that the Gospel is not preached by Vs or whether it be or not that you are bound to preach it still and so much seems to be implied in your 7 th Question viz. That it is a sacriledge culpably to alienate an Ordained Minister vowed to the sacred Office And because this comes nearest to the matter in hand and seems very much to stick with you I shall desire you to resolve these Queries 1. Whether it be not in the power of those who give Orders in a Christian Church to limit and suspend the Exercise of the Ministerial Function without Sacriledge If not how could the Christian Church in its best and purest times pretend to reduce Bishops and Presbyters to a Lay-Communion of which you may read so often in St. Cyprian's Epistles Nay what Church is there to be named that doth not assume this power to it self without the least suspition of Sacriledge And it would be very strange that this Notion of Sacriledge should never be understood before 2. Whether Christian Magistrates may not justly restrain those Ministers from Preaching who after the experience of former Troubles do refuse to renounce those Principles which they judge do naturally tend to involve 〈◊〉 again in the like Troubles 3. To what purpose any such Authority is either in Church or State if those who are legally silenced may go on to preach publickly in opposition to the established Laws only in supposition that they were wrongfully ejected This I am certain is contrary to the Doctrine of all the Non-conformists of former times as you may see in the Book published in their name by Mr. Rathband A. D. 1644. p. 41. besides what you may find in my Sermon p. 51. only the Testimony of Dr. Gouge ought to be corrected thâ— p. 513 514. Their words are if a guiltless Person put out of his charge by the Churches Authority may yet continue in it what proceedings can there be against guilty persons who in their own conceit are always guiltless or will at least pretend so to be seeing they also will be always ready to object against the Churches judgment that they are called of God and may not therefore give over the execution of their Ministry at the will of Man 4. Whether there be the same obligation now lying upon Ministers to preach the Gospel in a Nation where the Gospel is confessed to be truly preached when they are forbidden to do it by the Laws of the Land as there was upon the Apostles to preach it first to the World notwithstanding â—he prohibitions of men The disparity seems so obvious to me that I could hardly believe men of understanding would alledge the Apostles words to justifie their present practises had I not so often seen it done But that the old Non-conformists did truly understand the disparity of the case you may see it in 3 instances in the former Book which I shall refer you to But you ask one matterial Question in behalf of the People viz. Are none of our hearers more competent judges than their Accusers what profiteth their own souls And is this in your judgment a tolerable Plea for Separation then there can be no such thing as an unjustifiable or sinful separation since the people are left to be their own judges For where was any separation made but upon such a pretence And upon this ground the people may leave you to morrow and go to Doctor O. and leave him next week and go to the Anabaptists and from them to the Quakers and still plead that they are more competent judges than their Accusers what profiteth their own souls No one would think by such Questions as these that ever you had written so much against Separation and spoken so freely of the mischief of it Thus I have pickt out those Queries which come nearest to the matter of Separation and given a suffieient Answer to them But as to the other remaining concerning the constituent regent part of a National Church the One Rule mentioned by the Apostle and whether you or I have studied longer or to better purpose I have in civility passed them over as no more relating to our business than determining the Principle of Individuation is to the keeping of the sixth Commandment And I am resolved in debate of this nature not to be drawn off by any by-Queries from the main thing in Controversie I do not press you to any speedy Answer but I desire you rather to weigh and consider things impartially than to give too hasty a Reply I am neither fond of Controversie nor can I desert so just and clear a Cause as I take this against Separation to be from which I shall not be moved by the noise and censures of weak and injudicious people who I find as you formerly observed can least endure to be touched in this matter If you please at your leisure to return an Answer to this paper it shall be thankfully received by SIR Your faithful Friend and Servant EDWARD STILLINGFLEET My sudden removal into the Country upon the receipt of yours must excuse my sending this no sooner A Reply to Dr. Stillingfleet's Letter being the sum of our Controversie § 1. I Confess I was so well assured of the Divine obligations which lay on me to do these things which you judg my sin that my expectations from your return were very low But yet I thought it my duty to try whether you had more than I knew of to say for my Conviction before I ventured on a Defence But your refusal to convince and satisfie me increaseth my confidence that it is my great duty which you account my sin § 2. Did you not write to be understood Or must I only not understand you must I trouble the Reader by gathering all the passages where you expresly speak to me viz. As One of them and as going beyond the Independants and preaching unlawfully to them that unlawfully hear and as deeling more disingeniously and less fairly than the old Separatists and so almost from end to end § 3. Seeing you should have been very glad to have found an answer to your Sermon an Answer you shall have § 4. Seeing you will no further explain your great word separation I will answer it where I find it in your Sermon And if the Case must be no more intelligibly stated I must take it as you will do it § 5. To sum up all as far as I am able to understand you your Sermon containeth 1. The grounds supposed on which you build 2. Your Accusation of us on those grounds 3. The penalties which you justifie 4. And the cure which you desire I. As far as you are intelligible to me your supposed grounds are that God hath authorized the Magistrate 1. To choose what persons every man in his dominions shall entrust his soul to as the Pastor whose Conduct he is bound in Conscience to obey 2. And also to choose
doubt they will by this take you for somewhat worse 2. What doth your National Church differ from a Christian Kingdom which we deny not 3. Do you think there is no other Species of a Church besides that which is Constituted by the Christian Magistrate as Head 1. All the Christian World as far as I can learn by History no considerable part excepted have been in all Ages and to this Day are of another mind And who then is the great Nonconformist and Separatist You or I if this be your mind 2. The Magistracy and Pastoral Office are of different Species Therefore the Churches Constituted by their Regency are of different Species 3. Constantines words have hitherto been commonly received That He and so Christian Kings was Bishop without the Church and the proper Bishop within that is That he was the Governour of the Church by the Sword as the King is of all Scholars Physitians Families c. but not the Governour by the Word and Keys as the King is not a School-Master Physitian or the formal Specifying Governour of School Colledge Family as such Bishop Bilson of Subjection most clearly openeth the difference and I think Christians commonly agree to it between the Office of Governing by the Sword and by the Word even about the Church it self 4. Christ settled immediately the Pastoral Office and did not leave it to Princes to make it And He settled Churches under the Pastors when there were no Christian Princes And when the Emperours became Christians they never took themselves to be the intrinsick Constitutive Rectors of the Churches but Accidental Heads as is aforesaid And all the Councils and their Canons fully shew that the Bishops were still of this mind And our greatest Defenders of the Power of Princes Bilson Andrews Buckâ—ridge Spalatensis c. were of the same mind and ascribe to them no more 5. Else Heathen and Infidel Princes might be Essential to the Church in the Gospel-Notion For they are the Governours of it by the Sword and may possibly by the Counsel of Christians make them as good Laws as many Christian Princes do Julian made no great Change of the Church-Laws But I Labour in vain in proving that there is a Sacerdotal or Clergy-Church-Form or Species for I suppose you cannot deny it and if you do few others will I suppose it is only the National Form which you take to be Constituted by a Lay-Head But few Christians will deny That the Sacerdotal or Clergy-Form of a particular Church is of Divine Institution and that Men have not power to destroy that Form or change the Office there Instituted by the Holy Ghost Though the Forms of Assâ—ciated Churches Diocesan Metropolitan Provincial Patriarchal are judged by very many to be of Humane Invention And what Man may make Man on good Reason may unmake or alter But if you Grant us the Divine Form before mentioned I shall Grant you that a National Church is also of Divine Command if you mean but a Christian Kingdom But when one Form is Denominated from the Pastoral Office related to the Flock and the other from the Magistrates Office What hath a Man that can understand the State of the Controversy to do here but to shew what is the Pastoral Office towards the Church and what is the Magistrates For sure they are not the same And yet because that it is the Pastoral Form which the word Church denoteth in the strict and usual Christian Sense Our Sovereignes in England to avoid the Papists Exceptions have forsaken the Title of Head of the Church lest they should seem to claim a Constitutive Headship of a Church strictly taken and use only the Term Governour Even as Christ is said by St. Paul Eph. 1. to be Head over all things To the Church Over and To much differ And I yet see not why on the same Reason that we call a Christian Kingdom or Republick a National Church we may not 〈◊〉 call Loâ—don York c. a City-Church as Headed by the Mayor as the Christian Magistrate and so talk of Provincial Consular and Proconsular Churches Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical Churches and make all the Controversies which Church-Form is best as Politicks do what Form of a Common-Wealth is best And thus they that chide the Independents for making the People Governours of their little Congregations which I think yet most of them disclaim do this way quite exceed them in Popularity and in Democraties will make the People Governours of all the Churches even National including the particulars For I suppose they will not say that Democratical Civil Government is unlawful And whereas Cyprian saith Vbi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia you will say Where the Mayor or Bayliffe is there is the Church But I trow the Bishop of London believeth that there is another sort of London-Church-Form besides my Lord Mayors Relation to them But what abundance of Church-Forms Supream and Subordinate may diversity of Magistracy make § 29. Sermon p. 19. I do not intend to speak of the Terms upon which Persons are to be admitted among us to the Exercise of the function of the Ministry but of the Terms of Lay-Communion i. e. those which are necessary for Persons to joyn in our Prayers and Sacraments and other Offices of Divine Worship Answ 1. But your work would have been done more effectually if you had begun at the part which you intend not to speak of I suppose it is not for want of Charity nor Concern that you intend it not and therefore suppose that somebody else will do it at last I have heard of some above your order that could better spare the Nonconforming Ministers than the People and said plainly that they increased the Impositions because they could do better without us than with us And some have said If this will not cast them out more shall do it I take it for granted that this pretermitted part of your Work is indeed the All that you have to do in the Works of Accusing and Afflicting the Nonconformists and till this be done the rest of your Accusations will confute themselves and I doubt not but it will be attempted and if it be truly and satisfactory I will give you thanks 2. Your Term of Lay-Communion remembreth me that if as you seem you Essentiate your Church of England by a Lay-Ruler and his Laws viz. the King and the Laws made by him for Religious Government the People that you accuse are no Separatists though they Separate from the Diocesanes because they hold this Lay-Communion that is though they are not perfectly Obedient they are Subjects of the Lay-Governour and so Members of the Kingdom which is the National-Church 3. And as to your Lay-Communion here spoken of So far as it is Lawful where you have Preach'd or Written for it once I think I have done it many times I shall be far from Contradicting you in that § 30. Sermon p. 20. I will not say there
of the Sabbath c. and others against these If not Is not difference in such Doctrines as great a difference as using and not useing some of your Liturgick Forms and Ceremonies IV. Are all different modes of Worship enough to make our Party Separatists Then the French and Dutch Churches are Separatists and either the Cathedrals or the Parish-Churches as to their Vestments Organs Chore mode of Singing c. And the allowed private Baptismes and Communion with the sick are Separations V. Doth every disobedience to the King and Laws and Canons in matters of Religion Government and Worship make men Separatists If so then when ever a Conformist disobediently shortneth his Common-Prayer or leaveth off his Surplice or giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or receiveth one of another Parish to Communion c. he is a separatist Yea no man then is not a Separatist sometimes VI. If the Diocesane be the lowest political Church and a Parish but a part of a Church as they hold that take a Bishop to be a Constitutive part how is he said to separate from the Church that owneth his Diocesane and the Diocess what ever place in that Diocess he meet in seeing he separateth not from the Kingdom that stayeth in it and owneth the King though in some acts he disobey Nor doth every Boy that is faulty separate from the School VII Is he a greater Separatist that confesseth you to be a true Church and your communion lawful but preferreth another as fitter for him or he that denieth Communion with true worshiping assemblies as unlawful to be Communicated with when it is not so If the former then Condemning you as no Church is a diminution or no aggravation of separation and the Local presence of an Infidel or a Scorner would be a less separate state than the absence of your friends If the latter which is certain then if I can prove the Assemblies lawful which you condemne you are the true Separatists that condemn them and deny Communion with them and declare such Communion to be unlawful I Communicate with your Assemblies and you utterly shun refuse and condemn Communion with ours which then is the Separatist if I prove ours to be as good as yours VIII Many English Doctors say Rome is a true Church as a Knave or Thief is a true man and we separated not from It but they cast Us out for doing our duty and not sinning as they do I say not as they for as the Pope claimeth the Headship of the Church Universally that form of Policy is not of God and we separate from that essencial form of their pretended Church But ad hominem if the Diocesane also be a true Church and we cast out of it for not sinning are We separatists or are our Ejectors such IX I have shewed you that the Canons Excommunicate ipso facto all that say the imposed Conformity is unlawful If this be unjust is it Separation to be so Excommunicated and who is the Schismatick here And what shall be thought of such Church-men as will first ipso facto Excommunicate us for our duty and then as you do call us Separatists Would you have Excommunicate Men Communicate with you I and many do so because you shall be the Executioners of your own sentence and not I But with what face can men cast Men out by Canon ipso facto and then revile them for not coming in You can mean no other in common sense but that we are Schismaticks or separatists because we are not of the Conformist's judgment And that is not in our power And you differ more in judgment in greater matters from each other and yet call it not Schisme or Separation Yea you differ about the very essential form of your National Church one part taking it to be the Kings supremacy and another to be the Bishops or Clergy's Power And therefore you cannot be truly of one National Church that are not for one essential Form X. If men be wrongfully Excommunicate are they thereby absolved from all publick Worshipping of God or do they lose their Right to all Church-Communion I have else where cited you Canons enow that say the contrary and that Clave Errante the excommunication huâ—teth none but the Excommunicator And I have Cited Bishop Tailor 's Full Consent Must we not then Meet and Worship as we can when you wrongfully Excommunicate us XI Are not the Laity by your Canon forbidden to Receive the Sacrament in another Parish or any other to receive them if they dare not Receive it from a Non-Preaching Minister at Home And if the People judge that he that is unable or unwilling to Preach or that is a Heretick or that liveth in such heinous Sins or Preacheth Malignantly as to do more Harm than Good may not lawfully be owned by them for Christ's Ministers nor their Souls be Committed to their Pastoral Trust Must they therefore be without a Pastors Care or all Publick Worship and Communion and be Condemned for being Wronged XII Were all those Councils Separatists that Decreed That none shall hear Mass from a Fornicating Priest And Were the Canons called the Apostles and the Greek-Church that used them for Separation that said Episcopus ignorantiâ aut malo animo opplotus non est Episcopus sed falsus Episcopus non a Dee sed ab hominibus promotus Was Guildas a Separatist that told the Brittish Wicked Priests That they were not Christ's Ministers but Traitours and that he was not Eximius Christianus that would call them Priests or Ministers of Christ Were Cyprian and all the Carthage-Council Separatists that wrote the Epistle about Martial and Basilides which I Translated and told the People It was their Duty to Separate from Peccatore Praeposito a Scandalous Prelate and that the Chief Power was in them to Choose the Worthy or Refuse the Unworthy and that they were guilty of Sin if they joyned with such Sinners Who made You a more Reverend and Credible Judge of Separation than Cyprian and this Council At least Who will think that you may Judge them Separatists or guilty of Schism XIII Are not the Laity by your Canon to be denied the Sacrament if they be not willing of your Episcopal Confirmation And when Imposition of Hands is made the Signe by which Confirming or Assuring Grace is conveyed and some Bishops assigne no less to it they fear lest it be made a Sacrament Be their Doubts just or not they cannot overcome them And Must they therefore Live without Sacramental Communion By what Law XIV Are not the Laity that dare not Receive the Sacrament Kneeling for the Reasons else-where mentioned to be denied the Sacrament by your Rule And though herein they fear Sin more than they have cause Must they that cannot Change their own Judgments live all their Dayes without the Sacrament When as General Councils Decreed That none should adore Kneeling on any Lord's Day and the Church for a
and command in what words only every Pastor shall publickly pray to God and what Books and words of men he shall profess assent and consent to and what dedicating symbols of Christianity he shall use as engaging in the Christian Covenant and to command Ceremonies and Modes for dissent wherein he shall deny Baptism and Church-Communion to all dissenters though the things be taken to be indifferent by the Magistrate and great sins by the dissenters 3. And that all that obey not in all these but preach when forbidden or use other accidents or modes and choose other Pastors to â—e their Guides are Separatists and sin againg God II. On these grounds you judg me and such others sinful Separatists III. You justifie the executing of the Laws upon us and would have us silenced and such dissenters not endured It is our Conformity or our ceasing to preach which you plead for as the Cure § 6. I. As to your supposed ground 1. You know it 's like that in my first plea for peace I largely confuted it And could you think that without any reply your bare saying over the thing confuted could be any satisfaction to one of any sense or conscience 2. You cannot but know that the judgment and practice of the Uniyersal Church in East and West hath been against you not only for the first 300 years but for many hundred after Father Paul Sarpi after cited in his History of Church Revenues truly testifieth it I have proved it by many Canons and Histories in my Church History that he was to be taken as no Bishop that was chosen by Magistrates Prelates or any without the Clergies election and the Peoples election or consent Christians then took not this to be any part of the Princes trust but only to countenance the things that furthered Learning and Godliness and encourage the Clergy and People to choose the best and to protect and encourage and govern them by the sword when they were chosen This being past doubt were the Universal Church Separatists Is our Concent with the Universal Church or your singularity from it liker to Schism or Separation 3. I know that there are inconveniences in the Peoples consenting power and so there are in all humane affairs but not to be cured by pernicious mischiefs You will not tell me because you cannot tell me how we shall know what Magistrates they be that have this trust Whether Heathens Infidels Mahometans Socinians Arians Macedonians Eutkchians Monothelites Image-worshipers Papists Anabaptists or who and who must judge of their qualifications Yea were we sure that the Prince were Orthodox If he were but wicked debauched an enemy to serious practical piety as all wicked men naturally are inclined to be will not all such choose Bishops and Pastors like themselves what more natural than to propagate our like And will not wicked Bishops make wicked Priests And you know the Patron hath the choice with us and it 's a slender qualification which the Bishop hath power to require without a quare impedit An Atheist a Fornicator a drunkard a hater of holiness hath nevertheless the choice of a Priest for the Parish to whom all the People must entrust their Souls What a sad Case were the Christian World in if we may lawfully have no other Pastors than Gentlemen and Princes choose for us When Christ tells us how hard it is for the Rich to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and how few of the Noble are called and in uno annulo c. is become a Proverb What a Case were Hungary Poland France Germany and the Greek Churches in if this were true 4. Personal power in man is the first Family power is the next City and Kingdom power supposeth these and cannot destroy them Hence subjects that are not meer slaves stand up to plead for their Personal and Domestick property liberty and power If my Money and Limbs and Life be not at the Patrons or the Princes will much less my Soul He is trusted with my Estate and Life but I am first and more trusted with them He may keep out ill Physitians from the Land and encourage the good but he hath no power to tie me to an ill Physitian nor to an ill Diet nor to ill Servants c. The choice of these belongeth to my self Much less can he on pretence of Parish-order tie me to an ignorant drunken Malignant or an unexperienced sapless Teacher that is to my Soul as a silly Emperick to my health Scripture and the Worlds experience tell how much God mâ—rrally giveth his light and grace according to the aptitude of means Habitus infusi se habent ad modum acquisitorum is common in the Schools Twenty sinners are usually sooner brought to repentance under skilful fit Teachers than under one unskilful or ungodly men And no man hath power from God to damn my Soul or forbid me the needful means of my salvation No man is so much concerned as my self what becometh of me for ever and I will not believe that the Patron loveth me and all the Parish better than we love our selves England hath been blest with better Rulers than other Lands But one Rule must in this be held to by all the Churches And if you would even here appeal to experience I will not here stay to tell you the names of 8 or 9 or 10 ignorant Readers most Drunkards some rarely half never preaching that I was bred under nor what a stock of such our Country had and how very thin pious tolerable preachers were nor what worthy men Aldermanbury Black-fryers the Inns-of-Courts and most places have had where the people chose But reason signifieth little with most who are on his side that talketh to them with the best advantage I insist on this You go against all the ancient Farthers and Churches for many hundred Years and are so far a Separatist from more than one Parish-Priest II. And therefore your Accusation of us thus grounded is Shismatical and unjust and recoileth on your self who instead of Gods Rule that all should walk by accuse them that walk not by your novel crooked Rules which may make as many Modish Religions as there are Princes III. And your desire of our silencing and not being tolerated I will only here lament and after speak to IV. And as your Cure by our Conformity is impossible so that by silencing will be none but increase the disease § 7. Is it not a very uncharitable thing of you that when it 's I whom you have called to account you flatly deny or shun to give me an Answer to my Case and to the Case of all others that preach only in Parishes where few of the People can hear in the Church Why ask you To what purpose should you resolve those Queries I Answer to shew me whether my preaching be my Sin or Duty And whether you justly or unjustly accused me and all such others was it not to this purpose
that I craved your Answer 2. And do you not know that in the Bills of Mortality it appeareth that the Parishes within the Walls are but about the seventh part of the whole and the outer Parishes which are thus great are about six parts And in these Parishes it is not the tenth part in some and the sixth in most that can come within the Church to hear And it is pity that one half or two or three parts of such a City as London should be left like the Indians without any publick Teaching and Worship and such as you say so much for it § 8. You say The Separate Meetings are kept in the City Hackney Newington c. Ans 1. What 's that to me and all such other 2. I can tell that some City Churches are yet unbuilt and the Tabernacles will not hold the People as Christ-Church and others 3. And divers keep Meetings within the Walls where they found most peace for the reception of those without the Walls that cannot come into their own Churches 4. What 's done at Newington I know not But at Hackney I know of two Meetings where the Ministers so preach out of the time of Publick Worship that none may be hindred from going to it and deny not Communion with the Parish-Churches And they tell me that as the Incumbent Officiateth by another so the Parish is so great and the Preachers Voice so low that a great part cannot hear him 5. Why do you say they are separate Meetings when you know that you have cast them out The Preachers had rather Preach in your Temples and they cannot be suffered Preachers and People that are professed Nonconformists but in Opinion are by the Canon ipso facto Excommunicate § 9. As to what you say of the Reason of their Meetings I Answer 1. I think as far as I can Judge the most of my Hearers I think ten or twenty to one do also hear in the Parish Churches So that your Charge of Separation against them is but for hearing both And I believe it is so with many others 2. Every one that preferreth better doth not separate from all the rest Your Church alloweth any free Man to forsake and change his Bishop and Parish Priest as oft as he will so he will but 8. I believe that a Father must be honoured and having care of his Childrens Life and Soul he must command them necessary Food and Means for Body and Soul and they must obey him if the Law forbad it 9. I believe that murdering Souls privatively or positively is a sin as well as murdering Bodies as many undertaking and not performing Pastors will find 10. I believe that he that obeyeth not a Law which was made against Gods Law or without Authority given by him sinneth not against Authority 11. I think in such cases he that submitteth to the Penalty of a Penal Law doth enough 12. I conjecture that the multitude of Casuists Politick Writers and Lawyers who say that Because the Common Good is the End of Government and all Power is for Edification no Law obligeth which is against the Common Good or at least that is destructive of it are like to be near as knowing in such matter as the meanest of the Doctors Hearers and Readers 13. And I am past doubt that he that denieth these Principles will shortly have no cause to glory of his Wisdom And O what cause have we that are Teachers in stead of proving those intollerable that differ from us in such matters as our Conformity to consider that an Errour in us especially so Practical and momentous is far more dangerous than in the People If all my Neighbours mistake my Disease and the Remedy it may not hurt me but if my Physician mistake it it may be my death Bishop Vsher and many Protestants do except a Learned Papist much more than the unlearned from the hopes of Salvation § 12. I will readily Answer your Queries though you refuse to Answer mine To your first Those who rightfully give Orders must give such Orders as God hath instituted and may not limit or suspend contrary to his Institution or Laws As he that marrieth Persons may not except the Husbands Power of Government nor may unmarry them againe save for Adultery None may silence Ministers that forfeit not their Office On just cause to pull down Churches and alienate the Church Goods as some Bishops of old did for the Poor is no Sacriledge nor to silence an intollerable Teacher But to silence Ministers unjustly is another matter If men will cant over still Who shall be Judge We still repeat 1. Whoever is Judge he hath no Power to cast out faithful Ministers and if he mis-judge them it justifieth not his act And every man is the discerning Judge of his own Duty § 13. To your second Querie Christian Magistrates may justly preserve the publick Peace by all just means and may repress all rebellious Practices and Principles but if they should mis judge any principles to be such that are not and for not renouncing those should silence Ministers if they have fitter means than silencing to correct them silencing them when their Ministry is needful is a sin But seeing these words are significant of your mind for silencing us and the Reasons of it why would you not tell me what those Principles are which we refuse to renounce and so deserve silencing Either you lay the stress on the guiltiness of our Principles or on the Magistrates judging them so You cannot think that if he mis judge it will justifie his silencing men Else Valens Hunnierichus that cut out the Preachers Tongues those that silenced the Preachers in Germany on one side for not swearing for the Pope and on the other for not swearing for the Emperour c. all did well Seeing then you speak as an Accuser of us as guilty of refusing to renounce such Principles and subscribe your implied consent to our silencing for it O that you would be so charitable as to help our Conversion and tell us what those Principles are I have told the World at large my own and many other Principles of Government and Obedience in my second Plea for Peace I crave your discovery of my errours therein Yea I provoke also such as more fiercely accuse us as Plotters or cherishing Principles of Rebellion to name that Principle which I have not there renounced If all that 's there be not enough I know not what will be enough § 14. To your third I answer 1. It followeth not That Authority to silence justly is to no purpose unless all unjustly silencing must be obeyed The Apostles the old Bishops the most of the Churches have disobeyed such as did the Waldenses Bohemians German Protestants the French Belgians Remonstrants and Contraremonstrants c. You say Greatness of Parishes makes no difference What if the King turned all London into one Parish and so foâ—bid all Preaching and Publick
would be so bad in us but also to accuse us so publickly to Magistrates for not forbearing to preach the Gospel when we were solemnly devoted to it and pleading against the toleration of it when Non-toleration must be by Imprisonment Banishment or Death or such Disablement against such as believe they are bound to preach while they are able § 5. Yet you can tell that they are ill Men that reported you stir up Magistrates to Persecution If that much will prove it it 's like they will be emboldened to call you an ill Man too for such faults are so common that we may say as Seneca Quid ulcus leviter tangam omnes mali sumus Indeed they do not well that use that word Persecution when your words are but against Toleration and the Church of England ' s endeavour after Vniformity which are publickly known § 6. And no wonder if they are ill Men when you are but finding out a certain Foundation for a lasting Vnion which is impossibâ—e to be attained till Men are convinced of the evil and danger of the present Separation c. That is you are but proving our Union impossible for I have elsewhere proved that the Conviction which you speak of is morally impossible to become the terms of a common Union It is impossible that we should all be convinced that none of the Particulars imposed are sinful which I have named in my first Plea And secondly 't is as impossible that we should all be convinced that it is any more lawful for us to forsake our Ministry to which we were vowed in our Ordination than to break our Oath of Allegiance and deny our Duty to the King So that you do no worse than for Union to prove our Union impossible and who is it that makes it so § 7. And this Impossibility you infer from this Principle That it is lawful to separate on a pretence of greater Purity where there is an agreement in Doctrine and the substantial parts of Worship Answ 1. Was there not this Agreement in the case of Cyprian and the Council who persuaded the People to separate from Martial and Basilides And is not Union possible with such as Cyprian and the Carthage Bishops 2. We that are accused by you do not say that we differ not from you in Doctrine absolutely viz. in the Doctrine about Diocesan Church-Forms or their imposing Power we never denied this difference But we say in the Doctrine of the 39 Articles as distinct from the Form of Government and imposed Abuses we agree And suppose that we agreed in such Doctrine and Worship with a Church that yet held only that the Pope is jure divino the Constitutive Vicarious Head of the Vniversal Church and would take none that confess it not for Christians were it a Sin to separate from that Church 3. Suppose that Usurpers should thrust out the Bishops and you and make themselves our Pastors against our wills is it unlawful to separate from them though they agree with us in Doctrine and Worship And if the Churches and Councils have been in the right which for 700 yea 1000 years held that the calling of a Bishop was null that had not the Clergies Election and the Peoples Election or Consent I need not tell you how far this will reach 4. What if a Church that you agree with in Doctrine and Worship will not receive you unless you will deliberately profess or subscribe an Untruth or covenant against some Duty or commit a known Sin is it intolerable for you rather to separate from them than to sin And must we have no Union till we can in all things think as you do § 8. I think you need not expect the Censures of the chief makers of our Divisions And as to the inferiour Sectaries if you are a Sacrifice it will be an unbloody one You well admonish us in the end not to complain too much when we are silenc'd impoverished and imprisoned The counsel is good But for the Dean of Pauls c. that is deservedly loved and honoured by us all whom you thus deal with and by those great Men whose esteem he deservedly more valueth while he liveth in this Plenty and Honour to call himself a Sacrifice if a few poor Men say He wrongeth them when he pleadeth against the Magistrates enduring them or against their Judgment that think they should be endured Doth not this seem to another greater tendency than for me only to say de facto I was laid in the Common Gaol and fain to make away my Goods and Library to save them from Distress But so much to your Epistle The Sermon followeth § 9. And what could a Man have desired more to end the main differences among us than the serious consideration of your Text in its very plain import and drift 1. That the Text speaketh for Unity and Concord is past question 2. And that it speaketh both to the Pastors and the Flocks 3. And that it speaketh to all Christians though of various degrees of Attainment And therefore requireth all to live in Concord that are Christians notwithstanding other differences 4. All the doubt is what is meant by the same Canon or Rule And there are these several Expositions pleaded for 1. That by the same Rule is meant only the General Concord idem velle nolle to agree and live in Peace and to mind the same things 2. That by the same Rule is meant the Essentials of Christianity received by all Christians which they should have concordantly practised notwithstanding other differences 3. That by the same Rule is meant the Doctrine which the Apostles had concordantly delivered to all the Churches 4. That it was the Churches Creed which is supposed then to be in use as the Symbol of Christians 5. That it is the Canonical Scriptures in the times that they were written and delivered to the Churches 6. That it is the Example of S. Paul before described or the matter of itâ— that is to hold fast what he had attained and press forwards towards the heavenly perfection by desire hope diligence and patience 7. Some take the one Rule to be the end as it is to be attained by the means that is the common good of the Church and furtherance of the Gospel and our Salvation Let all be done to edification 8. Some say that it is the great Duty of Love which is made the Rule for our undetermined actions or that the fundamental duties are made a Canon to the Superstructures as it seemeth to be meant Gal. 6. 15 16. And by Christ Go learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not Sacrifice To tell you which and how many of these I take to be meant in the Text and why is none of the work which you call me to but to tell you that which-ever of these it is or if all these we fully consent All these Canons we must all walk by 9. But some say
that by the same Rule is meant the Tradition and Custom of the Vniversal Church 10. And some that it is the Canons of the Bishops in General Councils and under them in National or Provincial Councils 11. And some tell us that the Rule of Christian concord is Obedience to the Bishops of all the World or Universal Church who are a College Governing not only divisim per partes in their several Precincts but unitedly as One Regent College ordinarily per literas formas and by General Councils when they sit 12. And some tell us that it is the Law or Will of the Civil Christian Magistrate which is this Rule As to these four last Rules we must put in our Exceptions As to the 9 th the Traditions and Customs then in use were Apostolical Institutions and so are coincident with some of the former But other Traditions and Customs we take not for this Rule And as to the tenth we give Councils though wrongfully called General their due honour as we do to inferiour Councils and every particular Pastor in his place but take not this for the Rule here mentioned And as to the 11th we know of no such Government in being And as to the 12th it was not then existent and therefore could not be that meant in the Text But we take our selves bound to obey Magistrates as we have elsewhere at large explained and professed In short either you think it is a Divine or a Humane Rule or Law which is here meant or both If a Divine we shall not differ from you of any thing unless it be of the meaning of it If a Humane either it is an act of true Power received from God or not If not you will grant us that it obligeth us not as this Rule in question If yea then we agree that we are to obey it So that all that will be useful to our Conviction will be 1. That you prove the Persons authorized to their Office and of our Magistrates there is no doubt 2. And that they have authority to make all the Canons and Laws which you call the Rule And without this your labour is all lost to us § 10. But which of all these it is that you take for the Rule meant in your Text we must conjecture 1. You well say p. 11. It was such a Rule which they very well knew which they had given them before Therefore it was none that was not then in being but to be made by Bishops afterward And p. 14. you seem to include the Canon made Acts 15. whatever the sense of this Text is we willingly also stand to that and to the Holy Ghosts decision that nothing be imposed but necessary things And p. 15. I find you say that the preserving the Peace of the Church and preventing Separation was the great measure according to which the Apostle gave his directions And this is all that I can find of your determination what is that Rule And if Peace be the Rule we all agree with you in declaiming against the violation of it But is there no more in your Application § 11. I remember it is said in the Life of Joh. Bugenhagius Pomeranus the Pastor of the Church in Wittenberge and the Presbyter that ordained the Bishops and Presbyters of Denmark and many other places how much John Frederick the Elector of Saxony was pleased to hear him open the Reasons why Magistrates have power to make Laws but not Pastors armatum 〈◊〉 potestatem politicam authoritate condendi leges non pugnantes cum Decalogo de his traditam se verissimum praeceptum necesse est obedire propter conscientiâ—n sed pastoribus expresse prohiberi condere proprias leges eum dicatur Neâ—o 〈◊〉 arguat in cibo in potu nec posse hanc libertatem ullius creaturae authoritate tolli But I had rather stretch my Obedience to the utmost consistent with Conscience and Obedience to God than speak for any needless Liberty § 12. It is certain that by the same Rule is not meant 1. Any Rule that tied Christians to subscribe or declare that there is nothing in our three Books Liturgy Ordination and Articles contrary to the Word of Godâ— For none of them were then extant nor are they 200 years old 2. Nor any Rule that tied them to any one humane Liturgy which all the Churches iâ— the Nation must agree in For there was none such 3. Nor was it any Rulâ— that imposed on them any dubious unnecessary Opinions Covenants or Practices nor in a word our Conformity or any like it This is easily proved 1. Because the Rule which they were all to wall by was somewhat then existent 2. It was a Divine Rule 3. It was thâ— which all Christians were to have concord in But experience telleth us that all Christians that is that consent to the Essentials of Christianity â—â—â—ver had nor can have their Concord in any of the fore-mentioned Conformity as I have proved in my Book of Concord § 13. We will go therefore no further than your Text for the Terms 〈◊〉 our Agreement and for our Defence against your Accusation Whatâ—â— you will prove to us by any such evidence as should convince a Man of reason 〈◊〉 impartiality to have been THE RVLE which the Apostle did here mean 〈◊〉 bid all that are Christians walk by we earnestly desire to agree thereto Anâ— we will joyn with you against any that refuse it It will be a way more coâ—gruous to your Function and cheaper to your Consciences to condescend 〈◊〉 these Terms and prove to us what this same Rule was than to tell the Magistrates that it is no sin not to endure us § 14. Pag. 16 17 18 19. you come to tell us what Separation it is noâ— which you speak of viz. not of the Separation or distinct Communion of 〈◊〉 Churches from each other c. Answ You know it 's like your self what 〈◊〉 mean by these words if you would have us know it I must crave yoâ— Answer to these Questions Qu. 1. Do you make Separation and distinct Communion the same thing 〈◊〉 divers Qu. 2. What distinction of Communion is it that you mean When there are 〈◊〉 many things which may distinguish 1. Communion in distinct places you take 〈◊〉 for Separation 2. Nor Commnion under distinct Presbyters or Bishops 3. Therefore I suppose neither under distinct Princes or Aristocracies in Cities as such 4. Nor under distinct Laws meerly as such of the same Prince 5. Nor distinct in allowed or indifferent accidents Why any of these should be called Separation I know not unless as the word doth signifie but Diversity or Distance Q. 3. Do you take Separation here in the same sence as before and after or Equivocally If Equivocally why did you not tell us what you here meant besides the difference of Subjects If univocally then Q. 4. Is not the Separation of whole Churches much worse than of single Persons from
one Church when it is upon unwarrantable cause or reasons If one Church unjustly renounce Communion with another whole Church as no true Church or as Heretical I think that it is done by a whole Church against a whole Church makes it worse But perhaps you mean that for two National Churches to have two Kings is not unlawful No doubt of that But to what purpose is it Or is it that two National Churches may have different Accidents of Worship or Discipline And so may two Diocesan or Parish-Churches in our Nation if the King please at least § 15. You add Which according to the Scripture Antiquity and Reason have a just Right and Power to govern and reform themselves Ans Have not all Diocesan Churches power to govern and reform themselves Government is of various species Only the King or summa Potestas Civilis hath Power to govern and reform by his Species of Government But every Bishop may govern and reform his Church as a Bishop as every Master may his Family as a Master and every Man himself as a Man It 's a strange Man Family or Church that hath not power to govern and reform it self though not Regal Power Though Kings have Power they have not God's Power and all Power that is Humane is not Regal § 16. Serm. By whole Churches I mean the Churches of such Nations which upon the decay of the Roman Empire resumed their Right of Government to themselves and upon their owning Christianity incorporated into one Christian Society under the same common Ties and Rules of Order and Government Ans 1. And had not those as good right that were not under the Roman Empire as Abasia c. 2. Did the Churches under the Roman Power exercise their great diversity in Liturgies and other accidents of Worship without right Had not they a right to govern and reform themselves variously as they did 3. Christian Societies are of divers species Do you mean Christian Civil Societies Kingdoms free Cities c. or Churches Or do you take a Christian Kingdom and a Christian Church for the same as the Erastians do If so I suppose half the Conformists will be against you as well as I. At least you must confess that if de nomine a Christian Kingdom quasi tale may be called a Church it is equivocally and that there is a sort of Christian Churches which are of another Constitution Far were the Christian Bishops for 1300 years from believing that a Prince or Civil Power was essential to a Christian Church or that a Church in the common sence was not constituted of another sort of Regent part that had the Power of the Keyes Two species of Governours make two species of the Societies if they are not subordinate but prime constitutive Parts But the Prince and the Pastor are two species well opened among many by Bishop Bilson of Subjection And verily if you Conformists be divided among your selves about the very Constitutive Rector of a Christian Church you differ more from each other than we do from the generality of you 4. And what be the common Tyes and Rules of Order which you mean Are these notifying Terms for a Definition 1. There are divine unalterable Rules of Order and Government and there are humane Rules about alterable Accidents 2. There are Rules made by Contract such as Grotius thinks Canons are and Rules made by Governours which are binding Commands or Laws 3. There are Rules made by Civil Governours to be enforced by the Sword and Rules made only by Ecclesiastical Pastors to be executed only by the Power of the Word and Keys Do you mean all these Or which of them 1. All Christian Churches are tied by the common Divine Rule and is not consent to that enough to make a Church 2. Churches of various Nations may be under one Humane Rule of Agreement or Contract 3. The same Princes may give divers Rules about Accidents to the Churches of one Kingdom and also the same Rule for some Accidents to divers Churches under them who differ in other great things And doth agreement in those Accidents do more to make them Oâ— Church than their difference in Integrals to make them many 4. Princes may do as the Roman Emperours long did leave the Bishops in Councils to make their own Rules by consent and make no common Imperial Rule for them Are they ever the less One Church 5. The Roman Empire and Councils both left the several Bishops to make Rules for Liturgies and other Accidents for their several Churches Were they therefore the less one National Church So that I am no more acquainted by your Words what you mean by a whole Church than if you had said nothing There is a whole Diocesâ—â— Church and a whole Parish Church as well as a whole National Church And what the Power is and what the Rule of Order must be whether the Laws of Princes or Prelates and whether about Essential or Integrals or Accidents and what Accidents whether all or many or few and which that must make a Church to be One whole Church you never tell us An Infidel Prince or a Heretick Prince may give the same Rule of Order to his Christian Subjects in a whole Kingdom Is he therefore the constitutive Church-Head Or will you say as your Mr. Rich. Hooker doth That if he be the Head of a Christian Church it is necessary that he be a Christian To tell us of Common Ties and Rules of Order and never tell us what those Ties and Rules are may serve your Ends but not my Edification § 17. But I remember your Irenicum learnedly maintaineth that God hath instituted no one Form of Church-Government as necessary And if so then not a National Church-Form And is it not a whole Church if it be without a Form which not God but Man is the Author of Then God made or instituted no such thing as a whole Church Then it is a humane Creature Then why may not Man make yet more Forms and multiply and make and unmake as he seeth cause and several Countries have several Forms And forma dat nomen esse And if God made not any whole Church we should be acquainted who they be that were not a Church that had Power to make the first Church-Form and who hath the Power ever since and how it is proved and how it cometh to be any great matter to separate from a Church-Form which God never made and whether humane Church-Forms be not essential and constitutive Causes of the Churches and whether every commanded Oath Subscription Declaration Office or Ceremony be an essential part of this Church-Form And there be as many Church-Forms and Species as there be Orders Liturgies and Ceremonies And all these Differences in the same Kingdom constitute so many Schisms and Separations § 18. Do you take all the Christians in the Turkish Empire to be one National Church or not If not then one Head
or Humane Law is not necessary to the being or Government of a Church nor is it necessary that it be National And do you think that the Greek Churches have not Power to govern and reform themselves though they be not a National Church Why did Paul write to Corinth as Clemens also did and to the Galatians c. and John to Ephesus and the other six Rev. 2 3. to reform themselves if they had not Power to do it But if all the Christians under the Turk be one National Church then it is either because they have one Civil Head or one Ecclesiastical Head Not the latter for they have none such though the Bishops of Constantinople have some Primacy by their old Canons and Customs Not the former for an Infidel cannot be an essential part of a Christian Church as a constitutive Head is § 19. And the Churches in the Roman Empire before Constantine were true Churches of Christ's Institution and they had power to govern and reform themselves and yet they had no humane Constitutive Head Regal or Sacerdotal though they had a Civil Heathen Governour which was an extrinsick accidental Head It is so contrary to all Sence and Religion that either a Man as a Man or a Family or a Church as such should have no power to govern and reform it self that I must needs judg that while you speak confusedly you meant only a Regal or Supreme Civil Power which yet is totâ specie distinct from that which is properly Ecclesiastical § 20. Serm. p. 17. And so the several Churches of the Lydian or Proconsular Asia if they had been united in one Kingdom and governed by the same Authority under the same Rules might have been truly called the Lydian Church Answ 1. And is the Controversy de nomine Whether they might be called the Lydian Church when we expected a satisfactory explication de re No doubt but a Church is so equivocal a word that many sort of Assemblies or Societies may be so called I have told you of divers Sences in which we are called a Church National first Plea pag. 251 c. Either a Christian Kingdom or else the Churches of a Heathen or a Christian King as associated by agreement may be called a National Church 2. What if they be united in one Kingdom of a Heathen Mahometan or Arrian King and governed by his Regal Authority under the same Rules which he sets them Is this it that you mean in your Description A King as such is not an Ecclesiastick Person and therefore is not an essential part of a Church unless as it is equivocally so called And is it his Civil Laws for Church-Government that you mean or the Clergies Canons or God's Laws The Greeks under the Turk are under one Prince and governed by the same Civil Authority and Laws and also are under one Patriarch and by the Princes toleration are governed by the Ecclesiastick Authority and Laws of another Species If you confound these two Species or tell us not which you mean in your Definition it tendeth not to Edification 3. And what if they be under divers Kings as the Bulgarians and Greeks were and yet ruled by one Ecclesiastick Authority and Law why may not they also be called One Church as the Moscovites are now called part of the Greek Church 4. And why might it not be called the Lydian Church while it was a part of the Empire as the African and other Countries were But what is all this de nomine to the Controversy All grant that the Civil Power must be obeyed in their place and the Church-power in theirs 5. But here you grant that they are several Churches before their Union in one Kingdom And I suppose they were Churches 1. of another species than the National described by you 2. and were of Divine Institution 3. and continue so after their Union in one Kingdom 4. and have power to govern and reform themselves still though not Regal power § 21. Serm. Just as several Families united make one Kingdom which at first had a distinct and independent power but it would make strange confusion in the World to reduce Kingdoms back again to Families because at first they were made up of them Answ And are they not several Families still and have they not still a distinct Family-power to govern and reform themselves tho not a Regal Power Doth making a City or Kingdom dissolve Families You cannot mean it What mean you then by reducing these Kingdoms back to Families when they are Families still Had you said that dissolving Kingdoms or Cities and reducing them to be only Families is confusion it 's undeniable But still as Families in a Kingdom retain Family-power so particular Churches in a Kingdom retain the Church-power which God by his Institution gave them And this is that we desire § 22. Serm. Thus National Churches are National Societies of Christians under the same Laws of Government and Rules of Worship Ans 1. All Christians are under the same Divine Laws and Rules 2. Some Princes make no Church-Laws to Christians but their Civil Laws for the common Peace And some make various Laws for various sorts of Christians under them § 23. Serm. For the true Notion of a Church is no more than a Society of Men united together for their Order and Government according to the Rules of the Christian Religion Ans 1. There be many true Notions of such an equivocal word as a Church is 2. The Generical Notion sure is not enough for the definition of each species There must be more The Universal Church is a Society of Men so united and so may the Churches of divers Kingdoms and so is a Christian Kingdom as such and so is a Provincial Church and a Diocesan Church and a particular Parochial Church yet all these are not of the same species for they have different terminos in specie 3. This is a very defective Definition where 1. Men are made the qualified Subject when it should have been Christians 2. The two constitutive essential Relations of Pastor and Flock are not mentioned as if a Kingdom were defined without the mention of King and Subjects 3. They are said to be united in general without telling us what uniting is meant whether only by force command or consent whereas most take even the Mode of Investiture Baptism as well as Consent to be necessary ad esse as to the Visible Church 4. It is said they are united for Order and Government as if these were but the Terminus and so may those by agreement de futuro that yet have no Government whereas the Government is the constitutive Form 5. This Definition leaving out the specifick Form and Terminus maketh an Army a Navy a Ship a company of Christian Merchants or Corporation c. to be a Church For all these may be Societies of Men united together for their Order and Government according to the Rules of the
no mention of lawful in your Definitions 4. But though you will not tell us whether you mean Divine or Humane Laws and Rules yet I may confidently conjecture that it is Humane you mean for else 1. I am of the same National Church that you are yea if I prove that I am more conformable to God's Laws than you and such as you I shall prove that it will be a harder question whether you are of the Church of Eng. than whether I am 2. And you might know that such a Church we no more deny than you do at least 3. But then it can be but sincere not perfect Obedience to God's Laws and Rules which must prove one to be of this Church or else no Man is of it And then you must shew us whether a mistake in as small a matter as Meat and Drink or a Ceremony or Liturgick Form or Diocesan order do cut one off from that Church If yea than how much more would such Conformity to sin do it which we fear But supposing that you mean Humane Laws 5. Why may not Divine Laws make a Church If Humane Laws were necessary ad bene esse the Christians that I have read and converst with think that they are not necessary to the Being of a Church in sensu famosiore why then should they be in the Definition and only they 6. But the difficulty recurreth as to Humane Laws which of them are necessary to the Being of the Church For your Definition distinguished not The King hath great and excellent Laws which we all conform to Doth not our Conformity to these seem to prove us of the National Church though we conform not to your Formalities and Oaths and Ceremonies Imperfect Obedience serveth to continue men Subjects to the King It is not every Drunkeness or Oath or Fornication much less the miss of a Complement or Ceremony that makes a Man a Rebel or an Outlaw Why then should the refusal of a Prelates Subscription or Formality unchurch a sound and honest Christian 7. And if the humane Laws and Rules which you mention what ever you mean by them be subordinate to God's Laws and so be honest good and obligatory why should they cut off those from the Church which Christ's Laws cut not off yea which Christ receiveth and commandeth us to receive Receive him for God receiveth him and receive him as Christ receiveth us notwithstanding our Infirmities were good reasonings in St. Paul's Judgment which I prefer before any Bishops that I know 8. And a Man of less Acquaintance or Wit than you cannot be ignorant what abundance of Differences there are among your selves I have named you no small number in my â—d Plea some of you are hot against that which is called Arminianism and some hot for it some are for Bishops and Presbyters being of one Order and some of divers all are not of the mind of the Bishop of Hereford that wrote Naked Truth some even Bishops think that the damnatory part of Athanasius's Creed is not approved by Conformity others think that it is all to be approved A multitude such differences there are among your selves And why should not this as much unchurch some of you if it be being under the same Laws that maketh you one Church as the forbearing of a Declaration of Assent and Consent or of a Surplice c. 9. Especially tell us whether the Conformist's difference about the Constitutive Regent Part of the Church of England some being for one species and some for another do not plainly make them to be of two distinct Churches of England and further different from each other than we are from any part We justly say the Papists who are for two species of Soveraigns some for the Pope and some â—â—r a general Council are plainly of two Churches for the regent part is essential And I am sure that one part of the most Eminent Disputers for the Church of England and Conformity say that the King is the Extraneous Civil Governour but the Bishops are the Constitutive Essential Internal Governours of the Church as a Church and that if the Bishops command the use of one Translation Version Metre Liturgie and the King another we are to obey the Bishops and not the King And that the efficient cause of a National Church is the Bishops Agreement among themselves to associate into such a Church And others say that it is the King and his Laws that are the efficient of such a Church and are to be obeyed in matter of the Circumstances of Worship c. before the Bishops Can you prove that this difference between the Conformists about the very Constitutive Regent Power is not greater than Mens differences about a Ceremony or Form and doth not more to make them to be of two Churches 10. If all this confused stir be but about a Christian Kingdom be it known to you that we take such to be of Divine Command And if you know it not or dissemble it after I have said so much of it in the first Plea and elsewhere I cannot help that viz. if you will talk publickly against what you know or know not when told because you will not know But I have there largly told you what the Power of Princes about Church matters is which if you will not read I will not repeat 11. Your Words Laws and Rules would induce one to think that you joyned the Kings Laws and the Bishop's Canons together in your meaning as the bond of Uâ—ity If so is it two sorts of Governours by the Swoâ—d and by the Word Magistrates and Pastors which you take for the constitutive regent parts of the Church If so then either in Cooâ—dination and Coalâ—tion or in Subordination The first cannot be that the two Species in Coalition should make one Head unless both were in the Kings as Persona Mixta both Lay and Clergie as some affirm him to be like Melchizâ—deck But this both King and Clergie disown Nor can the second be because a subordinate Power is not essential to the whole body politick but only the supreme And the Magistracy Ministry are coordinate Species both depending immediately on God and Subordinate Mutually only Secundum quid Nor is the Legislative Power in England any other than one which is in the King and Parliament conjunct The Bishops Canons are not Laws Ejusdem Speciei till the King and Parliament make them such If this be your Judgment there are I think but few Conformists of your mind 12. I must Conjecture therefore by your words That the Laws and Rules which you define the Church by are the Laws of the King and Parliament and that it is the Civil Christian Sovereign that you take for the Constitutive Head of that National Church which you plead for or else I know not what to Conjecture And if this be your Meaning I add to what is said 1. Erastians have hitherto been distasted by the Bishops and I
go to seek him in another Parish where he dwells when ever we need a Pastor's Councel were he at Leisure and willing he could not have time to speak to one of an Hundred that might at once wait to speak with him So that we have none of this necessary Pastoral Help when we greatly need it Yea not the Sixth or Tenth Part of the Parish can come to Hear him in the Church And when We that most desire it get in it troubleth us to think that we thereby keep out those that least desire it but most need it who knowing the Difficulty of getting Room do stay at Home and never seek it So that Five Parts of Six of our Neighbours use not to go to any Church at all no more than Infidels And if in pity we perswade them to go to any Nonconformist's Meeting they say the Clergy will Damn them as Schismaticks The Question now is Whether Ten Thousand or Twenty Thousand in a Parish are bound to live without all Private Pastoral Help and Councel yea and to forbear all Publick Worshipping of God and Hearing of his Word And if they seek Relief of Nonconforming Ministers Publickly and Privately Whether it be Sinful Separation If Men can spare the Ministry Why are they Maintained If they are needful for the Safety of Mens Souls Must so many Thousands hazard their Souls for want of needful Help lest they be called Separatists If the Dean of St. Pauls be called the Parson of the Parish and Preach to others that can Hear him Will that serve the Needs of all the rest XX. In Moscovie where a Christian Prince and the Laws forbid all Preaching and Publick Worship save the Reading of Homilies and Liturgies Is it Separation and Sinful Schism to Disobey this and otherwise to Preach and Worship God XXI Is it Schism in France and such other Countries for the Protestants to Meet to Preach and Worship God against the Wills of the King and Bishops It 's true that great Sin is necessarily thus avoided by them which are not Imposed upon us But if it prove that any Sin is made necessary to Communion the Degree will not much vary the Case as to the Point of Separation XXII In divers Countries the Prince is of one Religion or Mode of Religion and the Bishops of another The Question is Who are the Schismaticks the People that in their Assemblies and Mode of Worship do â—ollow the Prince or they that follow the Bishops Some great Writers for Conformity tell me That if the King Command one Liturgy Translation Version Ceremony c. and the Bishop another I must obey the Bishop before the King Others say I must Obey the King before the Bishop of which before Bishop Goodman of Glocester a Papist complaineth of the King that would not consent that Clergy-Men should be Chancellours And I speak with no Bishop that disowneth not Lay-Chancellours Use of the Keys The Helvetian Magistrates are Erastians against the Clergies Power of Excommunication Many of the Pastors are of the Contrary Judgment The Duke of Brandenburgh is a Calvinist His Bishops and Clergy are Lutherans Which Party are the Schismatick XXIII Were all those Separating Schismaticks who from the Apostles Dayes did Meet Preach and Worship God against the Will and Laws of Princes sometimes of Heathen Princes and sometimes of Christians Constantine Valens Theodosius the Second Anastasius Zeno Justinian c. If so most Christian Bishops have been such Separatists I have in my First Plea and my Church-History given Instances enough XXIV Is it Schism or Sinful Separation to Disobey a Command about Religion which no Man hath true Authority to Give Authority is the Objectum Formale of Obedience and where there is no Authority there is no Disobedience in a formal Sense or privative Most Politicks say That Princes have no Authority against the Common Good All Power of Princes and Pastors is of God and is for Edification and not for Destruction God giveth no Power against Himself or his Laws nor the Souls of Men. If the King should Command me to Marry a Wife whom I know to be intolerably unmeet for me or to Feed my self and Family with Food which I find to be against our Health or to use a Physician whose Ignorance or Negligence or Untrustiness would endanger my Life I am not bound to Obey him both because it is a Matter that is without the Verge of his Governing Authority and because it is against the End of Government Regal Power destroyeth not Family-Power nor Personal Interest and Self-Government No Man hath Power to Destroy or Endanger the Souls of Men nor forbid them seeking their own Edification and Salvation I Repeat Bishop Bilson's Words p. 236. of Subjection Princes have no Right to Call or Confirm Preachers but to Receive such as be Sent of God and give them Liberty for their Preaching and Security for their Persons And if Princes Refuse so to do God's Labourers must go forward with that which is Commanded them from Heaven Not by Disturbing Princes from their Thrones nor Invading their Realms as your Father doth and defendeth he may do but by mildly Submitting themselves to the Powers on Earth and meekly Suffering for the Defence of the Truth what they shall Inflict Pag. 399. The Election of Bishops in those Dayes belonged to the People and not to the Prince And though by plain Force he placed Lucius there yet might the People lawfully Reject him as no Bishop and cleave to Peter their Right Pastor On this I further ask XXV If the Nonconforming People can prove That notwithstanding the times of Civil Usurpation and Bishops Removal their Pastors had a Lawful Call and title to their Office over them and they were truly obliged to them as in that just Relation Whether the Magistrates or Bishops Acts have made those Relations and Obligations Null That the Temples and Tythes are in the Magistrates Power we doubt not But more than Bishop Bilson even many Councils deny it of the Office and Pastoral Relation Yea the Universal Church was of the same mind And if so how prove you e. g. that the Relation of the Ejected London Ministers and their Flocks was Dissolved and that the Succeeders were true Pastors to the Non-consenting Flocks XXVI That there are Alas Multitudes of Young Raw Injudicious besides Scandalous Priests no Man can deny that knoweth England and hath any Modesty If then honest People that are not willing to be Damned shall say We best know what is suitable to our Needs and what Teachers profit us and what not And we find that some are so Ignorant that they are unmeet as Plowmen to resolve the most concerning Cases of Conscience and their Conversation savoureth not of any serious belief of Christianity and the World to come and they do but Read a few dry words like School-Boyes saying a Weak Oration without Life or Seriousness and we can but little profit by them How prove you
that it is lawful for such to use more suitable helps though Men forbid it A Soul is precious God Worketh by Means and according to the suitableness of Means That agreeth not to some which others can make shift with Two or Three words from a Conformest that saith God can Bless the weakest Means to you or the Fault is in your self will not serve instead of needful Helps The King or Bishop have not Authority to Tie a Sick Man to Eat that which he cannot Digest or Hurteth him Every Man is neerliest concerned for his own Soul and most Entrusted with it Parish-Order it self is but a humane alterable Circumstance which I am not bound to observe at the hazard of my Edification and Salvation XXVII What if the Magistrate grant a Toleration of divers Modes of Worship as the French and Dutch Churches are here Tolerated and many in Holland and in many other Countries Are these separating Schismaticks that differ from each other If so it is not because they disobey the Magistrate for he Tolerateth them all If not then meer diversity of Modes of Worship maketh not Schismaticks XXVIII If it be no true Political Church in the strict sense as an Organized Society which hath not true Authorized Pastors and if any Parish have either Vncapable Persons or such as were never Consented to by the Flocks and so have no True Pastor and if the Bishops hold That Parishes are not proper Political Churches but parts of Churches having no Pastors that have the Power of the Keyes or the whole Essence of the Pastoral Office but only Half-Pastors that want an Essential Part of the Power If on any such Account any Parishes are no true Pastoral Churches Qu. Whether to Separate from such a Parish be to Separate from a Church in the sense in question XXIX The mutual Condemnations in the times of the Novations Donatists Nestorians Evtychians Monothelites Phantasiasts Image-Patrons c. tell the World how needful mutual forbearance is to prevent worse Divisions and Confusions And the Papists take themselves to be all of one Church though they differ even in Doctrines of Morality as dangerously as the Jansenists against the Jesuits have shewed and though many Sects and Orders be permitted to Live and Worship God with very great diversity in their several sorts of Monasteries Why then should the little differences of our questioned Assemblies be thought to be so great as maketh us not to be of one Church XXX Some good Christians think That though an undisciplined Church may be Communicated with occasionally yea and constantly while there is a hopeful Tryal of its Reformation yet when there is no hope after Patient Tâ—yal a better Course and Communion should be chosen where it may be had And they think that Multitudes whom they know to be prophane Swearers Cursers Drunkards Fornicators Haters of serious Piety Hobbists Infidels Atheists Sadduces c. are continued in the Church of England And they say they scarce ever heard one Man of all these Excommunicated nor one Man of them all ever brought to Publick Confession and Repentance And they think Lay Chancellours having not rightfully the Power of the Keys there is no ordinary Means of hopeful Reformation and Exercise of Discipline especially the Largeness of the Diocesses making it impossible to be used to One of an Hundred that according to the Law of Christ it should be used on And they think That the Church-Discipline is not only None as to the Right Use and made Impossible but worse than None while it is used most to Excommunicate from Christ's Church the True and Conscionable Members of Christ that dare not Conform and so to lead to their Imprisonment and utter Ruin And they think That no Man hath true Authority to confine them to such an Undisciplined and Illdisciplined Church and forbid them the Use of better where Christ's Discipline may be used Whether these Men be in the Right or in the Wrong if the Matter of Fact be true I should desire rather the Reformation of such a Church than the Reproach or Afflicting of Men as Separatists and Schismaticks that choose another sort of Communion as to their more Ordinary Practise not denying this to be a true Diseased Church And so much in these Thirty Instances about that which I think deserveth not the Reproach of any dangerous Separation I told you Thirty Instances also of Unlawful Separation which I named And now you may judge whether you spake to Edification when you said That the People are Condemned by their own Teachers without telling whom and for what and how far they Condemn them and how far not § 34. And Did you think the Consequence good That because we think it Lawful to Hear you yea and to many a Duty therefore we Condemn them for Hearing any one else that Conformeth not As if they that have Communion with your Diocesan-Church must have Communion with no other So far am I from your Opinion that I take it to be wofully Separating and Schismatical And will never be a Member of a Particular Church which will forbid me Communion with all others that differ from them yea that doth not hold its Communion in Unity with all the True Christian Churches on Earth Though a Schismatical Disputer for Prelacy tells me That though I Communicate with the Church of England I am a Schismatick for Communicating with Nonconformists who saith he are Schismaticks But he that will Communicate with no Church that hath any Guilt of Schism when the Christian VVorld is broken into so many Sects I doubt will be the greatest Schismatick and will Communicate with few on Earth And as Smith Baptized himself not liking any other Baptism this Man may become a Church to himself And indeed the word Condemn them sounds Harsh when it signifieth no more than that we Judge them to be Mistaken and Culpable If I Condemn every Man or every Church which I judge to be Sinners I must Condemn all Mankind I use not so harsh a Phrase of your Self as to say I Condemn You When yet I Judge your Book to be more Schismatical than the Meetings of most that I am acquainted with which you Accuse § 35. But yet your Mistake is Greater than I have hitherto mentioned I know not many if any that use to Hear Me who Separate from You Many of them are Episcopal and for your Liturgy and Ceremonies I think most of them go to the Parish-Churches and few if any that I know do deny it to be Lawful How then can you prove it True that we Condemn them What is it for Is it because they neither Separate from the Conformists or Nonconformists This is it that we Exhort them to It was an ill Slip to put our Condemning them for Commending them But a fair Exposition will make it Lawful § 36. But you say How they can preach lawfully to a people that commit a fault in hearing them I do not
understand Ans Now you come to your business But 1. What if you by Calumny call my ordinary hearers Separatists and they are not such 2. What if we prove it to be their duty to hear both you and us in season if they need it or lawful at least and so do commend them and not condemn them may we then lawfully Preach to them What if the fault which we blame some for be their judging it unlawful to hear such as you Will your Logick prove that we call it their fault to hear us as if hearing us and not hearing you were words of the same signification And is all necessary which is lawful Do we condemn men that do not all that is lawful to do And because you after infer that if it be lawful it is a Duty I would you had told us whether you take this universally that What ever is lawful is a Duty or only in this case for some special reason and what that is I suppose it is because it is commanded as if every lawful thing commanded were a duty But we think otherwise unless the Command be an Act which God Authorizeth the Commander to do All mens Authority is limited by God and they have none but from him For instance it is lawful to eat brown Bread and drink Water or Wine But if the King or Bishop forbid me to eat better when my health requireth it I am not bound to obey them It is lawful to were Sackcloth but none have power to forbid me fitter Clothing It is lawful to set a Son Apprentice to a Chimny-sweeper or to an Ale-seller or Vintner but if the Bishop or any other forbid one to place him better it obligeth not It is lawful to marry a Blackmore or an ugly Scold or Beggar But the Bishop or King cannot oblige men to chose no better because it is out of the Verge of their jurisdiction and belongeth to personal and family power It is lawful to put my self into the Hospital and care of an unskilful Physician till my health require better But when my health requireth it I will use a better if I can whoever forbids it For it is usurpation in them that shall take the necessary care of my health and life out of my own hands It is lawful to give the King our estates But Lawyers say we are not bound to do it meerly because He or the Bishop commandeth it But perhaps you think that men may do more against our souls than against our bodies and have more power in Religion than in civil or bodily things But we are not bound to think so if you do It is lawful for men to hear one that only readeth the Scripture and Liturgy and never preacheth But when my needs requireth more I will use it if I can whoever forbids me It is lawful to hear an ignorant raw Lad that saith over a dry Sermon as a Boy saith his lesson and hath neither spiritual Life nor Light nor is fit to take the Charge of Souls And it is lawful to hear such a Sermon as yours or one that peacheth against other mens preaching Yea we rejoyce and will rejoyce that Christ is preached though by such as do it in strife and contention to add affliction to the afflicted and not sincerely But wise men that believe a life to come and love their souls will choose better if they can whoever forbiddeth them Men have no power to hurt our souls nor to deprive us of the help which God affordeth us nor to make themselves the only Judges what is profitable or hurtful to our souls or bodies or what is best for our edification § 37. But To commit a fault in hearing us is of doubtful signification In the manner of hearing all commit faults by some defect of attention faith or application But that 's not it that you mean But that it is their sin to hear us And indeed if this were true is it above your learning to understand that it is lawful to preach to them that commit a fault in hearing them 1. What if culpably they would hear no other Is it better let them hear none at all than that we preach to them If peevishness or sickness make a Child refuse the Food or Physick which he should take by his parents command will you say that it is better that he famish or die than that you give him any other Men may be saved that hear not you But how can they believe unless they hear or hear without a Preacher The means is for the End I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice is a Lesson which I perceive more than the Pharisees are to learn Order is for the thing Ordered Parish Order is not so needful as Faith and Salvation It may be such a mans Sin that he will not hear such as he should hear and so by Consequence that he heareth me and yet also Consequently his Duty to hear me supposing that his fault hath blinded him to think that he may hear no other till his Errour be Cured Or at least it is my Duty to take him as I find him and Preach to him in his own mistake 2. The Canon forbids going out of our own Parishes suppose twenty or five Hundred Infidels or Papists of the next Parish resolved we will hear no Protestant but Dr. Stillingfleet were it unlawful for you to Preach to them 3. If I should Preach to them all against separation and for Prelacy were it unlawful One of the Doctors at the Savoy 1661. motioned that he and I might go up and down England to Preach for Conformity and if any ask us why we do not we may tell them Dr. Stillingfleet taketh it for unlawful If it be a Sin to preach to them it is a sin to preach to them against Separation or for Conformity 4. It is ordinary for men of other Parishes to hear you and Dr. Tillotson and others such as you esteem And I suppose most weekly Lectures are Preached most to men of other Parishes and yet you take it not for sin to preach to them 5. It is ordinary for many Protestants to go hear and Communicate wiâ—h the French or Dutch Churches which differ from you in the Mode of Worship And yet I never heard it proved that it is a sin for the Preachers thus to preach to them 6. What if your Children as Prodigals over-run you or the Kings Subjects causelesly fly into another Land They ought not to be there Is it herefore unlawful for any to teach them there or receive them to pubâ—ike Worship 7. Almost all the Christian World is so tainted with some degree of Errour and Partiality that men will hear none but those of their own mind for their Errour sake The Armenians Abassims Greeks Papists Nestorians Jacobites Luthâ—rans Arminians Calvinists Anabaptists c. It is unlawful for any of these to refuse sounder Teachers than their own and to Confine themselves to
several parts that none but a great stranger to the History of the Church can ever call in question Ans Bishop Gunning will give you no thanks for this It seems after all the anger we are much agreed I never denied Chappelâ— to a Church nor thought they must all meet at once If they all meet per vices at one Altar they are associated for presential Communion and not distant only and this is that I am for Make it but such a Church that meet at one Altar and that can know one another and are associated for such personal Communion in presence and though I could wish it neither too small nor too great it is of the Species which I plead for as of God There is certainly a Specifique difference between a Church that hath a Constitutive formal Governour who hath the whole Pastoral power and is associated for presential mutual help in faith worship and holy living and one that either hath but a half Pastor without the power of the Keyes or that is associated only for distant Communion and never see each other even for another sort of Communion Conformists hold that Bishops and Presbyters are distinct orders Therefore Churches differing in the very Order or Species of the Constitutive Governours and in the Triminus or end and the nature of the Communions are certainly of distinct Species and not only of distinct degrees in the same Species But such are our Parochial and Diocesan Churches Just such a Church as you here describe is it that I would have and yet if the Chappels also have Altars and there be more than one to the Church as long as they are under the same Bishop and Presbyters associate for Communion in presence it alters not the Species § 46. I thank you also for adding p. 28. And yet this distribution even in Creet was so uncommon in those Elder times that Epiphanius takes notice of it as an extraordinary thing at Alexandria and therfore it is probably supposed that there was no suâ—h thing in all the Cities in his time Ans 1. It s true of Creet which had an hundred Cities But your therefore makes me think you put Creet for Cyprus For there it was that Epiphanius was a Bishop 2. But you grant me the foundation of all my cause Let the Diocess or Parish or Church call it what you will be no bigger than that the same Bishop may performe the true Pastoral office to them in present Communion and not only by writs and delegates rule men that have no personal present Communion nor ever intend it as the end of their relation and I have my desire as to the Species of the lowest sort of Churches 1 Thes 5. 12. 13. Know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you But such are not those whom we never saw nor heard and never laboured among or admonished the twentieth or fortieth or hundredth Congregation in their Diocess and whom the people cannot know Heb. 13. 7. Remember then which have rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation 17. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your Souls as those that must give account But such are not they that the people never heard the word of God from nor knew their conversation nor the men And Bishop Taylor saith No man can give account of those that he knoweth not that is Pastors account Make Parishes true Churches and restore them Church discipline and we are satisfied § 47. Serm. p. 29. If we look over the ancient Cannons of the Church we shall find two things very plain in them 1. That the notion of a Church was the same with that of a Diocess or such a number of Christians as were under the inspection of a Bishop Ans 1. Very true and the Bishop was their ordinary Preacher and only pronounced the blessing c. Therefore till the Species was altered it was like a School whose Schollars lived in City and Country but were under a Bishop that Governed them personally in presence But after they were like many score or hundred Schools that had Teaching Ushers and one absent Governour to the most To Govern as a Schoolmaster in presence specifically differs from Governing as Princes or visitors by Laws or extraordinary inspection 2. I pray you forget not that by this measure if you hold to it you unchurch all our Parish Churches Every Church then had a Bishop no Parish now hath a Bishop proper to it self or at least not many Therefore no Parish by this rule is a Church Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo adunata You make no Church below a Diocess § 48. Serm. 2. That those Presbyters who rejected the authority of their Bishop or affected Seperate meetings where no fault could be found with the Doctrine of a Cburch were condemned of Schism Ans Good still They were not to set up altare contra altare but joyn with the Bishop in Governing the same Church in present Communion at least per vices But if a Bishop than had put down a hundred or a thousand Bishops and Churches about him and said you shall be all but one Church in another sort of Communion and I will be your only Bishop Christians then would have abhorred him Now we have hundreds of Altars locally separated from the Bishop 2. But yet if then the Doctrine of faith had been never so sound Christians would have separated 1. From unlawful worship specially Idolatry 2. And from wicked Bishops as the forementioned Epistle of Cyprian and the Carthage Council sheweth § 49. You Confess Martin and Theognostus separation from the Synods and Communion of the neighbour Bishops And if it were not lawful for neighbours to communicate with them I shall believe as Cyprian that the same reason would at least warrant the people to forsake them till you shew reason to the contrary And you confess the Joannites separation and only say that after they returned It s true But did they do well or ill before they returned not till gentleness and honouring Chrysostome reduced them and though Cyril Alex. called them Schismaticks and said it was fitter the Church Canons should be kept than such refractory Nonconformists gratified by restoring the honour of their ejected Pastor yet Atticus had more wit and honesty then to follow his Council or be moved by his threatning Our case hath ten times more to be said for it than the Joannites had who were not cast out but departed nor had any Impositions forced on them which they took to be many hainous sins Had you been impartial you had easily seen this But as Cyril and others accusation of the Joannites as separatists and schismaticks did not finally attain his ends against the Joannites no more shall yours against the more excusable In an Ale-house or Crowd of the debauched or ignorant
excel in Love and Tenderness as much as in Knowledge and as mothers quiet crying Children and not therefore cast them out of doors 7. They Cross the ends of the Ministry if they take the Converting of Souls to be any of its end For as Generation so Regeneration maketh Infants and Children before they are grown Men and Children will be weak and troublesome And he that would have no such Children must not endeavour mens Conversion 8. Yea they greatly increase the Disease which they would Cure Men will not love those that hurt them so easily as others And when they are displeased with you they are the hardlier pleased with your Doctrine 9. Driving men into the Church maketh it like a Prison and corrupteth it as composed of involuntary Members 10. Yea they must destroy the Church if they will suffer none in it that have as great weaknesses as these Thus I declared both the evil of passionate Separation and of mistaking the way of Cure I would repeat the Sermons were it not for fear of being tedious 6. I have Printed in my second Plea for Peace what our Non-conformity is not containing as much in this point as he can reasonably desire as it was approved by many others named in our Judgment about the Interest of Reason in Religion so that he cannot say that I speak but of my self 7. I suppose he believeth that I am acquainted with more Non-conformable Ministers than he is or else he will not think that I am any such Antesignamâ—s as Bishop Morley calleth me And I meet with few or none that contradict what in this case of Separation I have Published They are commonly for Reformed Parish Churches not taking all in the Parish for the Church but bounding Churches in Parishes for Order and Preach elsewhere but on necessity and as Assistants and not as Adversaries 8. Doth not our Practice who go to the Parish Churches shew our Judgments to the People if we said nothing 9. I could not have drawn the People so much from too great distance if I had not preached to them At Acton I constantly heard Dr. Rieves and his Curate and I preached only in my house between his Sermons and then led the People to the Church which Judge Hales my neighbour thought was good service to the Church And the very Sermon that I was sent to the Common Gaol for was on Matth. 5. Blessed are the meek perswading to submissive peace and patience 10. When Bishop Morley forbad me to preach in his Diocess and I could not get leave at my departure to Preach to my hearers one farewel Sermon in publick I Preacht in a private house to them on David's words Bring back the Ark of God into the City if I have found favour c. purposely to perswade them as my last advice not to depart from the publick Parish Assembly though the Liturgy be there the publick worship But if the Minister that is there shall be intolerable 1. As utterly unable 2. Or a Heretick 3. Or so malignant an Enemy of Godliness as to do more hurt than good I advised them not to own any such Minister nor encourage him in his Usurpation And it was on that account that they long forbore till the Vicar was dead and a better succeeded him 11. Since then I have written to my old Flock to perswade them to joyn in the Parish Assembly and I hear not of three that do refuse it And all this I have said as to that matter of fact to shew you how farr to believe this Reverend Doctor 's intimated ironical accusation If he say that Other Preachers do not so I Answer First How knoweth he the Negative that never heareth them but like a separatist avoideth it as unlawful 2. Is it not likely that in season they preach their judgment 3. But I confess they may find more profitable work than to preach over all the suspected passages in the Liturgy and other parts of Conformity and answer all the Peoples objections against them The Builders and Owners of the houses are the fittest to do such offices to maintain it § 65. Is it that they fear the reproaches of the People which some few of the most Eminent persons among them have found they must undergo if they touch upon thiâ— subject Ans 1. So farr as your accusation is untrue as to the fact it 's but a further ill intimation to ask why they do not that which they do 2. If they that should better know what their auditors most need must preach what you appoint that know them less you may make their Sermons for them as well as their prayers 3. Those few Persons it seems at least toucht on what you say they preacht not And for my part whom I know you mean for one I never felt my self much tempted to grudge at the Dissenters that therefore will not hear me If they hear others more suitable to them by whom they can more profit as more esteeming them what hurt is that to me Would I have none taught the knowledge of Christ but by my self While we have all one Faith it 's some convenience for men to assemble and hear where they do it with unprejudiced undisturbed minds 4. If those persons you mention have before and since such censures as you intimate done what you would perswade men that they do not your self-contradiction is most palpable § 66. Serm. For I know not how it cometh to pass that the most Godly people among them can least endure to be told of their faults Ans 1. Did you not intend the Most Godly for a scorn you would confess it false 2. If you mean those that we esteem most Godly it is not true neither 3. If you mean those that think themselves so it 's no wonder if they mistake if not it 's not true 2. I pray you take warning by them or by your own reproof and do not now shew that you are one of the most Godly by less enduring to be told of your faults If otherwise you have forecondemned your own impatience 3. Verily they have dealt much more patiently with me than the Bishops and Canoneers have done Though some have spoken their dislike of me none of them even when they were in power did ever silence or imprison me nor ever forbid me to Preach save once at an Assizes How can you think that we can feel their censures when we have so much worse to feel from the Canoneers And when you ask Is it for fear they should have none left to preach to If you separated not from us you would see that such have some left still § 67. Serm. p. 42. Whence we see the Church of Englands endeavour after uniformity is acquitted from Tyranny over the Consciences of men by the Judgment of the most Learned of the Assembly c. Ans 1. Of the Assembly I have said enough 2. If you think the Assemblies Vniformity or
their endeavours for it were the same with th◠Church of Englands none that know the case will be of your mind 3 If you are intelligible we must suppose that you cite them to defend this as the conclusion which you own The word Tyranny is too harsh to be used without need But I suppose you include that the said Endeavours for Vniformity have no culpable severity in them That is that the Acts for Vniformity the Canons the Executing of them in Declarations Subscriptions Oaths Practices Punishments Corporal and Spiritual are no Sin but Lawful In your Epistle you say They are ill men that say This is stirring up to persecution All that I will say is that if you own these Endeavours for Vniformity I do not and the judge is at the door § 68. Serm. p. 44. If they form their judgments rather by prejudice and passion and interest than from the Laws of God or just Rules of Conscience c. Ans 1. This is true and good If we make not Gods Laws the Rule of Conscience no wonder if we err God preserve us from all corrupting prejudice passion interest and Canons 2. But when you compare our temptation from interest with yours I hope you will not say as Dr. Asheton that as going to the Bar of God he undertakes to make good that it 's through Pride and Covetousness that we conform not that is that we choose the contempt of high and low and to live on Alms and multitudes in pinching poverty § 69. Serm. p. 46. We find Vniformity and Order condemned as Tyrannical till men come into power themselves and then the very same things and arguments are used and thought very good and substantial which before were weak and sophistical Ans A true and sad confession when I read your Irenicon and this Sermon I the more believe you Therefore it hath been my happiness that I was never in Power no nor ever on the uppermost side unless as I am for the King I remember Dr. Rieves told us in the Pulpit that the reason why we were against Diocesan Bishops was because we could not be Bishops our selves And many others have said the like § 70. Serm. Those that now plead for Toleration did once think it the Mother of Confusion the nurse of Atheism c. Ans 1. Sure though you often cite Dr. Owen you mean not the Independents 2. If they spake either for or against Toleration as you do without distinction and were for all or against all and distinguished not the tolerable from the intolerable it 's no great heed to be taken what they say If there were but one false word imposed on you which you could not assent to and on 2000 such as you should you be no more tolerated than a Mahometan § 71. As to your advice to us p. 47. 48. 1. Did you think that because we must bear with much that is amiss in the Church that therefore we must either consent to it or practise it and Covenant against all endeavours of amending it or prefer it before better The man you talk of out of Mr. Ball was near Bremicham and was Melancholy to a kind of madness To your second I answer It followeth not that because we must not judge too hardly of Impositions therefore we must say swear and do all that is now imposed on us Or that he that dares not do it is unpeaceable I would we knew in what cases only you would deny Obedience and Conformity your self Doubtful passages and undoubted evils somewhat differ A fault-finding disposition and the Roman art that Boccaline mentions to swallow a Pimpion have a mean between them Papists Socinians or any that are uppermost may call for Conformity under the names of Unity and Peace To the Third separation was not the same thing in the mouth of the old Non-conformists as in yours They took it first for unchurching the Parish Churches 2. Or holding it a sin to communicate with them if they might be excused as to kneeling Crossing c. You take it for preaching when forbidden I have named to you the old Non-conformists that preached when they could And half of them I think got into small priviledged places exempt from the Bishops power and there preached most of them without the Liturgy and all without the Ceremonies And was not this against Law Sure Bishop Bancroft that describeth their attempts to set up new Churches and Discipline was not of your mind concerning the Non-conformists judgment We had but two in all Shropshire and Dr. Allestree when a boy was the Catechiz'd Auditor of one of them being his next Neighbour in a peculiar Chapel without the Liturgy c. And yet I think not that his Father and all that Assembly were separatists for hearing him Bradshaw thought we should submit to a silencing Law where our Ministry was unnecessary and so do I. Dr. Gouge was a Conformist when he wrote the Book which you cite To your Fourth Woe to them that believe our divisions indanger the Land and let in Popery and yet will cause them and no intreaty can procure them to forbear dividing us when they may and then revile them that have no way to remedy it unless wilful heinous sinning be the way § 72. That it is diseases that love not their own names in mens hearts that make the trouble more than our different judgments and Assemblings experience telleth us I was never a settled Teacher but in two places saving a Lecture at Coventry in the War viz. An Assistant at Budgnorth and a Pastor at Kidderminster And in both places there is an honest Conformable and a Non-Conformable Minister And the People go to the publick Assembly and many hear the Non-conformist privately between the publick Meetings And both parties as I hear live in very much love and peace and why might it not be so in other places if there were the like Ministers and People without all this envyous clamour and bugbear words of Anti-christian on one side or Separatists and Schismaticks on the other § 73. As to your next advices p. 53. 54. First Qui monet ut facias c. We speak so much against rash ignorant Zeal that you commend us against your purpose 2. We thank you for the admonition not to be always complaining of hardships and persecutions Doubtless our mercies are so great as forbid us to be over querulous nay leave us unexcusable if we are not very thankful For my own part my sufferings have been very small from man in comparison of what I endure in Soul and Body from my self They are few days in which I am not a heavier burden to my self than all my Enemies are But First I may not be senceless of the case of many better men who have great families and no bread but what they have by Alms in poor Countreys where the people are fitter to receive than to give And if they remove to bigger Towns