Vows The use the obligation VVhether any things be indifferent and such may be Vowed As Marrying c. May we Vow things Indifferent in themselves though not in their circumstances In what Cases we may not Vow VVhat if Rulers command it VVhat if I doubt whether the Matter imposed be lawful Of Vowing with a doubting Conscience Tit. 2. Directions against Perjury and Perfidiousness and for keeping Vows and Oaths The heinousness of Perjury Thirty six Rules about the obligation of a Vow to shew when and how far it is obligatory useful in an age stigmatized with open Perjury Mostly out of Dr. Sanderson VVhat is the Nullity of an Oath Cases in which Vows must not be kept p. 700 How far Rulers may Nullifie a Vow Numb 30. opened Of the Accidental Evil of a Vow Of Scandal Q. Doth an error de persona caused by that person disoblige me ibid. CHAP. VI. Directions to the people concerning their Internal and private duty to their Pastors and their profiting by the Ministerial Office and Gifts p. 714 The Ministerial Office opened in fifteen particulars The Reasons of it The true old Episcopacy Special duties to your own Pastors above others Of the Calling Power and Succession of Pastors The best to be preferred The Order of Minirial Teaching and the Resolution of faith How far Humane faith conduceth to Divine Of Tradition VVhat use to make of your Pastors to p. 724 CHAP. VII Directions for the discovery of Truth among Contenders and how to escape Heresie and deceit Cautions for avoiding deceit in Disputations p. 725 CHAP. VIII Directions for the Union and Communion of Saints and for avoiding unpeaceableness and Schism p. 731 VVherein our Unity consisteth VVhat diversity will be in the Churches VVhat Schism is VVhat Heresie VVhat Apostasie VVho are Schismaticks The degrees and progress of it VVhat Separation is a duty Q. Is any one form of Church Government of Divine appointment May man make new Church Officers The Benefits of Christian Concord to themselves and to Insidels The mischiefs of Schism VVhether Papists or Protestants are Schismaticks The aggravations of Division Two hinderances of our true apprehension of the evil of Schism Direrections against it Of imposing defective Liturgies The Testimonies of antiquity against the bloody and Cruel way of Curing Schism Their Character of Ithacian Prelates CHAP. IX Twenty Directions how to worship God in the Church Assemblies p. 755 CHAP. X. Directions about our Communion with holy souls departed now with Christ. p. 758 CHAP. XI Directions about our Communion with the holy Angels p. 763 The Contents of the Ecclesiastical Cases of Conscience added to the Third Part. Q. 1. HOw to know which is the true Church among all pretenders that a Christians Conscience may be quiet in his Relation and communion p. 771 Q. 2. Whether we must esteem the Church of Rome a true Church And in what sence some Protestant Divines affirm it and some deny it p. 774 Q. 3. Whether we must take the Romish Clergie for a true Ministry p. 775 Q. 4. Whether it be necessary to believe that the Pope is the Antichrist p. 777 Q. 5. Whether we must hold that a Papist may be saved p. 778 Q. 6. Whether those that are in the Church of Rome are bound to separate from it And whether it be lawful to go to their Mass or other worship p. 779 Q. 7. Whether the true calling of the Minister by Ordination or Election be necessary to the essence of the Church ibid Q. 8. Whether sincere faith and Godliness be necessary to the being of the Ministry And whether it be lawful to hear a wicked man or take the Sacrament from him or take him for a Minister p. 780 Q. 9. Whether the people are bound to receive or consent to an ungodly intolerable heretical Pastor yea or one far less fit and worthy than a competitor if the Magistrate command it or the Bishop impose him p. 781 Q. 10. What if the Magistrate command the people to receive one Pastor and the Bishop or Ordainers another which of them must be obeyed p. 787 Q. 11. Whether an uninterrupted succession either of right Ordination or of conveyance by jurisdiction be necessary to the being of the Ministry or of a true Church p. 787 Q. 12. Whether there be or ever was such a thing in the world as one Catholick Church constituted by any head besides or under Christ p. 789 Q 13. Whether there be such a thing as a visible Catholick Church and what it is ibid. Q. 14. What is it that maketh a visible member of the universal Church and who are to be accounted such p. 790 Q. 15. Whether besides the profession of Christianity either testimony or evidence of conversion or practical Godliness be necessary to prove a man a member of the Universal visible Church ibid. Q. 16. What is necessary to a mans reception into membership in a particular Church over and above this foresaid title Whether any other tryals or Covenant or What p. 791 Q. 17. Wherein doth the Ministerial office Essentially consist p. 792 Q. 18. Whether the peoples choice or consent is necessary to the office â—f a Minister in his first work as he is to convert Insidels and Baptize them And whether this be a work of office and what call is necessary to it p. 793 Q. 19. Wherein consisteth the power and nature of Ordination and To whom doth it belong and Is it an act of jurisdiction and Is imposition of hands necessary in it p 794 Q. 20. Is ordination necessary to make a man a Pastor of a particular Church as such and Is he to be made a General Minister and a particular Church-Elder or Pastor at once and at one Ordination p. 795 Q. 21. May a man be oft or twice ordained p. 796 Q. 22. How many ordainers are necessary to the validity of Ordination by Christs Institution Whether one or more p. 798 Q. 23. What if one Bishop Ordain a Minister and three or many or all the rest protest against it and declare him no Minister or degrade him is he to be received as a true Minister or not ibid. Q. 24. Hath a Bishop power by divine right to ordain degrade or govern excommunicate or absolve in another Diocess or Church either by his consent or against it And doth a Minister that officiateth in anothers Church act as a Pastor and their Pastor or as a private man And doth his Ministerial office cease when a man removeth from his flock p. 799 Q. 25. Whether Canons Be Laws and Pastors have a Legislative power p. 800 Q. 26. Whether Church-canons or Pastors directive determinations of matters pertinent to their Office do bind the Conscience and what accidents will disoblige the people you may gather before in the same case about Magistrates Laws in the Political Directions As also by an impartial transferring the case to the precepts of Parents and School-masters to Children without respect to
expectat cuique ad resipiscendum non ista sufficiunt infatuatum se juxta Domini sententiam nullo unquam sale saliri posse demonstrat I will not English it lest those take encouragement by it who are bent to the other extream 7. Yet it will be a great offence if any censorious self-conceited person shall on this pretence set up his judgement of mens parts to the contempt of Authority or to the vilifying of worthy men and especially if he thereby make a stir and Schism in the Church instead of seeking his own edification 8. Yea if a Minister be weaker yea and colder and worse than another yet if his Ministry be competently fitted to edification he that cannot leave him and go to a better without apparent hurt to the Church and the souls of others by division or exasperating Rulers or breaking family ☜ order or violating Relation duties must take himself to be at present denyed the greater helps that others have and may trust God in the use of those weaker means to accept and bless him because he is in the station where he hath set him This case therefore must be Resolved by a prudent comparing of the Good or Hurt which is like to follow and of the accidents or circumstances whence that must be discerned Quest. 10. What if the Magistrate command the people to receive one Pastor and the Bishops or Ordainers another which of them must be obeyed 1. THe Magistrate and not the Bishop or people unless under him hath the power and disposal See more of this after of the Circumstantials or Accidents of the Church I mean of the Temple the Pulpit the Tythes c. And he is to determine what Ministers are fit either for his own Countenance or Toleration and what not In these therefore he is to be obeyed before the Bishops or others 2. If a Pope or Prelate of a foreign Church or any that hath no lawful Jurisdiction or Government over the Church that wanteth a Pastor shall command them to receive one their command is null and to be contemned 3. Neither Magistrate nor Bishop as is said may deny the Church or people any Liberty which God in Nature or Christ in the Gospel hath setled on them as to the Reception of their proper Pastors 4. No Bishop but only the Magistrate can compell by the Sword the obedience of his commands 5. If one of them command the reception of a worthy person and the other of an intolerable one the former must prevail because of obedience to Christ and care of our souls 6. But if the persons be equal or both fit the Magistrate is to be obeyed if he be peremptory in his commands and decide the case in order to the peace or protection of the Church both because it is a lawful thing and because else he will permit no other 7. And the rather because the Magistrates Power is more past controversie than Whether any Bishop Pastor or Synod can any further than by counsel and perswasion oblige the People to receive a Pastor Quest. 11. Whether an uninterrupted Succession either of right Ordination or of Conveyance by Iurisdiction be necessary to the Being of the Ministry or of a true Church THe Papists have hitherto insisted on the necessity of successive right Ordination But Voâ—tius de desperata Causa Papatus hath in this so handled them and confuted Iansenius as hath indeed shewed the desperateness of that Cause And they perceive that the Papacy it self cannot be upheld by that way and therefore Iohnson alias Terret in his Rejoynder against me now concludeth that it is not for want of a successive Consecration that they condemn the Church of England but for want of true Iurisdiction because other Bishops had title to the places whilest they were put in And that successive Consecration which we take to include Ordination is not necessary to the being of Ministry or Church And it is most certain to any man acquainted in Church History that their Popes have had a succession of neither Their way of Election hath been frequently changed sometimes being by the people sometimes by the Clergy sometimes by the Emperours and lastly by the Cardinals alone Ordination they have sometime wanted and a Lay-man been chosen And oft the Ordination hath been by such as had no power according to their own Laws And frequent intercisions have been made sometime by many years vacancy when they had no Church and so there was none on Earth if the Pope be the Constitutive Head for want of a Pope sometime by long Schisms when of two or three Popes no one could be known to have more right than the other nor did they otherwise carry it than by power at last Sometimes by the utter incapacity of the possessors some being Lay-men some Hereticks and Infidels so judged by Councils at Rome Constance Basil and Eugenius the fourth continued after he was so censured and condemned and deposed by the General Council I have proved all this at large elsewhere And he that will not be cheated with a bare sound of words but will ask them whether by a succession of Iurisdiction they mean Efficient Conveying Iurisdiction in the Causers of his Call or Received Iurisdiction in the Office received will find that they do but hide their desperate Cause in Confusion and an insignificant noise For they maintain that none on earth have an Efficient Iurisdiction in making Popes For the former Pope doth not make his successor And both Electors Ordainers and Consecrators yea and the people Receiving they hold to be subjects of the Pope when made and therefore make him not by Jurisdiction giving him the power Therefore Iohnson tells me that Christ only and not man doth give the power and they must needs hold that men have nothing to do but design the person Recipient by Election and Reception and to Invest him ceremonially in the possession So that no Efficient Iurisdiction is here used at all by man And for Received Iurisdiction 1. No one questioneth but when that Office is received which is Essentially Governing he that receiveth it receiveth a Governing power or else he did not receive the Office If the question be only whether the Office of a Bishop be an Office of Iurisdiction or contain essentially a Governing power they make no question of this themselves So that the noise of Successive Jurisdiction is vanished into nothing 2. And with them that deny any Jurisdiction to belong to Presbyters this will be nothing as to their case who have nothing but Orders to receive They have nothing of sense left them to say but this That though the Efficient Iurisdiction which maketh Popes be only in Christ because no men are their Superiours yet Bishops and Presbyters who have Superiours cannot receive their power but by an Efficient Power of man which must come down by uninterrupted succession Answ. 1. And so if ever the Papal Office have an
Rom. 10. 15 1â— translate it Age it is the Age of the Church of the Messiah incarnate which is all one 4. Because it was a small part of the world comparatively that heard the Gospel in the Apostles dayes And the far greatest part of the world is without it at this day when yet God our Saviour would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth 5. Even where the Gospel hath long continued for the most part there are many still that are in infidelity And so great a work is not left without an appointed suitable means for its performance And if an Office was necessary for it in the first age it is not credible that it is left to private mens charity ever since 6. Especially considedering that private men are to be supposed insufficient 1. Because they are not educated purposely for it but usually for something else 2. Because that they have other Callings to take them up 3. Because they have no special obligation And that which is no mans peculiar work is usually left undone by all II. The peoples Call or Consent is not necessary to a Ministers reception of his Office in General nor for this part of his work in special But only to his Pastoral Relation to themselves 1. It is so in other functions that are exercised by skill The Patients or People make not a man a Physicion or a Lawyer but only choose what Physicion shall be their Physicion and what Lawyer shall be their Counsellor 2. If the peoples Call or Consent be necessary it is either the Infidels or the Churches Not the Infidels to whom he is to preach for 1. He is Authorized to preach to them as the Apostles were before he goeth to them 2. Their Consent is but a Natural-consequent-requisite for the Reception and success of their Teaching but not to the Authority which is pre-requisite 3. Infidels cannot do so much towards the making of a Minister of Christ. 4. Else Christ would have few such Ministers 5. If it be Infidels either all or some If some why those rather than others Or is a man made a Minister by every Infidel auditory that heareth him 2. Nor is it Christian people that must do this much to the making of a General Minister For 1. They have no such Power given for it in Nature or the Word of God 2. They are generally unqualified and unable for such a work 3. They are no where obliged to it nor can fitly leave their Callings for it Much less to get the abilities necessary to judge 4. Which of the people have this power Is it any of them or any Church of private men Or some one more than the rest Neither one nor all can lay any claim to it There is some reason why this Congregation rather than another should choose their own Pastors But there is no Reason nor Scripture that this Congregation choose a Minister to convert the World III. I conclude therefore that the Call of a Minister in General doth consist 1. Dispositively in the due Qualifications and â—nablement of the person 2. And the Necessity of the people with opportunity is a providential part of the Call 3. And the ordainers are the Orderly Electors and determineâ—s of the person that shall receive the power from Christ. 1. For this is part of the power of the Keyes or Church-Government 2. And Paul giveth this direction for exercising of this power to Timothy which sheweth the ordinary way of Calling 2 Tim. 2 Tim. 3. 6 7. Tâ—t 1. 5 6. 2. 2. And the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses the same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others also Act. 13. 1 2 3. There were in the Church at Antioch certain Prophets As they ministred to the Lord the Holy Ghost said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them they sent them away And they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed In this whether it be to be called an Ordination or rather a Mission there is somewhat Ordinary that it be by men in office and somewhat extraordinary that it be by a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost And Timothy received his Gifts and Office by the Imposition of the hands of Paul and of the Presbytery 1 Tim. 4. 14. 2 Tim. 1. 6. 1 Tim. 5. 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man These instances make the case the clearer 1. Because it is certain that all that Governing power which is given by Christ to the Church under the name of the Keyes is given to the Pastors 2. Because there are no other competitors to lay a reasonable claim to it Quest. 19. Wherein consisteth the Power and Nature of Ordination And to whom doth it belong And is it an Act of Iurisdiction And is Imposition of hands necessary in it I. THis is resolved on the by before 1. Ordination performeth two things 1. The designation election or determination of the person who shall receive the Office 2. The Ministerial Investiture of him in that office which is a Ceremonial delivery of Possession As a servant doth deliver possession of a house by delivering him the Key who hath before received the power or Right from the Owner 2. The office delivered by this Election and Investiture is the sacred Ministerial office in General to be after exercised according to particular Calls and opportunities As Christ called the Apostles and the Spirit called the ordinary general Teachers of those times such as Barnabas Silas Silvanus Timothy Epaphroditus Apollo c. And as is before cited 2 Tim. 2. 2. As a man is made in General a Licensed Physicion Lawyer c. 3. This Ordination is Ordinis gratiâ necessary to order and therefore so far necessary as Order is necessary which is Ordinarily when the greater interest of the substantial duty or of the Thing Ordered is not against it As Christ determined the case of Sabbath keeping and not eating the Shew-bread As the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath and the end is to be preferred before the separable means so ordination was instituted for order and order for the thing ordered and for the work of the Gospel and the good of souls and not the Gospel and mens souls for that Order Therefore when 1. The death 2. Distance 3. Or malignity of the Ordainers depriveth a man of Ordination these three substitutes may notifie to him the Will of God that he is by him a person called to that office 1. Fitness for the works in Understanding Willingness and Ability 2. The Necessity of souls 3. Opportunity II. The power of ordaining belongeth not 1. To Magistrates 2. Or to private men either single or as the body of a Church but 3. To the Senior Pastors of the Church whether Bishops or Presbyters
none but they have power to Ordain we may not encourage such pretences by repetition of the words and Action 4. If they would make some thing necessary to Ordination which is not as if it were a false Oath or false subscription or profession or some unlawful Ceremony as if it were Anointing wearing Horns or any the like and say You are no Ministers without these and therefore you must be Re-ordained to receive them 5. Yea if they declare our former Ministry causelesly to be Null and say You are no Ministers till you are Ordained again and so publickly put this sense upon our Action that we take it as Re-ordination All these Accidents make the Repetition of the words and actions to be unlawful unless when Greater Accidents notoriously preponderate Quest. But if such Church Tyrants should have so great power as that without their Repetition of Ordination on those terms the Ministry might not be exercised is it lawful so to take it in a case of such necessity Answ. 1. Every seeming necessity to you is not a necessity to the Church 2. Either you may publickly declare a contrary sense in your Receiving their new orders or not 1. If you may not as publickly declare that you renounce not your former Ministry and Dedication to God in that office as the Ordainers declare their sense of the Nullity of it so that your open declaration may free you from the guilt of seeming consent I conceive it is a sinful complyance with their sin 2. Yea if you may so declare it yet if there be no necessity of your Ministerial liberty in that place I think you may not take it on such terms As 1. If there be worthy men enough to supply the Churches wants there without you 2. And if you may serve God successfully in a persecuted state though to the suffering of your flesh 3. Or if your imprisonment for Preaching be like to be as serviceable to the Church and Gospel as your continued Preaching on those scandalous terms 4. Or if you may remove and Preach in another Countrey 9. When any such case doth fall out in which the Repetition of the outward Action and Words is lawful It is not lawful to mix any false or scandalous expressions As if we were required to say falsly I accept this Ordination as confessing my self no Minister of Christ till now or any such like 10. In a word A peaceable Christian may do much as to the meer outward Action and Submission for obedience peace order or satisfaction to his own or other mens Consciences But 1. He may 1 Thes. 5. 22. Gal. 2. 4 5. Gal. 2. 14. do nothing for good ends which is false and injurious to the Church 2. And he may not do that which otherwise were lawful when it is for evil ends or tendeth to more hurt than good As to promote Heresie or Church-Tyranny and Usurpation whether in Pope Prelates Presbyters or People Quest. 22. How many Ordainers are necessary to the validity of Ordination by Gods institution Whether one or more MY Question is not of the ancient Canons or any humane Laws or customes For those are easily known But of Divine Right Now either God hath determined the case as to the number of Ordainers necessary or not If not either he hath given the Church some General rule to determine it by or not If not then the number is not any part of the Divine Order or Law And then if we suppose that he hath determined the case as to the Ordaining office and not to the Number then it will follow that one may serve The truth I think may be thus explained 1. There is Ordo officialis primarius and ordo ordinis vel exercitii vel secundarius An Order of Office primary and an Order of Exercise secundary in the Church As to the first the Order of office God hath determined that the Ordaining officers and no others shall ordain officers or give Orders And having not determined whether one or more it followeth that the ordination of one sole lawful ordainer is no nullity on that account because it is but one unless somewhat else nullifie it 2. God hath given General Rules to the ordainers for the due exercise of their office though he have not determined of any set number Such as are these That all things be done in Judgement Truth Love Concord to the Churches Edification Unity and peace c. 3. According to these General Laws sometimes the ordination of one sole ordainer may not only be valid but regular As when there are no other to concur or none whose concurrence is needful to any of the aforesaid Ends. And sometimes the concurrence of Many is needful 1. To the Receivers satisfaction 2. To the Churches or peoples satisfaction 3. To the Concord of Pastors and of Neighbour Churches c. And in such cases such Consem or Concourse is the Regular way 4. Where there are many Neighbour Pastors and Churches so neer as that he that is ordained in one of them is like oft to pass and Preach and officiate obiter in others and so other Churches must have some communion with him it is meetest that there be a concurrence in the Ordination 5. The ordainer is certainly a superiour to the person that cometh to be ordained while he is a private man And therefore so far his ordination is as is said an Act of Iurisdiction in the large sense that is of Government But whether he be necessarily his superiour after he is ordained hath too long been a Controversie It is certain that the Papists confess that the Pope is ordained such by no superiour And it is not necessary that a Bishop be ordained by one or more of any superiour order or Jurisdiction either And though the Italian Papists hold that a superiour Papal Jurisdiction must needs be the secondary fountain of the ordaining power though the ordainer himself be but of the same Order yet Protestants hold no such thing And all acknowledge that as Imposition of hands on a Lay man to make him a Minister of Christ or an officer is a kind of official Generation* so the Ejusdem speâ—â—â—â— vel inteâ—â—oris How then is the Pope Ordained or made Ordained is as a Iunior in Office is as it were a Son to the Ordainer as the Convert is said to be peculiarly to his Converter And that a proportionable honour is still to be given him But whether he that ordaineth a Presbyter and not he that ordaineth or Consecrateth a Bishop must needs be of a superiour order or office is a question which the Reader must not expect me here to meddle with Quest. 23. What if one Bishop ordain a Minister and three or many or all the rest protest against it and declare him no Minister or degrade him Is he to be received as a true Minister or not SUpposing that the person want no necessary personal Qualification for the office
Real opposed to a nullity so it is now to be further considered 2. The doubt lyeth either of the sufficiency of his Call or of somewhat that is supposed to destroy it by contradiction or redundancy 1. Whether he want any thing of absolute necessity to the office who is called in the Church of Rome or 2. Whether there be any thing in his office or entrance which nullifieth or invalidateth that which else would be sufficient For the first doubt it is not agreed on among Papists or Protestants what is of necessity to the Being of the office Some think real Godliness in the person is necessary but most think not some think that Visible that is seeming professed Godliness not disproved by mortal sin is necessary and some think not some think the peoples Election is necessary and that ordination is but ad bene esse and some think ordination necessary ad esse and Election ad bene esse or not at all And some think Both necessary ad esse and some Neither Some think the Election of the people is necessary and some think only their Consent is necessary though after Election by others Some think it must be the Consent of all the flock or neer all And some only of the Major part And some of the Better part though the Minor Some think the Ordination of a Diocesane Bishop necessary ad esse and some not Some think the Truth of the Ordainers Calling or power to be necessary to the validity of his Ordination and some not some think the number of two or three or more Ordainers to be necessary and some not some think it necessary to the validity of the Ministry that it come down from the Apostles by an uninterrupted succession of truly Ordained Bishops and some think not some few think that the Magistrates command or licence is necessary and only it and most deny both Iohnson alias Terret the Papist in his Disputation against me maintaineth that Consecration is not necessary ad esse nor any one way of Election by these or those but only the Churches reception upon such an Election as may give them notice and which may be different according to different times places and other circumstances In the midst of these confusions What is to be held I have opened the Case as fully and plainly as I can in my 2 Disput. of Ch. Gov. about Ordination to which I must refer the Reader Only here briefly touching upon the sum 1. There are some personal qualifications necessary to the being of the office of which anon and Eph. 4. 6 9 8 9 10 11. Mat. 28. 11 2â— Tit. 1. 5. Act. 20. 28. Act. 14. 23. 1 Pet. 5. 2. some only to the well-being 2. The efficient conveying cause of Power or office is Gods will signified in his own established Law in which he determineth that such persons so called shall receive from him such Power and be obliged to such office-administrations 3. Any Providence of God which infallibly or satisfactorily notifieth to the Church who these persons are that receive such Power from God doth oblige them to submit to them as so impowred 4. Gods ordinary established way of Regular designation of the person is by the Churches consent and the Senior Pastors ordination 5. By these Actions they are not the proper Donors or efficients of the Power or office given but the Consent of the people and the Ordination do determine of the Recipient and so are Regularly causa fine qua non of his Reception And the Ordination is moreover a solemn Investiture in the office as when a servant is sent by delivering a Key to deliver possession of an House by his Masters consent to him that had before the owners Grant And so it ceremoniously entereth him into visible possession Like the solemnizing of Marriage or the listing of a Souldier c. 6. The peoples Consent before or after is not only by Institution but naturally necessary that a man become a Pastor to those persons for no man can Learn obey c. without consent But it is not of necessity to the Being of the Ministry in General or in the first instant A man without it may be authorized as a Minister to go Preach the Gospel for Conversion and Baptize and gather Churches though not to be their stated Pastor 7. When death distance corruption heresie or malignity of Pastors within reach maketh it impossible to have Ordination Gods choice of the person may be notified without it as by 1. Emiâ—ent Qualifications 2. The peoples real necessities 3. And the removal of Impedimensâ— and a concurrence of inviting opportunities and advantages 4. And sometimes the peoples desire 5. And sometimes the Magistrates commission or consent which though not absolutely necessary in themselves yet may serve to design the person and invest him when the ordinary way faileth which is all that is left to Man to do to the conveyance of the power The case being thus stated as to what is necessary to give the power or office we may next enquire whether any Papists Priest have such Power by such means And 1. We have sufficient reason to judge that many of them have all the personal qualifications which are essentially necessary 2. Many among them have the consent of a sober Christian people of which more anon And Mr. Iacob who was against Bishops and their Ordination proveth at large that by Election or Consent of the people alone a man may be a true Pastor either without such Ordination or notwithstanding both the vanity and error of it 3. Many of them have Ordination by able and sober Bishops if that also be necessary 4. In that Ordination they are invested in all that is essential to the Pastoral Office So that I see not that their Calling is a Nullity through defect of any thing of absolute necessity to its being and validity though it be many wayes irregular and sinful II. We are next therefore to enquire whether any Contradicting additions make null that which else would be no nullity And this is the great difficulty For as we accuse not their Religion for having too little but too much so this is our chief doubt about their Ministry And. 1. It is doubted as to the office it self whether a Mass-Priest be a true Minister as having another work to do even to make his Maker and to give Christs real flesh with his hands to the people and to preach the unsound Doctrines of their Church And these seem to be essential parts of his function The case is very bad and sad But that which I said about the Heresies or Errors which may consist with Christianity when they overthrow it but by an undiscerned consequence must be here also considered The prime part of their office is that as to the essentials which Christ ordained This they receive and to this they sew a filthy rag of mans devising But if they knew this to be
intercision as I have proved it hath had as to lawful Popes the whole Catholick Church is nullified and it is impossible to give it a new being but by a new Pope But the best is that by their Doctrine indeed they need not to plead for an uninterrupted succession either of Popes Bishops or Presbyters but that they think it a useful cheat to perplex all that are not their subjects For if the Papacy were extinct an hundred years Christ is still alive And seeing it is no matter ad esse who be the Electors or Consecrators so it be but made known conveniently to the people and Men only Elect and Receive the person and Christ only giveth the power by his stated Law what hindereth after the longest extinction or intercision but that some body or some sort of persons may choose a Pope again and so Christ make him Pope And thus the Catholick Church may dye and live again by a new Creation many times over And when the Pope hath a Resurrection after the longest intercision so may all the Bishops and Priests in the world because a new Pope can make new Bishops and new Bishops can make new Priests And where then is there any shew of necessity of an uninterrupted succession of any of them All that will follow is that the particular Churches dye till a Resurrection And so doth the whole Church on earth every time the Pope dyeth till another be made if he be the Constitutive Head 2. But as they say that Christ only Efficiently giveth the Power to the Pope so say we to the Bishops or Pastors of the Church For there is no act of Christs Collation to be proved but the Scripture Law or Grant And if that standing Law give Power to the Pope when men have but designed the Person the same Law will do the same to Bishops or Pastors For it establisheth their Office in the same sort Or rather in truth there is no word that giveth power to any such Officer as an Universal Head or Pope but the Law for the Pastoral Office is uncontrovertible And what the Spanish Bishops at Trent thought of the Divine Right of the Bishops Office I need not mention I shall therefore thus truly resolve the question 1. In all Ordinations and Elections man doth but first choose the Recipient person 2. And Ceremoniously and Ministerially Invest him in the Possession when God hath given him the power But the efficient Collation or Grant of the Power is done only by Christ by the Instrumentality of his Law or Institution As when the King by a Charter saith Whoever the City shall choose shall be their Mayor and have such and such power and be Invested in it by the Recorder or Steward Here the person elected receiveth all his Power from the King by his Charter which is a standing Efficient conveying it to the Capable Chosen person and not from the Choosers or Recorder only the last is as a servant to deliver possession So is it in this case 2. The regular way of entrance appointed by Christ to make a person capable is the said Election and Ordination And for order sake where that may be had the unordained are not to be received as Pastors 3. If any get Possession by false pretended Ordination or Mission and be Received by the Church I have before told you that he is a Pastor as to the Churches use and benefit though not to his own And so the Church is not extinct by every fraudulent usurpation or mistake and so not by want of a true Ordination or Mission 4. If the way of regular Ordination fail God may otherwise by the Churches necessity and the notorious aptitude of the person notifie his will to the Church what person they shall receive As if a Lay-man were cast on the Indian shoar and converted thousands who could have no Ordination And upon the peoples Reception or Consent that man will be a true Pastor And seeing the Papists in the conclusion as Iohnson ubi supra are fain to cast all their cause on the Churches Reception of the Pope they cannot deny reasonably but ad esse the Churches reception may serve also for another Officer And indeed much better than for a Pope For 1. The Universal Church is so great that no man can know when the Greater part Receiveth him and when not except in some notorious declarations 2. And it is now known that the far greater part of the Universal Church the Greeks Armenians Abassines Copties Protestants c. do not receive the Roman Head 3. And when one part of Europe received one Pope and another part another Pope for above fourty years together who could tell which of the parties was to be accounted the Church It was not then known nor it is not known yet to this day And no Papist can prove it who affirmeth it As a Church e. g. Constantinople may be gathered or oriri de novo where there is none before so may it be restored where it is extinct And possibly a Lay-man as Frumentius and Edesiâ—s in the Indies may be the instrument of mens conversion And if so they may by consent become their Pastors when regular Ordination cannot be had I have said more of this in my Disputations of Church-Government Disp. 2. The truth is this pretence of a Necessity of uninterrupted successive Ordination Mission or Jurisdictional Collation ad esse to the being of Ministry or Church is but a cheat of men that have an interest of their own which requireth such a plea when they may easily know that it would overthrow themselves Quest. 12. Whether there be or ever was such a thing in the world as one Catholick Church Constituted by any Head besides or under Christ THe greatest and first controversie between us and the Papists is not What man or Politick person is the Head of the whole Visible Church But Whether there be any such Head at all eiPersonal or Collective Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical under Christ of his appointment or allowance Or any such thing as a Catholick Church so Headed or Constituted Which they affirm and we deny That neither Pope nor General Council is such a Head I have proved so fully in my Key for Catholicks and other Books that I will not here stay to make repetition of it That the Pope is no such Head we may take for granted 1. Because they bring no proof of it whatever they vainly pretendâ—â— 2. Because our Divines have copiously disproved it to whom I refer you 3. Because the Universal Church never received such a Head as I have proved against Iohnson 4. And whether it be the Pope their Bishop of Calcedon ubi sup Sancta Clara System â—id say is not de fide That a Council is no such Head I have largely proved as aforesaid Part 2. Key for Cath. And 1. The use of it being but for Concord proveth it 2. Most Papists confess it
of a distinct order the Reader must not expect that I here determine For 1. The Power is by Christ given to them as is before proved and in Tit. 1. 5. 2. None else are ordinarily able to discern aright the Abilities of a man for the sacred Ministry The people may discern a profitable moving Preacher but whether he understand the Scripture or the substance of Religion or be â—ound in the faith and not Heretical and delude them not with a form of well uttered words they are not ordinarily able to judge 3. None else are fit to attend this work but Pastors who are separated to the sacred office It requireth Act. 13. 2. Rom. 1. 1. 1 Tim. 4. 15. more time to get fitness for it and then to perform it faithfully than either Magistrates or people can ordinarily bestow 4. The power is no where given by Christ to Magistrates or people 5. It hath been exercised by Pastors or Church-officers only both in and ever since the Apostles dayes in all the Chuâ—ches of the World And we have no reason to think that the Church hath been gathered from the beginâ—â—â—â— till now by so great an errour as a wrong conveyance of the Ministerial power III. The word Iurisdiction as applyed to the Church officers is no Scripture Word and in the common sence soundeth too bigg as signifying more power than the servants of all must claim For Isa. 33. 2â— Jam. 4. 1â— there is One Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy But in a moderate sence it may be tolerated As Jurisdiction signifieth in particular 1. Legislation 2. Or Judicial Process or Sentence 3. Or the Execution of such a sentence strictly taken so Ordination is no part of Jurisdiction But as Iurisdiction signifieth the same with the power of Government Ius Regendi in general so Ordination is an Act of Jurisdiction As the placing or choosing of Inferiour officers may belong to the Steward of a Family or as the Calling or authorizing of Physicions belongeth to the Colledge of Physicions and the authorizing of Lawyers to the Judges or Society or the authorizing of Doctors in Philosophy to the Society of Philosophers or to particular rulers Where note that in the three last instances the Learning or Fitness of the said Persons or Societies is but their Dispositio vel aptitudo ad potestatem exercendam but the actual Power of conveying authority to others or designing the Recipient person is received from the supream power of the Land and so is properly an Act of Authority here called Jurisdiction So that the common distinguishing of Ordination from Iurisdiction or Government as if they were totâ specie different is unsound IV. Imposition of hands was a sign like the Kiss of peace and the anointing of persons and like our kneeling in Prayer c. which having first somewhat in their nature to invite men to the use was become a common significant sign of a superiours benediction of an inferiour in those times and Countreys And so was here applyed ordinarily for its antecedent significancy and aptitude to this use and was not purposely Instituted nor had its significancy newly given it by Institution And so was not like a Sacrament necessarily and perpetually affixed to Ordination Therefore we must conclude 1. That Imposition of hands in Ordination is a decent apt significant sign not to be scrupled by any nor to be omitted without necessity as being of Scripture ancient and common use 2. But yet that it is not essential to Ordination which may be valid by any fit designation and separation of the person And therefore if it be omitted it nullifieth not the action And if the Ordainers did it by Letters to a man a thousand miles off it would be valid And some persons of old were ordained when they were absent V. I add as to the need of Ordination 1. That without this Key the office and Church doors would be cast open and every Heretick or Self-conceited person intrude 2. It is a sign of a proud unworthy person that will judge himself fit for so great a work and Act. 13. 2. Heb. 5. 4. 10. intrude upon such a conceit when he may have the Judgement of the Pastors and avoideth it 3. Those that so do should no more be taken for Ministers by the people than any should go for Christians that are not Baptized or for marryed persons whose marriage is not solemnized Quest. 20. Is Ordination necessary to make a man a Pastor of a particular Church as such And is he to be made a General Minister and a particular-Church-Elder or Pastor at once and by one Ordination I Have proved that a man may be made a Minister in general yea and sent to exercise it in Converting Infidels and baptizing them before ever he is the Pastor of any particular Church To which I add that in this General Ministry he is a Pastor in the universal Church as a Licensed Physicion that hath no Hospital or Charge is a Physicion in the Kingdom And 1. As Baptism is as such our Enterance into the universal Church and not into a particular so is Ordination to a Minister an enterance only on the Ministry as such 2. Yet a man may at once be made a Minister in general and the Pastor of this or that Church in particular And in Kingdoms wholly inchurched and Christian it is usually fittest so to do Lest many being ordained sine titulo idleness and poverty of supernumeraries should corrupt and dishonour the Ministry Which was the cause of the old Canons in this case 3. But when a man is thus called to both at once it is not all done by Ordination as such but his complicate Relation proceedeth from a complication of Causes As he is a Minister it is by Ordination And as he is The Pastor of this People it is by the conjunct causes of appropriation which are 1. Necessarily the Peoples Consent 2. Regularly the Pastors approbation and recommendation and reception of the person into their Communion 3. And sometimes the Magistrate may do much â—â— oblige the people to consent 4. But when a man is made a Minister in general before he needeth no 〈◊〉 Ordination to fix him in a particular charge but only an Approbation recommendation particular Investiture and Reception For else a man must be oft ordained even as oft as he removeth But yet Imposition of hands may fitly be used in this particular Investiture though it be no proper ordination that is no collation of the office of a Minister in general but the fixing of one that was a Minister before Quest. 21. May a man be oft or twice Ordained IT is supposed that we play not with an ambiguous word that we remember what Ordination is And then you will see Cause to distinguish 1. Between entire true Ordination and the external act or words or ceremony only 2. Between one that was truly ordained before and one that
was not And so I answer 1. He that seemed Ordained and indeed was not is not Re-ordained when he is after Ordained 2. It is needful therefore to know the Essentials of Ordination from the Integrals and Accidentals 3. He that was truly Ordained before may in some cases receive again the Repetition of the bare words and outward Ceremonies of Ordination as Imposition of hands Where I will 1. Tell you in what Cases 2. Why. 1. In case there wanted sufficient witnesses of his Ordination and so the Church hath not sufficient means of notice or satisfaction that ever he was ordained indeed Or if the witnesses die before the notification Whether the Church should take his word or not in such a case is none of my question but Whether he should submit to the Repetition if they will not 2. Especially in a time and place which I have known when written and sealed Orders are often counterfeited and so the Church called to extraordinary care 3. Or if the Church or Magistrate be guilty of some causeless culpable incredulity and will not believe it was done till they see it done again 4. Or in case that some real or supposed Integral though not essential part was omitted or is by the Church or Magistrate supposed to be omitted And they will not permit or receive the Minister to exercise his office unless he repeat the whole Action again and make up that defect 5. Or if the person himself do think that his ordination was insufficient and cannot exercise his Ministry to the satisfaction of his own Conscience till the defect be repaired 1. In these cases and perhaps such others the outward Action may be repeated 2. The Reasons are 1. Because this is not a being twice ordained For the word Ordination signifieth a Moral action and not a Physical only As the word Marriage doth c. And it essentially includeth the new Dedication and Designation to the Sacred office by a kind of Covenant between the Dedicated person and Christ to whom he is consecrated and devoted And the external words are but a part and a part only as significant of the action of the mind Now the oft expressing of the same mental dedication doth not make it to be as many distinct dedications For 1. If the Liturgy or the persons words were tautological or at the Ordination should say the same thing often over and over or for confirmation should say often that which else might be said but once this doth not make it an often or multiplyed Ordination It was but one Love which Peter expressed when Christ made him say thrice that he Loved him nor was it a threefold Ordination which Christ used when he said thrice to him Feed my Lambs and Sheep 2. And if thrice saying it that hour make it not three Ordinations neither will thrice saying it at more hours dayes or months or years distance in some Cases For the Time maketh not the Ordinations to be many It is but one Moral Action But the common errour ariseth from the custom of calling the outward action alone by the name of the whole moral Action which is ordinarily done to the like deceit in the case of the Baptismal Covenant and the Lords Supper 3. The common judgement and custome of the World confirmeth what I say If persons that are marryed should for want of witness or due solemnity be forced to say and do the outward action all over again it is by no wise man taken in the proper moral full sense for a second Marriage but for one marriage twice uttered And if you should in witness bearing be put to your Oath and the Magistrate that was absent should say Reach him the Book again I did not hear him swear The doing it twice is not Morally two witnessings noâ— Oaths but one only twice Physically uttered If you Bind your Son Apprentice or if you make any Indentures or Contract and the Writings being lost or faulty you write and sign and seal them all again this is not morally another Contract but the same done better or again recorded And so it is plainly in this case 4. But Re-ordination morally and properly so called is unlawful For 1. It is or implyeth a lyâ— viz. that we were not truly Dedicated and Separated to this office before 2. It is a Sacrilegious renunciation of our former dedication to God whereas the Ministerial dedication and Covenant is for Life and not for a tryal which is the meaning of the Indelible Character which is a perpetual Relation and obligation 3. It is a taking the Name of God in vain thus to do and undoe and do again and to promise and renounce and promise again and to pretend to receive a power which we had before 4. It tendeth to great confusions in the Church As to make the people doubt of their Baptism or all the Ministerial Administrations of such as are re-ordained while they acted by the first Ordination 5. It hath ever been condemned in the Churches of Christ as the Canons called the Apostles and the Churches constant practice testifie 5. Though the bare Repetition of the outward Action and words be not Re-ordination yet he that on any of the forementioned occasions is put to repeat the said words and actions is obliged so to do it as that it may not seem to be a Re-ordination and so be a scandal to the Church Or if it outwardly seem so by the action he is bound to declare that it is no such thing for the counterpoising that appearance of evil 6. When the Ordainers or the common estimation of the Church do take the Repetition of the words and Action for a Re-ordination though the Receiver so intend it not yet it may become unlawful to him by this accident because he scandalizeth and hardeneth the erroneous by doing or receiving that which is Interpretative Re-ordination 7. Especially when the Ordainers shall require this Repetition on notoriously wicked grounds and so put that sense on the action by their own doctrines and demands As for instance 1. If Hereticks should as the Arrians say that we are no Ministers because we are not of their Heresie or Ordained by such as they 2. If the Pope or any proud Papal Usurpers shall say You are no Ministers of Christ except we ordain you And so do it to establish a trayterous usurped Regiment in the Church It is not lawful to serve such an usurpation As if Cardinals or Arch-bishops should say none are true Ministers but those that we Ordain Or Councils or Synods of Bishops or Presbyters should say None are true Ministers but those that we Ordain Or if one Presbyter or one Bishop without Authority would thus make himself master of the rest or of other Churches and say You are no Ministers unless I Ordain you we may not promote such Tyranny and Usurpation 3. If Magistrates would usurp the power of the Keys in Ecclesiastical Ordination and say that
were only for Counsel or for Agreement by way of contractor mutual Consent to the particular Bishops But they degenerated into a form of Government and claimed a Ruling or Commanding power 4. The Patriarcks Primates and Metropolitans at first claimed but a power about circumstantials extrinsical to the Pastoral office such as is the Timing and Placing of Councils the siâ—ting above others c. And the exercise of some part of the Magistrates power committed to them that is the deposing of other Bishops or Pastors from their station of such Liberty and Countenance as the Magistrate may grant or deny as there is cause But in time they degenerated to claim the spiritual power of the Keys over the other Bishops in point of Ordination Excommunication Absolution 5. These Patriarks Primates and Metropolitans at first claimed their extrinsick power but from Man that is either the Consent and Agreement of the Churches or the grant of the Emperours But in time they grew to claim it as of Divine or Apostolical appointment and as unalterable 6. At first they were taken only for Adjuncts ornaments supports or conveniences to the Churches But afterwards they pretended to be integral parts of the Church universal and at last the Pope would needs be an Essential part And his Cardinals must claim the power of the Church Universal in being the choosers of an Universal Head or a King-Priest and Teacher for all the Christians of the World 7. At first Lay men now called Chancellors c. were only the Bishops Counsellors or officers to the Magistrate or them in performing the extrinsecal work about Church adjuncts which a Lay man might do But at last they came to exercise the Intrinsick power of the Keys in Excommunications and Absolutions c. 8. At first a number of particular Churches consociated with their several Bishops were taken to be a Community or company of true Churches prudentially cantonized or distributed and consociated for Concord But after they grew to be esteemed proper political societies or Churches of Divine appointment if not the Ecclesiae minimae having turned the particular Churches into Oratories or Chappels destroying Ignatius his character of one Church To every Church there is one Altar and one Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons Abundance more such instances may be given Obj. Wherever we find the Notion of a Church particular there must be Government in that Church And why a national society incorporated into one civil Government joyning into the profession of Christianity and having a right thereby to participate of Gospel Ordinances in the convenient distributions of them in the particular Congregations should not be called a Church I confess I can see no reason Answ. 1. Here observe that the question is only of the Name whether it may be called a Church and not of the thing whether all the Churches in a Kingdom may be under one King which no sober man denyeth 2. Names are at mens disposal much But confess I had rather the name had been used no otherwise or for no other societies than Scripture useth it My Reasons are 1. Because when Christ hath appropriated or specially applyed one name to the sacred societies of his institution it seemeth somewhat bold to make that name common to other societies 2. Because it tendeth to confusion misunderstanding and to cherish errours and controversies in the Churches when all names shall be made common or ambiguous and holy things shall not be allowed any name proper to themselves nor any thing can be known by a bare name without a description If the name of Christ himself should be used of every anointed King it would seem not a little thus injurious to him If the name Bible Scripture Preachers c. be made common to all that the notation of the names may extend to it will introduce the aforesaid inconveniences so how shall we in common talk distinguish between sacred societies of Divine institution and of humane if you will allow us no peculiar name but make that common which Christ hath chosen 3. And that the name is here used equivocally is manifest For the body political is informed and denominated from the pars imperans the Governing part or Head Therefore as a Head of Divine institution authorized for the spiritual or Pastoral work denominateth the society accordingly so a civil Head can make but a civil society and a head of mans making but a humane society It is certain that Christ hath appointed the Episcopal or Pastoral office and their work and consequently Episcopal or Pastoral Churches And it is certain that a King is no constitutive part of one of these Churches but Accidental And therefore that he is an Accidental Head to a Pastoral Church as such to which the Pastor is essential Therefore if you will needs call both these societies Churches you must distinguish them into Pastoral Churches and Regal Churches or Magistratical Churches for the word national notifieth not the Government which is the constitutive part and may be used of Consociated Churches though under many Civil Governours as in the Saxon Heptarchy So that our question is much like this Whether all the Grammar Schools in England as under one King may be called one National School Answ. Not without unfitness and inconveniences But rather than breed any quarrel they may call them so that please But 1. They must confess that a particular School is the famosius significatum 2. That the King is King of Schools but not a Schoolmaster nor a constitutive part of a School 3. That if you will needs denominate them from the Regent part as One you must call them all one Royal School if you will leave the well known sense of words for such uncouth phrases But give us leave to call the Body which is essentiated by a King by the name of a Kingdom only though it have in it many Schools Academies Colledges Cities Churches which they that please may call all one Royal School Academy Colledge City and Church if they love confusion 4. Christianity giveth men right to communion in particular Churches when they also make known their Christianity to the Bishops of those Churches and are received as stated or transient members by mutual consent but not otherwise nor doth meer Regal Government give any subject right to Church Communion except by a Church you mean a Kingdom Obj. A particular Church then I would describe thus It is a society of men joyned together in the visible profession of the true faith having a right to and enjoying among them the ordinances of the Gospel Answ. 1. When you tell us by your description what you will mean by a particular Church we may understand your denomination But yet while it is unusual you must not expect that other men so use the Word Had you called your description a definition I would have asked you 1. Whether by a society you mean not strictly a Political society constituted
of Religion and under the Pastors care But in two respects the External power is only the Kings or Civil Magistrates 1. As it is denominated from the sword or mulcts or Corporal penalties which is the external means of execution As Bishop Bilson of Obed. useth still to distinguish them with many others See B. Carlton of Jurisdiction Though in this respect the distinction were far more intelligibly exprest by The Government by the sword and by the sacred word 2. But the principal sense of their distinction is the same with Constantines who distinguished of a Bishop without and within or of our common distinction of Intrinsick and Extrinsick Government And though Internal and External have the same signification use maketh Intrinsick and Extrinsick more intelligible And by Internal is meant that power which Intrinsecally belongeth to the Pastors â—ffice as Instituted by Christ and so is Intrinsecal to the Pastorship and the Church as preaching praying ☜ sacraments the Keyes of Admission and Exclusion Ordination c. And by External is meant that which is Extrinsecal to the Pastorship and the Church which Princes have sometimes granted them but Christ hath made no part of their office In this sense the assertion is good and clear and necessary that the disposal of all things Circa Sacra all accidents and circumstances whatsoever which by Christs Institution are not Intrinsecal to the Pastorship and Church but extrinsecal do belong to the power of Kings and Magistrates Quest. 62. Is the tryal judgement or consent of the Laity necessary to the admittance of a member into the Universal or particular Church Answ. 1. IT is the Pastors office to bear and exercise the Keyes of Christs Church Therefore by office he is to Receive those that come in and consequently to be the tryer and Iudge of their fitness 2. It belongeth to the same office which is to Baptize to Iudge who is to be baptized Otherwise Ministers should not be rational Judges of their own actions but the executioners of other mens judgement It is more the Iudging who is to be baptized which the Ministers office consisteth in than in the bare doing of the outward act of Baptizing 3. He that must be the ordinary Judge in Church-admissions is supposed to have both Ability and Leisure to make him fit and Authority and Obligation to do the work 4. The ordinary body of the Laity have none of all these four qualifications much less all 1. They are not ordinarily Able so to examine a mans faith and resolution with judgement and skill as may neither tend to the wrong of himself nor of the Church For it is great skill that is required thereunto 2. They have not ordinarily Leisure from their proper callings and labours to wait on such a work as it must be waited on especially in populous places 3. They are not therefore obliged to do that which they cannot be supposed to have Ability or Leisure for 4. And where they have not the other three they can have no Authority to do it 5. It is therefore as great a crime for the Laity to usurp the Pastors office in this matter as in preaching baptizing or other parts of it 6. And though Pride often blind men both people and Pastors so as to make them overlook the burden and look only at the Authority and honour yet is it indeed an intolerable injury to the Laity if any would lay such a burden on them which they cannot bear and consequently would make them responsible for the omissions or misdoing of it to Christ their Judge 7. There is not so much as any fair pretence for the Laity having power to judge who shall be received into the Universal Church For who of the Laity should have this power Not All nor the Major Vote of the Church For who ever sought the Votes of all the Christians in the World before he baptized a man Not any one particular Church or persons above the rest For they have no Right Joh. 20 21 22 23. 21. 15 16 17 Mat 28. 19 20. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. 1 Tim. 5 17. Heb. 13. 7 17. 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 5 6 11. 2 Thes. 3 6 10 14. Tit. 3. 10. 2 Joh. Mar. 13 9 23 33. Mar. 4 â—4 Mat. 7. 15 16. Mat. 16. 6. 11 12. Mar. 12. 38. 8 15. Phil. 3. 2 3. Col. 2. 8. 1 Pet. 3. 17. Mat 24. 4. to shew for it more than the rest 8. It is not in the power of the Laity to keep a man out of their own particular Church Communion whom the Pastor receiveth Because as is said it is his Office to judge and bear the Reyes 9. Therefore if it be ill done and an unworthy person be admitted the Consciences of the people need not accuse themselves of it or be disturbed because it is none of their employment 10. Yet the Liberty of the Church or people must be distinguished from their Governing power and their Executing duty from the power of Iudging And so 1. The people are to be Guided by the Pastors as Volunteers and not by Violence And therefore it is the Pastors duty in all doubtful cases to give the people all necessary satisfaction by giving them the Reasons of his doings that they may understandingly and quietly obey and submit 2. And in case the people discern any notable appearance of danger by introducing Hereticks and grosly impious men to corrupt the Church and by subverting the order of Christ they may go to their Pastors to desire satisfaction in the case 3. And if by open proof or notoreity it be certain that by Ignorance fraud or negligence the Pastors thus corrupt the Church the people may seek their due Remedy from other Pastors and Magistrates 4. And they may protest their own dissent from such proceedings 5. And in case of extremity may cast off Heretical and Impious and Intolerable Pastors and commit their souls to the conduct of fitter men As the Churches did against the Arrian Bishops and as Cyprian declareth it his peoples duty to do as is aforesaid Quest. 63. What power have the people in Church Censures and Excommunication Answ. THis is here adjoined because it requireth but little more than the foregoing answer 1. As it is the Pastors office to judge who is to be received so also to judge who is to be excluded 2. But the Execution of his sentence belongeth to the people as well as to himself It is they that 1 Cor 5. 3 6 11. either hold Communion with the person or avoid him 3. Therefore though ordinarily they must acquiesce in the Pastors judgement yet if he grosly offend 2 Joh. â—â—â—â— 3. 10. against the Law of God and would bring them e. g. to communion with hereticks and openly impious and excommunicate the Orthodox and Godly they may seek their remedy as before Quest. 64. What is the peoples remedy in case of the Pastors male-administration Answ. THis also
was an Ecclesiastical Usurper quoad personam that had no true Call to a Lawful Office shall after have a Call or if any thing fall out which shall make it our duty to Consent and Call him then the impediment from his Usurpation is removed 3. It is not lawful though the Civil Magistrate command us to swear obedience even in licitis honestis to such an Usurper whose Office it self is unlawful or forbidden by Christ as he is such an Officer No Protestant thinketh it lawful to swear obedience to the Pope as Pope nor do any that take Lay-Elders to be an unlawful Office think it lawful to swear obedience to them as such 4. If one that is in an unlawful Ecclesiastical Office be also at once in another that is lawful we may swear obedience to him in respect of the Lawful Office So it is Lawful to swear obedience to the Pope in Italy as a Temporal Prince in his own Dominions And to a Cardinal as Richelieu Mazarine Ximenes c. as the Kings Minister exercising a power derived from him So it is lawful for a Tenant where Law and Custome requireth it to swear fidelity to a Lay Elder as his Landlord or Temporal Lord and Master And so the old Non-conformists who thought the English Prelacy an unlawful Office yet maintained that it is Lawful to take the Oath of Canonical obedience because they thought it was imposed by the King and Laws and that we swear to them not as Officers claiming a Divine Right in the Spiritual Government but as Ordinaries or Officers made by the King to exercise so much of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction under him as he can delegate according to the Oath of Supremacy in which we all acknowledge the King to be Supream in all Ecclesiastical Causes that is Not the Supream Pastor Bishop or Spiritual Key-bearer or Ruler but the Supream Civil Ruler of the Church who hath the power of the Sword and of determining all things extrinsick to the Pastoral Office and so of the Coercive Government of all Pastors and Churches as well as of other Subjects And if Prelacy were proved never so unlawful no doubt but by the Kings Command we may swear or perform formal obedience to a Prelate as he is the Kings Officer Of the Non-conformists judgement in this read Bradshaw against Canne c. 5. But in such a case no Oath to Inferiours is lawful without the Consent of the Soveraign power or at least against his will 6. Though it be a duty for the flock to obey every Presbyter yet if they would make all the people swear obedience to them all wise and conscionable Christians should dissent from the introduction of such a custome and deny such Oaths as far as lawfully they may that is 1. If the King be against it we must refuse it 2. If he be neutral or meerly passive in it we must refuse unless some apparent necessity for the Churches good require it 1. Because it favoureth of Pride in such Presbyters 2. Because it is a new Custome in the Church and contrary to the antient practice 3. It is not only without any authority given them by Christ that they exact such Oaths but Mat. 22. 4 10. Luke 22. 27 c. Mark 9. 35. 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. 1 Cor. 9. 19. 1 Cor. 4. 1. 2 Cor. 4. 5. also contrary to the great humility lowliness and condescension in which he describeth his Ministers who must be Great by being the servants of all 4. And it tendeth to corrupt the Clergy for the future 5. And such new impositions give just reason to Princes and to the People to suspect that the Presbyters are aspiring after some inordinate exaltation or have some ill project for the advancement of themselves 7. But yet if it be not only their own ambition which imposeth it but either the King and Laws command it or necessity require it for the avoidance of a greater evil it may be Lawful and a duty to take an Oath of Obedience to a Lawful Presbyter or Bishop Because 1. It is a ☜ duty to Obey them 2. And it is not forbidden us by Christ to promise or swear to do our duty even when they may sin in demanding such an Oath 8. If an Office be Lawful in the essential parts and yet have unlawful integrals or adjuncts or be abused in exercise it will not by such additions or abuses be made unlawful to swear Obedience to the Officer as such 9. If one Presbyter or Bishop would make another Presbyter or Bishop to swear obedience to him without authority the Case is the same as of the Usurpers before mentioned Quest. 154. Must all our preaching be upon a Text of Scripture Answ. 1. IN many Cases it may be lawful to preach without a Text to make Sacred Orations Act◠2 3. like Greg. Nazianzenes and Homilies like Macarius's Ephrem Syrus's and many other antients and like our own Church-Homilies 2. But ordinarily it is the fittest way to preach upon a Text of Scripture 1. Because it is our Luke 4. 18. very Office to Teach the people the Scripture The Prophets brought a new word or message from God but the Priests did but keep interpret and teach the Law already received And we are not Mal. 2. 7. successors of the inspired Prophets but as the Priests were Teachers of Gods received Word And this practice will help the people to understand our Office 2. And it will preserve the due esteem and reverence of the Holy Scriptures which the contrary practice may diminish Quest. 155. Is not the Law of Moses abrogated and the whole Old Testament out of date and therefore not to be Read publickly and preached on Answ. 1. THe Covenant of Innocency is ceased cessante subditorum capacitate as a Covenant or promise And so are the Positive Laws proper to Adam in that state and to many particular persons since 2. The Covenant mixt of Grace and Works proper to the Jews with all the Jewish Law as such was never made to us or to the rest of the world and to the Jews it is ceased by the coming and perfecter Laws and Covenant of Christ. 3. The Prophecies and Types of Christ and the Promises made to Adam Abraham and others of his Coming in the flesh are all fulfilled and therefore not useful to all the ends of their first making And the many Prophecies of particular things and persons past and gone are accomplished 4. But the Law of Nature is still Christs Law And that Law is much expounded to us in the Old Testament And if God once for another use did say This is the Law of Nature the truth of these words as a Divine Doctrine and Exposition of the Law of Nature is still the same 5. The Covenant of Grace made with Adam and Noah for all mankind is still in force as to the great benefits and main condition that is as to pardon given by it
that we can use to help them and none but the Almighty can cast him out and deliver them Let Husband or Wife or Parents or the dearest friends intreat a hardned sinner to be converted and he will not hear them Let the learnedst or wisest or holiest man alive both preach and beseech him and he will not turn At a distance he may reverence and honour a great Divine and a learned or a holy man especially when they are dead But let the best man on earth be the Minister of the place where he liveth and intreat him daily to repent and he will either hate and persecute him or neglect and disobey him What Minister was ever so learned or holy or powerful a Preacher that had not sad experience of this When the Prophet Isa. 53. 1. cryeth out Who hath believed our report And the Apostles were fain to shake off the dust of their feet against many that rejected them and were abused and scorned and persecuted by those whose souls they would have saved Nay Jesus Christ himself was refused by the most that heard him And no Minister dare compare himself with Christ. If our Lord and Master was blasphemed scorned and murdered by sinners what better should his ablest Ministers expect St. Augustine found drunkenness so common in Africk that he motioned that a Council might be called for the suppression of it But if a General Council of all the Learned Bishops and Pastors in the world were called they could not convert one hardned sinner by all their Authority Wit or diligence without the power of the Almighty God For will they be converted by Man that are hardned against God What can we devise to say to them that can reach their hearts and get within them and do them good Shall we tell them of the Law and Judgements of the Lord and of his wrath against them Why all these things they have heard so often till they sleep under it or laugh at them Shall we tell them of Death and Judgement and Eternity Why we speak to the posts or men asleep They hear us as if they heard us not Shall we tell them of endless Ioy and Torments They feel not and therefore fear not nor regard not They have heard of all these till they are a weary of hearing them and our words seem to them but as the noise of the Wind or Water which is of no signification If Miracles were wrought among them by a Preacher that healed the sick and raised the dead they would wonder at him but would not be converted For Christ did thus and yet prevailed but with few Iohn 11. 48. 53. And the Apostles wrought Miracles and yet were rejected by the most Acts 7. 57. 22. 22. Nay if one of their old companions should be sent from the dead to give them warning he might affright them but not convert them for Christ hath told us so himself Luke 16. 31. Or if an Angel from Heaven should preach to them they would be hardned still as Balaam and others have been Christ rose from the dead and yet was after that rejected We read not of the Conversion of the Souldiers that watcht his Sepulchâ—e though they were affrighted with the sight of the Angels but they were after that hired for a little money to lye and say that Christs Disciples stole him away If Magistrates that have power on their bodies should endeavour to bring them to Godliness they would not obey them nor be perswaded King Hezekiahs messengers were but mocked by the people David and Solomon could not convert their hardned subjects Punish them and hang them and they will be wicked to the death Witness the impenitent Thief that dyed with Christ and dyed reproaching him Though God afflict them with rod after rod yet still they sin and are the same Psal. 78. Hâ—s 7. 14. Amos 4. 9. Ier. 5. 3. Isa. 1. 5. Let death come near and look them in the face and let them see that they must presently go to judgement it will affright them but not convert them Let them know and confess that sin is bad that Holiness is best that death and eternity are at hand yet are they the same and all will not win their hearts to God Till Grace take away their stony hearts and give them tender fleshy hearts Ezek 36. 26. § 8. Direct 6. Take notice of the doleful effects of hard heartedness in the world This fills the Direct 6. world with wickedness and confusion with Wars and bloodshed and leaveth it under that lamentable desertion and delusion which we behold in the far greatest part of the Earth How many Kingdoms are left in the blindness of Heathenism and Mahometanism for hardning their hearts against the Lord How many Christian Nations are given up to the most gross deceits of Popery and Princes and people are enemies to Reformation because they hardned their hearts against the light of truth What vice so odious even beastly filthiness and bitterest hatred and persecution of the wayes of God which men of all degrees and rancks do not securely wallow in through the hardness of their hearts This is the thing that grieves the godly that wearieth good Magistrates and breaks the hearts of faithful Ministers when they have done their best they are fain as Christ himself before them to grieve for the hardness of mens hearts Alas we live among the dead Our Towns and Countreys are in a sadder case than Aegypt when every house had a dead man Even in our Churches it were well if the dead were only under ground and most of our seats had not a dead man that sitteth as if he heard and kneeleth as if he prayed when nothing ever pierced to the quick We have studied the most quickning words we have preached with tears in the most earnest manner and yet we cannot make them feel As if we cryed like Baals worshippers O Baal hear us or like the Irish to their dead Why wouldst thou dye and leave thy house and lands and friends So we talk to them about the death of their souls and their wilful misery who never feel the weight of any thing we say we are left to ring them a peal of lamentation and weep over them as the dead that are not moved by our tears we cast the seed into stony ground Matth. 13. 5 20. It stops in the surface and it is not in our power to open their hearts and get within them I confess that we are much too blame our selves that ever we did speak to such miserable souls without more importunate earnestness and tears and it is because the stone of the heart is much uncured in our selves for which God now justly layeth so many of us by But yet we must say our importunity is such as leaveth them without excuse we speak to them of the greatest matters in all the world we speak it to them in the name of God we shew them his
fuller Title than to make them of nothing and redeem them from a state far worse than nothing And after all this shall the very Parents of such children steal them from their absolute Lord and Father and fell them to slavery and torment § 3. Motive 3. Remember that in their Baptism you did dedicate them to God you entred them into Motive 3. a solemn Vow and Covenant to be wholly his and to live to him Therein they renounced the flesh the world and the Devil Therein you promised to bring them up vertuously to lead a godly and Christian life that they might obediently keep Gods holy Will and Commandments and walk in the same all the dayes of their lives And after all this will you break so solemn a promise and cause them to break such a Vow and Covenant by bringing them up in ignorance and ungodliness Did you understand and and consider what you then did How solemnly you your selves engaged them in a Vow to God to live a mortified and a holy life And will you so solemnly do that in an hour which all their life after with you you will endeavour to destroy § 4. Motive 4. Consider how great power the education of children hath upon all their following lives Motive 4. Except Nature and Grace there is nothing that usually doth prevail so much with them Indeed the obstinacy of Natural Vitiousness doth often frustrate a good education But if any means be like to do good it is this But ill education is more constantly successful to make them evil This cherisheth those seeds of wickedness which spring up when they come to age This maketh so many to be proud and idle and flesh pleasers and licentious and lustful and covetous and all that is naught And he hath a hard task that cometh after to root out these vices which an ungodly education hath so deeply radicated Ungodly Parents do serve the Devil so effectually in the first impressions on their childrens minds that it is more than Magistrates and Ministers and all reforming means can afterwards do to recover them from that sin to God Whereas if you would first engage their hearts to God by a religious education Piety would then have all those advantages that sin hath now Prov. 22. 6. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it The language which you teach them to speak when they are children they will use all their life after if they live with those that use it And so the Opinions which they first receive and the customs which they are used to at first are very hardly changed afterward I doubt not to affirm that a godly Education is Gods first and ordinary appointed means for the begetting of actual faith and other graces in the children of believers Many may have seminal grace before but they cannot sooner have actual faith repentance love or any Grace than they have Reason it self in act and exercise And the Preaching of the Word by publick Ministers is not the first ordinary means of grace to any but those that were graceless till they come to hear such preaching that is to those on whom the first appointed means hath been neglected or proved in vain that is It is but the second means to do that which was not done by the first The proof is undenyable Because God appointeth Parents diligently to teach their children the Doctrine of his holy Word before they come to the publick Ministry Parents teaching is the first teaching And Parents teaching is for this end as well as publick teaching even to beget faith and love and holiness And God appointeth no means to be used by us on which we may not expect his blessing Therefore it is apparent that the ordinary appointed means for the first actual Grace is Parents godly instruction and education of their children And publick preaching is appointed for the Conversion of those only that have mist the blessing of the first appointed means Therefore if you deny your children religious education you deny them the first appointed means of their actual faith and sanctification and then the second cometh upon disadvantage § 5. Motive 5. Consider also how many and great are your advantages above all others for your childrens Motive 5. good As 1. Nothing doth take so much with any one as that which is known to come from Love The greater Love is discerned in your instruction the greater success may you expect Now your children are more confident of their Parents Love than of any others Whether Ministers and Strangers speak to them in Love they cannot tell But of their Parents Love they make no doubt 2. And their Love to you is as great a preparative to your success We all hearken to them that we dearly Love with greater attention and willingness than to others They Love not the Minister as they do their Parents 3. You have them in hand betime before they have received any false opinions or bad impressions before they have any sin but that which was born with them You are to make the first impressions upon them You have them while they are most teachable and flexible and tender and make least resistance against instruction They rise not up at first against your teaching with self-conceitedness and proud objections But when they come to the Minister they are as Paper that is written on or printed before unapt to receive another impression They have much to be untaught before they can be taught And come with proud and stiff resistance to strive against instruction rather than readily to receive it 4. Your children do wholly depend on you for their present maintenance and much for their future livelyhood and portions And therefore they know that it is their interest to obey and please you And as interest is the common byass of the world so is it with your children You may easilier rule them that have this handle to hold them by than any other can do that have not this advantage They know they serve you not for nought 5. Your authority over your children is most unquestionable They will dispute the authority of Ministers yea and of Magistrates and ask them who gave them the power to teach them and to command them But the Parents authority is beyond all dispute They will not call you Tyrants or Usurpers nor bid you prove the validity of your Ordination or the uninterruptedness of your succession Therefore Father and Mother as the first Natural Power are mentioned rather than Kings or Queens in the fifth Commandment 6. You have the power of the Rod to force them Prov. 22. 15. Foolishness it bound in the heart of a child but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him And your correction will be better understood to come from Love than that of the Magistrate or any other 7. You have best opportunity to know both the diseases
that he is better acquainted with your spiritual state and life than others are and therefore in less danger of wronging you by mistake and misapplications For it s supposed that you have acquainted him with your personal condition in your health having taken him as your ordinary Counsellor for your souls and that he hath acquainted himself with your condition and confirmed you and watcht over you by name as Ignatius to Polycarpe Bishop of Smyrna saith Saepe Congregationes fiant ex nomine omnes quaere servos ancillas ne despicias as Bishop Ushers old Latine Transl. hath Vid. Iastiâ— Marâ— Apol. 2. Vid. Tertul. Apol. c. 39. it Let Congregations be often held Enquire after all by name Despise not Servants and Maids The Bishop took notice of every Servant and Maid by name and he had opportunity to see whether they were in the Congregation 9. You must use him as your Leader or Champion against all Hereticks Infidels and subtle adversaries of the truth with whom you are unable to contend your selves that your Bishop may clear up and defend the cause of Christ and righteousness and by irresistible evidence stop the mouths of all I hope all this will tell you what a Bishop indeed is gain-sayers It is for your own benefit and not for theirs that you are required in all these works of their office to use them and readily obey them And what hurt can it do you to obey them in any of these § 9. Direct 3. Understand how it is that Christ doth authorize and send forth his Ministers lest Direct 3. Wolves and deceivers should either obtrude themselves upon you as your lawful Pastors or should alienate you from thâ—se that God hath set over you by puzling you in subtle questioring or disputing against their call Not only Pauls warnings Act. 20. 30. and 2 Tim. 3. 6. but lamentable experience telleth us what an eager desire there is in Proud and Self-conceited men to obtrude themselves as Teachers and Pastors on the Churches to creep into houses and lead people captive and draw away Disciples after them and say and perhaps think that others are deceivers and none are the true Teachers indeed but they And the first part of the art and work of wolves is to separate you from your Pastors and catch up the straglers that are thus separated The malice and slanders and lies and railing of hirelings and deceivers and all the powers of Hell are principally poured out on the faithful Pastors and leaders of the flocks The principal work of the Jesuits against you is to make you believe that Gâ—ot de Imp. p. 273. Pastorum est ordinare Pastores Neque id officâ—um eis competit quâ hujus aut illius ecclesiae Pastores sunt sed quâ uâ— nistriâ— ecclesiae Catholicae your Pastors are no true Pastors but uncalled private persons and meer usurpers and the reason must be because they have not an Ordination of Bishops successively from the Apostles without interruption I confess if our interruptions had been half as lamentable as theirs by their Schisms and variety of Popes at once and Popes accused or condemned by General Councils for Hereticks and their variety of wayes of electing Popes and their incapacities by Simony Usurpation c. I should think at least that our Ancestors had cause to have questioned the calling of some that were then over them But I will help you in a few words to discern the jugling of these deceivers by shewing you the truth concerning the way of Christs giving his commission to the Ministers that are truly called and the needlesness of the proof of an uninterrupted succession of regular ordination to your reception of your Pastors and their Ministrations § 10. The ministerial commission is contained in and conveyed by the Law of Christ which is the See in Grotius de Imper. sum potest p. 269. The necessary distinction of 1. Ipsa facultas praedicandi sacramenta claves administrandi quod Mandatum vocat 2. Applicatio hujus facultatis ad certam personam viz. Ordinatio 3. Applicatio hujus personae ad certum coeâ—um locum viz. Electio 4. Iliud quo certa persona in certo loco ministerium suum exercet publico praesidio ac publicâ authoritate viz. Coâ—fiâ—matio p. 273. Constat munetis institutionem à Deo esse Ordinationem à Pastoribus Confirmationem publicam à summa potestate So that the doubt is only about election Which yet must be differenced from consenâ— Charter of the Church and every true Bishop or Pastor hath his Power from Christ and not at all from the efficient conveyance of any mortal man Even as Kings have their power not from man but from God himself but with this difference that in the Church Christ hath immediatly determined of the species of Church offices but in the Civil Government only of the Genus absolutely and immediatly You cannot have a plainer illustration than by considering how Mayors and Bailiffs and Constables are annually made in Corporations The King by his Charter saith that every year at a certain time the freemen or Burgesses shall meet and choose one to be their Mayor and the Steward or Town Clerk shall give him his oath and thus or he shall be invested in his place and this shall be his power and work and no other So the King by his Law appointeth that Constables and Church-wardens shall be chosen in every Parish Now let our two questions be here decided 1. Who it is that giveth these Officers their Power 2. Whether an uninterrupted succession of such officers through all generations since the enacting of that Law be necessary to the validity of the present officers authority To the first It is certain that it is the King by his Law or Charter that giveth the officers their power and that the Corporations and Parishes do not give it them by electing or investing them yea though the King hath made such election and Investiture to be in a sort his instrument in the conveying it it is but as the opening of the door to let them in sine quo non but it doth not make the Instruments to be at all the Givers of the Power nor were they the receiving or containing mediate causes of it The King never gave them the Power which the officers receive either to Use or to Give but only makes the Electors his Instruments to determine of the person that shall receive the Power immediately from the Law or Charter and the Investers he ma keth his Instruments of solemnizing the Tradition and admission which if the Law or Charter make absolutely Necessary ad esse officii it will be so but if it make it necessary only ad melius esse or but for order and regular admittance when no necessity hindereth it the necessity will be no more And to the second question It is plain that the Law which is the Fundamentum
juris remaining still the same if a Parish omit for divers years to choose any Constable or Church-warden yet the next time they do choose one according to Law the Law doth authorize him nevertheless though there was an interruption or vacancy so long And so in Corporations unless the Law or Charter say the contrary so is it in the present case 1. It is the established Law of Christ which describeth the office determineth of the degree and kind of power and Granteth or Conveyeth it when the person is determined of by the Electors and Ordainers though by Ordination the Delivery and Admission is regularly to be solemnized which actions are of just so much necessity as that Law hath made them and no more 2. And if there were never so long an interruption or vacancy he that afterward entereth lawfully so as to want nothing which the Law of Christ hath made necessary to the Being of the office doth receive his power nevertheless immediatly from the Law of Christ. And Bellarmine himself saith that it is not necessary to the people and to the validity of Sacraments and offices to them to know that their Pastors be truly called or ordained And if it be not necessary to the validity of Sacraments it is not necessary to the validity of Ordination And W. Iohnson confesseth to me that Consecration is not absolutely necessary See my Disput. with him of the successive Vâ—sibility of the Church p. 336. ad esse officii to the Pope himself no nor any one sort of Electors in his Election p. 333. And in his Repl. Term. Expl. pag. 45. he saith Neither Papal nor Episcopal jurisdiction as all the Learned know depends of Episcopal or Papal ordination nor was there ever interruptions of successions in Episcopal jurisdiction in any see for want of that alone that is necessary for consecrating others validly and not for jurisdiction over them You see then how little sincerity is in these mens disputations when they would perswade you to reject your lawful Pastors as no true Ministers of Christ for want of their Ordination or Succession § 11. Direct 4. Though the Sacraments and other ministerial offices are valid when a Minister is qualified Direct 4. in his abilities and call but with so much as is essential to the office though he be defective in degree of parts and faithfulness and have personal faults which prove his own destruction yet so great is the difference between a holy heavenly learned judicious experienced skilful zealous laborious faithful Minister and an ignorant ungodly idle unskilful one and so highly should every wise man value the best means and advantages to his eternal happiness that he should use all lawful means in his power to enjoy and live under 〈…〉 8. P 〈…〉 Domâ—ni is a peccatore Praepo 〈…〉 separate sâ— debâ—â— Wâ—iâ—â— Gâ—otius 〈…〉 Imâ—â—â—â— p. 230. â—iting saith Jubentur eâ—im singulâ— multo magâ—s universi â—avere prophetas faâ—soâ— alâ—â—num Pastorâ—m 〈…〉 ar qui dissâ—â—â—â— faâ—iunt â—â—fâ—â— sâ—â— câ—nt a doâ—â—â—â—inam 2. Imperatur â—â—delibus familiarem eorum consuâ—tudinem declinare qui Fratres c. 2 Cor. 5. Rom. 16. 17. Joh. 10. 2 Tim. 3 6. 2 Thes. 3. 6 14. 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. such an able godly powerful ministry though he part with his worldly wealth and pleasure to attain it I know no evil must be done for the attainment of the greatest helps For we cannot expect that God should bless a sinful course or that our sin should tend to the saving of our souls And I know God can bless the weakest means when they are such as he appointeth us to use and can teach us by Angels when he denyeth us the help of men But Scripture reason and experience telleth us that ordinarily he worketh morally by means and fitteth the means to the work which he will do by them And as he doth not use to light men by a cold or stone but by a Candle nor by a rotten post or Glow-worm so much as by a Torch or Luminary so he doth not use to work as much by an ignorant drunken idle person who despiseth the God the Heaven the Christ the Spirit the Grace the sacred Word which he Preacheth and vilifieth both his own and other mens souls as he doth by an able and compassionate Minister And the soul is of so much more worth than the Body and Eternal things than temporal that a little commodity to the soul in order to the securing of our salvation must be preferreâ— before a great deal of worldly riches He that knoweth what his soul hiâ— Sâ—viour and Heaven is worth will not easily sit down contented under such a dark and dull and stâ—rving Minister 〈…〉 feeleth he can but little profit by if better may be had on lawful terms Hâ— that feeleth no difference between the Ministry of these two sorts of men it is because he is a stranger to the work of the Gospel on the soul And if the Gospel in its truth or worth or use be â—id it is â—id to them that â—re lost the †Saâ—a 〈…〉 r their own worldly advantages saith Dr. Haâ—moâ—d Dan. 1. 12 13. Ezâ—k 4. 12 15. Read c. 3. Aâ—osta 〈◊〉 rebuking the nâ—gligence of their Priâ—sts that taught the Indians the Catechism idly and without explication or callâ—ng them to account about the sensâ— and then laid all the fault on the blockishness of the people when Tota 〈…〉 ratio â—rat umbâ—atilis 〈…〉 iâ—qâ—it si hominâ—s iâ—â—câ—iâ— aâ—â—riâ—â—o discendi percupidi tales praeceptores 〈…〉 liud quem ut duplo 〈…〉 a biâ—rarâ—r Olim in symbolo addiscendo intelligendo mysteriisque 〈…〉 noscendis viri ingeâ—o praestaâ—tes â—â—â—â—eratura celebrâ—s diu in catechumâ—norum ordine tenebantur cum Ecclesiastica disciplina vigeret Neque ante ad fideâ— Sacramentum admittâ— bantur quam multas ab Episâ—opo de sâ—mbolo conciones audissent diu multum cum Caâ—echista contu issâ—nt post quas omnes cuâ—aâ— medâ—â—aâ—ionâ—â— magnum erat si recta sentirent consentanea responderent c. And he addeth pag. 360 Equidem sic opinioâ— neque ab ea opinione avelli unquam potero quin peâ—â—imo praeceptori omnes esse auditores â—ebetes creâ—â—m A bad Teacher hatâ— a wayâ—s bad Schollars Even in the Roman Church how little their authority can do against prophaneness and negligence the same Aâ—osta sheweth l. 6. c. 2. p. 519. Cum in provinciali Concilio Lim nsi ab omnibus Peruenâ—bus Episcopis caeterisque gravibus viris ad ea viâ—ia emendanda multum operae studii collatum sit atque edita extent egregia decreta de reformatione permulâ—a nihil tamen amplius perfectum est quam si ab otiosis nautis de republica moderanda consultatum esset â—oâ—isiâ— Moâ—â—â—â— Ep. 3. mentioneth iâ— as the errour of a new sprung sâ—ct that heynous sinners even so continuing mâ—y be Priests And Ep. 73. it 's said No
under pretence of Government Discipline and Zeal denyeth that Liberty and forbearance even to Hereticks and Offenders much more when to the faithful Ministers of Christ which humane frailty hath made necessary and Christ hath commanded his servants to grant Concluding Ubi solitudinem fecerant pacem appellabant as Tertull. Et his omnibus obtendi solet studium Divini nominis sed plerumque obtendi tantum Nam Deus dedignatur coacta servitia nec placere illi potest quod vi humana exprimitur Reipsa solent qui id faciunt non nomini divino sed suis honoribus suis commodis tranquillitati consulere quod scit ille qui mentes intrâ—spicit Atque ita sit ut lolium evellatur cum tritico innocemes cum nocentibus immo ut triticum saepe sumatur pro lâ—liâ— Non enim tam bene agitur cum rebus humanis ut semper meliora pluribus aut validioribus placeant sed ut in grege taurus ita inter homines qui viribus est editior imbecilliorem coedit iidem saepe quae pati se querebantur mox in alios audent Lege caetera Again I intreat those that would escape the sin of Schism to read seriously the foresaid Treatises of Peacemakers especially Bishop Halls Peacemaker Bishop Ushers Sermon on Eph. 4. 3. and Mr. Ieremy Burroughs Irenicum to which I may add Mr. Stillin fleets Irenicum for the hot contenders about Church-Government though I believe all the substance of Church Order to be of Divine institution and Iac. Acontii Stratag Satanae And it must be carefully noted that one way by which Satan tempteth men into Church-Divisions is by an over-vehement zeal against Dividers and so he would draw the Rulers of the world under pretence of a zeal for Unity and Peace to raise persecutions against all that are guilty of any excess of scrupulosity about Church-communion or of any principles or practices which a little swerve from true Catholicism And so by the cruelty of their penalties silencing Ministers and vexing the people they much increase the divisions which they would heal For when Satan cannot do his work bare-faced and directly he useth to be the forwardest in seeming to do good and to take part with Christ and Truth and Godliness And then his way is to over-do He will be over-orthodox and over-gâ—â—dly and over-peaceable that hâ— hug the truth and Church to death by his too hard embracements As in families and neighbourhoods some cross words must be passed over if we would have peace And he that for every provoking unpeaceable word of another will raise a storm shall be himself the most unpeaceable so is it in the Church He that cannot bear with the weaknesses of the younger sort of Christians who are too much inclined by their zeal against sin to dividing wayes but will presently let fly at them as Schismaticks and make them odious and excommunicate or punish them according to his wrath shall increase the zeal and the number of dividers and prove himself the greatest divider And by this violence and destroying zeal of Orthodox Rulers against the real faults and infirmities of some separating well meaning men a far greater number of Heterodox Rulers are encouraged to persecute the most learned sober and peaceable Ministers and the most godly and faithful of their Subjects who dare not conform to all their unrighteous Edicts and Ecclesiastical Laws in things forbidden by the Law of Christ And all this is done upon pretence of promoting Unity and Peace and suppressing Heresie and Schism And so persecution becometh the Devils Engine to keep out the Gospel and Godliness from the Infidel world and to keep them under in the Christian world Sed tamen sive illud Origâ—nis de Redemptione futura diabolorum Error est ut ego sentio sive Haerâ—sâ—s ut putatur non solum reprimi non potuit multis animadversionibus Sacerdotum sed nequaquam tam late se pâ—â—uissâ—t offundere nisi contentione crevisset inquit Posthumianus in Sulp. Severi Dialog 1. Sed non fuit animus ibi consiâ—â—ere ubi recens fraternae cladis fervebat invidia Nam etsi fortasse vidâ—â—ntur parere Epise pis debuisse non ob hanc tamen causam multitudinem tantam sub Christi confessione viventem praesertim ab Episcopis oportuisset affligi Id. ibid. Speaking of the Bishops provoking the Secular Power to afflict the Monks of Alexandria for defending Origene When the Emperour Constantius would by violence force the Orthodox to hold Communion with the Arrians he did but make the breach the wider Read Lucifer Calaritanus de non conveniendo cum Haereticis in Biblioth Patr. Tom. 9. p. 1045 c. The Emperour saith that the Orthodox were enemies to peace and unity and brotherly Love and that he was resolved to have unity and peace in his Dominions Therefore he imprisoned the Orthodox and banished them Propterea odis nos quia concilium vestrum malignantium execremur propterea in exilio sumus propterea in carcere necamur propterea nobis solis prohibetur conspectus idâ—irco reclusi in tenebras custodimur ingenti custodia hujus rei causa nullus ad nos visendos admittitur hominum quia videlicet noluerimus vobiscum impiis sacrilegis ullam scelerum vestrorum habere societatem Ibid. pag. 1050. which stirred up this Bishop in particular to go too far from free communion even with the penitent Arrians and heap up more Scriptures against that communion which the Emperour commanded than any had done before Nobis dicebas Pacem volo fieri in corde tuo manens adversarius religionis nostrae cogitabat per te facere nos idololatras c. p. 1051. Consilia vestra contra suam prolata Ecclesiam reprobat Deus Nec enim potest odire populum suum haereditatem suam amare vos filios pestilentiae vos persecutores servorum suorum Dixisti Facite pacem cum Episcopis sectae meae Arrianis estote in unum dicit Dei Spiritus Vias impiorum noli exequi neque aemuleris viam iniquorum c. Dulce quibusdam videtur quo tibi Regi in amicitias jungantur suscipiendo haeresin tuam sed amarius felle sensuri cum tecum torqueri in perpetuum caeperint in perpetua gehenna sentire qui tecum esse deligerunt tunc dicturi Vae nobis qui Constantium Imperatorem Deo praeposuerimus Abundance more he writeth to prove that the Emperour being a Heretick they must have no communion with him or his Bishops And when the Emperour complained hereupon that they wronged and dishonoured him whom they should honour the said Lucifer wrote his next book de non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus which beginneth Superatum te Imperator a Dei servis ex omni cum conspexisses parte dixisti pâ—ssum te ac pâ—ti a nobis contra monita sacrarum Scripturarum contumeliam dicis nos insolentes extitisse circa te quem honorari decuerit
inconsistent with Christianity or the Essentials of the Ministry we may well presume of many of them they would not receive it Therefore as an error which consequentially contradicteth some essential article of faith nullifieth not his Christianity who first and fastest holdeth the faith and would cast away the error if he saw the contradiction as Davenant Morton and Hall have shewed Epist. Conciliat So is it to be said as to practical error in the present case They are their grievous errors and sins but for ought I see do not nullifie their office to the Church As a Mass-Priest he is no Minister of Christ As an Anabaptist is not as a Rebaptizer nor a Separatist as a Separater nor an Antinomian or any erroneous person as a Preacher of that error But as a Christian Pastor ordained to preach the Gospel baptize administer the Lords Supper pray praise God guide the Church he may be The same answer serveth to the Objection as it extendeth to the erroneous Doctrines which they preach which are but by Consequence against the Essentials of Religion 2. But it is a greater doubt Whether any power of the Ministry can be conveyed by Antichrist or from him And whether God will own any of Antichrists administrations Therefore seeing they profess themselves to have no office but what they receive from the Pope and Christ disowning his usurpation the same man cannot be the Minister of Christ and Antichrist as the same man cannot be an officer in the Kings Army and his Enemies But this will have the same solution as the former If this Antichrist were the open professed enemy to Christ then all this were true Because their corrupt additions would not by dark consequences but so directly contain the denyal of Christianity or the true Ministry that it were not possible to hold both But as our Divines commonly note Antichrist is to sit in the Temple of God and the Popes Treason is under pretence of the greatest service and friendship to Christ makeing himself his Vicar General without his Commission So that they that receive power from him do think him to be Christs Vicar indeed and so renounce not Christ but profess their first and chief relation to be to him and dependance on him and that they would have nothing to do with the Pope if they knew him to be against Christ. And some of them write that the Power or Office is immediately from Christ and that the Pope Ordainers and Electors do but design the person that shall receive it Because else they know not what to say of the Election and Consecration of the Pope himself who hath no superiour And the Spanish Bishops in the Council of Trent held so close to this that the rest were fain to leave it undetermined so that it is no part of their Religion but a doubtful opinion Whether the power of Bishops be derived from the Pope though they be Governed by him But as to the other the case seemeth like this If a subject in Ireland usurp the Lieutenancy and tell all the people that he hath the Kings Commission to be his Lieutenant and command all to submit to him and receive their places from him and obey him And the King declareth him a Traytor antecedently only by the description of his Laws and maketh it the duty of the subjects to renounce him Those now that know the Kings will and yet adhere to the Usurper though they know that the King is against it are Traytors with him But those from whom he keepeth the knowledge of the Laws and who for want of full information believe him to be really the Kings Lieutenant and specially living where all believe it but yet would renounce him if they knew that he had not the Kings Commission These are the Kings subjects though in ignorance they obey an Usurper And on this account it is that A. Bishop Usher concluded that An ignorant Papist might be saved but the Learned hardly But when the Learned through the disadvantages of their Education are under the same ignorance being Learned but on one side to their greater seduction the case may be the same The same man therefore may receive an Office from Christ who yet ignorantly submitteth to the Pope and receiveth corrupt additions from him But suppose I be mistaken in all this yet to come to the second Question II. Whether Baptism and Ordination given by them be Nullities I answer no on a further account 1. Because that the Ministry which is a nullity to the receiver that is God will punish him Matâ—h 7. 23 24 2â— as an Usurper may yet perform those Ministerial Acts which are no Nullities to the Church Else Phil. 1. 15 16 17. how confused a case would all Churches be in For it is hard ever to know whether Ministers have all things essential to their Office Suppose a man be ignorant or an Heretick against some essential Mark 9. 40. Article of faith or suppose that he feigned Orders of Ordination when he had none or that he was ordained by such as really had no power to do it or suppose he pretended the consent of the majority of the people when really the greater part were for another If all thâ—s be unknown his Baptizing and other administrations are not thereby made Nullities to the Church though they be sins in him The Reason is because that the Church shall not suffer nor lose her right for another mans sin When the fault is not theirs the loss and punishment shall not be theirs He that is found in possession of the place performeth valid administration to them that know not his usurpation and are not guilty of it Otherwise we should never have done Re-baptizing nor know easily when we receive any valid administrations while we are so disagreed about the Necessaries of the Office and Call and when it is so hard in all things to judge of the Call of all other men 2. And as the Papists say that a private man or woman may baptize in extremity so many Learned Protestants think that though a private mans Baptism be a sin yet it is no nullity though he were known to be no Minister And what is said of Baptism to avoid tediousness you may suppose said of Ordination which will carry the first case far as to the Validity of the Ministry received by Papists Ordination as well as of Baptism and Visible Christianity received by them For my part God used Parsons Book of Resolution corrected so much to my good and I have known so many eminent Christians and some Ministers converted by it that I am glad that I hear none make a controversie of it whether the conversion faith or Love to God be valid which we receive by the Books or means of any Papist Quest. 4. Whether it be necessary to believe that the Pope is the Antichrist IT is one question Whether he be Antichrist and another Whether it be necessary
Minister to themselves that is To the Being of a Pastor of a particular Church as such but not of a Minister of Christ as such 5. A mans soul is of so great value above all the favour of man or treasures of this world that no man should be indifferent to what mans care he doth commit it nor should he hazard it upon the danger of everlasting misery for fear of displeasing man or being accused of schism or disorder 6. There is as great difference between an Able Learned Judicious Orthodox Godly diligent lively Teacher and an ignorant Heretical ungodly dull and slothful man as is between a skilful and an Ignorant Pilot at Sea or between an Able experienced faithful Physicion and an ignorant rash and treacherous one as to the saving mens lives And he that would not take a Sot or Emperick for his Physicion who were like to kill him and refuse the counsel of an able Physicion in obedience to a Mat. 16. 26. Prov. 15. 32. 19. 8. Luk. 1â— 4. Magistrate or Bishop hath as little reason to do the like by his soul nor should he set less by that than by his life And if Paul said we have this power for Edification and not for destruction we may say so of all Magistrates and Bishops Sober Divines have lately shewed their errour who teach men that they must be ready to submit to damnation if God require it or to suppose that his Glory and our salvation are separable ends because damnation is a thing which nature necessitateth man not to desire or intend And shall we ascribe more to a Magistrate than to God and say that we must cast our souls on a likelyhood of damnation to keep order and in obedience to man No man can be saved without knowledge and Holiness An ignorant dead ungodly Minister is far less likely to help us to Knowledge and Holiness than an Able holy man To say God can work by the unfittest instrument is nothing to the purpose Till you prove that God would have us take him for his instrument and that he useth equally to work by such as well as by the fit and worthy or that we expect wonders from God and that ordinarily without tempting him Yea when such an Usurper of the Ministry is like to damn himself as well as the people And here to lenifie the minds of Ithacian Prelates towards those that seek their own Edification in such a case as this or that refuse unworthy Pastors of their imposing I will intreat them to censure those neer them no more sharply than they do the persons in these following instances Yea if a separatist go too far use him no more uncharitably than you would do these men 1. Gildas Brit. is called Sapiens and our eldest writer And yet he calleth the multitude of the lewd British Clergy whom he reprehendeth in his Acris Correptio Traytors and no Priests and concludeth seriously that he that calleth them Priests is not eximius Christianus any excellent Christian. Yet those few that were pious he excepteth and commendeth Shall he account them no Priests for their sinfulness and will you force others not only to call them Priests but to commit their souls to such mens conduct When Christ hath said If the blind lead the blind both will fall into the ditch And Paul Take heed unto thy self and unto the doctrine for in so doing thou shalt both save thy self and Mat 15. 14. 1 Tim. 4 16. 1 Tim 4 6. Mat. 16 6. 24. 4. Mat. 4. â—4 Luk. 8. 18. Mat. 23. 16. them that hear thee The second is our second and first English Historian Beda and in him the famous Iohannes Episc. Hagustaldensis Eccles. who as he reporteth wrought many very great miracles as Eccles. hist. l. 5. cap. 2 3 4 and 5. is to be read This man had one Herebaldus in his Clergy after an Abbot who himself told Beda as followeth That this Iohannes Ep. cured him miraculously of a perillous hurt taken by disobedient Horsemanship And when he recovered he asked him whether he were sure that he was Baptized who answered That he knew it past doubt and named the Presbyter that Baptized him The Bishop answered him If thou wast baptized by that Priest thou art not rightly baptized For I know him and that when he was ordained Presbyter he was so dull of wit that he could not learn the Ministry of Catechizing and Baptizing Wherefore I commanded him altogether to give over the presumption of this Ministry which he could not regularly fulfill And having thus said he himself took care to Catechize me the same hour And being cured vitali etiam unda perfusus sum I was baptized I commend not this example of re-baptizing the rather because it seems the Priest was not deposed till after he had Baptized Herebaldus But if he went so far as to re-baptize and account the Baptism a Nullity which was done by an unable insufficient Presbyter though rightly ordained judge but as favourably of men that avoid such Presbyters in our age The third instance shall be that of Cyprian and all the worthy Bishops in the Councils of Carthage in his time who re-baptized those Baptized by Hereticks And consider with all that in those times many were called Hereticks whom we call but Schismaticks that drew Disciples after them into separated Act. 20. 30. bodies and parties speaking perverse things though not contrary to the very Essentials of Religion I justifie not their opinion But if so many holy Bishops counted the very Baptism of such a nullity be not too severe and censorious against those that go not all so far from an insufficient or ungodly or grosly scandalous man for the meeâ— preservation of their own souls To these I will add the saying of one the honester sort of Jesuites Acosta and in him of an ancienter than he Lib. 4. c. 1. p. 354. de reb Indic He extolleth the words of Dionyâ—ius Epist. 8. ad Demoph which are Si igitur quae illuminat sacerdotum est sancta distinctio proculdubio ille à sacerdotali ordine virtute omnino prolapsus est qui illuminans non est multoque sanè magis qui neque illuminatus est Atque mihi quidem videtur audax nimium bujusmodi est si sacerdotalia â—unia sibi assumit neque metuit neque veretur ea quae sunt Divina praeter meritum persequi putâ—tque ea latere Deum quorum sibi ipse conscius sit se Deum fallere existimat quem falso nomine appellat Patrem audetque scelestas blasphemias suas neque enim preces dixerim sacris aris inferre easque super signa illa Divina ad Christi similitudinem dicere Non est iste sacerdos non est sed infestus atrox dolosus illusor sui lupus in dominicam gregem ovina pelle armatus His plura aut majora de evangelici ministerii culmine praecipitio qui
There are two things more in question 1. His Office whether he be a Minister 2. His Regularity whether he came Regularly to it and also his Comparative relation whether this man or another is to be preferred I answer therefore 1. If the person be utterly uncapable the one Bishop or the many whosoever taketh him for uncapable is for the Truth sake to be believed and obeyed 2. If the man be excellently qualified and his Ministry greatly Necessary to the Church whoever would deprive the Church of him be it the One or the Many is to be disobeyed and the ordainers preserred Obj. But who shall judge Answ. The Esse is before the Scire The thing is first True or false before I judge it to be so And therefore whoever judgeth falsly in a case so notorious and weighty as that the welfare of the Church and souls is consideratis considerandis injured and hazarded by his errour is not be believed nor obeyed on pretence of order Because all Christians have judicium discretionis a discerning judgement 3. But if the case be not thus to be determined by the persons notorious qualifications then either it is 1. The man ordained 2. Or the People that the case is debated by whether they should take him for a Minister 3. Or the neighbour Ministers 1. The person himself is caeteris paribus more to regard the judgement of many concordant Bishops than of one singular Bishop And therefore is not to take orders from a singular Bishop when the Generality of the wise and faithful are against it unless he be sure that it is some notorious faction or errour that perverteth them and that there be notorious necessity of his labour 2. The Auditors are either Infidels to be converted and these will take no man upon any of their Authorities or else Christians converted These are either of the particular charge of the singular Bishop who ordaineth or not If they be then pro tempore for orders sake they owe him a peculiar obedience till some further process or discovery disoblige them Though the most be on the other side But yet they may be still bound in Reason most to suspect the Judgement of their singular Bishop while for orders sake they submit to it But if they are not of his flock then I suppose the Judgement and Act of many is to prevail so much against the Act of a single and singular person as that both neighbour Ministers and people are to disown such an ordained person as unfit for their Communion under the notion of a Minister Because Communion of Churches is maintained by the Concord of Pastors But whether the ordained mans Ministry be by their contradictory declaration Eph. 4. 3. 1 Cor. 12. Rom. 14 17 19. or degradation made an absolute nullity to himself and those that submit to him neither I will determine nor should any other Strangers to the particular case For if he be rejected or degraded without such cause and proof as may satisfie other sober persons he hath wrong But if he be so 1 Cor. 14. 33. 1 Thes. 5. 12 13. degraded on proved sufficient cause to them that it is known to it giveth the degraders the advantage And as 1. All particular members are to be obedient to their proper Pastor Phil. 2. 1 2 3. Eph. 4. 15 16. 1 Cor. 1. 10. 2. And all particular Churches are to hold correspondency and communion according to their capacity so must men act in this and such like cases respectively according to the Laws of Obedience to their Pastor and of Concord of the Churches Quest. 24. Hath one Bishop power by Divine right to Ordain Degrade or Govern or Excommunicate or Absolve in anothers Diocess or Church either by his consent or against it And doth a Minister that officiateth in anothers Church act as a Pastor and their Pastor or as a private man And doth the Ministerial office cease when a man removeth from his flock I Thrust these questions all together for their affinity and for brevity 1. Every true Minister of Christ Bishop or Pastor is related to the universal Church by stronger obligations than to his particular charge As the whole is better than the parts and its wellfare to be preferred 2. He that is no Pastor of a particular Church may be a Pastor in the universal obliged as a consecrated person to endeavour its good by the works of his office as he hath particular opportunity and call 3. Yet he that hath a particular charge is specially and neerlyer related and obliged to that charge or Church than to any other part of the universal though not then to the whole And consequently hath a peculiar Authority where he hath a peculiar obligation and work 4. He that is without degrading removed from a particular Church doth not cease to be a General Minister and Pastor related to the Universal Church As a Physicion put out of a Hospital charge is a Physicion still And therefore he needeth no new ordination but only a special Designation to his next particular charge 5. No man is the Bishop of a Diocess as to the measure of ground or the place by divine right that is by any particular Law or determination of God But only a Bishop of the Church or people For your office essentially containeth a Relation to the People but Accidentally only to the Place 6. Yet natural Convenience and Gods General Laws of Order and Edification do make it usually but not alwayes best and therefore a duty to distinguish Churches by the peoples habitation Not taking a man for a Member eo nomine because he liveth on that ground But for order sake taking none for members that live not on that ground and not intruding causelesly into each others bounds 7. He that by the Call or Consent of a Neighbour Pastor and people doth officiate by Preaching Sacraments Excommunication or Absolution in anothers special charge for a day or week or month or more without a fixed relation to that flock doth neither officiate as a Lay-man nor yet unlawfully or irregularly But 1. As a Minister of Christ in the Church Universal 2. And as the Pastor of that Church for the present time only though not statedly Even as a Physicion called to help another in his Hospital or to supply his place for the time doth perform his work 1. As a Licensed Physicion 2. And as the Physicion of that patient or Hospital for that time though not statedly 8. No man is to intrude into anothers Charge without a Call Much less to claim a particular stated Oversight and Authority For though he be not an Usurper as to the Office in General he is an Usurper as to that particular flock It is no error in Ordination to say Take thou authority to preach the Word of God and administer the holy Sacraments when thou shalt be thereto lawfully called that is when thou hast a particular call to the
by decisive Iudicial â—entence Nor any Universal Civil Monarch of the world 2. The publick Governing Decisive judgement obliging others belongeth to publick persons or Officers Eph. 4. 7 13 14 15 16. of God and not to any private man 1 Cor. 12. 28 29. 17. 3. The publick decision of Doubts or Controversies about Faith it self or the true sense of Gods Word and Laws as obliging the whole Church on Earth to believe that decision or not gainsay it Acts 15. See my Key for Catholicks because of the Infallibility or Governing authority of the Deciders belongeth to none but Jesus Christ Because as is said he hath made no Universal Governour nor Infallible Expositor It belongeth to the Law-giver only to make such an Universally obliging Exposition of his own Laws 4. True Bishops or Pastors in their own particular Churches are Authorized Teachers and Guides in Expounding the Laws and Word of Christ And the people are bound as Learners to reverence their Teaching and not contradict it without true cause yea and to believe them fide humanâ in things pertinent to their Office For oportet discentem credere 5. No such Pastors are to be Absolutely believed nor in any case of notorious Error or Heresie where the Word of God is discerned to be against them 6. For all the people as Reasonable creatures have a judgement of private discerning to judge what they must Receive as Truth and to discern their own duty by the help of the Word of God and of their Teachers 7. The same power of Governing-Iudgement Lawful Synods have over their several flocks as a Pastor over his own but with greater advantage 8. The power of Judging in many Consociate Churches who is to be taken into Communion as Orthodox and who to be refused by those Churches as Hereticks in specie that is what Doctrine they will judge sound or unsound as it is Iudicium discernendi belongeth to every one of the Council â—ingly As it is a Iudgement obliging themselves by Contract and not of Governing each other it is in the Contracters and Consenters And for peace and order usually in the Major Vote But with the Limitations before expressed 9. Every true Christian believeth all the Essentials of Christianity with a Divine faith and not by a meer humane belief of his Teachers though by their Help and Teaching his faith is generated and confirmed and preserved Therefore no essential Article of Christianity is left to any obliging decision of any Church but only to a subservient obliging Teaching As whether there be a God a Christ a Heaven a Hell an Immortality of souls whether God be to be believed loved feared obeyed before man Whether the Scripture be Gods Word and true Whether those that contradict it are to be believed therein Whether Pastors Assemblies publick Worship Baptism Sacrament of the Lords Supper be Divine institutions And the same I may say of any known Word of God No mortals may judge in partem utramliâ—et but the Pastors are only Authorized Teachers and helpers of the peoples faith And so they be partly to one another 10. If the Pope or his Council were the Infallible or the Governing Expositors of all Gods Laws and Scriptures 1. God would have enabled them to do it by an Universal Commentary which all men should be obliged to believe or at least not to contradict For there is no Authority and Obligation given to men yea to so many successively to do that for the needful decision of Controversies which they never have Ability given them to do For that were to oblige them to things impossible 2. And the Pope and his Council would be the most treacherous miscreants on earth that in so many hundred years would never write such an Infallible nor Governing Commentary to end the differences of the Christian world Indeed they have judged with others against Arrius that Christ is true God and one with the Father in substance c. But if they had said the contrary must we have taken it for Gods truth or have believed them 11. To judge who for Heresie or Seandal shall be punished by the Sword belongeth to none but the Magistrate in his own dominions As to judge who shall have Communion or be excommunicated from the Church belongeth as aforesaid to the Pastors And the said Magistrate hath first as a man his own Iudgement of discerning what is Heresie and who of his subjects are guilty of it in order to his publick Governing Judgement 12. The Civil Supream Ruler may Antecedently exercise this Judgement of Discerning by the Teaching of their proper Teachers in order to his consequent sentences on offenders And so in his Laws may tell the subjects what Doctrines and practices he will either Tolerate or punish And thus may the Church Pastors do in their Canons to their several flocks in relation to Communion or non-communion 13. He that will condemn particular persons as Hereticks or offenders must allow them to speak for themselves and hear the proofs and give them that which justice requireth c. And if the Pope can do so at the Antipodes and in all the world either per se or per alium without giveing that other his essential claimed power let him prove it by better experience than we have had 14. As the prime and sole-universal Legislation belongeth to Jesus Christ so the final Judgement universal and particular belongeth to him which only will end all Controversies and from which there is no appeal Quest. 29. Whether a Parents power over his Children or a Pastor or many Pastors or Bishops over the same Children as parts of their flock be greater or more obliging in matters of Religion and publick Worship THis being toucht on somewhere else I only now say 1. That if the case were my own I would 1. Labour to know their different Powers as to the matter commanded and obey each in that which is proper to his place 2. If I were young and ignorant Natural necessity and natural obligation together would give my Parents with whom I lived such an advantage above the Minister whom I seldome see or understand as would determine the case de eventu and much de jure 3. If my Parents commanded me to hear a Teacher who is against Ceremonies or certain Forms and to hear none that are for them natural necessity here also ordinarily would make it my duty first to hear and obey my Parents And in many other cases till I came to understand the greater power of the Pastors in their own place and work 4. But when I come to Church or know that the judgement of all Concordant Godly Pastors condemneth such a thing as damnable Heresie or Sin which any Father commandeth me to receive and profess I would more believe and follow the Judgement of the Pastors and Churches Quest. 30. May an Office Teacher or Pastor be at once in a stated Relation of a Pastor and a
it unlawful to make so promiscuous an Adoption of children or of choosing another to be a Covenanter for the child instead of the Parent to whom it belongeth or to commit their children to anothers either propriety or education or formal promise of that which belongeth to education when they never mean to perform it nor can do 2. Because they take it for an Adding to the Ordinance of God a thing which Scripture never mentioneth To which I answer 1. I grant it unlawful to suppose another to be the Parent or proprietor that is not Or to suppose him to have that power and interest in your child which he hath not Oâ— to desire him to undertake what he cannot perform and which neither he nor you intend he shall perform I grant that you are not bound to alienate the propriety of your children nor to take in another to be joint-proprietors nor to put out your children to the God-fathers education So that if you will misunderstand the Use of Sponsors then indeed you will make them unlawful to be so used But if you take them but as the antient Churches did for such as do attest the Parents fidelity in their perswasion and do promise first to mind you of your duty and next to take care of the childrens pious education if you dye I know no reason you have to scruple this much Yea more it is in your own power to agree with the God-fathers that they shall represent your own persons and speak and promise what they do as your deputies only in your names And what have you against this Suppose you were sick lame imprisoned or banished would you not have your child baptized And how should that be done but by your deputing another to represent you in entring him into Covenant with God Object But when the Church-men mean another thing this is but to juggle with the world Answ. How can you prove that the authority that made or imposed the Liturgie meant any other thing And other individuals are not the Masters of your sense 2. Yea and if the Imposers had meant ill in a thing that may be done well you may discharge your conscience by doing it well and making a sufficient profession of your better sense 2. And then it will be no sinful addition to Gods Ordinance to determine of a lawful circumstance which he hath left to humane prudence As to choose a meet Deputy Witness or Sponsor who promiseth nothing but what is meet Quest. 40. On whose account or right is it that the Infant hath title to Baptism and its benefits Is it on the Parents Ancestors Sponsors the Churches the Ministers the Magistrates or his own Answ. THe titles are very various that are pretended Let us examine them all I. I cannot think that a Magistrates Command to baptize an Infant giveth him right 1. Because there is no proof of the validity of such a title 2. Because the Magistrate can command no such thing if it be against Gods Word as this is which would level the case of the seed of Heathens and believers And I know but few of that opinion II. I do not think that the Minister as such giveth title to the Infant For 1. He is no proprietor 2. He can shew no such power or grant from God 3. He must baptize none but those that antecedently have right 4. Else he also might levell all and take in Heathens children with believers 5. Nor is this pretended to by many that I know of III. I cannot think that it is a particular Church that must give this Right or perform the condition of it For 1. Baptism as is aforesaid as such doth only make a Christian and a member of the Universal Church and not of any particular Church And 2. The Church is not the proprietor of the child 3. No Scripture Commission can be shewed for such a power Where hath God said All that any particular Church will receive shall have right to baptism 4. By what act must the Church give this right If by baptizing him the question is of his antecedent right If by willing that he be baptized 1. If they will that one be baptized that hath no right to it their will is sinful and therefore unfit to give him right 2. And the baptizing Minister hath more power than a thousand or ten thousand private men to judge who is to be baptized 5. Else a Church might save all Heathens children that they can but baptize and so levell Infidels and Christians seed 6. It is not the Church in general but some one person that must educate the child Therefore the Church cannot so much as promise for its education The Church hath nothing to do with those that are without but only with her own And Heathens children are not her own nor exposed to her occupation IV. I believe not that it is the Universal Church that giveth the Infant title to baptism For 1. He that giveth title to the Covenant and baptism doth it as a performer of the Moral Condition of that title But God hath no where made the Churches faith to be the condition of baptism or salvation either â—o Infidels or their seed 2. Because the Universal Church is a body that cannot be consulted with to give their Vote and Consent Nor have they any Deputies to do it by For there is no Universal Visible Governour And if you will pretend every Priest to be commissioned to act and judge in the name of the Universal Church you will want proof and that 's before confuted 3. If all have right that the Universal Church offereth up to God or any Minister or Bishop be counted its Deputy or Agent to that end it is in the power of that Minister as is said to levell all and to baptize and save all which is contrary to the Word of God V. I believe that God-fathers as such being no Adopters or Proprietors are not the performers of the condition of salvation for the Infant nor give him right to be baptized 1. Because he is not their Own and therefore their will or act cannot go for his Because there is no Word of God for it that all shall be baptized or saved that any Christians will be Sponsors for Gods Church blessings be not tyed â—o such inventions that were not in being when Gods Laws were made Where â—here is no promise or word there is no faith 3. No Sponsors are so much as lawful as is shewed before who are not Owners or their Deputies or meer secondary subservient parties who suppose the principal Covenanting party 4. And as to the Infants salvation the Sponsors may too oft be ignorant Infidels and Hypocrites themselves that have no true faith for themselves and therefore not enough to save another 5. And it were strange if God should make no promise to a wicked Parent for his own child and yet should promise to save by baptism all that some wicked
Whether you carry it to an Imperial Church or a Papal to a Patriarchal or Provincial or National till you have proved it to be of Divine institution and Particular Churches to be unnecessary alterable and of humane institution I shall never grant you that it is to be preferred before that which is unquestionably of God For though I easily grant that all the Churches of a Nation Empire or the World are to be more esteemed and carefully preserved than one Bishops or Pastors particular Church yet I will not grant you that your humane policy is more necessary to the safety of all these Churches than the Divine For the safety of these Churches may be better preserved by Gods three great means 1. The polity of particular Churches with the conduct of their present faithful Bishops or Pastors 2. The loving Consociation of Neighbour Churches for Concord 3. The protection and countenance of Magistrates without any new Church-form or National or Imperial or Universal Pastor than with it Nay when that sort of Usurpation hath been the very Engine of dividing corrupting and undoing the Christian Churches above a thousand years we are not easily perswaded now that yet it is either necessary or desirable 18. But the best and easiest way to discern how far the making new Churches or Church offices is lawful or unlawful is by trying it by the quality of their office-work For it is the work which giveth us the description of the office and the office of the Ruling part which giveth us the definition of the Church which that office constituteth The work which the new humane officer is to do is either 1. The same which God hath already appointed Bishops or Pastors to do Or at least the unfixed Ministers in the universal Church 2. Or ☜ it is such as he hath appointed Magistrates to do 3. Or it is such as belongeth to private and lay men 4. Or it is somewhat different from all these 1. If it be of the first sort it is a contradiction For men that are by office appointed to do the same work which Ministers are already appointed to do are not a new office but Ministers indeed such as Christ hath instituted For the office is nothing but an Obligation and Authority to do the work 2. If it be the same work which belongeth to the Magistrate then it is no new office for they are Magistrates 3. If it be that which belongeth to private men by Gods appointment they cannot disoblige themselves by transferring it to a new officer 4. If it be none of all these what is it I doubt it may prove some needless or rather sinful work which God committed to none of these three sorts and therefore unfit to make a Church-office of Unless it be such as I before described and granted 1. I confess that the Magistrate may make new inferiour officers to do his own part As Church-Justices Church-wardens c. 2. I grant that the people may make an office for the better doing of some parts of their own work They may make Collectors Door-keepers Artists by office to keep the Clock and Bells and Church-buildings c. if the Magistrates leave it to them 3. I grant that the Bishops or Pastors may do some circumstances of their work by humane officers As to facilitate their concord in Synods by choosing one to preside to choose time and place to send messengers to take votes to moderate disputes to record agreements c. as aforesaid And these circumstantials are the things that officers may be made for But the very modes and circumstances which are part of the work to which every Bishop or Pastor is obliged he cannot commit to another As to choose his text subject method words c. These are parts of his own work Though Concord in these is the work of many Now what is the work besides all these that we must have new Churches and offices made for Is it to Govern all these Bishops and Churches How By the Word or by the Sword If by the Sword the Magistrate is to do it If by the Word or spiritual Authority either God hath made such an office as Arch-bishops or General Bishops over many or he hath not If he have we need no new humane office for it God having provided for it already If not but God hath left all Bishops independant and to learn of one another as equals in Office and unequal only in gifts then either such an office is fit and necessary or not If it be you accuse God of omission in not appointing a Bishop over Bishops as well as a Bishop of the lowest order If not then by what reason or power will you make new needless officers in the Church When Cyprian and his Carthage Council so vehemently disclaimed being Episcopi Episcoporum 19. I would fain know whether those new made Churches of humane and not of Divine fabrication whether Universal or Papal Patriarchal Provincial c. were made by former Churches or by no Churches If by no Churches then either by other societies or by single persons If by other societies by what power do they make new Churches to Christ who are themselves no Churches If by single persons either they are before Church-members or not If not how can those make new Churches that be not so much as members of Churches without a Commission from Christ But if either former Churches or their members made these new Churches then 1. It followeth that there were another sort of Churches before these new or humane Churches And if so either those other that made these were themselves made of God or not And so the question will run up till you bring it either to some Church of Gods making which made these other or some person commissioned to do it If you say the first then he that will confess that there is a species of Churches of Christs Institution and a species not of his institution must prefer the former and must well prove the power of making the later And so they must do if they say that it was done by particular persons that were no particular Church-members For if Christ commissioned them to settle any one species of Churches those are to be esteemed setled by Christ. But if you say that Christ left them to vary the species of Churches as they saw cause and so on to the end of the World 1. You must well prove it 2. It is before disproved unless you take the word Church equivocally 20. Lastly all Christians are satisfied of Christs Authority And therefore in that they can agree But so they are not of any humane Church-makers authority And therefore in that there will never be an agreement Therefore such new Churches and Ecclesiastical Governments will be but as they ever have been the Engines of division and ruine in the Churches And the species of Gods making with the mutability of mutable Adjuncts and Circumstances will
a Lent as he in twenty years Sure I am I know many such on both sides Some that eat but a small meal a day and never drink Wine at all and others that drink Wine daily and eat of many dishes at a meal and that to the full and of the sweetest as Fish Fruits c. yet rail at the former for not fasting as they do So delusory are the outward appearances and so â—alse the pretensions of the carnal sort 4. The antient Lent consisted first of one day Good-fryday alone and after that of three dayes and then of six and at last it came up to fourty Of which read Dallaeus ubi supra at large 5. None can question the lawfulness of an obedient keeping of such a Civil Lent fast as our Statutes command for the vending of Fish and for the breed of Cattle so be it no bodily necessity oâ— greater duty be against it 6. It is not unlawful for those that cannot totally fast yet to use more abstinence and a more mortifying sort of dyet than ordinary for the exercises of repentance and mortification in due time 7. If Authority shall appoint such a mortifying abstemious course upon lawful or tolerable grounds and ends I will obey them if they peremptorily require it when my health or some greater duty forbiddeth it not 8. As for the Commanding such an Abstinence as in Lent not in Imitation but bare Commemoration of Christs forty dayes fast I would not command it if it were in my power But being peremptorily commanded I cannot prove it unlawful to obey with the fore-mentioned exceptions 9. It was antiently held a crime to fast on the Lords dayes even in Lent And I take that day to be separated by Christ and the Holy Ghost for a Church Festival or day of Thanksgiving Therefore I will not keep it as a fast though I were commanded unless in such an extraordinary necessity as aforesaid OF Pilgrimages Saints Relicts and Shrines Temples of their Miracles of Pray 〈…〉 to Angels to Saints for the Dead of Purgatory of the Popes Pardons Indulgences Dispensations of the Power of true Pastors to forgive sins with a multitude of such cases which are commonly handled in our Controversal Writers against the Papists I must thither refer the Reader for a Solution because the handling of all such particular Cases would swell my Book to a magnitude beyond my intention and make this part unfuitable to the rest Quest. 102. May we continue in a Church where some one Ordinance of Christ is wanting as Discipline Prayer Preaching or Sacraments though we have all the rest Answ. DIstinguish 1. Of Ordinances 2. Of a stated want and a temporary want 3. Of one that may have better and one that cannot 1. Teaching Prayer and Praise are Ordinances of such necessity that Church Assemblies have not their proper use without them 2. The Lords Supper is of a secondary need and must be used when 〈…〉 but a Church-Assembly may attain its ends sometimes without it in a good degree 3. Discipline is implicitly exercised when none but the Baptized are Communicants and when professed Christians voluntarily assemble and the preaching of the Word doth distinguish the precious from the vile Much more when notorious scandalous sinners are by the Laws kept from the Sacrament As our Rubrick and Canons do require 4. But for the fuller explicite and exacter exercise of discipline it is very desirable for the well being of the Churches but it is but a stronger fence or hedge and preservative of Sacred Order And both the being of a Church and the profitable use of holy assemblies may subsist without it As in Helvetia and other Countreys it is found I conclude then 1. That he that consideratis considerandis is a free man should choose that place Acts 28. ult 11. 26. 20. 7 20 c. 1 Cor. 14. Acts 2. 42. 1 Tim. 4. 13 14 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. 2 Tim. 3. 16. Heb. 10. 25 26 Col 4. 16. Acts 13 27. 15 2â— â— Theâ—s 5 27. 1 Cor. 5. 3 4 c. where he hath the fullest opportunities of worshipping God and edifying his soul. 2. He is not to be accounted a free-man that cannot remove without a greater hurt than the good either to the Church or Countrey or to his family his neighbours or himself 3. Without Teaching Prayer and Divine Praises we are not to reckon that we have proper Church-Assemblies and Communion 4. We must do all that is in our power to procure the right use of Sacraments and Discipline 5. When we cannot procure it it is lawful and a duty to joyn in those Assemblies that are without it and rather to enjoy the rest than none Few Churches have the Lords Supper above once a moneth which in the Primitive Church was used every Lords day and ofter And yet they meet on other dayes 6. It is possible that Preaching Prayer and Praise may be so excellently performed in some Churches that want both Discipline and the Lords Supper and all so coldly and ignorantly managed in another Church that hath all the Ordinances that mens souls may much more flourish and prosper under the former than the later 7. If forbearing or wanting some Ordinances for a time be but in order to a probable procurement Matth. 26. 31. Acts 8. 1. of them we may the better forbear 8. The time is not to be judged of only by the length but by the probability of success For sometime Gods Providence and the disturbances of the times or the craft of men in power may keep men so long in the dark that a long expectation or waiting may become our duty Quest. 103. Must the Pastors remove from one Church to another when ever the Magistrate commandeth us though the Bishops contradict it and the Church consent not to dismiss us And so of other Cases of disagreement Answ. 1. AS in mans soul the Intellectual Guidance the Will and the executive power do concur so in Church Cases of this nature the Potestative Government of the Magistrate the Directive Guidance of the senior Pastors and the Attractive Love of the people who are the chief inferiour final Cause should all concur And when they do not it is confusion And when Gods order is broken which commandeth their concurrence it is hard to know what to do in such a division which God alloweth not As it is to know whether I should take part with the Heart against the Head or with the Head against the Stomach and Liver on supposition of cross inclinations or interests when as Nature supposeth either a concord of inclination and interests or else the ruine sickness or death of the person And the Cure must be by reconciling them rather than by knowing which to side with against the rest But seeing we must suppose such diseases frequently to happen they that cannot cure them must know how to behave themselves and to do their own duty For my
own part in such cases I would do thus 1. I would look at my ultimate end Gods Glory and at the next end the Good of souls and welfare Eph. 4. 12 14. 2 Cor. 10. 8. 13. 10. Rom. 14. 19. Rom. 15. 2. 1 Cor. 10. 23. 1 Cor. 14. 5 12 26. 2 Cor. 12. 19. of the Church and so at the Peoples Interest as it is the End of the Order of Magistracy and Ministry And I would take my self to be so obliged to that end as that no point of meer Order could disoblige me the End being better than the Means as such Therefore I would do all things to edification supposing that all Power of man is as Paul's was for Edification and not for destruction 2. But in judging of what is Best for the Church I must take in every accident and circumstance and look to many more than to a few and to distant parts as well as to those near me and to the time and ages to come as well as to the present and not go upon mistaken suppositions of the Churches good He that doth not see all things that are to be weighed in such a case may err by leaving out some one 3. I would obey the Magistrate formally for conscience sake in all things which belong to his Office And particularly in this case if it were but a Removal from place to place in respect to the Temple or Tythes or for the Civil peace or for the preservation of Church order in cases where it is not grosly injurious to the Church and Gospel 4. In cases which by Gods appointment belong to the Conduct of Bishops or Pastors or the Concord of Consociate Churches I would formaliter follow them And in particular if they satisfie me that the removal of me is an apparent injury to the Church As in the Arrians times when the Emperours removed the Orthodox from all the Great Churches to put in Arrians I would not obedientially and voluntarily remove 5. If Magistrates and Bishops should concur in commanding my remove in a case notoriously injurious and pernicious to the Church as in the aforesaid case to bring in an Arrian I would not obey formally for conscience sake supposing that God never gave them such a power against mens souls and the Gospel of Christ And there is no power but of God 6. But I would prefer both the Command of the Magistrate and the Direction of the Pastors before the meer will and humour of the people when their safety and welfare were not concerned in the case 7. And when the Magistrate is peremptory usually I must obey him Materially when I do it not formally in conscience to his meer Command Because though in some cases he may do that which belongeth not to his Office but to the Pastors yet his violence may make it become the Churches interest that I yield and give place to his wrath For as I must not Resist him by force so if I depart not at his Command it may bring a greater suffering on the Churches And so for preventing a greater evil he is to be submitted to in many cases where he goeth against God and without authority though not to be formally obeyed 8. Particular Churches have no such interest in their Ministers or Pastors as to keep them against their wills and the Magistrates and against the interest of the Universal Church as shall be next asserted I have spoken to this instance as it taketh in all other cases of difference between the Power of the Magistrate the Pastors and the peoples interest when they disagree and not as to this case alone Quest. 104. Is a Pastor obliged to his Flock for Life Or is it lawful so to oblige himself And may be remove without their Consent And so also of a Church-member the same questions are put THese four Questions I put together for brevity and shall answer them distinctly I. 1. A Minister is obliged to Christ and the Universal Church for Life durante vita with this exception if God disable him not 2. But as a Pastor he is not obliged to this or that flock for life There is no such command or example in Gods Word II. To the second 1. It is lawful to oblige our selves to a people for life in some cases conditionally that is If God do not apparently call us away 2. But it is never lawful to do it Absolutely 1. Because we shall engage our selves against God against his power over us and interest in us and his wisdom that must guide us God may call us whither he please And though now he speak not by supernatural revelation yet he may do it by providential alterations 2. And we shall else oblige our selves against the Universal Church to which we are more strictly bound than to any particular Church and whose good may oblige us to remove 3. Yea we may bind our selves to the hurt of that Church it self seeing it may become its interest to part with us 4. And we should so oblige our selves against our duty to authority which may remove us III. To the third question I answer 1. A Pastor may not causelesly remove nor for his own worldly commodity when it is to the hurt of the Church and hinderance of the Gospel 2. When he hath just cause he must acquaint the people with it and seek their satisfaction and consent 3. But if he cannot procure it he may remove without it As 1. When he is sure that the interest of the Gospel and Universal Church require it 2. Or that just authority doth oblige him to it The reasons are plain from what is said And also 1. He is no more bound to the people than they are to him But they are not so bound to him but they may remove on just occasion 2. If he may not remove it is either because God forbids it or because his own Contract with them hath obliged him against it But 1. God no where forbids it 2. Such a contract is supposed not made nor lawful to be made IV. As to the peoples case it needs no other answer 1. No member may remove without cause 2. Nor abruptly and uncharitably to the Churches dissatisfaction when he may avoid it But 3. He may remove upon many just causes private or publick whether the Church and Pastors consent or not so the manner be as becometh a Christian. Quest. 105. When many men pretend at once to be the true Pastors of a particular Church against each others title through differences between the Magistrates the Ordainers and the Flocks what should the people do and whom should they adhere to Answ. THis case is mostly answered before in Quest. 82. c. I need only to add these What Pastor to adhere to Rules of Caution 1. Do not upon any pretence accept of an Heretick or one that is utterly unfit for the Office 2. Do not easily take a Dividing Course or person but keep
can any man with reason think Object 5. but that the first institution of Kings a sufficient consideration wherefore their power should alwayes depend on that from which it did alwayes flow by original influence of power from the Body into the King is the cause of Kings dependency in power upon the body By dependency we mean subordination and subjection ☜ Answ. 1. But it their institution in genere was of God and that give them their power and it never Answ. flowed from the Body at all then all your superstructure falleth with your ground-work 2. And here you seem plainly to confound all Kingdoms by turning the pars imperans into the pars subdita vice versa If the King be subject how are they his subjects I will not inferr what this will lead them to do when they are taught that Kings are in subordination and subjection to them Sad experience hath shewed us what this very principle would effect § 17. Object 6. Ibid. A manifest token of which dependency may be this as there is no more certain Object 6. argument that Lands are held under any as Lords than if we see that such lands in defect of heirs So Lib 8 â— 211 p 218 p. 220. fall unto them by Escheat In like manner it doth follow rightly that seeing Dominion when there is none to inherit it returneth unto the body therefore they which before were inheritors of it did hold it in dependance on the body So that by comparing the Body with the Head as touching power it seemeth alwayes to reside in both fundamentally and radically in one in the other derivatively in one the Habit in the other the Act of Power Answ. Power no more falleth to the multitude by Escheat than the Power of the Pastor falls to the Answ. Church or the Power of the Physicion to the Hospital or the Power of the Schoolmaster to the Scholars that is not at all When all the Heirs are dead they are an ungoverned Community that have power to choose a Governour but no Power to Govern neither as you distinguish it in Habit nor in act originally nâ—r derivatively As it is with a Corporation when the Mayor is dead the power falleth not to the people Therefore there is no good ground given for your following question May a body politick than at all times withdraw in whole or in part the influence of dominion which passeth from it if inconveniences do â—row thereby Though you answer this question soberly your self its easie to see how the multitude may be tempted to answer it on your grounds especially if they think your inconvenience turn into a necessity and what use they will make of your next words It must be presumed that Supream Governours will not in such cases oppose themselves and be stiff in detaining that the use whereof is with publick detriment A strange presumption § 18. Object 7. The Axioms of our Regal Government are these Lex facit Regem The Kings Object 7. grant of any favour made contrary to Law is void Rex nihil potest nisi quod jure potest Answ. If Lex be taken improperly for the constituting contract between Prince and people and Answ. if your facit have respect only to the species and person and not the substance of the Power it self Lib. 8. p. 195. Trita in Scholis Nem nem sibi impâ—râ—e possâ— nominem sibi legem posse dicere à qua mutata voluntate nequeat recedere Summum ejus esse Imperium qui ordinario jure derogare valeat Equibus evinâ—itur jus summae potestaâ—â—s non limâ—tari per legem positivam Hinc Augustinus dixit Imperatorem non esse subjectum legibus suis Gâ—â—iuâ— de Imp. p. 149 150. then I contradict you not But if Lex be taken properly for Authoritativa constitutio debiti or the signification of the Soveraigns will to oblige the Subject then Lex non facit Regem sed Rex Legem § 19 Object 8. Lib. 8. p. 210. When all which the wisdom of all sorts can do is done for the devising Object 8. of Laws in the Church it is the general consent of all that giveth them the form and vigor of Laws without which they could be no more to us than the Councils of Physicions to the sick Well might they seem is wholesome admonitions and instructions but Laws could they never be without consent of the whole Church to be guided by them whereunto both nature and the practice of the Church of God set down in Scripture is found every way so fully consonant that God himself would not impose no not his own Laws upon his people by the hand of Moses without their free and open consent ☜ Answ. 1. Wisdom doth but prepare Laws and Governing power enacteth them and giveth them Answ. their form But the whole Body hath no such Governing power Therefore they give them not their form 2. The peoples consent to Gods Laws gave them not their form or authority This opinion I Hanc video sapien issimorum fuisse sentâ—ntiam Leâ—em nec homâ—num ingeniis excogitatam nec sâ—itum aliquod esse populorum sed aeterâ—um quiddam quod universum mundum regeret â—mperandi prohibendique sapientia Cicero de Leg. have elsewhere confuted against a more erroneous Author Their consent to Gods Laws was required indeed as naturally necessary to their obedience but not as necessary to the Being or Obligation of the Law Can you think that it had been no sin in them to have disobeyed Gods Laws unless they had first consented to them Then all the world might escape sin and damnation by denying consent to the Laws of God 3. This doctrine will teach men that * How considerable a part of England is London Yet in this Convocation which hath made the Neâ— Changes in the Liturgy and Book of Ordination London had not one Clerk of their choosing For being to choose but two they chose only Mr. Calaâ—y and my self who were neither of us accepted or ever thâ—re Now if your opinion be true Quar. 1. Whether you make not this Convocations Decrees to be but Counsels to us a. Or at least whether the City of London or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ministers be not made free from detriment as not consenters You will free them and me especially from Detriment for our Not Conforming to this Convocations Acts as such upon reasons which I do not own my self as generally by you laid down we have no Church-Laws For the whole Church never signified their consent Millions of the poorer sort have no voices in choosing Parliament men or Convocations And this will teach the minor dissenting part to think themselves disobliged for want of consenting and will give every dissenting part or person a Negative voice to all Church Laws 4. A single Bishop hath a Governing power over his particular Church and they are bound to obey
quid vel insalubre manum admoveat Cohibeat Equiso inter equitandum adigat equum per locum praeruptum vel salebrosum cui subsit periculum Etiamne Medico Etiamne Equisoni suo subjectus Rex Sed de Majori potestate loquitur sed â—â ad rem noxiam procul arcendam qua in re Charitatis semper Potestas est maxima Here you see what Church Government is and how Kings are under it and how not in Bishop Andrews sense for my part I would rather obey the Laws of the King than the Canons of the Bishops if they should disagree 3. But in cases common to both in which the Pastors Office is more nearly and fully concerned than the Magistrates the case is more difficult As at what hour the Church shall assemble What part of Scripture shall be read What Text the Minister shall preach on How long Prayer or Sermon or other Church-exercises shall be What Prayers the Minister shall use In what method he shall preach and what doctrine he shall deliver and the people hear with many such like These do most nearly belong to the Pastoral Office to judge of as well as to execute But yet in some cases the Mâ—gistrate may interpose his authority And herein 1. If the one party do determine clearly to the necessary preservation of Religion and the other to the ruine of it the disparity of consequents makeeth a great disparity in the case For here God himself hath predetermined who commandeth that all be done to â—dification As for instance If a Christian Magistrate ordain that no assembly shall consist of above forty or an hundred persons when there are so many Preachers and places of meeting that it is no detriment to mens souls and especially when the danger of infection or other evil warranteth it then I would obey that command of the Magistrate though the Pastors of the Church were against it and commanded fuller meetings But if a Iulian should command the same thing on purpose to wear out the Christian Religion and when it tendeth to the ruine of mens souls as 〈…〉 399 saâ—â—â—◠〈…〉 of Bâ—shops in thâ—se dayes â—eloâ—ged to the people and not the Prâ—â—ce and though Valens by pâ—ain force placed Luâ—ius there yet might the people lawfully reject him as no Bishop and cleave to Peter their right Pastor when Preachers are so few that either more must meet together or most must be untaught and excluded from Gods Worship here I would rather obey the Pastors that command the contrary because they do but deliver the command of God who determineth consequentially of the necessary means when he determineth of the â—nd But if the consequents of the Magistrates and the Pastors commands should be equally indifferent and neither of them discernably Good or Bad the difficulty then would be at the highest and such as I shall not here presume to determine No doubt but the King is the Supream Governour over all the Schools and Physicions and Hospitals in the Land that is he is the Supream in the Civil Coercive Government He is Supream Magistrate over Divines Physicions and Schoolmasters but not the Supream Divine Physicion or Schoolmaster When there is any work for the Office of the Magistrate that is for the sword among any of them it belongeth only to Him and not at all to them But when there is any work for the Divine the Physicion the Schoolmaster or if you will for the Shoomaker the Taylor the Watch-maker this belongeth not to the King to do or give particular commands for but yet it is all to Too many particular Laws about little maâ—ters breed contention Alex. Severus would have dâ—stinguished all orders of men by their apparel Sâ—d hoc Ulpiano Paulo dispâ—icuit dicentibus plurimum rixarum fore â—i faciles essent homines ad injurias and the Emperour yielded to them Lamâ—rid iâ— Alex. Sever. Lipsius Ubi leges multae ibi lites multae vita moresque pravi Non mulâ—ae leges bonos mâ—res faciunt sed pauâ—ae fideliter servatae be done under his Government and on special causes he may make Laws to force them all to do their several works aright and to restrain them from abuses As to clear the case in hand the King is informed that Physicions take too great Fees of their Patients that some through ignorance and some through covetousness give ill compounded Medicines and pernicious Drugs No doubt but the King by the advice of understanding men may forbid the use of such Drugs as are found pernicious to his Subjects and may regulate not only the Fees but the Compositions and Attendances of Physicions But if he should command that a man in a Feavor or Dropsie or Consumption shall have no Medicine but this or that and so oft and in such or such a dose and with such or such a dyet and the Physicions whom my reason bindeth me to trust and perhaps my own experience also do tell me that all these things are bad for me and different tempers and accidents require different remedies and that I am like to dye or hazard my health if I obey not them contrary to the Kings commands here I should rather obey my Physicions partly because else I should sin against God who commandeth me the preservation of my life and partly because this matter more belongeth to the Physicion than to the Magistrate Mr. Rich. Hooker Eccl. Polit. lib. 8. p. 223 224. giveth you the Reason more fully § 54. Direct 25. Give not the Magistrates Power to any other whether to the People on pretence of Direct 25. their Majestas Realis as they call it or to the Pope or Prelates or Pastors of the Church upon pretence of authority from Christ or of the distinction of Ecclesiastical Government and Civil The peoples pretensions to Natural Authority or Real Majesty or Collation of Power I have consuted before and more elsewhere The Popes Prelates and Pastors power of the Sword in Causes Ecclesiastical is disproved so fully by Bishop Bilson ubi supra and many more that it is needless to say much more of it All Protestants so far as I know are agreed that no Bishop or Pastor hath any power of the Sword that is of Coercion or force upon men bodies liberties or estates except as Magistrates derived from their Soveraign Their spiritual power is only upon Consenters in the use of Gods Word upon the N. B. Quae habet Andrews Tort. Tort. p. 310. Quando apud vos dictio juris exterior Clavis proprie non sit eamque voâ— multis saepe mandatis qui Laicorum in soâ—te sunt exortes sane sacri ordinis universi Conscience either generally in preaching or with personal application in Discipline No Courts or Commands can compell any to appear or submit nor lay the mulct of a penny upon any but by their own consent or the Magistrates authority But this the Papists will few
fruits without partiality and hypocrisie and to speak evil of no man And where this is obeyed how quietly and easily may Princes govern § 97. 14. Christianity setteth before us the perfectest pattern of all this humility meekness contempt of worldly wealth and greatness self-denyal and obedience that ever was given in the world The Eternal Son of God incarnate would condescend to earth and flesh and would obey his Superiours after the flesh in the repute of the world and would pay tribute and never be drawn to any contempt of the Governours of the world though he suffered death under the false accusation of it He that is a Christian endeavoureth to imitate his Lord And can the imitation of Christ or of Luke 20 18. Matth. 21. 42 44. Acts 4 11. 1 Pet. 2. 7. 8. Zâ—ch 1â— 3. his peaceable Apostles be injurious to Governours Could the world but lay by their Serpentine enmity against the holy doctrine and practice of Christianity and not take themselves engaged to persecute it nor dash themselves in pieces on the stone which they should build upon nor by striving against it provoke it to fall on them and grind them to powder they never need to complain of disturbances by Christianity or Godliness § 98. 15. Christianity and true Godliness containeth not only all these Precepts that tend to peace and order in the world but also strength and willingness and holy dispositions for the practising of such precepts Other Teachers can speak but to the ears but Christ doth write his Laws upon the heart so that he maketh them such as he commandeth them to be Only this is the remnant of our unhappiness that while he is performing the Cure on us we retain a remnant of our old diseases and so his work is yet imperfect And as sin in strength is it that setteth on fire the course of nature so the relicts of it will make some disturbance in the world according to its degree But nothing is more sure than that the Godliest Christian is the most orderly and loyal subject and the best member according to his parts and power in the Common-wealth and that sin is the cause and holiness the cure of all the disorders and calamities of the world § 99. 16. Lastly Consult with experience it self and you will find that all this which I have spoken hath been ordinarily verified What Heathenism tendeth to you may see even in the Roman Government for there you will confess it was at the best To read of the tumults the cruelties Read the lives of all the Philosophers Orators and famous men of Greece or Rome and try whether the Christians or they were more for Monarchy Arcesilaus Regum neminem magnopere coluit Quamobâ—em legatione ad Antigonum fungens pro patria nihil obtinuit Hesich in Arces It s one of Thales sayings in Laert. Quid difficile Regum vidisse tyrannum senem Chrysippus videtur aspâ—rnator Regum modice fuisse Quod cum tam multa scripserit libros 705. nulli unquam regi quicquam adscripserit Senâ—ca faith Traged de Herc. fur perillously Victima haud ulla amplior Potest magisque opima mactari Jovi Quam Rex iniquus Cicero pro Milon Non se obstrinxit scelere siquis Tyrannum occidat quamvis familiarem Et 5. Tusc. Nulla nobis cum Tyrannis societas est neque est contra naturam spoliare eum quem honestum est necare Plura habet similia the popular unconstancy faction and injustice How rudely the Souldiers made their Emperours and how easily and barbarously they murdered them and how few of them from the dayes of Christ till Constantine did dye the common death of all men and scape the hands of those that were their subjects I think this will satisfie you whither mens enmity to Christianity tendeth And then to observe how suddenly the case was altered as soon as the Emperours and Subjects became Christian till in the declining of the Greek Empire some Officers and Courtiers who aspired to the Crown did murder the Emperours And further to observe that the rebellious doctrines and practices against Governours have been all introduced by factions and heresies which forsook Christianity so far before they incurred such guilt and that it is either the Papal Usurpation which is in its nature an enemy to Princes that hath deposed and trampled upon Emperours and Kings or else some mad Enthusiasticks that over-run Religion and their wits that at Munster and in England some lately by the advantage of their prosperity have dared to do violence against Soveraignty but the more any men were Christians and truly Godly the more they detested all such things All this will tell you that the most serious and Religious Christians are the best members of the Civil Societies upon Earth § 100. II. Having done with the first part of my last Direction I shall say but this little of the second Let Christians see that they be Christians indeed and abuse not that which is most excellent to be a cloak to that which is most vile 1. In reading Politicks swallow not all that every Author writeth in conformity to the Polity that he liveth under What perverse things shall you read in the Popish Politicks Contzen and abundance such What usurpation on Principalities and cruelties to Christians under the pretence of defending the Church and suppressing Heresies 2. Take heed in reading History that you suffer not the Spirit of your Author to infect you with any of that partiality which he expresseth to the cause which he espouseth Consider in what times and places all your Authors lived and read them accordingly with the just allowance The name of Liberty was so pretious and the name of a King so odious to the Romans Athenians c. that it is no wonder if their Historians be unfriendly unto Kings 3. Abuse not Learning it self to lift you up with self-conceitedness against Governours Learned men may be ignorant of Polity or at least unexperienced and almost as unfit to judge as of matters of Warr or Navigation 4. Take heed of giving the Magistrates power to the Clergy and setting up Secular Coercive power See Bilson of Subject p. 525 526. proving from Châ—ysost Hilary Oâ—â—gen that Pastors may use no force oâ— terror but only perswasion to recover their wandering sheep Bilson ibid. p. 541. Parliamenâ—s have been kept by the King and his Barons the Clergy wholly excluded and yet their Acts and Statutes good And when the Bishops were present their voices from the Conquest to this day were never Negative By Gods Law you have nothing to do with making Laws for Kingdoms and Common-wealths You may teach you may not command Perswasion is your part Compulsion is the Princes c. Thus Bishop Bilson So p. 358. under the name of the power of the Keys And it had been happy for the Church if God had perswaded Magistrates in all ages to have kept the