edifyingly and lastingly be effected that when all our undermining scorning and opposing enemies do hear and see these things they may be much cast down in their own eyes perceiving that this work hath been wrought of our God in whose arms of mercy and truth we leave you and the Cause we manage Manchester Jan. 11. 1658. Signed in the Name and by the appointment of the Class by John Harrison Moderator THE EPISTLE To the READER IT is no new thing that such workes as have been most eminently conducing to the glory of God and the Churches greatest wellfare have met with strong oppositions When the Adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the Children of the captivity builded the Temple unto the Lord God of Israel they set themselves diverse waies to hinder and obstruct the worke When Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up and that the breaches began to be stopped then they were very wroth and conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem and to hinder it When Jesus Christ the eternall Son of God the brightness of his Fathers glory and express Image of his Person appeared in the world cloathed with our nature though he came about a worke of greatest consequence that ever was yet his enimies withstood and opposed his Kingdome Of this the Psalmist prophesied before it came to pass Psal 2. 1 2. Why did the Heathen rage and the people imagine a vaine thing The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the people take counsell together against the Lord and against his annointed saying Let us breake their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us And this the Church saw fulfilled who in their Prayer unto God applied unto the times wherein they lived what he by the mouth of his Servant David had foretold so long before saying For of a truth against thy holy Childe Jesus whom thou hast annointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsell determined before to be done It would be here too long to go through the Books of the N. T. and tell what persecutions were raised against the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour for executing that Commission which he had given them when he commanded them to go teach all Nations or to go through the story of the Church and speak of the diverse kindes of tortures and torments which thousands of all rankes endured in the times of the ten Primitive persecutions under the Heathen Emperours to tell of the Martyrdome of Ignatius Polycarpus Justin Martyr Irenaeus Cyprian and many others glorious lights and worthy Confessors of the truth for no other reason but because they studied to advance Christs Gospell We will instance something in latter times When the Romish Synagogue having most abominably apostatiz'd both in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Governement Luther and other faithfull Servants of Christ did earnestly bend themselves to endeavour a reformation in Religion the Antichristian world was mad with fury To come yet a little nearer home When Religion was reformed in Scotland in Doctrine and Worship the Church of Christ there had many conflicts and the worke was long obstructed before the Governement and Discipline of Christ could be fully established amongst them as it is in fresh remembrance what troubles they passed through more lately in their contending against Episcopacy and the Ceremonies which had been introduced amongst them to the great prejudice of their Ancient Church governement and Discipline But here it may not be forgotten how when the Parliament of famous memory that was convened eighteen yeares agoe having taken into their pious consideration the condition of our own Church at home and judging that a further reformation in matters of Religion then had been made in the daies of Queen Elizabeth was necessary and setting upon that work as also the vindication of the liberties of this English Nation were forced to take up Armes for their own defence against that Partie that could not brooke the Reformation which they intended And to what an height that opposition grew in after time and with what difficulties they conflicted for many years together because they would not give up that cause they had undertaken to defend is so well known to even such as may be but strangers in our Israel that we may spare the pains of a full recitall But yet nothing of all this is to be wondered at Satan must needs be like himselfe and stir the more when he sees his Kingdome begin to shake And corruption will rage when it is crossed God also hath a wise hand in these oppositions not only thereby the more inflaming the zeal and brightning up other graces in his faithfull servants trying and exercising their faith and patience the purging and purifying and making them white but also getting himself the greater glory when his worke is carried on notwithstanding the greatest opposition of his and his Churches enemies And here we cannot but with all thankfullness to Almighty God take notice of this hand that was most eminently lifted up in the worke of Reformation begun by that late forementioned Parliament as there is cause why also we should to the honour and glory of his great Name and the praise of that Parliament unto the generations that may come hereafter acknowledg their unwearied pains courage and constancy in that worke Much was done yea very much by that illustrious and worthy Parliament By them the foundation of reformation was laid in the solemne League and Covenant which they not only took themselves but ordained should be solemnely taken in all places throughout the Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales And for the better and more orderly taking thereof appointed and injoyned certain directions to be strictly followed And in pursuance of this League and Covenant engageing every one that tooke it in their severall places to indeavour the refomation of Religion in England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and governement according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches and to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdomes to the nearest conjunction and uniformity of Religion Confession of Faith forme of Church Government Directory for worship and Catechizing After consultation had with the Reverend Pious and Learned Assembly of Divines called together to that purpose they judged it necessary that the Book of Common Prayer should be abolished and the Directory for the publick worship of God and in their Ordinance mentioned should be established and observed in all the Churches within this Land as appears by their Ordinance of January the 3. 1644. for that purpose By them Prelacy that is Church Government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deanes Deanes and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiasticall
it self and yet judged it not necessary might have fears least moderate Episcopacy once admitted might be a step to introduce that kind of Episcopacy or Prelacy that had been expresly covenanted against and upon that account might judge they were obliged by their Covenant to foresee so far as they could such an occasion and to shun it Others again might be much divided amongst themselves if they got over the former Blocks touching the Rules according unto which Episcopacy should be moderated some apprehending the Bonds layd upon it to be too straight and others againe thinking them to be too loose And these Divisions were like to be amongst persons of all Ranks Nobles Knights Citizens Commons of all sorts both of the Gentry Ministry and others Whereupon there were great danger to grow many Debates in the Parliament when that should assemble in the City and throughout the Land Contests of Ministers one a-against another in the Pulpits and at the Presses and amongst private Christians in their private Conferences as it hath been heretofore about the Ceremonies and Episcopacy to the further rending and distracting of our already rent and torne Church and which at this time would be the more dangerous when as the posture of Affairs doth cry aloud upon the wisest Physitians both by their Skill and Power to interpose for the healing of Breaches in England Scotland and Ireland that through our Divisions we be not made a Prey to the common Enemies of our Religion and therefore have no need that such a dangerous bone of Contention should be cast in amongst us as moderate Episcopacy might be like to prove to the sadning of the hearts of Friends and gratifying onely of those that would rejoyce in our ruine 4. It is not also to be sleighted that by admitting of moderate Episcopacy great offence might be taken by the best reformed Churches abroad They have taken notice that in the solemn Covenant that was entred into by these Nations there was not onely an Engagement to endeavour the extirpation of Popery and Prelacy that is Church-government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons and all other Ecclesiasticall Officers depending on that Hierarchy according to which the Parliaments that have been have constantly declared that no Indulgency should be granted to Popery and Prelacy and this out of a conscientious respect as we have hinted before in our answer to your first Paper unto this solemn engagement as we judged But there was also a promise to endeavour the Reformation of Religion in England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches These things have been published to the World and are known abroad and however other matters contained in the Covenant that are of a civil Concernment may be judged of they being in their own nature variable and not of the like necessity in themselves with matters of Religion and the things of God and to be endeavoured after onely in a subordinate way unto Gods matters and never to be pursued in the manifest destructiveness of the interest of Religion that should be looked upon by all as the greatest and chiefest interest yet they are not likely to imagine that moderate Episcopacy that is not by them admitted but disowned can be of that necessity for us in these Lands for which they do not judge there was any rule given in Gods word requiring the setting of it up at the first as that after all the learned Debates touching Church-government for severall years together that have been in the reverend Assembly of Divines that sate by Ordinance of Parliament at Westminster and after their humble advice to the Parliament touching the Presbyterian Government as that Government they conceived was most agreeable to the word of God as it is evident it is most according to the example of the best reformed Churches and after the Parliament engaged also in that solemn Covenant had as they may conceive in pursuance thereof made so great a progress in the setting up of this Presbyterian Government that they passed by Ordinance the form of Church-government Anno 1648 after advice had with the Assembly of Divines as that Church-government which was to be used in the Church of England and Ireland it should be admitted of to the setting up a partition Wall betwixt us and them instead of coming neerer to them so far as we may do according to Gods word according to the solemn Engagement They cannot hereupon but be greatly grieved when they shall see their hopes so far disappointed as they may hereupon be brought to fear least if moderate Episcopacy be entertained as the Church-Government of these Lands after a while that very Prelacy in the height of it that in the time of our Affliction was vomited up by these Nations as loathsome may be swallowed down again Now we leave it to wise men to judge whether especially at such a time as this when Popish Enemies are banding themselves together against us and it is of so great advantage for our own preservation and the preservation of the true Religion that the Protestant Party throughout Christendome should endeavour after Union it be prudential to minister such occasion of grief and jealousie concerning us to our best Friends abroad as to admit of that which would be so much to their dissatisfaction as it would be occasion of endless strife and debate amongst our selves at home as hath been said before to say nothing of the hatefulness of it unto Scotland that yet we hope is lookt upon by England and Ireland as a neer Sister and Neighbour Church 5. Lastly We offer it to the consideration of all judicious and prudent persons whether there be not more probability of union amongst all sound Orthodox godly moderate Spirited men by means of some other expedients and upon some sober ground then upon the admission of moderate Episcopacy As touching such that are for it in their Judgments that are sober and godly and against Episcopacy in the height of it they might be accommodated in the Presbyterian way with far more safety and far less occasion of Offence as we gather from the Associations of the Ministers of severall Counties that are printed and particularly from that of Essex wherein they profess that many of them think according to Scripture and the way of divers reformed Churches there should be some adjoyned to the Minister in Government called ruling Elders yet that divers also of them are dissatisfied as touching such Elders but all of them also conceive it meet and a Ministers wisdome to see with more Eyes then his own and have the best help he can both to acquaint him with the conversation of his people and to assist him in matters of Concernment that cannot so safely and conveniently be done by him self alone Therefore they also agree as they shall see it fea
appoints fofeitures in case of prophanation of the Lords day by Carriers c. that travel on the Lords day or by Butchers that sell or kill victuass on that day By all which you may plainly see if you will not shut your eyes that it is not against Law that a man may come to be punished twice for one offence Nay what hath been heretofore more ordinary then the High-Commissioners imprisoning fining and excommunicating for one and the same offence But yet you will have the latter Acts and Ordinances against drunkenness swearing prophanation of the Sabbath c. enjoyning punishment by the Civil Magistrate onely though they do not speak one word that tends to the repealing of the Ordinance for Church Government to have utterly taken off all power of Excommunication But this we must not so easily grant and yet we shall not be unready as there may be occasion to complain to the civil Magistrate of any lawless persons that are justly censurable with the censure of Excommunication the conjunction of the Civil and Ecclesiasticall Sword being sharper and longer then either of them alone The Gentlemens Paper Sect. VIII And you further proceed to make answer to our severall ensuing Quaeries but how fully and satisfactorily all may judge that have perused what hath formerly been said touching the civil sanction of your Government Our first Quaerie is Why Government in singulari Your answer is Because it is the onely Government that is established in this Church by Civill Authority This Answer hath been confuted before we shall say no more here to that But we are unsatisfied what you mean by this Church whether you mean this Church at Manehester where your Classis is or you mean the Church of England If you mean this Church of Manchester of your association it is establisht not so much by Ordinance of Lords and Commons in Parliament as by later Acts grauting the free exercise of Religion in Doctrine and Worship to all Churches and Congregations in their own way to all and all alike but such as are particularly cautioned against And so you in your Presbytery in your Church at Manchester are protected because you have possessed your selves of that Church But then others in other Churches and Congregations to wit Prestwich Burie Middleton and the like may say of their way of worship it is the onely Government which is establisht in this Church But if your meaning be of the Church of England and so we conceive by the subsequent words viz. That there is no other Government but yours owned as the Church Government throughout the whole Nation You are certainly mistaken and dare not maintain it that his Highness or his Council owns Presbytery and none but that Government But leaving the Civill Sanction you come to the divine right of Presbytery and prove it to be the onely Government in singulari because it is that onely Government which Christ hath prescribed in his word and what Christ hath thus prescribed must needs be de jure one and the same in every Church And Calvins judgement you say in this particular is so manifest by his works to the whole world that it needs no proof We have told you before of the form and order of Church Government appointed by the Council of Nice by Patriarch Arch-Bishop Bishop c. How this Government which we suppose you will not say is Presbyterian is in Calvins judgement not differing from that which Christ hath prescribed in his word And in his first Section of this Chapter he tells us of Bishops not one word of Elders chosen out of the people who should rule in the Church but Bishops that did all viz. make and publish Canons a note certainly of rule and jurisdiction in the Church in which saith he they so ordered all things after the rule of Gods word that a man may see they had in a manner nothing differing from the word of God And this form of Government did represent a certain Image of divine Institution Can Calvin say more for your Presbytery nay can he say so much then how manifest is his judgement for the jus divinum of your Presbytery that it is that Government in particular which Christ hath prescribed in his word Thus have we taken off your Calvin and Beza as above your modern Doctors for Fathers you have none and now you descend to the Assembly of Divines The jus divinum by London Ministers the provincial Synod at London Rutherford Gyllaspie to prove your divine right of Presbytery modern Authors of yesterday with whom you paint your Margent in abundance and may serve your turn amongst the ignorant and vulgar sort who measure all by tale and not by weight when others that know what and who many of them are will conclude you draw very near the dregs As for such as are lawless persons and who those be whether drunkards swearers unclean persons prophaners of the Sabbath such as will not subject themselves to the present Government c. all together or a part conjunctim seu divisim whether you will they are onely punishable by the Civil Magistrate you cannot exclude them the Church by any of your censures as we have said before The Animadversions of the Class upon it 1. WE did indeed proceed to make answer to your several Queries and desire the Reader to peruse the Queries you propounded to us in your first Paper and the answer we gave unto them and then to judge how satisfactorily we did it after he had fully weighed our answer and what you have said to take off the establishing of our Government by the civil Sanction But whereas your first Query was why Government in singulari and our answer given thereunto was because it is the only Government that is established in this Church by civil Authority you say this answer hath been confuted before but how strongly we shall leave it to the Reader for to judge But it seems this answer hath raised another scruple in your mindes for you are unsatisfied what we mean by this Church although in our answer we had sufficiently explained it it being that Church wherein the Prelatical Government formerly had been set up and wherein that being put down the Presbyterian was set up in its stead as the only Government that was owned as the Church Government for the whole Nation as we had told you and which words did sufficiently declare that by this Church we meant the Church of England This you confess is that which you conceive to be our meaning yet you quarrell at the word that so upon supposal that the Church of Manchester of our Association and where our Classis meets might thereby be understood you might take the liberty to tell us that our Church Government is not so much established by the Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament as by later Acts granting as you say the free exercise of Religion in doctrine and worship to
such lawless persons whether drunkards swearers c. as will not subject themselves to the present Government of the Church they are onely punishable by the civil Magistrate and that we cannot exclude them the Church by any of our censures this is as easily by us denied as it is by you asserted and we leave it to be judged of by the Reader upon his perusall of what hath been said by both whether you or we have the better reason for what is herein maintained by us But we must again mind you that notwithstanding in our answer we had here told you that however we did not judg all those to be lawless persons that do out of conscience not come up to the observation of all those rules which are or shall be established by Authority for regulating the outward worship of God and Government of his Church yet both you and we might well remember that such as should have refused to have subjected themselves to the late Prelaticall Government would have been accounted in those times lawless persons yet to this also you do here say nothing although it was one of your queries in your first Paper whether all that subjected not themselves to our present Government must be taken for lawless persons and which was a matter more considerable to have replied to then to have put us off as you do with that which is not at all here to the purpose your querie to which we answered not being about our power to censure the persons that we counted lawless but who those lawless persons were The Gentlemens Paper Sect. IX To our next Quaere viz. How farre you extend this Saintship this Church and Assembly of Saints You answer As farre as the Apostle did when writing to the Church of Corinth and Galatia he calls them Saints and Churches notwithstanding the gross errours of many members in them and therefore though there may be sundry of the like stamp in your Assemblies you do not un-church them or make your Assemblies not Assemblies of Saints because of the corruption of such Members c. But by your leave you answer not our question which was not Whether all your Assemblies were called assemblies of Saints for no question you will not un-church your selves or un-saint your Assemblies notwithstanding the corruptions in them But whether none else but you were accounted Saints none Bretheren and Sisters in Christ but such as stand for your pretended discipline If so then the Donatists crime may be imputed to you and we say with St. Augustin O Impudentem Vocem Nay but this cannot be laid in your dish whose principles and practises are so manifestly against the practises and opinions of the Donatists of old it may more fitly be charged upon such as have rent themselves from your Churches But who are they that have rent from your Church we hear but of few that ever admitted themselves members or prosessed themselves of your association that ever rent from it Those that are out say they were never of you never had sworn obedience to or subscribed any Articles of yours as you or many of you had sworn Canonicall obedience to the Government by Bishops and subscribed the 39 Articles of the Church of England Here is a rent indeed a Schism in the highest which is not satisfied but with the utter overthrow of that Church from whom they rent and rasing out those Articles of Religion they had formerly confirmed by their own subscription saying Illa non est c. O Impudentem Vocem this saying doth not concern you But still we are unsatisfied in the word Publique what you mean thereby to which you Answer Such as you by your profession and practise do own for publique such as you do constantly frequent and stir up others to frequent also where are also the publique Ordinances of the word Sacraments and Prayer dispensed But here again you come not home to our Question Whether none are publique Assemblies nay publique Assemblies of Saints but such as you constantly frequent or whose discipline you own however publique yours are And then your Order is Notice shall be taken of all Persons that forsake the publique Assemblies Notice of all Persons in order to censure so is your meaning and purpose as a little before you have said we may gather from your Paper to censure all Persons that maintain private meetings in opposition to publique whether out of conscience or out of a principle of carelesness sloth worldliness c. All Persons that crie down your Churches Ministry c. is your purpose and meaning by that order And you say further Neither do we transgress any Laws of the Land which have made no Proviso to exempt any man that we meddle with c. Here sure you are mistaken for you can no more proceed to censure such as forsake the publique Assemblies by virtue of any Ordinance of Parliament or rule laid down in your form of Church Government then you or any other Minister or Magistrate civill or Ecclesiastical can punish them by an Act of 1. Eliza. intituled An Act for Vniformity of Prayer and Administration of Sacraments or by an Act of 35. Eliza. Intituled An Act for punishing of Persons obstinately refusing to come to Church c. Or an Act of 23. Eliza. against such as refuse to come to Church All which with your Ordinance are repealed by an Act made Septemb. 27. 1650. Intituled An Act for relief of Religious and peaceable pcople from the rigor of former Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion By which these are not only repealed but it is enacted further That all and every the branches clauses Articles and Proviso's Expressed and contained in any other Act or Ordinance of Parliament whereby or wherein any penalty or punishment is imposed or mentioned to be imposed on any Person for not repayring to their respective Parish Churches c. shall be and are by the Authority aforesaid wholly repealed and made void None by this Act shall be censured or punished by virtue of any former Act or Ordinance for refusing to come to their Parish Church c. though they obstinately refuse And if by no former then not by that you pretend to Now to the end no prophane and licentious Person may take occasion by the repealing of the said Laws intended onely for relief of pious and peaceable minded people from the rigor of them o neglect the performance of Religious duties It is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all and every Person and Persons within this Commonwealth and the territories thereof shall having no reasonable excuse for their absence upon every Lords day dayes of publique thanksgiving and humiliation diligently resort to some publique place where the service and worship of God is Exercised or shall be present at some other place in the practise of some Religious duty either of Prayer Preaching reading or Expounding the Scriptures or conferring upon the same And
Episcopacy you conclude us guilty of a rent indeed a schisme in the highest But herein you were contradicted by Mr. Allen himself in the presence of others of you that subscribed this Paper in a full Class to which he and severall of you resorted which makes us the more to wonder how he could subscribe this Paper who looking about him upon the Ministers that were present said they were free from that with which we are here charged there being none there that had sworn Canonicall obedience c. although here you say we or many of us did so as hereupon it will follow from your own principle laid down that we who according to Mr. Allens own confession never associated with the Episcopall Hierarchy or swore any obedience to them are quit from that guilt of schisme with which you here charge us But because we have already hinted that you do not argue well against those of the separation to acquit our selves and all the Ministers of this Land who now disown Episcopacy to which they formerly submitted or to which any of them might have sworne Canonicall obedience from the guilt of schisme in this respect we referre the Reader to the grounds we have laid down for that purpose in our Answer to your second Paper and which whosoever will but impartially consider he will finde that it is not we but your selves that do make the rent although to heighten the charge against us you here tell us that our schisme is so great that it is not satisfied but with the overthrow of the Church which yet in our Answer to your second Paper we have sufficiently refuted and rasing out those Articles of Religion we had formerly confirmed by our own subscription as if it were an Article of the faith of the Church of England which all the Ministers thereof had subscribed that the Prelaticall Government by Archbishops Bishops c. must stand for ever or if it were at any time taken away by the Parliament and disowned by the Ministers of England they had rased out those Articles of Religion that they had once confirmed by their own subscription But you must pardon us if we be not so credulous as to conclude the same with you who in your great heat for Episcopacy do so farre overshoot 4. Unto that wherein you were unsatisfied sc what we meant by the word publick our answer was full and home but either you minded it not or though you saw your doubt was resolved yet being desirous to quarrell you would not take any notice of it for we did not only tell you that by publick Assemblies we understood the Assemblies where the publick Ordinances were dispensed which we our selves did own and constantly frequent but also said expresly as is to be seen in our answer that we do not meddle with the censuring of those who being godly and sound in the faith in the main points of Religion do yet differ from us in judgement in matters of Discipline and Government and have their Assemblies for Gods publick worship distinct from ours as we are barred from it by the rules of our Government as we have often said before These were the very words of our answer and therefore but that we see you are resolved to be satisfied with nothing and find fault with that which is expressed never so plainly we should have wondred that you should here have said that we come not home to your question whenas it is manifest from the words of our answer that though these Assemblies owned not our Discipline or we theirâ— yet we denyed them not to be the publick Assemblies or the Assemblies of the Saints as we expresly professed we never medled with the censuring of them or to take notice of their members being sound in the faith and godly in order unto censure as the forsakers of the publick Assemblies of the Saints But we here told you we were heartily sorry that you understanding our meaning as was manifest from what you after said should only move this doubt to give a lash at our private meetings which in our answer we justified but notwithstanding the lash you gave us you do neither acknowledge your fault nor reply one word to what we had said for our own defence 5. Whereas we said in our answer that seeing in the Paper which we had published in our Congregations we said notice should be taken of all those that should forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints you might thence have gathered our purpose was to observe and censure those that did maintain and hold up pâ—iâ—ate meetings in opposition to the publick that did cry down Ministery and Ordinances and which we shewed were censurable by the rules of our Government and that therefore we were not altogether silenâ— concerning either the sin or punishment of those that did erre in Doctrinals or Discipline so as to make dangerous rents from the Church and for which silence you seemed to tax and blame us in your first Paper yet now you mention this our declared purpose to take notice of such forsakers of the Assemblies of the Saints thus characterized as a fault and so with you we are worthy of blame if we be silent touching either the sin or punishment of such and censure them not and we are also worthy of blame and punishment too as transgressors of the Laws of the Land as you will have us to be here if we shall proceed to censure such And so let us neglect our duty or performe it we are either way as you will have it blame worthy Yes and which were yet the more to be wondered at were it not manifest from what principle it proceeds you that crie out of schisme and separation and blame us for our silence touching either the sin or punishment of those that erre in Doctrinals or rend themselves from the Church yet here are become advocates to plead the cause of those that cry down our Church publick Assemblies Ministers and Ordinances For you will have these to do all this out of conscience these being your own expressions and not ours we declaring our selves plainly concerning those only that cry down our Churches and publick Assemblies Ministery and Ordinances as meant by those persons that we said held up private meetings in oppofition to publick and whom we purposed to observe and censure But these you will have also to be exempted from being censured by us as also all those who out of a principle of carelesness sloth worldliness or manifest prophaness do on the Lords day either idle out the time or else are worse employed when they should be at the publick Assemblies and whom in our answer we said we purposed to take notice of as such as did forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints 6. But seeing you have undertaken to plead the cause of both these sorts and will have us to be sure mistaken when we said we did not transgress any Laws
THE CENSURES of the CHURCH REVIVED In the defence of a short Paper published by the first Classis within the Province of Lancaster in the severall Congregations belonging to their own Association but since Printed without their privity or consent after it had been assaulted by some Gentlemen and others within their bounds in certain Papers presented by them unto the said Classis and since also Printed together with an Answer of that Classis unto the first of their Papers without their knowledg also and consent under the Title of Excommunicatio excommunicata or a Censure of the Presbyterian censures and proceedings in the Classis at Manchester WHEREIN 1. The dangerousness of admitting moderate Episcopacy is shewed 2. The Jus divinum of the Ruling Elders Office is asserted and cleared 3. The aspersions of Schisme and Perjury are wiped off from those that disown Episcopacy 4. The being of a Church and lawfully Ordained Ministry are evidenced and secured sufficiently in the want of Episcopacy 5. The Scriptures asserted and proved to be the sole supreame Judge of all controversies in matters of Religion and the only sure interpreter of themselves not Councils or Fathers or the universall practice of the Primitive Churches 6. The Presbyterian Government vindicated from severall aspersions cast upon it and also the first Classis within the Province of Lancaster and their actings justified in their making out their claime to the civill sanction for the establishment of that Church Government and power which they exercise and likewise a cleare manifestation that their proceedings have been regular and orderly according to the forme of Church Government established by Ordinance of Parliament In three full Answers given to any thing objected against their proceedings by the aforesaid Gentlemen and others in any of their Papers Together with a full Narrative of the occasion and grounds of publishing in the Congregations the above mentioned short Paper and of the whole proceedings since from first to last LONDON Printed for George Eversden at the Signe of the Maiden-head in Pauls Church-yard 1659. TO THE Reverend and Beloved the Ministers and Elders meeting in the Provinciall Assembly of the Province of London the Ministers and Elders of the first Classis of the Province of Lancaster meeting at Manchester do heartily wish the Crown of perseverance in a judicious and zealous defence of the Doctrine Government and Discipline of the Lord Jesus both theirs and ours Reverend and beloved Brethren WHen the Sun of Righteousnes had first favourably risen to them that fear the Name of God in this Land after a dark and stormy night of corruption and persecution then even then were the quickning beams of the sun of civil Authority in this inferionr world caused first to light upon you to form your renowned City into severall Classes and afterwards into a Provinciall Assembly not onely that you might have the birth-right of Honour which we cheerfully remember but also that being invested with Authority from Jesus Christ and the civill Magistrate you might be prepared to stand in the front of opposition the powers of Hell being startled and enraged at the unexpected reviving of Gospel Government and Discipline which seemed so long to lye for dead and that having your strength united you might be enabled and encouraged to plead the cause of God against the Divine right of Episcopacy and for the Divine right of the Ruling-Elder that the one might not be shut out of the Church and the other might not recover in the Church both which have been and still are under design VVhat you have already done this way as a thankfull improvement of Divine favour and with speciall reference to the respective Classes and Congregations within your Province doth evidently appear in your Vindication of Presbyterian Government and your Jus Divinum Ministerii Evangelici which choice fruits of your Provinciall Assembly are not onely refreshing and satisfying for the present but do promise fair for time to come such clusters do shew there is a blessing in the Vine which the Lord of the Vineyard continue and increase When you our Reverend Brethren had first been shined upon and made so fruitfull the Divine grace caused a second enlivening beam of civill Authority to fall upon this remote and despised County to constitute in it also severall Classes and afterwards a Provinciall Assembly since which time such heavenly influence hath been stayed As our Lot hath happily fallen to follow you in the favour of God and civill Authority so we have unhappily fallen into your Lot especially this Classis to be followed with the anger opposition reproaches and contradiction of men of contrary mindes which though hid in the ashes in great measure formerly and but sparkling now and then here and there in a private house or Congregation yet when we would conscientiously and tenderly have improved the Government for the instruction of the ignorant and reformation of the prophane it brake out into a flame and no way but that flame must be hasted to such a Beacon that it might not be quenched till the Nation had seen and taken notice especially the whole opposite party awakened a very design You have pleaded the civil Authority for your acting in the Government but have setled the Government it self for the satisfaction of your own consciences and the consciences of the people of God upon the firm basis of divine Scripture authority and so have we thence you have been authorized to bring into the Church and keep in it by the mercifull intervention of civill Authority the despised governing Elders and so shut out of the Church and keep out of it that Lordly and self-murthering Episcopacy and so have we You have been forced to flie to the testimony of your consciences concerning your aims and ends in your publick undertakings in the cause of God and so have we It was scarce possible for you to wipe off the dirt cast upon you but some of it would unavoidably fall upon them that cast it nor can we Vpon these and other considerations we knew not in what Name of right to publish our enforced Vindication in the same common cause but in your Name who have gone before us in the work and have afforded us light and encouragement whose seasonable and solid Labours have already found acceptance in the Church and blessing from God And we pray that your Bow may abide in strength and the armes of your hands may be made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob that though the Archers have sorely grieved you and shot at you and hated you yet you may still possess the rich blessing of truth in Doctrine Government and Discipline and may foyl the adversaries thereof till the renewed and enlarged favour of God hath overspread this Nation with the Reformation so happily begun and till that so much desired prayed for and endeavoured accommodation of dissenting Brethren alas alas too hardly attained may sincerely
said that Popery gets more advantage from the want of Government in the Church then from the Presbyterian Government which was never so effectually setled we leave all unprejudiced persons to judg and if eventuall causes be talkt of whether severall of the Episcopall men that bend their strength so against Presbytery and whilst they contend for a Government excepted against thereby endeavouring anarchy in the Church do not herein gratifie the Papists time will shew We might further say that in these parts we have had none that we know of revolted to Popery since Presbytery was setled And for some we know very eminent that turned Papists in the height of Prelacy and upon some offences and sad accidents that befell some in the Clergy then which we forbeare particularly to instance and they do but continue under us as they were before so that Episcopacy sure was the eventuall cause of their apostacy by the Argument of this observation of the Doctors May we add an observation of a worthy Divine which we have heard from him and let it stand by this of the Doctors and for the truth of it abide the test and strictest examination and it may be still in pursuance of this vindication of our Government It was this that of the three formes in Church Government that are spoken of amongst us viz. Presbytery Episcopacy and Independency of all three the first where it hath prevailed hath been followed with least errors in Doctrine For Episcopacy it is well known how many of the Divines under that Government were infected with Arminianism Socinianism and Popery it self * some chief Ceremoniall men turning Papists which the Doctor cannot observe of any Presbyterians For the Independants how many of their way turn into Antinomians Anabaptists Seekers Familists Quakers Ranters c. And for Presbytery it hath not yet been observed to have bred any such noysome Weeds where it hath been established And how far it is eventually the nourisher of Popery as far as concernes this instance in our County we leave the Reader to judg Distance of place in regard of the Author hath hindred so strict a revisall of the Sheets in Printing as was needfull these faults since Collected by him besides divers literall ones not so materiall thou art desired thus to mend ERRATA IN Epist to the Reader page 3. l. 29. for this read his In their Preface p. 5. l. 26. for Donasticks r. Donatists In the Narrative p. 1. l 27. for with r. which p 9. l. 4. for to them r. to their p. 13. l. 9. these words are to be read as in a Parenthesis the next Class Mr Heyrick not being returned l. 24. after Printing these words are left out of the Papers with the Preface from p. 17. to the end instead of Narrative the Title should have been The Animadversions upon their Preface Classicall Records 1. Col. l. 32. for Edw. Gee r. Edw. Lee 8. Col. l. 5. for contained r. continued l. 7. for would r. could In the Answer to the Preface p. 1. l. 15. note 1. for our poor Text r. one poor Text. p. 9. l. 3. note 5. for freely making r. freely make l. 16. note 6. dele to r. return the Laconick p. 11. l. 23. note 13. r. tax as Donatism l. â—lt r. they jeer us p. 12. l. 15 r. when he is fallen l. 34. r. omission In the Gentlemens first Paper p. 11 12. the Names from Isa Allen to Nie. Mosely are transposed and should have been in the front of all the Names In the Book p. 89. l. 9. for unconformists r. nonconformists l 22. for not more r. no more p. 95. l. 36. protest against him r. against it p. 99. l. 28. for sober ground r. other ground p. 100. l. 7. for seasonable r. seaseable l. 18. for offored r. affoarded p. 106. l. 30. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 139. l. 22. for civill sunction r. civill sanction p. 179. l. 1. dele the Interrogation after what p. 224 l. 12. for concluding r. excluding p. 247. l. 28. the word assure is left out read it thus yâ—t that could not be a rule to assure us p. 291. l. 30. r. is not against the Rules p. 301. l. 36. r. normam p. 322. l. 32. dele the r. not to the last p. 324. l. 23. for dissavoured r. dissavowed p. 338. l. 17. for admit r. omit it l. 33. for presumptuously used r. promiscuously used p. 339. l. 6. dele not l. 27. for giving r. give your censure p. 340. l. 2. dele it p. 341. l. 7 and 22. r. Magistraliter l. 8. for ours fit r. was fit l. 15. for nearest Antecedent p. 342. the sentence in the Margin should be inserted into the matter at the letter a. without which the sense is incompleat l. 5. for and us that r. and is that p. 344. l. 16. r. competent knowledg l. 36. r. tell us p. 345. l. 8. dele to p. 352. l. 26. r. Apage Sect. 11. The paper that was published by the first Classis within the Province of Lancaster in the severall Congregations belonging to their association Novemb 22. 1657. At the first Classe at Manchester Septem 8th 1657. IN pursuance of an Order of the last Provincial the first Classe doth humbly represent to this Assembly their apprehensions in the case to them propounded in a draught prepared for the several Congregations belonging to their own Association if it shall be approved of by this Assembly and which they do wholely submit to their Judgements It being represented to this Classe and much complained of and offence being taken That in the several Congregations if not in all belonging to this Association there are many persons of all sorts that are members of Congregations and publickly enjoy severall priviledges as hearing of the Word prayers of the Church and baptizing of their children and satisfaction for injuries done unto them That yet live in a total and sinfull neglect of the Lords Supper that are scandalous and offensive in their lives drunkards unclean persons swearers Sabbath breakers neglecters of Family-duties that will not subject themselves to the present government of the Church but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order that there are sundry that are grosly ignorant in the main points of Christian Religion These are to give notice that this Classe laying these things to heart and much grieved for them do publish and make known 1. That every Minister belonging to this Association shall set apaâ—t one or two or more of the weeke dayes in every month for the catechizing of the several familyes belonging to their respective Congregations and for the information of the ignorant in those families and that the families to be catechized on each of such dayes set apart for that purpose have notice the Lords day before to meet the Minister either at the Church or Chappel or the Ministers house or some other house within the
Congregation that may be convenient for the neighboring families to meet at that shal be appointed for such a day as may be judged meetest by the severall Ministers 2. That notice shall be taken of all persons that forsake the publick Assemblies of the Saints and constantly turn their backs of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 3. That like notice shall be taken of all scandalous persons 4. That they shall be privately admonished according to the order prescribed by Christ Mat. 18. once or twice to see if they will reforme and that the Minister when he catechizeth the several families shall exhort such persons in them as he finds to be of competent knowledge and are blamelesse in life that they present themselves to the Eldership that they may be admitted to the Lords Supper 5. That if they will neither hearken to private admonition nor the admonition of the Eldership their names shall be published openly in the severall Congregations and they warned before all to reforme 6. That if after all this they shall continue obstinate they shall be cast out and excommunicated These things this Classe thought fit to give publick notice of being very sensible that for the want of the vigorous exercise of Church discipline ignorance Atheism and licentiousnesse growes upon us to the great dishonour of God scandall of Religion hazzard and undoing of many precious souls and the laying a blot on our severall Congregations and therefore they are now resolved seeing themselves necessitated to this severity of discipline for the freeing themselves from the great guilt of neglect of their own duty that otherwise they shal be under to make use of that power that Christ hath committed to them for edification and not for destruction although it would be their far greater joy that there might not be occasion of using sharpnesse and therefore they doe earnestly in the bowels of Jesus Christ beseech all those that are ignorant that they would apply themselves diligently to the use of all publick and private means for their information submitting themselves with all readinesse to be instructed and to consider that without knowledge the minde cannot be good and they do also in the name of Jesus Christ exhort and warn all such as live scandalously and in the practice of open sins that they breake off their iniquities by repentance and turn unto God speedily with their whole heart that they neither incur the censure of being cast out of the Church here nor by continuing in their sinfull course be kept from ever entering into the kingdome of Heaven hereafter And as touching such as turne their backs constantly on the Lords Supper this Classe doth wish them in seriousnes to consider what an account they will be able one day to give unto Jesus Christ for their living in the dayly neglect of an ordinance that is so exceeding necessary for their own comfort and growth in grace and that they would lay aside all prejudice or whatever it is that hinders and submit themselves unto wholesom order for their own good as this Classe hath been ready on their part to expresse all tendernesse toward the weak and a willingnesse to condescend to the meanest for the removing all occasions of stumbling so far as lies in their power And yet considering the fearfull danger that all such do lay themselves open unto that shall eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord unworthily they do warn whosoever comes to the Lords Table to take special care so often as they come to examin themselves lest they eat and drink their own damnation But because the exercise of Church discipline must begin at private persons and that if they neglect their duty of watching over and admonishing one another and bringing complaints to the Eldership as there is occasion little or nothing can be done for the thorow reformation of the several Congregations this Classe doth therefore warne all and every of the Members belonging unto them to consider the great guilt they will lye under if they through their neglect obstruct so necessary a work and doth exhort that therefore they would in all faithfulnesse laying aside all partiality slavishnesse and self-respects addresse themselves to the discharge of their duty that if any walk disorderly and will not be reclaimed by private admonition they making complaint thereof to the Eldership course may be taken for excommunicating of the obstinate and thereby purging out the old leaven to the glory of God the delivering their own souls from that guilt they will otherwise lye under the preserving the Ordinances from prophanation and the rest of the lump from being leavened the stopping of the mouths of such as seek occasion against us and finally the everlasting welfare and salvation of the souls of those that go astray By the Provincial Assembly at Preston Octob 6. 1657. RICHARD HEYRICKE Moderator pro tempore This representation is approved by the Pro vincial Assembly THOMAS JOHNSON Moderator EDWARD GEE Scribe The Gentlemens first Paper To the Eldership of the severall Congregations belonging to the Association of the first Classe at Manchester within the Province of Lancaster These Give us leave to salute you in your own Terms WE have seene and seriously weighed that paper draught Intituled A presentation of the first Classe at Manchester dated the 8. of Sept. 1657. confirmed by the Provinciall Assembly at Preston Octob. 6. and published at Manchester Church the 22. of Nov. in the aforesaid yeare and do publish this our sense and Apprehension of it as far as is plain to us not resting in the Judgement and determination of any Generall Councill contrary thereunto if any such should be much less to one of your Provincial Assemblies Though you seem to submit to your Provincial what you will hardly grant to a General Council In which we dissent from you Though in other things we shall joyn as first 1. We joyn with you in a deep sence of the severall grosse sins and errors of the times desiring earnestly to mourn first for our own next for the sins of others of our Christian Brethren and fellow members of that Church whereof Christ is the Head We are grieved together with you for the Scandalous and offensive lives of such as live in drunkenesse uncleanesse swearing prophanation of the Sabbath c. 2. We are also sensible with you that there are sundry persons grossely ignorant in the main points of Christian Religion 3. You with us again we hope are sensible and grieved though you do not at all mention them for the grosse errours in judgement and the damnable Doctrine of many who have rent themselves into as many severall heresies as they have into Sects and Schismes Thus far we agree nay more touching the way of informing the ignorant and reforming the wicked and erroneous we shall not much dissent 1. And first for the information and instruction of the ignorant by way of Catechizing before they be admitted
to the Sacrament The course by you published provided it be in publique little differeth from the order prescribed by the Church of England and other reformed Churches abroad before any be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper 2. For those who erre so grossely whether in Doctrinals or points of disciplin thereby renting from a true constituted Church Though you speak nothing either of their sin or punishment yet we hope you with us do hold That the Churches lawful Pastors have the power of the Keyes committed to them to excommunicate such offenders 3. For such as are scandalous and wicked in their lives Admonition private and publique is to be observed according to Christs rule Mat. 18 but if they still continue and will not reform the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to excommunicate such Thus far we accord in judgement touching the way of informing the ignorant and reforming wicked persons and schismaticall which course is so fully warranted by the Word of God and the constant practice of the Catholique Church that we are not so wavering and unsetled in our apprehensions of the case as to submit either it or them either wholly or in part to the contrary judgement and determination of a Generall Council of the Eastern or Western Churches much lesse to a new termed Provincial Assembly at Preston wherein we not little differ from you Other parts of your Paper are full of darknesse to which we cannot so fully assent till further explicated and unfolded by you For 1. Whereas you say That in the several congregations if not in all belonging to this Association there are many persons of all sorts that are members of Congregations c. you seeme to hint that though your grief may be general as ours for all offenders yet your censures extend onely to those who have admitted themselves members of some Congregation within your Association and yet live inordinately and will not be admonished If so then we who never were any members or associates of yours are not within the verge and compasse of your Presbyterian discipline for what have you to do to judge those that are without 2. But whereas your complaint and offence taken is That many there are of all sorts who will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church but live like lawless persons out of their rank and order If by the present Government of the Church you mean your own as may strongly be conjectured you do then are we also comprehended therein and must fall within your censure and not onely we but all Papists Anabaptists and all other of what Profession and Religion soever who live within the Parish must be taken for members of some one Congregation within your Association and so driven into the common fold of Presbytery and be subject to your Government And this as we suppose is the chief design of you in this as in other transactions of yours to subject all to your Government which you garnish over with the specious title of Christs Government Throne and Scepter Presbytery is the main thing driven at here and however she cometh ushered in with a Godly pretence of sorrow for the sins and ignorance of the times and a duty incumbent upon you to exercise the power which Christ hath committed to you for edification and not for destruction yet these are but as so many waste papers wherein Presbytery is wrapped to make it look more handsomly and pass more currently but beware we must for latet anguis in Herbâ Object But you say For want of the vigorous exercise of this Ecclesiastical discipline ignorance Atheism and Licentiousness growes upon us and men live as lawlesse persons out of their rank and order because not subject to your present Governement Sol. We pray for the establishment of such Church Government throughout his Highness Dominions as is consonant to the will of God and Universall practice of primitive Churches that Ecclesiasticall discipline may be exercised in the hands of them to whom it was committed by Christ and left by him to be transferred from hand to hand to the end of the World and shall readily joyn with you in humble addresses to his Highnes and his great Council for the establishment of such a Church Government In the mean time though there may be such who as you say live as lawless persons out of their rank and order yet are they subject to law and therefore subject to punishment for though your Ecclesiastical sword cannot take hold on them the civill sword doth reach them Your Class may do well then not to contemn as in charity we hope you do not the authority of the civill Magistrate but in stead of warning all and every member belonging to them to complain to the Eldership of those that walke disorderly and will not be reclaimed to the end they may excommunicate them That they exhort them to complaine to the civill Magistrate whose sword of Justice is sharper and longer and likely to work a greater reformation in the lives and manners of men by a corporal and pecuniary Mulct then any sword of excommunication or other Church censure your Eldership can any way pretend unto There are other parts of your paper do remain likewise dark which we desire may be made plain unto us for whereas you say There are many persons of all sorts c. That will not submit themselves to the present Government of the Church but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order Our Quaeres there upon are 1. Why Government in singulari is there no Ecclesiasticall Government but yours may not another Church have its Government different from yours yet not different from that which Christ hath prescribed in his Word Calvin saith yea Scimus enim unicuique Ecclesiae c. And accordingly there are other Churches in England different in Government from yours and as good as yours But if you say yours is the Government 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminency as Christs own Government more immediatly and jure divino which you so much defend then why the present is there no present Government in any Church or Assembly of Saints but where your discipline is erected Are all the rest at present without Government or where hath yours been this 1500. years past till this present Hath Antichristianism so overspread the face of the Church that Christs own Goverment could never get footing till this present But now subjection is required thereto of all yet many of all sorts will not subject but live as lawless persons out of their rank and order Our next Quaere is What must all those that observe not your ranks and orders subject not themselves to your present Government be taken for lawless persons out of their rank and order Yea for so this close connexion of yours seems to import viz. many who do not subject but live c. In your paper you further proceed and
to exercise the power that Christ hath committed to us for edification and not for destruction that these are but so many waste Papers wherein Presbytery is wrapped up to make it look more handsomely and passe more currantly We do earnestly desire That in the examination of your consciences you would seriously consider whether you have not both transgressed the rules of Charity in passing such hard censures upon us and also usurped that which belongs not to you in making your selves judges of what fals not under your cognizance The things you mention belonging only to be tried by your and our Master to whom we must all stand or fall But we are heartily sorry that Presbytery which stands in no need of any painting or cover to make it look more handsomely and passe more currantly should be accounted by you the anguis in herba whereof you had need to beware it having never given that offence to any as to merit such language SECT VI. BUt now you frame an objection out of our Paper and return your Answer professing That you pray for the establishment of such Church Government throughout his Highnesse Dominions as is consonant to the will of God and universal practice of primitive Churches c. In that you do here joyn the will of God and the universal practice of primitive Churches together as you joyned the Word of God and the constant practise of the Catholique Church before you seem to us to make up the rule whereby we must judge what Government it is that you pray might be established of these two viz. the will of God and the universal practise of primitive Churches Or that it is the universal practise of primitive Churches that must be our sure guide and comment upon the Word of God to tell us what is his will revealed there touching Church Government and discipline If this be your sense as we apprehend it is we must needs professe that herein we greatly differ from you as not conceiving it to be sound and orthodox It being the Word of God alone and the approved practise of the Church recorded there whether it was the universal and constant practise of the Church or no that is to be the onely rule to judge by in this or any other controversies in matters of Religion But yet admitting for the present the rule you seem to make we should desire to know from you what that Church Government is which is so consonant to the will of God and universal practise of primitive Churches For our own parts we think it will be very hard for you or any others to demonstrate out of any Records of Antiquity what was the universal practise of primitive Churches for the whole space of the first 300. yeares after Christ or the greatest part thereof excepting so much as is left upon record in the Scriptures of the new Testament the Monuments of Antiquity that concern those times for the greatest part of them being both imperfect and far from shewing us what was the universal practise of the Church then though the practises of some Churches may be mentioned and likewise very questionable At least it will not be easie to assure us that some of those that goe under the names of the most approved Authors of those times are neither spurious nor corrupted And hereupon it will unavoidably follow that we shall be left very doubtful what Government it is that is most consonant to the universal and constant practise of primitive Churches for that time But as touching the rule it self which you seem here to lay down we cannot close with it We do much honour and reverence the Primitive Churches But yet we believe we owe more reverence to the Scriptures then to judge them either imperfect or not to have light enough in themselves for the resolving all doubts touching matters of faith or practise except it be first resolved what was either the concurrent interpretation of the Fathers or the universal and constant practise of the Churches of those times Besides that admitting this for a rule that the universal and constant practise of the primitive Churches must be that which must assure us what is the will of God revealed in Scripture concerning the Government which he hath appointed in the Church our faith is hereupon resolved into a most uncertain ground and so made fallible and turned into opinion For what monuments of Antiquity besides the Scriptures can assure us touching the matters of fact therein contained that they were such indeed as they are there reported to be the Authors of them themselves being men that were not infallibly guided by the Spirit But yet supposing we could be infallibly assured which yet never can be what was the universal and constant practise of the primitive Churches how shall that be a rule to assure us what is most consonant to the will of God When as we see not especially in such matters as are not absolutely necessary to salvation but that the universal practise of the Churches might in some things be dissonant to the will of God revealed in Scriptures And so the universal practise of primitive Churches can be no certain rule to judge by what Church Government is most consonant to the will of God revealed in his Word We know there are corruptions in the best of men There was such hot contention betwixt Paul and Barnabas as caused them to part asunder Peter so failed in his practise as that though before some came from James he did eat with the Gentiles yet when they were come he withdrew himself fearing them of the Circumcision And hereupon not only other Jews likewise dissembled with him but Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation Whence it 's clear that the examples of the best men even in those things wherein they went contrary to the rule of Gods Word are of a spreading nature and the better the Persons that give the bad examples are the greater the danger of the more universal leavening Nay we finde that not onely some few Apostolical men had their failings but even Apostolical primitive Churches did in the very face of the Apostles they being yet alive make great defection both in regard of opinions and practises As from the examples of the Churches of Corinth Galatia and the Churches of Asia is manifest The Apostle also tels us that even in his time the mystery of iniquity began to work And in after times we know how the Doctrine was corrupted what grosse superstition crept into the Church what domination was striven for amongst the Pastors and Bishops of the Churches till at length Antichrist was got up into his seat unto which height yet he came not all at once but by steps and degrees Besides it is of fresh remembrance that notwithstanding the reformation happily brought about in our own Church in regard of Doctrine and worship after those dismal Marian times yet the corruption in regard of
Government continued such during the time of the late Prelacy which yet was taken away in other reformed Churches that the Pastors were deprived of that power of rule that our Church acknowledgeth did belong to them of right and which did anciently belong to them however the exercise thereof did after grow into a long disuse as hath been shewed before And therefore when we consider on the one hand that the superiority which the Bishop obtained at the first above the Presbyter in the ancient Church and which was rather obtained consueâ—udine Ecclesiae then by Divine right did at the length grow to that height that the Pastors were spoiled of all power of rule so we cannot much wonder on the other hand that the ruling Elder was quite turned out of doors For the proof of the being and exercise of whose office in the purer times there are notwithstanding produced testimonies of the ancients by Divines both at home and abroad that have written about that subject and to which we do therein refer you As there doe remain some footsteps and shadow of their office in the Church-wardens and Sides-men even to this day And so upon the whole the premisses considered and that we are commanded not to follow a multitude to do evil though it were of the best of men and that therefore the examples and practises though it were of whole Churches are to be no further a rule for us then they follow Christ and as their examples be approved of in the Word of Christ notwithstanding the univerfality and long continuednesse of such practises Whereas you say that you pray for the establishment of such Church Government as is consonant to the will of God and universal practise of primitive Churches we believe you might cut the matter a great deal shorter and say That you are for the establishing of that Government that is most consonant to the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and that the Word of God alone and on which onely Faith must be built and into which at last be resolved when other records of Antiquity that yet are not so ancient as it is have been searcht into never so much shall determine what that is and so those wearisome and endlesse disputes about what is the universal and constant practise of primitive Churches and which if it could be found out in any good measure of probability for the first 300. years after Christ could never yet be so farre issued as to be a sure bottom whereon our faith may safely rest may be cut off It being a most certain rule and especially in matters of faith that the Factum is not to prescribe against the Jus The Practice against the Right or what ought to be done And it being out of all question the safest course for all to bring all doctrines and practices to the sure and infallible Standard and Touchstone the Word of God alone And after you have more seriously weighed the matter and remember how you professe that in the matters you propose in your Pâ—per You rest not in the Judgement or determination of any general Council of the Eastern or Western Churches determining contrary to what you are perswaded is so fully warranted by the Word of God as well as by the constant practice of the Catholick Church although what that was were more likely to be resolved by a general Council then by your selves the proposal of having the Word of God alone to be the Judge of the Controversie about Church Government cannot we think in reason be deny'd by you And we with you shall heartily pray That that Church-Government which is most consonant to the will of God revealed in Scriptures might be established in these Lands Although we must also professe that we believe that that Government which is established by Authority and which we exercise is for the substantials of it this Government and which we judge also to be most consonant to the practice of the primitive Churches in the purest times And therefore as there was some entrance made by the late Parliament in regard of establishing this Government by ordinances as the Church Government of these Nations And as to the putting those Ordinances in execution there hath been some beginning in the Province of London the Province of this County and in some other places throughout the Land So when there shall be the opportunity offered we shall not be wanting by petitioning or otherwayes to use our best endeavours that it may be fully settled throughout these Lands that so we may not as to Government in the Church any longer continue as a City without wals and a Vineyard without an hedge and so to the undoing of our posterity endanger Religion to be quite lost And upon which consideration we do earnestly desire that all conscientious and moderate spirited men throughout the Land though of different principles whether of the Episcopal or Congregational way would bend themselves so far as possibly they can to accommodate with us in point of practice In which there was so good a progresse made by the late Assembly as to those that were for the Congregational way And as we think also all those that were for the lawfulnesse of submission to the Government of the late Prelacy as it was then exercised and that are of the Judgement of the late Primate of Ireland in his reduction of Episcopacy unto the form of Synodical Government mentioned before might doe if they would come up towards us so far as we judge their principles would allow them As we do also professe that however we cannot consent to part with the Ruling Elder unlesse we should betray the truth of Christ Rom. 12. 1 Cor. 12. 1 Tim. 5. as we judge and dare not give any like consent to admit of a moderate Episcopacy for fear of encroachments upon the Pastors right and whereof late sad experience lessons us to beware as we judge also that the superiority of a Bishop above a Presbyter in degree which some maintain is no Apostolical institution and so have the greater reason in that respect to caution against it Yet we do here professe we should so farre as will consist with our principles and the peace of our own consciences be ready to abate or tolerate much for peace sake That so at the length all parties throughout the Land that have any soundness in them in matters of faith and that are sober and godly though of different judgements in lesser matters being weary of their divisions might fall in the necks one of another with mutual embraces and kisses and so at last through the tender mercy of our God there might be an happy closure of breaches and restoring of peace and union in this poor unsettled rent and distracted Church to the glory of God throughout all the Churches SECT VII BUt now as to you and what follows in your Paper and in the mean season till this can be accomplished and
is proved from the grounds already layd For this Jurisdiction of theirs above Presbyters did not belong unto them by Divine Right we having proved that the Scripture makes a Bishop and a Presbyter to be both one And therefore the Parliament that by Law gave them their power might seeing just cause for it by Law take it away They had also just reason for to take it away in regard of the oppressiveness and burthensomness of it both to Ministers and People to this whole Church and Nation as hath been proved before And therefore what they herein did was justly yea piously and prudently done and for which the Church of God in this Land both Ministers and People do for the present and will for the future see great cause to bless God for many Generations And that they had the concurrence herein of a reverend and learned Assembly of Divines is clear from their Exhortation annexed to the Ordinance of Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament with Instructions for taking the League and Covenant in the Kingdome of England and Dominion of Wales In this Exhortation of the Assembly of Divines in answer to some Objections they apprehended might be made against the taking of the Covenant they thus express themselves If it be sayd for the extirpation of Prelacy to wit the whole Hierarchiall Government standing as yet by the known Laws of the Kingdome is new and unwarrantable This will appear to all impartiall understandings though new to be not onely warrantable but necessary if they consider to omit what some say that this Government was never formally established by any Laws of this Kingdome at all that the very life and soul thereof is already taken from it by an Act passed this present Parliament so as like Jezabels Carkass of which no more was left but the Skull the Feet and the Palmes of her hands nothing of Jurisdiction remains but what is precarious in them and voluntary in those who submit unto them That their whole Government is at best but a humane Constitution and such as is found and adjudged by both Houses of Parliament in which the Judgment of the whole Kingdome is involved and declared not onely very perjudicial to the civil State but a great hinderance also to the perfect reformation of Religion Yea who knoweth it not to be too much an Enemy thereunto and destructive to the power of Godliness and pure administration of the Ordinances of Christ which moved the well-affected almost throughout this Kingdome long since to petition this Parliament as hath been desired before in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and King James for a total abolition of the same And then a little after And as for these Clergy-men who pretend that they above all other cannot covenant to extirpate that Government because they have as they say taken a solemn Oath to obey the Bishops in licitis honestis they can tell if they please that they that have sworne Obedience to the Laws of the Land are not thereby prohibited from endeavouring by all lawfull means the abolition of those Laws when they prove inconvenient or mischievous And yet if there should any Oath be found into which any Ministers or others have entred not warranted by the Laws of God and the Land in this case they must teach themselves and others that such Oathes call for repentance not pertinacy in them Thus far the Assembly of Divines in their Exhortation for the taking the solemne League and Covenant and which we have thought requisite to transcribe that so it may appear how fully they concurred with the Parliament in what they did touching the abolition of Episcopacy as it doth also confirme by their Testimony severall things that have been mentioned by us wherein the Reader may perceive their concurrence in Judgment with us From all which it is clear that seeing Diocesan Bishops did but obtaine that Jurisdiction they exercised over Presbyters by the Law of the Land and Canon of the Church The Parliament finding this Government of Episcopacy to be very oppressive to this Church A great hinderance to the perfect Reformation of Religion and prejudiciall to the civill State they might both lawsully and laudably being therein also backed with the advice of a reverend and learned Synod take it away And hence it will follow that if the Ministers of this Land for severing themselves from the Bishops and with-drawing their Canonicall Obedience from them as some speake the Parliament according to the reverend Synod having before taken away from them all that Jurisdiction over Presbyters that did belong unto them must needs be accused of Schisme It is a good Schisme yea a blessed Schisme to use the words that Gerhard did defending the Protestants with-drawing from the Pope and the Church of Rome that they will be found to be guilty of The blot whereof as it is not to be much regarded so it is easily wiped off and as we think it is already done in the Eyes of all impartiall and unbyassed Readers by these Considerations which we have layd down We have onely one thing more to add which is the third generall Head we offer to the Reader here before we leave this first Argument with which you would perswade us to returne againe to our former Yoke of Bondag 3. For we offer it to the consideration of all impartiall men whether considering what hath been spoken touching the nature of Schisme in the generall and how lawfully and laudably the Parliament did abolish Episcopacy and how they passed by Ordinance the forme of Church-Government Anno 1648. establishing the Presbyterian in roome of the Episcopall and that how it was set up in this County by their Authority If they but observe what your actings have been and what your expressions are in your Papers they will not thereupon see just cause to impute Schisme taken in the worst part and as it is taken most usually unto you who have been so forward though without reason to fasten this blot upon us But we are sure during the prevalency of Episcopacy those that were not guilty of any such disturbance of the peace of the Church by any such boisterous Ventings of the Distempers of their Spirits as you are were counted and called by the Prelates Schismaticks And from which Aspersion though sundry of those being peaceable and godly however Non-conformists were free yet you being very unlike them are not thereby quit But we have now done with the first of those Arguments we promised to speak to particularly whereby you would perswade us to admit againe of Episcopacy and hope we have sayd to it that which is sufficient 2. We therefore now come to the second wherein you still rise higher for therein you insinuate a thing of a farre greater and more dangerous consequence if Episcopacy be not restored For you intimate that it is necessary That the Church of God may be continued amongst us from Age to Age to the
defective in Government for want of Bishops yet he neither upon this account doth unchurch them nor would have refused Communion with them as you by what you do here hold forth must needs do 5. Nay lastly hence it will follow that when all the Bishops in these Lands and those that were Ordained by them shall be dead if there be no Bishops to be found in any other reformed Churches nor Ministers that were Ordained by them a retreat back againe to Rome must be sounded that so we might have a lawfull Ordained Ministry and a Church which yet cannot be but by owning the Pope as the Head of the Church and renouncing the Protestant Religion as in the mean season great advantage is given to the Popish Emissaries to ensnare the weak by such a dangerous Insinuation as this is sc That for want of Bishops or that when all the Bishops are dead and those that were Ordained by them we have amongst us neither Church nor Ministery nor Ordinances and thus must continue to the end of the World except we returne to Rome and which they will not be wanting to tell them But if you had consulted Bishop Jewell Bishop Downame Doctor Feild Bishop Davenant Mr. Mason and other Orthodox Episcopall Divines in this Point and weighed their Defences of the reformed Churches and Ministry against the Papists you would have found they would never have owned such a dangerous and unsound Position as the Argument you here urge us with to admit againe of Episcopacy doth imply Neither do we believe that they if they were now alive would judge that you had here argued well for your Mother the Church of England that hath her selfe also ever since the Reformation even during the time of Episcopacy acknowledged the reformed Churches of France Scotland Low-countries Geneva to be true Churches of Christ and hath given them the right hand of Fellowship as Sister Churches and owned their Ministers Ordained without Bishops by Presbyters onely to be true Ministers 2. We now come to the second thing implyed in this your second Argument with which you would perswade us to admit of Episcopacy which is as we have sayd before that if it be not restored there cannot be a succession of a lawfully Ordained Ministry Which succession yet you seem to judge to be necessary unto the continuance of the Church of God amongst us Here two things are implyed 1. The first whereof is that a Succession is necessary to the very being of the Church and of a lawfully Ordained Ministry And so 1. You do hereby strengthen the hands of the Papists who make the Succession of Bishops and Pastors without any interruption from the Apostles to be a Mark of the true Church although they are therein opposed generally by our Protestant Divines The Condition of the Church being many times such that the Succession of publick Teachers and Pastors is interrupted Doctor Sutlive saith well In externa successione quam haeretici saepe habent Orthodoxi non habent nihil est momenti 2. You do also hereby Minister occasion of such scruples unto private Christians as you will never be able satisfactorily to resolve For suppose one on this ground questions the truth of his Baptisme sc Because he doth not know whether he was baptized by one that was Ordained by a Bishop who himselfe also was Ordained by a former true Bishop and he by a former untill the Succession be carried on as high as that we are brought to such a Bishop that was ordained by one of the Apostles How will you be able making this Succession necessary to the continuing of the Church and a lawfully Ordained Ministry to resolve the scruples of such an one What Church-Story shall be able to resolve the doubts that may be moved on this occasion Or on what grounds holding the necessity of this Succession for the continuance of the Church and a lawfully Ordained Ministry will you be able to satisfie the Conscience of such as may be stumbled 3. Nay will not this Assertion give occasion to sundry to question all Churches Ministry and Ordinances and so to turn Seekers the Grounds you lay down giving them occasion to question the truth of our Churches Ministry and Ordinances 4. Neither shall the best and ablest Ministers that are already entred into that Calling or such as are to enter into it be able on your Principles in this particular either to satisfie their owne Consciences touching the lawfulness of their calling or be able to justifie and defend it against those that shall call it in question But our Protestant Divines have more sure Grounds on which to justifie our Churches Ministry and Ordinances and to satisfie their own and their peoples Consciences concerning them then what you insinuate 2. The second thing that is further implyed in this Argument is that the Succession of a lawfully Ordained Ministry to the end of the World doth depend upon Episcopacy which is not true There was a time when Bishops had no Superiority above Presbyters a Bishop and a Presbyter in Scripture sense being all one as hath been proved before And though this Superiority should never be restored unto them yet the Succession of a lawfully Ordained Ministry might be by the means of Presbyters Ordaining Presbyters And thus we say it was continued not onely in the dayes of Episcopacy though not without the mixture of some corruption cleaving to the Ordination then in use the Bishops notwithstanding their usurped Superiority above their fellow Brethren being themselves also Presbyters and so their Ordination valid in that respect and which we have constantly maintained against those of the separation but also in the darkest times of Popery and that our Ministry descended to us from Christ through the Apostate Church of Rome but not from the Apostate Church of Rome as our reverend Brethren of the Province of London do well express it in their Jus divinum ministerii Evangelici where they do solidly and learnedly prove That the Ministry which is an Institution of Christ passing to us through Rome is not made null and void no more then the Scriptures Sacraments or any other Gospel Ordinance which we now enjoy and which do also descend to us from the Apostles through the Romish Church And concerning which if any one do doubt we referre him unto the Book for his satisfaction Part 2. cap. 3. where as they well say this great truth so necessary to be knowne in these dayes is fully discussed and made out We have now at length done with both those Arguments we promised to speak to particularly with which you urged us to accept of the Proposall touching the taking in the Bishops wherein we have been the longer though perhaps this Discourse may by you be accounted tedious that so we might wipe off the foule aspersion of Schisme that we are therein charged with and likewise shew that the Church of God and a lawfully Ordained
Assembly under the title of a presentation but of a representation only as we said in our answer But as in the Preface to these papers that you printed you insinuate that we are men of low and cheap abilities and in this paper do afterwards jeer and scoff at us as persons destitute of all learning as if you would monopolize as all power and jurisdiction so all learning and make the same proper to your selves and your own party though we hope we have so much as to fathom the depth of that which you would make some shew of so here we have cause to fear you had a mind to represent us and which is worse the Provincial Assembly too and those reverend and learned brethren the Moderator and Scribe of it also to be such poor illiterate persons as did not well know how how to write good English Secondly In your representing what we said touching submitting to Synods and Councils you do it but by the halfes and so deal unfaithfully never so much as mentioning what we had in our answer in the first place declared viz. that our faith was not to be resolved into the determination of any company of men on earth whatsoever or to be built on the judgement of Synods and Councills c. for which we gave our reasons And further we there said that when you had said in your first paper that as touching what you therein declare as your sense and apprehensions of ours that we published you did not rest in the judgement and determination of any general Concil contrary thereunto if your meaning therein was the same with what we had declared ours to be you had not us differing from you After we came to declare in what respects they were to be reverenced viz. as they were the ordinances of God and in respect of their authoritative judgement and that in that respect they were to be submitted to in which respect we said we submitted our apprehensions in the case propounded to the judgement of the Provincial Assembly But to make this more plain we proceeded to distinguish betwixt a private and publick judgement in matters of Religion allowing the private to our selves and others who we said were all of us to see with our own eyes and judge concerning what is to be believed in matters of this nature Again we distinguished the publick and authoritative judgement into a concional which belonged we said to every Minister to whom the key of Doctrine was committed by himself singly and juridical which we said belonged to Synods and Councils who having the key of Discipline committed to them were to enquire into try examine censure and judge of matters of Doctrine and Discipline authoritatively though tyed to the Word in such proceedings and likewise to censure offenders and then we applyed this to our purpose and said that it was in this sense that we submitted our apprehensions in the paper we published to the judgement of the Provincial Assembly and for which we urged our grounds all which will be clear to the Reader upon the perusal of the second Section of our answer But you only mention this last branch and say we tell you of an authoritative judgement of Synods and Councills and how we hoped when you had weigbed the matter better you would not in this respect see cause to submit what you may publish as your own private judgements about matters of Religion to the judgement of a general Council suppose it might be had But seeing towards the close of this Section you profess you are glad to hear us of the same mind with you touching this submission to Synods and Councills you should not thus maimedly have represented out opinion considering how vastly different ours and yours is in this matter as will appear from what hath been declared to be ours and what you declare to be yours in this Section and which we shall manifest anon to the Reader Thirdly You seem here to abhorre the refusal to submit what you have published or may publish as your own private judgement in matters of Religion to the judgement of a general Council that hath been or any that may be hereafter and do complain that we should either our selves judge or induce others to the perswasion of you that you should refuse to submit your judgement in the sense declared But here we must mind you that the sense we declared was that there was to be a submission to them in regard of their juridical authority not that faith was to be built on their judgement And in this latter you will be found to submit too much as if they should determine against you we fear in the former you would be found to submit too little We shall give the Reader our Reasons for both that we may not seem to wrong you in fastening upon you without ground what perhaps as we have expressed the matter you may be ready to disclaim For the first You do in this very Section profess as touching matters which are not so plainly set forth in the word of God your willing submission to the judgement of a general Council and hereafter in the sixth Section of this Paper you say where there is a doubt or difficulty the Church may expound the Scripture although you grant what we said soil that it is tyed to the rule of Gods words in such proceedings as Judges to the Law though we do not see it is lawfull for any private persons to examine whether in case of such a doubt or difficulty the Church hath given the right sense of Scripture but must notwithstanding any grounds they may have from that Text which the Church may expound or other Texts of Scripture to the contrary submit their faith and belief in the case to the Churches determination For you there add and say we are bâ—und up by that speaking of the Churches exposition as you say we are to those cases in the Law which are the judgement and exposition of the Judges upon the dark places of the same the Churches exposition and practice as you there further say is our rule in such cases and the best rule too and when there is a difference about interpretation of Scripture it is to give way to private interpretation and dominari fidei to lord it over the faith of others to utter any other sense of Scripture which you there call the uttering of mens own fancies then hath been delivered by our Forefathers as you do more fully declare your selves in that place From all which it follows that however in this Section you say in matters of faith and such articles as are plainly warranted by Gods word and constant practice of the Catholique Church you refuse to submit your judgement to the judgement of a general Council yet in matters of Religion that are not so plainly set forth you do and to the Churches exposition where there is a doubt and difficulty which is your rule
submission to Synods and Councils is any sounder then as we understood you to have meant those words and which we doubt not but he will discern from what hath been said concerning it in the Animadversion going before 5. But by this explication of your selves you have created to us a further scruple for it aâ—peats to us from thence seeing you joyn the word of God and constant practice of the Catholique Church together as that which must make those matters of faith and articles of Religion so plain to you that you thereupon will refuse to submit such matters so made plain and your apprehensions concerning them to a generall Council that except the plainest matters of faith and articles of Religion from Gods word be also made plain to have been the constant practice rather judgment as we think you should have expressed it of the Catholique Church they are not so plain to you as not to submit your apprehensions concerning them to a generall Council and so the word of God alone even in the matters of faith and articles of Religion that are therein most plainly contained shall not be a sufficient foundation to bottom your faith upon except it be also evident what was the constant and universall practice rather judgment of the Church in those points and so your faith even in the plainest articles of Religion must be resolved into the constant practice or rather declared judgment of the universal Church and which makes it a meer humane not a divine faith But touching this as the rule in any cases of matters of Religion we shall have further occasion to speak in our animadversions on the sixth Section of this paper 6. As touching our selves we have declared that we did not submit to Synods and Councils so as to build our faith on their dictates or resolve it into their determinations and in this we would be understood touching all matters of faith whatsoever not only those that are most plainly contained in Gods word but also such as about which there may be some doubt and difficulty although we reverence Synods as an Ordinance of God and in way of means judg it more likely in doubtfull cases that what is Gods mind should be boulted forth to our satisfaction by the learned debates of learned judicious and godly Divines in such Assemblies then by the discussion of one Bishop or some few Ministers But as touching the juridicall power of Synods we profess our selves to be ready to submit to their judgment and did so submit our Paper wholly to the judgment of our Provinciall which was a Synod actually in being and to whom we knowing our selves to be accountable and judging we ought so to be thought it not meet to publish the Paper that was read in our severall Congregations except it had first been approved of by them Now how farre we do in this declaration of our judgements touching our submission to Synods and Councils concur with what here you declare to be yours we leave it to your selves and the Reader to judg of but we are sure there is herein a great distance betwixt your declared judgment and ours though you shall not finde afterwards that we do hardly grant that to a generall Council rightly constituted and regularly called which we either in truth or any shew do grant to our Provinciall The Gentlemens Paper Sect. III. Having done with our Preface you come to the matter and as we said so we finde we much dissent not onely in the third and last concerning the Heresie and Schism of those who Erre so grossely whether in Doctrinals or points of discipline You give us the reason wherefore you did not so expresly mention them their sin and punishment as the grossely ignorant and scandalous Which is because they are very inconsiderable in comparison of the other and in sundry of your Congregations if not in most not any at all that you know of But if you will seriously consider the number of those that have rent themselves from a true constituted Church and of those who have severed themselves from those Bishops unto whom they had sworn Canonical obedience and therefore in the Judgement of that Learned and Rever end Bishop Vsher and others cannot possibly be excused from being Schismaticall we say if you consider this you will finde a considerable number even within the verge of your own Association What we said touching the way of Catechising for Information of the ignorant we are glad to hear you so heartily wish for a more generall practise thereof in your Churches at home at you say it is practised abroad It was enjoyned and practised in the Church of England before your separation And if you by your pretended Reformation have destroyed that practise the fault lies at your own doors You understand us aright in this That we hold it not fitting that Persons grossely ignotant should be admitted so the Sacrament of the Lords Supper But your conclusion thence is not good viz. That we cannot therefore in reason deny that there ought to be an Examination and tryall of all Persons de novo before they be admitted c Especially by your Eldership To whom you say the power of judgement and examination is committed and not to any one Minister before whom all must come for re-examination whatsoever their tryall and examination heretofore hath been Those Persons who have anciently been Catechized and have been a long time Commoners at the Lords Table and witnessed a good confession for parts and piety must these again yeild themselves to the examination of an Eldership before they can be admitted Pardon us if herein we pronounce a dissent from you Concerning the scandalous and wicked in their lives you say we fully come up to you and are glad there is an agreement in judgement betwixt us thus farre viz. That the Churches lawfull Pastors have power to Excommunicate such upon which you say you cannot see how we in reason can finde fault with your proceedings in such a way against such Persons though your ruling Elders which in our judgement aâ—e but meer lay-men do joyn in the Government with you Ther 's another non sequitur a conclusion as bad as the former and the reason of that conclusion as weak as the rest Because High-Commissioners Chancellors and Commissaries in the time of Episcopacy to which Government we submitted that were as much Lay-men as your ruling Elders had so great a share as to suspend Ministers c. and so farre as to decree the sentence of Excommunication against them and others as there was occasion for it For when you can prove that these Chancellors Commissaries c. did not officiate by deputation from and under a lawfull Pastor but in equall right with him and jure divino as your ruling Elders do Then your Comparison of them and your ruling Elders may hold good till then it is weak and frivolous Now whereas you desire to
to what we here assert be pleased to take notice that we meet with a Book printed in this very year 1658. Entituled A collection of Acts and Ordinances of general use made in the Parliament begun and held at Westminster the third day of November 1640. and since unto the adjournment of the Parliament begun and holden the 17th of Septem Anno 1656. and formerly published in print which are here printed at large with marginall notes or abreviated being a continuation of that Work from the end of Mr. Poltons Collection by Henry Scobell Esq Clerk of the Parliament examined by the Original Records and now printed by speciall Order of Parliament In this book as we finde the Ordinance for the Directory of Worship recited at large and likewise the Ordinance above mentioned for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales so likewise we meet with the Ordinance of Aug. 29. 1648. establishing the form of Church Government to be used in the Church of England and Ireland after advice had with the Assembly of Divines and this recited at large as will appear to any that will peruse that book And being the design of that book was to make a continuation of a Collection of Acts and Ordinances of generall use from the end of Mr. Poltons Collection as appears by the Title of it the Parliament that appointed this book to be printed by their speciall Order and Mr. Scobell the Clerk of the Parliament who collected these Acts and Ordinances and examined them by the originall Records were much mistaken in the putting forth this book that is also printed in a large black Character after the manner of the Statutes if no Ordinances of Parliament have in them any force to oblige the people of this Nation 3. We have onely one thing more to add sc that in the 16th Section of the Humble Advice and whereof we minded you in our Answer it is expresly provided that the Acts and Ordinances not contrary thereunto shall continue and remain in force Now that there is nothing in the form of Church Government contrary to any thing contained in the humble Advice we shall make out anon But thus we hope we have said that which may be sufficient for answer to your first exception against the Ordinances of Parliament for Church Government as not having the concurrent consent of the three Estates and to what you alledge out of the Lord Cooke As touching what you urge out of Judg Jenkins saying an Ordinance of both Houses is no Law of the Land by their own confession meaning the Parliament 1. part Coll. of Ordinances fol. 728 we cannot give that credit to his representation of the Parliament he having been an opposer of it as to conclude thence there is no force in any Ordinance of Parliament to oblige the people of this Nation considering that in some of their Ordinances they do as we have said expresly repeal former Acts of Parliament made by the concurrent consent of the three Estates and considering that if they have any where any expressions to that purpose they may be understood either of Ordinances of Parliament made in cases ordinary when the King had not withdrawn himfelf from it or concerning such as were of no long continuance but for the present emergency or of such as were but temporary and long since expired and which sort of Ordinances Mr. Scobell in his Preface to the Book above mentioned saith he collected not but onely such whereof there is or may be daily use as he there speaks We have now donewith your first exception against the Ordinances by us recited for the establishing Church Government and come to your second for admitting Ordinances of Parliament to have an obligatory force in them yet those that concern the establishment of the Presbyterian Government you would have to be repealed Indeed here you said something if you could bring forth any of those subsequent Acts that you speak of granting liberty to pious people in the Land that did repeal the Ordinances for Church Government either implicitly or expresly For we shall not deny that Leges posteriores priores contrarias abrogant but in this you fall short as in the former There is not any subsequent Act or Ordinance that we have seen or that you mention that grants any liberty to any which is denied in the form of Church Government The Act made 1650 for relief of Religious and peaceable people from the rigour of former Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion and which you will have to be an express repeal doth not make void the Ordinance which we actâ—on It onely repeals the poenall Statutes that imposed mulcts and punishments on the offenders against those Laws in their bodies or estates It doth not at all refer to the Ecclesiasticall censures nor so much as mention them as will be clear to him that will peruse it And so the Ordinance establishing the form of Church Government stands whole and entire and untoucht at all by this Act. But here we desire two things might be observed 1. That if this Act stood good against our proceedings repealing the Ordinances establishing the Presbyterian Government so as that the persons mentioned in it were thereby exempt from all Ecclesiasticall censure then it must needs much more stand good against all other sorts of persons that have no such Ordinance awarranting their proceedings and would be a barr in their way that they could not censure with Church censures any of their members 2. That being you in your Papers do fully declare your selves for Episcopacy and that the Acts granting some indulgence to some persons yet do still provide that the liberty granted by them should not be extended to Popery and Prelacy neither this nor any other Act for the relief of any pious or concientious Christians can with any colour be alledged by you to the purpose for which you urge them As touching the eleventh Section of the humble Advice to which you referre us we had throughly perused it and seriously weighed it before you minded us of it but we never did neither do we as yet see any contrariety betwixt it and the forme of Church Government established by Ordinance of Parliament We finde still as we told you in our answer though you here neither take notice thereof nor make any reply thereto that it seems clearly to own the Directory for worship and the forme of Church Government as the publique profession of the Nation for worship and Government as we also said in our answer there were the like expressions in the Government of the Commonwealth of England Scotland and Ireland as it was publikely declared at Westminster Decemb. 16. 1653. pag. 43. Sect. 37. And if you had pleased you might have found that whatever indulgence is granted to any in this Sect it is there expresly provided that that liberty be not extended to Popery and Prelacy And
or tendered his judgment as an umpire and composer of differences betwixt us as you here say although we reverence him as a man that was learned and godly and of a farre different spirit from the generality of those that dote upon Episcopacy but for what purpose we quoted him and how farre we accord with him we have as in answer to this occasionally so fully declared our sâ—lves before in our answer to your second Paper And therefore you should not have been thus rash as to impute such things to us for which there is not the least shew of truth as there is not any in what you further adde saying that you would have closed with us on our own termes unto which we have spoken sufficiently in the beginning of this answer to this Paper shewing how much you forgot your selves when you said so before And we must further tell you that however you may conceive of us yet we can still profess with a good conscience that we can cordially our selves joyn in Dr. Bernards wish and heartily recommend it to all sober spirited and godly persons that are sound in the main points of Religion though of different opinions in some things touching Church Government that they would close therein there be nothing more that we long after then an happy healing of breaches amongst those that are the children of peace 4. We having thus vindicated our selves do now come to what followes where you say that Presbytery in the Fathers and Scripture expressions you reverence but ours you still term a common fold and thâ—se godly pretences of ours as you call them as so many waste Papers wherein our Presbytery you say is wrapped to make it look more handsomely and pass more currantly But if you had reverenced Scripture expressions as it had been meet you should you would have abstained from terming our Presbytery a common fold that Presbytery which you acknowledge to be the Scripture expression according to the interpretation of the Fathers by you alleadged being thereby reproached that being Presbytery still and part of that that by you is so ignominiously spoken of as seeing it is disputed betwixt you and us whether ruling Elders be not comprehended under the latitude of the word Presbytery when speech is touching the Ecclesiastical judicatory due reverence unto Scriptural institutions would have withheld you from coming near to the vilifying that which you are not certain but may be of God especially considering how the reformed Churches abroad the late reverend pious and learned Assembly of Divines at home the Provincial Assembly of London and the Ministers of the Provincial Assembly of this County to which you owe respect do all conceive the ruling Elders to be Officers of the Church appointed therein by Christ and so consequently may be comprehended under the latitude of the word Presbytery But the truth is we have cause to fear that you or most of you are so much devoted to Episcopacy that Presbytery in any sense is not any further in esteem with you as any Government of the Church to be owned by you but as you apprehend in this juncture of affairs it being admitted for the present with Prelacy moderated might be a step to erect again in time Episcopacy in its full height and which we judge to be that cause which in your Preface to these Papers you have printed you profess to love as we do also conceive we may further say without transgression of any rules of charity that if the late King had not been too much bent for the upholding of that kind of Episcopacy that was on foot in his time that spoiled the Pastors of the Churches of that rule which our Church acknowledged did of right belong to them and had not been therein backed with the concurrence of some of you and sundry others throughout the Land that were therein fully of his mind the proposals of Dr. Usher touching the reduction of Episcopacy to the forme of Synodical Government had been more readily complied with then they were to the prevention in likelihood in a good measure of those troubles that afterward did arise about Church Government But however there was no reason why either he or you should have called Presbytery a common fold or why you should though you had been backed with the authority of the greatest Prince on earth have called it the anguis in herbâ whereof you had need to beware and to which you here say nothing though you used that expression concerning it in your first Paper And whereas you had also there said referring to the Paper we published in our several Congregations that she came ushered in with godly pretence of sorrow for the sins and ignorance of the times and the duty incumbent on us to exercise the power that Christ had committed to us for edification and not destruction and then said that these were but so many wast Papers wherein Presbytery was wrapped up to make it look more handsomely and pass more currently yet that is no purgation of you from your uncharitable censuring of us and usurping that which belonged not to you in making your selves judges of that which fell not under your cognizance and which was that which we had charged you with in our answer but from which you do not here acquit yourselves But as touching our selves we are not conscious that we have so farre transgressed the rules of charity in passing hard censures either upon him you or any others but that we may approve our selves here to God touching our innocency herein and the sincerity of our hearts and hereafter stand with boldness before the Tribunal of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ at the great day and we do heartily wish that neither any of you or any others throughout these Nations who adhered to the late King in that war he levyed against the Parliament had given the occasion justly to be complained of at that day as therein his greatest enemies The Gentlemens Paper Sect. VI. And now we come you say to frame an Objection out of your Paper and return our Answer profeising that we pray for the establishment of such a Church Government throughout his Highness Dominions as is consonant to the will of God and Universal practise of primitive Churches By which two viz. the will of God and Uinversal practise of Churches we seem to make up the rule as you say for deciding of Controversies of this Nature or of any other in matters of Religion In which you profess to differ greatly from us as not sound and orthodox For the Word of God is the onely rule to judg of matters of this Nature or of any other matters of Religion and therefore away with the constant and Universal practise of the Church We might have cut the matter a great deal shorter and said That we are for the establishment of that Government that is most consonant to the will of God revealed in
answered to that Objection which you made out of our Paper wherein as you cut it short so you do manifestly deprave our words for though speaking of that which was to be the rule of deciding controversies touching Ghurch Government or of any other matters of Religion we said That the Word of God alone and then added which you here wholly leave out and the approved practice of the Church recorded there whether it was the universal and constant practice of the Church or no is to be the onely rule to judge by in this or any other controversies in matters of Religon yet we never said away therefore with the constant and universal practice of the hCurch this being an addition of your own and which when you profess to represent what we said was no more fair then your former substraction especially when such additions or substractions belonged to the true stating of the Question betwixt you and us although if the universall and constant practice of the Church must be added to the will and Word of God or it is not a sufficient and perfect rule whereby to guide us we may well then say away with the constant and Universal practice of the Church in this sense And yet in our Answer you might have taken notice that we said we did much honour and reverence the Primitive Churches although we professed we owed greater reverence to the Scriptures then to them and whereby we did not judg they were any whit disparaged as they themselves would never have thought upon such an expression But in our Answer after we had propounded the rule which you seemed to us to make for deciding of the controversie touching Church Government and other matters of Religion sc the Word or will of God and the constant and Universal practice of the Church as if the Word of God alone except confirmed or explained by the constant and Universal practice of the Church when there were any doubt about any matter as here you speak were not of it self sufficient to determine it and which is that rule which here you own we first supposing it were admitted of put you upon it to prove what was the Universal prctice of Primitive Churches in the matter of Church Government intimating to you that we thought it would be hard for you or any others to demonstrate out of any Records of Antiquity what thaâ— was for the whole space of three hundred years after Christ or the greatest part thereof excepting so much as was left upon record in the Scriptures of the new Testament for which we gave you our reasons unto which you say something after you had first vented your distemper against us for not admitting your rule but how satisfactory will come afterward to be examined In the next place we came to oppose the rule it self and for this also we gave you our reasons none of which you do either recite in your representation of what we had here said or return any answer to afterward and which is such a kind of replying to our Answer as we believe all ingenuous rationall men would have been ashamed of who would have conceived they were obliged either to have returned some answer to our arguments or to have never replyed at at all but been silent But seeing you mention them not we shall give the Reader a short account what they were and referre him to the answer it self where he may see them more fully The reasons we gave why we could not admit of the rule you laid down were three although we did not in our answer number them and which perhaps might be the reason why you might think if you took no notice of them such an escape might the more easily pass The first reason we urged against your rule was because thereby the Scriptures were accused as imperfect or as not having light enough in themselves for the resolving all doubts touching matters of faith and practice except it were first known what was the universal practice of Primitive Churches 2. The second was because admitting the constant and universal practice of Primitive Churches to be that which must assure us what is the will of God concerning Church Government our faith is hereupon resolved into a most uncertain ground and so made fallible and turned into opinion there being no monuments of antiquity besides the Scriptures that could infallibly assure us touching the matters of fact therein contained 3. Our third reason was because if we could be assured what was the universal and constant practice of the Primitive Churches yet that could not be a rule to us what is most consonant to the will of God considering that in such matters as are not absolutely necessary to salvation we did not see but the universal practice of the Churches might in some things be dissonant to the will of God revealed in Scriptures We here shewed there were corruptions and so failings in practice in the best of men instancing in the hot contention betwixt Paul and Bâ—rnabas Peters dissimulation Gal. 2. and not only in these Apostolical men but also in Apostolical Churches as of Corinth Galatia Asia and then shewed how afterward corruptions grew in the Church in Doctrine and Government as the Reader will see more fully upon perusall of our answer and where he will finde all these reasons though you here were pleased to take no notice of any of them But we hereupon inferred that whereas you say that you pray for the establishment of such Church Government as is most consonant to the will of God and universal practice of Primitive Churches we did believe you might cut the matter a great deal shorter which you eagerly catch at in the representation you make and say that you are for the establishing of that Government that is most consonant to the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and that the word of God alone and on which only faith must be built and into which at last be resolved when other records of antiquity that yet are not so ancient as it is have been searched into never so much shall determine what that is and so those wearisome and endless disputes about what is the universall and constant practice of Primitive Churches and which if it could not be found out in any good measure of probability for the first three hundred yeares after Christ could never yet be so far issued as to be a sure bottome whereon our faith may safely rest may be cut off it being a most certain rule and especially in matters of faith that the factum is not to prescribe against the jus the practice against the right or what ought to be done We have been the larger in making this representation of what we had answered because yours is here so short and also because you come not at all afterward to answer any of our reasons but fall upon us with foule language as if that were sufficient to answer an argument
but upon this representation that we have made and the Reader his perusing what he may find in our answer more fully and what you here reply unto it comparing all together he will be better able to judge concerning the whole matter as we doubt not but he will conceive the arguments we urged against the rule you had laid down for the deciding of controversies in matters of Religion standing still in their full strength it will not be necessary for us to urge any more to that purpose till these that we have already urged be answered 2. Yet because you say something against what we insinuated touching making the word of God alone the determiner and so be judge concerning all controversies in Religion and particularly concerning that betwixt you and us touching Church Government we shall first examine what you oppose thereunto and then shall give our reasons for this assertion We cannot call what you oppose us with Arguments but what you say such as it is we shall speak to 1. And first For our laying down this rule you cannot it seems your selves forbear laughter and think it strange if there be any that can forbear laughing hereat with you and then you rail upon us calling us Scripturists and such as cry verbum Domini verbum Domini nothing but Scripture the word of God being there the only rule of faith and manners If these words had been belched out by some railing Rabshakeh a stranger to the true God and the true Religion we should have held our peace and not answered you a word according to the Commandment that was given by Hezekiah saying answer him not or had they been uttered by some Papist or Popish Priest we should not much have wondered but when they come out of the mouths of such as profess themselves to be Protestants and dissenting Christians though in the principle here laid down touching the judge of controversies you are downright Popish and that Mr. Allen an ancient Protestant Minister hath put his hand to such stuff as this who should not have reproached his fellow brethren upon this account it being no wayes allowable that Ministers should press any thing upon the consciences of their people but what they do bring verbum Domini the word of the Lord for We cannot here be silent but must needs tell you that seeing now your Papers are published to the world we must expect a publike retractation of what you have thereby so much dishonoured God and justly offended and grieved the Church of God and not us onely and had the intended treaty gone on we should have insisted on satisfaction as we hinted to you in discourse for that distemper of spirit that you do here and elswhere in your Paper let forth though then the more private might have served the turn before we could have closed with you in any way of accommodation 2. But in the next place you paralell us with those under the Law that cried Templum Domini Templum Domini though we are sure that you cry the Church the Church that is Templum Domini the Temple of the Lord to the prejudice of the Scriptures that are verbum Domini the word of the Lord. 3. Then you come to compare us with the Anabaptists of old of whom you say when they and their Bibles were left together what strange phantasticall opinion soever came in their brain their usuall manner was to say the spirit taught it them quoting Mr. Hooker And yet in the beginning of your second Paper we were your dear friends nay more brethren dearly beloved to you in the Lord to whom you returned hearty thanks for our Answer full of civility towards you and thus we might have continued in your esteem of us if we could have come up to your termes in admitting of Episcopacy and casting out the ruling Elders 4. In the next place you proceed to misrepresent our assertion and to father that upon us which is not true and whether that be not slandering we leave it to you to judge for as upon our asserting the Word of God alone to be the judge of all controversies in matters of Religion it followes not that then we must take to our Bibles and burn all other books as you say but rather being the Scriptures are the onely judge and these are profound and deep we must use the greatest diligence and best helps we can to come to understand what is the will and mind of God revealed there so upon this account though we dare not build our faith upon such an unsure foundation as the determination of Councils and Fathers and the Churches practice for matters of Church Government or any other matter in Religion yet we are farre from abandoning or despising them which yet is that you here charge us with But it is you who attribute more unto them then ever the great Champions for the Protestant cause did that will be found joyning hands in this point with the Papists enquiring where was our Church before Luther and whom our Divines answering sufficiently from the Scriptures do yet ex superabundanti prove the main points of the Protestant Religion wherein they differ from them both from Councils and Fathers and making that plea for that Church Government for which you contend and against that which we from the Scriptures argue for which the Papists did against our Protestant Divines for their unwritten traditions and superstitious ceremonies and devotion For you ask of us where was our Church you here sure mean where was our Presbyterian Government else you take not the Church of England to which you belong to be the Church you are members of before Calvin But we answer you though we need not take such an high jumpe over all the practice and successions of the Church as you talk of being able ex superabundanti to evidence it from antiquity in the purer times of the Primitive Church after Christ and his Apostles whereof we have given some account already and shall anon give some further yet it will be sufficient for us and all sound Protestants if we can prove it to be as ancient not as we list but as the Scriptures of the old and new Testament wherein it is to be found and whereof we have given some account also out of what we have in our second Paper urged out of the Vindication of the Presbyterian Government by the Provinciall Assembly of London and the Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici by some London Ministers and of which the Reader and you also if you would take the pains to peruse them may see more at large not onely in Mr. Rutherford's works but also in Aarons Rod blossoming written by Mr. George Gillespi and in the Assertions of the Government of Scotland conceived by some to be penned by the same M. Gillespi yet therein assisted by Mr. Henderson wherein the jus Divinum of the ruling Elders office is proved not onely from the new
Testament but also from the ould and which books proving the Presbyterian Government as from Christ and his Apostles so also from the Jewish judicatories to which some conceive Christ alludes Matth. 18. when he saith tell the Chutch which were appointed many hundred years before Christ and answering the opposers of this Government in all the materiall points that ever were objected against it by the greatest Champions for Episcopacy were never yet answered that we have seen to this day And for this assistance however you contemn it yet we bless God neither are we ashamed of Mr. Hendersons answer to his late Majesty telling him that the Presbyterian Government was to be found in the Scriptures as our Divines have answered the Papists sufficiently after the same manner touching other matters as we are not ashamed neither to make this defence on the behalf of our Church And though we thank God heartily for those farre abler disputants and Champions of the Protestant cause then we or any of us have ever pretended to be not thinking our selves worthy to be mentioned for any abilities amongst them yet we desire to know which of those Champions though they refused not to fight against the Papists with their own weapons sc the testimonies of Fathers and Councils did ever refuse the Scriptures as the sole judge and determiner of controversies in matters of Religion as you do or did they not rather stoutly and irrefragably maintain and defend this main point of faith against the adversary 5. But now you come to tell us what reverence you pay to the sacred Scripture for you say you acknowledg it to be an infallible and unerring rule And will not a Papist say so too But let us enquire of you will you acknowledge the Scripture to be the sole supreme judge of controversies in matters of faith Except you come up to this you are as yet in regard of any reverence you pay to the Scriptures no further then a Papist nay you joyn hands with them for they say as you do we may not cry up Scripture to the contempt and neglect of the Church which the Scripture it self teacheth men to honour and obey and sano sensu in a right and sound sense we shall say so too But you further declare your selves touching this matter and say that the Scripture where it is plain should guid the Church and the Church where there is doubt or difficulty should expound the Scriptures as saith a Bishop and you quote in your margent BP Laud's Preface that is not against Usher but Fisher * But here 1. You mistake the Question for it is not Whether to the Church belongeth not a Ministry for the expounding of the Scriptures This is readily granted to her by us as it is by our Protestant Divines and that the Texts you cite in the margent will prove 2. You plainly discover your opinion to be no other then what in this point is held by the Papists and is abundantly refuted by our Protestant Divines in their writings The matter is plainly thus and no otherwise for when you say where the Scripture is plain it must guid the Church but where there is a doubt or difficulty the Church is to expound the Scriptures you plainly insinuate that the Scriptute is not to be the sole and supreme judge touching controversies in Religion for there is no controversie in Religion but the Adversaries be they Antitrinitarians Arrians Papists or whomsoever may say as you here do in such and such points in controversie the Scripture is not plain here is a doubt and difficulty and we must stand to the Churches determination who is in such cases to expound the Scripture neither is the Scripture in such cases to be the onely sure infallible interpreter of it self to which all parties are to stand and in whose determination alone they are to rest and into which our faith must be resolved which yet is that which is maintained by our Protestant Divines against the Papists and of which we shall speak more fully anon Onely for the present we must mind you that this assertion is fetcht out of the dreggs of Popery and is such an opinion as all sound Protestants will disclaim neither do the Texts you cite in your margent prove any such a thing Not 1 Tim. 3. 15. that is usually urged by the Papists for that very opinion which you maintain but is sufficiently vindicated by our Divines shewing that the Church is there called the Pillar and ground of Truth in regard of her Ministry onely by her preaching publishing and defending the truth and thereby transmitting it to posterity but not to intimate that the Scripture in any point where there is doubt or difficulty did borrow authority from the Church no more then the Edicts of Princes do from the publishers of them or from the pillars and posts to which they are affixed that they might be the more generally known The other Text sc Cant. 1. 8. proves indeed that the Church hath a Ministry committed to her for the feeding of babes in Christ as well as stronger men which is not denied but if you will stretch it further its plain you wrest it 6. In the last place you urge us with what we our selves granted unto Synods and Councils acknowledging they were invested with an authoritative juridicall power to enquire into try examine censure and judge of matters of Doctrine as well as of Discipline and to whose authority we professed our selves to be subject and to which all ought to submit urging Scripture for it c. nothing whereof we do here retract or eat our own words casting that out as unsound and hetrodox as you say we do which before we acknowledged was a Christians duty to practise For here you do not distinguish betwixt the submission of our faith to the determination of Synods and Councils and the submission of our persons to their censure in regard of any matter of Doctrine held forth by us or any practice This latter submission we still do readily yeeld unto them and that in regard of the juridicall authority they are invested with by the Ordinance of God and this submission was that we professed before to yeeld unto them and was that we argued for But as touching the submission of our faith to their determinations or so as to resolve it into any other principles then the Word of God alone or to build it on any other foundation was not that reverence we ever acknowledged was to be paid to Synods and Councils and is that which here we do professedly deny And therefore you do here again no less then slander us when you say we still own subjection in matters of Doctrine and Discipline to the judgment and determination of our Provinciall Assembly and yet deny the Authority of General Councils and the Catholique Church whom neither we ever denied to be a guide or their Expositions of Scripture to be an usefull
Comment thereon for the better helping us to understand what was Gods will revealed there touching Church Government and Discipline but denied them to be our sure guid and further asserted the Word of God alone to be the onely rule to judge by in this or any other controversies in matters of Religion and which are the words we used in that part of our Answer to which you here reply as it is a received rule amongst Protestant Divines that the onely sure rule or guid for the interpreting of Scripture is not Fathers Councils or the practice of the Church and wherein we must further oppose you anon giving you our reasons for that also but the Scripture it self that is the onely infallible comment or sure guide or as we spake interpreter And now we leave it to the Reader to judge how true it was said by you that we seemed to submit to our Provinciall what we will hardly grant to a Generall Council But you hitherto having no otherwise then thus opposed what we had intimated to you was to be the onely rule and sole judge of controversies in matters of Religion sc the Word of God alone we shall now proceed to give you our Reasons according to what we promised for this assertion And however this pains to some may seem needless considering how full our Divines are in this point in their writings against the Papists yet we judge it necessary to say something though it be but what hath been said before that so we may neither seem to sleight any means we are obliged to use to reduce you from your errour nor neglect the souls of those that are committed to our charge in not laying before them some grounds for the better establishing them in the present truth Our Reasons then for making the Scriptures the only rule of faith and life and sole supreme judge of all controversies in matters of Religion are briefly these Argument 1. Because it is the Scripture onely or Word of God contained there that begets divine faith and full assurance in matters of Religion so as to remove all doubts and scruples and hence it is that faith is said to come by hearing Rom. 10. 17. i. e. from the sense of Scripture truely perceived and rightly understood Timothy is also said to have gained the assurance of what he had learned from the Scriptures 2 Tim. 3. 15 16. neither is there any other firm foundation whereon we can build but the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles Ephes 2. 20. and therefore it is the Scripture onely that is the sole judge of controversies removing all doubts and scruples and so determining the matters in difference touching Religion in whose sentence onely we can rest and to whose determination we must stand Argument 2. If the Scriptures must be refused as the sole and supreme judge and determiner of controversies in matters of Religion then it is because they are either imperfect and so not reaching to all cases and matters in controversie or else because they are obscure and so not sufficiently plain for the resolving of all doubts whereupon there is a necessity supposed of appeal to some other judge But the Scriptures are not imperfect for the Law and Scripture of the Old Testament is said to be perfect Psal 19. 7. And therefore there was nothing wanting in it that was necessary for the instruction of the people of God under the Old Testament in matters of Religion that concerned them to know integrum or that which is perfect being that according to the description of the Philosopher Cui nihil deest extra quod nihil eorum quae sunt ejus accipi potest i. e. that to which nothing is wanting and without which nothing of those things that belong unto it can be taken And hence it is that God did so strictly prohibit his people of old that they should not either adde any thing to or detract any thing from his Law Deut. 4. 2. and therefore much more are the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament perfect neither is there any case in matters of Religion needfull to be resolved but the determination thereof is to be found there especially considering all Scripture is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. And as the Scriptures are not to be accused of imperfection so neither of obscurity The word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths Psal 119. 105. and hereupon our only sure guid as a torch or lanthorne in the night that so we may be guided in the way we should walk and thereby be cautioned against errours on all hands The Apostle Peter also speaking of the Scripture calls it a more sure word of propheâ—sie whereunto we should do well to take heed as to a light shineing in a dark place 2 Pet. 1. 19. and therefore the Scripture is sufficiently plain for the resolving of all doubts and determining of all controversies in Religion Although if in some things the Scripture be obscure yet this is no sufficient reason for the refusal of it as the sole determiner of controversies perspicuity not being of the essence and nature of a rule but certainty and authority the Laws of men being often obscure as Lawyers know and yet not thereupon ceasing to be a rule Argument 3. God is the author of Scripture all Scripture being given by inspiration from him 2 Tim. 3. 16. received by immediate divine revelation 2 Pet. 1. 21. and is the word of Christ Col. 3. 16. and therefore is the testimony and sentence of God himself the supreme Judge and therefore is to be acknowledged by all to be the only sure guid and determiner of all controversies in Religion Argument 4. Nothing is to be believed in matters of Religion and to be received as from God or to be taught in the Church but what is confirmed by the testimony of Scripture whence it was that in the old time the people were sent to the Law and to the Testimonies Isa 8. 20. Paul taught nothing but what was to be found in the Prophets and Moses Act. 26. 22. and hence it was also that the Bereans were commended for trying by the touchstone of the Scriptures what they heard from Paul Act. 17. 11. And therefore the Scriptures are the only rule and supreme Judge of all controversies in Religion Argument 5. The people of God are commanded that they turn not aside either to the right hand or to the left from that path that is chalked forth in the Scriptures for them to walk in Deut. 5. 32. and Chap. 17. 20. Josh 1. 7. and therefore the Scripture is the only sure rule in matters of Religion to which we must exactly keep and from which we must not in the least thing turn aside Many more reasons might be
here urged but we judge these sufficient and so having dispatcht what we promised we shall now proceed 3. For you having not urged Arguments against the rule by us propounded for the determining controversies in matters of Religion but only vented against us the distemper of your spirit for that proposal do now further declare your selves touching what you would have to be the judge and rule for interpretation of the Scripture and do adde unto the universal â—ractice of the Church mentioned in your first Paper the Churches exposition meaning the exposition of Councils and unanimous consent of Fathers as you here declare your selves concerning which we shall 1. Propound the true state of the Question betwixt you and us 2. And then urge some Arguments against the rule by you here made 3. and lastly We shall answer what you have here to say for your opinion As touching the first we do here declare our selves that we do readily grant the Church may expound the Scripture though as we said in our answer which you here acknowledge it be tied to the rule of Gods word in such proceedings as Judges to the Law and so therefore the Churches exposition may and is to be made use of as a meanes appointed by God that we might understand the word where there is a doubt or difficulty but we must not allow what you further adde sc that we are bound up by the Churches exposition as we are according to what you say to those cases in the Law which are the judgement and exposition of the Judges upon the dark places of the same neither must we close with you when you say the Churches exposition and practice is our rule in such cases and the best rule too or that when there is a difference about interpretation of Scripture we must necessarily make another judge and rule for interpretation of Scripture besides Scripture as you speak the Scripture it self being in such a case the only sure interpreter of it self the doubtfull and hard places thereof being to be expounded by the more plain Further we do here declare that we grant the Church is a judge touching matters of Religion in controversie or touching the interpretation of doubtfull or difficult places of Scripture but a ministerial Judge only and not the rule for its interpretation as you speak or such a judge from which there is no appeal no not to the Scriptureit self as you intimate Again the Church is such a judge to which all parties ought to submit in regard of her juridical authority to be censured by her in regard of opinions or practices but not such a judge to whose determination we must submit our faith or resolve it into her sentence In a word we grant unto the Church a Ministry but not a dominion over our faith nor make her interpretation of the Scripture where there is a doubt or difficulty the rule of faith or practice And if you had given to the Church no more nor had ascribed to the Scriptures in this case too little we should not have had this for a controversie that is now a great matter in difference betwixt you and us For whereas you reject the rule propounded by us in our answer touching the determining of controversies in Religion sc the word of God alone and notwithstanding our reasons there urged against your adding the universal and constant practice of the Church unto the word of God to make up the rule to judge by in matters of this nature yet do here professedly adhere to what you did but seem to insinuate in your first Paper and because we had propounded the Scripture only as the only sure rule to walk by you hereupon as hath been said rail upon us calling us Scripturists and scorn and scoff at us for making the word of God alone the rule of faith and manners we hereupon cannot but conceive you ascribe a deal more to the Church then a meer Ministery setting up her determination for the rule of interpreting Scripture and issuing of controversies and take away from the Scripture that which you should yeild unto it even to be the only sure rule for the interpreting it self for though you here acknowledge that the Church in expounding Scripture is tied to the rule of Gods word in such proceedings as Judges to the Law yet you say we were concluded and bound up by her exposition and therefore though she be tyed in her expounding of Scripture according to this concession yet by this assertion it will follow that we are bound to believe she hath rightly expounded the Scripture according to her duty for you say her exposition and practice is our rule and best rule too and that we necessarily make another judge and rule for interpretation of Scripture or else we prove nothing and that else we give way to private interpretation which is the Popish false gloss upon the Text pointed at in that expression and anon you tell of another judge and rule besides the Scripture that is to be submitted unto even such as the Papists themselves cannot exâ—… viz. the Primitive Churches practice and universal and â—…nimous consent of Fathers and general Councils and which though you would father upon Mr. Philpot and Calvin yet is that 〈◊〉 they together with all other sound Protestants in their wâ—…s against the Papists have unanimously disclaimed 〈…〉 as the Papists more anciently seeing if they muâ—… the determination of Scriptures they were cast â—…ly to Councils and the unanimous consent of Fathers as to the rule whereby they would be tryed so you with them betake your selves to these and refuse to be tryed by the Scriptures as the sole judg because thence it is manifest that that Episcopacy that you are for is quite cashiered the whole current of the Scripture of the New Testament making a Bishop and a Presbyter all one But the Question betwixt us being thus stated as we gave our reasons even now why the Scriptures were to be the only judge of controversies and rule of faith and life so we shall now give our reasons why the Churches exposition the unanimous consent of Fathers and general Councils are not to be the rule of its interpretation much less the best rule where there is a doubt or difficulty as you assert Argument 1. Because it is God only that is the author of Scripture all Scripture being given by inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3. 16. It is he only that is the chief Law-giver and Doctor of the Church Jam. 4. 12. Mat. 22. 10. and therefore he only speaking in the Scripture and in the hearts of his people by his Spirit is the supream and infallible interpreter of Scripture every one being the best interpreter of his own words and the Law-giver best understanding the meaning of the Law he makes and being the Scriptures cannot be interpreted and understood but by that same Spirit whereby they are written whence that of Bernard Nunquam
times and so their interpretations of Scriptures often more difficult to be understood then the Scriptures that they interpret this also is very considerable that it will be out of the compass and reach of the most persons of ordinary rank to procure all the writings of the Fathers and Councils that are yet extant as we do not beleeve that any of you are so well stored as that you have such a Library wherein all the Fathers or most of them might be consulted which yet were necessary to be procured if their unanimous consent must be the rule for interpretation of Scripture when there is a doubt or difficulty And if some persons might be found of that ability as to procure the Works of all the Fathers yet it is not easie to imagin how even the Learned though Divines much less the simple and ignorant could ever be able to reade over all their Works compare all the Fathers together and their interpretations that so they might when there was a doubt or difficulty gather what was the unanimous consent of the Fathers touching the interpretation of a Text the sense whereof we questioned And hereupon it will follow that what you propound as the rule yea and the best rule too for interpreting of Scripture is so farre from being such that it is a very unfit and unmeet rule being such as few or none if any at all are able in all cases or the most to make use of But by this time we doubt not notwithstanding your great confidence touching the sureness of your rule that it is manifest from the reasons we have given unto which we might add many more if there were need that your rule for the interpretation of the Scriptures participates not of the nature of what is to be a rule and therefore however the exposition of the Church Fathers and Councils is not to be despised yet it is not to be made a rule but that the onely sure rule for the interpreting of the Scriptures is the Scripture it self But because you alledge something for your assertion we shall now in the last place examine it of what nature and strength it is And â— You quote the late King in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although his assertion is more limited then yours as from the words you cite is clear and manifest And as touching that which his words are alledged for we must say that such a Church Government as is not found instituted in Scripture in regard of the substantials of it is therefore contrary to the commands of Scripture because not found instituted there and this we affirm touching that Episcopall Government that you plead for that superiority of a Bishop above a Presbyter in regard of order and jurisdiction being a meer device of man without and against Scripturall warrant as it was that that was unknown to the primitive Church in the more ancient and purer times and of which afterward 2. But you further add and say that except your rule for interpreting of Scripture be admitted of we shall seem to abound in our own sense and to utter our own fancies or desires to be believed on our bare word and so to give way to private interpretation whereas we should deliver that sense which hath been aforetime given by our forefathers and forerunners in the Christian faith unto which we say that whether it be the interpretation that we ourselves shall give of Scripture or it be the interpretation of others however Fathers or Councils and forerunners in the Christian faith yet if it be an interpretation inferred or brought to the Scripture and not found in the Scripture the uttering of that interpretation is the uttering our own or other mens fancies and so is that private interpretation of Scripture which the Apostle Peter 2d Epist ch 1. ver 20. condemns and to whose words there you do here point it being the Holy Ghost the author of Scripture whose interpretation is that publike interpretation that the whole Church and every member thereof is to give heed to and is that which is opposed to the private interpretation mentioned as the Apostle shews ver 21. in the words following But seeing you do here urge the very popish argument and that text which they quote touching the rule they make for interpretation of Scripture in direct opposition to our Protestant Divines it is hence very clear that your opinion touching the rule of interpreting of the Scriptures and judg of controversies in matters of Religion which you make to be the Churches exposition and consent of Fathers and Councils is the very same with theirs and wherein you approve not your selves to be either sound Protestants or to own the Doctrine of the Church of England against the Papists in this particular 3. Yet you go on and urge another argument for when there is a difference about interpretation of Scripture not to admit for a rule the exposition of the Church consent of Fathers and Councils you say that is dominari fidei to Lord it over the faith of others but we say as we have shewed before that to impose a necessity of admitting the interpretation given by the Church Fathers Councils when it is not evident from the Text so expounded either the words of it scope or other circumstances of it the things going before or following after or from some other Texts with which it is compared this is certainly dominari fidei to Lord it over the faith of Gods people and which Paul though so great an Apostle and immediately and infallibly inspired would not presume to do 2 Cor. 1. â—4 The Church having onely a Ministery committed to her which is onely to propound that sense of Scripture which the Scripture it self gives and no more 4. But thus say you the best and ablest defenders of our Protestant Religion defended it against the Papists though out of the word of God too giving the sense which the Fathers unanimously in the Primitive Church and Councils gave But this is not the question whether our Divines defended the Protestant Religion against the Papists not onely out of the Word of God but from the testimonie also of Fathers and Councils but whether they did ever make the unanimous consent of the Fathers and Councils the judg of controversies or rule for interpreting of Scripture He that shall hold the affirmative here doth plainly shew he is a stranger to the writings of the best and ablest defenders of the Protestant Religion We shall readily grant that our Divines do ex super abundanti defend the truth against the Papists from the testimony of Fathers and Councils but did never assert that the defence of it from the Scriptures alone was not sufficient as they would never have quarrelled with the Papists touching the judg of controversies and the rule for interpretation of Scripture if they would have been contented to have stood to its determination It s true Mr. Philpot that glorious
would not they had not any such a will purpose or intention he doth not say as you say that they did not frame a forme of Church Government differing from that which Christ hath prescribed in his Word He had intimated in the first Section that many of the Canons that were made in those times sc of the ancient Church did seem to express more then was to be found in sacred Scripture and though in regard of that good measure of purity of Governement and Discipline that did remain in those times he doth seem to extenuate what deviation there was from the word of God yet he doth not allow of every thing that was then appointed In the second Section he comes to shew how Bishop came up at the first sc that for the prevention of Schisme the Presbyters chose out of their number in every City one to whom they gave the title of Bishop and that upon this reason lest dissentions should arise from equality But withall there shewes that the Bishop thus superiour to the rest of the Presbyters in honour and dignity had not any dominion over the Presbyters whom he calls his Colleagues but only had that office as the Consul in the Senate and as indeed the Moderatour hath in our Assemblies as from that which he there instaneeth in that did at the first belong to him is clear and manifest And then he addes and saith even this it self the Ancients themselves confess was at the first brought in Pro temporum necessitate in regard of the necessity of the times and humano consensu by the consent and agreement of men as he proves out of Hierome And in the fourth Section which you chiefly here referre to he saith whereas every Province had amongst the Bishops one Archbishop and whereas also in the Synod of Nice there were constituted Patriarchs who were above the Archbishops in regard of dignity that did belong as he there saith to the conservation of the discipline But yet addes Quanquam in hâe disputatione praeteriri non potest quod â—arissimi â—rat usus i e. although in this disputation it may not be omitted that it was of most seldome or rare use And then he shews that the use of the Archbishop was for the calling a Provincial Synod as there might be occasion when the matter requiring it could not be determined by fewer and so by a lesser Assembly and in case the cause was more weighty or difficult that then the Patriarch was to call a more general Synod from which there was to be no appeal but to a general Council And thus Calvin shewes what was the reason of the first institution of Bishops Archbishops and Patriarchs but from that account given by him of this their first appointment it is manifest that their superiority above their fellow Brethren was not from the beginning it being but an humane constitution only and that at the first yea even in the time of the Nicene Council it was nothing like to what it grew to be afterward And that that power even of the Patriarchs and Metropolitans that was appointed or confirmed by the Nicene Council was nothing like unto that power that was exercised by the Bishops and Archbishops in this Land whilest Episcopacy stood their power at that time being chiefly if not only for the calling of Synods sc Provinciall or of a larger circuit as there might be need and they having therein only a presidency or moderatorship and not exercising any dominion over their Colleagues according to that representation of the matter of fact that Calvin truely makes And because the appointment of them was done out of a good intent without any will or purpose to appoint any forme of Government in the Church differing from that which God had appointed in his word and as an Ecclesiastical constitution only which the godly Fathers in those times thought might be of use though afterward as we have before shewed it proved otherwise and considering what a good measure of the ancient discipline remained entire in those times Calvin did therefore speak moderately of what they did though he did not as is manifest approve of all they did But thus the Reader may discerne that you have not dealt any more fairly with Calvin here whom in this place you would make to be a justifier and patron of Prelacy then you have dealt with him elsewhere though by what we have said we hope he is sufficiently vindicated and the contrary to what you alleadge him for fully evidenced And this that hath been said concerning Calvin will likewise shew how Beza is to be understood if he any where say what the ancient Fathers appointed touching the Hierarchy was done optimo zelâ— out of a very good zeal For by that expression he only approves of their pious and good intent in what they did but not of all that was done and when you call him that earnest patron of Presbyterian discipline you should not by stretching his words beyond their scope have represented him to have approved of that which the Presbyterian discipline doth not own 8. And thus having answered fully to what you have said for that Government which you are for and pray might be established in this Nation we must still mind you that whatever you here again say to the contrary as yet you have not proved this Church Government to be agreeable either to the will of God which was not as yet attempted to be made out by you or to the universal practice of Primitive Churches your proof for this falling far short and that however now you would mince the matter speaking of the rule whereby we are to judge touching Church Government or other matters of Religion in saying you put both together not the word of God alone nor the Churches practice alone but both together and which is not to be disallowed of when it is clear that the Churches practice is agreeable to the word of God yet by what you have discovered to be your opinion in this Section and of which we have fully spoken it is manifest you have given that to the Church Councils and Fathers and their exposition which is proper to the Scripture sc to be the only sure interpreter of it self and judge in all controversies of Religion and which is that which we have asserted and defended against you in this answer and by giving of which unto the Scripture we have detracted nothing from the credit that is due unto the Church or her lawfull and laudable customes which we are so farre from any wayes invalidating that we do assert and defend the same as also her authority against all heretical and schismatical persons that seek her overthrow although we see no reason to count those heretical and schismatical persons that seek to overthrow the Church that cannot either believe that the Church is the only iudge of coutroversies in matters of Religion or her exposition the best and surest rule