Worship to all save a few thousands Is Authority vain unless all the rest turn like to Atheists No good Christian should obey the Popes Interdicts of whole Kingdoms though he had as much Authority as the King A power to damn souls is a frightful word 2. Either the supposition that it is unjust is true or false If false it will not justifie their Preaching If true either his Preaching is necessary or unnecessary If it be necessary we must obey God and disobey man as Grosthead saith by an obedient disobedience If it be unnecessary though the Magistrate sin I must forbear there and go to some place where I may preach without doing more hurt than good So that Controversieâ—ieth â—ieth but in this Whether the Preaching of the 2000 silenced Ministers was unnecessary and tended to do more hurt than good And this is all that Mr. Rathband or any sober Nonconformist meant And this is plain truth though the best of your Hearers and Readers or your self contradict it § 15. And whereas you say This I am certain is contrary to the Doctrine of all the Nonconformists of former times your Assertion is so rash and false in matters of notorious Fact that it weakneth my reverence of your Judgment change his dwelling And in London Lodgers may change frequently If I know those called Puritans better than you I must profess that I believe of the two it is more the Preacher and his Preaching which maketh the difference with them than the Liturgie For my part I seldom hear any but very good well studied Sermons in the Parish Churches in London where I have been But most of them are more sitted to well bred Schollars or judicious hearers than to such as need more Practical Subjects and a more plain familiar easie mode And it is not your Reasoning that will bring all Appetites to the same Food nor make the same Books serve every form I have always found that such conformable Preachers as were Mr. Bolton Mr. Fenner Mr. Whately Bishop Vsher c. Were flockt after by those called Puritans as much as the Non-conformists But when they find all together 1. That the worship and the preaching is more suitable to their good 2. And that their Souls have need of much other Pastoral help than publick 3. And doubt of the calling of obtruded men no wonder if they prefer the other § 10. But you lay the stress on the Prohibition of the Law which the greatness or smallness of the Parish doth not make more or less Lawful Ans God hath commanded all Christians ordinarily to Learn and Worship him under the Conduct of his Institution all Christians grant this No man hath Power to forbid this All Law that forbiddeth it is of no Obligation In a Parish where 10000 20000 40000 cannot come within the Church to hear if they have no other place to go to they must forbear all publick Learning and Worship So that the English of your Words is that if the Law forbid the most of the People all Publick Learning and worship of God it is there as unlawful for any to Congregate against that Law as where there is no such need But 1. I again tell you Councils Doctors and the Universal Church thought otherwise and abhor'd this Doctrine 2. Why will you not give us one word of proof but your naked Authority to prove such Authority in the Magistrate and to satifie us what Rulers have it and how far it reacheth Hath the King enabled Justices to depose him or cast down his Honour or Prerogative Hath God given Magistrates Authority to damn as many Souls as they will by keeping them from the means of knowledge Faith and Holiness and to forbid his Subjects to Worship God Did Robert Grosthead of Lincoln take this to be the greatest Sin save Antichrists and do you take it for an Act Authoriz'd Is it unlawful to preach when forbidden or worship God when forbidden at Japon Indostan China Turkie France c. or only in England and where § 11. Yet do you conclude I wonder a person of your sagacity should think to satisfie your self or others by such slight evasions as these which scarce any of my Auditors or Readers how mean so ever their Capacities were but could discern the weakness of them Answ 1. O pity then the frailty of human understanding I get nothing by it if I err but my great labour and the hazard of my Salvation by Sin It must needs be then against my will and is none of my size to be endured How few Congregations are so happy as yours if all your Auditors are so much wiser but 1. Be the thousands of your Parish as wise that hear you not 2. How come some that I thought the wisest that I know of your Auditors to say as I say and lament your Case Reader you see here that it must be somewhat better than the confidence of Teachers that must guide and secure the peoples Faith This Reverend Man you see is most confident of the strength of his Reasons and the slightness of mine And I am so far past doubt on the other side as that I think he overthroweth all Religion and seteth up Man in open Rebellion against God He may as well wonder that I take any thing to be of Divine command If all Publick Worship is sinful when forbidden all Private may be so too Daniel may go to the Lyons The Martyrs Fathers Councils the Universal Church are all foolisher than the meanest of his Auditors It 's strange that he can be sure Gods Word is true and yet be so sure that Mens Laws are above it and may suspend it when yet Mens Laws have no more strength than Gods Laws give them 1. I believe that the spirit of God hath said Forsake not the assembling of your selves together know them that labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very highly in Love for their work sake 1 Thess 5. 12. 13. That have spoken to you the word of God that watch for your Souls Heb. 13. 17 24. How shall they hear without a Preacher c. Rom. 10. 2. I believe that where the Gospel is hid it is hid to them that are lost And without knowledge the Heart is not good and without Faith there is no Salvation and that it is Life Eternal to know God in Christ 3. Therefore they that forbid Men to hear and worship God Publickly forbid what God commandeth and what is ordinarily needful to Salvation 4. I believe that God is Almighty the highest Universal King and we are all his Subjects and the Scripture is his Law 5. I believe that there is no Power but from him and that he hath given none against him or his Laws nor above him and that Man is not God and that we must obey God rather than Man when they Contradict 6. I believe that we must Love Fear and Serve God
no mention of lawful in your Definitions 4. But though you will not tell us whether you mean Divine or Humane Laws and Rules yet I may confidently conjecture that it is Humane you mean for else 1. I am of the same National Church that you are yea if I prove that I am more conformable to God's Laws than you and such as you I shall prove that it will be a harder question whether you are of the Church of Eng. than whether I am 2. And you might know that such a Church we no more deny than you do at least 3. But then it can be but sincere not perfect Obedience to God's Laws and Rules which must prove one to be of this Church or else no Man is of it And then you must shew us whether a mistake in as small a matter as Meat and Drink or a Ceremony or Liturgick Form or Diocesan order do cut one off from that Church If yea than how much more would such Conformity to sin do it which we fear But supposing that you mean Humane Laws 5. Why may not Divine Laws make a Church If Humane Laws were necessary ad bene esse the Christians that I have read and converst with think that they are not necessary to the Being of a Church in sensu famosiore why then should they be in the Definition and only they 6. But the difficulty recurreth as to Humane Laws which of them are necessary to the Being of the Church For your Definition distinguished not The King hath great and excellent Laws which we all conform to Doth not our Conformity to these seem to prove us of the National Church though we conform not to your Formalities and Oaths and Ceremonies Imperfect Obedience serveth to continue men Subjects to the King It is not every Drunkeness or Oath or Fornication much less the miss of a Complement or Ceremony that makes a Man a Rebel or an Outlaw Why then should the refusal of a Prelates Subscription or Formality unchurch a sound and honest Christian 7. And if the humane Laws and Rules which you mention what ever you mean by them be subordinate to God's Laws and so be honest good and obligatory why should they cut off those from the Church which Christ's Laws cut not off yea which Christ receiveth and commandeth us to receive Receive him for God receiveth him and receive him as Christ receiveth us notwithstanding our Infirmities were good reasonings in St. Paul's Judgment which I prefer before any Bishops that I know 8. And a Man of less Acquaintance or Wit than you cannot be ignorant what abundance of Differences there are among your selves I have named you no small number in my â—d Plea some of you are hot against that which is called Arminianism and some hot for it some are for Bishops and Presbyters being of one Order and some of divers all are not of the mind of the Bishop of Hereford that wrote Naked Truth some even Bishops think that the damnatory part of Athanasius's Creed is not approved by Conformity others think that it is all to be approved A multitude such differences there are among your selves And why should not this as much unchurch some of you if it be being under the same Laws that maketh you one Church as the forbearing of a Declaration of Assent and Consent or of a Surplice c. 9. Especially tell us whether the Conformist's difference about the Constitutive Regent Part of the Church of England some being for one species and some for another do not plainly make them to be of two distinct Churches of England and further different from each other than we are from any part We justly say the Papists who are for two species of Soveraigns some for the Pope and some â—â—r a general Council are plainly of two Churches for the regent part is essential And I am sure that one part of the most Eminent Disputers for the Church of England and Conformity say that the King is the Extraneous Civil Governour but the Bishops are the Constitutive Essential Internal Governours of the Church as a Church and that if the Bishops command the use of one Translation Version Metre Liturgie and the King another we are to obey the Bishops and not the King And that the efficient cause of a National Church is the Bishops Agreement among themselves to associate into such a Church And others say that it is the King and his Laws that are the efficient of such a Church and are to be obeyed in matter of the Circumstances of Worship c. before the Bishops Can you prove that this difference between the Conformists about the very Constitutive Regent Power is not greater than Mens differences about a Ceremony or Form and doth not more to make them to be of two Churches 10. If all this confused stir be but about a Christian Kingdom be it known to you that we take such to be of Divine Command And if you know it not or dissemble it after I have said so much of it in the first Plea and elsewhere I cannot help that viz. if you will talk publickly against what you know or know not when told because you will not know But I have there largly told you what the Power of Princes about Church matters is which if you will not read I will not repeat 11. Your Words Laws and Rules would induce one to think that you joyned the Kings Laws and the Bishop's Canons together in your meaning as the bond of Uâ—ity If so is it two sorts of Governours by the Swoâ—d and by the Word Magistrates and Pastors which you take for the constitutive regent parts of the Church If so then either in Cooâ—dination and Coalâ—tion or in Subordination The first cannot be that the two Species in Coalition should make one Head unless both were in the Kings as Persona Mixta both Lay and Clergie as some affirm him to be like Melchizâ—deck But this both King and Clergie disown Nor can the second be because a subordinate Power is not essential to the whole body politick but only the supreme And the Magistracy Ministry are coordinate Species both depending immediately on God and Subordinate Mutually only Secundum quid Nor is the Legislative Power in England any other than one which is in the King and Parliament conjunct The Bishops Canons are not Laws Ejusdem Speciei till the King and Parliament make them such If this be your Judgment there are I think but few Conformists of your mind 12. I must Conjecture therefore by your words That the Laws and Rules which you define the Church by are the Laws of the King and Parliament and that it is the Civil Christian Sovereign that you take for the Constitutive Head of that National Church which you plead for or else I know not what to Conjecture And if this be your Meaning I add to what is said 1. Erastians have hitherto been distasted by the Bishops and I
of the Sabbath c. and others against these If not Is not difference in such Doctrines as great a difference as using and not useing some of your Liturgick Forms and Ceremonies IV. Are all different modes of Worship enough to make our Party Separatists Then the French and Dutch Churches are Separatists and either the Cathedrals or the Parish-Churches as to their Vestments Organs Chore mode of Singing c. And the allowed private Baptismes and Communion with the sick are Separations V. Doth every disobedience to the King and Laws and Canons in matters of Religion Government and Worship make men Separatists If so then when ever a Conformist disobediently shortneth his Common-Prayer or leaveth off his Surplice or giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or receiveth one of another Parish to Communion c. he is a separatist Yea no man then is not a Separatist sometimes VI. If the Diocesane be the lowest political Church and a Parish but a part of a Church as they hold that take a Bishop to be a Constitutive part how is he said to separate from the Church that owneth his Diocesane and the Diocess what ever place in that Diocess he meet in seeing he separateth not from the Kingdom that stayeth in it and owneth the King though in some acts he disobey Nor doth every Boy that is faulty separate from the School VII Is he a greater Separatist that confesseth you to be a true Church and your communion lawful but preferreth another as fitter for him or he that denieth Communion with true worshiping assemblies as unlawful to be Communicated with when it is not so If the former then Condemning you as no Church is a diminution or no aggravation of separation and the Local presence of an Infidel or a Scorner would be a less separate state than the absence of your friends If the latter which is certain then if I can prove the Assemblies lawful which you condemne you are the true Separatists that condemn them and deny Communion with them and declare such Communion to be unlawful I Communicate with your Assemblies and you utterly shun refuse and condemn Communion with ours which then is the Separatist if I prove ours to be as good as yours VIII Many English Doctors say Rome is a true Church as a Knave or Thief is a true man and we separated not from It but they cast Us out for doing our duty and not sinning as they do I say not as they for as the Pope claimeth the Headship of the Church Universally that form of Policy is not of God and we separate from that essencial form of their pretended Church But ad hominem if the Diocesane also be a true Church and we cast out of it for not sinning are We separatists or are our Ejectors such IX I have shewed you that the Canons Excommunicate ipso facto all that say the imposed Conformity is unlawful If this be unjust is it Separation to be so Excommunicated and who is the Schismatick here And what shall be thought of such Church-men as will first ipso facto Excommunicate us for our duty and then as you do call us Separatists Would you have Excommunicate Men Communicate with you I and many do so because you shall be the Executioners of your own sentence and not I But with what face can men cast Men out by Canon ipso facto and then revile them for not coming in You can mean no other in common sense but that we are Schismaticks or separatists because we are not of the Conformist's judgment And that is not in our power And you differ more in judgment in greater matters from each other and yet call it not Schisme or Separation Yea you differ about the very essential form of your National Church one part taking it to be the Kings supremacy and another to be the Bishops or Clergy's Power And therefore you cannot be truly of one National Church that are not for one essential Form X. If men be wrongfully Excommunicate are they thereby absolved from all publick Worshipping of God or do they lose their Right to all Church-Communion I have else where cited you Canons enow that say the contrary and that Clave Errante the excommunication huâ—teth none but the Excommunicator And I have Cited Bishop Tailor 's Full Consent Must we not then Meet and Worship as we can when you wrongfully Excommunicate us XI Are not the Laity by your Canon forbidden to Receive the Sacrament in another Parish or any other to receive them if they dare not Receive it from a Non-Preaching Minister at Home And if the People judge that he that is unable or unwilling to Preach or that is a Heretick or that liveth in such heinous Sins or Preacheth Malignantly as to do more Harm than Good may not lawfully be owned by them for Christ's Ministers nor their Souls be Committed to their Pastoral Trust Must they therefore be without a Pastors Care or all Publick Worship and Communion and be Condemned for being Wronged XII Were all those Councils Separatists that Decreed That none shall hear Mass from a Fornicating Priest And Were the Canons called the Apostles and the Greek-Church that used them for Separation that said Episcopus ignorantiâ aut malo animo opplotus non est Episcopus sed falsus Episcopus non a Dee sed ab hominibus promotus Was Guildas a Separatist that told the Brittish Wicked Priests That they were not Christ's Ministers but Traitours and that he was not Eximius Christianus that would call them Priests or Ministers of Christ Were Cyprian and all the Carthage-Council Separatists that wrote the Epistle about Martial and Basilides which I Translated and told the People It was their Duty to Separate from Peccatore Praeposito a Scandalous Prelate and that the Chief Power was in them to Choose the Worthy or Refuse the Unworthy and that they were guilty of Sin if they joyned with such Sinners Who made You a more Reverend and Credible Judge of Separation than Cyprian and this Council At least Who will think that you may Judge them Separatists or guilty of Schism XIII Are not the Laity by your Canon to be denied the Sacrament if they be not willing of your Episcopal Confirmation And when Imposition of Hands is made the Signe by which Confirming or Assuring Grace is conveyed and some Bishops assigne no less to it they fear lest it be made a Sacrament Be their Doubts just or not they cannot overcome them And Must they therefore Live without Sacramental Communion By what Law XIV Are not the Laity that dare not Receive the Sacrament Kneeling for the Reasons else-where mentioned to be denied the Sacrament by your Rule And though herein they fear Sin more than they have cause Must they that cannot Change their own Judgments live all their Dayes without the Sacrament When as General Councils Decreed That none should adore Kneeling on any Lord's Day and the Church for a
one Church when it is upon unwarrantable cause or reasons If one Church unjustly renounce Communion with another whole Church as no true Church or as Heretical I think that it is done by a whole Church against a whole Church makes it worse But perhaps you mean that for two National Churches to have two Kings is not unlawful No doubt of that But to what purpose is it Or is it that two National Churches may have different Accidents of Worship or Discipline And so may two Diocesan or Parish-Churches in our Nation if the King please at least § 15. You add Which according to the Scripture Antiquity and Reason have a just Right and Power to govern and reform themselves Ans Have not all Diocesan Churches power to govern and reform themselves Government is of various species Only the King or summa Potestas Civilis hath Power to govern and reform by his Species of Government But every Bishop may govern and reform his Church as a Bishop as every Master may his Family as a Master and every Man himself as a Man It 's a strange Man Family or Church that hath not power to govern and reform it self though not Regal Power Though Kings have Power they have not God's Power and all Power that is Humane is not Regal § 16. Serm. By whole Churches I mean the Churches of such Nations which upon the decay of the Roman Empire resumed their Right of Government to themselves and upon their owning Christianity incorporated into one Christian Society under the same common Ties and Rules of Order and Government Ans 1. And had not those as good right that were not under the Roman Empire as Abasia c. 2. Did the Churches under the Roman Power exercise their great diversity in Liturgies and other accidents of Worship without right Had not they a right to govern and reform themselves variously as they did 3. Christian Societies are of divers species Do you mean Christian Civil Societies Kingdoms free Cities c. or Churches Or do you take a Christian Kingdom and a Christian Church for the same as the Erastians do If so I suppose half the Conformists will be against you as well as I. At least you must confess that if de nomine a Christian Kingdom quasi tale may be called a Church it is equivocally and that there is a sort of Christian Churches which are of another Constitution Far were the Christian Bishops for 1300 years from believing that a Prince or Civil Power was essential to a Christian Church or that a Church in the common sence was not constituted of another sort of Regent part that had the Power of the Keyes Two species of Governours make two species of the Societies if they are not subordinate but prime constitutive Parts But the Prince and the Pastor are two species well opened among many by Bishop Bilson of Subjection And verily if you Conformists be divided among your selves about the very Constitutive Rector of a Christian Church you differ more from each other than we do from the generality of you 4. And what be the common Tyes and Rules of Order which you mean Are these notifying Terms for a Definition 1. There are divine unalterable Rules of Order and Government and there are humane Rules about alterable Accidents 2. There are Rules made by Contract such as Grotius thinks Canons are and Rules made by Governours which are binding Commands or Laws 3. There are Rules made by Civil Governours to be enforced by the Sword and Rules made only by Ecclesiastical Pastors to be executed only by the Power of the Word and Keys Do you mean all these Or which of them 1. All Christian Churches are tied by the common Divine Rule and is not consent to that enough to make a Church 2. Churches of various Nations may be under one Humane Rule of Agreement or Contract 3. The same Princes may give divers Rules about Accidents to the Churches of one Kingdom and also the same Rule for some Accidents to divers Churches under them who differ in other great things And doth agreement in those Accidents do more to make them Oâ— Church than their difference in Integrals to make them many 4. Princes may do as the Roman Emperours long did leave the Bishops in Councils to make their own Rules by consent and make no common Imperial Rule for them Are they ever the less One Church 5. The Roman Empire and Councils both left the several Bishops to make Rules for Liturgies and other Accidents for their several Churches Were they therefore the less one National Church So that I am no more acquainted by your Words what you mean by a whole Church than if you had said nothing There is a whole Diocesâ—â— Church and a whole Parish Church as well as a whole National Church And what the Power is and what the Rule of Order must be whether the Laws of Princes or Prelates and whether about Essential or Integrals or Accidents and what Accidents whether all or many or few and which that must make a Church to be One whole Church you never tell us An Infidel Prince or a Heretick Prince may give the same Rule of Order to his Christian Subjects in a whole Kingdom Is he therefore the constitutive Church-Head Or will you say as your Mr. Rich. Hooker doth That if he be the Head of a Christian Church it is necessary that he be a Christian To tell us of Common Ties and Rules of Order and never tell us what those Ties and Rules are may serve your Ends but not my Edification § 17. But I remember your Irenicum learnedly maintaineth that God hath instituted no one Form of Church-Government as necessary And if so then not a National Church-Form And is it not a whole Church if it be without a Form which not God but Man is the Author of Then God made or instituted no such thing as a whole Church Then it is a humane Creature Then why may not Man make yet more Forms and multiply and make and unmake as he seeth cause and several Countries have several Forms And forma dat nomen esse And if God made not any whole Church we should be acquainted who they be that were not a Church that had Power to make the first Church-Form and who hath the Power ever since and how it is proved and how it cometh to be any great matter to separate from a Church-Form which God never made and whether humane Church-Forms be not essential and constitutive Causes of the Churches and whether every commanded Oath Subscription Declaration Office or Ceremony be an essential part of this Church-Form And there be as many Church-Forms and Species as there be Orders Liturgies and Ceremonies And all these Differences in the same Kingdom constitute so many Schisms and Separations § 18. Do you take all the Christians in the Turkish Empire to be one National Church or not If not then one Head
go to seek him in another Parish where he dwells when ever we need a Pastor's Councel were he at Leisure and willing he could not have time to speak to one of an Hundred that might at once wait to speak with him So that we have none of this necessary Pastoral Help when we greatly need it Yea not the Sixth or Tenth Part of the Parish can come to Hear him in the Church And when We that most desire it get in it troubleth us to think that we thereby keep out those that least desire it but most need it who knowing the Difficulty of getting Room do stay at Home and never seek it So that Five Parts of Six of our Neighbours use not to go to any Church at all no more than Infidels And if in pity we perswade them to go to any Nonconformist's Meeting they say the Clergy will Damn them as Schismaticks The Question now is Whether Ten Thousand or Twenty Thousand in a Parish are bound to live without all Private Pastoral Help and Councel yea and to forbear all Publick Worshipping of God and Hearing of his Word And if they seek Relief of Nonconforming Ministers Publickly and Privately Whether it be Sinful Separation If Men can spare the Ministry Why are they Maintained If they are needful for the Safety of Mens Souls Must so many Thousands hazard their Souls for want of needful Help lest they be called Separatists If the Dean of St. Pauls be called the Parson of the Parish and Preach to others that can Hear him Will that serve the Needs of all the rest XX. In Moscovie where a Christian Prince and the Laws forbid all Preaching and Publick Worship save the Reading of Homilies and Liturgies Is it Separation and Sinful Schism to Disobey this and otherwise to Preach and Worship God XXI Is it Schism in France and such other Countries for the Protestants to Meet to Preach and Worship God against the Wills of the King and Bishops It 's true that great Sin is necessarily thus avoided by them which are not Imposed upon us But if it prove that any Sin is made necessary to Communion the Degree will not much vary the Case as to the Point of Separation XXII In divers Countries the Prince is of one Religion or Mode of Religion and the Bishops of another The Question is Who are the Schismaticks the People that in their Assemblies and Mode of Worship do â—ollow the Prince or they that follow the Bishops Some great Writers for Conformity tell me That if the King Command one Liturgy Translation Version Ceremony c. and the Bishop another I must obey the Bishop before the King Others say I must Obey the King before the Bishop of which before Bishop Goodman of Glocester a Papist complaineth of the King that would not consent that Clergy-Men should be Chancellours And I speak with no Bishop that disowneth not Lay-Chancellours Use of the Keys The Helvetian Magistrates are Erastians against the Clergies Power of Excommunication Many of the Pastors are of the Contrary Judgment The Duke of Brandenburgh is a Calvinist His Bishops and Clergy are Lutherans Which Party are the Schismatick XXIII Were all those Separating Schismaticks who from the Apostles Dayes did Meet Preach and Worship God against the Will and Laws of Princes sometimes of Heathen Princes and sometimes of Christians Constantine Valens Theodosius the Second Anastasius Zeno Justinian c. If so most Christian Bishops have been such Separatists I have in my First Plea and my Church-History given Instances enough XXIV Is it Schism or Sinful Separation to Disobey a Command about Religion which no Man hath true Authority to Give Authority is the Objectum Formale of Obedience and where there is no Authority there is no Disobedience in a formal Sense or privative Most Politicks say That Princes have no Authority against the Common Good All Power of Princes and Pastors is of God and is for Edification and not for Destruction God giveth no Power against Himself or his Laws nor the Souls of Men. If the King should Command me to Marry a Wife whom I know to be intolerably unmeet for me or to Feed my self and Family with Food which I find to be against our Health or to use a Physician whose Ignorance or Negligence or Untrustiness would endanger my Life I am not bound to Obey him both because it is a Matter that is without the Verge of his Governing Authority and because it is against the End of Government Regal Power destroyeth not Family-Power nor Personal Interest and Self-Government No Man hath Power to Destroy or Endanger the Souls of Men nor forbid them seeking their own Edification and Salvation I Repeat Bishop Bilson's Words p. 236. of Subjection Princes have no Right to Call or Confirm Preachers but to Receive such as be Sent of God and give them Liberty for their Preaching and Security for their Persons And if Princes Refuse so to do God's Labourers must go forward with that which is Commanded them from Heaven Not by Disturbing Princes from their Thrones nor Invading their Realms as your Father doth and defendeth he may do but by mildly Submitting themselves to the Powers on Earth and meekly Suffering for the Defence of the Truth what they shall Inflict Pag. 399. The Election of Bishops in those Dayes belonged to the People and not to the Prince And though by plain Force he placed Lucius there yet might the People lawfully Reject him as no Bishop and cleave to Peter their Right Pastor On this I further ask XXV If the Nonconforming People can prove That notwithstanding the times of Civil Usurpation and Bishops Removal their Pastors had a Lawful Call and title to their Office over them and they were truly obliged to them as in that just Relation Whether the Magistrates or Bishops Acts have made those Relations and Obligations Null That the Temples and Tythes are in the Magistrates Power we doubt not But more than Bishop Bilson even many Councils deny it of the Office and Pastoral Relation Yea the Universal Church was of the same mind And if so how prove you e. g. that the Relation of the Ejected London Ministers and their Flocks was Dissolved and that the Succeeders were true Pastors to the Non-consenting Flocks XXVI That there are Alas Multitudes of Young Raw Injudicious besides Scandalous Priests no Man can deny that knoweth England and hath any Modesty If then honest People that are not willing to be Damned shall say We best know what is suitable to our Needs and what Teachers profit us and what not And we find that some are so Ignorant that they are unmeet as Plowmen to resolve the most concerning Cases of Conscience and their Conversation savoureth not of any serious belief of Christianity and the World to come and they do but Read a few dry words like School-Boyes saying a Weak Oration without Life or Seriousness and we can but little profit by them How prove you
understand Ans Now you come to your business But 1. What if you by Calumny call my ordinary hearers Separatists and they are not such 2. What if we prove it to be their duty to hear both you and us in season if they need it or lawful at least and so do commend them and not condemn them may we then lawfully Preach to them What if the fault which we blame some for be their judging it unlawful to hear such as you Will your Logick prove that we call it their fault to hear us as if hearing us and not hearing you were words of the same signification And is all necessary which is lawful Do we condemn men that do not all that is lawful to do And because you after infer that if it be lawful it is a Duty I would you had told us whether you take this universally that What ever is lawful is a Duty or only in this case for some special reason and what that is I suppose it is because it is commanded as if every lawful thing commanded were a duty But we think otherwise unless the Command be an Act which God Authorizeth the Commander to do All mens Authority is limited by God and they have none but from him For instance it is lawful to eat brown Bread and drink Water or Wine But if the King or Bishop forbid me to eat better when my health requireth it I am not bound to obey them It is lawful to were Sackcloth but none have power to forbid me fitter Clothing It is lawful to set a Son Apprentice to a Chimny-sweeper or to an Ale-seller or Vintner but if the Bishop or any other forbid one to place him better it obligeth not It is lawful to marry a Blackmore or an ugly Scold or Beggar But the Bishop or King cannot oblige men to chose no better because it is out of the Verge of their jurisdiction and belongeth to personal and family power It is lawful to put my self into the Hospital and care of an unskilful Physician till my health require better But when my health requireth it I will use a better if I can whoever forbids it For it is usurpation in them that shall take the necessary care of my health and life out of my own hands It is lawful to give the King our estates But Lawyers say we are not bound to do it meerly because He or the Bishop commandeth it But perhaps you think that men may do more against our souls than against our bodies and have more power in Religion than in civil or bodily things But we are not bound to think so if you do It is lawful for men to hear one that only readeth the Scripture and Liturgy and never preacheth But when my needs requireth more I will use it if I can whoever forbids me It is lawful to hear an ignorant raw Lad that saith over a dry Sermon as a Boy saith his lesson and hath neither spiritual Life nor Light nor is fit to take the Charge of Souls And it is lawful to hear such a Sermon as yours or one that peacheth against other mens preaching Yea we rejoyce and will rejoyce that Christ is preached though by such as do it in strife and contention to add affliction to the afflicted and not sincerely But wise men that believe a life to come and love their souls will choose better if they can whoever forbiddeth them Men have no power to hurt our souls nor to deprive us of the help which God affordeth us nor to make themselves the only Judges what is profitable or hurtful to our souls or bodies or what is best for our edification § 37. But To commit a fault in hearing us is of doubtful signification In the manner of hearing all commit faults by some defect of attention faith or application But that 's not it that you mean But that it is their sin to hear us And indeed if this were true is it above your learning to understand that it is lawful to preach to them that commit a fault in hearing them 1. What if culpably they would hear no other Is it better let them hear none at all than that we preach to them If peevishness or sickness make a Child refuse the Food or Physick which he should take by his parents command will you say that it is better that he famish or die than that you give him any other Men may be saved that hear not you But how can they believe unless they hear or hear without a Preacher The means is for the End I will have Mercy and not Sacrifice is a Lesson which I perceive more than the Pharisees are to learn Order is for the thing Ordered Parish Order is not so needful as Faith and Salvation It may be such a mans Sin that he will not hear such as he should hear and so by Consequence that he heareth me and yet also Consequently his Duty to hear me supposing that his fault hath blinded him to think that he may hear no other till his Errour be Cured Or at least it is my Duty to take him as I find him and Preach to him in his own mistake 2. The Canon forbids going out of our own Parishes suppose twenty or five Hundred Infidels or Papists of the next Parish resolved we will hear no Protestant but Dr. Stillingfleet were it unlawful for you to Preach to them 3. If I should Preach to them all against separation and for Prelacy were it unlawful One of the Doctors at the Savoy 1661. motioned that he and I might go up and down England to Preach for Conformity and if any ask us why we do not we may tell them Dr. Stillingfleet taketh it for unlawful If it be a Sin to preach to them it is a sin to preach to them against Separation or for Conformity 4. It is ordinary for men of other Parishes to hear you and Dr. Tillotson and others such as you esteem And I suppose most weekly Lectures are Preached most to men of other Parishes and yet you take it not for sin to preach to them 5. It is ordinary for many Protestants to go hear and Communicate wiâ—h the French or Dutch Churches which differ from you in the Mode of Worship And yet I never heard it proved that it is a sin for the Preachers thus to preach to them 6. What if your Children as Prodigals over-run you or the Kings Subjects causelesly fly into another Land They ought not to be there Is it herefore unlawful for any to teach them there or receive them to pubâ—ike Worship 7. Almost all the Christian World is so tainted with some degree of Errour and Partiality that men will hear none but those of their own mind for their Errour sake The Armenians Abassims Greeks Papists Nestorians Jacobites Luthâ—rans Arminians Calvinists Anabaptists c. It is unlawful for any of these to refuse sounder Teachers than their own and to Confine themselves to
contrary Translations Versions Times Places Liturgies and modes of worship the Bishops are to be obeyed before the King and the other saith the King is to be obeyed before the Bishops To omit abundance of greater differences than some would perswade men is between us and them § 62. Serm. And I must needs say I never saw any Cause more weakly defended no not that of Polygamy and Anabaptisme than that of those who allow it to be Lawful to joyn in Communion with us and yet go about to vindicate the separate Meetings among us from the guilt of a sinful Separation Ans 1. I have long observed when some men pass a sentence on others and call them by reproachful names it ordinarily more â—ruly sheweth what the speaker is than what the Person or Cause is that he speaks of For it is so natural for the streams to be like the Spring and the fruit like the Tree and the mouth to speak from the abundance of the heart that one may much conjecture what the Speaker is by his words But what the Cause and Man is that he speaketh of you can little know while the speaker oft little knoweth it himself or would not have another know it Neither your confidence nor mine will determine a wise Reader § 63. To pag. 36. I Answer 1. Your Text is so clear and full a Confutation of your Sermon that it 's hard to know how a mind not strongly prejudiced could have preached such a Sermon or pleaded for the silencing of so many such Ministers from such a text Yea or can need any more to confute you than to read your Text 1. It is supposed that it was All that had attained to the truth of Christianity that must walk by the same rule 2. It was a Divine Rule then known 3. They were to bear with each other in loving Communion while they grew up to more If this condemn not making and imposing new humane unnecessary Rules containing that which multitudes of impartial Conscionable men as wise as their Reproachers cannot excuse from much heynous sin and silencing and excommunicating all that obey them not and when they forbid them Communion call them Separatists I do despair of understanding sence And to pag. 37. We come as near you as we can in Conscience and we know our own Conseiences better than you do But whether you condemn not your selves as Separatists in denying communion where we preach as if you only were the Church and any that want but your Liturgy were none Yea when we had the License of the King unbyassed men will be able to discern § 64. Serm pag. 37. But why then is this kept as such a mighty secret in the Breasts of their Teachers Why do they not Preach it to them in their Congregations Is it for fear they should have none left to Preach to That is not to be imagined of Mortified and Conscientious men Is it lest they should seem to condemn themselves while they Preach against Separation in a Separate Congregation This I confess looks odly and the tenderness of a mans mind in such a Case may out of meer shamefacedness keep him from declaring a truth which flies in his face while he speaks it Ans 1. Alas you shew us that some men perceive not when it flyeth in their faces Reader hence take heed of Believing words of Reproach against Adversaries when Interest and Sideing hath made men partial Would you think that all this intimated silence were an untruth against publick Testimony 1. I have many and many times declared in print what he intimateth that we dare not Preach And is not Printing a far more Publick declaration than speaking it in one Room 2. When I began to Preach at St. James's I read a Profession to the Congregation openly that I preacht not there as to a separate Church but as in concord with all Christs Church on Earth for the necessity of the People that had not many of them heard a Sermon many a year the Parish having 40000 if not 60000 Souls more than could hear in the Parish Church 3. I built a Chapel by money partly begg'd and partly to my greater loss than I will mention that I might but have helpt those needy Souls for nothing For the second Sermon one that Preacht for me that had suffered imprisonment for the Kings Cause was sent to Gaol to my great Trouble and Charge And when I might not use it said One in Power Though you would use the Common-Prayer there I gave it up to the use of the Parish and take it thankfully of Dr. Lloyd that he will there teach his People 4. I have many and many a time in the Pulpit openly Preacht against Separation even what he now desireth 5. Not past a Fortnight before his Sermon I Preacht near him at the Verge of his Parish in my Lecture two whole Sermons of it on Luk. 15. the Case of the two Sons shewing that there are three notable sorts of Separation 1. The Persecutors that forcibly scatter the Flock as the Papists by dividing sinful impositions 2. The Prophane Separatist like the Prodigal who had rather be at the Tavern the Play-house the Whore-house c. than at Church 3. The passionate peevish honest Christian as in the Text He was angry and would not come in Here I shewed by many reasons how faulty and hurtful this mistaking passionate Separation is And I took that occasion to give them many Reasons why I communicate with the Parish Church my self and Separate not from them and I told them my judgment that they that suffer meerly for not-hearing or not-communicating thrice a year as the Law requireth cannot justifie their Cause without some extraordinary reason if they live in a Parish that hath a Minister capable of that Office But I did not malignantly equal the Son that had long served his Father and not transgressed his Commandment with his Brother in his Prodigal desertion of his Father But on the next words His Father went out to him and intreated him to come in I shewed that Gods Condescention and Method in satisfying his mistaken passionate Children should direct Ministers and others how they also should deal with such And that violence instead of loving Condescension reasoning and necessary forbearance of such Infirmities sheweth 1. That such consider not the corruption of Humane Nature and how bad all mâ—n are 2. They know not what need of Forbearance they have themselves nor how liable they are to Error and to Sin 3. They imitate not God our Father and Saviour and know not what manner of Spirit they are of 4. They have not due acquaintance with the preciousness of Gods Grace and Image that cannot perceive it if there be but such an Errour or Passion to obscure it 5. They consider not that they also may be Tempted and what Temptation may do even with upright Souls 6. They are strangers to the Pastoral office They should