 〈◊〉 which some call a Perswasive power distinguishing as Camero 〈◊〉 between private perswasion of an equal c. and Doctâ—ral Pastoral Official Perswasion whose force is by the Divine authority of the perswader used in Teaching Disciplinary judging and Sacraments If you will call this last coercive or by any other name you have your liberty I will do my part that you may understand me if I may not understand you 2. Now ad rem can we disagree how far this constraineth the unwilling Not without some great neglect or culpable defect I may suppose then that we are agreed of all these particulars 1. That Gods Laws have told us who must or must not have Sacramental Communion which we must obey whatever be the effects 2. That Excommunication is not only nor alway chiefly to bring the person Excommunicated to obedience no more than hanging but to keep the purity and reputation of the Church and the safety of the members and to warn others 3. That the way by which it is to affect the offender is 1. By shaming him 2. By striking his Conscience with the sense of Gods displeasure declared thus by his Ministers 4. So far as the Sacrament is a means of conveying grace to deny it is not to reform but to destroy But when the person hath made himself uncapable of the benefit of the Sacrament and apt to receive it abusively to his hurt then it may possibly humble him to be denied it 5. If the denial of the Sacrament work not on a mans Conscience morally as threatnings do it no way compelleth him to his duty nor saveth him from sin 6. De facto many hundred thousands of ignorant wicked members of Episcopal Churches are so far from being constrained to goodness by being without the Sacrament that they are content to be without it and loth to be forced to it 7. The more sin and wickedness any man hath the less true conscience and the less conscience the less doth he regard a due Excommunication 8. The Bishops themselves are conscious of the insufficiency of their Excommunications alone to compel any to obedience while they confess that without the Secular power of the sword to back it they would be but laught at and despised by the most Nor durst they ever try to govern by their Church Keys alone among us without the enforcement of the sword And at the same time while they Excommunicate them from the Sacrament they have a Law to lay them in Gaol and utterly ruin them if they will not receive it How loth are the Bishops to lose this compelling Law 9. I think few of my acquaintance in England do believe that any great number are brought to holy reformation no nor to Episcopal obedience by the fear of being kept from the Sacrament but that which they fear is the Corporal penalty that followeth lay by that and you may try 10. If you will trust to that spiritual power alone valeat quantum valere potest without corporal force few that I know of will resist you but many thousands will despise you as the Bishops well foresee bring as many to obedience by it as you can But if you mean that you must needs have the Magistrate to second you as your Lictor or Executioner and to imprison fine banish burn c. it would be too gross hypocrisie to call the effects of this coercive power the effects of Excommunication and to call it coercive power to deny a man the Sacrament because he feareth the sword 11. De facto there are supposed to be in the Parish that you dwell in above 60000 souls suppose 10000 of these yearly receive the Sacrament though some say it is not 5000. Are the other 40000 compelled to obedience by not communicating 12. All those forbear your Sacrament without any sense of coercion or loss 1. Who believe as you do that Sacramental Communion is a sin where it cannot lawfully be had that is say you where the Bishops forbid it say they where Gods Laws forbid it by reason of adherent sin 2. And that take the Bishops who forbid it them to be Usurpers that have no true calling as all the Papists do of our Bishops and many others 3. Who take it to be more eligible yea a necessary duty to hold Communion with purer societies 4. Besides all those Sectaries that make light of Sacraments in general What Papists Quakers Anabaptist Separatists c. are compelled to any good by the Bishops denying them the Sacrament 13. Nothing but Ignorance or Impudence can deny that the difficulty of knowing whose Excommunication it is that is to be dreaded as owned by God hath encouraged professed Christians so confusedly to Excommunicate one another as that this Excommunication hath been so far from constraining most to repentance that it hath made Christianity a horrid scandal to Infidels and Heathens by setting the Christian World in the odious confusion of Excommunicating one another To give some instances how far Excommunication is not coercive 1. Who but the Devil was the gainer of Pope Victor's Excommunicating the Asians about Easter-day Did it compel them to obedience 2. When the Orthodox Excommunicated the Arrians did it force them to obey When they got almost all the Bishops for them and Excommunicated and destroyed their Excommunicators 3. When the Cecilians or Orthodox and the Donatists for so many ages Excommunicated one another meerly upon the difference which party had the true Ordained Bishops did Excommunications force them to obedience 4. To pass forty other Sects when Rome Excommunicated yea and prosecuted the Novatians did it compel them to obey And did not Atticus Sisinnius and Proclus win more by allowing them their own Communion and living with them in love and peace Chrysostome since threatned
the Novatian Bishop that he would silence him but he quickly recalled his word before they parted and durst not do it 5. Did Cyril's Counsel against the Ioannites win them or harden them Was it not Atticus and Proclus love and lenity that ended that division 6. Did the Excommunicating of the Nestorians by Cyril compell them to obedience when so much of the East are Nestorians to this day and requite the Orthodox with their Excommunications 7. Did the Excommunicating of those that rejected the Council of Calcedon the Eutychians and Acephali compel them to obedience when many Emperours took their part and the greater number of Bishops joined with them and they equally damned those that received the Council for many Princes reigns And when so great a part of Christians as are the Iacobites Abassines c. own Dioscorus and condemn that Council to this day 8. Did the Excommunicating of the old Hereticks Gnosticks Basilidians Valentinians Paulinists Apollinarians Eunomians Aetians Photinians Macedonians Priscillians c. compel them to obedience at all or did they regard it 9. Did the Excommunicating of the parties that were for silence the Acacians as to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and those that were for Zeno's Henoticon compel them to obedience 10 Dâ—d the mutual damnations of the Phantasticks Iustinian's and Gâ—mas party and the Corrupticolae force either to obedience 11. Did the Excommunications of the Monothelites compel them to obedience when in the days of Philippicus they had a Council saith Binnius of Innumerable Bishops And he saith that the General Council at Trul called Quiniâ—extum was of the same men that were in the approved sixth General Council and that they were Monothelites 12 Did the several Excommunications of the Constantinopolitan Bishop by the Roman and of the Roman again by them and the Alexandrian c compel either party to obedience 13. Had the Pope Excommunicated the Africans in the long fraction in the days of Aurelius and Austin would it have compeled them to obedience 14. When the Pope at last joined with Iuâ—tinians General Council against the Tria Capitula and condemned the refusers of it did it compel his own neighbour-Bishops to obedience when they so generally forsook him that there were not three Bishops to Consecrate the Pope but he was fain to use a Presbyter and when they set up a Patriarch at Aquileia as their chief and condemned or forsook the Pope for near an hundred years 15. Did the Popes Excommunicating of the Goths in Spain and and other parts compel them to obey him 16. Did Augustines rejection of the Britains and the Britains and Scots long refusing Communion with the Romanists compel either party to obey 17. Did the Excommunicating of Leo Isaurus Constantine and the rest of the Iconoclasts compel them to obey 18. Did the Excommunicating of the Albigenses and Waldenses bring them to obedience Or was it not say some Historians the murder of about two Millions that solitudinem fecit quam vocarunt pacem 19. Did the Excommunications of the Emperours Frederick Henry c. and their adherents as the Venetian Interdict compel them to obedience 20. Did the Excommunicating of the German Protestants and Queen Elizabeth and the English Protestants bring them to obedience How many such instances may I give you If you say To what purpose is all this I shall say No doubt so knowing a man can tell It is to tell you why I expect no more coercive power from meer Excommunication than experience and reason will allow me to expect And no such perfect obedience and universal concord by it as your words import And some questions I here crave your Answer of Qu. 1. The same that you so much urge on me Seeing this matter of fact is undeniable and Excommunication hath done no more than it hath done Is all Church-Government therefore vain Or what is your own way of remedy Qu. 2. Seeing it is Bishops themselves that for so many hundred years excommunicated one another as Hereticks and Schismaticks how shall they or their flocks be certain which Bishops they be whose excommunications they must take as Gods act and which not I pray answer it plainly 1. If any say It must be the Majority or greater number then so were the Arrians too long so were the Eutychians so were the Monothelites so were the Iconoclasts so the Papists say they are now If you say The Bishops in a General Council that 's almost all one What Wars were there between many General Councils and how long was it the Religion of one side to be for one and curse the other and of the other side to curse all that did not receive that How shall we know which Council to obey If you say as Binnius that all Councils have just so much power as the Pope giveth them how shall we know that this is true But I suppose that will not be your answer If you say we must obey that which is Orthodox who is the Judg If every man then they that judg the excommunicating-Bishops or Councils not Orthodox will not obey them Truly I know not what answer to expect from you Qu. 3. Can that man expect that excommunicating should set all right and bring men to obedience now in the end of the world who is constrained against his will to be certain that abused excommunications have been the great means of setting the Christian world into pernicious Schâ—sms and Confusions Qu. 4. At this day when the Papal Church unchurches all the Christian Churches that are not Subjects to the Pope and when the Greek Church excommunitcateth the Papal and most continue damning one another can you think that even excommunicating is the remedy to cure these Schisms and set all right Qu. 5. If denying men the Sacrament will constrain men to obedience why do not the Episcopal Churches through the world cure the Peoples sins by keeping them from the Sacrament when so great numbers are prophane and sensual and worldlings and wicked how easie a means of Conversion were it to forbid them all the Sacrament Qu. 6. Is it no contradiction to say that the Sacrament is Gods means of giving Sanctification and yet that keeping men from it is the means Qu. 7. But if you mean not constraining to obey God but only to obey the Bishop and not God what good will such obedience do the mans soul that will not save him I confess the Magistrate that hath the Sword may compel men to the use of the necessary suitable means of Conversion and Grace and those means may further Sanctification IV. As to the Fourth Point I have said enough of it to you heretofore 1. If no Religious Assemblies for Preaching Praying and Sacraments be lawful but what the Bishops allow then God hath put it into the Bishops power whether he shall have any such publick worship or any shall be obliged so to worship him or not But the Consequent is false Ergo So is
the Antecedent True Pastors have but the power to promote and order Gods worship but not to exclude or forbid it to any much less to all or 1000. without necessary cause 2. And then if Preaching and Hearing and Sacraments be ordinarily necessary to mens salvation then God hath left it to the will or power of the Bishops whether any of the people shall be ordinarily saved But that is not so 3. And then if the King should license or command us to Preach Pray and Communicate and the Bishop forbid it it were sin But that I will not believe unless the Cause more than the Authority make the difference To cooclude I hold that just use of the Keys is very necessary and that it is the great sin of England to reject it But that a false usurped use of excomunication hath been the incendiary of the Christian world which hath broken it to pieces caused horrid Schisms Rebellions Treasons Murders and bloody Wars I. The just use is 1. When a scandalous or great sinner is with convincing evidence told of his error and with seriousness yet with love and compassion intreated to repent and either prevailed with and so absolved or after due patience Authoritatively pronounced uncapable of Church-Communion and bound over to answer it at the Bar of Christ in terror if he repent not and this by the Pastor of that particular Church which either statedly or pro tempore he belongeth to 2. And when this is duly notified to such Neighbour-Pastors as he may seek Communion with and they agree not to receive any justly cast out by others but to receive and relieve the injured and falsly condemned 3. And when the King and his Justices permit not the ejected violently to intrude and take the Sacrament or joyn with the Church by force but preserveth forcibly the Peace and Priviledges of the Churches II. The excommunication that hath turned the Church into Factions and undone almost East and West is 1. When a Bishop because of his humane Superiory as Patriark Primate or Pope claimeth the power of excommunicating other Bishops as his Subjects whose Sentence must stand because of his Regent power 2. Or at least gathering a Council where he shall preside and that Council shall take themselves to have a Governing power of the Keys over the particular Bishop not only to renounce Communion with them themselves but to oblige all others to stand to their judicial Sentence 3. When Bishops shall meddle causelesly in other Bishops Churches and make themseves Judges either of distant unknown persons and cases or of such as they have nothing to do to try Yea judg men of other Countries or so distant as the Witnesses and Causes cannot without oppression be brought to their Bar. 4. When they disgrace Gods universal Laws of Communion as insâ—fficiâ—nt and make a multitude of unnecessary ensnaring dividing Laws of their own according to which they must be mens Judges 5. When these Laws are not made only for their own flocks and selves but for all the Christian world or for absent or dissenting persons 6. When men excommunicate others for hard words not understood that deserve it not as to real matter 7. Or do it to keep up an unlawful usurped power over those Churches that never consented to take them for their Pastors and to rule where they have no true Authority but such as standeth on a forcing strength 8. When Lay-Chancellors use the Keys of the Church 9. When men excommunicate others wickedly for doing their duty to God and man or unjustly without sufficient Cause 10. When unjust excommunicators force Ministers against their Consciences to publish their condemnations against those that they know to be not worthy of that Sentence if not the best of their flocks 11. And when they damn all as Hereticks Schismaticks c. that communicate with any that they thus unjustly damn 12. When they dishonour Kings and higher Pwers by disgracing excommunications much more when they depose them 13. When they tell Princes that it is their duty to banish imprison or destroy men because excommunicate and not reconciled and make Kings their Executioners And so of old when a Bishop was excommunicate he must presently be banished And they say the Scots horning is of the same nature If all had been either banished or imprisoned that were excommunicate aâ—d unreconciled in the pursuit of the General Councils of old how great a diminution would it have made of the free Subjects of the Empire And if Princes must strike with the Sword all that stand excommunicate without trying and judging the persons themselves it is no wonder if such Prelates as can first so debase them to be their Lictors can next depose them He is like to be a great Persecuter that will imprison or banish all that a proud contentious Clergy will excommunicate As corruptio optimi est pessima I doubt not but a wise humble holy spiritual loving heavenly zealous patient exemplary sort of Pastors is the means of continuing Christs Kingdom in the World and such are the Pillars and Basis of Truth in the House of God as it is said of Timothy not of the Church as is commonly mistaken So an ignorant worldly carnal proud usurping domineering hypocritical sort of Pastors have been the great plagues and causes of Schism confusion and common calamity And that when Satan can be the chuser of Pastors for Christs Church he will and too oft hath ever chuse such as shall most succesfully serve him in Christs Name And I doubt not but such holy Discipline as shall keep clean the Church of Christ and keep off the reproach of wickedness and uncleanness from the Christian Religion and manifest duly to the flock the difference between the precious and the vile is a great Ordinance of God which one man cannot exercise over many hundred Parishes and unknown people But an usurped domineering use of excommunication to subdue Kings Princes Nobles and people to the Jurisdiction Opinions and Canons of Popes Patriarchs Prelates or their Councils I think hath done not the least part of Satans work in the world And I must tell you that I have lived now near 62. now near 66. years and I never saw one man or woman reformed or converted by excommunication and I hope I have known thousands converted from their sin by Preaching even by some that are now forbidden to Preach All that ever I knew excommunicate were of two sorts 1. Dissenters from the Opinions of the Bishops or conscientious refusers of their commands And these all rejoice in their sufferings applying Blessed are ye when they cast out your names c. say all evil of you falsly c. or they take their censure for wicked persecution The Papists laugh at their Excommunicators and say What an odd conditioned Church have you that will cast us out that never came in and because we will not come in 2. Ungodly impenitent sinners And these hate
the excommunicators for disgracing them and are driven further off from godliness than before But they will say they repent at any time rather than go to the Gaol I never saw one person brought to publick confession in the Assembly by the Bishops Discipline but I heard I was young of one or two that for Adultery stood in a White Sheet in the Church laughing at the sport or hating the imposers When there were no Bishops among us about 1650. many Episcopal Presbyterians c. agreed where I lived to exercise so much Discipline as we were all agreed belonged to Presbyters Hereupon I found good success in bringing some to repentance by admonition but never of any one that stood it out to an excommunication so far as we went which was only to admonish and pray for their repentance publickly and after to declare them unmeet for Christian Communion and to require the people to avoid them accordingly till they repent After this they hated us more than before and one of them laid hands on me in the Church-Yard to have killed me And I am sure that they reverenced those Ministers more than now Lay-Chancellors if not Bishops are by such reverenced So that experience convinced me that the penalty of excommunication is much more beneficial to others than to the excommunicate And how many thousands in your Parish do now voluntarily excommunicate themselves from the Sacrament and Church-Assemblies and find no Remorse or Reformation by it And if all of both sorts conscientious Dissenters and prophane despisers and sinners were excommunicated now by the Church of England without any corporal penalty adjoyned what do you think it would do upon them Would they not laugh at you or pity you Do not the Bishops believe this and therefore will not trust to their excommunications at all without the Sword I cannot magnifie the Discipline of such men as count themselves the Power of the Keys to be but a Leaden Sword a vain thing without the annexed enforcement of corporal penalties If it be but outward obedience to their commands which they drive men to without the heart 1. Men of no Conscience will soonest obey them as forced against their Consciences 2. And why do they abuse the name of the Keys as if it were the cause of that which it is no cause of but is done only by the Magistrates Sword It is the Writ De excom cap. that doth it and not the Keys And they that think unwilling persons have right to the great benefit of Church Communion yea all that had rather come â—o Church than lie in Gaol shall never have my assent If really your meaning be to set up the power of the Keys by themselves to do their proper work and not expect that Magistrates must joyn their forcing power to punish a man meerly because he beareth the Bishops punishment patiently without changing his mind Let it prevail as far as it can prevail who will fear it save for the Schism that it may cause But if it be your meaning all this while that under the name of denying the Sacrament it is Confiscation or the Gaol that must do the work I should wish for more of the Spirit of Christianity and less inclination to the Inquisition-way Persecution never yet escaped its due odium or penalty by disowning its proper name I am more of St. Martin's mind than of Ithacius's V. One word more I add That I like not your making so light as you seem to me to do of the badness of some Ministers and People that are in the allowed Churches I know that the Papists speak much of the holiness of a Pope when perhaps a General Council saith he is a Murderer Adulterer Heretick c. and so call their Church Relatively holy I deny not that Relative holiness which is founded in meer profession But I believe that Christ came to gather a people to another sort of Godliness and by his Spirit to fill them with Divine and Heavenly Life Light and Love to God and man And I believe that all that have this though excommunicate shall be glorified And that without this all the obedience to Bishops that they give will never keep them out of Hell And I take it to be no great priviledg to march in an orderly Army to damnation or to be at peace in Satans power Hell will be Hell which way ever we come to it I confess were these Bishops in the right that Sancta Clara citeth that say The ignorant people might merit by hating God as an act of obedience if their Pastors should tell them it is their duty then this external obedience to them were more considerable But I had rather go in the Company that goeth to Heaven as all do that are true Lovers of God and man than in that which goeth to Hell as do the most Regular of the ungodly And yet I account true obedience and regularity a great duty of the godly and a great help to godliness And therefore I value the Means for the End Concord for Piety and salvation And I cannot think that there is not now in London a very laudable degree of Concord among all those that though in different Assemblies and with difference of opinions about small matters do hold one Body one Spirit one Lord one Faith one Baptism one Celestial hope and one God and Father of all and live in Love and Peace and Patience towards each other This is far greater Concord than the thousands of people that deserving excommunication for their wicked lives do hold in the bosom of the Church which receiveth them as children thereof And O! were it not for that uncharitable impatience which an ill selfish Spirit doth contain why should it seem to us a matter of such odium envy or out-cry for men to hear the same Gospel from another man which for some differing opinion they will not hear from us Or for men to communicate e. g. standing or sitting in a Congregation of that mind that weakly scruple to kneel at it with others the old Canons countenancing their gesture of standing more than kneeling What harm will it do me if under the strictest Laws of Peace men worshipped God by themselves that scruple some word or action in our worship E. g. a Nestorian that should think that it is improper to say that the Virgin Mary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the denomination should be a ratione formali rather than a materiali Would Liberty in such matters with Love and Peace do more hurt to the Churches than Schismatical excommunications have done And indeed it is hard to make people able to reconcile a Conjunct earnâ—stness in driving the same men into the Church and casting them out yea of excommunicating them ipso facto by divers Canons sine sententia and accusing them for not communicating If it be for not repenting 1. Can you bring all the sinners about us to repentance by
which maketh nothing for the mutability of the Universal Laws 8. No Pastors since the Apostles are by office or power appointed to make any Universal Laws for the Church nor any of the same kind and reason with Gods own Laws whose reason or cause was existent in the Apostles times but only to explain the word of God and apply it to particular persons and cases as Ministers under Christ in his Teaching Priestly and Governing office nor have the Apostles any other kind of Successors 9. Christ made not Peter or any one of his Apostles Governour of the rest But when they strove who should be the chief rebuked that expectation and determined That among them Preeminence should consist in excelling in humility and service 10. When the Corinthians were sick of the like disease Paul rebuked them for saying I am of Cephas and determineth that Apostles are but particular members of the body of which Christ only is the Head and not the Lords but Ministers and helpers of their faith 11 No Pastors as such have forcing power either to touch mens bodies or estates or inflict by the sword corporal penalties or mulcts But only by the word by which the power of the Keys is exercised to instruct men and urge Gods precepts promises and threats upon their Consciences 12. The Apostles were Bishops eminenter in that they called gathered and while they stayed with them governed Churches But not formaliter as taking any one particular Church for their proper charge But setled such fixed Bishops over them And though they distributed their labours about the world prudently and as the Spirit of Christ guided them yet we find not any probability that ever they divided the world into twelve or thirteen Provinces or ever setled twelve or thirteen chief Metropolitical seats in the world which their proper Successors as such should govern in preeminence Nor doth any History intimate such a thing nor yet that any Apostle took any City for his proper Diocess where another Apostle might not come and exercise equal Power 13. It seemeth that Christs sending out his seventy Disciples by two and two and the Apostles staying together much at Ierusalem and Paul and Barnabas's going forth together and after Paul Silas and Barnabas and Mark Peter and Paul supposed to be together at Rome c. that the Spirit of God did purposely prevent the intentions of any afterward of being the Metropolitical Successors of single Apostles or Disciples of Christs immediate sending in this or that City as their proper seat 14. As Grotius thinks that the Churches were instituted after the likeness of the Synagogues of which one City had many so Dr. Hammond endeavours to evince not only that Peter and Paul were Bishops of two distinct Churches of Rome one of the Iews and the other of the Gentile Christians but also that it was so in other Cities Dissertat 15. The Patriarchs were not 12 or 13 but three first and five afterward and none of them pretended to any power as especial Successors of any one Apostle but Antioch and Rome of Peter and that was not their first claim or title but an honorary reason why men afterward advanced them Alexandria claimed Succession but from St. Mark and Ierusalem from Iames no Apostle if Dr. Hammond and others be not much mistaken and Constantinople from none 16. The 28 Canon of Calcedon tels us enough of the foundation title and reason of Patriarchal power and all Church-History that the Metropolitical Powers were granted by Emperours either immediately or empowering Councils thereto 17. These Emperours having no power out of the Empire neither by themselves nor by Councils gave not any power that extended further than the Empire or that could by that title continue to any City which fell under the Government of another Prince 18 Aâ— theâ—e never was a Council truly Universal so the name Vniversal or Oecâ—menical was not of old given them in respect to the whole Christian world but to the whole Empire as the power that called them and the names of the Bishops subscribed c. fully prove 19. Before Christian Princes did empower them Councils were but for Counsel concord and correspondency and particular Pastors were bound by their Decrees only 1. For the evidence of truth which they made known 2. And by the General Law of God to maintain unity and peace and help each other But afterward by vertuâ— of the Princes Law or Will they exercised a direct Government over the particular Bishops and those were oft banished that did not submit to them 20. While Councils met but for Counsel and Concord and also when afterwards they were but Provincial or National under Kings where none of the Patriarchal Spirit and Interest did corrupt them they made excellent Orders and were a great blessing to the Churches Of the first sort e. g. were divers African and of the latter divers Spanish and French when neither Emperor nor Popâ— did over-rule them but the Gothish and French Kings moderately govern them But though I deny not any good which the Councils called General did especially the firâ—â— Nicene yet I must profess that the History of the Patriarchal Seats and the History of the General Councils and the Church-Wars then and after them managed by Four of the Patriarchs especially and their Bishops the confusion caused in most of the Churches the Anathematizâ—ng of one another the blood that hath been shed in the open streets of Monks and common people yea the fighting and fury of Bishops at the Councils to the death of some of them their â—iring out the endeavours of such Emperors and their Officers that would have kept Peace and Concord among them do all put me out of hope that the Peace and Concord of the Christian world should ever be setled by Popes Patriarchs or such kind of Councils which all have so long filled the Christian world with most calamitous divisions contentions and blood-shed and made the snares which continue its divisions and distractions to this day II. I conceive that the means of Church-concord appointed by God is as follows But I premise 1. It must be pre-supposed That no perfect Concord will be had on earth yea that there will unavoidably be very many differences which must be born So great is the diversity of mens natural Capacity and Temper their Education Company Teachers Helps Interests Callings Temptations c. that it is not probable that any Two men in all the world are in every particular of the same mind And every man that groweth in knowledg will more and more differ from himself and not be of the same mind as he was when he knew less 2. Yet must our increase in knowledg and Concord be our continual endeavour and it is the use of teaching to bring these differences caused by ignorance to as small a number as we can 3. There is scarce a more effectual means of Division and Confusion and
of Salvation such could not be brought to Faith Holiness and Salvation for want of teaching it is yet my sin to preach to them and my duty to let them rather be damned if I have not the Bishops consent to teach them and that because it is the Bishop and not I that shall answer for their damnation VIII That it is disputable with you whether those to whom Church power is given viz. Diocesans may not change not only the local temporary circumstances but the very Church-forms and suspend Laws of Christ. IX That Baptism entreth the Baptized into some particular Church and consequently under this fore-described Church-Government X. That in the case of Preaching the Gospel Ministers may in many cases do it though Emperours and Kings forbid them as in the days of Constantius Valens yea and better men but not if the Bishop forbid them or consent not XI That circa Sacra if the King command the Churches for Uniformity one Translation of the Bible one Version or Meter of the Psalms one Liturgy one Time or Place of Worship c. and the Bishop another we ought to obey the Bishop against the command of the King XII That the required Subscriptions Declarations Rubricks and Canons are primarily the Laws of the Church which the King and Parliament do confirm by their Sanction and therefore the Church is the Expounder of them These are some of your Assertions which I cannot yet receive I. My Reasons against the first are these 1. Because this maketh Gods of men and so is Idolatry giving them Gods proper Power and Prerogative 2. Yea it taketh down God or his Laws and setteth them above him For there cannot be two Absolute Governors that have not one Will. If I must not appeal from them to God then I must appeal from God to them that is I must break his Law if they bid me or else they are not Absolute 3. This maketh all Gods Laws at the will of maâ— as alterable or dispensible Man may forbid all that God commandeth and I must obey 4. Then all Villanies may be made Virtues or Duties at the will of man If they command us to curse God or Blaspheme or be perjured or commit Fornication Murder or Idolatry it would become a Duty 5. Then the Power and Lives of Kings would be at the Clergies mercy For if their power be Absolute they may make Treason and Rebellion a Duty 6. And all Family-Societies and Civil Converse migbt be overthrown while an Absolute Clergy may disoblige men from all duty to one another 7. Then the Council at Lateran which you have excellently proved in your Considerations to be the Author of its Canons doth or did oblige Princes to exterminate their Reformed Subjects and disoblige Subjects from their Allegiance to Princes that obey not the Pope herein and are excommunicate So of Greg. 7 th's Council Rom. 8. Then did the Church or Kingdom of England well to disobey or forsake the Roman Power that was over them 9. Were not our Martyrs rather Rebels that died for disobeying an Absolute Power 10. How should two contradicting Absolute Powers viz. General Councils be both obeyed E. g Nicen. 1. and Arimini Sirm. and Tyr. or Ephes. 2 and Calced 11. How will this stand with the Judgment and practice of the Apostles that said Whether it be meet that we obey God or man judg ye 12. How will it stand with Conformity to the Church of England that in the Articles saith that General Councils may err and have erred in matter of Faith c. 13. Is it not against the sense of all mankind even the common Light of Nature where utter Atheism hath not prevailed Say not that I wrong you by laying all this odium on your self I lay it but on your words And I doubt not but though disputing Interest draw such words from you on consideration you will re-call them by some limitations II. My Reasons against your second must pre-suppose that we understand one another as to the sense of the word Diocesan Church which being your â—erm had I been with you I must have desired you first to explain The word Diocess of old you know signified a part of the Empire larger than a Province and that had many Metropolitans in it I suppose that is not your sense Sometimes now it is taken for that space of ground which we call a Diocess sometimes for all the people in that space And with us a Diocesan Church is a Church of the lowest Order containing in it a multitude of fixed Parochial Congregations which have every one their stated Presbyter who is no Bishop and Vnum altare and are no Churches but parts of a Church and which is individuated by one Bishop and the measuring-space of ground whose inhabitants are its Members Till you tell me the contrary I must take this for your sense For you profess to me that you speak of such Diocesan Churches as ours and they have some above a thousand others many hundred Parishes and you say our Parishes are not Churches but Parts of a Church and so Families are 2. Either you mean that a Diocesan Church is the first in order of Execution and Existence or else in order of Intention and so last in Existence and Execution I know not your meaning and therefore must speak to both I. That a Diocesan Church is first in Intention is denied by me and disproved though it belong to you to prove it 1. Intentions no where declared of God in mature or supernatural Revelations are not to be asserted of him as Truths But a prime intention of a Diocesan Church is no where declared of God Ergo not to be asserted of him as truth 2. It is the end or ultimum rei complementum which is first in intention where there is ordo intentionis But a Diocesan Church is not the end or ultimum rei complementum Ergo not first intended The Major is not deniable The Minor hath the consent as far I as know of all the world For they are all either for the Hierarchy or against it They that are for it say that a Metropolitan is above a Diocesan and a Provincial above a Metropolitan and a Patriarchal above a Provincial and a National which hath Patriarchs as the Empire had above that and â—ay the new Catholicks an humane universal above a National Church as the complement or perfection and therefore must be first intended But those that are against the Hierarchy think that all these are Church-corruptions or humane policies set up by Usurpation and therefore not of prime Divine Intention 3. If you should go this way I would first debate the question with you how far there is such a thing as ordo intentionis to be ascribed to God For though St. Thomas as you use to call him assert such intentions it is with many limitations and others deny it and all confess that it needeth much Explication to be
Metropolitans a Patriarch that shall have a power over them which they never had themselves And what I say of Superior Orders and Offices I say of Synods For whether the power be Monarchicaâ— or Aristocratical or Democratical there is need of the same power in the Cause that maketh it No man can give that which he hath not to give If you should fly to such popular Principles as the Episcopal Champion Richard Hooker doth and the Jesuites in their Politicks and many yea most other Writers of Politicks and say That as the people are the givers of power to the Soveraign though they are no Governours themselves so the Bishops give power to the Episcopi Episcoporum personal or Synodical I answer The Principle is false about Civil Policy as I have proved against Mr. Hooker in my Christian Directory and as Dr. Hammond hath proved in the Kings Cause against Iohn Goodwin The power every man hath over himself doth so specifically differ from the power of Governing-Societies that the latter is not caused by all mens Contribution of the former and much more in Church-Government which God hath left less the Will of man as Mr. Dan. Cawdrâ—y hath proved To conclude I grant the Superiority of Magistrates and of their Officers circa sacra but not that Inferior Clergy-men may by consent make a Superior Species of Rulers or Episcopos Episcoporum by the Keys in eodem genere But I confess that how far Christ himself hath made Apostolick Successors or Archbishops as to the ordinary part of governing many Churches is a question to me of much more difficulty and moment As for the Patriarchal and other Superior Church-power in the Roman Empire that it was made partly by the Emperors themselves as the instances of the two Iustiniana's and many others shew and partly by Councils Authorized thereto by the Emperors is past all doubt IV. As to your fourth Opinion I include the reason of my denial of it in the description of it Whether you confess particular worshipping Churches that have each unum altare to be of Divine Institution I cannot tell but that you take the Diocesan to be so Divine you have told me and that you take the Superior Ruling-Churches to be made by them Now that Churches of mans making Universal or National or Patriarchal c should be the rightful Governors by the Keys over the Churches of Gods making must be either jure Divino or humano not jure humano For 1. Man cannot give the power of the Keys without God 2. And mans grant cannot over top Gods Indeed there is no power but of God 2. Not jure divino For if God give them the power God maketh that Species that containeth that power For God not to make the Office and not to give the power is all one 3. At least what satisfying proof you will give us that indeed God giveth power to Church-Officers of his own making themseves to make nobler superior Officers or Churches than themselves I cannot foresee And till it 's proved it is not to be believed 4. Yea it confoundeth the Inferiours and the Superiors For the Diocesans are so far the Superiors to the Provincial National Patriarchal c. in that they make them or give them their power and yet inferior in that they are to be subjects to them More Nonconformists do deny the power of men to make new Species of Churches and Church Rulers than their power to make new Ceremonies V. Your next mention'd Opinion that it is a sin to preach and congregate people within the local bounds of Diocesan or Provincial or other superior Jurisdictions without their consent falleth of it self if those foregoing fall which it is built upon 1. If it prove true that they that made these superior Jurisdictions had no power to make them but gave that which they had not to give then your foundation faileth 2. If it be proved that neither Christ nor his Apostles ever made a Law that Bishops Jurisdictions shall be limited measured and distributed by space of ground as our Parishes and Diocesses are so that all in such a compass shall be proper to one Pastor much less did ever divide our Diocesses or Parishes which me thinks none should deny then Preaching in that space of ground is no sin against such an Order of Christ. 3. If it be proved as I undertake to do that this distribution by spaces of ground is a work that the King and his Officers are to do or the Churches by his permission by way of contract if he leave it to them and this in obedience to Gods General Laws of Order Peace Concord and Edification then these things will follow 1. That if the King give us Licenses to Preach within such a space of ground we have good Authority and break not the restraining Law And yet such as you accused us of schism as well when the King Licensed us as since 2. That this Law of local bounds doth bind us but as other humane Laws do which is say many Casuists not at all out of the case of scandal when they make not for the bonum publicum But say others more safely not when they notoriously make against 1. Either the bonum publicum which is finis regiminis 2. Or the general Law of God which must authorize them being against edification peace c. 3. When they are contrary to the great certain and indiâ—pensible Laws of God himself And that in such cases patient suffering the penalty which men inflict is instead of obedience to the prohibition and as in Daniels case Dan. 6 and â—he Apostles c. Therefore I am 〈…〉 to give you 1. My Concessions in what cases it 〈…〉 to 〈◊〉 the Magistrate in Preaching where he forbiddeth 〈◊〉 2. 〈◊〉 in what cases it is a great duty But to say that it is a sin because that the Clergy forbiddeth it must have better proof â—â—an I have seen even 1. That such Clergy-men are truly called by God 2. And that they have from him the assignation of this space of ground And 3. are by him empowered to forbid all others to preach on their land 4. And that even when Gods general Laws do make it our duty that they can suspend the obligation of such Laws even the greatest I am ready upon any just occasion to prove to you that I were a heinous sinner if I should have ceased such Preaching as I have used upon all the reasons that you alledg against it And wo to them that make our greatest and dearest duties to pass for sin and our greatest sin Isa. 5.20 Were it but one of the least commands I would be loth to break it and teach men so to do much less one of the greatest when men whose consciences tell them that they are totally devoted to God as Christians and as Ordained Ministers deny their worldly interest and preferments and serve him in poverty beholden for their daily bread and to
the ruin of their worldly Estates and the hazard of their lives in the Common Goals endeavour nothing but to Preach Christs Gospel to save mens souls from ignorance unbelief sensuality worldliness c. in case of the peoples undeniable necessity I say when such meet with men of the same profession who think not the Common Goals among Rogues and the forfeiture of Forty pound a Sermon as Enacted by Law to be enough to restrain them but also as in the name of Christ they will charge us with heinous sin unless we will perfidiously break our obligations to Christ and sacrilegiously alienate our selves from the work which we are devoted to many of us under the Bishops hands and unless we will be cruel to miserable souls and shut up the bowels of our compassion from them while we see them in need and in danger of damnation what fortitude do we need against such kind of Tempters and such Temptations If Drunkards and boys in the street only scorn'd me as a Puritan or Precisian it were less If Turkish Rulers did persecute me for my Preaching Christ it were less If mistaken Christian Rulers made me the scorn of the Nation and stript me of all my worldly maintenance and laid me with Malefactors in Prisons it were a less temptation than for a man to come in the name of Christ to tell me that I sin against him unless I will forsake my Calling break my Vows cease Preaching his Gospel betray thousands of souls to Satan and damnation and encourage all that endeavour it by yielding to all their temptations and giving them success But as Christ must be accused of sin as well as crucified and not allowed the honour of suffering as innocent so must his servants I will venture upon one argument on the by that may be somewhat by others though nothing to you for the invalidating of your accusation I saw from the hands of a Noble Lord an excellent truly Learned Manuscript said by him to be the Bishop of Lincolns to satisfie you who are said to judg it unlawful to subscribe to Athanasius's Creed What else you refuse I know not but by that much I perceive you are a strange kind of Nonconformist Now if it be unlawful for you to subscribe and conform or unlawful for me which I here undertake to prove before any equal competent Judges then it is unlawful for all the Ministers of England for none of them may do evil that good may come by it And then all the Ministers in England ought to cease Preaching if I ought to cease when they are forbidden The consequence will be denied by others though not by you And by the way How can you take the Bishops for Absolute from whom there is no appeal to an invisible power and yet disobey them if they bid you subscribe Athanasius Creed If it be a sin in me not to cease Preaching when I am silenced for Nonconformity and yet Nonconformity be a duty then it is a sin in all the Ministers of England not to be Nonformists and so not to cease Preaching But the latter part of the consequent is false Ergo so is the Antecedent 2. Yea directly your assertion puts it in the power of one superior to put down the Preaching of the Gospel and all Gods publick Worship in whole Countries or Kingdoms if not in the world and so Christ must be at their mercy whether he shall have any Church and so whether he shall be Christ and God whether he shall have any publick Worship In Ethiopia though Brierwood saith that yet after the decay of the Abassine Empire it is as big as Italy Germany France and Spain they have but one Bishop called their Abuna And if he forbad all Preaching or publick Worship in the Empire it is a sin to obey him And it is a great duty to gather Churches within his Church It is a sin in the Empire of Muscovie that all their Clergy obey their Patriarch and Prince in forbearing to Preach If all the Bishops of England should agree to reduce the Kingdom to one only Bishoprick and one Church and turn all the rest into Parish-Chappels it were a duty to disobey them and gather Churches in that one Church If the Patriarch of Alexandria Antioch or Constantinople had forbidden all in their limits to Preach and worship God publickly it had been a wickedness to obey them When Severus Antioch the Eutychian forbad the Orthodox to Preach in his Patriarchate it had been their sin to obey him yea or if Theodosius or Anastasius the Emperours had done it yea though a General Council of Ephes. 2. if not Ephes. 1. was on his side If the Pope whether as Pope or as Patriarch of the West Interdict all the Preachers and Churches in Venice or in Britain it were a sin to obey him The reasons are because their power is derived and limited to pass by the no power of Usurpers the greatest have it for edification and not for destruction None of them have power to make void the least continued Law of God by their Doctrines Precepts or Traditions All men must take heed of the leven of their false Doctrine and must beware of false Prophets and must prove all things and hold fast that which is good There is no true power but of God and therefore none against him It is better to obey God than men But of this you may in season have larger proof if you desire it VI. Your excluding us from Salvation that will not cease Preaching the Gospel of Salvation and worshipping God remembreth us 1. What a mercy it is that neither Pope nor any such condemner is made our final Judg. 2. How most Sects agree Papists Quakers c. in damning those that dance not after their Pipe 3. What various wiles of temptations Satan useth to hinder Christs Gospel and mens Salvation At once I have 1. A backward flesh that is the worst of all that saith Favour thy self and expose not thy self to all this labour obloquie hatred suffering loss and danger of death for nothing but that work which thy superiours think needless and forbid 2. I feel Satan setting in with the flesh and saying the same 3. Carnal and worldly friends say the same as Peter to Christ Mat. 16. 4. Displeased Sinners and Sectaries wish me silent 5. What Superiors say and do I need not mention 6. And to perfect all some Preachers in Press and Pulpit and you in Discourse declare us in danger of damnation as Schismaticks unless we will give over Preaching the Gospel O how easie were it to me to avoid that damnation And if I incur it how dearly do I purchase it It is a sad case that such poor souls as we are in that would fain know Gods will whatever study or suffering it cost us and after our most earnest search and prayers believe that if we forsook our trust and office and the peoples souls we
perceive from whom they come when the damnation of poor people must be so easily submitted to if the Bishop do but command the means Methinks you wrong the Bishops by such odious Suppositions and Assertions as if you would make men believe that they are the Grievous Wolves that spare not the flock and the thorns and thistles that are made to prick and rend the people But I believe that the Bishops faultiness in mens damnation would be no exeuse to me if I be accessory 4. And I doubt not but if you unjustly ipso facto Excommunicate men it neither depriveth them of the right nor absolveth them from the duty of publick Worship and Church-Communion And I am ashamed to read and hear Preachers publickly reproaching them for not holding constant Communion with the Parish-Churches when it 's notorious that the Canon hath thus Excommunicated them yea though it were their duty sometime to intrude And I beseech you judg as a Christian or a man whether you can think such Arguments should draw the people themselves to be of your mind Go to them and speak out Neighbours I confess that while you live in ignorance and sin for want of teaching and publick worship you are in the way to damnation but it is the Bishop and not the silenced Preacher that shall answer for it Will they not reply And shall not the Bishop then he damned instead of us as well as instead of the silenced Preacher VIII Your doubt about mens power to change Christs setled form of Church-government is but a consequent of your first of mens absolute power But 1. if they change Gods Laws or instituted Church-forms or Government may they not change their own And if so there is some hope of a Reformation But why then did the Canons of 1640. in the Et caetera Oath swear the Clergy never to consent to change And why are we now to swear in the Oxford Oath That we will never endeavour any alteration of Church-Government tho' the keys be in the power of Lay-Chancellors and tho' the King may command us to endeavour it must the Nation or Clergy swear never in their own places to endeavour any alteration of the Bishops Institutions as you take them and yet may the Bishops alter the very Form of Government and Churches made by our Universal King 2. What an uncertain mutable thing may Christs Laws or Church-Government prove while mutable men may change it at their pleasure 3. To what purpose is Antiquity and Tradition so much pleaded by Hierarchical Divines as if that were the Test to know the right Government and Church if the Bishops may alter it 4. If thus much of Christs Laws and Institutions may be altered by Prelates how shall we be sure that all the rest is not also at their will and mercy or which is it that they may alter and which not 5. Doth not this set man so far above God or equal with him as will still tempt men to think that more are Antichristian than the Pope If you say that it is by Gods own grant I wait for your proof that God granteth power to any man above his Laws Those that he made but Local or Temporary himself are not abrogated or changed by man where they bind not for they never bound any but their proper subjects e. g. The Iewish Laws as such never bound the Gentile world and the command of washing feet bound only thâ—se where the use of going bare-leg'd with Sandals in a hot Country made it an office of kindness and so of other Temporary precepts 6. How contrary is this to the common Christian Doctrine that we must obey none that command us to sin against God For by the first assertion and this it seemeth that it cannot be a sin which the Bishops command 7. I pray you put in an exception for the Power and Lives of Kings and the Laws of the Land and the Property and Liberty of the Subjects and one word for the Protestant Religion For we English-men think God to be greater than the King or St. Patrick and Gods Laws to be firmer than the Statutes of King and Parliament And yet I doubt that the King and some Parliament will be angry if you do but say that the Bishops by consent may change their Statutes or lawful Officers and Powers And Bishops if you say that Episcopacy may be changed IX Baptism as such entereth not the Baptized into any particular Church but only into the Vniversal headed by Christ yet a man may at the same time be entered into the Vniversal and into a particular Church but that is by a double consent and not by Baptism as such In this I know none that agree with you but some few of the Independents in New-England and some of the Papists I confess Bellarmine saith That by Baptism we are virtually obliged to the Pope being baptized by a Ministry and into a Church of which he is the Head But the contrary is proved 1. From the express form of the Baptismal Covenant which only tyeth us to Christ and his Universal Church and maketh us Christians But to be a Christian dedicated to the Father Son and Holy Ghost is one thing and to be a part of the Pastoral Charge of A. B. or N. N. is another thing 2. What particular Church was the Eunuch Act. 8. baptized into Not that of Ierusalem for he was going from it never like to see it more Not that in Ethiopia for there was none till he began it If you say of Philips Church 1. I pray you where was that 2. And how prove you it 3. Specially if it was Philip the Deacon that had no Church being no Bishop 3. May not men be baptized in Turkey or among other Infidels or Indians where there is no Church And is the first baptized man among them a Church himself Paul thanketh God that he baptized no more of the Corinthians lest they should think that he baptized into his own name And doth every Baptizer baptize to himself or to his Bishop A man may baptize out of all Diocesses or in another's X. As to your next Assertion I grant that when a Bishop or a beggar speaketh the Commands of God and a King speaketh against it we must follow that Bishop or beggar rather than the King because this is but obeying God before men But supposing that it is a thing indifferent and but circa sacra and not a proper part of the Agent Pastors Office I confess to you I will obey the King before the Bishop 1. Because it is a thing that is under the Power of the King to command and if so the King is the Supreme and not the Bishop 2. Bishops themselves are Subjects of the King and owe him obedience Therefore rule not over or before him in matters belonging to his Office 3. Bishops are chosen by the King for I suppose no man takes the Dean and Chapters choice for
more than a Ceremony that knoweth it if the King command me to Preach at one hour or one place and the Bishop at another or to use for Uniformity such a Translation Metre Liturgy Utensils Garments c and the Bishops others I will obey the King before the Bishop But if either or both command me to sin I will obey neither so and if they would take me off from that which Christ hath made a real part of my own Office as commanding that I shall preach and pray in no words but such as they prescribe c. I think neither hath power to do this But Bishop Bilson of Christian Obedience and Bishop Andrews in his Tortura Toetis and Buckeridg of Rochester and Grotius de imprrio sum Potest circa Sacra have said so much of the Power of Kings about Religion as that I think I need not add any more And by the same Arguments that you will absolve me from obeying if the King forbid me to Preach by the same you absolve if the Bishop forbid me If I may disobey Constantius and Valens I may disobey Eusebius Nicomed Theognis Maris If I may disobey Theodosius junior Anastasius Zeno Iustinian I may disobey Petrus Moggus Dioscorus Severus c. But you will much cross your â—nds if you tell the Londoners that they may preach and worship God though the King forbid them but not at all if the Bishop forbid them For he that exalteth himself or is sinfully exalted by others shall be brought low If the reverence of the King were not greater in England than of the Bishops the consciences of many thousands would stick but little at disobedience There are so many cases first to be resolved As 1. Whether such Diocesans deposing all Parochial Churches and Bishops and reducing them to Chappels or parts only of a Church be not against Christs Law 2. Whether they destroy not the ancient order of particular Churches Bishops and Discipline 3. Who made their office and by what power 4. Who chose and called them to it 5. Whether their Commands be not null as contrary to Gods 6 How far Communion with them that silence hundreds of faithful Ministers and set up in their stead c. is lawful Many such questions the people are not so easily satisfied in as you are XI And the three last all set together look with an ill design The Preface to Dr. Rich. Cousins Tables tells the King That the Church-Government here is the Kings or derived from him and dependant on him and Grotius de Imperio sum potest proveth at large the Power of Kings circa sacra as doth Spalatensis and many more and that Canons are but good counsel till the King make them Laws And we know no Law-makers but the King and Parliament But if the Church be the Expounders of the Liturgy Rubrick and Canons Articles and Acts of Uniformity and out of Convocation-time the Bishops be the Church and the Archbishops be the Rulers of the Bishops that swear obedience to them this hath a dangerous aspect For then it is in the power of the Bishops if not of the Archbishops only to put a sense upon our 39 Articles Rubricks c. consistent with Popery or Heresie and so to change the Religion of the Kingdom without King or Parliament or against them at their pleasure And thus Officers of mans making who become a Church of mans devising may have advantage by this and the former Articles to destroy Godliness Christianity and Humanity Indeed by the Preface to the Liturgy the Bishop is made the Expounder of any thing doubtful in the Book and by the Index the Act of Uniformity is made part of the Book But this affrighteth me the more from declaring 1. Because I must consent to all the Penalties and Impositions of the Act it self 2. And the Bishop Exposition is limited so that it must be contrary to nothing in the Book Thus I have given you the reasons of my destructive Conference If I had been with you and we had been to enter upon any dispute that tendeth to satisfaction I would have endeavoured to avoid the common frustraters of Disputes 1. By ambiguous words 2. And subjects that are no subjects Therefore if you desire any such dispute I. I intreat you to write me down your sense of some terms which we shall frequently use and I will do the like of any at your desire As what you mean 1. By the word Bishop 2. By a Church 3. By a particular Church 4. By a Diocess and Diocesan Church 5. By a National Church 6. By the Vniversal Church 7. By Church Government and Iurisdiction 8. By Schism I shall dispute no terms unexplained lest one take them in one sense and the other in another and so we dispute but about a sound of words II. I desire that the denied Subject of the Question may not be taken for granted instead of being proved On these terms supposing the common Laws of Disputation especially avoiding words that have no determinate sense I shall not refuse whenever you invite me and I am able to debate with you any of these points that I am concerned in especially whether my Preaching Christs Gospel as I do be my sin or my duty And if our great distance in Principles put either of us upon râ—â—sons that seem dishonouring to the person opposed we shall I hope 〈…〉 that it is the opinion only that is directly intended But 〈…〉 opinion is the persons opinion if it be bad is a dishâ—nâ—â—r whiâ—â— the owner only is guilty of and the opponent caâ—not 〈…〉 must not forbear to open the evil of the cause for avoiding the dishonour of the owner but must the rather open it in hope that the owner will disown it when he understandeth truly what it is For I suppose it is evidence of Truth that we desire In Conclusion remember I pray you 1. That it is not the ancient Episcopacy which was in Cyprians days yea which agreeth with Epiphanius's Intimations and Petavius excellent Notes thereon in Haeres 69. which I deny And I conjecture that at this day in England there are more Episcopal than Presbyterian silenced Non-conformists 2. That what sort of Prelacy or higher Rulers I dare not subscribe to yet I can live quietly and submissively under though not obey them by sinning against God or breaking my Vows of Baptism or Ordination and perfidiously leaving souls to Satan Nothing more threateneth the subversion of the Church-Government than swearing men to approve of all thâ—t's in it Many can submit and live in peace that dare not subscribe or swear Approbation It was the caetâ—ra Oath 1640 that constrained me to thâ—se searches which 〈◊〉 me a Nonconformist It is an easie maâ—â—er for Overdoers to add but a claâ—se or two more to their Oaths and Subscriptions which shall maâ—e almost all the conscionable Ministers of the Kingdom Nonconformists 3. Whenever notorious necessity ceaseth by the sufficient number and qâ—ality of Conforming Preachers I will cease Preaching in England But death is liker first to silence me Though I take my Conforming to be a Complex of heinous sins should I be guilty of it yet till I am called I perswade none to Nonformity for fear of casting them occasionally out of the Ministry preferring their work before the change of their judgment till such endeavours are clearly made by duty But all your endeavour as far as ever I perceived is not so much to draw us to Conformity as to persuade us to give over Preaching Christs Gospel so contrary are our designs 1 Thes· 2.15 16. Methinks is a fearful Text. And so are the words of the Liturgy before the Sacrament If any of you be a hinderer of Gods Word repent or take not this Sacrament lest Satan enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you c. FINIS This was written long ago The Earl of Orery ☜