Metropolitans a Patriarch that shall have a power over them which they never had themselves And what I say of Superior Orders and Offices I say of Synods For whether the power be Monarchicaâ— or Aristocratical or Democratical there is need of the same power in the Cause that maketh it No man can give that which he hath not to give If you should fly to such popular Principles as the Episcopal Champion Richard Hooker doth and the Jesuites in their Politicks and many yea most other Writers of Politicks and say That as the people are the givers of power to the Soveraign though they are no Governours themselves so the Bishops give power to the Episcopi Episcoporum personal or Synodical I answer The Principle is false about Civil Policy as I have proved against Mr. Hooker in my Christian Directory and as Dr. Hammond hath proved in the Kings Cause against Iohn Goodwin The power every man hath over himself doth so specifically differ from the power of Governing-Societies that the latter is not caused by all mens Contribution of the former and much more in Church-Government which God hath left less the Will of man as Mr. Dan. Cawdrâ—y hath proved To conclude I grant the Superiority of Magistrates and of their Officers circa sacra but not that Inferior Clergy-men may by consent make a Superior Species of Rulers or Episcopos Episcoporum by the Keys in eodem genere But I confess that how far Christ himself hath made Apostolick Successors or Archbishops as to the ordinary part of governing many Churches is a question to me of much more difficulty and moment As for the Patriarchal and other Superior church-Church-power in the Roman Empire that it was made partly by the Emperors themselves as the instances of the two Iustiniana's and many others shew and partly by Councils Authorized thereto by the Emperors is past all doubt IV. As to your fourth Opinion I include the reason of my denial of it in the description of it Whether you confess particular worshipping Churches that have each unum altare to be of Divine Institution I cannot tell but that you take the Diocesan to be so Divine you have told me and that you take the Superior Ruling-Churches to be made by them Now that Churches of mans making Universal or National or Patriarchal c should be the rightful Governors by the Keys over the Churches of Gods making must be either jure Divino or humano not jure humano For 1. Man cannot give the power of the Keys without God 2. And mans grant cannot over top Gods Indeed there is no power but of God 2. Not jure divino For if God give them the power God maketh that Species that containeth that power For God not to make the Office and not to give the power is all one 3. At least what satisfying proof you will give us that indeed God giveth power to Church-Officers of his own making themseves to make nobler superior Officers or Churches than themselves I cannot foresee And till it 's proved it is not to be believed 4. Yea it confoundeth the Inferiours and the Superiors For the Diocesans are so far the Superiors to the Provincial National Patriarchal c. in that they make them or give them their power and yet inferior in that they are to be subjects to them More Nonconformists do deny the power of men to make new Species of Churches and Church Rulers than their power to make new Ceremonies V. Your next mention'd Opinion that it is a sin to preach and congregate people within the local bounds of Diocesan or Provincial or other superior Jurisdictions without their consent falleth of it self if those foregoing fall which it is built upon 1. If it prove true that they that made these superior Jurisdictions had no power to make them but gave that which they had not to give then your foundation faileth 2. If it be proved that neither Christ nor his Apostles ever made a Law that Bishops Jurisdictions shall be limited measured and distributed by space of ground as our Parishes and Diocesses are so that all in such a compass shall be proper to one Pastor much less did ever divide our Diocesses or Parishes which me thinks none should deny then Preaching in that space of ground is no sin against such an Order of Christ. 3. If it be proved as I undertake to do that this distribution by spaces of ground is a work that the King and his Officers are to do or the Churches by his permission by way of contract if he leave it to them and this in obedience to Gods General Laws of Order Peace Concord and Edification then these things will follow 1. That if the King give us Licenses to Preach within such a space of ground we have good Authority and break not the restraining Law And yet such as you accused us of schism as well when the King Licensed us as since 2. That this Law of local bounds doth bind us but as other humane Laws do which is say many Casuists not at all out of the case of scandal when they make not for the bonum publicum But say others more safely not when they notoriously make against 1. Either the bonum publicum which is finis regiminis 2. Or the general Law of God which must authorize them being against edification peace c. 3. When they are contrary to the great certain and indiâ—pensible Laws of God himself And that in such cases patient suffering the penalty which men inflict is instead of obedience to the prohibition and as in Daniels case Dan. 6 and â—he Apostles c. Therefore I am 〈…〉 to give you 1. My Concessions in what cases it 〈…〉 to 〈◊〉 the Magistrate in Preaching where he forbiddeth 〈◊〉 2. 〈◊〉 in what cases it is a great duty But to say that it is a sin because that the Clergy forbiddeth it must have better proof â—â—an I have seen even 1. That such Clergy-men are truly called by God 2. And that they have from him the assignation of this space of ground And 3. are by him empowered to forbid all others to preach on their land 4. And that even when Gods general Laws do make it our duty that they can suspend the obligation of such Laws even the greatest I am ready upon any just occasion to prove to you that I were a heinous sinner if I should have ceased such Preaching as I have used upon all the reasons that you alledg against it And wo to them that make our greatest and dearest duties to pass for sin and our greatest sin Isa. 5.20 Were it but one of the least commands I would be loth to break it and teach men so to do much less one of the greatest when men whose consciences tell them that they are totally devoted to God as Christians and as Ordained Ministers deny their worldly interest and preferments and serve him in poverty beholden for their daily bread and to
denieth § 7. I. If he deny that God hath Instituted the Office of the sacred Ministry and Pastorship in his Law 1. The Scripture will shame him to all that believe and understand it 2. And if it be not divinely established men may alter it and what is all this stir about to keep up their Domination § 8. II. If he think that God hath only Instituted Teachers or Rectors in genere but not in Specie then I give him the same answer as before Scripture will shame him and men may make new Species of Church-Pastors and unmake or alter them and how many or how oft who knows And who be the men that have this Office-changing-power that we may know whether and how far and how long we are bound to obey them § 9. III. If he think that Gods Law hath not described the Essential Qualifications of the Recipient then Prelates may make Pastors of Infidels Mahometans Bedlams or Blasphemers if not of Horses or Dogs § 10. IV. If he think that Gods Law hath determined of no way of Election Approbation or judging who is capable then every man may make himself a Bishop or Priest and the Turk may make Bishops for Christians or a company of Lay-enemies and persecutors may do it and then the Bishops Judgment and Ordination will have no Divine Authority § 11. V. If when the Recipient is duly qualified and chosen and capable he does not think that Gods Law or Grant is a sufficient signification of his Donative will and a fundamentum juris and an obliging instrument 1. He must deny the very nature and force of Gods Law and Grant And 2. He maketh it less effective than the Laws Charters and Donations of men are For which he cannot have the least shew of true reason § 12. VI. Can he devise any other sort of power in the Ordainers than I have named What is it If he say that they give the Office-power I ask Is the controversie about the word Give or the Act If that which I have named be called giving let him use his liberty and call it how he will 1. But as to the Thing what is it more than I have described It is God and not man that made the Office in genere specie Did our Bishops make the universal Law which stablisheth the Office in the world 2. And the Bishop never had that power and therefore cannot give that which he had not It 's Dr. Hammond's reason against Presbyters ordaining Nâ—mo dat quod non habet The word Office or Power and Duty signifieth an Accident which cannot transire a subjecto in subjectum The Ordaâ—ners have their own power but they have not another mans 3. Do they give it as Masters and Owners or only as the Donors Ministers No doubt they will say as his Ministers And do I need to prove to Mr. Dodwell that servants are not the Donors and give not their own but deliver their Masters Stewards themselves are but entrusted with the performance of their Masters will in delivering his Goods as he requireth them § 13. And this is so evident a truth that the Papists themselves who would fain have all power flow from the Pope are yet forced to plead for it as you may see in W Iohnson's alias Terret's answer to my first because else they cannot defend the Papal Power For the Pope hath been sometimes chosen by the Roman people sometime by the Roman Presbyters sometimes by people and Presbyters sometime by the Italian Bishops sometimes by Emperors and now by Cardinals and none of all these were Popes nor had Papal power and if they were the givers must give what they never had Whereupon the Papists are foâ—c't to grant that the Electors do but determine who shall be the Recipient but that the power floweth to him â—mâ—ediâ—tely from Gods Law or Institution § 14. And the Prelatists must needs say the same or else grant that Inferiors that never had Superior power may yet give it others for how else shall the supreme Ecclesiastical power in every National Church be given If it be in a Primate or a Synod those that have not the supreme power must give it for there is none above them or equal to do it And so Archbishops are chosen and Councils called § 15. And thus almost all Societies by contract are formed e. g. The King giveth Commission to several men to List voluntary Souldiers and be their Captains and command them Every Souldier chooseth his own Captain and thereby subjecteth himself to him but it is not by giving him his power for that floweth immediately from the Kings Commission but by making himself a subject to it and so maâ—ing the Captain Relatively a Recipient of power from God and the King over this particular man for the Soldiers have no governing-power to give nor are superiors to their Captain § 16. And thus Servants impropeâ—ly only make men their Masters not by giving them a Domestick Ruling-power which they never had themselves but by making themselves the Correlate Subjects and so putting their Masters into the Relation to which Gods Lâ—w immediately giveth the Ruling-power All the power is from God and God doth not first give it the Servant Souldier c. to give the Master or Captain but the Servants or Souldiers consent is a Causa sine quae non disposâ—tiva Recipientis to make the Receiver capable of it from God § 17. And indeed all Kings and Soveraigns thus hold their Soveraignty from God Though God hath not made the form in Specie necessary all power is of God and the Soveraignty from him by no mediate Efficient below his Law It 's a falshood in politicks to say that the people as such efficiently give the Soveraign his power and that he is universis minor in Authority though he is not universis melior and therefore their common good is more than his the finis regiminis Nor is it true that Richard Hooker saith that in defect of Heirs it escheateth to the people but only that it belongeth to the people to choose a new Recipient to whom the power shall flow from Gods Law and not from them I do not think that the King of France Spain or England will believe that their power is given â—fficiently by and floweth from their People Parliaments or the Prelate that Crowneth them And the case is evidently the â—am as to the Ministry § 18. And the French Papists by some called Protestants who are for the Ecclesiastical Soveraignty of General Councils above the Pope do not believe that the Pope giveth them their power though he may call them But whoever calleth them or chooseth them they suppose that God only giveth them their power § 19. And in all these cases it is notorious that an interrâ—ption of due Election and Investiture hindereth not the restoration of interrupted power If the Law say whoever is thus and thus chosen to be Lord Chancellor Lord
excommunications Why then are the openly wicked so numerous 2. Do you think men can change their judgment meerly because they are commanded or excommunicated If a man study and pray and endeavour to the utmost to know the truth and you say that yet he erreth will a censure cure his understanding E. g. a Nestorian a Monothelite an Anabaptist c. much less when a man knoweth that he is in the right and the censurer fighteth againd truth and duty Men in some diseases will rage at the sight of certain things which would not much trouble them if the disease were cured Macedonius and Nestorius that were judged Hereticks themselves could not bear the Bishops and meetings of the Novatians But Atticus could and they lived together in Christian Love I know those places now in England where a Conformable and Nonconformable Minister live in so great love and the latter go still to the Parish-Churches and the former sometimes come to them as that no considerable trouble ariseth by their difference And I know other places where the publick Ministers cannot bear any that hear not themselves yea or that constantly hearing them hear any other that dissenteth But they seek to win Dissenters as Fowlers would bring Birds to the Net by showting and throwing stones at them and Anglers would catch Fish by beating the Waters VI. I will tell you also that I much dissent from you in that when I told you that the Tyranny of Prelates hath done more hurt than the disobedience and discord of the People towards them you said you do not think so Qu. Do you think that Thieves have killed as many men as Wars have done If it be true that Iulius Caesar and his Armies killed 1192000. persons besides those that he slew in the Civil Wars That Darius lost at once 200 000 and abundance of such instances in lower degrees may be given sure poor Thieves and Murderers come far short of this account And so it is in the present case Gregory Nazian was a wise and good man who saith the people were factious and too unruly but at Const. were honest and meant well But how sadly doth he describe the Bishops as rageâ—ing even in their Councils and as the far greater causes of all calamity Judg by the Twenty instances that I before gave you about their excommunication How few Heresies or Schisms were there of old that the Bishops were not the notorious causes of The Samosatinians Apollinarians Macedonians Nestorians Acephali the Monothelites yea the Donatists Novatians the Phantasiasticks and almost all The Arrians began by a Presbyter but if Petavius cites them truly as he doth too many Bishops led him the way and most of the Bishops followed and were the men that kept up and increased the Heresie far beyond the people or the Presbyters Eutychus a Monk began his Cause but he was quickly contemned by his followers and did little in comparison of Dioscorus Severus and many hundred more Bishops And is it the People or the Bishops that now keep East and West in mutual damnations Have the Peoples divisions done more harm than the Papal Schism and Usurpations and Cruelties killing about 2000000. as is said of Albigenses and Waldenses the Inquisitions bloody Wars against the Germane Emperors and many English Kings the Rebellion against the Greek Emperor Leo Isaurus and destruction of the Eastern Empire our Smithfield Bone-fires and innumerable other Cruelties Desolations Heresies and Schisms Are all these less than the abuse of Liberty by Inferiors in Praying Preaching or Disorders Judg Hale saith That he had a friend that stored a very great Pond of Three or Four Acres with a great number of Fish and at Seven years end only put in Two very small Pikes and at the draught of his Pond there was not one Fish left but the Two Pikes grown to an excessive bigness and all the rest with their millions of fry devoured by the pair of Tyrants Hale of the Orig. of Man Sect. 2. cap. 9 pag. 208. The Block had been a better Ruler The Lord forgive the Presbyterians their over-keenness against Sects before the Pikes have made an end of them Pardon truth to Your Servant Ri. Baxter For the Learned Mr. Henry Dowell after a personal Conference with him SIR COncord and Peace are so very desirable to the ends of Christianity that I am glad to hear you speak for them in the general though I take your way to be certainly destructive of them and because you think the like of mine and so while we are agreed for the end we greatly differ about the means I shall here perform what I last offered you viz. I. An explication of my own sense of the way of Church-concord because you said I am still upon the destructive part viz. 1. My fundamental Principles 2. The way of concord which I suppose to be sufficient and only likely as appointed by God to attain that end II. The reasons of my utter dissent from your way III. A Proposal for our further debating of these differences I. I hope if you are a man of charity or impartiality it will be no hard matter to you to believe that I am willing to be acquainted with healing truth that I say not as willing as you and if I be unhappy in the success of my Enquiries it is not for want of searching diligence And your parts assure me that it is so with you But it is the usual effect of one received error to let in many more and it is so either with me or you And lest it should prove my unhappiness I shall thankfully accept your remedying informations 1. The Principles which I presuppose are such as these 1. As God as Creator so Christ as Redeemer is the Universal King and Head over all things to the Church which is his body Ephes. 1.22 23. Ioh. 17.2 c. 2. He hath made Vniversal Laws to be means of this Universal Government 3. His Universal Laws are in suo genere sufficient to their proper use 4. There is no other Universal King or Ruler of the world or of the Church whether Personal or Collective And therefore none that hath power of Universal Legislation or Jurisdiction 5. Much less any that hath a superiour power to alter Gods Universal Laws by abrogation subrogation suspension or dispensation Nor will God himself alter them and substitute new ones As Tertullian saith We at first believe this that no more is to be believed 6. These Laws of our Universal Governour are partly of natural Revelation and partly of Supernatural viz. by himself and by his Spirit in his Apostles given in an extraordinary measure to this end to lead them into all truth which is delivered to us in their Scripture-records 7. Some local precepts whose matter was narrow and temporary even the mutable customs of that time and place were also narrow and temporary as the washing of feet anointing vailing women the kiss of peace c
AN ANSWER TO Mr. Dodwell and Dr. Sherlocke Confuting an Universal Humane Church-Supremacy Aristocratical and Monarchical as Church-Tyranny and Popery And defending Dr. Isaac Barrow's Treatise against it By Richard Baxter Preparatory to a fuller Treatise against such an Universal Soveraignty as contrary to Reason Christianity the Protestant Profession and the Church of England though the Corrupters usurp that Title LONDON Printed for Thomas Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns at the lower end of Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1682. READER THough the difference between Mr. Dodwell and Mr. Thorndike and such others and those condemned by them be very great I would not have it seem greater than it is The sum of it is as followeth 1. Mr. Dodwell thinketh that there is no true Ministry Church-Sacraments nor Covenant-right to pardon and salvation but where there is a Ministry delivering the Sacraments who were ordained by Bishops in his sense of Bishops who had their Ordination from other Bishops and they from others by an uninterrupted chain of succession from the Apostles We know that by this Doctrine he condemneth or unchurcheth not only the Reformed Churches the Greeks and other Easterns but the Church of Rome it self and leaveth no certainty of the very being of any one Church on earth And we maintain that the sacred Scripture is the universal Law of Christ in which he hath described and instituted the office and work of the sacred Ministry and appointed the way of their continuance in the world by necessary Qualification Election Consent and ordinarily regular Ordination That as Presbyters now lay on hands with the Bishop so senior Pastors are the Ordainers as the Colledg of Physicians license Physicians and the Convocation of Doctors make Doctors and man generateth man But to avoid contention and division the Churches have used to make one of these Presbyters or Pastors a President and partly a Ruler in each Colledg and Church and given him a Negative voice in Ordinations against which we strive not but maintain 1. That his consent is not so necessary as that no one can be a true Presbyter that hath it not As the Clergy at Rome in Cyprian's days long governed when they had no Bishop so if the Bishop be dead or refuse to ordain or would ordain none but Hereâ—icks or uncapable men or would tyrannize and impose men not consented to the Ordination is valid that is made without him And 2. That the true chief Pastor of every particular formed Church is a true Bishop though Diocesans should deny it 3. And that even Ordination it self is necessary but for Order where it may be had and not to the Being of the Ministry where it cannot be had on lawful terms no more than Coronation to the King or publick solemnization to Marriage 4. And we are assured that if Regular Ordination were interrupted by death heresie refusal neglect e. g. at Antioch Alexandria Constantinople Jerusalem c. Christs Charter or Scripture-Law would presently restore it to persons duly qualified chosen and ordained by the fittest there that can be had 5. If this were not so as multitudes of schismatical and unlawful Popes Ordinations at Rome would be invalid e. g. John 13. and 21. and 23. and Eugenius 4th deposed as a Heretick by a General Council c. so every usurping Bishop that pretendeth falsly that he was himself lawfully ordained would nullifie Churches Ministry and Sacraments of all ordained by him And many have falsly pretended to Orders 6. And that if men must refuse the Government and Sacraments of all Bishops and Presbyters that do not prove to them a Regular Ordination uninterrupted for 1600. years all the Ministry on earth may be refused and none for so doing should be called Schismaticks I never yet heard or saw a Bishop prove such a succession nor ever knew one that would take his Oath on it that he was a true Bishop on such terms II. Mr. Dodwell thinks that the Presbyters yea and Bishops were not given by God Pag. 60. saith he But where do they find that God ever gave Bishops Presbyters and Deacons Where note that it is of the Office in specie that we speake But we think that God hath made or instituted the Office and its work And if he did not 1. Who did If men was it Clerg-ymen or Lay-men If Lay-men was it Christians or Infidels And by what Authority Do the children beget the fathers and yet may not Presbyters propagate their species If Clergy-men who were they If not Apostles or Prophets or Evangelists they were none If these then it seems the Apostles did it not as Bishops for it is the making of the first Bishops that we question And what the Apostles did not as Bishops but as commissioned Apostles Christ did by his Spirit And they that will do the like must have the like Office Authority and Spirit If God gave not Bishops because the Apostles made them then God gave us not the Scripture because the Apostles and Evangelists wrote it And is not this the same or worse Doctrine than that which the Italian Iesuits would have had pass at Trent against Gods making Bishops or their Office And if God gave not Bishops or Presbyters they that reject them reject no gift or institution of God And if men made them how come they to be essential to the Church Did not Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles institute so much as the Church-essentials And if men made Bishops and Presbyters in specie may not man unmake them III. Mr. Dodwell maintaineth that the power of Presbyters is to be measured by the intention of the Ordainers who give it them and not by any Scripture-institution charter or description We maintain the contrary that God having instituted and described the Office of Bishops Pastors Presbyters Gods Law in Scripture is the Rule by which the office-power and obligation and work in the essentials must be known Otherwise 1. It would be supposed that God made not the office of Bishops or Presbyters which is false 2. That Ordainers may make new Churches Bishops or Presbyters in specie yea as many species of them as they shall intend 3. That they may abrogate or change the ancient species They may make one office only for preaching another only for praying another only for Baptism another only for the Lords Supper and others for new work of their own The Papists themselves abhor this Doctrine 4. Then no man can know the measure of his Authority not knowing the intentions of the Ordainers Perhaps three or ten ordainihg Bishops may have three or ten several intents 5. Then the Bishop may put down Gods Worship or Sacraments by limiting the Priests power 6. It 's contrary to all Ministerial Investitures The Investing Minister is not the Owner or the Donor but delivereth possession of what the Owner and Donor contracted for or gave If the Archbishop Crowning the King would infringe his Prerogative it 's a
Nullity because he is not the Giver of it nor is his intention but the Kingdoms constitution the measure of it If the Priest would make the man whom he marrieth to a woman no governour of her it 's a Nullity for it is not his intent that makes the power 7. If this were otherwise I call and call again but in vain to Mr. Dodwell and all his party to tell me how the Bishops and Priests of the Church of England in the days of Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th and Queen Elizabeth came to have power to put down the Mass to set up the Liturgie to take down Images and to reform as they did when it was certainly contrary to the intention of their Ordainers 8. And setting this point together with the other that Ordination of Presbyters is null I ask them and ask again but all in vain 1. Do not Bishops generate their Species and make Bishops their equals 2. Who then can give his Office to the Archhishop if he have no Superior in England unless his Inferiors give it or you fly to a Forreign Iurisdiction 3. Whose Intention is it that giveth power to the Pope if he be greatest Or to the General Council if it be greatest If there be none above them either God or Inferiours give them their power 4. And what if these Inferiours that make Popes Primates or Councils by Intention would take down half their power Is it then done What self-contradiction and confusion would some men rather run into than grant Christ to be Christ that is the only Vniversal Head and Legislator to the Church on Earth IV. Accordingly Mr. D. holdeth that there is a supreme Authority in man over the Universal Church from whose intention and sense it is not lawful for us to appeal so much as to the Sacred Scripture no nor to the Day of Iudgment for any practice different from them See his Reply p. 80 81 82 83 84 85. Though we hold that no unjust Appeal should suspend the authorised Acts of a Governour this Doctrine seems to me to be worse than Antichristian and to put down God If God indeed be the Vniversal Soveraign Lawgiver and the final Iudge if God be God and man be man and not above him to say that we must not obey him before man and disobey man that commands what he forbids or that we must not appeal from mans subordinate Law to his supreme Law nor from mans judgment to his final judgment and to say as he and Thorndike do that to do so and practise accordingly is inconsistent with all Government are things that I had hoped my ears or eyes should never have seen or heard delivered by a sober Christian. Papists most commoâ—ly abhor it save some few Flatterers of the Pope If â—his be so a man must not only worship Images swear to the Pope and do all that Councils command but also curse Christ if the Turkish Rulers bid him blaspheme God if Heathen Rulers bid him and condemn all the Martyrs as Rebels that did subvert all Government by practising contrary to it and appealing to God And then man must be every where of the Rulers Religion and do whatever wickedness he commandeth Dan. 1. and 3.6 and the Church for three hundred years and more tell us of other kind of Examples V. Mr. D. holdeth this Absolute Destructive Power to be essentially necessary to the Vnity of the Catholick Church which is the sum of Thorndike's Book I would not go further from them or the French in the point of Vnity than I needs must I shall therefore tell you what is our judgment of it 1. We grant them that Christ's Church on earth is one and its Vnity is part of its very essence as the Vnity of the parts of a House Ship c. 2. We hold that this essential Vnity consisteth in the Vnion of all Christians with Christ the only unifying Vniversal Head and that the Vnity described Ephes. 4.4 5 6. sufficeth to it viz. One Body of Christ one Spirit one Hope of Grace and Glory one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father c. And that all this is prescribed in the Gospel and every true Christian hath all this 3. That all must endeavour to keep this Vnity in the bond of peace and to be in every lesser matter of one mind as far as they can And the Pastors of the Churches to beautifie and strengthen the Church by as much concord as they can well obtain 4. But that perfect concord being the fruit of personal perfection will never be had on earth And the differences of the infirm that cannot be cured must be tolerated in tender Brotherly Love And to persecute or destroy Christians who unite in Christ and the Essentials of Christianity because they are not of one size of knowledg and differ in lesser things is the work of Satan the Enemy of Love and the great Destroyer 5. We believe that Synods or Councils are so far good and useful as they are needful to the foresaid strength and concord of the Churches But that they are for Agreement and not for direct Regiment as Archbishop Usher was wont to say Councils are not for Government of the several Bishops by the Majority but for Consultation and Concord And they that cannot in all things consent to them in Accidentals or lesser matters are not therefore cut off from Christ's Vniversal Church But it is a fault peevishly and causelesly to dissent and be singular a breach of Christ's general Law of doing our work as much as we can in Love and Concord Plainly Reader do you know the difference between the Senate of Rome or Venice and the Assembly at Nimmegen Ratisbone or Frankford The said Senate is una persona Politica though plures naturales and hath the Supreme Government by Vote in Legislation and Iudgment and it is Rebellion there to disown their Power and a Crime not to obey it At Nimmegen Ratisbone c. many Princes or their Agents meet for Peace and Christian Concord It is a sin for any of them to be causelesly against any Vote that is useful to those ends But no one of them nor the major Vote is Governour of the rest nor is any one to be dispossest of his Dominion that seeth reason to dissent This is plain truth Though Dr. Sherlock find fault with the Learned and Iudicious Dr. Barrow for asserting it in his Treatise against the Papacy And it being not Regiment but Concord that is the end of Synods as over Bishops there is no more use than possibility of an Vniversal Council or one Vniversal Colledge But the necessity and aptitude of Councils for strengthning concord must measure their extent What Mr. D's opinion is of the degree of corporal punishment which he would have used to his ends I know not Mr. Thorndike is against Death and Banishment For my part the two greatest things that have alienated me
from Popery are 1. That it cherisheth Ignorance and I am sure that is the soil of all wickedness God Christ the Spirit and Scripture are Light and Satan is the Prince of Darkness 2. That it liveth like the Leech on blood hating and destroying the most holy persons who differ from them To these my Soul is unreconcilable I hate cruelty to Papists or Infidels much more to godly faithful persons that do hurt to none And I think I have convinced Mr. Dodwell himself that I am not inclined for the avoiding of Popery to run into any contrary Extreme nor to imitate them thaâ— ignorantly call Truth or harmless things Antichristian or Popish The name of Popery doth not affright me from any truth of God What I have written in many Books especially in the last part of my Catholick Theology and what censures I have suffered for it which never moved me to comply with the Censurers I think prove it I again and again profess That if the Papists or such as I now deal with would but prove that God ever made or allowed such a Church as they plead for in the world that is an Vniversal Church constituted or unified by any one Head or Supreme Governing pâ—râ— Monarchical or Aristocratical under Christ the Dispute whether it be Pope or Council or Cardinals or Colledge of Bishops in all the world shall not hinder me from a chearful and joyful declaring my self a Papist without partiality fear or shame in the sense that the word Papist hath still signified with such as I converse with These things I have taken the boldness to ask some of the greatest that on the fore mentioned terms appropriate the name of the Church of England to their Sect or Party and I could get no answer from them viz. Whether they took the Councils of Constance and Basil for Papists And whether they now take the Bishops and Church of France for Papists And whether they took Gerson Cusanus Cassander Erasmus for Papists or not 2. If yea What is the difference between the said Papists Church-Form and Government and that which these call the Church Catholick and Dispute for 3. If not Then is not the Controversie de nomine Whether the French Bishops and Church and the said Councils being of the same Form and Religion with the Church of England as called by these men ought to be called Papists or not And for that I shall strive with none Let every man call them as he seeth cause or if he will as they will call themselves Let them be Papists in France and Protestants in England I contend not for names But I wonder not at these Church-men if they unchurch the French Protestants and condemn their Ministry and Sacraments as none How else could their Persecution be justified And O that they would tell us what Churches they be that they live in communion with Whether the French Spanish Italian Greeks Nestorians Jacobites Copties Abassines be in their Communion or not If yea Whether the Reformed Churches be not as worthy of their communion If not whether the Church of England be all the Catholick Church in their account O that we could long more for God's righteous final Iudgment to which we appeal though Mr. Dodwell be against it and for the world of perfect Light and Love and Union Dated Septemb. 2. 1681. appointed a Publick Fast for the burning of London I have not time to gather the Errata of the Press I cast my eye on these Pag. 9. l. 19. for natures r. names p. 10. l. antep dele and. p. 11. l. antep r. is in p. 17. l. 1. for or r. over p. 5. l. 29. after excommunicating r. Christ's servants for not forsaking their faithful Pastors p. 10. l. ult for of r. by p. 16. l. 32. for our r. one p. 90. l. 12 r. temerity p. 139. l. 17. for by r. to pag. 151. l. 4. for by r. my c. THE CONTENTS A Late Letter of Mr. Dodwell's with the Answer written since the rest was printed Chap. 1. Of Mr. Dodwell's displeasure against me as if I accused him to be a Papist and wronged the Councils of Bishops p. 1. Chap. 2. His schismatical Church-destroying Scheme the sum of his great schismatical book confuted p. 7 Chap. 3. The consequents of Mr. Dodwell's foresaid Doctrine p. 21 Chap. 4. My words of Gods Collation of Ministerial Authority vindicated from the forgeries and fallacies of Mr. Dodwell p. 27 What my assertion is of the cause of Church power p. 29. The contrary p. 32. The truth proved p 33 c. His objections answered p. 36. c. Bishops are of God p. 46. c. His sad qualification of Ministers p. 48. Preferring God is no wrong to Government p. 54. What succession we have p. 54. Of Aidan and Finans Episcopacy p. 57. His assertion of supreme Church-power from whom there is no appeal to Scripture to God or the life to come and whose intention is the measure of the power of all ordained by them examined p. 57 c. Whether the Church on earth be one visible society under one visible humane Government p. 59. Whether Divine Authority may not be pretended for practising contrary to some superiors p. 60 Chap. 5. Wherein Mr Dodwell's deceits and their danger lie p. 63. Whether there be but one sense of all terms which causes obliging men to mean all that have skill in causes are to understand p. 63. Twelve great doctrinal Articles in which we differ from Mr. Dodwell p. 65. Some questions put to him p. 68 His second Letter to me from Ireland p. 70. My Answer to it p. 75. proving the impossibtlity of just Discipline in the Diocesan way which I dissent from The short Answer to Mr. Dodwell's long Letter which Dr Sherlocke and Mr. Morrice extol which is fully answered in my Treatise of Episcopacy p. 90. A Letter sent to Mr. Dodwell Mar. 12 1681. A Letter to Mr. Dodwell Nov. 15. 1680. Anothâ—r to him of July 9. 1677. opening many of our chief differences p. 100. Another after a personal conference sent to him but returned because he was gone into the Country debating with him eleven of our great differences in which Mr. Dodwell may be known p. 118. An Account of my dissent from Dr. Sherlocke his Doctrine Accusations and Argumentation specially about the essence of the Universal a National and Single Church and the nature of Schism c. CHap. 1. The Historical Proem Chap. 2. My â—etter and Counsâ—l to Mr. Sherlocke many years ago advising him to expound or retract his words which seem to deny the three Articles of our Baptismal covenant our belief in God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost p. 162 His Answer p. 173 Chap. 3. Of the ill manner of these mens Confutations p. 174 Chap. 4. The main part of our difference viz. what is the essential form of the Catholick National and single Churches p. 182 Chap. 5. What is the
life and light and love and that the destroying of these by hiding the Scriptures unintelligible worships Imagery dead hypocrisie silencing and persecuting and killing Gods servants making dividing engines to tear and Canons to batter the peace of the Church and this by an ignorant ungodly worldly Ministry seeking not the things of God but of men all this is the Devils work and to do the Devils work against Christ is not a sign of Christs servants he bids us judg of our selves and others by the fruits His servants we are whom we obey If a Peter once give Christ such worldly fleshly counsel he shall hear worse than I said of Church-Tyrants get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of men Mat. 16.22 hating the good silencing thousands of faithful Ministers excommunicating and sinning against God in obedience to Prelates and for using the needful means of their own salvation and serving God but as Peter and Paul did this is the Devils work if he have any in the world And Mr. Dodwell must trust more to swords than words to keep it up for there is a spirit in true Christians that will never suffer them to believe that it is pleasing to God what name soever is pretended for it § 7. I will reverence the Iews visible Church to whom were committed the Oracles of God but will not say that they sinned not in persecuting Christ and his Apostles nor say that they are not now under their own curse and cut off from the Church who once cast out Christians from their Synagogues I will give due honour to Primogeniture and yet not equal Cain and Abel Ismael and Isaac Esau and Iacob c. but expect that as he that was born after the flesh did persecute him that was born after the spirit even so it will be now And the world was the world still when it was taken into the Church The Heathen Romans were less Persecutors than the Iews and so are the Turks than the Papists § 8. I shall in due place take notice of Mr. D's confining the Essence of the Ministry to transacting between God and man in covenanting requiring essentially no more skill than any man is capable of who is but capable of understanding the common dealings of the world p. 73 74. And that Immoralities of such mens Lives excuse us not from Schism for turning from such to better Teachers p. 72. contrary to the Epistle of the Carthage Council in the case of Martial and Basilides and even of Popes and Councils that forbid hearing Mass from a Fornicator And his denying the â—cripture to be intended or designed to be a Charter to appeal to for all future generations and for the extent of Offices and preventing litigious dispute about government and subjection p. 80 81. But that recourse ought now to be had to the intention of the Ordainers for these And what he saith p. 81. against appealing to Writings as he calls them against the sense of all the visible authority of this life as unreconcilable to the practice of any visible government on earth p. 81. And that subjects cannot preserve their subordination to their superiors if they practice differently and defend their practices and pretend Divine Authority for them where he speaketh indefinitely and excepteth no practices And if we may not appeal from man to God and Scripture we may appeal from Scripture to man And if mans Law be above Gods it is not from him for the inferior maketh not his superior And the root of all this iâ— p 82 That God hath made his Church and not only particular Churches that are parts of his Church a visible Society and constituted a visible Government in it Did I know what Mr. D. taketh this one visible Government to be whether General Council or Pope or all the Bishops of the world by a major vote or all the people of the Christian world or what I should know what to say to him But for this I must not hope § 9. But I shall after speak to his securing subterfuge p. 90. That there is but one sense of all terms which causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to skill in causes Which I am so defective in that I know not at all what his cause is till he tell me Nor know I among many senses of most of his chief terms which it is that he meaneth I know not what he meaneth by a Papist and whether he take those for Papists that are as the Councils of Constance and Basil and the French for the supremacy of a Council the Pope being President or Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch of us in the West I know not who he meaneth by the Supreme Church-power in the visible Universal Church I know not by what he essentiateth the very Episcopacy which he so much pleads for no nor their Ordination I know not what he taketh to be the Supreme church-Church-power over the Church of England And how can I know by the bare general name when Dr. Stillingfleet denieth any such thing CHAP. II. His Schiswatical Church destroying Scheme Confuted § 1. BEcause he dealeth so falsly with my Doctrine by pretence of putting it into his words and order I will deal better with him and deal with his Scheme word by word as he hath laid it down As for his exceptions thâ—t I refel not his charge of the sin against the Holy Ghost c. I am not yet so idle having formerly written a Treatise of that sin His wilful refusal to answer Voetius de desperata Causa Papalus when he knoweth that this Plea is the Papists chief strength and Iansenius is so fully answered is but a dishonourable tergiversation And it 's like he knoweth how Melancthon in his Epistles copiously shameth Mr. Dodwell's cause as trusted to by the Papists when yet the Protestants here plead Melancthon's judgment for their Reformation And though Mr. D. told me that it is not for the Christian Interest to hold that the Roman successive Ordination hath been interrupted I think they that believe their own most flattering Historians must believe that the intercision there hath been more notorious than in those Reformed Churches which Mr. Dodwell nulleth or than those German and Danish Bishops whom Bugenhagius a Presbyter ordained But I will briefly examine the words of his destructive deceiving Frame 1. That all are obliged to submit to all unsinful conditions of the Episcopal Communion where they live if imposed by the Ecclesiasiastical Governours thereof And 2. That the nature of this obligation is such as will make them who rather than they will submit to such conditions either separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from communion by such Governours for such a refusal of submission guilty of the sin of SCHISM Here are two parts a 1. That all are obliged to
Congregational or Parochial Bishops or Pastors without such as our Diocesans It must be Pastoral or true Episcopal regular Communion 3. Many Individual Bishops separating from one another have been and may be in one City 4. If e. g. the Bishop of Lincoln have many Counties and one differing from him were chosen by the Clergy at Leicester Hartford c. as he was by the King which of them is the Bishop on the place If Gloucester Clergy and People had chose another when Goodman a Papist was Bishop which was the Bishop 1. 1. Salvation is pronounced by Conformists to be certain upon Baptism without any other Sacrament 2. Popes and Papists are as much as any for tying salvation to Sacraments and yet a Pope Victor and his Council at Benevent 1078. decree that rather than Communicate with a Simonist they should persist without visible Communion and in mind joined to Christ have his Communion 3. What shall they do ordinarily in Italy Spain France c. that have none but Papist Bishops 1. Wilful neglect of any known means sheweth wilful disobedience against God But many means may be ignorantly neglected without destroying assurance of salvation Turtullian thought children should stay from Baptism unless in danger of death and Nazianzen was for some years delay This ignorance damned not the practisers Apocryphal books divers Sacraments Ceremonies Church-Offices Doctrines have been controverted means among true Christians 2. Faith comes by hearing Rom. 10. Christ blesseth them that hear and do it Thousands are mentioned as believing by hearing and salvation is promised to Faith 2. 1. Whoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved Ask and ye shall have True faith and conversion wrought by hearing Gods word and working by true love and prayer hath many a promise of pardon and salvation 2. Is a baptized praying believer out of the Communion of Christs Church though he doubt of Diocesans or Patriarchs He is not 2. 1. Ordinarily faith comes by hearing and hearing by preaching and he that truly believeth shall be saved Iohn 13.16 2. I think many Score or Hundreds of Protestant Divines have proved that Baptism giveth not the first Right to life but only solemnly confirmeth sealeth and by Ministerial investiture publickly delivereth that which true Faith received before See Gataker's two Tracts on Dr. Ward 's and Dr. Davenant's Theses 3. What 's Baptism to Episcopacy till King Iames alter'd it Women might Baptize in England and Priests still may And are men Baptized into the Name or Belief of Diocesans as Bellarmine saith Baptism binds them to the Pope Prove this if you can 2. If Baptism undoubtedly save at what Age doth the effect cease 2. The Lords Supper is necessary for corroboration and for expressing true obedience and living by Faith on Christ where it can lawfully be had and the need and use of it is understood B. This is false If they be given by a Lay-man falsly pretending Orders or by one who hath no Authority through uncapacity or usurpation yet the receiver loseth not his Right he taketh it as from God and if his ignorance be not culpable there is not so much as disobedience in it 2. If I prove that Papists have no such Authority as you plead for are all their Baptisms and Ordinations null III. Episcopal Communion is the Cothurnus the Hose drawn over your ulcer and snare 1. We have mental Communion in Essentials with all true Bishops in the world 2. We have Subject Communion with true Parish-Bishops 3. And with their Ruling Bishops at least as Magistrates 4. Novatians Luciferians Donatists and others in time of Schisms had all Orders in Episcopal Communion and so have Papists Greeks Moscovites Armenians 5. Parish-Bishops have more proof of Authority from Christ than the Diocesans or many hundred Congregations that have no other Bishops 6. Authority may be given by God without any Ordination where it cannot be had or not without sinning 1. No doubt but all true Authority must be derived from God 2. Those to whom it was first given were the Twelve Apostles They are considered 1. As the Inspired Prophetical Declarers and Recorders of the Laws and Doctrine and Promises of Christ. 2. As chief Pastors of the Church to gather and rule it All Gods gifts and graces that come to us by the mediation of the Gospel come by the Apostles mediation in the first sense as declaring Christs Will how Ministers shall be made in all Ages And as chief Pastors gathering and setling the first Churches which by Christs Charter shall call their Pastors and so others to the end of the world they may be said to be Mediators herein 3. But they mediate not as the Donors of the Pastoral power as being Pastors themselves but only as Ministerial investers The Sacraments come not to us without the mediation of the Apostles but they made them not nor make them effectual nor make new Apostles to deliver them 3. This is deceitful confusion 1. Authority to Administer Sacraments and Authority to call others to administer them are different things 2. And so is succession of Apostolical power and succession of common Ministry 3. And so is giving power as the Donor and giving it as an investing servant 4. And proper giving it and improper which is but qualifying the persons to receive it 1. Apostolical Prophetical conveyance harh no such succession 2. The Flock that have no Authority to Administer Sacraments partake of the Authority to call others to do it 3. Inferiors may have Authority to call Superiors else the highest could not be made 4. None of these people give the power but their Election is part of the receivers qualifications to whom God giveth it by his Law or Charter And then as serâ—ants they solemnize the Investiture 5. The power of this Law or Charter is never interrupted But if all Pastors were dead an Hundred years it would renew Pastoral power in the Church without uninterrupted Donors or Investers 4. This conveying power is where-ever Gods Law and capable receivers are A capable receiver is 1. One personally qualified with sufficiency and willingness 2. And that hath the Churches and Ordainers necessary consent when ordinary for order sake the Ordainers then must invest him by declaring him authorized by God c. The regular Ordination like publick Matrimony after contract is to be by authorized Ordainers and most Bishops Diocesan Papists Greeks Moscovites Armenian c. are of more doubtful Authority than Congregational or Parish Bishops though the former usurp the name as appropriated to them b. 2. 1. Then men in Rome Italy Spain France c. must be of the Papists Prelates Churches and Communion 2. Paulinus and Flavian Donatists Novatians Arrians c. may have Bishops in the same place And the Orthodox two or more at once Grotius thought as many as there were Synagogues in a City 3. Then if I prove the chief Pastor of a Parish or City-Church to be
a true Bishop by vertue of Gods Law and if he have better Qualification and Election and Ordination to be of surer Authority than the Diocesan it 's his Communion that we must prefer 4. But indeed Baptism and Salvation are ordinarily given before Episcopal Communion of any sort 5. They that thought the Pope Antichrist as most Protestant Bishops long did thought it a duty to reject the Communion of the Bishops of the places where they lived And Denmark and other Countries set up others against them that were ordained by Bugenhagius and other Prsbyters 6. Parochial and Diocesan bounds are humane mutable institutions 7. If the Bishop of the place be a Schismatick the Communion of a better near is better b. II. 1. All causleless separation from any Christians or causleless disobedience to any Pastor or neglect of any Christian duty needful to the Churches peace and concord and every opinion and practice that is against them doth make a man guilty of sinful Division or Schism in some degree And while every Christian hath many errors and sins which all tend to some sinful breach as the least sore is solutio continui I cannot see but every man living hath some guilt of Schism nor that there is any Church on earth that hath not some such guilt But every degree of guilt denominateth not the man or Church a Schismatick in a predominant or mortal sense And in Charity I hope that even some of those heinous Schismaticks may be saved that divide the Churches by their usurpation obtrusion sinful impositions and worldly domination yea some that in blind zeal put down Parish-Bishops and smite and silence the Pastors and scatter the Flocks And if I must have Communion with none that 's guilty of Schism with what Church or Bishop should I joyn And if their Sacraments be invalid what a case is Italy Spain France yea and England in Must all be baptized again that they baptized 2. But it 's no schism but a duty for the people as far to forsake a sinful Bishop much more an usurper as Cyprian and that Council advised them to do in the case of Martial and Basilides 3. And after all this deceitful confusion note Reader that he denieth not our disobedience to be lawful in case of sinful conditions imposed And if we fully prove not this to be our case let our accusers silence us and let our guilt be our shame 4. And if people that had Parish-Bishops on the place where they lived lawfully called shall forsake them to obey a Diocesan that is not on the place but perhaps Forty or Fifty or Sixty Miles off and never saw them and was obtruded contrary to the ancient Canons which nullifie such and sets himself to silence faithful Pastors and persecute them and other godly Christians for not sinning heinously upon deliberate choice and covenant doth not even this man conclude such to be Schismaticks that are out of the ordinary way and hope of salvation CHAP. III. The consequence of Mr. Dodwell's foresaid doctrine 1. THOSE that live under the Popish Bishops in Italy Spain France c. must live in their communion and under their command in all unsinful things 2. The Protestant Churches that have not Episcopal Ordination are no true Churches and have no true Ministers or Sacraments nor any Covenant-right to salvation 3. The Protestant Churches are in the same unchurched damnable case that have Bishops if they have not an uninterrupted succession of such from the Apostles canonically ordained 4. Therefore the Churches of Denmark Germany c. that have Superintendents ordained at the Reformation by Bugenhagius Pomeranus a Presbyter and all the rest whose succession was interrupted are in the same case 5. It is Schism and rejecting Sacraments and Covenant-right to salvation in all the people that continue in such Protestant Churches and communicate with them 6. It is better for the Protestants in France to joyn with the Papists than to live as they do without Sacraments or Church-communion 7. Yet by self contradiction it will follow that certainly the Church of Rome and all that derive their ordination from that Church have no true Bishops Ministers Sacraments Churches nor Covenant-right to salvation for it 's certain their true succession hath been oft interrupted 1. By such utterly uncapable persons as all History describeth and even Baronius calleth Apostaticos non Apostolicos and such as divers General Councils judged Hereticks Infidels Simoniaks c. e g. Eugenius 4. who yet kept in 2. By such whose false ordination the Canons expresly null 3. By many Schisms two or three Popes at once of whom none can tell who had the right or whether any 4 By the Popes taking on him to be Christs Universal Vicar an Office in specie usurpt which he maketh his Episcopacy and as such giveth his orders And all his Presbyters have turned the true Ministry into the false one of Mass-Priests and being no true Ministers can give no true Sacraments by his rule 8. Yea it is certain that few if any Churches on earth can prove such an uninterrupted succession as he and the Papists describe and most it s known have no such thing 9. Therefore if any have such a succession they cannot know it it being a thing that cannot be proved and so cannot be sure that they are true Churches c. 10. For the certainty of any true Ministry Church Sacraments and Salvation dependeth on such knowledg of History as is not in the world viz. To know that this Bishop and his Ordainer and his Ordainer and his Ordainer and so up to the Apostles were every one true Bishops and truly Ordained which no mortal man can know 11. Men that by a Prince against even the Nullifying Canons can but get possession of Patriarchal and Diocesan Churches without the Clergy or peoples choice have thereby the power of damning men that fear God at their pleasure For 1. they must pass for the Bishops of the place 2. They may command any unsinful thing and excommunicate him that doth not obey 3. He is a Schismatick that suffers himself so to be Excommunicate and so is in a damnable state 4. He cannot hinder it not knowing the thing to be unsinful 12. For by this whoever will escape damnable schism must be one that knoweth the unsinfulness as he speaks of all things in the world that are such which a Prelate may command or else he must do any thing which he judgeth sin if a Prelate command it But that is wicked Idolizing man 13. And therefore by this rule no man living can be saved that a Prelate hath a mind to damn or from his damning impositions For no man living knoweth the lawfulness of all lawful things and therefore may take a commanded thing for sin that is not and then if he wilfully do that which he judgeth sin he rebelleth against God if he do it not the Prelate may excommunicate him and unresistibly make
judgers of the personal qualifications and that ordinis gratia ordinarily their approbation choice or consent shall be a relative part of their Receptive qualification 6. God himself giveth all the personal qualifications 7 He is ready to help the approvers and chusers to discern all these and to judg aright of them 8. The person being thus made a capable Recipient by personal qualifications and relative due Approbation Election and Consent God's Donation or Law doth give him Right and oblige him to the office-work And the Electors Approvers and Consenters are none of the proper efficient Donors or causes of this right and obligation but only efficient causes of his relative receptive capacity 9. That therefore the right and obligation is immediately from Gods Law by resultancy as the established medium of Gods conveyance but not immediately without any means of his receptively to make him materiam dispositam 10. That all this is true both of Soveraign Civil Power and of Church-power in Bishops and Pastors 11. That yet besides Approbation and Election God hath for the publick notice and order of the Church appointed a Regular Ministerial Investiture by which the Approved shall be solemnly put into possession as Kings are crowned and Ministers instituted and Ordination usually containeth both the approbation part of the election and the investiture 12 But this Investiture being but a Ministerial delivery of possession proveth not the Investor to be any Donor of the Power to the King or to the Bishop or Pastor 13. Nor is it necessary save ordinis gratia and in foro ecclesiae to avoid intrusion and confusion but not when it is set against the end or the end may and must be sought without it 14. Who it is that hath the power of this Ordination Approbation and Investiture is much of the controversie of these times some say it is the Magistrate but those that say it is the bishops are not agreed what species of bishops it is whether the chief Pastors of each particular Parish true Church or only a Diocesan that is the sole bishop of many parishes that are no true Churches or only Diocesans that are Archbishops over many true Parish-churches and bishops 15. But the Fundamentum juris being Christs Statute-Law or Grant and all that is left to man being but qualitatively or relatively to make the person an immediately capable Recipient and ministerially invest him therefore it follows that if at Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem Cesarea Constantinople London all the old bishops were dead or hereticks a just title may be restored without the ordination of one that had successive canonical ordination because there needeth no efficient donor but Christ and his Law and the receptive capacity may be without such ordination where it is not to be had as among Papists that will not ordain one on lawful terms c. for Order it self is but for the thing ordered and not against it And I will have mercy and not sacrifice â—morals before rituals and all power is to edification c. are certain rules And God never made men judges in partem utram libet whether there shall be Churches and Pastors and Worship or none or whether there shall be Civil Government or none no nor of what the species the Church-Offices shall be 16. I use to explain this by many expository similitudes 1. If the Laws of God authorize Soveraignty and the Constitution of the Kingdom say it shall be Monarchy were it Elective the Electors are not Efficients of power but determiners of the Recipient And if it be Hereditary or Elective the Investers by coronation are no efficients of the power but Ministerial deliverers of possession and that but necessary ad ordinem and not ad esse potestatis 2. If the King by a Charter to the University state the power of the Chancellor Vicechancellor Proctors and all the Masters of Colledges and then tell them who shall be capable and how chosen and how inveâ—ted here his power is immediately from the Kings Charter as the efficient Instrument and all that others do is but to determine of the Recipient and invest him 3. So it is as to the power of the Lord Mayor of London and the Mayors and Bailiffs of all Corporations 4. So it is in the essential power of the Husband over the Wife the woman chuseth who shall have it and the Parson that marrieth them investeth him in it but God only is the efficient donor of his Law 17. Therefore it is not in the power of the Electors Approvers or Investors to alter any of the Power established by God If both the woman and the Priest say that the man shall be her Husband but shall have no government of her it is a nullity Gods Law shall stand If the City and the Recorder say You shall be Lord Mayor but not have all the power given by the Kings Charter its vain and he shall have all that the Charter giveth him If the A Bp crown the King and say You shall be King but not have all the power stated by the Constitution on the King this depriveth not the King of his power unless he give away that which God hath not stated on him but men so if an Ordaining Prelate Patron or Parish say This is a true Parish Church and we choose and Ordain you the true Pastor of it but you shall have but part of the true Pastoral Power stablished on the office by God it 's null Gods Institution shall be the measure of his power 18. But I confess that if God had left Church-Officers as much to the will of men as he hath done the Civil the case had been otherwise for Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy are all lawful And the King or other supreme power may make new Species of Judges and Magistrates and Officers and alter them as they see cause And it would have been so in the Church if as the Italians at Trent would have carried it Christ had immediately Instituted only the Papacy and left it to the Pope to make Bishops and to Bishops to make Priests And yet I would not wrong the worst I cannot say that they would have empowered the Pope to change the Species of Priests or Bishops But God hath fixed the Species by making a setled Law for all the work and all the Authority to do it though Accidentals may be altered in work and Office § 6. This is the clear state of my assertions which how grosly Mr. Dodwell hath falsified in his forged description I will not stay to open But it is a great stress and fabrick that he layeth on the contrary supposition that his Species of Bishops are the givers of the Powers and so we can have no other or more than they are willing to give us And let him that thinks he spoke a sentence of truth and sense to prove it enjoy his error I would quickly prove the contrary to him if I knew what he
Chief Iustice Lord Admiral c. shall have such and such power and be thus and thus invested in the place if there were an intercision of an hundred yâ—ars the next person so chosen will from the Law immediately receive his power And the Investiture is but for publick Order and the Investers regular succession no nor the act it self never necessary ad esse where it cannot be had as I proved against Mr. D. in my Book of Concord The Archbishops succession that Crowneth him is not necessary to the power of the King § 20. And obligation to the Office-work is as essential to the Officer as is the power to do it And it is only the Governours that lay on another an obligation to duty except what by contract a man layeth on himself and none are the obliging Governours of the highest Powers Civil or Ecclesiastical but God therefore theirs must flow only from God Therefore the thing is not unusual And if Bishops were as much superior to Parish-Pastors as the Lord Chancellor is to a Constable yet they were but Governours of them in tantum quoad exercitum and not Donors of their power The Constables power is immediately from the Soveraigns Law and so is the Ministers from Christ for he is the only universal Soveraign § 21. Mr. Dodwell saith These are bare similies Ans. These are plain explications of the conveyance of power from the Soveraign of all He saith That the power is not properly given by the Ordainer is but begged by me Ans. A begging affirmer may easily write Books at that rate But saith â—e They connot give an instance from humane Charters where the acts of men not invested are valid in Law Ans. 1. Will you tell the King so to his saace that before his Coronation no act is valid that he doth 2. No doubt but as publick Matrimony after secret Marriage is necessary in foro civili ordinis gratiâ where it may be had and yet when it was done by a Justice without a Priest yea or by the persons publick contract only it was no nullity no nor coram Deo before so to regular order the most orderly Investiture is needful but not ad esse much less that all the Investers circumstances also and all his predecessors have been regular 3. Investing here is the act of a servant only solemnizing the entrance or delivery of possession But such a servant is not the Owner and Donâ—â— of thâ— power 4. The Papists and Protestants confess that the power of Invâ—sting is so humane and mutable that it cannot be necessary ad esse potestatis I told you how oft the power of choosing â—nd investing Popes hath beeen changed And the old Canons make the Act of three Bishops necessary to Invest or consecrate one But did God determinâ— of three Or can you prove onâ— Bishops Ordination a Nullity 5. In the Civil State some Officers are made without any Investiture as Constables Headboroughs Church Wardens and others and some the Charter imposeth Investiture on But whether if Recorders Stewards Town Clerks that by Charter are to Invest be dead or refuse their Act the Mayor Bayliff or other Officers be therefore none and the Government be dead let Lawyers tell you 6. Sure I am that Hen. 4. and the rest of the Germane Emperors who fought and strove so long against Hildebrand and his Adherents for the Investing-power were no Bishops and all the Councils of Bishops who stood for the Emperors never took them for Bâ—shops and therefore thought not that Ivesting was an Act proper to Episcopal-power 7. I have before proved that ancient Writers and Papists and many Protestants agree that Baptism is valid administred by Lay-men that I say not women 8. Mr. Dodwell self-condemningly saith that a presumptuous Ordination of the Priest serves to the validity of Sacraments though indeed he were not Ordained and that God is bound to make such Acts to the people good 9. Mr. D. must beg belief instead of proving it if he tell us that the stated teaching of Gods Word to a Church is not as truly the work of the Pastor as is the Admistring the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper It is one of the principal of the Jesuits jugglings to make the people think that till they can prove their Teachers the rightly Ordained Ministers of Christ they are not bound to hear them or believe them Our Parents mostly were never Ordained Bishops or Priests Must not Children therefore hear them and believe them fide humanâ And hath not that God who appointed Parents to teach his Law to their children lying down and rising up and to educate them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord thereby signified that Parents instruction is the first ordinary means appointed by God for the conveying of saving knowledg and faith And if the help of Parents though unordained be Gods ordinary means of the first saving faith shall We say with such men as Mr. Dodwell that we have no Covenant right to salvation till we have the Sacrament from the hand of a Minister that had a regular Ordination uninterruptedly down from the Apostles 10. Did the Three hundred Act. 2. and the Eunuch Act. 8. refuse Baptism till they were satisfied by proof that the Baptizers were rightly called Ministers Paul tells those that questioned his Apostolick power that he was an Apostle to them whatever he was to others and that they should know first whether Christ were in them and so whether he were not a true Minister and not begin at the trying of the Ministry 2 Cor. 13.4 5 6 7. Gal. 3.1 2 3 4. c. 11. The Acts of the Parliament called irregularly by General Monk were they that restored King Charles the 2 d and were confirmed by him as valid through the defect of a Regular Summons and by necessity 12. I have fully proved in my Treatise of Episcopacy that the Species of Bishops which Mr. Dodwell pleaded for is not the same which the Churches had for 200. or 300. years And then where is his regular succession from the Apostles § 22. He saith also p. 37. They cannot give an Instance of any power setled by Charter whereupon the Acts of any persons lawfully Invested though confessedly less qualified are not thought valid A plain sign that their Investiture doth properly confer such power Ans. Words fitted to deceive 1. He that is unqualified is not lawfully Invested and yet the Act of the Invester may be right had the Recipient been lawful 2. He saith Less qualified when he knew that our question is of the unqualified 3. Investiture giveth it as the Act of the Power and Donor by a servant delivering orderly possession but doth not make or prove the Investing Minister the Owner or Donor no more than he was that from the Emperor Henry delivered the Bishops the Staff and Ring or the Priest that Marrieth the persons 4. Burroughs and Cities choose and return Burgesses for
Parliament by Charter yet if they are unqualified when they come thither the choice is judged null If a City choose and Invest a proclaimed Rebel for Mayor I will believe it null or invalid though Mr. D. will not And if he write Forty Books with such streams of confident words to prove that the Election and Investiture of the dâ—â—lared Heretick Bishops at Alexandria Antioch Constantinople and most of the Empire in many Ages Arrians Eutichians c. were yet judged valid by the Councils of the Orthodox no man that ever read the Councils will believe him 5. Nor will I believe him that any Bishops Ordination can make a true Bishop or Priest of a Woman an Infant or a professed Heathen Infidel or proper Heretick or any uncapable person any more than he can make a Woman to be a Husband or a dumb man the University Orator § 23. He saith They cannot give an Instance of any Power setled by Charter whereupon a failure of all who are by the Charter empowred to dispose of Offices the power must devolve to those who are not by the Charter empowred to dispose of them and where such a Charter is not thought in Law to fail by becoming unpracticable till the supreme power interpose c. Ans. Still the same fraud If all empowred to dispose of Offices is an ambiguous word The Prince disposeth of them by giving the Power and the Electors by choosing the Receivers and the Minister by delivering the Insignia If Electors and all die indeed there are none to determine of the Receiver And yet if the Plague kill most of the Electors at Age and leave not a due number when the rest left come to Age and choose the Charter will renew the Office-power 2. But if it be only the Ministerial Invester that faileth the sense of the Lawgiver must be judged of by the words and by other notices and the light of common Reason e. g. Whether it be the meaning of the Charter which saith that the Recorder shall give the Oath or the former Mayor shall deliver the Insignia that if the Recorder or Mayor be dead or sick or mad or wilfully refuse the City shall have no Mayor or if no Priest will Marry folks all England must live unmarried or if the Archbishops and Bishops will Ordain none but Hereticks all the Churches must have no other Ministers And here Nature and Christ teach us that the Means is only for the End and Order for the thing ordered and God will have us understand his own Laws so as that Rituals give place to Morals I will have mercy and not sacrifice And sure if the King of Spains Charter for the making of Governours at the West Indies should not express or reasonably imply a Remedy in case of the failure of circumstances of meer Order his Countrey might be lost before they could send to Spain for a new Charter or new power And Mr. D. saith Which is the very case impugned by me of the Nonconformists And so judg whether he must not turn a Seeker and say that all Ministry Churches and Sacraments cease till a new Commission comes from Heaven upon the failure of every such circumstance yea when almost all the Churches charge each other with failures and intercisions and the very species of the Ordainers is so much altered If the King send his Army into the Indies or his Navies and mention no power but the Generals as chief or no way of choosing a new General but by the Field-Officers choice and giving him an Oath by the Secretary c. yet no man doubteth but it was his meaning that if the General die or turn Rebel yea and the major part of the Field-Officers or the Secretary the Army should choose another General rather than perish and the Kings service miscarry § 24. He addeth They cannot give an Instance of any humane Charter that ever allows any person empowered to extend his own power by a private exposition of the Charter against the sense of all the visible supreme powers of the society Ans. This opens the Core of the Aposthume 1. We deny as confidently as any French or Italians affirm that there is any such thing at a supreme visible power over the universal Church under Jesus Christ and therefore none such is disobeyed or contradicted 2. And we maintain That by Divine appointment there is no visible National supreme church-Church-power but that of the Civil Christian Soveraign and therefore none such disobeyed 3. And we hold that no man can extend his own power further than Christs own Law extendeth it False expositions give no power 4. And therefore we prove by your own Rule that Christ being the only supreme universal Ruler and having described and specified the Office of a Pastor and order of a Church no Bishops can by their private exposition turn a single Church into a Diocesan or a Presbyter of Christs description into an half Presbyter of their own making But if they make a man a Pastor his power and work shall be what Christ saith and not what the Ordaâ—ner will Investing-Ministers Acts are null if they contradict the Order of the Donor If the King give you a Parsonage of 300. l. a year and the Instituter say you shall have but 100. l. out of it it 's vain he instituteth you but as the Donors instrument in the same Benefice and power given by him § 25. He addeth p. 38. Where can they find such a Charter for the power of Presbyters in Scripture as they speak of Ans. Nay then we are far from agreeing if you think that the very Species of a Pastors Office is not found in Scripture as of Christs institution Thâ—n it seems the Bishops make the very Species The Italian Bishops at Trent scarce gave so much to the Pope Then why may not the Bishops put down Presbyters if they make the Species or make as many Species as they please Indeed Dr. Hammond thought that there was no evidence of the Order of Subject Presbyters in Scripture-times And if God instituted none let us have none But I have told you before and often where in Scripture the true Pastors Office is described § 26. He adds They may find some actual practices but will they call that a Charter Ans. This is indeed to strike at our foundation If we prove not Christ to be King and Lawgiver and that his Laws or Governing-precepts were partly given by himself and partly by his Spirit in his Commissioned Apostles and these Recorded Sealed and Delivered in Scripture If we prove not that these as the authorized Agents of Christ delivered his Will by words and practice in setling and describing the Pastors of his Churches then take the Ministry and spare not for mans invention I cited you before the Texts that are our proof But if the Office which you call Priestly be of mans making in specie I doubt the Diocesans will prove so much more
for many Papists doubt of the Divine right of Prelacy that doubt not of the Divine unalterable right of the Priestly or Presbyter-power and work And will this cure men of Schism to tell them that God hath not so much as made and specified the Parish-Pastors Office and it is but a humane invention which you forsake § 27. And I would crave of this confident man to consider whether he reach not high and horrid Sacriledg if he make the Invester to be first the Owner and then the Donor Did we devote our selves to Patrons in our Ministry or to Diocesans or immediately to God If we covenanted only to be Gods Ministers for the Churches good then let them take heed that claim propriety in us as Priests And if Tythes and Glebes were devoted to God and not to Princes or Patrons I doubt he that maketh Patrons the Proprietaries and proper Donors will prove Sacrilegious and be convinced at last that he should only have taken Princes and Pastors for such Trustees as determine of the Receiver but give not the things § 28. If it be otherwise Princes Patrons and Prelates are greater and richer than I ever thought them 1. Then all the Bishopricks in England are the King 's till he give them 2. Then all the Tythes Glebes and Temples in England are the Patrons till they give them or else the Bishops or Chancellors who investeth men in them by institution and induction And the Patron and Bishop may have a hard suit to determine which is the Proprietor 3. And then a Bishop that Ordaineth a thousand Priests was the Owner of all their Relations before and so as they that are for the pre-existence of souls dispute whether they pre-existed individually or only in animâ universali so these that are for the pre existence of Priesthoods in the Diocesans must dispute whether they were in the Prelate a thousand individual Priesthoods before or but one common Priesthood that fell into individuals by Ordination If they say that they were but virtually in the Prelate that kills their Cause for then they did not pre-exist for existere est esse extra causas And this only saith that the Prelate had an effective vertue that could make them But the species was made before and so was the obliging and Donative Law therefore the Prelate had not power to do what God had done before § 29. I take it for granted because I know him that all this is nothing to Mr. Dodwell but to me it is moreover something 1. That the highest esteemers of Diocesans Ordination make it but a Sacrament 2 And that the Investing Minister is not the Owner and Donor of the Relation and Gift in any of their Seven Sacraments 1. In Baptism God only giveth the Right and Relation which the Minister by Investiture solemnizeth but giveth it not as his own Else every Lay-man and woman by their judgment should have multitudes of Christendoms of their own to bestow 2. In Confirmation the Priest never pretendeth to be the giver of the Spirit but by his act to fit the person to receive it The Holy Ghost is said to fall on them that heard the word before Baptism Act. 10.44 45 and they were after baptized He fell on them Act. 11.15 And Peter and Iohn prayed for the Samaritans that they might receive the Holy Ghost Act. 8.15 and they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost v. 17. but not that they gave the Holy Ghost though by the laying on of their hands and their prayers he was given as he was on them without Act. 2. 3. And in Matrimony it 's confessed that the Priest is not the Owner and Donor of the Husbands power but a Ministerial Invester 4. And in the Eucharist even they that think the bread is made God take not the Priest as the efficient cause but a disposing instrument nor that he giveth God to the Receiver as the Owner or Donor but delivereth him as a Minister 5. The same is true of Penance Extreme Unction and therefore must be so also in Ordination If the King send a thousand Commissions to Captains Judges Justices c. the Messenger is not the Owner or Donor of them all nor may make any alteration of them yea if he intrust the Chancellor to name all the Justices he doth thereby but determine of the person that shall receive the Commission but altereth nothing of the Office nor is the Donor of it All this is plain to us but not to Mr. Dodwell § 30. Saith he p. 39. Are not many actual practices grounded on circumstances Are not many of those circumstances obnoxious to great mutability Are not ordinary Governours the competent Iudges of their actual change Ans. 1. And did not Christ promise his Spirit to his Apostles for the performance of their Commissions And were not those Commissions to gather and settle his Churches and teach them all that he commanded them And did not Christ by that Spirit make Pastors and Teachers as is before proved And did not the Apostles faithfully perform their trust 2. And doth he not see that by this he also subverteth his foundation of Prelatical power also as having no better institution than the Priesthood And then who are those Governours of the Church that he talks of that must judg And how prove they their jugding-jugding-power 3. And it were a kindness if he would tell us what change it is that thâ— Diocesans may make in the Priestly Office and work and tell us the bounds of their power if it have any And whether they may put down the Preaching part the Praying part the Sacraments or which of them And whether this be the power that hath put out the Sacramental Cup and made all the changes that are made in the Church To tell us of these ordinary Governours changing-changing-power is a hard word to us that took Christs Laws delivered by his Spirit to be perfect and unchangeable However some circumstances are changed which were noted to be but occasional § 31. To return his Consequence p. 40. Since it is certain that the power of Oâ—daining others was not given to nor for some hundred years exercised by that species of Diocesans who were neither the Bishops of single Churches associated for personal present Communion nor were the Overseers of such Bishops but the Bishops of Diocesses that have many score or hundred unbishoped stated worshipping Assemblies it will follow by his arguing that these never had their Office from the Apostles and much less a continued succession of it § 32. He next pleadeth the Nullity of the Presbyterians Ordination 1. Because if they had Ordaining power it is only in Assemblies where Bishops are Presidents and Edict them 2. And because they carry it not by Plurality of Voices But I am a weary with answering such trifling things and the later part is a known mistake I never heard of one contradicting Voice against the Ordination of any
if she have no more The Priests that the Pope sent from Italy into England â—hat could speak no English knew what you mention perhaps But it 's necessary also that the Pastor teach all this knowledg to all the flock which is not done with saying few words This man minds me of the saying of an Atheistical Phâ—sician What needs there all this Preaching and stir I can tell them all in three words it is but think well and say well and do well Dr. Saywell and Mr Dodwell that are so much for our silence seem to be too near to this mans mind But saith St. Paul Who is sufficient for these things 8. Yet this sort of men that can accept of so little of God in the Priests so be it they will but be ruled by the Prelate who I suppose need ad esse be no wiser or better himself in their opinion are the rigidest silencers and excommunicators of others the wisest and holiest Pastors and Christians as Schismaticks or Hereticks if they obey not the Diocesan in every indifferent thing or be not of their mind in what they decree such odds is in their demands for God and for the Prelates He that doth but understand the common dealings of the world is capable of saying over the Liturgy of the Sacrament and a little knowledg and no honesty or piety may serve ad esse But if the Councils of Prelates yea or his single Diocesan command him never so many things as indifferent which the poor Priest feareth are perjury lying false worship or other heinous sins he is to be Excommunicated from Christian society and cast out of the Ministry and as a Schismatick not only to be silenced but to be damned if such as Mr. Saywell and Mr. Dodwell and their Masters be to be believed § 40. But saith he P. 74. How can they prove that Preaching is at all any essential part of the Office c. Ans. 1. From Christs own practice and his command to those whom he called and sent and from their practice and the Holy Ghosts determination by them Mat. 4.17 10.7 11.1 Mar. 1.4 38. 3.14 Luk. 4.18 19 43. 9.2 60. Act. 5.42 10.42 Rom. 10.8 10 14 15. Mat. 28.19 Mar. 16.16 20. Act. 30.20 8 5 2â— 40 9.20 13.5 42. 20.7 20 to the end Phil. 1.17 18. 1 Tim. 3.16 2 Tim. 3.16 2 Tim. 4.1 2. 1 Cor 1.21 2 Tim. 2.2 24. Tit. 2.3 Where do you find that ever any one in the New Testament was ordained a Mass Priest or Sacrament Priest and not a Teacher 2. When did you prove that actual giving the Sacrament was essential to a Bishop or Presbyter not only Paul baptized few but many Parish Priests leave that work to their Curates and some Bishopâ— leave both the Sacraments to their Chaplains or Priests I suppose you know that in the ancient Churches one Assembly had usually a Bishop with many Presbyters and Deacons and usually the Bishop did both preach and celebrate the Eucharist Can you prove that the rest did any 〈◊〉 celebrate than preach 3. But if you are willing you may easily know that we take Preaching to â—ave more modes than making a set Sermon in the Pulpit The Presbyters of old were all Preachers Sometimes in the Pulpit when the Bishop or chief speaker was absent sick or required it Sometimes to smaller parties in Houses or Chappels or lesser meetings sometime by conference as Christ preached to the Woman Iob. 4. And if you think otherwise yet I am confident by experience that it is an easier thing and requireth less skill to make a Pulpit studied Sermon than to deal convincingly in conference with particular persons that need our teaching And a man may learn to say Mass or Liturgies that hath no tolerable fitness to teach 4. But if Preaching and Teaching be all one with you as they are with me is it not a strange question to ask How we prove that Preaching that is Teaching is at all essential to their Office As if you should ask How we prove that Teaching is essential to a Schoolmaster or Tutor or that to Rule is essential to a Ruler or to give Physick essential to a Physician What can you take the Office to be that includeth not Teaching Neither Christs Apostles nor the ancient Church ever ordained any to give Sacraments without Teaching however Papists make the essence of the Priesthood to be in the power of making the body and blood of God Nay how can they celebrate the Sacraments without Preaching or Teaching Can they justly baptize the adult and not teach them the great Articles of the Creed which they must profess and the great and many duties to be done and the great and many benefits to be received And doth he think it such a small and easie matter to teach men all the Articles of the Creed the sense of the Lords prayer the Ten Commandments and the nature of the Sacrament of Baptism and the Lords-supper It may be hâ— will say that it is some other Preaching that he meaneth But he speaketh to me who in the hearing of Dâ— Warmstrie and of Mr. Th. Baldwin who is yet living did offer Bishop Morley when he â—orbad me to preach in his Diocess to promise him to preach only the Catechism-Doctrine on Baptism the Creed the Lords prayer the Ten Câ—mmandments and the Lords supper Archbishop Vsher in his â—ermon before King Iames on Ephâ—s 4 3. boldly affiâ—â—â—th That lâ—t the learnedsâ— of them all try it when they will they shall find that it requireth greater skill to open to the â—gnoraâ—t intelligiâ—ly these Catâ—chism common truths than to handle points of controverted School-Divinity § 41. It may be objected 1 Cor. 12. Are all Teachers and Rom. 12. He that teacheth on teaching Ans. It 's evident that Teachers or Doctors are there put for some eminently gifted above others in opening and defending sound Doctrine and not for all Teachers in general For Exhortation is distinguished from it which yet is the greatest pâ—rt of most Sermons Paul was the chief Speaker yet Barnabas was a Teacher We are more than he is for many Ministers in each Church where the chief Speaker shall usually preach but the other as assistants in their time and place and not to be meer Sacramenters § 42. His next recollections run all upon such intimated or expressed untruths meerly forged by him contrary to my copious Explications and against the rules of common honesty that I will not lose my own and the Readers time in particular answers to them He would perswade the Readers that I affirm that power immediately results from gifts who never had such a thought but say it neither resulteth from them mediately nor immediately This dealing is so grosly false that it is neither credit to his cause nor him Would he make men think that I take him to have most authority or power that hath the best gifts As if
the wisest and best man had right to the Crown or Church-power If copious discourses to the contrary will not hinder such busie disputers from such inhumane slanders are they meet to be disputed with I have over and over said that 1. Gifts or the best abilities 2. And due election or approbation of the Ordainers 3. And the peoples election and consent all set together do but make up the Qualification or Receptive disposition of the Recipient 4. Yea and his consent conjoined and that where all these in the necessary degree concur the power resulteth to that capâ—ble person from none of them all but immediately from God Law which is his instrument giving power to persons so qualified And that besides all these Ministerial Investiture for Orders sake when it may be had should introduce him into possession yea and the Magistrate must be judg whom he will countenance protect or tolerate But the case of Ordination and Investiture are necessary only where they may be had lawfully and without crossing their end as sacrifice was compared with mercy and the Rest of the Sabbath compared to works of charity and necessity § 43. And as it is the trick of such dealers p. 81. he must have Governours to do his work and therefore must not leave out that which may make us odious to them but tells men that our Hypothesis is unreconcilable with government in this life in that it permits persons to assume Authority and to extend it as far as they think fit by appealing to Writings against the sense of all the visible authority of this life Ans. 1. But â—f this Hypothesis be none of his Adversaries but come out of the Meal-Tub or forge of Inventers what shall such men be called 2. We permit no person to assume Authority But Writings are not so contemptible to us in comparison of that which you take to be all the visible Authority of the Church It is your Richard Hooker that saith that the Law maketh the King and giveth and measureth his power and that it's usurpation which obligeth no mans Conscience when power is taken and usâ—d which the Law never gave What I think of this I have elsewhere shewed The Statutes are not so contemptible in this case but the great Lawyers think they may be appealed to from visible Rulers in several cases And you must talk at other rates than you have done in your tedious fallacious Vagaries before wise Christians will believe that we may not appeal from Prelates to the written Word of God when the power used by them is justly questioned If not how caâ—e the Reformed Churches to justifie their Reformation Was it not by appealing to Scripture against the visible Church Rulers that were commonly against them Were not Pâ—pes Council Prelates and Priests against them for the far greatest part Did it overthrow all Government of the world to appeal from these to the â—cripture I hereby undertake to prove that neither Popes Prelates or Priests have any Church-Authority bâ—t what God hatâ— given them by his Word And is it not thâ—â— necessary to try it by that Word Must we take thâ—â—r own words for all that Popes or Prelates câ—â—im And it will put the Pope and Council hard to it to prove any Authority from God if the Scripture do not give it them And if it give it them it may give it others § 44. And whâ—n 〈◊〉 done we are far from granting that we have lesâ— to shâ—â— for our succession from the Apostleâ— than Popes or 〈…〉 have 1 We are 〈◊〉 that we have the same â—aptism Eucharist Creed Lâ—â—ds Praâ—â—r Dâ—calogue and Scriptâ—re delivered down from the Aâ—ostles 2. We are sure that we have a Ministry of the same species which Christ and his â—pirit in the Apostles instituted 3. We know that our Churches and Worship and Doctrine are the â—ame that are described and setled by the Apostles 4. We know that our present Ministers are qualified as the Apostâ—â—â— requiâ—ed 5. And that they are Elected or 〈◊〉 to by the 〈◊〉 is the Apostles required 6. And that they have as good an Ordination and Investiture as the Apostles ever made necessary to the Ministry That is 1. They have the Approbation of senior Pastors and many of them of Diocesans All that were put into any places by the Parliament when the Bishops were down were to have the Westminster Assemblies Approbation under their hands And that Assembly as called consisted of many Diocesans with many score grave Eminent Divines though the Diocesans were not actually present And a signed Approbation and Allowance hath the Essence of all that is of absolute necessity in Ordination 2. They were Ordained by true Bishops 1. All true Presbyters are Episcopi gregis and joyn in Ordination here in Enggland 2 The chief Pastors of City-Churches having Curates under them are Episcopi Eminentes vel Praesides such as Ordained for above Two hundred years after the Apostles And 3. The chosen Presidents of Synods were such Bishops But all these concurred in the Nonconformists Ordinations when the Diocesans were down They were Ordained at and by a Synod of Presbyters in some great Town or City where the Moderator and the chief City-Pastors were part 3. Many of them were Ordained by Diocesans 4. Many Ordained as aforesaid were after approved by Diocesans some by Imposition of Hands and all by Word or Writing for Archbishop Vsher did in my hearing by Word and in Writing more publickly declare his opinion of such Presbyters Ordination as valid â—though he excused not such as deposed the Diocesans from the guilt of Schism and so did the many other Bishops whom I formerly cited yea even Bancroft himself And surely all this hath all that is essential to Ordination 5. And we know that such a Ministry hath continued to propagate the Church and Gospel in the world since the Apostles days But we confess 1. That we cannot prove that such Ministers have still succeâ—ded in the same Towns 2. Nor that no one from whom their Ordination came down from the Apostles did pretend to have Orders or Authority when he had none 3. Or that no one of them in 1660. years was an Heretick or a Schismatick or a Papist 4. Or that no one Ordained in wrong words 5. Or that no one Ordained contrary to the Canons out of his own limits or without three Bishops or without the Presbyters 6. Or that no Competitors were Ordained by several Bishops Mr. Dodwell is a great Historian when he hath proved all this of all or any of his Clergy-friends he hath done something more than multiply words § 45. But on the other side we can easily prove and have proved 1. That our Diocesans are not of the same species with those of old 2 That the Apostles did not make them I think Mr. Dodwell will say that the Presbyters first made them by consent the Children begot the Fathers 3 And Dr. Hammond will defend it that
there is no certainty that any Subject Presbyters were made by the Apostles in Scripture times So that the very species of their Clergy hath no such succession as distinct from ours 4. And he that will read the Church-History and Councils declaring the multitude of doleful intercisions in East and West by Heresies the Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch Constantinople Ierusalem and Rome and most of the chief Seats of Bishops having been judged Hereticks Simoniacks or no Bishops by General Councils yea Roman Bishops judged some of them Infidels and Diabolical by the Councils of Constance Basâ—l c. I say he that knoweth this History must know that the Diocesans that from these derive their succession have certainly had frequent and notorious intercisions § 46. And this leads me to another part of Mr. Dodwell's work viz. his proof that Aidan and Finan were Bishops As if this had been a great part of his Cause Such diverting noise is a great part of the art of deceiving Because I had said that Aiden and Finan were not Bishops but Presbyters that is when they came out of Scotland into Northumberland I apprehended that some men of his gâ—â—ius and design would be willing to mistake me and therefore Printed an Explication of the Words in the end of my first Answer to Dr. Stillingfleet But Mr. D would have men think that I said that they were never made and called Bishops at all and that I read not Beda from whom alone near Five and Thirty years ago I took almost all that I assert concerning them Let the Reader see my foresaid Explication If Mr. Dodwell will give us more than noise and mist about this matter 1. Let him prove that it was Diocesan Bishops that Ordained these Scots before they came into England when Beda saith they were sent from those Monasteries that were ruled by Presbyters and which would not so much as eat or communicate with the Roman Bishops 2. Let him prove that any Bishops in England Consecrated hem or made them Bishops here when Beda tells us that they were the first in the North and therefore had none here to Ordain them 3. Let him prove that they were here made true Diocesan Bishops of our species When 1. they had no Presbyters at first under them and therefore ruled none and had but one Congregation for one man can be but in one place at once 2. Their Church in Lindisfarne was not made of stone but of wood covered or thatcht with reeds and they are not said to have any other Church under them 3. They went indeed to preach all over the Country but not as to a Church but as to Heathens to convert them 4. Let him prove that ever they took themselves to be of a distinct order from Presbyters 5. At a Synod Bed c. 25. we find no more but the King and his Son and Hilda a woman-Abbess and three or four of this sort of Bishops far below our Ordaining City-Presbyters and their Synods But unlearned men that value Books by interest and preconceived opinions may think that by such talk Mr. Dodwell hath done some great matter § 47. But saith he p. 81 82. Our Hypothesis obliging inferiour Governours to prove their title to their office and the extent of it from the intention of their supream Governours does oblige all to a strict dependance on the supreme visible power so as to leave no place for appeal concerning the practice of such Government which as it lasts only for this life so it ought not to admit of disputes more lasting than its practice c. Ans. Alas for the poor world and Church that will be cheated at so gross a rate 1. Did you not know that the grand error that Protestants charge Papists with is the asserting of any such thing as a supreme visible power over the Church universal besides Christ. And did you think that your roteing over the name to them that deny the thing would make a wise man change his Religion 2. By your Hypothesis then no man can prove his title to his Office who either believeth not that there is any such universal Supreme or that knoweth not who it is I know no Competitors but the Pope and General Councils unless the Patriarch of Constantinople be one 3. And he that knoweth not the intention of this Supreme power is still unable to prove his office 4. And he that knoweth the intention of the Ordaining Diocesan is never the better if he know not the intention of the Supreme And what if the intention of the Supreme and of the Diocesan are contrary 5. But by your Hypothesis the Governours may alter the very species of the Priesthood as they please and what ever God saith of it in his Institution or Law it must be to us no other in kind or extent than the Governours intend If they say I ordain thee to baptize but not to teach or to do both but not to celebrate the Lords-Supper or to do that but not to pray or praise God or not to use the Keys of the Church our power is limited accordingly Then if the Prelates make Mass-Priests their intention is the measure of their power Answer the Papists then that ask Was it ever the intention of the Pope and his Prelates that the English Bishops should disclaim the Pope or the Mass or reform without them as they did 6. Seeing the English Bishops by you derive their succession from Willfred and Augustine and Rome is not the Church of Rome the â—ittest Judg of the extent of their power as knowing their own intentions Nay if they were so blind as to intend them power to pull down themselves may they not recall it 7. Did ever Protestant preach this Doctrine That there is no appeal from the supreme Prelates to God O dreadful what may men come to and what error so great that a former may not introduce Disgrace not the Church of England so much as thus to intimate that they set up themselves so as that there is no appeal to Scripture or God himself from them God hath commanded Preaching Praying Praises Baptism the Lords-Supper holy assemblies c. if the supreme Prelates interdict and forbid all these is there no appeal to God I have told you how much Robert Grosthead abhor'd this Doctrine and so told Pope Innocent the 4 th What absolute blind obedience to Prelates is this 8. And what a reason brings he That the practice lasteth only for this life and therefore c Doth any of our actions here last longer than while they are doing Praying Praise Sacraments obeying the King doing good to the poor c. and so swearing cursing adultery rebellion atheism blasphemy here last only for this life Must we therefore obey men without appeal to God if they forbid us all duty and command all sin 9. And what did the man mean when he said That it ought not to admit of disputes more lasting than its
practice Is this the rate of these mens wise disputations 1. A murderers practice may be disputed at the Assizes when his act is past 2. Shall not all the actions of men in this world be examined and judged of by Christ hereafter What no men judged according to their works or for any thing done in the body 3. Or did he mean that God will justifie us for any Villany that we shall do in obedience to the Supreme Clergy 4. Or did he think that by appealing to Gods judgment we challenge them there to dispute with us What to make of this mans demonstrations little do I know § 48. He adds P. 82. For how fallible soever they may be conceived to be in expounding Scripture yet none can deny them to be the most certain as well as the most competent Iudges of their own intentions Ans. 1. That 's true And if their intentions may make Doctrine Worship and Priesthood what they please it much concerneth us that they conceal not their intentions But I would I knew whose intention this must be whether the supreme Clergies or the Ordainers and what to do if divers mens intentions differ and what bounds are set to their intentions and how many hundred sorts of Priests Doctrine or worship they may make 2. You touch their fallibility tenderly as a thing that some may conceive But it seems let them never so falsely expound Scripture their own intentions still shall prevail against all the word of God I would you would answer Dr. Stillingfleet's Rational Account which confuteth you § 49. He proceeds As certainly therefore as God hath made his Church a visible society and constituted a visible Government in it so certainly it is to be presumed that their Hypothesis must be false c. Ans. 1. Trifle not at this deceiving rate with plain men that love the light If by a visible Society with a visible Government you mean as we have great reason to think With a visible Government over it besides Christ do not thus as Mr. Thorndike and others of you do go on to beg it and build vast structures on it but prove it to us and we will yield prove to me that the Vniversal Church is a Society that must have one visâ—ble supreme Government under Christ and I here declare to you that I will turn Papist presently and will not wrangle against any man for calling me a Papist though I may not own all that Popes say and do as those do that Grotius called Papists I will not talk with Bishop Gunning of a Collegium Pastorum governing all the Christian world per literas formatas nor be so moderate as those French Papists that make an Vniversal Council which never was nor ever must be the supreme Church-power I will presently be for the Pope though not as absolute But why answer you not what we have said against it particularly my Sermon in the Morning-Lectures against Popery 2. But if by a visible power in the Church you mean not one over the Church the Independents deny it not while every City hath its proper Mayor and so every Church its Pastor it is a visible power in the Kingdom but not over it as a Kingdom All the Justices of Peace are visible powers in the Kingdom but not Supreme nor as one Aristocracy over the whole Seeing all my dissent from Popery and from you is founded in my judgment against any one universal Supreme besides Christ Monarch Aristocracy or Democracy I seriously intreat you to write your strongest arguments on that subject to convince me and answer what I have said to Mr. Iohnson and you may spare all the rest of your labour as to me This will do all § 50. P. 83. He adds How can subjects preserve their due Subordination to their Superiors if they practice differently and while they defend their practices and pretend Divine authority for them Ans. 1. As the three Confessors did Dan. 3. and as Daniel did Dan. 6. and as the Apostles did Act. 2. 3. 4. And as all the Bishops and Churches did for three hundred years And as the Orthodox did under Valens Constantine Theodosius junior Anastasius Philippicus c. 2. They may defend it by proving that there is a God who is supreme and that there is no power but of him and none against him and that man is not God and therefore hath no power but limited and that to disobey usurpation is not to disobey power and that God must be obeyed before man 3. This is high language and harsh to Protestant and Christian ears What! are you serious Must none in Rome Italy Spain France c. practise contrary to their Governours nor in Turky neither Nor in China Iapan c Is it unlawful to read the Scripture to pray to worship God to be baptized to profess our selves Christians to speak a good word or do a good deed to feed our Children or relieve our Parents c. if Governours forbid us This is far worse than to forbid the Scripture in a known tongue if when we know it we must not obey it if Governours forbid us nor so much as plead Divine Authority for doing what Gods word commandeth us Is Gods authority so contemptible in comparison of Prelates Or doth it so little concern us as that we may not so much as plead it for any practice forbidden us by superiours This Doctrine must needs startle a Christians heart It 's far unlike Bishop Bilsons of subjection and such others If you really mean so that whatever God commandeth us in Scripture we must do none of it if the Governours forbid us or else we overthrow all Governments speak it out and prove it but Christians will abhor it And yet this same man calleth the Martyrs Saints when his argument makes them rebels W. Iohnson would not have talkt at this rate § 51. And I would fain know whether he that first saith that it subverteth all Government and after nameth supreme Church-Government do really mean it of all or of Church-Government only 1. If of all the man is no Papist I will gratifie him to proclaim it for he is no Christian. He that thinks that men must not plead Gods Authority for doing any thing different from the wills of Turkish Iewish or Heathen Governours surely is no Christian No nor if he had confined this power to Christian Governours 2. But if he mean it only of Church-Governours how come they to have so absolute a power more than Civil Magistrates May we plead Gods Authority against a King and not against the Prelates What proof was ever given of this Then the Prelates is far above the Kings Then the Prelate is an absolute Governour of the King himself Let Kings and Parliaments but understand these men and we fear not their deceits Are they willing to give over all worship of God and confessing Christ and all duties of Religion Justice or Charity if the Supreme
Clergy will but forbid them See I beseech you worthy Country-men what sort of men and Doctrine you have to do with § 52. And why doth the man talk only against different practice Doth he not know that Government commandeth duty as well as forbiddeth the contrary Is not Omission against Government as well as Commission If the King command Taxes Military service c. may we disobey and call it Passive obedience What if the Bishops only forbid us to confess Christ to come to Church to Pray to give Alms to do any good May we forbear sobeit we do not the contrary Doubtless if Gods Word and Authority may not be pleaded for any duty which God commandeth and the Prelates forbid neither may it be pleaded for the Omission of any Villany commanded by Prelates no not Inquisition Torments or Massacres which God forbids But this man hath the Gramatical skill to call Omissive obedience by the name of Passive § 53. It 's like he will next say that I make odious suppositions That the supreme Church-power may command any Villanies and forbid Christian duties Ans. 1. I despair of getting any of these designers to tell me which is the Supreme Universal Church-power so as to be well understood I never heard of any pretenders but Pope and General Councils and as Bishop Guning holds the Colledg of all the Bishops in the world And certainly Pope and Councils have set up Heresies and decreed even the exterminating of all that will not dis-believe all their senses and deny Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine They have decreed deposing Kings absolving Subjects from their Allegiance adoring Images c. And what is it that yet they may not do If they say with Peter If all men deny thee I will not how shall I know that they say true Doth not the Church of England tell us that Councils have erred c § 54. And be not these very honest Sons of the Church of England that affirm it irreconcilable to Government to alledg Divine Authority of any different practices without exception and at the same time to Subscribe to Art 21.19.6.18 of the sufficiency of Scripture That the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome have erred in matters of Faith That the Church may not Ordain any thing contrary to Gods Written Word That General Councils may err and have erred and that things Ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the holy Scripture And those are accursed that presume to say that every man may be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth And why not if he must do all that the Governours require or nothing divers to them § 55. My Reason forbids me to trace such a Writer as this any further To tell men of every vain Harangue and confident discourse that 's full of gross error or false report is work unworthy of time and labour but I will a little more open the Coar of his deceit CHAP. V. Wherein Mr. Dodwell's deceits and the danger of them do consist § 1. AS to his Method of disputing that you may detect his fallacies he hath got this absurd ptetence p. 90. That there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to have skill in Causes Ans. Would you have thought that ever a man should publickly use such a Cothurnus among the Learned What a man is obliged to mean is one thing and what he doth mean is another And is there any one that knoweth what humane Language is that knoweth not that almost all words have various significations Doth he not know by how good reason the Schools oblige Disputants first to explain their Terms And what need there is of Definition to explain them He instanceth in the words Bishops and the Church of England And might have added the Catholick Church And doth he not know that it is the species of Bishops that we differ about and will the general name here explain each parties sense When we are for one sort of Bishops and against another And is it not such fraud as souls should not be abused by to refuse wilfully to define the Episcopacy that he meaneth and then plead that all should understand him And why is it not as much ignorance in him not to understand me as in me not to understand him when I use distinct explication which he obstinately refuseth And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet's case shame what he saith of the Church of England who was hardly brought to explain it and at last denieth the very being of the Church in Mr. Dodwell's sense which of you was to blame to meddle with the Word till you had skill in Causes to understand it without a Definition And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet take it as the Introduction of Popery to hold a Constitutive Regent Church-Government National or Catholick and so he and Mr. Dodwell mean not the same thing by the Church Catholick nor Bishop Guning Mr. Thorndike or the Church of Rome who are all for an Universal humane Supreme power And who is he that hath read Dr. Challoners Credo Eccles. Cathol Chillingworth Bishop Mortons Grand Imposture Bishop Bilson Dr. White Dr. Whitaker Dr. Sutliffe Bishop Andrews Bishop Carlton c. Chamier Sadeel Melancthon Bucer c. who knoweth not that the Papists and Prorestants by the name of the Catholick Church do mean several things and that we deny the very being of any such Church as they call the Catholick And is this the bold and happy Disputant that will save the Schools and World the labour of explaining Terms and foreagreeing of the sense and put men on disputing where the Subjâ—ct is denied and fill a Book with tedious confident Harangues and then hide all the fraud by saying that there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige mâ—n to mean and that every one ought to know who pretend to have skill in Causes When the Cause disputed is only managed by words as they signifie the minds of the Speakers about the real matters § 2. And as to the material fundamental difference between Mr. Dodwell's party and us it lyeth in these following things I. We totally differ about the nature of Gods Government of man II. And about the use of the Holy Scripture and Gods Laws III. About the nature and extent of all humane Government IV. About the form of moral good and evil V. About the essential form of the Catholick Church VI. About Gods ordinary means of saving Grace VII About the use of Preaching VIII About the duty of worshipping God in Sacred Assemblies or the Communion of Saints IX About the difference of Apostles and the office of the Bishops X. About the office of a Presbyter or Parish-Pastor XI About the Necessaries to Ministry Churches Christianity and ordinary title to Salvation XII And
work that God hath â—ade Officers to do already And then we need not say â—that Orders are Iure Divino if the Bishop may make more at his pleasure but quo jure and what shall set his bounds and end This seemeth more in kind than the Italians at Trent would have given to the Pope over Bishops Anâ— if they do not themselves also that same Essential part of their Office which they give to others they degrade themselves For the ceasing or alienation of an Essential part changeth the specieâ— But I suppose you will say 〈◊〉 is Preâ—byters to whom they may delegate this work And 〈◊〉 either it is a worâ— which God hath made part of the Presbyters Office or not If it be then that Presbyter doth his ow◠〈◊〉 appointed him by God and not another 〈…〉 not 〈◊〉 he maketh a new Officer who is â—either 〈…〉 But the 〈…〉 the Office 〈◊〉 that it may not be 〈◊〉 thoâ—gh Bishop may Ordain men to an Office of 〈…〉 the King or Church may make new Officers 〈…〉 Clock keepers Ostiaries c. 〈…〉 and obligation to personal duty to be done 〈◊〉 personâ—l abiâ—â—ty as is the Office of a Physician a Judg a School 〈…〉 a Pilot c where he that Authorâ—zeth and obligâ—th another statedly to do his work doth thereby make that other a Physician Judg School-Master Pilot c. This is but Ordinâ—tioâ— And if a Bishop be but one that may appoint others to do the Episcopal work then 1. Why is not every King a Bishop for he may appoint men to do a Bishops work And why is he not also a Physician Musician Pilot c. because he may do the like by them 2. And then the Bishop appointed by the King is no more a Bishop indeed than one appointed by a Bishop is But this delegation that I speak against is a smaller sin than such men choose To depute others to exercise Discipline whom God appointed not de specie thereto is but Sacriledg and Usurpation by alienating it from the true office and setting up a false one But yet the thing might some how be done if any were to do it But the almost total deposition and destruction of the Discipline it self and letting none do it by pretending the sole authority of doing it is another kind of sin Now to your answer from the similitude of Civil Monarchs I reply It is no wonder if we never agree about Church-offices if we no better agree of the general nature of them and their work Of which if you will please to read a sheet or two which I wrote the last year to Ludov. Molinaeus of the difference of Magistracy and Church-power and also read the Lord Bacons Considerations you will excuse me for here passing by what is there said I. The standing of the Magistrates Office is by the Law of Nature which therefore alloweth variety and mutations of inferior Orders as there is cause But the standing of the Clergy is by Supernatural Institution Our Book of Ordination saith there are three Orders c. Therefore man may not alter them or make more of that same kind II. Kingly power requireth not ad dispositionem materiae such Personal ability as the Pastoral-office doth A child may be a King and it may serve turn if he be but the head of power and give others commission to do all the rest of the Governing work But it is not so with a Judg a Physician an Orator or a Bishop who is not subjectum capax of the essence of the office without personal aptitude III. God hath described the Bishops office in Scripture as consisting of three parts viz. Teaching Priestly or about Worship and Sacraments and ruling as under Christs Prophetical Priestly and Kingly Office And he hath no where made one more proper to a Bishop than another nor said this is Essential and that is but Integral Therefore the Bishop may as well allow a Layman to administer the Sacraments c. as one not appointed to it by God to Rule by the Keys IV. The Bishops Pastoral Rule is only by Gods word upon the Conscience as Bishop Bilson of Obed. sheweth at large and all Protestants agree and not by any mulcts or corporal force If he use the sword or constraint it is not as a Bishop but as a Magistrate But the Kings is by the sword And will it follow that because the King may appoint another to apprehend men and carry them to prison c. that therefore a Bishop appointed by God to Preach Worship and Rule and therein to draw the Impenitent to Repentance by patient exhortations and reproofs c. may commit this to another never appointed to it of God V. Either it is the Bishops work as was said that is delegated by him or some other If properly his own than either he maketh more Bishops and that 's all we plead for or else a Presbyter or Layman may do a Bishops proper work And then what need of a Bishop to pass by the contradiction VI. But my chief answer to you is the King as Supreme Magistrate doth appoint and rule by others that are truly Magistrates They have every one a Judicial power in their several places under him even every Justice of Peace But you suppose the Bishop to set up no Bishops nor no Church-Governours under him at all A King can rule a Kingdom by Supremo Judgment when he hath hundreds of Judges under him who do it by his authority And if this had been all our dispute whether a Patriarch or Archbishop can rule a thousand Churches by a thousand Inferior Bishops or Church-rulers you had said something But doth it follow that your Church Monarch can over-see them all himself without any sub-oversees or rule them by Gods word on the Conscience without any sub-rulers You appropriate the Decretory Power to your Monarch and communicate only the executive Hold to that The whole Government is but Legislatio Iudicium Legislation now we meddle not with yet our Bishops allow it to the Presbyters in Convocation for they take Canons to be Church-Laws It is a lower power that is denied to them that they grant the higher to Bare execution is no Government A Hangman is no Governour A Governour may also be Executioner but a meer Executioner is no Governour The People are Executioners of Excommunications while they withdraw from the Excommunicate and with such do not eat c. as 1 Cor. 5. And the Parish-Priest is an Executioner while he as a Cryer proclaimeth or readeth the Chancellors Excommunication in the Church and when he denieth the Sacrament to those that he is bid deny it to I grant you that this is Communicated But it is the Judicial power it self which I have been proving the Bishop uncapable of Exploration is part of the Judicial work I know you include not that in execution which follows it If you did it would be a sad office for a Bishop to
sentence all men upon other mens trial and word As if the Bishop must Excommunicate all that some body else saith he must Excommunicate This turneth Decreeing into a Hangman-like Execution And the nature of the cause forbiddeth it No man is to be Excommunicate for any other crime as such but for Impenitence in some crime nor to be absolved after but upon Repentance Now if it were but whether a man de facto have been drunk or fornicated or perjured c. it were hard judging sententially meerly on trust from others but yet perhaps that might sometimes be done But when the case is Whether the man be penitent Personal trial is necessary to a Rational and Ecclesiastical administration of the sentence I conclude therefore that as a King can judg by many hundred Judges and a General command an Army by many hundred Commanders but not without any one by himself alone having Executioners under him So is it here VII And I pray you note one other difference In the Kingdom it is not one subject of an hundred or many hundreds that hath Law suits with others once in a year or seven years or his life Nor one of some hundreds where I have lived that findeth the Magistrate work as Criminal And in this we differ even from the Physician who in a City hath not one of many that is sick but we are all of a sinning corrupt disposition and the Pastor hath few of his flock that need not some personal applications in one degree or other And even as to gross sins lived in and ignorance or heresie against the very essence of Christianity it is a good Parish where a considerable part of it are not guilty so that it is easier for one Justice of Peace to send two or three thieves in a year to a Gaol and bind two or three to the good behaviour than for one Bishop to admonish exhort convince and judg 10000 impenitent sinners in a little time and hear all the Witnesses c. If you should have said that the Parish Priest is to reprove exhort convince them first till he prove them impenitent and he is to instruct the ignorant Infidels and Hereticks I answer 1. That is more than an executive power 2. We desire no more at all from Bishopâ— or any and know no other Episcopal power over the people but thus personally to convince men and declare to the Congregation upon proof the fitness or unfitnss of men for their Communion by penitence or impenitence But this is it that the Ministers are hindred from or denied They have no power to speak with any one ignorant Heretical Infidel or scandalous sinner in the Parish but such as are willing And few of the guilty are willing They will neither come to the Minister nor suffer him to come to them but shut their doors on him if they know that he cometh on such a work or else they will not be within Or if they be will tell him that they will not answer him When I came first to Kederminster the rabble multitude curst me in the streets and rose up against me but for saying That Infants Originally have that sin and misery which needs a Saviour yet such if they scorn to speak with us must be our Communicants for want of Pastoral power There is no Law or penalty that I ever knew of to constrain any to come to us receive us hear us or answer us if we had never so much cause to question them of or fortifie them against infidelity heresie ignorance or wicked lives And if any other accuse them to us as few will we must not judg them without trial It may be you will say Would you have them constrained by force to speak with the Pastor or give him any account of their faith life or knowledg besides coming with others into the Church I answer No we would have no force as we have none But then we would not be forced our selves by the Church-Lords and Monarchs to take our selves for the Pastors of such as refuse our Pastoral office and to give the Sacrament and all priviledges of Church-Communion to every one in the Parish who upon just suspicion of gross scandal heresie infidelity or ignorance obstinately refuseth to speak to us and give us any account or to be tried I that have yearly tried my Parish by Personal Conference know that thousands and thousands among us know not and therefore believe not whether Christ be God or man or Angel or what nor who the Holy Ghost is or why Christ died rose nor scarce any supernaturally revealed article of the Christian faith And that many that understand them believe them not And I desire no Church-power but not to take those 1. For Christians 2. And for my especial Christian flock 1. Who are no Christians 2. Who themselves refuse it Without their consent the Minister is forced on them They aâ—e forced by the sword to say that they are Christians and to come to Church and Communicate The old Christian Profession was I will be a Christian and hold Communion with the Church though I go to prison or death for it The Prelatical Christian Profession is I will rather be a Christian and Communicate than I will lye in Gaol and have all my Estate confiscate Seeing then that we have not the due power of a Pastor to deny our Office-administrations in Sacraments to those that refuse us in the other parts aforesaid we are utterly disabled from so much as preparing men for the Bishops or Chancellors Examination 3. But if it were otherwise that must not satisfie the Church-Monarch who must judg himself and therefore must hear by himself But you tell me It is plainly against experience in Ecclesiasticks Ans. It 's hard then to know any thing For I dispute all this while as if the question were Whether men in England speak English And if I herein err I am uncurable and therefore I allow you to despair of me You say The greatness of no City was thought sufficient to multiply Bishops Ans. 1. Gods Institution was that every Church have a Bishop Act. 14.23 c. 2. A particular Church then was A Society of Neighbour-Christians combined for Personal Communion in Gods Worship and holy living consisting of Pastor and flock 3. For 250 years I think you cannot prove that any one Bishop in the world save at Alexandria and Romr had more such Congregations and Altars than one nor these for a long time after the Apostles nor in many Churches of ome hundred years longer 4. At Antioch the third Patriarchate Ignatius professeth that every Church had one Altar and one Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons fellow-servants And that in this one Church the Bishop must enquire of all by name even Servant-men and Maids and see that they absented not themselves from the Church Why is not Ignatius confuted if he erred Vid. Mede on the Point 5. Alexandria and Rome
by not multiplying Bishops as Churches or Converts needed it began the grand sin and calamity which hath undone us and therefore are not to be our Pattern Orbis major est urbe 6. Were Bishops necessarily to be distributed by Cities the Empires that have few or no Cities must have few or no Bishops and an Emperor might aliud agâ—ndo depose all the Bishops by dis franchizing the Cities 7. But every Corporation oppidum like our Market-Towns was then truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if you will but procure every such City with us to have a Bishop and the Office of such Bishops to be to drive men from sin and not to it and to silence Blasphemers and not faithful Preachers of the Gospel all our controversies of Prelacy are then at an end 8. And you must remember that great Cities had long but few Christians in comparison of the Heathens till Constantine's time and mostly long after And when Patrick with his own hand Ordained Three Hundred and Fifty Bishops in your Ireland they were but Ecclesiarum fundatores and with them he founded but septingentas Ecclesias and Ordained Five Thousand Clerks if Ioceline be true Vit. Patriâ— cap. 185. and not rather the far more credible report of Antonin in Chrâ—n tit 11. cap. 18. § 2. and Vincent specul histor lib. 20. cap. 23. who say that Ecclesias funâ—avit 365. â—rdinavit Episcopos eodem numero 365. et eo amplius in quibus spiritus Dei crat Presbyteros autem usque ad 3â—00 ordinavit Aâ— Vsher â—â—ceth them de primord Eccl. Br. p 9â—7 which is Ninius number there So that here is no more Churchâ—s thâ—n â—ishops and about Nine Presbyters to a Bishop You tell me of above One thousand Clergy-men at Rome in Corâ—elius's 〈◊〉 Ans. 1. This was above Two hundred and Fifty years after Christs Birth 2. I never took all the impotent persons poor and Widows in the Church to be Clergy-men and Clergy-women Cornelius his account is that there are Six and Forty Presbyters Seven Deacons Seven Sub-Deacons Two and Forty Acolytes Two and Fifty Exorcists and Readers with Porters Widows and impotent persons above One thousand and Fifty souls considering 1. How their Meetings were then obscure and small in Houses as the tolerated Churches in London And in so vast a City in how many distant places Besides the sub-urbicarian Assemblies 4 And how many Presbyters used still to be with the Bishop in the same Assembly 5. And that here are in all but Seven Deacons 6. And that many then were Presbyters that used not to Preach but for privater over-sight and as the Bishops Assessors 7. And that the poorer sort most commonly received the Gospel 8. And that none of these but the Six and Forty Presbyters had any power in the Discipline 9. And that by all this reckoning the whole Church maintained not besides the Officers near a thousand poor we may probably conjecture that the whole Church of that Bishop was not bigger than some one London-Parish Stepney Giles Cripplegate Martins c. where are about Fifty thousand souls 10. And when none were Christians but persecuted Volunteers they were the holiest and best of men and I have tryed that Six hundred such make less work for Discipline than Ten of the Rabble that are driven into our Churches and choose them rather than the Goal But when all 's done Two Cities under the power of great temptation are not to be our Rule against Gods Word and the state of all other Churches in the world and undeniable experience It 's true that you say that to erect another Altar was counted Schism that is Altare contra altare because when the Phrase came up no Church had more than one Altar Your Instances intimated of Antioch and Carthage I believe not and can give you had I liberty a Volume of proof from Antiquity that for Two hundred and Fifty years if not much longer Ignatius's Rule was true that every Church had one Altar and one Bishop at least except the two aforesaid Vlphilas was but an Arrian Bishop of a few Goths newly turned Arrians and the first that translated the Scriptures into the Gothick Tongue so that no Churches among them had the Scripture till after his translating and these few were presently persecuted to rhe death by Athanarichus ut socrat lib. 4 cap. 32. You may call these few a Kingdom if you please How few of the Indians were converted when Frumentius not Aedesius as you say was made their Bishop it 's easie to gather by the History Scythia and Persia used to have each a Bishop and he lived in the Roman Empire as near them as he durst as not being tolerated usually in their Land And as few it 's like Mosâ—s had among the Arabians there being no mention in the History of any thing to perswade us that he had many Churches under him that I remember And the work of these Bâ—shops was to ordain Presbyters who had the power of the Keys exceptae Ordinatione did all that Bishops did as Hierome saith So that then a Diocess had not one sole Church-Governour and therefore where you gather that yet Discipline was not dissolved I answer 1. In all this you leave out a matter of chief consideration viz. That all the Presbyters then were assistants in Discipline and had a true Church-Government over the people which now they have not 2. It 's strange that we that have eyes and ears must be sent to the Indians and ancient History to know whether one Bishop can hear and try and admonish so many thousands at once as we see by experience are those Objects of Discipline which the Scripture describeth and when we see that it is not done And after all this we have talk't but of a â—hantasm for it is not one Bishop but one Lay man a Chancellor that useth this Decretory power of the Keys over all these fouls so far as they are used as to the ordinary Court-tryals and exerciâ—e and the Bishop rarely medleth with it Again Nonconformists doubt not to prove that the Diocesan frame whiâ—h they dare not swear to 1. Doth depose the species of Churches of Gods Institution 2 And the Discipline it self almost totally 3. And the species of Presbyters 4. And the old species of Bishops And instead of each of these setteth up a new species of man's invention wholly different and inconsistent And that they are not willing to Swear Subscribe or deliberately and solemnly enter into a Church-Covenant That in their Places and Callings they will never endeavour any alteration of this no not by a request or word you may less wonder than if some were then loath to Swear or Covenant never to endeavour to take down the Priests of Dan and Bethel or reform the high places It 's dangerous making a solemn Ministerial Covenant Never to obey God in any one great matter and never to repent of so doing Again our Reasons
consented to all the General Councils 3. You shall chuse what Name I shall call you by If it be Protestant far be it from me to deny it you But as your Book publisheth your judgment to the world you will give me leave to tell men what is in it And to profess my self that I am no such Protestant as takes the Church of Rome to be a true Church of uninterrupted succession which gave our Bishops their Office and Power and that all the Reformed that have not Diocesan Bishops are no Churches no Ministers have no Sacraments no pardon of sin or hope of salvation by promise and known ordinary grounds which the Roman Church hath Yea that they sin against the Holy Ghost Yea and that this is the case of the Episcopal Protestants that have not had an uninterrupted succession of Episcopal Ordination and that the French Protestants were better turn Papists than to continue such Protestants as they are I take all this for your judgment But I vindicate you so far as to say that you oft contradict your self and so possibly may yet come off If you should say that neither such Protestants nor Papists have Sacraments and part in the Covenant of grace pardon and salvation you would leave so few for Heaven and so many for Hell as I will not imagine you to be guilty oâ— II. As to the Second I must tell all that I take it but for trifling to call us to answer the same things again which are answered so long ago and have no reply from Papists or any other And I doubt not but you know that it is the main charge which the Papists assault the Reformed Churches with and put their chief trust in which you also bring against them And we still believe that Iansenius did it much stronglier than you and much more than yours is by Voâ—tius against him fully answered and your denial moveth us not III. To satisfie your Third demand I remember a small Script which I published 1659 or 1660 and therewith send it you by which with what I read to you you may conjecture at my terms specially if you joyn my Preface to Cathol Theologie I take it for granted that it will not satisfie you But pardon my freedom for saying that while I perceive your Confidence ordinarily to go quite beyond your Proofs and while my Principles call me to love more as brethren than yours do and engage me not to justifie persecution of men better than my self I shall think never the worse of them for that IV. As to your judgment for my ceasing to Preach I dare not obey it I think if I say these men forbid me God will not take it for an excuse after such charges as Scripture layeth down and such promises as in Ordination I made and such necessity of souls as I am sure of and such encouragements as God hath given me I fear hearing Thou slothful servant c. as much as the guilt of other heinous sins I have not lived idly and if I silence my self I invite God by death to silence me and judg me as obeying man against him I am past doubt that Satan and my flesh give me the same counsel as you do I have abundant arguments for my Preaching which I never heard a â—ational answer of and which such a poor Objection as Then there will be no Order will not confute especially when all the Ministers of England are bound to be Nonconformists and consequently to â—ease Preaching if I am so bound And why not next all Christians to cease hearing and praying if so forbidden If it be only Christs Gospel that I Preach I cannot but suspect the voice that saith Give over Preaching Accept this account of the sense of Your Friend Rich. Baxter To Mr. Dodwell Nov. 15th 1680. SIR YOurs of Oct. 16 th I received Nov. 11 th which intimateth the Second Edition of your Letters which I hear not of your last Letter to me signifying your purpose to publish your long Letter from Ireland to me caused me to Print an old Treatise of Episcopacy which I had cast by and now send you as an answer to that Letter I thank you for your admonition and desire of my repentance It shall make me if I can search yet more diligently but I find no probability of being able the like lamentations of my sin and wrong to the Church I have long had from Papists Antinomians Anabaptists and Separatists and some Quakers and Seekers and I despair of satisfying them nor can I be of all their minds and I find here but one Argument to draw me to yours viz my taking the Oath of Canonical obedience And 1. You know not that I took it Many Ordained men did not To tell you the truth I entered so rawly that though I well remember my Subscription I remember not that I took that Oath I remember I took it not for my Ordination but at the same time taking a License for a School some Oath the Register suddenly thrust on me and I remember not what it was which was and is my sin 2. If I took it surely I never intended to bind my self to any but my true Ordinary And when he is dead and the very Order for near Twenty years publickly though culpably put down and none existent where I lived I never saw it proved that I am sworn to all that after are set up over others by the King without the Clergies or Peoples choice or consent contrary to the Judgment of the Church for One thousand years and that without and against my own consent And that he that sweareth obedience to his present Ordinary is thereby sworn though he never dream't of it to all that ever shall succeed him what changes soever be made and though judging them Usurpers I renounce them If it be said that I virtually consent by the Convocation I deny it nor did the City of London consent for they had not one chosen Clerk there They chose Mr. Calamy and me and we were both refused by the Bishop and only the Dignitaries of the City admitted What if I had sworn obedience in 1639. to the Presbytery in Scotland or 1649. in England and after they are put down and I find them to be an unlawful power and they are restored again doth my first Oath bind me to the latter stock against my consent 3. The English Ecclesiastical Law-Books which I have read do tell me that the Chancellor Official Commissary Archdeacons and every Iudex Ordinarius is my Ordinary whatever you say against it And some Bishops themselves have judged the Lay-Chancellors Judgment by the use of the Keys to be a great sin Quest. Whether then an ignorant Oath to obey such Usurpers repented of do bind to obey them still What if in France I had sworn obedience to their Bishops and after see that it was an unlawful Oath quod materiam am I bound by it till death 4.
I swore to obey them but in licitis honestis And I do not know that ever I therein disobeyed those that I sware to no nor the latter reduced stock Either I have proved the degenerate sort described in this Treatise to be a heinously sinful depravation of the Church and its Government and an injury against Christ by deposing his Church Form Discipline and Officers or not if not evince it and I will thank you if yea to comply with such sin or in any calling to forbear detecting it by writing is an Omission which is not licitum vel honestum An unlawful Oath against a thing indifferent will not bind me if the King do but command that indifferent thing much less will an ignorant Oath to obey Church-Usurpers and corrupters oblige me against Christs commands Nor do I think it licitum vel honestum to renounce my Ministry sacrilegiously and perfidiously break my Ordination-Vow to God and forbear Preaching Christs Gospel to needy souls because they forbid me In a word Sir I unfeignedly thank you for your desire to save me from dying in sin I have great reason to make it my greatest care Constant pain and languor call to me neither to dissemble nor delay When I cannot know my own heart so well as you do I may come to believe you that it is unruly Pride Till then I am past doubt that could any abasement any labour any cost help me to know that you are in the right and I in the wrong I would most joyfully undertake it But such warnings as your's awaken my Conscience so that I dare not die in the guilt of active or omissive compliance with those men 1. Whose degenerate state I confidently judg to be the dangerous Malady of the Church and destructive to a right Church-state Church-Officers and Government 2. Whose Canons of Government are such as they are 3. Who have since I had any understanding done that against serious godliness in England which they did and these near Twenty years done what they have done procuring the silencing and outward ruin of about Two thousand such Ministers of Christ as I know to have been the most pious faithful and successful in true Ministerial work of any that ever I could know and such as I am fully perswaded no Nation under Heaven have Two thousand better And yours or other mens accusations or contrary judgment cannot make me ignorant of this which experience and great acquaintance have told me 4. And Church-History which tells me what such have done in former Ages increase my fear of dying in the guilt of participating of their sin I know of no other Motives that I have The sum of my request to you is That instead of telling me what the Pope or any Usurper may say that I should be humble and obedient you will but tell me what means I should use which I have omitted to get my judgment informed if I err and to become of your mind and as wise as you I again intreat you to tell me the way and I shall give you most hearty thanks Did I not know your judgment and mine to be so distant as puts me out of hope of attaining my end I would have sent you Nine or Ten Proposals for the meer reducing of the Parish Churches to their necessary state without altering any thing of the Diocesans power or grandure save only their power of the Sword which yet as they are Magistrates we submit to That your former Letters brought me not to your judgment you may see by the book which I send you cometh not to pass by hasty judging nor without that which seemeth Reason to me after my long and best consideration I am fully assured not byassed hereto by worldly interest which hath long lain on the other side Accept this Account from Nov. 15. 1680. Your unfeigned though dissenting Friend Ri. Baxter July 9. 1677 For my much honoured Friend Mr. Henry Dodwell SIR SINCE the writing of my last to you your own words have acquainted me 1. That you take my Principles to have some inconsistence or contradiction 2. That you think I have not yet told you what Church-Government it is that I would have or how it can attain its end 3. That you suppose that denying men the Sacrament of the Lords Supper is a coercive power sufficient to force unwilling men to obey Church-Governours 4. That you hold that all Religious Assemblies not allowed by the Bishops are unlawful and therefore that we must rather use none than such I. As to the first no reason obligeth me to believe you till you prove it which must be by citing the inconsistent words How easie is it to tell you or any man that you speak contradictions Is accusing proving And you have told me by experience that mistaking Hearers and Readers understand not mens words so well as the Speakers or Writers do When you so widely mistook a speech of mine when I had told you that as far as I could learn by my own acquaintance and the report of the Members themselves there was but one known Presbyterian in the House of Commons when the Wars began I named you a credible witness yet living and you report that I said there was but one Presbyterian in the Assembly of Divines May not my writing be as much mistaken by you Prove your Charge and I will confeâ—s my contradictions and give you thanks II. As to the second I was afraid I had used more words than needs if all that I have said tell you not what I mean you may excuse me from adding more which are like to be no more significant you must name me the particulars that you are unsatisfied in before I can know what is needful to be added One particular you did name viz. whether I hold a power in the Church to deny men the Sacrament that would have it I left you no reason to make a doubt of it If this be it pardon the repetitions which you make me guilty of and I shall renew my account 1. I believe that Christ hath instituted the office of the Sacred Ministry which the Ancients called Sacerdotium as subordinate to his Teaching Ruling and Sacerdotal office and that being obliged to Disciple and baptize the Nations and to teach them Christs commands and to guide them in holy Doctrine Worship and Discipline they are authorized to all that they are obliged to and that it is their office-work to administer Baptism and the Lords Supper and that they have the Church-Keys to judg whom to take in by Baptism what food to feed the children of the Church with and whom to cast out of its Communion 2. I believe that this power is limited and regulated by Christs own universal Laws and that they are not lawless or arbitrary but he hath bound them by a just description whom to take in what food to give them and whom to cast out And that he hath given them
no power to cross or violate these his Laws And if they do it notoriously it is null and worse and no act of authority but of sin e. g. If Bishops baptize unconverted Infidels or give the other Sacrament to such or to notorious wicked impenitent persons 3. I believe that if one or many Bishops or Priests do disobey these Laws of Christ their sin doth not oblige all other persons to rebel or sin with them or disoblige them from their duty e. g. If some Bishops should refuse to receive penitent believers and their â—eed into the Church by Baptism others are nevertheless bound to receive them and not all the Bishops in the world to keep them out because some do it sinfully so if some Bishops would feed them with unâ—ound Doctrine or corrupt Gods Worship e. g. with Image-worship or language unintâ—lligible c. others must not follow them but do better And if some Bishops turn Christs sheep out of his sold and pasture unjustly denying them Communion others must not do wickedly with them but must receive such else one tyrant might oblige all the Churches to tyranny 4. But while the power of the Keys is lawfully used he that is justly cast out of the Communion of one Church should not be received to Communion with any other that hath just notice of his Exclusion till the cause be removed 5. But the notice of it concerneth not those that living out of reach are uncapable of Communion with that person If a woman in this Parish be Excommunicated as a Scold or a man as a Drunkard c. the Bishop is not bound to send notice of their names and case to Ethiopia or Armenia nor to all the Christian World no nor to all England Nor do they use to do it to all the Parishes in the Diocess but only to that one where the person liveth But I doubt not but all that Church should know of it of which he was a Communicating member by the way why is not all the Diocess told of it but that men are conscious that he hath not Personal communion with them and therefore need not be so Excommunicated 6. Therefore mens limited capacity allowing them Personal Communion but in a narrow compass there needs no Confederacy of all the Christian World for the rejecting of those that one of them hath first rejected 7. But in well-ordered agreeing Churches none should be received presently into the Communion of another Church without due notice of his aptitude or capacity which regularly should be by the Certificates of the Church whence he came called Communicatory Letters or if he was never before admitted to the Sacrament because not at age his own Personal profession giveth him right and so it doth in the Countries where through neglect such Certificates or Testimonies are not in use sobeit there come in no proof against him that he stands Excommunicate or deserveth it A professing Christian hath right to Communion if he travel through all the Churches in the World till his profession be disproved or his claim disabled by just testimony If a man be Excommunicate in e. g. Lincoln-Diocess in one Parish-Church above a thousand Parishes more of the same Church Diocesan may receive him for want of notice unless they are bound to receive no stranger of another Parish and that is a kind of Excommunicating of all Christians from the Communion of all the Christian World except one Parish 8. The Legal Excommunication which is only a general pronunciation that such or such sinners in specie shall be actually excommunicate is done already by God himself in his Universal Laws And no man ought to make Laws to Excommunicate any that Gods Laws do not decree to be Excommunicate save that when there is a difficulty in discerning whether this or that Doctrine or practice be indeed the sin so condemned in Gods Laws mens Laws may expound it to remove that difficulty If all were excommunicate that Gods own Laws do require to be excommunicate alas how great would the number be So little need is there that Voluminous Councils should excommunicate many more and that Councils should be added to Councils to the end of the world to make new Laws for excommunicating men 9. Where God hath commanded all Christians in his Laws to avoid any sort of wicked men and with such not to eat the fact being once notorious the person is so far ipso jure excommunicate as that all are bound to avoid familiarity with that person though no Bishop sentence him But the Pastors having the Church Keys we must not go out of the Church because such a man is there for who shall be in the Church is at his Judgment but who shall be at my Table is at mine 10. But if the Church it self be essentiated of such as God thus commandeth all to avoid and this be notorious every Christian must avoid that Church The Essentials of a Church are the pars regens pars subdita the Pastors and the Body of the flock If either be so far corrupt the Church is corupt When any one essential part is wanting or depraved then the Essence is wanting or depraved Therefore where many Pastors make up the pars regens of a particular Church it is not the heresie or wickedness of some one only that will warrant a separation because one is but an integral and not an essential part But where one Bishop only is the essential regent constitutive part there that one mans heresie or notorious wickedness such as we are commanded to have no Communion with will allow us to avoid that Church as a Church though not each Member of it who are parts still of the Universal Church If I knew what further explication of my thoughts it is that you desire I should be ready to give it you III. As to the coercive power which you talk of it is strange if we can differ about the nature of it but we greatly differ I suppose about the extent of it Pardon me if to avoid confusion I first speak of the Name and then of the Thing 1. Though our ordinary use of the words coactive and coercive be to signifie that which worketh either on the Body and its provision only or on the Mind by force upon the Body or Estate yet if you will but tell me what you mean by it so distinctly that we may not be entangled with Logomachy take it in what sense you will The words which you use are the signification of your mind I desire but to understand and to be understood I follow Bishop Bilson of Christ. Obed. and others commonly that distinguish the power of Magistrates and Pastors by the Names of the power of the Sword and of the Word By the first they mean all power of corporal mulâ—ts and penalties directly such for he that grievâ—th the mind consequently troubleth the body By the latter they mean all that Official power of Gods
the Antecedent True Pastors have but the power to promote and order Gods worship but not to exclude or forbid it to any much less to all or 1000. without necessary cause 2. And then if Preaching and Hearing and Sacraments be ordinarily necessary to mens salvation then God hath left it to the will or power of the Bishops whether any of the people shall be ordinarily saved But that is not so 3. And then if the King should license or command us to Preach Pray and Communicate and the Bishop forbid it it were sin But that I will not believe unless the Cause more than the Authority make the difference To cooclude I hold that just use of the Keys is very necessary and that it is the great sin of England to reject it But that a false usurped use of excomunication hath been the incendiary of the Christian world which hath broken it to pieces caused horrid Schisms Rebellions Treasons Murders and bloody Wars I. The just use is 1. When a scandalous or great sinner is with convincing evidence told of his error and with seriousness yet with love and compassion intreated to repent and either prevailed with and so absolved or after due patience Authoritatively pronounced uncapable of Church-Communion and bound over to answer it at the Bar of Christ in terror if he repent not and this by the Pastor of that particular Church which either statedly or pro tempore he belongeth to 2. And when this is duly notified to such Neighbour-Pastors as he may seek Communion with and they agree not to receive any justly cast out by others but to receive and relieve the injured and falsly condemned 3. And when the King and his Justices permit not the ejected violently to intrude and take the Sacrament or joyn with the Church by force but preserveth forcibly the Peace and Priviledges of the Churches II. The excommunication that hath turned the Church into Factions and undone almost East and West is 1. When a Bishop because of his humane Superiory as Patriark Primate or Pope claimeth the power of excommunicating other Bishops as his Subjects whose Sentence must stand because of his Regent power 2. Or at least gathering a Council where he shall preside and that Council shall take themselves to have a Governing power of the Keys over the particular Bishop not only to renounce Communion with them themselves but to oblige all others to stand to their judicial Sentence 3. When Bishops shall meddle causelesly in other Bishops Churches and make themseves Judges either of distant unknown persons and cases or of such as they have nothing to do to try Yea judg men of other Countries or so distant as the Witnesses and Causes cannot without oppression be brought to their Bar. 4. When they disgrace Gods universal Laws of Communion as insâ—fficiâ—nt and make a multitude of unnecessary ensnaring dividing Laws of their own according to which they must be mens Judges 5. When these Laws are not made only for their own flocks and selves but for all the Christian world or for absent or dissenting persons 6. When men excommunicate others for hard words not understood that deserve it not as to real matter 7. Or do it to keep up an unlawful usurped power over those Churches that never consented to take them for their Pastors and to rule where they have no true Authority but such as standeth on a forcing strength 8. When Lay-Chancellors use the Keys of the Church 9. When men excommunicate others wickedly for doing their duty to God and man or unjustly without sufficient Cause 10. When unjust excommunicators force Ministers against their Consciences to publish their condemnations against those that they know to be not worthy of that Sentence if not the best of their flocks 11. And when they damn all as Hereticks Schismaticks c. that communicate with any that they thus unjustly damn 12. When they dishonour Kings and higher Pwers by disgracing excommunications much more when they depose them 13. When they tell Princes that it is their duty to banish imprison or destroy men because excommunicate and not reconciled and make Kings their Executioners And so of old when a Bishop was excommunicate he must presently be banished And they say the Scots horning is of the same nature If all had been either banished or imprisoned that were excommunicate aâ—d unreconciled in the pursuit of the General Councils of old how great a diminution would it have made of the free Subjects of the Empire And if Princes must strike with the Sword all that stand excommunicate without trying and judging the persons themselves it is no wonder if such Prelates as can first so debase them to be their Lictors can next depose them He is like to be a great Persecuter that will imprison or banish all that a proud contentious Clergy will excommunicate As corruptio optimi est pessima I doubt not but a wise humble holy spiritual loving heavenly zealous patient exemplary sort of Pastors is the means of continuing Christs Kingdom in the World and such are the Pillars and Basis of Truth in the House of God as it is said of Timothy not of the Church as is commonly mistaken So an ignorant worldly carnal proud usurping domineering hypocritical sort of Pastors have been the great plagues and causes of Schism confusion and common calamity And that when Satan can be the chuser of Pastors for Christs Church he will and too oft hath ever chuse such as shall most succesfully serve him in Christs Name And I doubt not but such holy Discipline as shall keep clean the Church of Christ and keep off the reproach of wickedness and uncleanness from the Christian Religion and manifest duly to the flock the difference between the precious and the vile is a great Ordinance of God which one man cannot exercise over many hundred Parishes and unknown people But an usurped domineering use of excommunication to subdue Kings Princes Nobles and people to the Jurisdiction Opinions and Canons of Popes Patriarchs Prelates or their Councils I think hath done not the least part of Satans work in the world And I must tell you that I have lived now near 62. now near 66. years and I never saw one man or woman reformed or converted by excommunication and I hope I have known thousands converted from their sin by Preaching even by some that are now forbidden to Preach All that ever I knew excommunicate were of two sorts 1. Dissenters from the Opinions of the Bishops or conscientious refusers of their commands And these all rejoice in their sufferings applying Blessed are ye when they cast out your names c. say all evil of you falsly c. or they take their censure for wicked persecution The Papists laugh at their Excommunicators and say What an odd conditioned Church have you that will cast us out that never came in and because we will not come in 2. Ungodly impenitent sinners And these hate
the excommunicators for disgracing them and are driven further off from godliness than before But they will say they repent at any time rather than go to the Gaol I never saw one person brought to publick confession in the Assembly by the Bishops Discipline but I heard I was young of one or two that for Adultery stood in a White Sheet in the Church laughing at the sport or hating the imposers When there were no Bishops among us about 1650. many Episcopal Presbyterians c. agreed where I lived to exercise so much Discipline as we were all agreed belonged to Presbyters Hereupon I found good success in bringing some to repentance by admonition but never of any one that stood it out to an excommunication so far as we went which was only to admonish and pray for their repentance publickly and after to declare them unmeet for Christian Communion and to require the people to avoid them accordingly till they repent After this they hated us more than before and one of them laid hands on me in the Church-Yard to have killed me And I am sure that they reverenced those Ministers more than now Lay-Chancellors if not Bishops are by such reverenced So that experience convinced me that the penalty of excommunication is much more beneficial to others than to the excommunicate And how many thousands in your Parish do now voluntarily excommunicate themselves from the Sacrament and Church-Assemblies and find no Remorse or Reformation by it And if all of both sorts conscientious Dissenters and prophane despisers and sinners were excommunicated now by the Church of England without any corporal penalty adjoyned what do you think it would do upon them Would they not laugh at you or pity you Do not the Bishops believe this and therefore will not trust to their excommunications at all without the Sword I cannot magnifie the Discipline of such men as count themselves the Power of the Keys to be but a Leaden Sword a vain thing without the annexed enforcement of corporal penalties If it be but outward obedience to their commands which they drive men to without the heart 1. Men of no Conscience will soonest obey them as forced against their Consciences 2. And why do they abuse the name of the Keys as if it were the cause of that which it is no cause of but is done only by the Magistrates Sword It is the Writ De excom cap. that doth it and not the Keys And they that think unwilling persons have right to the great benefit of Church Communion yea all that had rather come â—o Church than lie in Gaol shall never have my assent If really your meaning be to set up the power of the Keys by themselves to do their proper work and not expect that Magistrates must joyn their forcing power to punish a man meerly because he beareth the Bishops punishment patiently without changing his mind Let it prevail as far as it can prevail who will fear it save for the Schism that it may cause But if it be your meaning all this while that under the name of denying the Sacrament it is Confiscation or the Gaol that must do the work I should wish for more of the Spirit of Christianity and less inclination to the Inquisition-way Persecution never yet escaped its due odium or penalty by disowning its proper name I am more of St. Martin's mind than of Ithacius's V. One word more I add That I like not your making so light as you seem to me to do of the badness of some Ministers and People that are in the allowed Churches I know that the Papists speak much of the holiness of a Pope when perhaps a General Council saith he is a Murderer Adulterer Heretick c. and so call their Church Relatively holy I deny not that Relative holiness which is founded in meer profession But I believe that Christ came to gather a people to another sort of Godliness and by his Spirit to fill them with Divine and Heavenly Life Light and Love to God and man And I believe that all that have this though excommunicate shall be glorified And that without this all the obedience to Bishops that they give will never keep them out of Hell And I take it to be no great priviledg to march in an orderly Army to damnation or to be at peace in Satans power Hell will be Hell which way ever we come to it I confess were these Bishops in the right that Sancta Clara citeth that say The ignorant people might merit by hating God as an act of obedience if their Pastors should tell them it is their duty then this external obedience to them were more considerable But I had rather go in the Company that goeth to Heaven as all do that are true Lovers of God and man than in that which goeth to Hell as do the most Regular of the ungodly And yet I account true obedience and regularity a great duty of the godly and a great help to godliness And therefore I value the Means for the End Concord for Piety and salvation And I cannot think that there is not now in London a very laudable degree of Concord among all those that though in different Assemblies and with difference of opinions about small matters do hold one Body one Spirit one Lord one Faith one Baptism one Celestial hope and one God and Father of all and live in Love and Peace and Patience towards each other This is far greater Concord than the thousands of people that deserving excommunication for their wicked lives do hold in the bosom of the Church which receiveth them as children thereof And O! were it not for that uncharitable impatience which an ill selfish Spirit doth contain why should it seem to us a matter of such odium envy or out-cry for men to hear the same Gospel from another man which for some differing opinion they will not hear from us Or for men to communicate e. g. standing or sitting in a Congregation of that mind that weakly scruple to kneel at it with others the old Canons countenancing their gesture of standing more than kneeling What harm will it do me if under the strictest Laws of Peace men worshipped God by themselves that scruple some word or action in our worship E. g. a Nestorian that should think that it is improper to say that the Virgin Mary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that the denomination should be a ratione formali rather than a materiali Would Liberty in such matters with Love and Peace do more hurt to the Churches than Schismatical excommunications have done And indeed it is hard to make people able to reconcile a Conjunct earnâ—stness in driving the same men into the Church and casting them out yea of excommunicating them ipso facto by divers Canons sine sententia and accusing them for not communicating If it be for not repenting 1. Can you bring all the sinners about us to repentance by
which maketh nothing for the mutability of the Universal Laws 8. No Pastors since the Apostles are by office or power appointed to make any Universal Laws for the Church nor any of the same kind and reason with Gods own Laws whose reason or cause was existent in the Apostles times but only to explain the word of God and apply it to particular persons and cases as Ministers under Christ in his Teaching Priestly and Governing office nor have the Apostles any other kind of Successors 9. Christ made not Peter or any one of his Apostles Governour of the rest But when they strove who should be the chief rebuked that expectation and determined That among them Preeminence should consist in excelling in humility and service 10. When the Corinthians were sick of the like disease Paul rebuked them for saying I am of Cephas and determineth that Apostles are but particular members of the body of which Christ only is the Head and not the Lords but Ministers and helpers of their faith 11 No Pastors as such have forcing power either to touch mens bodies or estates or inflict by the sword corporal penalties or mulcts But only by the word by which the power of the Keys is exercised to instruct men and urge Gods precepts promises and threats upon their Consciences 12. The Apostles were Bishops eminenter in that they called gathered and while they stayed with them governed Churches But not formaliter as taking any one particular Church for their proper charge But setled such fixed Bishops over them And though they distributed their labours about the world prudently and as the Spirit of Christ guided them yet we find not any probability that ever they divided the world into twelve or thirteen Provinces or ever setled twelve or thirteen chief Metropolitical seats in the world which their proper Successors as such should govern in preeminence Nor doth any History intimate such a thing nor yet that any Apostle took any City for his proper Diocess where another Apostle might not come and exercise equal Power 13. It seemeth that Christs sending out his seventy Disciples by two and two and the Apostles staying together much at Ierusalem and Paul and Barnabas's going forth together and after Paul Silas and Barnabas and Mark Peter and Paul supposed to be together at Rome c. that the Spirit of God did purposely prevent the intentions of any afterward of being the Metropolitical Successors of single Apostles or Disciples of Christs immediate sending in this or that City as their proper seat 14. As Grotius thinks that the Churches were instituted after the likeness of the Synagogues of which one City had many so Dr. Hammond endeavours to evince not only that Peter and Paul were Bishops of two distinct Churches of Rome one of the Iews and the other of the Gentile Christians but also that it was so in other Cities Dissertat 15. The Patriarchs were not 12 or 13 but three first and five afterward and none of them pretended to any power as especial Successors of any one Apostle but Antioch and Rome of Peter and that was not their first claim or title but an honorary reason why men afterward advanced them Alexandria claimed Succession but from St. Mark and Ierusalem from Iames no Apostle if Dr. Hammond and others be not much mistaken and Constantinople from none 16. The 28 Canon of Calcedon tels us enough of the foundation title and reason of Patriarchal power and all Church-History that the Metropolitical Powers were granted by Emperours either immediately or empowering Councils thereto 17. These Emperours having no power out of the Empire neither by themselves nor by Councils gave not any power that extended further than the Empire or that could by that title continue to any City which fell under the Government of another Prince 18 Aâ— theâ—e never was a Council truly Universal so the name Vniversal or Oecâ—menical was not of old given them in respect to the whole Christian world but to the whole Empire as the power that called them and the names of the Bishops subscribed c. fully prove 19. Before Christian Princes did empower them Councils were but for Counsel concord and correspondency and particular Pastors were bound by their Decrees only 1. For the evidence of truth which they made known 2. And by the General Law of God to maintain unity and peace and help each other But afterward by vertuâ— of the Princes Law or Will they exercised a direct Government over the particular Bishops and those were oft banished that did not submit to them 20. While Councils met but for Counsel and Concord and also when afterwards they were but Provincial or National under Kings where none of the Patriarchal Spirit and Interest did corrupt them they made excellent Orders and were a great blessing to the Churches Of the first sort e. g. were divers African and of the latter divers Spanish and French when neither Emperor nor Popâ— did over-rule them but the Gothish and French Kings moderately govern them But though I deny not any good which the Councils called General did especially the firâ—â— Nicene yet I must profess that the History of the Patriarchal Seats and the History of the General Councils and the Church-Wars then and after them managed by Four of the Patriarchs especially and their Bishops the confusion caused in most of the Churches the Anathematizâ—ng of one another the blood that hath been shed in the open streets of Monks and common people yea the fighting and fury of Bishops at the Councils to the death of some of them their â—iring out the endeavours of such Emperors and their Officers that would have kept Peace and Concord among them do all put me out of hope that the Peace and Concord of the Christian world should ever be setled by Popes Patriarchs or such kind of Councils which all have so long filled the Christian world with most calamitous divisions contentions and blood-shed and made the snares which continue its divisions and distractions to this day II. I conceive that the means of Church-concord appointed by God is as follows But I premise 1. It must be pre-supposed That no perfect Concord will be had on earth yea that there will unavoidably be very many differences which must be born So great is the diversity of mens natural Capacity and Temper their Education Company Teachers Helps Interests Callings Temptations c. that it is not probable that any Two men in all the world are in every particular of the same mind And every man that groweth in knowledg will more and more differ from himself and not be of the same mind as he was when he knew less 2. Yet must our increase in knowledg and Concord be our continual endeavour and it is the use of teaching to bring these differences caused by ignorance to as small a number as we can 3. There is scarce a more effectual means of Division and Confusion and
Doctrine Worship and Discipline this is essential to a partiicular Church primi ordinis of Divine Institution of which I now treat III. 1. As Christians must gather into particular Churches under their proper Bishops so these Churches must hold a certain Communion among themselves so much as is necessary to their mutual Edification and Preservation of which Synods and Communicatory Letters and Messengers are the means 2. An association of several Churches for Communion of Churches doth tota specie differ from an association of individual Christians into one Church primae speciei And it differeth in the matter end and kind of Communion 3. If these several Churches agree in the same Baptismal Covenant in the same ancient Creed or Articles of Faith and in the same love and holy desires summed up by Christ in the Lords-prayer and in taking the commands of Christ for the Rule of their conversation and receiving Gods Revelations recorded in the holy Scriptures so far as they understand them renouncing all contraries to any of this so soon as they perceive them so to be this should suffice to their loving and comfortable communion without any desires of Domination or Government over one another And though I will not do any thing unpeaceably against Patriarchs Metropolitans Archbishops or Diocesans if they govern according to the Laws of God yet I know no Divine right that any of them have to be the Rulers of the particular Bishops and Churches Though a humane presidency for order we deny not nor that junior Bishops do owe some respect and submission to the Seniors 4. Though the General Laws of Christ for concord edification c. do enable Magistrates by command or Pastors by contract to chuse and make new Officers of their own which God never particularly instituted for the determining and executing such circumstantials as God hath left to humane prudence as Presidents Moderators Churchwardens Summoners c. yet I deny 1. That any Officer of meer humane Institution hath a superior proper Ecclesiastical Power of the Keys to be a Bishop of Bishops and to govern the Governouâ—s of the particular Churches by Excommunications Depositions and Absolutions seeing ex ratione rei it belongeth to the same Legislator who instituted the inferiour order to have instituted the Superiour if he would have had it 2. And I peremptorily deny that any such pretended Superiour Patriarch Primate Metropolitan Archbishop c. hath any power save Diabolical to deprive any particular Churches Bishops or Christians of any of the Priviledges setled on them by Christs Vniversal Laws or to disoblige them from any duties required by Christ. IV. It belongeth to the Office of Princes and Magistrates only to Rule all both Clergy and Laity by the sword or force even to drive Ministers to do their certain duty and to punish them for sin And they are to keep peace among the Churches and as bad as the Secular Powers have been had they not kept peace better than the Bishops have done I am possest with horrour to think what a field of blood the Churches had been throughout the world since the Exaltation of the Clergy V. Christ only is as the Universal Legislator so the Universal final judg from whom there is no appeal VI. Every Christian as a Rational Agent hath a Judgment of discerning by which he must judg whether his Rulers commands be according to Christs commands or not And if they be must obey Christ in them If not must not obey them against Christ but appeal to him And if any do this erroneously it is his sin if justly it is his duty These six Particulars I take to be the sufficient means which Christ hath appointed for the concord of the Church and that the seven points of Concord mentioned by the Apostle should satisfie us herein viz. 1. One body 2. One Spirit 3. One hope of our calling 4 One Lord. 5. One Faith 6. One Baptism 7. One God and Father of all And they that agree in these are bound to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace as knowing that the Kingdom of God consisteth not in meats and dâ—inks but in Righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And he that in these serveth Christ is acceptable to God and should be approved of men Rom. 14.17 18. Ephes. 4.6 7 c. Nor is it lawful for any to hate persecute silence or Excommunicate their Brethren that agree in these or to divide distract or confound the Churches for the interest of their several Preeminences or Provinces which have no higher than humane authority perhaps questionable at least unquestionably below the authority of God and null when it is against it I am sure by the Church-History of all ages since Christ the great divider of the Christian World hath been the Pride of a worldly too ignorant Clergy 1. Striving who should be greatest 2. Striving about ambiguous words 3. Imposing unnecessary things by their Authority upon the Churches to be ignorant of this is impossible to me when once I have read the History of the Church which warneth me what to suspect as the causes of our distractions for the things that had been are And how unexcusable these three evils are and how contrary to Christ these Texts do tell me I. Luk 22.24 25 26 1 Pet. 5.1 2 3 4. 1 Cor. 3.5 6 7 22. 2 Cor. 1.24 II. 2 Tim. 2.14 16 23 24 25. 1 Tim. 1.4 5 6. III. 2 Cor. 11.3 Act. 15.28 Revel 2.24 25 Mat. 15.8 9. Rom. 14 15 throughout To tell you that I am not only as you say on the destructive part I have thus told you briefly what I assert as the way to peace And now I shall destructively tell you why I differ from your Principles as truly destructive of truth unity and peace Some of the Principles which I have heard from your mouth which I dissent from are these I. That the Church must have some Ecclesiastical Governours that are absolute from whom no man may appeal to an invisible Power II. That Diocesan Churches are the first in order of Divine Institution III. That Diocesan-Bishops by consent may make other Church-forms as National Patriarchal c. And that such Churches are not made by Princes but by the consent of Prelates IV. That these Church-forms of mans making stand in a Governing Superiority over those of Gods making V. That where by such consent of Diocesans such superior Jurisdictions are once setled it is a sin for any to gather Assemblies within the local bounds of their Jurisdiction without their consent VI. That you cannot see how those that do so can be saved VII That if I preach on the account of my Ministerial office and the peoples necessity to such as else would have no Preaching nor any publick worship of God e. g. in a Parish where there are 40000 more than can hear in the Parish-Church though I must conclude that according to the ordinary way
of Salvation such could not be brought to Faith Holiness and Salvation for want of teaching it is yet my sin to preach to them and my duty to let them rather be damned if I have not the Bishops consent to teach them and that because it is the Bishop and not I that shall answer for their damnation VIII That it is disputable with you whether those to whom Church power is given viz. Diocesans may not change not only the local temporary circumstances but the very Church-forms and suspend Laws of Christ. IX That Baptism entreth the Baptized into some particular Church and consequently under this fore-described Church-Government X. That in the case of Preaching the Gospel Ministers may in many cases do it though Emperours and Kings forbid them as in the days of Constantius Valens yea and better men but not if the Bishop forbid them or consent not XI That circa Sacra if the King command the Churches for Uniformity one Translation of the Bible one Version or Meter of the Psalms one Liturgy one Time or Place of Worship c. and the Bishop another we ought to obey the Bishop against the command of the King XII That the required Subscriptions Declarations Rubricks and Canons are primarily the Laws of the Church which the King and Parliament do confirm by their Sanction and therefore the Church is the Expounder of them These are some of your Assertions which I cannot yet receive I. My Reasons against the first are these 1. Because this maketh Gods of men and so is Idolatry giving them Gods proper Power and Prerogative 2. Yea it taketh down God or his Laws and setteth them above him For there cannot be two Absolute Governors that have not one Will. If I must not appeal from them to God then I must appeal from God to them that is I must break his Law if they bid me or else they are not Absolute 3. This maketh all Gods Laws at the will of maâ— as alterable or dispensible Man may forbid all that God commandeth and I must obey 4. Then all Villanies may be made Virtues or Duties at the will of man If they command us to curse God or Blaspheme or be perjured or commit Fornication Murder or Idolatry it would become a Duty 5. Then the Power and Lives of Kings would be at the Clergies mercy For if their power be Absolute they may make Treason and Rebellion a Duty 6. And all Family-Societies and Civil Converse migbt be overthrown while an Absolute Clergy may disoblige men from all duty to one another 7. Then the Council at Lateran which you have excellently proved in your Considerations to be the Author of its Canons doth or did oblige Princes to exterminate their Reformed Subjects and disoblige Subjects from their Allegiance to Princes that obey not the Pope herein and are excommunicate So of Greg. 7 th's Council Rom. 8. Then did the Church or Kingdom of England well to disobey or forsake the Roman Power that was over them 9. Were not our Martyrs rather Rebels that died for disobeying an Absolute Power 10. How should two contradicting Absolute Powers viz. General Councils be both obeyed E. g Nicen. 1. and Arimini Sirm. and Tyr. or Ephes. 2 and Calced 11. How will this stand with the Judgment and practice of the Apostles that said Whether it be meet that we obey God or man judg ye 12. How will it stand with Conformity to the Church of England that in the Articles saith that General Councils may err and have erred in matter of Faith c. 13. Is it not against the sense of all mankind even the common Light of Nature where utter Atheism hath not prevailed Say not that I wrong you by laying all this odium on your self I lay it but on your words And I doubt not but though disputing Interest draw such words from you on consideration you will re-call them by some limitations II. My Reasons against your second must pre-suppose that we understand one another as to the sense of the word Diocesan Church which being your â—erm had I been with you I must have desired you first to explain The word Diocess of old you know signified a part of the Empire larger than a Province and that had many Metropolitans in it I suppose that is not your sense Sometimes now it is taken for that space of ground which we call a Diocess sometimes for all the people in that space And with us a Diocesan Church is a Church of the lowest Order containing in it a multitude of fixed Parochial Congregations which have every one their stated Presbyter who is no Bishop and Vnum altare and are no Churches but parts of a Church and which is individuated by one Bishop and the measuring-space of ground whose inhabitants are its Members Till you tell me the contrary I must take this for your sense For you profess to me that you speak of such Diocesan Churches as ours and they have some above a thousand others many hundred Parishes and you say our Parishes are not Churches but Parts of a Church and so Families are 2. Either you mean that a Diocesan Church is the first in order of Execution and Existence or else in order of Intention and so last in Existence and Execution I know not your meaning and therefore must speak to both I. That a Diocesan Church is first in Intention is denied by me and disproved though it belong to you to prove it 1. Intentions no where declared of God in mature or supernatural Revelations are not to be asserted of him as Truths But a prime intention of a Diocesan Church is no where declared of God Ergo not to be asserted of him as truth 2. It is the end or ultimum rei complementum which is first in intention where there is ordo intentionis But a Diocesan Church is not the end or ultimum rei complementum Ergo not first intended The Major is not deniable The Minor hath the consent as far I as know of all the world For they are all either for the Hierarchy or against it They that are for it say that a Metropolitan is above a Diocesan and a Provincial above a Metropolitan and a Patriarchal above a Provincial and a National which hath Patriarchs as the Empire had above that and â—ay the new Catholicks an humane universal above a National Church as the complement or perfection and therefore must be first intended But those that are against the Hierarchy think that all these are Church-corruptions or humane policies set up by Usurpation and therefore not of prime Divine Intention 3. If you should go this way I would first debate the question with you how far there is such a thing as ordo intentionis to be ascribed to God For though St. Thomas as you use to call him assert such intentions it is with many limitations and others deny it and all confess that it needeth much Explication to be
understood II. But if it be a priority of Existence in order of execution that you mean it disproveth it self For 1. It is contrary to the nature of production that two or twenty or an hundred stated Congregations should be before on t as it is that I should write a page before a line and a line before a word and a word before a letter 2. It is contrary to the Scripture-History which telleth us that Christ called his Disciples by degrees a few first and more after and that the Apostles accordingly converted men from the number of 120 they rose to 3000 more and after to 5000 c. And that ordinarily the Churches in Scripture-times were such as could and often did meet in one place though that be nâ—t necessary as I said before hath so copious evidence as that I will not here trouble you with it 3. Either the Apostles Ordained Bishops before subject Presbyters or such Presbyters before Bishops or both at once If both at once as two Orders it 's strange that they called both Orders promiscuously by the same names sometimes Bishops sometimes Presbyters and sometimes Pastors and Teachers without any distinguishing Epithete or notice And it 's strange that we never find any mention of the two sorts of Congregations one the Bishops Cathedral and the other the Parish Presbyters Congregation If you say that they were the Bishops themselves and first Ordained only subject-Presbyters under them that cannot hold For doubtless there were more than twelve or thirteen Churches the number of Apostles in their times nor were they fixed Bishops but indefinite gatherers and edifiers of the Churches And either those Elders first Ordained by the Apostles were Bishops or else there were Churches without Bishops for they Ordained Elders in every City and in every Church And either the Elders first Ordained by the Apostles had the power of Ordaining others or not If they had then either they were Bishops or else subject-Presbyters were Ordained to be Ordainers yea to Ordain Bishops if such were to be after ordained And so indeed it would be suitable to your conceiâ— that the inferiour order of Diocesans do by consent make superior Metropolitans Provincials Nationals and Patriarchs to rule them and with Hieromes report ad Evagr. that the Alexandrian Presbyters made the Bishops as the Army doth a General But this making of Children to beget Fathers is so commonly denied that I need not more dispute against it 3 But I think most of the Hierarchical way will say that the Apostles first Ordained Bishops that those Bishops might Ordain subject-Presbyters And if so the Churches could be but single Congregation at the first till the subject-Presbyters were Ordained Yea Dr. Hammond as aforesaid asserteth in Act. 11. and in Dissert c. that there is no proof there were any of the Order of subject-Presbyters in Scripture-times and he thinketh that most of his party were of his mind and that the name Bishop Elder and Pastor in Scripture signifie only those that we now call Bishops And in this he followeth Dion Petavius and Fr. a Sancta Clara de Episcop who saith that it came from Scotus And if this be so then in all Scripture-times there was no Church of more than one worshipping Congregation For we are agreed that Church-meetings were for the publick Worship of God and celebration of Sacraments and exercise of Discipline which no meer Lay-man might lawfully guide the people in and perform as such assemblies did require And one Bishop could be but in one place at once And if there were many Bishops there were many Churches So that according to Dr. Hammond and all of his mind there was no Church in Scripture-times of more than one stated ordinary Worshipping Congregation because there were no subject-Presbyters If you say that yet this was a Diocesan Church because it had a Diocesan Bishop I answer why is he called a Diocesan Bishop if he had not a Diocesan Church If you mean that he was designed to turn his single Congregation into many by increase 1. That must not be said only but proved 2. And that supposeth that his one congregation was first before the many And I hope you â—ake not Infidels for parts of the Church because they are to be converted hereafter Those that are no members of the Church make not the Church and so make it not to be Diocesan One Congregation is not an hundred or a thousand because so many will be hereafter If you mean that such a space of ground was assigned to the Bishops to gather and govern Churches in I answer 1. Gathering Churches is a work antecedent to Episcopacy 2. The Ground is no part of the Church It is a Church of men and not of soil and houses that we speak of 3. Nor indeed will you ever prove that the Apostles measured out or distinguished Churches by the space of ground So that the first Churches were not Diocesan III. As to your Third Opinion 1. Officers are denominated from the work which they are to do There are works to be done circa sacra about the holy Ministerial works as Accidental as to 〈◊〉 to Church buildings Utensils and Lands to Summon Synods and Register their Acts to moderate in disputations and to take votes c. These the Magistrate may appoint Officers to peâ—â—orm and if he do not the Churches by his permission may do it by consent And there are works proper to the Magistrate viz. to force men to their duty by mulcts or corporal penalties I deny none of these But the works of Ordination Pastoral Guidance Excommunication and Absolution by the power of the Keys are proper to the sacred Office which Christ hath instituted And I shall not believe till I see it proved that any men have power to make any new Order or Office of this sort which Christ never made by himseelf or his Spirit in his Apostles much less that Inferiors may make Superior Offices For 1. It belongeth to the same power to make one especially the Superior Church-Office which made the other of the same General nature If without Christs institution no man could be Episcopus gregis and have the power of the Keys over the people then by parity of Reason without his institution no man can be Episcopus Episcoporum and have the power of the Keys over the Bishops 2. Dr. Hammond's argument against Presbyters Ordination is Nemo dat quod non habet which though it serve not his turn on several accounts both because 1. They have the Order which they confer 2. Because Ordination is not giving but Ministerial delivery by Investiture yet in this case it will hold For 1. This is supposed to be a new institution of an Office 2. And that of an higher power than ever the Institutors had themselves The King giveth all his Officers their power but all of them cannot give the King his power The Patriarch cannot make a Pope nor the
the ruin of their worldly Estates and the hazard of their lives in the Common Goals endeavour nothing but to Preach Christs Gospel to save mens souls from ignorance unbelief sensuality worldliness c. in case of the peoples undeniable necessity I say when such meet with men of the same profession who think not the Common Goals among Rogues and the forfeiture of Forty pound a Sermon as Enacted by Law to be enough to restrain them but also as in the name of Christ they will charge us with heinous sin unless we will perfidiously break our obligations to Christ and sacrilegiously alienate our selves from the work which we are devoted to many of us under the Bishops hands and unless we will be cruel to miserable souls and shut up the bowels of our compassion from them while we see them in need and in danger of damnation what fortitude do we need against such kind of Tempters and such Temptations If Drunkards and boys in the street only scorn'd me as a Puritan or Precisian it were less If Turkish Rulers did persecute me for my Preaching Christ it were less If mistaken Christian Rulers made me the scorn of the Nation and stript me of all my worldly maintenance and laid me with Malefactors in Prisons it were a less temptation than for a man to come in the name of Christ to tell me that I sin against him unless I will forsake my Calling break my Vows cease Preaching his Gospel betray thousands of souls to Satan and damnation and encourage all that endeavour it by yielding to all their temptations and giving them success But as Christ must be accused of sin as well as crucified and not allowed the honour of suffering as innocent so must his servants I will venture upon one argument on the by that may be somewhat by others though nothing to you for the invalidating of your accusation I saw from the hands of a Noble Lord an excellent truly Learned Manuscript said by him to be the Bishop of Lincolns to satisfie you who are said to judg it unlawful to subscribe to Athanasius's Creed What else you refuse I know not but by that much I perceive you are a strange kind of Nonconformist Now if it be unlawful for you to subscribe and conform or unlawful for me which I here undertake to prove before any equal competent Judges then it is unlawful for all the Ministers of England for none of them may do evil that good may come by it And then all the Ministers in England ought to cease Preaching if I ought to cease when they are forbidden The consequence will be denied by others though not by you And by the way How can you take the Bishops for Absolute from whom there is no appeal to an invisible power and yet disobey them if they bid you subscribe Athanasius Creed If it be a sin in me not to cease Preaching when I am silenced for Nonconformity and yet Nonconformity be a duty then it is a sin in all the Ministers of England not to be Nonformists and so not to cease Preaching But the latter part of the consequent is false Ergo so is the Antecedent 2. Yea directly your assertion puts it in the power of one superior to put down the Preaching of the Gospel and all Gods publick Worship in whole Countries or Kingdoms if not in the world and so Christ must be at their mercy whether he shall have any Church and so whether he shall be Christ and God whether he shall have any publick Worship In Ethiopia though Brierwood saith that yet after the decay of the Abassine Empire it is as big as Italy Germany France and Spain they have but one Bishop called their Abuna And if he forbad all Preaching or publick Worship in the Empire it is a sin to obey him And it is a great duty to gather Churches within his Church It is a sin in the Empire of Muscovie that all their Clergy obey their Patriarch and Prince in forbearing to Preach If all the Bishops of England should agree to reduce the Kingdom to one only Bishoprick and one Church and turn all the rest into Parish-Chappels it were a duty to disobey them and gather Churches in that one Church If the Patriarch of Alexandria Antioch or Constantinople had forbidden all in their limits to Preach and worship God publickly it had been a wickedness to obey them When Severus Antioch the Eutychian forbad the Orthodox to Preach in his Patriarchate it had been their sin to obey him yea or if Theodosius or Anastasius the Emperours had done it yea though a General Council of Ephes. 2. if not Ephes. 1. was on his side If the Pope whether as Pope or as Patriarch of the West Interdict all the Preachers and Churches in Venice or in Britain it were a sin to obey him The reasons are because their power is derived and limited to pass by the no power of Usurpers the greatest have it for edification and not for destruction None of them have power to make void the least continued Law of God by their Doctrines Precepts or Traditions All men must take heed of the leven of their false Doctrine and must beware of false Prophets and must prove all things and hold fast that which is good There is no true power but of God and therefore none against him It is better to obey God than men But of this you may in season have larger proof if you desire it VI. Your excluding us from Salvation that will not cease Preaching the Gospel of Salvation and worshipping God remembreth us 1. What a mercy it is that neither Pope nor any such condemner is made our final Judg. 2. How most Sects agree Papists Quakers c. in damning those that dance not after their Pipe 3. What various wiles of temptations Satan useth to hinder Christs Gospel and mens Salvation At once I have 1. A backward flesh that is the worst of all that saith Favour thy self and expose not thy self to all this labour obloquie hatred suffering loss and danger of death for nothing but that work which thy superiours think needless and forbid 2. I feel Satan setting in with the flesh and saying the same 3. Carnal and worldly friends say the same as Peter to Christ Mat. 16. 4. Displeased Sinners and Sectaries wish me silent 5. What Superiors say and do I need not mention 6. And to perfect all some Preachers in Press and Pulpit and you in Discourse declare us in danger of damnation as Schismaticks unless we will give over Preaching the Gospel O how easie were it to me to avoid that damnation And if I incur it how dearly do I purchase it It is a sad case that such poor souls as we are in that would fain know Gods will whatever study or suffering it cost us and after our most earnest search and prayers believe that if we forsook our trust and office and the peoples souls we
more than a Ceremony that knoweth it if the King command me to Preach at one hour or one place and the Bishop at another or to use for Uniformity such a Translation Metre Liturgy Utensils Garments c and the Bishops others I will obey the King before the Bishop But if either or both command me to sin I will obey neither so and if they would take me off from that which Christ hath made a real part of my own Office as commanding that I shall preach and pray in no words but such as they prescribe c. I think neither hath power to do this But Bishop Bilson of Christian Obedience and Bishop Andrews in his Tortura Toetis and Buckeridg of Rochester and Grotius de imprrio sum Potest circa Sacra have said so much of the Power of Kings about Religion as that I think I need not add any more And by the same Arguments that you will absolve me from obeying if the King forbid me to Preach by the same you absolve if the Bishop forbid me If I may disobey Constantius and Valens I may disobey Eusebius Nicomed Theognis Maris If I may disobey Theodosius junior Anastasius Zeno Iustinian I may disobey Petrus Moggus Dioscorus Severus c. But you will much cross your â—nds if you tell the Londoners that they may preach and worship God though the King forbid them but not at all if the Bishop forbid them For he that exalteth himself or is sinfully exalted by others shall be brought low If the reverence of the King were not greater in England than of the Bishops the consciences of many thousands would stick but little at disobedience There are so many cases first to be resolved As 1. Whether such Diocesans deposing all Parochial Churches and Bishops and reducing them to Chappels or parts only of a Church be not against Christs Law 2. Whether they destroy not the ancient order of particular Churches Bishops and Discipline 3. Who made their office and by what power 4. Who chose and called them to it 5. Whether their Commands be not null as contrary to Gods 6 How far Communion with them that silence hundreds of faithful Ministers and set up in their stead c. is lawful Many such questions the people are not so easily satisfied in as you are XI And the three last all set together look with an ill design The Preface to Dr. Rich. Cousins Tables tells the King That the Church-Government here is the Kings or derived from him and dependant on him and Grotius de Imperio sum potest proveth at large the Power of Kings circa sacra as doth Spalatensis and many more and that Canons are but good counsel till the King make them Laws And we know no Law-makers but the King and Parliament But if the Church be the Expounders of the Liturgy Rubrick and Canons Articles and Acts of Uniformity and out of Convocation-time the Bishops be the Church and the Archbishops be the Rulers of the Bishops that swear obedience to them this hath a dangerous aspect For then it is in the power of the Bishops if not of the Archbishops only to put a sense upon our 39 Articles Rubricks c. consistent with Popery or Heresie and so to change the Religion of the Kingdom without King or Parliament or against them at their pleasure And thus Officers of mans making who become a Church of mans devising may have advantage by this and the former Articles to destroy Godliness Christianity and Humanity Indeed by the Preface to the Liturgy the Bishop is made the Expounder of any thing doubtful in the Book and by the Index the Act of Uniformity is made part of the Book But this affrighteth me the more from declaring 1. Because I must consent to all the Penalties and Impositions of the Act it self 2. And the Bishop Exposition is limited so that it must be contrary to nothing in the Book Thus I have given you the reasons of my destructive Conference If I had been with you and we had been to enter upon any dispute that tendeth to satisfaction I would have endeavoured to avoid the common frustraters of Disputes 1. By ambiguous words 2. And subjects that are no subjects Therefore if you desire any such dispute I. I intreat you to write me down your sense of some terms which we shall frequently use and I will do the like of any at your desire As what you mean 1. By the word Bishop 2. By a Church 3. By a particular Church 4. By a Diocess and Diocesan Church 5. By a National Church 6. By the Vniversal Church 7. By Church Government and Iurisdiction 8. By Schism I shall dispute no terms unexplained lest one take them in one sense and the other in another and so we dispute but about a sound of words II. I desire that the denied Subject of the Question may not be taken for granted instead of being proved On these terms supposing the common Laws of Disputation especially avoiding words that have no determinate sense I shall not refuse whenever you invite me and I am able to debate with you any of these points that I am concerned in especially whether my Preaching Christs Gospel as I do be my sin or my duty And if our great distance in Principles put either of us upon râ—â—sons that seem dishonouring to the person opposed we shall I hope 〈…〉 that it is the opinion only that is directly intended But 〈…〉 opinion is the persons opinion if it be bad is a dishâ—nâ—â—r whiâ—â— the owner only is guilty of and the opponent caâ—not 〈…〉 must not forbear to open the evil of the cause for avoiding the dishonour of the owner but must the rather open it in hope that the owner will disown it when he understandeth truly what it is For I suppose it is evidence of Truth that we desire In Conclusion remember I pray you 1. That it is not the ancient Episcopacy which was in Cyprians days yea which agreeth with Epiphanius's Intimations and Petavius excellent Notes thereon in Haeres 69. which I deny And I conjecture that at this day in England there are more Episcopal than Presbyterian silenced Non-conformists 2. That what sort of Prelacy or higher Rulers I dare not subscribe to yet I can live quietly and submissively under though not obey them by sinning against God or breaking my Vows of Baptism or Ordination and perfidiously leaving souls to Satan Nothing more threateneth the subversion of the Church-Government than swearing men to approve of all thâ—t's in it Many can submit and live in peace that dare not subscribe or swear Approbation It was the caetâ—ra Oath 1640 that constrained me to thâ—se searches which 〈◊〉 me a Nonconformist It is an easie maâ—â—er for Overdoers to add but a claâ—se or two more to their Oaths and Subscriptions which shall maâ—e almost all the conscionable Ministers of the Kingdom Nonconformists 3. Whenever notorious necessity ceaseth by the sufficient number and qâ—ality of Conforming Preachers I will cease Preaching in England But death is liker first to silence me Though I take my Conforming to be a Complex of heinous sins should I be guilty of it yet till I am called I perswade none to Nonformity for fear of casting them occasionally out of the Ministry preferring their work before the change of their judgment till such endeavours are clearly made by duty But all your endeavour as far as ever I perceived is not so much to draw us to Conformity as to persuade us to give over Preaching Christs Gospel so contrary are our designs 1 Thes· 2.15 16. Methinks is a fearful Text. And so are the words of the Liturgy before the Sacrament If any of you be a hinderer of Gods Word repent or take not this Sacrament lest Satan enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you c. FINIS This was written long ago The Earl of Orery ☜