their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment Laws they may not well be counted Rebels saith he of Obedience pag. 520. But I hear many now say the contrary and Condemn such Doctrine as disloyal I find some joyn with the Papists in accusing the Reformation as caused by Rebellions in Germany Geneva France Belgium c. And I find Bishop Iewel Bilson and other Bishops defending the French defence and Dr. Peter Moulin of Canterbury in his answer to Philanax Anglicus Contradicting their accusers as false in Point of History Abundance of such Political Controversies are now lately agitated some charging their adversaries with Rebellion and some with Tyranny Some saying they are guilty of Treason against the King and others They are Traitors against the Kingdom And too ordinarily damning one another as if these matters were Articles of our Creed What a dismal difference is there now about those words in the Declaration in the Corporation Act There is no Obligation on me or any other person from the Oath called the solemn League and Covenant Some say there are none but Rebels will refuse it And that if any obligation had been granted to things lawful or necessary some would have extended it to Rebellion or Schism And therefore all Obligation is to be renounced Others say that National perjury is a forerunner of National Calamity or ruine and that where Oaths bind not there can be no Trust and no Trust no Commerce And they think as Dr. Sanderson and Casuists Papists and Protestants do that though an Oath or Vow be unlawfully Imposed and Sinfully taken and part of the matter of it be unlawful and the Imposers and Takers are bound to repent and no one is bound by it to the unlawful part yet the taker is bound to that part of the matter which is lawful or necessary And they take it to be lawful and necessary to Repent of sin to oppose Prophaneness Schisms Heresy and Popery to defend the King and therefore that it obligeth them to these I meddle not with the Roman opinion that it is the Henrician Heresy to say that Kings have a power of investing Bishops and disobeying the Popes Excommunication and of such as Cardinal Perron that dare not question or deny the power of the Pope and Councils to Excommunicate and depose Kings because then they must condemn approved General Councils which are their religion itself and saith he must grant that the Pope is Antichrist and the Church erroneous that hath so long used this I name all these Political Controversies 1. To tell you that it is not factious and passionate enmity to each other on such accounts which I mean by enmity to Religion 2. And to remember men that if in so many and great points of Politicks and Government the Learned and Christian World have so great difference what reason is there that we should Damn or Excommunicate or hate each other about a hard opinion in Religion or a Ceremony 3. And to tell the Popish Church that if it were a good argument that there must be one Pretorian Court or Church to oblige all the World by an universal determination in what sence to expound the Scripture because it is abused to errour by mens mistake and there must be an end of Controversies by the same reason there must be an universal Pretorian Court to expound all human Laws and end the controversies of Lawyers Yea and to master all mens Reason for Scripture is no more commonly controverted and abused than Law is And not half so much as Reason is which is pleaded for almost all the falshood and wickedness in the World. § 10. Moreover it is not personal feuds between Man and Man that I mean by Enmity to Godliness No though any such be against an Innocent and Godly Man where it is not for his Godliness but some other difference § 11. I will say more though some dislike it it is not a Papist as such that I mean by a Malignant Enemy of Godliness I know that Education and Temptation and want of hearing the confutation of their errours judiciously made may cause Godly persons to think that the universal Church must be united in some humane Head or Soveraign power and that there is no other way to end controversies and schisms and that as Dr. Saywell saith there must be some over Kingdoms or National Churches as well as over particular persons that many may not escape while a few are punished It is easy to be deceived by the pretences of Unity and Concord while men see the divisions and discords of others And the false pretences of Antiquity are so confidently uttered by their Clergy that men unacquainted with the history may verily believe them And the plea for an uninterrupted succession of Ministerial ordination and that a Superior must give power to the Inferiors deceiveth many If there must be a Diocesane to ordain and rule all Presbyters and a Metropolitan to ordain or rule the Diocesanes and a Patriarch to rule them from whom shall the Patriarchs receive their power or commands but from a Pope The poor reasoning which the French now use with the Protestants puzleth unskilful persons viz. Was there any Church before your reformation If yea where was it And had not you your Ministerial power from it It was Rome or none And if it was the true Church then it is so now We answer them there was and is one only Catholick Church Of this Christ only is the Head or Universal governour and no man or men Of this all Lawful Pastors are his official guides in their several Provinces as many Justices and Mayors of Corporations under one King That all these having one King Jesus and one Law of Christ and one Spirit and one Faith and Hope are to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and to use Synods when needful to that end but not as a Pretorian or Regent Aristocracy or Court. That the Church before Luther was all over the World where ever there were Christians in Ethiopia Egypt Syria Armenia Georgia Circassia Asia and where ever the Greek Christianity is in Moscovy and in all Europe where there were true Christians That the envious man having sowed Tares this Church is unhappily fallen into many corruptions diseases and factious sects almost all censuring one another no part of it is perfect That the Papal part is in Doctrine Worship and Government one of the most corrupted parts Yet so far as their diseases or errours nullify not their profession of Christianity they are parts though leprous And therefore though they are the most uncharitable and schismatical part as they cut off or unchurch all the Christian World save themselves yet being as Christians united to the rest in the common faith their Baptism Ordinations are not nullities as they invest men in the Christian Society and Christian Ministry though that part of them is a nullity which engageth men
of the Earth are Idolaters and Heathens And do I need to say how ignorant wicked and miserable they are Many of them publickly worship the Devil as Witches do with us and he deludeth them and appeareth in divers shapes to them and ruleth them as he doth Witches And those that are more civil are strangers or enemies to Christ Six parts of the thirty are Ignorant Mahometans destroyers indeed of Heathenish Idolatry and such as take Christ for a great and true Prophet but know him not as a Saviour but equal or prefer a gross Deceiver and live under barbarous Tyrants who by violence keep them in the dark The other five parts that are called Christians alas consist most of people bred up in lamentable Ignorance mostly barbarous or debased by the oppression of Tyrants such as the Moscovites most of the Greeks the Abassines Armenians and many Eastern Sects and Nations What Ignorance the vulgar Papists are bred in in Italy Spain Germany Poland France and other Countreys and what enmity to true Reformation prevaileth in Princes Priests and People and by what Lying and Cruelty they fight against Truth and what Inquisitions Murders and inhumane Massacres have been their powerful means I need not use many words to tell And are the Protestant Reformed Churches free from fleshly worldly wicked men from ignorant malignant cruel Enemies to Truth and Piety and Peace § 3. Our Kings Dominions are the best and happiest Nations on Earth Here is most Knowledge of the Truth and most proportionably that truly Love it and live in a holy obedience thereto and fain would live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness honesty and sobriety But alas they must be contented with their own personal uprightness and reward and the peace of their Consciences in Gods acceptance But with men there seemeth to be no hopes of common Wisdom Piety Love and Peace We are all baptised with one Baptism we all profess to be the servants of one God and the faithful followers of one Christ and to believe in one Holy sanctifying Spirit and to believe the same Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God indited by that Spirit and to be of one Holy Catholick Church which is all the Members of Christ on Earth and to hold the Communion of Saints We mostly in England and Scotland agree in the Protestant Reformed Doctrine and Sacraments Our concord in profession is so great that if some men had not devised some Oaths Professions Covenants Practices and Knacks and Engines of their own which they dare not say God made to become the matter of our unavoidable dissent they could hardly have known how to pretend any difference in religion among us and hell would scarce have found any Cloak for malicious accusations enmity and discord You shall scarce meet with a man that will not speak well of Love and Peace and say that we must Love God above all and our Neighbours as our selves and do as we would have others do to us And yet is there any Enmity or Disagreement Alas how great and how uncureable § 4. Who would think that knew us not by our Profession but only by our Actions but that the three Kingdoms consisted of the deadliest Enemies to each other Of Turks and Christians of Wolves and Sheep that I say not of Devils and Men Yea Turks and Christians can live together in Hungary and all the Eastern Countreys Orthodox and Hereticks can live together in Poland Helvetia Holland c. But Protestants and Protestants cannot live together in Britain Cities and Corporations Countreys and Churches i◠not Families also are distracted in enmity and more than mental feuds and war. Guelphes and Gibelines party against party studying Accusations against each other as if they were Scholars daily exercised in the School of him that is the Accuser of the Brethren All their Learning and Wit is called up and poured out to render others as odious as they are able All their power interest friends and diligence are used to ruine and destroy each other No lies or perjury with some seem unlawful to accomplish so desired an effect In all companies the discourse and converse that should be to edifie each other in Love and comfort each other by the hopes of dwelling together in Heaven is taken up with slanders backbitings scorning railing and plotting the overthrow of the best of their neighbours Innocency never wants odious or scornful names As if they were acting their part that called Christ and his Apostles and the ancient Christians Deceivers Blasphemers Enemies to Caesar Ring-leaders of Sedition that taught men to worship God contrary to the Law. Every drunkard and wicked liver can as easily make his conscionable neighbour a Rogue or a Traitor or a Schismatick or an Hypocrite as he can open his mouth and speak And to justifie all this malice is become a virtue hating the most religious is Zeal for Government and Order destroying Christs Members is standing up for the Church hunting them as Dogs do Hares or as Hawks do the lesser birds is a meritorious work of supererogation no doubt and will not finally lose its reward God is served by hating and scorning them that are serious in his service It is Religion to make Religion odious and call it Hypocrisie and to be for that which is uppermost and befriends their worldly Interest and to make him suspected of Disloyalty who is for obedience to God. Conscience and fear of sinning and of damnation is the mortal enemy to be conquered or driven out of the Land as if there were no quietness to be expected in mens minds no concord in the Church no obedience to the Clergy or the Laws no safety from Sedition till Conscience be silenced or banished and men give over fearing God or as if Christ and Caesar could not both reign but God or Princes must be dethroned And O that the sacred Tribe were innocent and none of them were the leaders in such hypocritical malignity Their Canons ipso facto excommunicate all not excepting Princes Parliaments or Judges that do but say that any of their Ceremonies Liturgy or Officers in Church Government not excepting the lowest or Lay-mens power of the Church Keys by decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions are repugnant to the Word of God And when they have ipso facto Excommunicated them all they call them Separatists for not coming to their Communion Think not the contradiction and hypocrisy incredible read but the 5 6 7 and 8. Canons and judge They have a Law and by their Law he is cut off from the Church or Christ that doth but call any of these the Inventions of Prelates sinful or say that God forbids them And the Jail must be his dwelling till he die there who in ten cases remaineth Excommunicate and doth not openly profess that he repenteth and judgeth that to be sinless which he is utterly unable so to judge When we have preached seven and seven years to
they say that there are some things that will be closely united by no cement so well as by humane blood Doubtless the Gospel as used in English and Preached by true Protestants such as the Pseudo-Bellamie in Philanax Anglicus hatefully calleth Protestants off Sincerity goeth not with many beyond Sea for the same Gospel which they believe And therefore no wonder if the Preachers of it be unpleasing to them and he that will please them and unite with them must silence or oppose those that they would have to be silenced and disgraced And some think that Union with many Kingdoms of Christians which call themselves the Catholick Church is much to be preferred before the Love and Concord of a hated party in our Island And as Dr. Saywell the Master of a Colledge and Bishop Gunnings Chaplain saith to prove that there is a Universal Legislative and Judicial power in the Clergy over Kingdoms as well Persons If more persons or particular Churches give offence by Heresy Schism c. The CHURCH UNIVERSAL or the rest of the Bishops may reprove them for it and then there is no Reason why one man should be censured and many should go free and consequently our Saviour hath established the Authority of his Church over all Christians as well particular Churches as private men Churches of Kingdoms and Nations have a SOVERAIGNTY over them to which they must yield obedience Isa. 60. 12. The Nation and Kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish yea those Nations shall be utterly wasted pag. 343. Though Kings have no Civil Universal Soveraign over them but Christ yet it seems all the world both Kings and Kingdoms have an Ecclesiastical Soveraignty over them all Communion of equalls and Christian Counsel and Reproof is not enough such as all Neighbour Princes may use towards one another Nor the denial of such Communion to the uncapable But all Kings and Kingdoms must be under one Church Soveraignty which hath a Legislative Judicial power over them all to excommunicate absolve them c. And how much more in ordine ad Spirituaâ—ia the common exposition of Ecclesiastical Power tells you As experience long told many Kingdoms what the Excommunicating of a King and Interdicting a Kingdom the worship of God do signify towards their Dethroning or Invasion And all this must be done not as for the Pope but under the name of a General Council and the poor Pope shall have no power but say some to call that Council and call it General when there is no such thing and preside in it and rule us as chief Patriarch and St. Peters Successor in the Intervals of General Councils that is continually and that not Arbitrarily but by the Laws of the Church or Councils and no mortal man can tell which those Authorized Legislative Councils are among the hundreds of erroneous or contradicting ones So that Popery in England is an abhorred thing for it is nothing with some but the Popes absolute Government of the whole Church as without or above Laws and Ecclesiastick Parliaments And can you reconcile all this to our Oath of Supremacy and the Canons that establish it renouncing all forreign Iurisdiction Yes easily we have been told it meaneth only forreign Civil Iurisdiction which belongs to the King and not forreign Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction which is all that the sober Popes do claim save indirectly in ordine ad Spiritualia To Command a Nation on pain of Excommunication and Damnation according to divers Councils to renounce their Allegiance to their Excommunicate Prince and to depose him and set up another is no act of Civil but of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction which yet hath dethroned Emperours and overthrown Dominions And saith A. Bishop Laud in Dr. Stillingfleet's defence of him p. 540. It doth not follow because the Church may err therefore She may not Govern. For the Church hath not only a PASTORAL Power to Teach and Direct but a PRETORIAN also to controul and censure c. And for external obedience to General Councils when they err Consider whether it be not fit to allow a General council that honour and priviledge which all other Great Courts have Stillingfleet p. 534. So that instead of a Council of equals for concord as Princes use for peace with their neighbours We have an Vniversal Soveraign Court set up with Pretorian Power to make binding Laws and pass Iudgment to all the Christian World and say some They are Schismaticks that obey not these Vniversal Laws and obedience to them and suppressing all forbidden Assemblies for Gods worship is the only way to Christian concord And where this forreign Jurisdiction is made of such absolute necessity that without subjection to it by Kings and Kingdoms there is no concord to be had nor any avoiding of the guilt of Schism what wonder if some can wish that silencings reproaches ruines and confusions may be thought no dear price to obtain an universal union for which Christ and his Law are insufficient They that have read Grotius Cassander Baldwin Hoffmeister Erasmus A. Bishop Laud Dr. Heylin of his Life Bishop Sparrow A. Bishop Bromhal and the Prefacer Bishop Parker Thorndike Bishop Gunning and his Chaplain Dr. Saywell and such others and against them all have read Dr. Isaac Barrow of the Supremacy against Thorndike c. may understand where our difference and danger lyeth § 8. And is Englands self destroying disease uncureable God hath in wonderful mercy given us peace from forreign Enemies And is there no hope of prevailing with English men to live together in peace Must that of Isa. 49. 36. be our case to eat our own Flesh and be drunken with our own Blood as with sweet Wine Alas no counsel no petitions no tears no experience no judgments of God by Plagues and Flames have hitherto one jot prevailed But the Ulcer of mens minds grows more and more putrid and malignant Two ways are by some proposed First that all the Consciencious worshippers of God in the Kingdom should bring their judgments to a full conformity in every particular to their rulers Whenas first they cannot tell us who these must be some say to the King or Law Some say to the Bishops in a National Convocation Others say to the foresaid forreign universal Soveraignty of General Councils with the Patriarchs If the first be the way what Kingdoms must it be in Is it no where but in Britain Or also in France Spain Italy Germany Poland And must there be as many Religions as Kings and Laws will make And how far must this go And where must we stop Must Kings choose us a God Or chuse whether we shall have any God any Christ any Bible any worship of God and so any Heaven If it be the Bishops that must be the common rule of our Religion what Countreys and Ages doth this rule serve for Was it the rule where Princes and Prelates were Arians or Nestorians or Eutychians or Monothelites or Papists Is it
Prelates against their Oaths and against the known truth and against their duty to God and the King. § 10. But though it be notorious that Domination and Jurisdiction be the things which cause the Papal Clergy to trouble and tear the Christian world what is it that makes the Laity so mad getteth this Clergy such a militant crowd against their own Tranquillity and Salvation It 's as visible as any moral thing that the Churches Divisions and Wars and Miseries have about a thousand years risen from Satans thrusting such worldly fleshly unholy men into holy Offices who seek them but to serve their Pride and Covetousness and Fleshly Appetites and Ease and who are Enemies at the heart to the serious obedience to Christ which formally they preach Christs own Apostles in their time of ignorance began to strive which of them should be greatest of which we have recorded his sharp rebuke which St. Peter himself did after second in 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. in words so plain that if his pretended Successours had not first claimed a power as the Church to be the determining expounders of all the Bible they had lain under the Condemnation of Christ and Peter Naked without a Defence or Cloak But this Church-expounding authority sets them above all the Word of God which is now but what they please to make it and an instrument to execute their wills And indeed it is now rather the Pope and his Prelates and Councils than Christ that are the Law-makers to the Church For it is not he that maketh the words only that makes the Law but he that giveth them their sense The words are but as the body and the sense is the Soul of the Law. The Ministerial Church now scorn the name of Ministers and being become Pretorian and Magisterial they give Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles leave to make the words and body of the Scripture or Divine Law as God formed Adams body of the dust so that they may give it the breath of Life and also may make far more Voluminous Laws of their own and cut off and condemn all the Children of God that cannot believe that it 's lawful to obey them And though the Ignorant think that the claim of universal Legislation and Judgment in the universal Church and General Councils be no Service to the Domination of particular Clergy men no nor to any seeing there will never be a General Council They understand not the mystery of iniquity and mistake We have English Writers that have told them 1. That indeed Power is first given to the body fine doctrine for Royalists but by the Body it is given to the Prelates to use for them 2. That as a General Council hath the Supream power so the Prelates under them have the Inferior Ruling power and the executive in the intervals of Councils 3. That as Councils represent the Church in Soveraignty so every Bishop is by his office the true Representative of the Clergy of his Diocess and every Metropolitan the Representative of his Province and every Patriarch of his Patriarchate And then are not the Patriarchs at least with the Metropolitans Universal Rulers in such Intervals 4. And the Pope is the Patriarch of the West and hath a primacy in the Church universal and must be confest to be principium unitatis Catholicae and say some to be the President of Councils 5. To which others add that it belongs only to the president to call Councils and to Iudg which are Lawful without whose call they are so far from binding us that they are themselves but unlawful Routs And what would you have more But what 's all this to the poor Priests What Why 7. The people know not what the volumes of Councils say and it is the Priests or no body that must tell it them both what their exposition of Scripture is and what their own additional Laws are without which they cannot be obeyed so that indeed the peoples Faith is ultimately resolvedly into the authority of the Priest who tells them what the Bishop saith who tells them what the Metropolitan and his Synod saith who tells them what the Patriarch and his Synod saith who tells them what the chief Patriarch and a General Council saith who tell them determinatively what Christ and the Scripture saith and meaneth But what 's this to Councils when there are none Yes 8. Those that are past and gone have left all those binding Laws by which the present Bishops as an Aristocracy must govern all the Christian World. But are not they for Monarchy in the state How come they then to plead for a Soveraign Aristocracy over the Catholick Church and how come even the French Clergy to be for the power of a Church Parliament above the Pope I cannot answer that let the Pope and they debate it But I wonder that A. Bishop Laud should be for the derivation of all power from the Body as Richard Hooker is See Dr. Stillingfleets Defence of him p. 544. 545. c. No Body collective whensoever it assembled it self did ever give more power to the representing body of it than a binding power upon it self and all particulars Nor ever did it give this power otherwise than with this Reservation in nature that it would call again and reform and if need were abrogate any law or ordinances upon just cause made evident that the representing Body had failed in trust or truth And this power no Body collective Ecclesiastical or Civil can put out of it self or give away to a Parliament or Council or call it what you will that represents it The power which a Council hath to order settle and define differences arising concerning faith it hath not by any immediate institution of Christ but it was prudently taken up by the Church from the Apostles example See Dr. Stillingfleets Defence I confess that the generality of Politicians and Lawyers Heathens Papists and Protestants go much this way as to Civil Government and say that the Majestas personalis is in the King or Senate but the Majestas realis in the Body which giveth the Organical power and on just cause may take it away It is no honour to be singular in Politicks and I have said enough of this elsewhere Christ. Direct p. 1. But if it be the Body of the whole Church on Earth that must give Church Officers and Councils their power and recal it when there is cause if ever the whole Christian World meet together to vote it when it cometh to Poling we will give both the Monarchical and the Aristocratical Conciliar Papists three for one to try who hath the power given by the Body But while two or three parts do already disown almost all their Councils the case is decided But if an old Councils Heresies Errours or Tyranny can be invalidated only by a new one that is truly General or a new one as Papal as the last we confess that Trent
never Revile or Prosecute the Atheists Infidels Sadduces Hobbists and those many thousands that seldom if ever go to any Church or worship God publickly at all Is the worship that Peter and Paul used worse than irreligiousness and infidelity 11. Who can believe that you are sincerely zealous against misworshiping God when you can ordinarily your selves be in a drinking house or playing house at the time of publick worship And when so few of you ever so much as worship God in your Families by Prayer or read the Scripture or Catechise your families 12. Is it not a strange thing to hear men accuse others for not using the Liturgy in Gods worship and at the same time would have them that refuse it to be forbidden all publick worshiping of God at all Doth this signify any dislike of their omitting Gods worship Which is the more ungodly omission to omit all worship of God and live like Atheists or to omit only so much of the Liturgy as the Apostles used not I have known many that could not eat cheese as is said before nor scarce smell it without danger of Death If you would have a Law made that such shall eat no other meat few wisemen will believe that it is their health and life that you desire If a man fail in paying his Landlord some odd act of Service will you make a Law that he shall pay nothing at all If a Subject neglect paying some excise or using Bow and Arrows will you forbid him paying any thing or serving the King at all Sure they that forbid men all publick worship be offended at somewhat else than that men do not rightly worship God unless they think that not to worship him at all is better than doing it without their Book Obj. But he shall be Compelled to better worship Ans. How when he lieth in jail he cannot publickly worship God at all Is that better worship I know it is banishment which some would have executed And will men worship God any better among Heathens or Infidels or others Or why should other Countries endure them if they be not to be endured in their own Are not English-men that worship God only by their own Book as much Nonconformists when they are in other Lands France Spain Italy Germany Holland c. as those are here that do not use it And are they there intolerable and worthy of ruine Did the Apostles or first Churches banish any on such accounts Will Christ banish them from his Kingdom Hath he made any such Laws And is not he the absolute Soveraign Hath he left his Servants to the will of man to use them how they will or cast out of his Church whom they will Are you sure these are none of the number of whom Christ saith I was hungry and ye fed me not c. In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these my Brethren you did it not to me Mat. 25. Accus But they are Schismaticks and Separate from the Church and is not that a damnable sin Ans. 1. Being speaking only to malignant enemies of serious Godliness I say It is not only Separatists that you hate but Godly Conformists yea perhaps most of all because you are more restrained from hurting them How oft hear we Curses and Revilings against Conforming Puritanes or as some call them Church Whigs If they are not haters of their brethren but Friends to Love and Peace you nickname them Trimmers And cursing those whom Christ blesseth when he saith Blessed be the Peace-makers for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven You say Cursed be the Trimmers and would the Kingdom were rid of them It is any that are for a holy life and obedience to God that you abhor 2. As I said before you spare those that come to the Parish Churches no more than others The old Nonconformists wrote more against Separation than any else in England did And yet were hated as intolerable The reconcilers who are since made Nonconformists did publickly offer to be Subject to Arch-Bishops and Bishops to use the Liturgy themselves if reformed and if it were not yet never pleaded for separation And yet are never the more endured 2. But who is it that they separate from Do they not profess Union and Communion with the whole Catholick Church on Earth What separation do you mean Is it their Local absence And are not you such Separatists from all the world saving the Assembly where you meet One cannot be in two places at once Or is it that they dislike somewhat in your Forms of Worship so they may in others Forms with whom yet they profess Communion And in what is it that they shew dislike or separation They hold Communion with you as Christians and as reformed from Popery They separate not from Papists as Christians And from you it is only for that which you say is no part of your Worship or Religion but things indifferent which they think to be sin And are those Separatists from your Church who only separate from that which is no part of your Church or Worship 3. Are the French and Dutch Churches in London Schismaticks or Separatists who profess Communion with our Churches though they use not our Oaths Subscriptions or Liturgy Liking their own mode better and preferring it is no Separation If I like your Liturgy better than any in the Bibliotheca Patrum is that separating from all Churches that use the rest 4. Who are the Schismaticks in France Italy Poland c. Those that are called so and persecuted as such or those that impose on them the things which they judge sinful What if you were in a Presbyterian Land where the Liturgy and Prelacy are forbidden and another Form set up by Law and you should contrary to that Law use the Liturgy and Ceremonies or at least refuse subscribing against Prelacy and for Lay Elders If they excommunicated or ruined you for this who do you think were guilty of the Schism 5. Do they forsake the Assemblies before they are excommunicated Or is it not an odd thing for to excommunicate men first and then accuse them for not coming to Church I have known Ministers stop in the midst of Publick Worship and refuse to go on till an excommunicate person went out The whole representative Church of England do in their 5 6 7 and 8 Canons ipso facto without tryal or sentence excommunicate all in England who affirm any thing to be sinful or repugnant to Gods Word in the Church Governing Offices whatsoever in the Liturgy Ceremonies or Articles And shall they after this be called Separatists for not coming in Doth not the Canon shew that the Church would not have them come in when they cast them out Obj. But the Church and Canon bid them repent of that their wicked errour and publickly confess it and so come in Ans. 1. Is a mans Judgment absolutely in his power Can a man believe a thing to
be a wicked errour meerly because the Canon saith so He that can believe what his list believeth nothing truly If this Belief be necessary to Church Communion and to escape damning Schism it is necessary to Salvation Why then is it not in the Creed Ten Commandments or Bible Do you call them the things Indifferent and then call it a wicked errour to hold them sinful Is not this to make it necessary to Salvation or Communion to have so much Learning or Knowledge as to know all Indifferent words and things in the world to be indifferent which men will impose I would all Church-Members with your and others knew all necessary things Do you believe in your heart that all or half the Parishioners do know these things to be lawful or understand any more of them than those that think otherwise when thousands cannot answer a necessary question of the Creed or Catechism nor know who Christ is and how he saveth us Why is there not a Catechism made containing the sound proof that Lay-Chancellors power of the Keys and Diocesan Bishops that have no Bishops under them and our present Court-Church discipline and all the Rubrick Ceremonies and Forms are lawful if all must be excommunicate that think and say otherwise Obj. If they are so ignorant that they cannot know Church Orders to be lawful they are not fit to communicate with the Church Ans. Make no Church Orders necessary to Communion but what Christ and his Apostles have made necessary to it and then cast out and spare not all as ignorant that refuse them 2. But again do you believe that most or all that you keep in are wiser and more knowing than those that you cast out How shall such as I believe you who know that in all the Parishes which my cohabitation allowed me to know it is the most knowing and religious part that most dissent and the generality of the grosly ignorant that understand few Articles of the Creed do conform As ignorant as I am and hundreds of my calling and mind I would I were not only silenced and imprisoned but put to death on condition that all that you now receive as Members of the Church had no more ignorance than we have But it 's our lot to tire our selves with teaching poor people to understand their Baptism Christianity Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments and leave most ignorant when all 's done and yet our selves after our hardest and longest study to be judged so ignorant about some Indifferent things as to be unfit for Ministry or Communion Accus If men will not obey Church Governours and Laws they are Rebels and unfit for Christian Society If every man shall follow his own fancy what Order will there be Do not all Churches require obedience to their Orders Ans. 1. The Church hath One Universal King who hath made Universal Laws for all which must be first obeyed and against which no man hath power And yet his own Laws have things necessary to all in which they must unite and Integrals and Accidents which all know not in which they must bear with one another No man understandeth all the Bible And are many Laws and Books more necessary than Gods 2. Whoever depraveth the necessary points of Religion by his own fancies should be rejected But all men living err in many lesser things 3. In what Countreys is it that your Rule holds that Rulers must be thus far obeyed in Religion Is it in China or Pegu or Indostan or Turky Or is it in Italy Spain Poland Silesia Bavaria or France Or is it at Geneva Holland or the Presbyterian Countreys Or is it only in England Scotland and Ireland And was it so here before Henry the 8th or only since And how shall any know where it is unless he try and judge his Rulers Commands by the Laws of God Will you follow this Rule in France or Spain Or shall all Subjects judge of Kings capacities Accus But they hold unlawful Assemblies of their own and worship God contrary to Law and yield not so much as Passive Obedience Ans. 1. You know the Ministers are forbidden their Office unless they will take those Oaths Subscriptions Professions and Practices which they dare not take for fear of sin and damnation And they would be thankful if their reasons may be heard and if any will instruct them better And they are confirmed in their Opinion by the answers or no answers rather made to the reasons already given in And they are devoted or vowed to the sacred Ministry in their Ordination And if there be such a sin as Sacriledge in the world they are confident it were Sacriledge in them to alienate themselves from the Office which they have undertaken As it is Apostacy from Christianity to violate our Baptismal Vow though men should command it they doubt not but it is perfidious Apostacy from the sacred Ministry to violate the Ordination Vow though Bishops silence them As it is Adultery to violate the Conjugal Contract though a Bishop should require it seeing he that married them hath no power to unmarry them unless they do it first themselves and prove Desertors or Adulterers 2. And the people that are excommunicate or forbidden to worship God publickly unless they will do that which they think is sin are still under Gods command to worship him and not to forsake Church-assembling for his worship What would you have these Ministers and People do They study and pray to God to convince them if they take these Oaths Subscriptions Professions and Practices to be sin and they be no sin They resolve to be ruled by Gods Word They are willing to hear any thing that may better inform them They wonder that men accuse them that have no more to say to change them If they desert the Ministry they fear Gods vengeance If these poor people give over all Gods Publick Worship and live like Atheists Conscience living or dying will torment them If they do that which they are perswaded is sin when the Imposers call it but Indifferent Paul hath antidated their Sentence He that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom. 14. Change their Judgment they cannot sin they dare not To give over worshiping God is to renounce Salvation Change the Law or Canon men will not It seems to me a strange penalty to forbid men to worship God at all because they think some Subscriptions or Forms to be sin More strange than to say All that will not wear Crape shall go naked Or all that will not eat Anchovies shall eat nothing If a man think the use of a Crucifix in Worship sinful sure to give over all Worship is more sinful But men have their ways 3. What Worship is it that they offer God contrary to Law They are willing to do all required in Scripture by Christ and his Apostles And were they Rebels and
Oaths the Oath of Allegeance and the Oath called the Covenant that by them overcame the opposition of the other Army and brought home the King. It was this that engaged the Ministers of England against both Cromwel and a Common-wealth and the Ministers were followed by most of the religious people of the land which broke the adversaries strength It was this that engaged the excluded members of the then long Parliament It was this that engaged the City of London It seems it was this that engaged Gen. Monk's Army when they say in their address to him see it in Englands Triumph for K. Charles the 2d p. 85. We hope to evince to his Majesty and all the world that we and all those that have been engaged in the Parliaments cause are his Majesties best and most real subjects and that your Excellency and the Armies under your command have complied with the obligations for which they were first raised for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion the Honour and Dignity of the King the Priviledges of Parliament the Liberty and Property of the Subjects and the Fundamental Laws of the land I am not justifying all that I recite I doubt not but they were much mistaken But if they had then been told that shortly all the Corporation Offices and Trusts in England shall be constituted by a personal Declaration of every one that There is no obligation on any person from the Oath called the Solemn Covenant to restore the King oppose Schism or to any thing whatever the effect would have been such as makes me wonder that the Royalists as then called should be very eager to make all such declare that all these Souldiers Ministers Parliament and Citizens that restored the King as bound to it by that Oath were therein mistaken and no such obligation thence was on them Qu. 7. I need not name to you the sorry fellows out of the Jails where they lay for inhuman villanies that have been our zealous ranting tearing prosecuters And do you think such actors are an honour to your cause If it be good use good men in it Qu. 8. Why do you play your game under board and behind the Curtain If you are not ashamed of your cause openly own it Is falshood lying and dissembling beseeming them that say they are of a Church out of which none can be saved I remember when Terret alias Iohnson had seduced the eldest Daughter of the Countess of Balcarres whom they stole away and made a Nun in France and she was after askt why she did so long go to our Churches join in family worship read Protestant Books and talk against the Papists and deride them after she was a Papist her self she answered that they had leave to do all that as long as they did not openly Profess their Religion and were not detected But when once they were discovered and openly professed themselves Roman Catholicks they must then suffer any thing rather than conform to us Gods cause needeth not such jugling and lying Qu. 9. Why do you not ingenuously plead your cause against us so as may satisfy an understanding Conscience before you seek our destruction 1. Your arguings are commonly fitted only to cheat the ignorant by ambiguities and confusion and equivocal terms Your queries or methods to the French sufferers are only a formed cheat by confounding 1. Subjection to Governours and Communion with neighbour Churches 2. Communion with your Church in Christianity and Communion with its sins 3. A Catholick Church informed only by the soveraignty of Christ and a pretended universal Church informed by the soveraignty of Man a Monarch or a Church-Parliament 4. The office of keeping delivering and teaching men Gods Laws and an absolute power to Judge of their sence and to make more as a supplement to their defects obliging all the world on pain of Excommunication and Death And more such 2. Any writings which undeniably open your frauds you take no notice of nor vouchsafe to answer upon the importunity of Mr. Iohnson and divers others I have lately written 1. A reply to Iohnson 2. A small book in answer to one of your Papers to prove that we have a certainty of Christianity without Popery 3. In answer to another a small Book called Full and Easy satisfaction which is the true Religion None of them will you answer nor those before written But instead of a sober investigation of the truth some of you raise odious slanders of my life and threaten and seek my destruction I never hurt any of you as I said before nor ever perswaded any to severity against you I have long ago publickly proposed terms on which we might live together as neighbours in peace But destruction and misery are in your way that I have observed and the way of peace you have not known There are three things which alienate common Christians from you more than all other disputes 1. That you can go so openly against the plainest words of God as in blotting out the Second Commandment in notorious contradicting 1 Cor. 12. and Rom. 14 and 15. about the terms of Church Union and Communion about Latin Prayers and Worship to the ignorant denying the Cup to the Laity denying sense in Transubstantiation 2. That you befriend Ignorance so much by the said Latin Worship forbidding most to read the Scripture translated and accuse Gods Spirit of writing obscurely to cover this 3. That your Religion liveth by cruelty and blood and cannot stand without it Which at least in prudence you should hide as long as you can Or at least not design to make the ignorant and vicious Protestants your Proselytes and Agents conjunctly to ruin those whom your Consciences know to be the most Consciencious and seriously religious By which already the flock of Christ do under your Sheeps cloathings so judge of you by your fruites that if any man that is called a Protestant Clergy-man do but Write and Preach for cruelty and ruin towards serious Conscionable Christians people by this very mark do presently suspect that he is either a Papist or so near them as that he is ready to pass over to them whom he so assisteth in destructive work Qu. What must be the cure of Malignity Ans. When the heel of the holy seed is sufficiently bruised the Serpents Head must be broken 1. The War in Heaven which formerly cast down the Dragon must break the supream Serpentine Head. II. Then his Heads military on Earth will be broken I. The usurping universal Head called Ecclesiastical II. The national Serpentine Heads I. Exterior Mahometan and Heathen II. Interior called falsly Christian I. Serpentine Monarchs that War against Christ. II. Serpentine Prelates and their Patrons that fight against Christ as in his own name and by his pretended commission And all this by Christ and not by sinful means Reformation is begun à Minoritis at the lowest for personal Salvation of the Elect But a Majoritis at the Heads for publick welfare And God must raise Reforming Princes and Pastors to that end FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for and Sold by Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chapel Mr. Baxter's Catholick Theology Folio A Third Volume of Sermons Preached by the late Reverend and Learned Tho. Manton D. D. In two parts Folio A Hundred Select Sermons on several Texts of Fifty on the Old Testament and Fifty on the New. Folio Choice and Practical Expositions on four Select Psalms Folio Both by the Reverend and Learned Tho. Horton D. D. late Minister of St. Hellens London The true Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus Physician to Henry the Second Francis the Second and Charles the Ninth Kings of France and one of the Best Astronomers that ever were Folio Sixty one Sermons Preached mostly on publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by Adam Littleton D. D. Rector of Chelsea in Middlesex Folio The Saints Everlasting Rest or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in their Enjoyment of God in Glory 4to The English Nonconformity as under King Charles II. and King Iames II. Truly Stated and Argued By Richard Baxter 4to A Discourse concerning Liturgies By the late Learned and Judicious Divine Mr. David Clarkson 8vo A Discourse of the Saving Grace of God. By the late Reverend and Learned David Clarkson Minister of the Gospel 8vo The Vision of the Wheels seen by the Prophet Ezekiel opened and applyed Partly at the Merchants Lecture in Broad-street and partly at Stepney on Ianuary 31. 1689. Being the Day of Solemn Thanksgiving to God for the great Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Slavery by His then Highness the most Illustrious Prince of Orange Whom God raised up to be the glorious Instrument thereof By Matthew Mead Pastor of a Church of Christ at Stepney 4to The Life of Faith in every State. By Rich. Baxter 4to Alderman Ashurst's Funeral Sermon 4to A Key for Catholicks to open the Juglings of the Jesuits The first part of answering all their common Sophisms The second against the Soveraignty and necessity of General Councils 4to Full and easy satisfaction which is the true Religion Transubstantiation shamed 8vo Naked Popery Answering Mr. Hutchinson 4to FINIS